He ended up holding me hostage, burning, hitting.

If I had anywhere to go, I had to take pictures every five minutes.

He would keep me up for days at a time.

Burning you?

Yeah.

What was he burning you with?

Cigarettes.

Holy sh.

It could have gone so much worse.

And I had almost escaped at one point and he pulled me back into the house.

The violence just got worse and worse.

It was brutal.

He twisted my arm behind me, pinned me down so I couldn't yell, and I had been knocked unconscious.

I spent two years in life or death kind of situations.

Oh, yeah.

Kaylee, I am excited for this conversation for a multitude, multitude of reasons.

Like I. I'm excited because I saw you standing in some bar on Instagram or TikTok giving some political speech and rah rah on this crowd.

My first comment was, would you take money from apac?

And you responded back immediately, America first.

Yes.

That's what started this whole conversation.

And then I started digging into you, finding out you're a Democrat.

Yeah.

Running for Congress.

I mean, you're running for the, to position here in the state of Idaho.

We're going to dig into all that.

And I was like, okay, you.

If you would have rewound my political views several years, I'd have been like immediately.

Because that's where our country's been going with these hard lines and everything's divided and we can't even have conversations anymore with the opposite party.

Fast forward to where I am now.

I'm the government right down the middle.

It's.

They're two, they're two wings of the same bird.

The majority.

I'd say all of our politicians are owned and we're losing huge amounts of trust in our government across all parties right now.

And I started digging into you and I see that you were like a sixth generation Idahoan.

Your dad served as a Marine National Guard, your mom ended up like building a home.

That you're raising your family and everything now here in the foothills.

So you're deep rooted.

You're not some California transplant that's here trying to make a difference and all this other bullshit that we see along with that you've built.

You've worked your whole entire life.

And you weren't raised in this political environment.

You're just like an average person.

I would say, and I'm not downplaying that there's nothing wrong with it, that during COVID you went back to school and you ended up kind of being groomed in a way to step into this political party because you're a big Debate person from back in high school.

You give speeches, but that had nothing to do.

You weren't chasing, like this political path as a young kid, which a lot of them do.

They start very early.

Their schools are set up, Their colleges are picked for them.

They're groomed from very early ages.

That didn't happen really until you kind of your older age.

And it's probably because how you speak and conduct yourself, and you're kind of different.

So the big reason I want.

I want to cover today is who you are.

I want to give you a platform to be able to talk.

Because what sparked my interest in you the most is that you're like, going to these Republican events or holding these events for Republicans for them to ask you conversation or questions, and you're just answering them honestly, which neither party is doing this hardly anywhere.

And so that's where I'm like, oh, okay.

You're kind of like this shoot from the hip politician working her way up.

Your response to me was exactly.

As an American, as I, I don't want to consider myself patriot, serve my country, but I'm just an American first.

Yeah, that's what I want to see.

And so you're a little bit younger.

I want to know where the hell you think that we go in this direction as a country, because there's a lot of turmoil, a lot of division.

We're seeing crazy every day on the news.

We're just fed negative.

So I want to know your point of view as a politician and who you are and where you grew up.

So that's what we're going to jump into.

So that's going to be today's episode.

Before we get started.

We have our prehistoric loaf that we've done the last, like 15 episodes with.

She's laughing, so nobody knows.

I probably shouldn't even have said that.

It's like a prop at this point.

But we have a fresh baked loaf of Asiago garlic herbs downstairs waiting for you.

We started as a homeschool project for our youngest and our kids, and it's turned into actual business now.

So we sent every guest home with a fresh loaf of bread.

And I got a wild chaos women's tea for you that we're going to send you homeless as a thank you for coming on and giving us the time today to have this conversation.

So I have a giant family.

So we go through bread, like, oh, so do we.

We eat a whole loaf for a meal sometimes, and we all sit back and like, oh, shit.

No judgment, no guilt.

You'll See how it is when you.

When you get it home.

All right, let's dive into this.

Who are you?

Where you're from?

That's a loaded question, especially now.

So I'm Kaylee Peterson.

I would have four years ago, just answered, you know, oh, you know, young mom.

I.

When I started, my kids were 11 and 6 or 10 and 5.

I had gone back to school.

It's.

It's a long story.

I was a stay at home mom for many years, foster parent, like you said.

When Covid hit, so much had happened, our foster son was reunited with his family back in California.

Okay.

And so I decided that I was gonna go back to college because I had always really loved public policy growing up.

It's something that I always wanted to do and didn't have the opportunity.

You know, when I was 18, life didn't go that way.

So 20, 20 hits.

Covet hits.

I start doing school online at the College of Western Idaho.

Originally, I started just majoring in criminal justice.

My passion.

I wanted to get into criminal justice reform and be like a civilian liaison in how we can streamline and protect law enforcement and community trust and things like that.

So then I. I jumped into college.

My very first assignment, my comms professor, was like, you should join the debate team.

Oh, okay.

I was like, I had no idea CWI had this great debate team.

They were eight time national champions.

They have an amazing speech and debate program.

You did debate in high school, correct?

High school?

Yes.

Okay, so you have some background in debate?

It was my life.

I was a total debate nerd.

Like, you could have found me in the debate room any time of day.

It was everything.

What do you like about debate?

I love the public speaking aspect of it, but what I appreciate about it now is you learn these things, topics inside out, but you, more importantly, you learn how to manipulate arguments to win and how to spot manipulative arguments.

Like, I'm in a debate round.

I know when I am manipulating information to win versus when I know that I'm representing this information authentically.

Okay.

And so it's a really great way to kind of understand communication and arguments and how to spot when people are manipulating and how to trust the information and how to vet the information you're getting.

How do you stay calm during a debate when you know, it's like when you're set dead, like dying on this hill.

I'm debating this topic and then the other person just spewing in your opinion, just lies and bullshit.

How do you stay calm during that time?

That's my specialty.

It's actually a running joke with my team because I debate the way that I talk to people, which is just very kind, very respectful, very patient.

But then logically, I'm known for eviscerating, just okay.

And when I'm able to stay calm.

And I also think my background just.

I've dealt with a lot of conflict in life.

I've dealt with so much that it's easy for me to stay calm even when people are coming at me really aggressively.

And in debate rounds, when somebody's being really aggressive and rude and that's their style.

And then you're reciprocating that with respect and kindness.

It makes them look even worse when

they come in with the bullying.

Yeah.

When they forcing it and you're just like, hey, this is everything.

And it's like, oh, you know, I'm sorry if you misunderstood this, but here's A, B, C and D. It was a running joke.

My husband and I met, like we've been together 16, I think it's 17 years this year.

And when we were dating, he used to go, you have to stop numbering arguments because when we disagree, you, you, you can't keep numbering arguments.

How many arguments does your husband actually win?

Yeah, he's perfect for me because he's the most calm, introverted man in the world.

That is the perfect answer.

The most perfect.

He's perfect for me.

He's perfect for me.

He is my total opposite.

Quiet, calm, wonderful.

So, yeah, you can't, you can't argue with a man when he's quiet and respectful and introverted.

Okay.

Yeah.

Childhood.

I know.

We're diving right into college.

What was it like?

You're like a sixth generation Idahoan, which is rare these days.

I feel like they've either all fled or been washed out.

Yeah.

What's it, what's it been like watching growing up here and then watching it transition to what it is now?

So my childhood was really weird because I was born in Connecticut, but I spent my childhood going back and forth between Eagle, Idaho and Groton, Connecticut.

And so it's strange because I really had a childhood that was rooted in two opposite environments.

So in Eagle, growing up there, it was all farmland.

It was all farmland.

I remember I used to hate it because the closest gas station was like a three and a half mile bike ride and you went downhill to get there, but then it was all up

pedal all the way back.

Yeah, all the way back.

And I. I am the only one like me in my family.

So the rest of My family very quiet, engineer, introverted, like old school kind of.

My grandparents were Eisenhower kind of Republicans.

And so growing up like I took care of the fences and it's all family property.

My family homesteaded that area.

Oh shit.

Yeah.

And so you know, my grandparents house and then across the street was my great grandparents house that they built in the 40s and they had passed and so I helped take care of their gardens and that land and the house and then it.

Yeah.

So it's all just kind of family land.

The whole way down the street I live on is named after my great grandfather.

Good for you guys.

That's really cool.

Yeah.

And then, you know, I go to Groton, which is the complete opposite.

It's super industrial.

There's the.

It used to be the largest sub base in the world.

So big navy town right on the river.

My mom was single mom so she worked like two to three jobs.

So we had this tiny.

It was just the half of bottom half of a house.

So it was super tiny, lots of bugs.

It wasn't a great area down on the river.

And I was a latchkey kid.

So growing up kind of on the streets having interesting experiences.

It was the 90s so you could be 8 and 9 and just be free.

Yeah.

Wandering around now ours goes to the park.

We're like,

yeah, my mom, I still don't tell a lot of the stories.

There are just certain parents don't need

to know for sure.

But yeah, I, I loved it and I think Connecticut gave me because you have the Fort Griswold battlefield in Groton, which is what?

Fort Griswold battlefield.

So it's from the Revolutionary War because Benedict Arnold grew up in Groton.

Okay.

And he burned down New London, Connecticut, which is our sister city.

So it's just a wealth of like our founding fathers and that history.

Our Library was like 250 year old stone library.

That's cool.

Oh, it was incredible.

So that was all a part of my childhood was country and its founding and you know how all these founding fathers created this new democratic experiment.

And then I come to Idaho and my grandfather specifically.

We would walk up and down the fence lines and the cattle would come in.

And I grew up learning about what made Idaho special.

And there was this sense of community and kindness and respect and you could meet anybody on the street and immediately make a new friend.

There was just a sense of community.

Even when people didn't necessarily like each other, supported each other, they support each other.

If your neighbor needed something, that community was there immediately and so growing up there, I mean, my neighbors Orville and Catherine grew up with my grandfather and they were in their 80s.

And my cousin Rob, who's actually my third cousin twice removed, he lived on our street.

Yeah, I grew up with all the same people and that same sense of what it meant to be an Idaho.

And so I'm really, I. I consider myself really privileged to have kind of this cool experience.

Yeah, for sure.

That's really cool.

Yeah.

You're getting two different worlds.

Yeah, 100% we do.

My kids joke because when I get upset, I have a Long island accent.

So they joke.

I'm the only sixth generation Idahoan running for Congress that can bring out a Long island accent.

With an accent.

Yeah.

Yeah, with a non Idaho accent.

Yeah, that's pretty funny.

So, okay, you growing up in two different worlds.

When did you transplant here?

Officially 11, so 2001.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

So you grew up here.

Okay.

Yeah.

How was.

Okay, so now you're here.

You went through some pretty like rough times and relationships and violence and things like that.

When did all of that happen?

Because you met your husband pretty early, right?

Or was that part of.

With your husband?

No, no, I'm not trying to watch your guys.

Well, no, no.

Okay.

It's really strange.

I had experiences from 10 to 19 that most people experience in their 20s.

Like what?

So I experienced some violence in my childhood.

My father, like you said, was former Marine, went into the Army national guard.

He did two deployments, first in 2003 with Operation Iraqi Freedom.

He struggled.

He came from generational trauma.

He struggled.

He had his own things that he was dealing with.

So.

And then it's.

It's complicated because I was always really, really successful academically and professionally.

I always spoke this way even when I was like an 8 year old kid.

I was talking about how the Clinton administration was handling Kosovo.

Like that's literally how I got my start.

Okay.

So then when I'm experiencing all of these things in my personal life, it didn't translate.

It wasn't like there were big warning signs when I went to school.

School, because I was getting straight A's and I was always the teacher's pet.

But then afterwards, and I had a lot of independence.

My mom worked two to three jobs at a time.

I got my driver's permit at 14 and a half, my license at 15.

I was always working.

I Nam need.

I did landscaping, raking leaves from the time I was like 10, 11, 12.

My little one, she does, she prints flyers and she has all her regulars and Rakes, leaves.

It's a great thing.

Yeah.

And.

But in that independence and I think also struggling.

I hate to put it this way because it sounds flippant, but I definitely had textbook daddy issues.

You know, when your dad's not in your light and you struggle with that relationship.

And I was, I was weird.

I was a weird kid.

My nickname was Pugsley.

Like, I was, I was big.

I was awkward.

Like, I'm trying to bury that one.

I'm gonna put it.

Yeah.

Like, I was, I was an odd kid.

And so I always kind of started.

Stuck out a little bit.

And unfortunately it made me the perfect target for unhealthy older men.

Because you're so mature for your age.

You're, you know, girls aren't normally like you.

Now as an adult, you're just like, ugh, disgusting.

That's my fear with her because she conducts herself as such.

Like people I've gone places with her and they're like, oh, you brought your wife.

And I'm like, I'm looking at her like, what the is my daughter?

You know, but it's by how she conducts herself and talks.

And that's a fear of mine.

Like, older men like that, like, they don't realize that she's still a teenager.

And I'm like, that's a fear.

Okay.

So I'm tracking.

Yeah.

And I was really, really good at hiding that stuff.

You know, my mom, I have an amazing mom.

Like, I could not.

My mom is there for me.

A to Z. I was always incredibly responsible.

Me and my mom always had open communication, but still, I was really good at just hiding these things.

So I experienced violence at 11, I experienced violence at 13, 14 with unhealthy men in my life.

What type of violence?

So 11 or 12, I had an issue during a sleepover at a friend's house.

And that was my first experience with boys, like at all.

And then When I was 13, 14, I got my driver's permit.

And then it was, you know, meeting older guys at a bowling alley.

Me and my friends used to go play the arcade at the bowling alley.

And so we got picked up and so it was, it was dating or seeing and that, you know, ended up with some violence there.

And ironically, I got out of one bad situation and then ended up right in another because there is no healthy man who's seeing a 15 year old girl.

At the time I was also working, so, you know, I worked at Taco Bell and other places.

And I think it was just, I was, I wasn't Spending time around healthy people.

Well, and you're also, like you said, the lack of male role model in your family, in your life to be able to tell you hey, and, and

yeah, you're so insecure and somebody showing you validation, for sure.

And ironically, I got out of a really bad situation and I tried going on a normal date with a boy from a well to do family in the area and experience violence in that day.

And I was really grateful that I had an amazing SRO at Eagle High School at the time.

What's an sro?

The School Resource Officer.

Okay.

Okay.

I had really great mentors in my life.

Teachers, adults who I think saw a little bit of, you know, they wanted to protect me and they were there for me in such an amazing way.

And so I went through this situation and that ended up going through the court system.

Oh, is that bad?

Um, it was, it was brutal.

And also we've, we've come a long way in society as how to deal with victims and young women who deal with this kind of violence.

At the time that was not.

They did not have the training, so there wasn't the sensitivity and the way to deal with it.

I.

And then I met.

And then When I was 16, I met a guy who was only five years older than me at the the time, which was not great.

He was 21, I was 15.

What's wrong with both of you?

I hear this stuff like, these guys are like, it's so weird to me.

With a man that wants it anyways,

it should be weird.

It's terrible.

Like, looking back, I'm like, these are horrible men.

These are horrible, unhealthy, toxic men who couldn't get a woman their age.

I just look at it like, why the.

As a grown ass man, why am I going to want to deal with a teenager?

And all the things.

It's the only girls who, who don't realize that they're unhealthy, that they're bad.

And at first, he was the kindest I'd ever dealt with.

He was so validating.

He gifts me, he got me gifts and he took me on dates and he was.

And then it was like a high school PSA for intimate partner violence and domestic violence.

It started with jealousy and getting like on the phone all night about how he just loved me so much and he was just.

He cared about me and he'd never felt like this before.

And so it was being up all night and then it was isolating me from relatives, like, oh, how dare they do this to you.

And so then you feel.

And at the time it was a really.

Just so much was happening in life.

My mom was seeing somebody and so I had a stepbrother for the first time and I was 16.

I just gone through all of these things and it just spiraled really, really quickly and that I spent two years in life or death kind of situations.

Oh yeah.

And it, it should have stopped earlier.

I was actually a month before my 18th birthday and same dude, you're going through all this and he's technically my ex husband cuz we ended up getting married.

It.

It's a whole thing.

It was a really, really crazy situation.

How old were you when you got married?

I just turned 18.

So he made me drop out of Eagle High School.

He was jealous that I was spending all these times with high school boys.

He didn't like the idea of me being surrounded by people.

Like the idea of his high school girlfriend being in high school.

Yeah.

So I. I feel so guilty.

It's one of the things I feel guiltiest about because my mom couldn't understand why I was just failing all of my classes.

And it's because my mom wouldn't let me drop out because obviously she's a great mom.

So I just stopped going.

I started skipping for the first time in my life until I had gotten so many Fs that I wouldn't be able to graduate in time.

So then I was allowed to do an online charter school.

And so I graduated early, doing that and then working full time while also dealing with this very controlling guy in my life.

He was grooming you the whole entire time?

The whole time.

I would wake up at 3am because all of the family were asleep.

And then I would have to be at his house by like 3:30 or 4 in the morning.

I. I mean I wasn't allowed to leave if I had anywhere to go.

I had to take pictures every five minutes.

I was experienced pretty severe violence if I.

If I drank something without asking first or if I was too friendly.

And that was probably the hardest part is because I'm just.

I'm somebody who gets to know everybody around me.

I knew every gas station attendant, every.

And so any kind of friendliness was immediately turned into me disrespecting him.

That.

Huge red flags.

Huge red flags.

And then the violence just got worse and worse and so is he putting hands on you?

Oh, big time.

Oh really?

Burning, hitting.

He would keep me up for days at a time.

Burning you?

Yeah.

What was he burning you with?

Cigarettes.

Yeah.

It got.

Got extremely bad and how close did

he live to you?

A month before I turned 18, I moved in with him.

I bought him a trailer, and we moved in.

I bought a trailer, cash, with the money I was making from the jobs that I had.

This is why it is so important to stay and be a father in

your daughter's life and validate and.

And just validate everything.

Validate there and listen.

Yes.

And I.

He ended up holding me hostage at one point.

Yeah.

So it had gotten worse.

It had been a few days of just escalation, escalation, escalation.

So I tried to leave, and he pulled me back into the house, and so he was hitting me.

And this is back when cell phones had buttons, and so I. I was able to dial 911 in my pocket.

And this is actually something.

When I went back to college, because, you know, memory is a tricky thing, and I think understanding people in psychology, you learn that our memory can be susceptible to interpretation and.

Absolutely.

So when I went back to college for criminal justice, I really wanted to get the police reports to see how accurate my memory of the event was.

And it was spot on.

So the 911 operator, all they could hear were screams.

And I remember in that moment, the 911 operator yelling, trying to get somebody to respond.

And he heard that, and so he.

He found the phone, and he threw it up against the wall and broke it.

Well, at the time, they couldn't track it because it was registered to my personal account at my house with my mom.

So apparently, police responded to my poor mom's house, who.

They're getting ready.

It's like, six in the morning, and the police surround their house.

And my mom's just like, what's going on?

And they go, we've received this call.

This is what's happening.

So this whole time, I'm back at the house just trying to survive.

I had almost escaped at one point, and I had been knocked unconscious.

And so I get pulled back into the house.

Now, I got very, very lucky because when Boise PD were able to figure out where I was and respond, as soon as they called out police, he let me go.

So it could have gone so much worse.

Holy shit.

It could have gone so much worse.

And many women in those situations don't get out that easy.

They don't give up that easy.

He called me every five minutes from jail.

They weren't able to stop that.

You can't stop an inmate from calling.

Nope.

And I ended up.

He apologized and said he understood that I would never take him back but that he didn't think he could become a better person without me.

And so I time did he get none?

I called the Prosecutor as a 17 year old girl and I asked that they take it easy on him because he was going to go to therapy and he was going to.

So he got some road cleanup.

Does he still live here locally?

I believe so.

I think.

You never had any issues with him afterward like a stocking or anything?

Well, I moved back in with him after that.

Oh, honey.

So I, Yeah, no, it's brutal.

Like and this is young, young teen.

This is part of life.

I mean the craziest part is like I'm an incredibly smart.

You know, even at 17 I could tell you everything about the Bush administration and foreign policy and all of different things happening around the world.

And yet I was so vulnerable in this one place.

And that's.

So I graduated high school early and I wanted to go to college and he was all gung ho.

I think that's amazing.

So we go have meetings and I still.

It was a for profit college which they've, they've taken a lot of flack and I went and sat down and at the time my mom had just gotten remarried.

So for the time, first, first time ever, my mom had an income, a decent income.

Okay.

So I go to this for profit school to have an interview with their financial counselor.

And he says, well, because your mom's married, they have these two incomes, you will not be eligible for any financial aid.

And he, my abuser is sitting next to me, he looks at him and goes, I don't know.

If you guys happen to get married in the next two days though, then we wouldn't have to consider your parents income and we would just look at yours and college would be paid for.

And so my abuser looks at me, goes, why wouldn't you want to marry me?

And immediately, within 24 hours we were at the courthouse and I ended up being married to him.

So yeah, it is wild.

So glad I asked this question.

This is so wild.

This is wild chaos.

A hundred percent.

Yeah, it was.

How did this pan out?

Okay, so this is a story I've never shared publicly.

Mainly because I didn't think anyone would believe it because it's wild.

That good, huh?

It's wild.

And I don't know, it probably is tied to why I love politics in government.

But it escalated.

It was getting worse and worse and worse.

I tried to escape once.

I was pulled through a broken window.

Like he would chase me down the street and pull me Back like, it was.

I was experiencing pretty horrific violence regularly.

So nothing changed.

Nothing changed.

Yeah.

It just got worse.

It just got worse.

It got worse and worse.

And the only places I was allowed to be where.

The trailer that we had and his employer, which was a restaurant, a fantastic restaurant.

I guess I lucked out there.

It was good food.

Okay.

But.

So whenever I was tired of being stuck at the trailer, I would go over to the restaurant.

I was sitting at the restaurant, and it was.

I'm like, summer of 18, and I hear this woman talking to a bunch of people at a table about, she's the campaign manager for local ADA county commissioner campaign.

And this is back in, oh, eight.

Okay.

And she was talking about this commissioner, and he was talking about trying to address substance abuse issues in the Valley and new treatment facilities and all of these things, which I didn't hear any other local politicians talking about.

And it was a really, really huge issue.

And so I looked over at her and was like, that's really exciting.

Like, who's this guy?

And how.

How can I get involved?

How can I help?

And she was like, we would love to have you volunteer.

And I ended up going down to the offices, and this was a Democratic candidate, and a lot of the smaller candidates all pitched in, and they shared a big office together.

And I loved the work.

And it.

It didn't even matter that I was getting in trouble at home.

Like, it didn't even matter that he was calling me all the time.

I really loved the work that I was doing.

And after a few weeks working as a volunteer for that campaign, I caught the eye of another candidate who needed a campaign manager, and they interviewed and hired me to manage this other candidate's campaign.

Okay.

So at 18, managing a state rep campaign.

Oh, shit.

And I was doing volunteer coordinating and writing all the scripts for doors and

phone calls and how's homeboy taking all this?

Not well.

It was.

It was.

It was.

It was not taken well.

Okay?

But I. I loved it, and I didn't even care.

So I got to teach this candidate on public speaking, and I wrote her speeches, and I organized events.

And the craziest thing happened, because I would organize these events that I'd be, like, working at bsu, and I'd have volunteers, BSU students coming to work for me.

And they treated me with so much respect and kindness.

Okay.

And having that experience, I still remember a volunteer brought me a coffee one morning, and I almost cried.

And I, like, kept it together because I'm being professional, but it was just such A level of respect and kindness that I hadn't experienced.

They got you on a kind of a pedestal because you're the campaign manager.

So they're looking at that, like authority and respect.

College kids trying to get to that level.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, they have no idea that you're got this position because you're dating a dude that's a psycho and wouldn't let you go anywhere besides the restaurant.

Yeah.

And I still remember, and I talk a little bit.

I cut this story.

I cut the bad part out of this story, and I share it on the trail.

But election night in 2008, they had it at what was the powerhouse, which is this gorgeous industrial brick event center that used to be downtown.

Okay.

And so I go in and it's packed shoulder to shoulder.

It's all of the people who worked for Democrats or volunteered or.

And I still remember when they announced that Obama had won the election, they played the Aquarius song, let the Sunshine in, and, like, they released beach balls from the second Story.

And all of these strangers are just holding each other and crying, and it's just so hopeful and amazing and.

And then I remember going home that night and.

And being pretty seriously injured.

And I called my mom five days later and asked her to help me get out.

What was a serious injury?

He almost broke my arm.

Really?

How?

Pinning me.

He had started hitting me, and I tried yelling.

There was actually a meter guy outside of the trailer.

And I tried yelling.

And so he.

He twisted my arm behind me, pinned me down so I couldn't yell, and almost broke my arm.

You're.

Are you doing.

Excuse me.

Are you doing this campaign and all this, like, with.

With black eyes or marks or anything, or.

You really getting really good at covering this up.

I only remember having a black eye twice.

He broke my glasses once.

It was a lot of, like, slapping and biting and kind of hitting.

I don't remember having black eyes very often.

Like, I didn't have a bruised face.

There were only twice.

Once I remember I worked at Walgreens.

Actually, I'm still friends with the manager at Walgreens that called me out on my excuse for the black.

Really?

Yeah.

I had the black guy, and I'd broken glasses.

And so I told him that something had run out in the street, and I'd had to slam on my brakes really hard, and I had just hit my face on the car, and he just looked at me and goes, I know you're lying.

Good for him.

He was like, you got to get out of there.

Actually, we're still friends.

Good.

Good for him.

Yeah.

But, yeah, no, there was.

There were marks actually.

Five days later I remember because I was working part time at a kiosk in the mall and one of my friends that also worked in the center with me, she was.

She noticed it when I lifted up my sleeve.

And so, yeah, that five days later I called my mom and I said, I need to get out.

And.

And so her and my stepdad came and got me out.

And how did that end?

If this dude's that crazy, he's not just letting you walk.

I got.

I got really lucky.

We.

I.

He took almost everything.

So actually my grandmother and my grandfather Both passed within six months.

And my grandmother had left me $10,000 to go to college and he had drained that.

He had paid off all of his debt.

Of course.

I left with my car, my laptop and some clothes.

And I lost everything else.

Keep in mind, I was paying for everything.

I had bought the trailer in his name because I was a TR child, so.

Lost a couple of fa.

Family heirlooms.

I was terrified, obviously.

And this is actually another big part of my life not a lot of people know about, because I drink Diet Pepsi.

Like, like it's going out of style.

It's all I drink.

Okay.

And I get such a hard time for it.

I still remember, cuz when I was in this situation, I remember getting one without asking and being pretty severely punished for that.

And so when I left him that night, I stopped at my local gas station and I got like a 44 ounce diet Pepsi.

And I don't know, it just stuck.

Like I just kept drinking Diet Pepsi and the more somebody was like, you shouldn't drink that much soda, I was like, well, I can.

This is mine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And life was pretty chaotic because remember, like, I had had all these incredible experiences.

I actually had job offers lined up and then right after this campaign, I basically go into hiding and I'm.

I'm experiencing pretty severe ptsd.

I could.

Yeah, yeah, I didn't sleep.

I was sleeping maybe 45 minutes every few days.

I was moving every like six months, three to six months.

So I was just constantly moving.

I went from holding two or three jobs at a time to kind of sporadically working different places trying to keep up with my bills.

Damn.

He wrecked your world.

He wrecked my world.

And so then a lot of times now as an adult, people are like, well, if you were so successful and doing all of these things at a young age, like, what changed?

And this is that kind of catalyst, the aha.

Like the.

This is where.

Yeah.

This is why I didn't go to a university.

This is why I didn't get a great job offer.

After the state rep campaign and kind of jumping back and forth, I wasn't in a great place that was a mess.

I was 18 and I had some friends who organized little poker games and I would go there because I was an insomniac.

I couldn't sleep and I was at a poker game and I met this six foot six giant, gentle giant, Trevor, and had a huge crush on him almost immediately.

And we would play poker games together every once in a while.

Her husband's six six, huh?

Six five.

He says he's six four, but he's.

He's taller than our friends who are six four, so he's six five.

Six six.

Yeah.

You're.

You're.

It's like my wife and I, like, I'm five three.

I wear heels on the campaign trail, so I'm taller.

She says, five one and a half.

Because the half matches or matters when you're that short.

But yeah, it's like I, It's a giant man.

You're.

You're not a tall woman like that.

No, he.

He was huge.

And keep in mind, I'm still technically married at this point because I was, I was terrified I wasn't going to deliver papers or.

No, you're not going anywhere near that dude.

No, I'm not doing a divorce.

In your mind, you're like, does this just go away?

Like, if I wait long enough, does he just.

And my family was panicking.

They're like, if something happens to you, he's still legally your.

Like, you need to get this taken

care of for sure.

And I still remember Trevor was just everything that I'd ever needed.

He was So I still.

17 years, I've maybe heard him raise his voice twice.

That man has never said a cruel word about a single person in his life.

So you went polar opposites?

I went polar opposites.

Damn good for you.

It stuck.

It stuck.

And I'm really grateful.

He was, he was older than me, but at the same time, he hadn't really ever had a relationship.

And I was like, I'm younger than him, but I just got out of a marriage.

Listen to what I bring to the relationship.

And I lucked out.

I mean, he's just.

He comes from the sweetest family in the world and he is the sweetest man in the world.

And we were both a mess.

But I also recognized he really wanted to be a better.

He Wanted to be the best version of himself and do as much good as he could in the quietest way possible.

And I had so much respect for that.

So we were on and off for about a year being, you know, young and stupid, and then we both started doing Bible studies together.

And I think we really committed when I was, like, 20, 19, 20, and we've been together ever since.

And, you know, you guys, we've just constantly pushed each other to be better and healthier.

And I had my daughter when I was 21.

I was a baby.

We had, like, two nickels to rub together.

We actually got Our house got robbed or burgled.

I forget which is the right term.

Somebody came in and stole the cash and laptops and stuff that we had in the house.

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess robbery.

It's burglary.

Yeah, burglary.

Because robbed is when you have it and they take it from your.

Yeah, no.

So, like, we got burgled, and they took our deposit for our apartment.

Oh.

And my mom had just gone through a divorce, and she was struggling because he had left her with all of his debt.

So me and my husband moved in with my mom.

We helped her take care of bills, and she helped us become parents for the first time.

And that's the perfect scenario.

I. I absolutely hate this go start your own life mentality in America that we have, because I've been able to travel the world and see cultures and really, like, embed myself in cultures, which I.

One of my favorite things.

But you come to the States, you're like, all right, 18.

College, good luck.

Go start your own life.

And now it's like, more bills, you're creating for the government, more rent.

And ever you're just.

You're just falling into, like, the government plan of just divide and conquer these.

These families.

Oh, yeah.

And it's like, why?

Like, we.

You know, we have a rule in our house.

You never have to leave, ever.

You need to contribute to the home.

You will work, and you're gonna provide here and help.

But it doesn't make sense to me that you just shove these kids off, go start a new life, go do this.

And then it's like, why can't you build this all under one home?

Like, I sold a home years ago, and it was three generations of, like, Indians from Sri Lanka.

It was the grandparents, the parents, and then their children, and they all lived under one roof.

They all worked, they all provided to the family.

But here in the U.S. it's like, oh, 18, I could get gone, start a New life, you're out of here.

But it said, it's like, man, why don't you build something that you can all at least on one property where everybody's contributing to one.

That's the perfect scenario.

And you get the money.

Then all of a sudden you have this extra cash to go on vacations or travel or do something that you know you love in life.

Instead of grandparent, I want my grandkids.

Like I'm already.

My wife and I talk about all the time.

I shouldn't even put it out in the.

Because we are years away from this.

But.

Years away from this.

But yeah, man, I could, I would love my grandkids be home.

Like I get them every day.

I don't know, I just, I just felt so lucky.

Like I really cannot say enough good things about my mom because I look at where she is and she's one of the hardest working people.

I mean this is somebody who knows.

She's probably the most detail oriented, efficient person I've ever met in my life.

And we come from a family where you are judged on your work ethic.

It is that hustle and grind culture.

Like you should always be there first work the hardest day.

Ranch life.

Yeah, yeah.

Ranch, yeah.

And now as a 35 year old mom with a 13 year old daughter, an 8 year old son, I realized how much my mom sacrificed for sure.

I mean she was working two to three jobs so she could afford to send me to baseball camp and the Shakespeare festival and you never knew about and debate tournaments and I mean now even I look at how hard she had to work to put the money aside to build the house that then I went to high school in and now I raise my kids in.

And I am just so grateful.

I wouldn't be able to take on something like my congressional campaign now if it hadn't been for how much my mom had worked to provide this kind of life for me.

Yeah.

So then, yeah.

My husband was a mover at the time.

He's built up his reputation in his business and now he has a moving company and we just built our life up.

But still at the time when we had my daughter, I was 21.

We couldn't afford childcare.

Childcare was outrageously expensive.

And I was like, any job I can get right now, it would basically just be enough to pay for child.

That's how so many people live.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Live like it.

And I went to my wife when I'm like, I don't even.

We weren't even Married.

And I'm like, what do you do?

Come work for me.

Like, stay at home.

Yeah.

And I get.

That's one of the greatest gifts she'll say that I've ever given her was the ability to be able to stay home for our second one and raise for the first, like two years.

And then she ended up coming to work for me.

But I'm like, I'm looking at the.

I'm like, daycare and you're bringing home this much.

I'm like, you're making like 200, like after everything's paid off for daycare.

I'm like, this doesn't make any sense.

Like, you're not contributing anything.

I'm like, this is pointless.

Spend the time with your kids.

Yeah.

And that's what it was.

And it was so weird for me because I had never considered being a stay up ever in my life.

Greatest job on the planet.

I, as a.

As a man on the outside looking in.

And I know women have their opinions.

I think that would be the greatest job to be able to be home, raise your children.

I'm grateful for both.

I think there was a piece of me never having that traditional family life.

So me and my husband trying to have to figure it out for ourselves.

And also, I think when you're 21 and you're married and you're having a child and we're part of this church community and trying to fit what I thought was right.

And I'm.

I'm grateful that I had that time.

And I'm grateful.

Like our foster son.

Best thing that ever happened to us, my son, best thing, like being able to spend that first eight to 10 years with my family was everything.

But I'm grateful that as I got older and realized how wonderful our family dynamic was and how incredible, like, I. I still am just in awe of how amazing my kid's dad is.

Like, the fact that they get my husband Trevor growing up is just like the best thing I could have ever given them.

But then also it's like, wait, we can do family our way.

It's like, I don't have to be one.

I'm a terrible cook.

I am a horrible cook.

That's the East Coast.

Oh, yeah.

No, I am.

I can make.

I can make a mean steak and potatoes and that's like about it.

That's it.

That's all that matters.

That's all that matters.

Yeah.

I can grill a steak and I can make a mean red potato.

But.

So, yeah, as we got older and then obviously Covid happened I had lost my best friend to breast cancer just before the COVID lockdown.

And then that was right around the same time our foster son was reunited with his family, which is a beautiful thing, but also a really, really hard thing to, to have this incredible part of your family that's then not there.

How can we go into a little.

I know there's things on fostering and I don't need to get into detail, but I, I, I give foster parents so much credit because it's a wild world.

Is it?

How long did you foster for this, this one child?

So we weren't a generic.

We kind of got thrown into it because this is a child that was kind of part of our family.

A friend of my daughter's.

Okay, a family.

A relative introduced us to his father.

He, he was 8.

He had a much older dad.

And I got a call.

He had been a part of our family for about a year and a half, two years on and off.

We took him everywhere with us.

He did sleepovers.

Big part of the family.

And then I got a call that he was in, he had gotten taken into care.

So I got a phone call.

No, I was.

And his mom at the time was in Mexico.

And so I got a hold of her and asked her to give the Department of Health and Welfare permission to list us as effective kin placement.

So we're not technically relatives, so we have to go through the foster parent process.

But it does give us a little bit more of a streamlined ability.

So I found out at 9pm on a Sunday that he was in care as soon as DHS opened in the morning.

Is it THW in Idaho?

I forget what it's called, but I called as soon as they opened, asked if what it would take.

I had to turn our storage room into a child's bedroom and get our house house study ready in four hours.

I was calling people, I was like, can you get a twin mattress here?

Can you like, I was setting up a bedroom.

We were getting the whole house ready and he was with us by 5pm Monday night.

Good for you.

Yeah, good for you.

It was best thing we ever did.

It's incredible.

It's the hardest thing you'll ever do.

I mean, you have a child who's gone through a really, really difficult thing and children, that comes out in behaviors then you're, you know, you're dealing with children in their most vulnerable time and children lash out and so best thing that I've ever done.

He's, you know, still my little man, actually.

I just saw Him.

He's like.

I call him my little man.

He's like a teenager with a mustache down, like.

Yeah.

So he's doing good.

He's doing great.

Good for you guys.

I love that.

I. I would like to do it once Our youngest is a little bit older because, like you said, they bring a lot.

So I'm not saying him, but in the kids in the system are.

They have seen and gone through it all.

And you bring that into your home, and if you're bringing that over your home with littles.

That can transfer over and the abuse, they hurt kids.

Hurt kids or hurt people.

Hurt people.

And they just don't know because they.

They've been.

That's what they know.

That's their life.

And so then they get to your home.

So, yeah, I think there'd be a time where we go through, maybe set that little phase.

I just want to help, man.

There's so many kids, and they just need something, you know, they just need.

And it's like, we have the means and the ability and life doesn't suck.

I mean, fuck, let's, you know, help a kid when you can.

That's how.

That's how I look.

I. I commend that.

Props to you guys for doing that.

That's awesome.

Best thing ever did, actually.

It's one of my favorite.

It's the only moment on the campaign trail that I couldn't hold it and I cried.

I work with all different people all up and down the state, and I work really closely with our firefighters.

And I had held a campaign launch in Lewiston at a casino.

So we invited everyone across state.

We had free food and drinks, and we all got together and had a bunch of time.

And one of the firefighters I worked closely with, he drove all the way up.

He's from my area.

He drove all the way up with his wife.

And we all got drinks after the.

The launch was over.

And he goes, wait, it's so and so kid that got dropped like, da, da, da, da da.

And explains the circumstances.

I was like, yeah.

He goes, I'm the firefighter who took him in.

And I realized this firefighter that I work every day, like, super close with, that I work daily on the campaign with, is the one who rescued my foster son.

Really?

Yeah.

Only moment that's broken me on the campaign trail.

I can keep my.

I can keep my emotions in check.

I like to run to the restroom real quick and I. Yeah, Just the way the universe works.

That's cool.

It was amazing.

That is really cool.

Okay.

So now we've gotten to know a little bit about you, I guess let's dive into the weeds.

Yes, let's do it.

Being a Democrat in my house.

No, I'm just kidding.

What?

Okay, so you.

You've got a little bit of experience on the campaign, being a campaign manager.

Back during the Obama.

You said, oh, eight Obama times.

So you got a little taste.

You got away from it because obviously life experience took you way off.

Yeah.

Way off path.

When did you correct paths?

When Covid hits.

You go back to school for criminal justice.

This is when you.

I hate using the word groomed because there's such a negative.

Well, and I wasn't.

Okay.

Oh, so you weren't.

I was not okay.

Okay.

It happened overnight.

So what happened is I started college criminal justice.

Then they immediately recruited me into the speech and debate team.

Who's they?

So when I say they, the communications director was like, you got to go talk to the speech and debate team.

Okay.

And I was like, okay.

So then I joined the speech and debate team, and then I remember how much I love all public policy, and I realized, why am I narrowing my field to criminal justice, when really I just want to get involved in policy again?

So then I added on my second major, political science.

So now I'm double majoring for two associates in criminal justice and political science.

I'm the president of the speech and debate team.

And this is about a year in.

So a year into college.

I'm the chief of staff of the student body government.

And when I took on the political science degree, I said I should get a feel for what's going on locally again.

Okay.

So I joined some local political Facebook groups, and one of them was a group about the.

Oh, gosh.

This was way back in the day, so it would have been the Biden.

Biden Harris election, maybe.

So I'm in this Facebook group.

It was.

I can't remember specifically.

It was either one week or one month of me being a part of this Facebook group.

I get a Facebook post on the group, not to me specifically saying that we're, you know, we're a couple weeks out from the filing deadline.

We desperately need candidates who are willing to put their name on the ballot because we can't find anybody to run in these races.

And at the time, it was like, it was Secretary of state, it was education, it was lieutenant governor, and then

it was, these are big positions.

And then, yeah, it was the congressional races.

Okay.

And the reason is because there was no money in it.

There was almost no Democratic Party, most of my district.

There was no money in the race.

The DNC doesn't pay any attention.

It's literally you're on your own.

Especially out here.

Especially out here.

And I was in a hardcore Republican state.

We are one of the reddest states in the country.

Yeah.

Size like Oklahoma or some shit.

Yeah, we are, I think, like the 30th reddest district.

And I mean, we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of districts.

Yes.

And we're a gigantic rural district.

So we're one of the biggest districts, space wise.

So my district goes from the Canadian border down to the Nevada border.

So it's 500 miles.

What?

It's all of north and central Idaho and then the southwest strip all the way down to the Nevada border.

So all of Owyhee County.

Yeah.

And then Ada county is the only one that's split.

So you're doing.

You do all north and you do the Idaho, Oregon border.

Yes.

How far in.

How far east do you go?

So Eagle Road, Ada county is the only one that's split.

And the way I like to say is if there are Democrats in your neighborhood, it is not my district.

So I'm Meridian, Kuna.

Eagle Star.

Gross.

You're taking this on.

Yeah.

Okay, so you're like the giant slayer, in a way.

You have everything going against you.

So Eagle Road west is all me.

Canning County.

None of Boise.

Shit.

Literally, like the reddest place in the.

In the country.

And we are actually now the biggest district by population in the country.

We have more people in this district than any other district in the world in the country.

Oh, shit.

Because back in 2020, we were this close to having a third district, but we were like 10,000 people short.

And then you think about how many people have come to the state in the last 10 years, and we had this massive explosion of growth.

So now I think we're at like 1.3 million.

We are the biggest in the country for population.

So I guess you'd have to show me on a map.

Just does it divide central Idaho or is it just.

It just.

So you do northern Idaho, central Idaho.

Then it's pinches to the Oregon border.

Yes.

Okay, so like, all of Idaho county is me.

All of Boise county is me.

Valley County, Washington, Payette, Lewis.

And then Ada county is the only one that's split.

So Eagle Road east.

But then all of a county is me.

Damn.

Okay, okay, okay.

So you have no funding.

No funding.

You have no campaign party.

Ish.

You're doing this on your Own.

I didn't even think they were going to ask me to do this.

So I respond to a Facebook post and I said, I can put my name on a ballot.

I said, I can help.

I'm.

I'm going back to school for this.

I can at least put my name down on the ballot.

So you have a placeholder.

And they're like, okay, we are going to interview you.

And I was like, ooh.

Like, you know when you watch political movies and they're like, any skeletons in your closet?

I was like, ooh, I'm going to get to.

It was a two hour phone call and she did.

She delved into everything.

Like, what?

Just, you know, is this where they're

trying to find skeletons?

Yeah.

This is the first time the person who posted who.

Former US Attorney, very involved in the party.

Long history.

The party had reached out to her to ask the group to find candidates.

Okay.

And since she has such a long history and it's such a professional, she was interviewing to see who the best candidates would be.

Got it.

I'm like, there's no way they're gonna ask me to run for.

I thought that they were gonna have me be a placeholder and just use my name, like on the Secretary of State until they could find somebody.

So she's talking to me and I'm thinking, with my history, they're never going to ask me to run for office.

You know, I'm a low income, like, working class mom.

You know, I don't have any criminal record.

But, like, I also don't.

I'm not independently wealthy.

I don't have a fancy resume.

I didn't go to like Ivy League school.

I'm going to a community college.

Not prepped your life for the position either.

A lot do.

And we were on the phone for like two hours and they were like, okay, we're gonna have you go talk to the executive director at the Democratic Party and then a former congressperson from this district and get their opinion.

So then I met with the former Congress.

And I remember at the time I'm a college student, so I had always been really careful.

I'm an older student, so to be really respectful, I called all my professors, like, I always use their Last name and Mr. And Mrs.

So I'm meeting this congressman and I'm calling Mr. You know, so?

And so he's like, you can call me by my first name.

And I was like, oh, yeah, I forgot.

I'm an ad.

And I was joking with my husband the whole time because we're we're having a really big conversation about this.

Like, I had been a stay at home mom, I just gone back to college.

I was like, hey, like, if I do this, like, if they asked me to be a placeholder, like, where are we at?

Because I'm not going to say, okay, and then have you decide this isn't what you want or this is too much.

Yeah, yeah.

So we had a really big conversation about.

And we used to laugh and be like, there's no way.

Like, can you imagine if they actually asked me to run for Congress?

And we would laugh about it because I didn't think it was even a possibility.

This is the best.

And then I'm at this meeting and he's like, all right, well, we'll get your filing paperwork in for so and so.

And I was like, oh, what are you gonna.

What do you want me to do?

And he was like, oh, we're gonna have you run as a candidate for Congress in the first congressional district.

What's going through your mind at this point?

I was baffled.

And they had asked me, if you could run any race, if, like, nothing was an obstacle, if you could run any race, what would you do?

And I did say I would get my opponent out of office.

Like, that was my, like, if I do anything in the world to make it better like that, that's what I said.

So I was just dumbfounded.

I called my husband.

Sweetheart, you're never gonna believe what they asked me to do.

And I just felt lucky because for me, I mean, this is.

I love good government, I love politics.

Like, I have Kennedy and, and political history and memorabilia, and I collect all of.

I love this, this stuff.

So you're, you're pretty excited for this.

I feel like I'm the luckiest.

I just feel like it's such a privilege and, oh, my goodness, this platform and the opportunity to try and do this and the trust that they were putting in me.

And that's where it all started.

So, yeah, there was no grooming.

It was literally like a Facebook post.

And then a week later, they were like, here you go.

And you're off.

Yeah.

So then you're just off to the races.

I mean, okay, so then, so you're processing this, you go home, you're like, holy shit, hun, we're on.

I'm on the ballot.

Like, this is like, what do we do next?

I mean, are you now preparing?

Are you getting things ready?

Or are you just like, okay, we just got to take this step by step.

I mean, once you get selected and you got from a Facebook post to get put on a registry for.

Yeah, now I have.

I'm a labeled Democrat in the state of Idaho.

Okay, so let me ask you this.

Did you grow up Democrat that republic?

I mean what was your.

Where did you take the path?

Because obviously you know, you, you're representing the Democratic Party here in the most red zone in the United States.

What was your path?

Did you, was this your mom?

Was this a northeastern raising or was this an Idaho?

Because if you got grandparents are deep rooted here, I'd say they're probably not the Democratic side.

No, I, I don't.

Like I said, I'm the only one like me in my family.

Okay.

My mom wasn't political.

My grandfather was very like Eisenhower, Reagan kind of.

But also we don't talk about polit Idaho like that kind of Idaho family.

My dad was a Trumper.

My dad was, he was like burn the system down, you know, that kind of veteran.

And I married into, I married into a very evangelical Christian.

Like they are extremely, extremely conservative.

Evangelical Christian, right, sure.

So I don't, I don't really know where it came from.

I just for me, and I get asked a lot because I was an unknown.

I was not a public figure.

I wasn't even on social media that much.

I could have just run as a Republican.

Yeah, there was nothing that made me run as a dam.

But for me, when I look at the policy platform and when I look at the specifics like Idaho, because we are such a red state, that means there is a lot of money behind conservative politics in the state of Idaho.

We've had a super majority for almost three decades, whereas the Democratic Party, it's just a bunch of old school Idahoans who also call themselves a Democrat.

And I looked at their policy platform and it was very labor friendly, small business family, very much about kind of limiting government overreach.

It kind of followed the economic policy

that I supported, say all that.

But I feel like that's a republic.

That's.

I would support that.

That's what how I, I want to support small businesses.

I want the, you know, I'm not trying to turn this into the Micron Central and Meta and all the other that's moving here now.

So that's.

You lean more toward.

That's a Republican side of things.

It just depends.

And this is what I've learned because this is the truth, this is what's

so confusing about politics to me is because like you, that statement there, if you would not have put a title on be like, oh, Republic.

That'd be.

That's a Republican voting.

I would vote that.

Every person that I've met across the state who meets me in person, it's a running joke.

Because the Republicans that actually get to talk to me, they're like, you sound like a Republican.

Yeah, well, that's the whole interest of why I. I even reached out because I'm like, this is interesting because I don't support any party now, but if this is what you're leaning toward, I'm like, okay, like, this is.

Here's the truth.

What you're preaching does not make sense to me.

Yeah.

Coming from you being a Democrat.

If you reverse it, like, oh, dude, she's great.

I'm not saying you're not.

No, no, no.

I'm just saying with the title, it's confusing because you.

I feel you have Democrat or Republican values of what you want to preserve, but you have the.

The Democratic title, which is confusing.

Here's the truth there.

The corruption and problem in government isn't partisan.

It's all of it.

And it is.

Whatever.

Whatever party is successful all of the sudden gets a ton of money backing it.

Yes.

So in Idaho, the Republican Party is the one that has all of the dark money coming from out of state, and it's not lucrative to be a Democrat.

So the Democratic candidates you're getting in Idaho have no financial background.

They're often just locals who are trying to do their.

But in, like, California, it's funny, the ranked choice voting that went across the state and there was a big campaign, Don't Californicate Idaho because of this.

The funny thing is California and Newsom were against ranked choice voting because it targets whatever super majority is in the state.

So whatever party is.

So here's the truth.

It doesn't really matter what party someone says they are.

It doesn't really matter how they label themselves or whatever we hear on social media.

I know Republicans that are fantastic, amazing candidates who would do great things for the state.

And I know Democrats who are fantastic, good candidates.

We have got to just start looking

at the individuals and who supports them,

who supports them, where is their money coming from?

How transparent are they with their campaign finances?

What are they supporting?

And that's where I was like, okay, I can come in.

And my speech and debate background also, like, I have dealt with so much worse in my life than having someone angry about politics talk to me in a loud voice like, yeah, right.

Like, yeah, I've gotten the, you know, unaliving threats.

I've gotten all of this stuff and I realized I'm almost.

My background put me in a perfect position to deal with this.

You're like, please, yeah.

What I've been through before I was 20, yeah.

This old farming it.

This old farmer is pissed off because I have a Democrat my title.

He's all pit.

You're like, honey, come on.

Yeah.

And for me, I am really, really grateful for the opportunity that I've had.

Because when I started this, the DNC does.

I've never spoken to the dnc.

Okay.

Like, I have no connection.

So when I started the campaign, it was me.

And thank goodness I drive a Toyota hybrid because they get great gas mileage.

So it was just me in my car that I called Betty White.

Going up and down the district, meeting local communities, talking to local voters, understanding what was happening, understanding what our current congressional deleg delegation was doing, what they needed, what the information was.

That's insane to me.

When you say you're just driving when I guess when people are listening and you're like, oh, I'm driving around my district, that's 10, 12 hour drive from one end to the other straight, without stop.

If you're going from Arizona border to Coeur d'.

Alene.

Yeah.

I mean we're, we're eight hours from here from Coeur d'.

Alene.

Right.

I mean, nine, 10 hours.

I actually just recently hit a hundred thousand miles in the last four years.

Years.

So in four years I've driven a hundred thousand miles around the state just campaigning.

Just campaigning.

And what's.

Okay, what's the point if.

I guess we could probably get in this later.

But like, you're doing all this, you're trying to make a difference if the Republicans are just getting funded, everything.

Yeah.

Is there hope?

Is there?

You just, this is just wired in you.

I mean like, and I don't mean this in a negative way, but like, you're fighting a lot, Goliath.

Yeah.

Which I'm all about.

I should have worn a David Goliath hoodie.

I actually took it off right before you got here.

This is like the, what's the driving factor for you to put a hundred thousand miles on in a couple of years and you're driving 10, 12 hours for just one end to the other end of your district.

I mean, you're covering the whole state besides eastern Idaho.

Yeah.

And I go to eastern Idaho all the time to talk to local groups and help them recruit and host events everywhere.

I.

It's almost kismet.

I love the work and that's part of it is I literally am doing something that I never in a million years dreamed I'd have the opportunity to do.

This was something I still remember being like a young child, like 11 or 12 and wanting to go to Yale and wanting to do all of these great things and then when that is taken and you're just living your normal life and then all of a sudden this opportunity comes up, up and you realize one, it's something I'm good at.

I am good at communicating with people no matter where they are.

And I'm such a policy nerd that I'm actually trying to find solutions.

So it's not just about talking pretty and getting people to the table, but it's actually okay.

I know what legislative solutions Idaho needs to make the life better of the people here in this state.

So I love it.

I can do it.

And then also realizing no one else is going to to like I was.

We're never going to get anything done in two years.

We're never going to get anything done in four years.

This is a long term big picture trying to improve things.

And I also know I don't care about the Democratic, Republican, Independent, Libertarian, unaffiliate.

Like I just don't care about the labels.

I just want to find how we elect better people and get this policy.

Do you have to take Democrat or Republic?

Do you have to pick.

Pick one or the other party to even be taking serious?

Because I feel like if you're, if you're independent, all the other little ones you're immediately just.

You don't even matter.

Like the, the fact that those Eve parties it's.

We're a two party system.

They're any independent, you're not getting anywhere.

Is that help with aside Because I feel you probably be great at independent because you're from what we've.

I've gathered and watched and how your speeches go you just for the people people.

Right.

Which I guess a lot of politicians say.

So that's.

That's kind of a abused term in your world.

Oh yeah.

But I mean you're preaching and you're putting out on the Internet.

You put it on the Internet, it's not going away.

And that's why I commented because you put it out there.

I'm like all right, we're gonna talk about it.

So are you forced to pick a party?

The until we actually do something to change our election process, a third party candidate is almost impossible to win.

And that doesn't mean it is impossible.

If you have a Candidate with the right connections and with the right funding, they could win.

And Idaho is probably one of the rare states that they could be successful.

Okay, but there is other aspects of this one.

I am not independently wealthy.

I had none of my own money to put into this race.

Most candidates we see nowadays.

Actually, here's a fun statistic.

Less than 2% of elected officials come from a working class background.

What?

2%?

Where do the rest come from?

Trust.

Independently wealthy.

Yeah, they come from wealth.

Or independently wealthy.

Less than 2 holy percent.

So the problems in America aren't right or left.

It's just people who have never had to actually live paycheck to paycheck or worry about covering the mortgage.

So the people, you're saying, the people that are dictating this country and making the rules and running everything have never struggled.

Right.

They're all rich kids or have rich funding.

Yes, that's.

I mean that makes sense to me.

It makes total sense.

And then 2% come from normal.

2% have a working class background.

Which is another reason why this has just become like a mission for me.

Because I am really, really privileged.

And one, I love the work, but also my husband is a saint.

Like I really cannot say enough good things.

My husband works like six or seven days a week.

And then when I'm on the campaign trail, he's also taking care of the kids and cooking all the dinners.

And somehow this ended up working out really well.

I am happy.

I love the work that I do.

And so I was really worried about being away from home more.

But when I'm in town, I get to be with my kids all the time.

And also I feel like I've just become the best version of myself because I really love what I'm doing.

And also I'm trying to make this country a better place, place for my kids to grow up in.

So it just happened that it worked out.

My marriage has never been better.

My husband really loves me, seeing me be the best version of myself.

And so all of that, plus I have affordable housing.

Like we were able to take over the mortgage on my mom's house.

So we don't deal with artificially increased rent prices like most working class families.

We don't have a fixed rate mortgage that we're just constantly trying to keep up with because I get to live in the house that my mom built and just cover the mortgage.

And you know, everyone's.

We just had a pressure tank.

We had to different place and stuff like that.

But I have the privilege of being a working Class mom who can do this.

There are very few people who could just give six years of their life to something.

So, yeah, that's got to be.

I mean, you're committed.

Yeah.

Because once the ball starts going, I mean, now you're competing now, you know, you got your opponent, which he's out do or he, she, whatever doing the same it.

So, okay, so are you trying to rep. You.

Your district's huge.

If, say you.

Everything goes.

You're representing this district, everything goes.

Well, what is the role?

Like, what is, what is your goal being a Democrat?

Let's say everything.

You crush it by the way you speak.

You're covering for the people, even though you hold a title, which sucks.

Yeah.

Where, what's, what's your end goal with, with, with running this?

I mean, how do you make a difference here in Idaho?

I think when I started in 2022, I recognized really quickly that there was so much work that needed to be done, even outside of actually getting elected to Congress, and that the platform that I have as a congressional candidate gives me an opportunity to do a lot more than just run.

So for me, it was like, okay, this is my congressional district.

This is the platform and policy and my outreach to voters that I need to try and represent these people back in D.C. but at the same time, there are no local candidates on the ballot.

There's no money.

When I look nationally, there's only three or four younger working class candidates running for Congress.

And so I was like, I can use this platform to recruit local candidates to connect with other younger working class candidates across the country.

Things that I had to learn by trial and error.

Now we can create a network of working class candidates, candidates just committed to good policy, and we can be a support system like the DNC would supposed to be.

You know, the party is supposed to be.

We created for ourselves.

So I have rural messaging.

I know how to talk to Republicans and conservatives who may hate the word Democrat.

I know how to talk to them in a way where we can actually start talking about the issues and not just what we think or assumptions or what we've heard on social media.

And so I, you know, I identify local community leaders, people who are already doing great work in their community.

I'm like, you know what?

This is what elected officials are supposed to be like running for office when you already work with your local community.

This is the perfect opportunity.

And then I can help train them on how to talk to people, how to be confident, how to create a campaign.

So for me, it was okay.

I can try and bring down the hyper partisan rhetoric.

I can try and start bringing people to the table so that there's less aggression and conflict in politics and more resolution.

Like, more actual.

Just policy work.

Yeah.

I can build a campaign that I think will unsee a politician who's not doing good things for the state.

How.

How It's a battle to building a reputation for how we unsee politicians.

Right.

So that's a, that's a, that's a mouthful.

But I've been doing this for four years, right.

So I go and I work with grange halls and VFWs and.

And we actually have a massive union membership in the state of Idaho, even though we're right to work, but the vast majority of our union members are Republican.

And so I would just go to locals and it's become a running joke because I just go and I'm like, listen, don't hate me.

Don't hate me yet.

Like, I'm running as a Democrat.

I'm not going to take your guns.

But let's talk about your job.

Like, let's talk about the energy contracts that you guys.

Let's talk about the labor agreements, let's talk about pensions.

Let's talk about, you know, osha.

Like, it's just talking about the policy.

And you build this trust and relationship with voters because they now know you.

Like, I'm not just a Democrat that they saw on Facebook.

I'm Kaylee.

And they know my family and they know that I come.

I am on the road constantly.

I. I don't just sit at home and do, you know, fundraise and send text messages.

I am on the road.

I do town halls and coffee meet and greets and I do zoom town halls so people can ask me whatever questions.

I'm totally transparent about everything.

And even without money, you know, after four years, I build trust with communities and then they make introductions to other communities.

So in 22, there was no chance ever, no matter how much money I had, I could ever win.

24, there was no chance I could ever win.

Now we're 26.

We actually have paths to be successful because of that work, because of the community we've built.

And especially right now, I mean, things have gotten so much worse in terms of the temperature in the room around politics.

So bad.

I mean, it just continues to get worse and worse and worse.

And so we joke at my house.

I would feel like America's marriage counselor.

Where, yeah, it's like the.

No, some of my friends call me the mom.

Some of my friends call me the Ms. Rachel of politics.

And I'm just, you know, I'm trying to get a us focused on who the real enemy is, which are politicians who have sold out, who aren't.

And that's both sides.

All of them?

Yes.

Like homegirl left.

We have what, what's his name that doesn't take money from apec.

He's the only one left.

The candidate.

Independent candidate.

No, no, no, I'm talking in Congress.

Oh, J, I can't think of his name.

He's the only one left.

He's the one that, like, he's Republican but he talks a lot about, you know, Trump and policy stuff.

But like, how do we, how do we build the trust back?

I mean, no, I feel we're losing trust that we're such a just angry, tension filled country right now.

Now we got all the ICE bullshit happening.

We got all, I mean, just, I mean there's a shooting the other day, road rage.

It's like, why?

Yeah, why?

Right, right.

Yesterday actually.

And it's like, okay, you've seen all this.

Because I feel the America right now, we're like in this just turmoil and weird position because we all got lied to.

Yeah.

I don't care who you are and what party you are.

We 100% got lied to.

All of us, everybody.

So now people are like, we don't trust.

I'm one of those, I don't trust anybody.

So how, as a politician, how do you build trust in people?

Especially being the opposite party in a Republican state?

You have to hold.

So I, we have to hold ourselves to the per.

We have to be Perfect.

I am 100% transparent with my finances.

I don't take money from any kind of super pac, corporate pac, apac.

I don't take special interest or think tank money.

Like almost all of my money comes from individual donations.

I have a couple larger donors and then local unions.

Those are the only PAC dollars that I take are local unions that I work with that have a federally registered pac.

But also it's creating a network.

So it is, it's kind of become this national movement where I have relationships with candidates all over the country that are all committed to the same thing and then we have the policy.

So like one of the things that we're working on is obviously there's things like banning congressional stock trades, term limit, comprehensive campaign finance reform.

We're looking at state level repeal of Citizens United because obviously the federal government isn't going to do it because they're all funded that way.

Yeah.

So there's experimental legislation being tested right now on whether we can repeal it at the state level.

So.

And we can go state to state to try and get that done.

So that's something that we're working on, trying to bring into this state.

But you guys are fighting the biggest, most corrupt.

I don't want to say fighting, but you're petitioning again.

I mean, I guess fighting would be

it, but it is.

Yeah, fighting against these, these, these super PACs and these, these people that have billionaire funding.

And like, this is where it's like, okay, is this the future?

And this is why this conversation, I wanted to have it.

Is this the future of us going, going.

Okay, Congressman, so and so, like, we don't trust you anymore, but we have you.

That's just this mom that went to college and now she's just grinding it out to try to make a difference.

Is that where we have to lean?

Is that our word?

Because clearly we don't trust.

I mean, for me, I'll speak for me, I don't trust anybody.

But that's what I hear from everyone.

Everyone is in that boat.

And so what we have to do.

And you know what?

Four years ago we would have agreed.

I would have been like, we are fighting Goliath.

But right now we are at a tipping point because everyone, the vast majority of Americans are fed up with the system.

Totally.

And you know, we get the party like these people and these people, but everybody agrees the whole thing is not working.

No.

So here's what happens.

We can go two directions.

One, we just give up.

Like we say, listen, there's no chance.

And we end up stuck with whatever monopolized corporate interests where we are now.

They're gonna sell out our labor, they're gonna sell out local communities, they're gonna sell out the local environmental impacts and our water and our soil.

I mean, they are going to use us up and spit us back out.

And only 0.8% of the population is going to benefit.

Or we, at my level, work as hard as humanly possible to build the kind of national network, to build trust in communities, to create a nationwide movement of just unconnected working class representation around policy.

Not ideas, not big abstract talking points, not talking about like, oh, we're going to make America this again, or da, da, da, da policy.

Like, these are the solutions I am offering to the communities here.

I'm not talking about, I'm going to get, I'm going to make you rich.

Rich.

I'm talking about this piece of legislation is going to Protect you from that.

This piece of legislation is going to protect you from that.

And if we are successful, then it means we've reached enough people nationwide that we can get enough people elected to D.C. that we can push this through committee and House floor.

You don't think these big PACs are going to sniff that out and put funding against and crush everybody in the way?

What do they.

Here's the thing.

I've learned that the things that I thought made me a bad candidate make me the kind of candidate that people want right now.

Like, I remember when I started, I was so embarrassed that I didn't go to a better university or that I didn't come from pedigree or status.

I tried to look more professional, sound more professional.

It's not who we are.

It's not who people are.

And then I realized that's everything that's wrong with politics right now.

That's everything.

And so the more authentically myself I became, the more I realized I.

That's desperately.

What communities want is somebody who's authentically them in whatever way that is.

They just want somebody who's honest, who's transparent, who works hard and who's genuine.

That's all they're looking for.

It doesn't matter what shape or whatever you come.

I would 100% agree with you on that.

Yeah.

That.

That's where.

Because going back to no Trust, which I think we're going to talk about a lot through this episode, because that's where the whole country is.

Me, personally, I.

But then it's so hard to believe what these people are spewing, because we've been listening to this our whole entire lives and our parents and their parents.

And it's like, where has it gotten us listening to these politicians?

I'm gonna.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm in your community.

And then you never see them again.

As soon as the campaign's over, these motherfuckers are gone.

Out.

Out.

Yeah.

You're walking the streets in the hood and you got your little entourage and your posse.

Hey, you.

Shaking hands?

Oh, yeah.

I.

When I started the.

This, the person I'm running against had never done a public event other than fancy fundraisers with local political groups.

And so that's what I.

That's how I got my start, is I just started hosting the town halls, the Republican town halls.

And that's what you had mentioned asking Republican voters, come question the Democrat.

Like, tell me what.

What you don't like about the D next to my name.

Like, let's just talk about what you want to see from government.

And it has become, here's where we're at.

Social media and the way that we get information has completely changed how we understand the world around us.

20 years ago if I went on the local news station and it went out at 6 o', clock, 85% of the people in the state would have seen it or heard about it.

We all got our information from relatively the same local sources.

That has completely shifted.

Not only do you have social media and websites, but then the algorithm is sending different information to different, different people.

So everybody is getting their information and their truth from a million different places.

Which one?

It makes it incredibly expensive to try and get your message out across all of these other platforms.

Okay.

Because either you can naturally do something that hits the algorithm which is a lot of rage baiting or shock value.

Like if I'm sitting here just trying to sound as common sense and reasonable and, and it's not going to hit the algorithm, it's not going to go viral.

Right, Right.

So and then what also happened is learning how to manipulate that.

What we do is we take one story and we spread it across social media as if it represents all of the problems in the world.

Right.

Like let's say I'm just going to do a totally random example.

It's not going to be a real world example.

Right.

Just because I can't think of anything.

Right.

Let's say you see a white 35 year old woman having a rage at a McDonald's.

McDonald's.

Right.

And she's throwing cups and she's flipping off and she's grabbing money out of the register and she takes off.

Well now you can put that up on social media and say these 35 year old white women are the problem.

Look at their rage, look at how they disrespected this establishment.

This is what's wrong with America today.

You can do that with anything now.

And the people who have the most money are able to get the most messaging out across all of these.

So they get to define how we experience the world.

One of the most fascinating things for me being a criminal justice student is you learn statistics Statistically in the United States of America, those who are most likely to be victimized are often the least afraid of it.

And those who are least likely to be victimized are often the most afraid of it.

Older white women tend to be the most afraid of being victimized or being the victim of crime, even though we statistically are the least likely.

And if we look at criminal statistics since 2005, our nation is safer than it has ever been.

But if you go on social media, you go online, it looks like we are constantly surrounded by violence and crime and aggression.

And that doesn't mean that there aren't some things that are happening more now than they did in the last five years.

But it's just, it became whoever has the most funding is able to define what our society looks like like.

And when we get our information from the same places and it happens on all sides.

So then all of a sudden we understand the world around us, not because of our relationships in our community.

And also on top of that, everybody is working harder than they've ever worked, making less money than they ever have.

Life is exhausting and it is intentionally more difficult than it has ever been for working class people.

Everything breaks.

Nothing's made as well as it used to be.

Let just had this conversation last night.

Yes, corporations and monopolized industries are using really underhanded tech tactics like insurance companies.

Delay, delay, deny, deny.

They're making it as complicated and frustrating a process.

Same with tech support.

Same with phone companies.

Everything is designed to be as exhausting and frustrating for working class people as possible.

So all of the sudden now we are getting this information from online.

We are way less involved in community because we, we don't have the opportunity to be as involved in community.

That seems almost like a luxury now now, like to have that time or that ability or that to be as involved in your community as you want to be.

And it's the perfect storm.

It makes it really easy to define everything that's wrong with America as whoever is being pointed at online.

That's where like, she'll ask me question, dad, have you seen this?

Or I'll have somebody.

And I'm like, I'm.

This is kind of a conspiracy.

But I'm sure it's easily proven on social there.

When I see.

I'll joke with her all the time.

Joke with my oldest.

She's like, dad, you seen this?

You're trying.

I'm like, honey, you live in a different algorithm than I do.

Yep.

And it's, it's a real thing.

There's people out there that have no idea of what's on my social media page.

And I'm not like, I'll open it up and show the world there's nothing negative, like, besides the violence and political, but like, I'm seeing things and I'll show my wife.

My God, this is hilarious.

And she's like, I've Never seen that in my life.

I'm like, what?

And it just proves you that depending on the algorithm that you're served or searched or they've picked up on, that's what you're fed.

Like, there's people on this planet that live next door to each other that live in completely different algorithms, which are different worlds, and they are just being fed so much different and propaganda and the hate and just that.

And so it's, it's crazy.

Now you're here trying to build this, this is who I am.

Look at me.

But you don't have the big funding behind you, so you're just like this little minnow in a, in the ocean of social media trying to get your name out there, which, I mean, you probably need millions of dollars in campaign money just for, just for social media alone.

And we've, we've lucked out.

One, because we've gotten a lot of momentum on social media just because the way that we were doing things was novel.

So actually when I first started, the FEC is the organization at the federal level that regulates campaign finances.

It's the fec.

So my first cycle, my kids were still really young, which meant everything I did, I had to have childcare, for which I didn't have.

And I was, I don't make any money off the campaign.

Like, I can't take a cent from the campaign for any personal reasons.

I can pay to cover the cost of gas and if I need a place to stay while I'm on the road, that's it.

So the FEC had just started allowing campaign contributions to be used for child care.

So when I ran, that was the first cycle ever that candidates could use campaign money for childcare.

And I didn't even realize that.

Probably never needed it before because they're

all, yeah, they're all older dudes with a lot of money.

And so I was actually one of the top five in the nation for using it.

And so we, we made a big national article about that.

Actually we just had Politico coverage us because they were looking at younger working class candidates using social media.

And so we just.

And I also, I.

Social media has probably been the hardest thing for me.

Like I said, I wasn't a public person.

I wasn't online very much before the campaign.

And it is a whole nother world and language and learning and getting comfortable.

Each platform's different, different demographics, different ages.

So yeah, you can't.

And speech and debate helped me with like the speech and debate definitely helped me there, but it Was also just learning it.

And so I'm very lucky.

I think I'm technically.

I'm going to feel so weird being 35.

I think I'm technically a micro influencer now based on my numbers on TikTok made it.

But yeah, it is incredibly difficult to try and get it out there.

Oh, for sure.

But honestly, the more, the more I try to avoid the normal kind of talking points and partisan talking points, the more I think we actually build a community that's willing to listen.

Nobody gives a shit anymore.

Yeah.

If you're.

We're gonna keep Idaho.

Idaho.

What the does that mean?

Yeah, what does that even mean?

Cool.

Great.

How do I lower my Gap, my bills, my.

My groceries?

I went to shopping with my wife.

We were going on a little trip and we.

She just wanted to go get like, toiletries.

I'm carrying two grocery bags out of Walmart.

It's like 190.

And I'm looking at her going, going, what the.

She goes, yeah, welcome to Shop.

Because I don't shop.

I am.

I'm one of those men that.

I hate shopping too.

I never stepped in Walmart, grocery store, anything ever in my life again.

I'm cool with it.

So I don't have experience.

And like, I'm not on the shelves like, oh my God, this is so exciting.

I'm walking out, like, looking at my wife, what the did you buy?

And she's like, yeah, welcome to the economy.

She's like, this is.

I'm like, holy crap.

Like, it's just insane.

So, like, then when you hear these politicians speak, it's just like, bro, shut up.

I don't believe anything you're saying.

So now you're battling that as well, of generations of just filth, politicians lying to their districts, not changing anything.

So you're.

You're battling everything.

I think though, there's a certain politician speak that we have all gotten really used to and it does tend to be easier to point out.

And I think the hyper partisan divide definitely hurts a little bit because whatever party you agree with, then you tend to trust those people more, whether they're for.

Against the things that are helping you.

And so for me, it really is just the evidence.

Like, I try and get very specific with the numbers that I have, the information that I have, why I believe the things that I believe, why I support the pieces of legislation that I do.

You.

It really is trying to bring back the idea of.

Of a statesman.

And this is something that I really love about my experience in Idaho because for me Driving up and down the state, me being up in North Idaho as often as I was was a novel thing.

Boise tends to be kind of the political power center.

Absolutely.

Of the state.

And then the rest of the state tends to feel really kind of just left behind and, and following with whatever happens in Boise.

Well, I built this.

The first really big close knit community I built politically in Idaho was in north Idaho.

So I spent so much time up there.

I was traveling up north every month and you know, doing events everywhere.

Lewiston and Riggins and Orphino and Camiae and Bonner's Ferry.

And I still remember it was like the third or fourth time I was in Bonners Ferry, which is up in Boundary county county.

And we were hosting a town hall with a couple other candidates.

And after the town hall there was a gentleman that got up and he goes, the last time a politician came to Bonner's Ferry more than once was Frank Church.

And there were four or five candidate, not candidates, people in that room who all remembered back when Frank Church used to come.

And there are still communities to this day that remember Frank Church going and sitting down at the local coffee shop and just doing one on one.

Like people would come to the coffee shop and then get to talk to him.

And there is this sense of just, people want somebody that is actually active in the local community.

And it's a, it's a ridiculously hard work.

And it seems so counterintuitive to the political process right now and how to win.

But I think that's how we fix it.

We set that standard again.

And there's something really unique about what a politician needs to be able to do versus what we see right now.

Because like I said, right now, now you're able to take one story and then if you have enough money behind it, you can make it seem like that's the whole problem.

Okay, but politicians, good politicians, real leaders, what I think they need to be able to do is hear these personal stories, see the responsibilities, see the weight on local communities, but also then zoom out and get a bigger picture, be able to look at the big picture, be able to look at the data and the research and the evidence and see what.

Where's the cause of the this?

How do we address this big picture?

How do we make these our.

It's.

Yeah, you have to be able to look at the minutia.

You also have to be able to look at the big picture and you have to be able to weigh those two things.

How many of these politicians though are willing to do that when they have mommy, daddy money backing them.

So that's like, you see, you know, like, okay, that's, that's a great theory because you're doing it.

But how many of these little rich kids that are mom and dad went to Yale and they're connected with all the alumni and everything else, and they've groomed their child, and then he just steps right in, he's not going to drive the orphan, he's not going to Hagerman to have lunch, the local cafe, and like, hey, here I am running for your district.

Like, how.

So is this the future of politics?

As.

I mean, but how, how far do we have to go?

How many years have to go on before we start waking up?

Because I feel like there's.

That's the problem with, with my personal opinion, that's a huge problem with this country right now, is that we're in so many different parts of the race.

Right?

I'm with you.

I want, I want to see who's representing us at the vfw, at the local, you know, event that you're hosting.

But how, how many years are going to have to go until all these states start waking up and be like, yo, this dude's just a piece of polit politician.

Like, this guy, he's been preaching this.

His, his people have been preaching this.

Like, how do we get America to wake up and start legitimately voting for differences and voting for us?

But then how do we trust politicians?

Because they're all standing there with their little, their little town hall meetings and like, yeah, I got your back.

And I got.

I'm gonna be here for the people and the working class and the coal miners, and we're not going to take your guns, and I'm not pushing back.

And then they get up to Congress and they get AIPAC money and they're like, fuck.

Fuck all of you people.

Like, it is.

That's how, that's how I look at politicians.

It is not far off.

It is.

It was devastating, I think, for me, especially looking up to that, like, this is for sure.

This is something I idolize, like being in Congress.

I, I cried the first time I went to Washington, D.C. to meet with the.

But I'm looking out at the Washington Monument and the Supreme Court building and Congress and all of these things, which really have been just a huge part of my entire life, something I've loved and I'm passionate about.

And then I'm there in person.

I'm getting to see this as I'm getting to run this campaign.

Yeah, I got really sentimental with it.

But here's what I will say.

When I started four years ago, it was crickets.

Like, it was pulling teeth.

Teeth.

I. I had entire counties that were dark.

I was going.

I was driving three hours each way to meet with one contact in an area because we had nobody else that we could reach out to.

It was literally just incredibly difficult.

There were no local candidates running on the ballot.

And that becomes a whole nother issue, because if you've only got one candidate at the top and then you've just got a federal, then that federal candidate needs to know every single person in the local counties instead of us being able to create, like, a network community.

So what I have seen over the last four years is we are there.

Like, it's already.

That is happening.

I have seen such a drastic change, and so many more people are talking like you, where it's like, I honestly don't even care what part you're with.

So then what we have to do, like, for me, my job then is I need to be able to show people exactly how to dig into a candidate.

Like, this is what you should be looking for in the candidates on your ballot and trying to make that open the political process up and make it as transparent so that people know what sources they can go look at to see where this money is coming from.

They can check certain things there.

It's a bold statement, though, if you're telling people to start looking into other candidates.

Like, you're going to put a target on you.

Because people.

That's the corruption.

So deep, cheap.

I'm with.

I'm one of those, like, you're never buying.

I'm never being bought.

I'm gonna speak my mind.

I don't give a What it cost me.

I'm gonna be me.

But if so, I'm gonna be the person like, yeah, let's burn the torches.

Like, burn everything.

We need to see everything about these people.

But that's gonna kick the hornet's nest over Capitol Hill.

Are you prepared for this?

I mean, okay, 100.

I was really nervous for when I first started.

I actually remember that interview that I told you about when I first saw the post and I said.

And they called me.

I still remember the person I was talking to was like, listen, you have small children.

Just know with the way things are right now that you'll.

You'll probably, you know, deal with death threats.

You might deal with some conflict.

And is that something you can handle?

And she actually now tells this story.

Apparently, I Said that's all the reason.

Reason why I need to do it.

And I still remember getting the first death threat.

And I have never wanted to work harder anything in my life.

And that's, I think, when I realized that my backstory that I thought was this, you know, vulnerability or thought was actually my.

I'm just like, there is nothing that these people can do because tear apart my life.

Like, I have just talked to you about, like, literally the dark, darkest, most terrible things that have ever happened in my life.

And I realized, like, I'm not ashamed of any of this.

It's just a piece of my history, so I don't have the skeletons.

It's what made you you.

It's what makes me me.

And also, I realized I didn't victimize any.

You know, like, all of my skeletons are me being a vulnerable and insecure young person who's grown so much from that.

And also, I am so much chop.

Like, I have dealt.

I've had.

Had some people in person get really crazy.

You know what I mean?

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

Like.

And I.

There is a way I'm very, very good at calming down angry.

It's.

It's something I've been able to do.

And so I think my husband's probably more scared than anybody else.

Sure.

People are crazy.

People are crazy.

You never know.

Like, things.

The monopolization of wealth and corporate power in America.

There are cons.

Like, there are.

I mean, I am going after the big dog dogs.

We have.

We have a running joke that if anything ever happened to me on the trail, then I'd either reag in it, be like, I should have ducked, or.

Or I'll just.

You better use my name to push the movement forward.

But, yeah, there's nothing that they can share about me that I wouldn't share about myself.

And I'm really grateful that I got into this learning how, like, that authenticity was everything.

Yeah.

Like, I'm a goofy, ridiculous person.

You know what I mean?

Like, I. I want to build a political campaign setting that as the standard and then also showing other candidates that they can also do that.

And it's been incredibly successful.

Like, this is an election cycle.

I have a path to actually win.

Good.

Okay.

It's a Hail Mary.

I mean, I'm not saying it's not going to be, like, a crazy, ridiculous effort, and it's going to take a ton of work, but that's something that four years ago wouldn't have even be.

You wouldn't have even thought it was possible, so.

And the Nation is at that point, people are exhausted, people are working harder.

And I think especially Gen Z is now coming up and they're dealing with.

They can barely afford rent.

Like it's not even.

They're worried about prices going up there.

They're struggling, they're living with multiple roommates just to try and get by.

Yeah.

And so they need to wake up.

I mean, all of us need to wake up.

Yeah.

What is something.

Since getting in the politics and going for Congress and battling Goliath, what is something you have learned that would shock people?

You know what it is.

And it's the thing that I wish I could just share with every person individually because we often argue so much about where our federal tax dollars go.

Yes.

And especially in a state like Idaho where we're 63 to 66% federal lands, which means it's really hard to generate revenue on these lands in order to pay for local infrastructure, education, yada yada.

They have made such massive cuts to rural health care, education, federal land management, like the Forest Service, all of these federal agencies, you know, that are trying to do fire prevention and drought mitigation have dealt with such big cuts.

And we talk so much about, well, I don't want, like, why should my tax dollars be going to cover this?

We don't look at how much money we send to the top.

So for instance, we spend $35 billion in direct subsidies every single year just to the fossil fuel industry.

$760 billion annually if you include tax cuts, indirect subsidies, handouts.

And that's just one industry that's one of the most monopolized industries in the world.

But then they cut some of the renewable energy contracts.

And I remember a politician saying, well, if it, if it requires subsidies and it can't stand on its own two feet, well, these were incredibly lucrative job opportunities for our steel workers, for electricians.

This was.

Whether you.

Nobody is saying we stop mining and stop logging and.

But they cut that.

But then we're not talking about the $800 billion annually that our federal government misses out on because we, we pass out these handouts.

And now health insurance companies are such a scam.

It is so disgusting.

It is so disgusting what they've done to this country.

I mean, I have lost.

I now have had seven friends deal with cancer and I've lost three of them.

How have we, how do we have more funding than ever on cancer, but more people are dying of cancer.

Well, and they just actually cut a ton of.

Actually I.

A few of my U of I students that were maga.

I went up this last cycle and he was like, they cut my cancer research, their grad students up there, they cut all of the funding for the cancer research that was being done.

And now because, I mean, it is shocking, but we are fif.

Okay, there's so much information.

So like I said, I'm a data nerd.

But more than.

It's somewhere between 50 and 70 trillion dollars has gone from working class local economies just to the top 1% in the last 40 years.

So the middle class, when people are like, it's so hard to make it.

Yeah, it is incredibly impossible to make it right now because you.

Tax cuts and handouts and subsidies and tax havens and loopholes, you have.

And also, you know, the funny thing is that a Democrat is a socialist or a communist.

And I like to talk about like, no, I'm actually for free market capitalism because right now we don't have that.

There, there are no free markets.

The government has chosen the winners and losers because you can't have monopolies in a free market.

There's no competition.

And right now the government is giving all of our tax money and all of the tax breaks and all of these loopholes to the most monopolized corporate industries in the country.

And then those corporations then pay their employees as little as humanly possible, take shortcuts on quality, shortcuts on this.

They're able to jack up prices because there's no competitors driving their prices down.

They buy the competitors.

We were talking about it.

You go to Walmart, you look and you're like, hey, there's, there's this aluminum free deodorant.

Then you have all the other deodors.

And then you look and it's the same company, they're all the same company, all owned by the same.

You're like, I'm gonna buy this cuz it's healthy.

But then you look at.

Then you're like, wait, the company that's making this absolute dog also makes the better version of it.

It's all lies.

It's all lies.

And the government allows them to lie to you.

They allow false advertising.

They allow, I mean, the lack of regulation.

So here's what happens when my conservative voters across the state of Idaho hear things like regulation in their head.

They're thinking about the regulatory and tax burdens that they deal with because small businesses have all the regulations.

Small family farms deal with all the regulations.

They're the ones dealing with all the taxes.

They're the ones that the federal government, government Creates so much bureaucratic red tape that it is not in any way possible for them to be successful.

Government hates anything small.

But when I'm talking about regulation, when I'm talking about taxes, I'm talking about the monopolized corporate industries and the top 1% that have lobbied government.

So that's why these conversations are so important, and that's why I do the work in community face to face.

Because when I'm actually able to talk about this, and then also I'm saying, like, listen, I'm going to take these guys down, and I'm promising you I won't take a dollar from anybody that could ever thwart me from this mission.

How do you make that statement?

Being a Democrat and not falling into the trap?

What are they you have.

Here's the beauty.

No, here's the beauty.

Here's the beauty.

You have to sell your soul.

I feel my opinion.

Yeah.

You have to sell your soul to make it.

Why they.

Who's.

Who's done it without it?

I'm about to.

That's the plan.

That's why I'm having this conversation.

I love.

I just love the mentality of it.

I hate the fact that there's a title put on it because both titles are so tainted.

Yeah.

Doesn't matter what you say.

But like you say, I'm gonna fight.

I'm.

I'm putting all of these regulations and legislation, everything's going in against the man.

How.

How.

How are you from Idaho and all these other little, little pieces to this puzzle scattered through their areas and their states.

How do we all come together and back this?

That's my biggest thing.

It's like, cool.

We've heard all of them.

I'm gonna make a difference.

We're gonna attack big Pharma.

We're gonna make food healthy again.

I'm gonna blah, blah, blah.

Right?

Where do we go?

It sounds so corny and simple, but it is actually what we desperately need right now.

And it's building coalition and getting organized at the ground level because all of, like, if you look at any of these elected politicians, they don't know a single member.

Like, they have maybe a couple political connections and donors and things, but they're paying somebody else to put all of this stuff out 100%.

Whereas, like, we're building actual coalition that doesn't require any money.

So right now, I could probably reach out to tens of thousands of my contacts and get something out.

It would take a ton of effort for sure, and it would take our team, but we've built that from the ground up.

And because I don't get anything from the party, I don't take.

The only thing that I get from the party is from the local party.

So I work with my local county chairs, my local volunteers.

And these aren't big DNC members, these are Idaho Democrats.

These are people who like I.

One of the hardest working people I've ever met in my life.

This woman runs a farm, her husband and her work seven days a week.

They are low income family.

And yet this woman is still every event, she's out at every community event.

She's out there working for everybody.

Like it is really about building coalition and then also having solutions.

So like one of the things that we're doing, like I said, we're looking at bringing the repealing Citizens United to the state.

I'm looking at bringing repealing Right to work work to the state of Idaho.

One of the things I'm most excited about is we are drafting legislation because I was looking for somebody that had already offered this that I could support and I couldn't find it.

Okay.

Right now one of the biggest issues in the federal government is it doesn't matter how corrupt they are.

It doesn't matter how many times they break rules or laws or lie under oath.

There's no consequences.

And I think we've learned over the last 10 years, we just keep watching it get worse and worse and worse, worse.

And we're like, where are the consequences?

Yeah.

And it was shocking to me.

I always assumed like at this level, if you did something wrong, you get arrested.

Like there would be some level cider

trading, all the funds that are being milked through different companies.

Yeah.

And it's like, oh, well, apparently there is nobody that can.

It's like, oh, apparently Congress has to agree on whether or not they're going to get in trouble.

And that doesn't work because it turns out now it's if you're on this side, it doesn't matter what you do and if you're on that side, it doesn't matter what you do.

We're never going to be able to hold any of them accountable.

So we're working at trying to draft new legislation that would create an oversight and enforcement mechanism.

So an independent oversight agency within the federal government at that level with actual enforcement mechanisms.

So if you do this, you're out.

Like, like I am talking about, about serious, serious accountability and consequence measures.

And of course this is something that's going to have to be like, we're going to have to figure out where's the right level on this.

But that's something.

Every single grassroots candidate that I work with is like, heck yeah.

Every voter I talk to is like, heck yeah.

Yes, we can build coalition.

And every candidate that I work with now nationwide, because four years ago there was three of us.

Now there's hundreds of us all running and all of us are supporting each other.

So none of us, us are getting money from corporations or from the party.

We don't rely on anybody other than all of these other independent grassroots candidates that are as committed to the same things as the others.

So we build that coalition, we have the policy, and then we create a movement and all of us lift each other up.

So then when enough of us get elected to D.C. that's when we have the real opportunity.

Because now if, if you have a bunch of brand new candidates who are offering real solutions that the American people want, we have the platform, we're elected.

So now we're in the news saying, hey, we're introducing this bill that would solve all of these problems that 98% of the American public wants.

What is the other 30% of Congress going to do?

Disagree, vote against it, Then they risk their seat and all of a sudden we bring where politicians are looking back to voters instead of just money.

Okay, so saying that just so I'm tracking your, you and all the others you're speaking about, of this, this new wave, right, let's say Democrats, I hope this is happening on the Republican side or are you speaking just everybody in general?

General, you're probably speaking everybody in, in general, like I do tend to work with more Democrats, but I 100% have worked with Republican candidates.

So what you're saying is you're, there's this movement in the young political party for the individuals in these states.

You're all trying to bring this party together to go into Congress to kind of push out all the dinosaurs in a way to bring in new policies and all this stuff.

Stuff.

How long is that going to take to happen?

Well, we're, I mean, we're getting at the point where it's either going to happen in the next two years or we're, we're in big trouble.

I mean, the country is, I'm saying the country is in a really, really bad spot right now.

Billions to Ukraine, billions to Israel, billions to all the other up countries.

Nobody gives a about helping pay for everything else.

Like, like where do we go?

Like, we, we sit here and we listen to Trump saying we're in the golden era but meanwhile, like our infrastructure is falling apart.

I've been to wealthy countries where you're.

It's clean, it's beautiful.

Yeah, you go to anywhere in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, any of that stuff, dude, those are golden era when you're gonna speak gold here.

You go to LA and the bridges are so rotten that they can't even shut them down because they're gonna cost billions of dollars to replace this stuff.

Like where.

How do we stop this hemorrhage?

Okay, I guess that's where my question gets to.

You guys are building this cool little pack and everything.

You're going to make a difference, right?

Let's pray to God that it happens on both sides.

How do we do this before we run out of blood in this country?

Like, we are draining ourselves so quick.

At least how I feel of where all of our money's going.

The American people are just drowning.

I mean everybody's just, You're.

Everyone's feeling it.

How much time?

Like, how do we do this in time?

Like, how do we get these people that are getting, getting fed ICE this and FBI this and Cash Patel this and every other thing that's going in the Pete Hegseth and the war director of war were bombing these people rocket.

It's like, fuck.

Like where do we even just point in a direction to just bring everybody back together?

Okay, this is what we need to focus on.

Is that, is that even realistic at this point?

I mean, it's either going to happen in the next couple of years.

It'll.

It'll have to happen before the next presidential election.

And I'm hoping we have that much time.

I'm not like, listen, I know that what I'm talking about is very idealistic and optimistic.

Like this is how I know that we can get to that point without having to rely on.

Here's the thing.

It's going to have to.

We're gonna have to hit them from all, all points.

And there's a few things that need to happen.

Working class people in this country need to take their power back.

Yes.

Because that's where.

And I know people say, well, unions sometimes protect bad employees.

Well, they do far less damage than corporate shareholders and boards due to local communities.

So and, and when the pendulum swings way too far one way, like right now in this country, we know from the data and research that members of unions get paid better.

They have better healthcare benefits and they, they have bigger pensions and are able to retire at earlier ages.

And they are also way safer on the work workplace but in rep.

In right to work states like Idaho, that is not the case.

Like we are making such little money.

We need to have a big labor movement and that's things like general strikes.

That's things that cost corporations and monopolized industries money.

I'm for that.

We have to hit them where it hurts and then at the same time be running candidates that have immediate policy solutions.

Like we have to break apart are monopolized corporate conglomerates in the country.

We have to bring back.

We also have to make sure that the loopholes and the tax breaks and all of this stuff are back going towards middle working class and small businesses.

Like there is a way to even this out.

And like I talked about, we talk about Ukraine and we talk about Israel and I agree, right.

Ukraine a little less like we're not.

It's actually a lot more like weapons systems and manufacturing and there is mining and different elemental deals that are really, really important.

There.

There's a lot going.

There's a lot going on in Ukraine besides the war.

There's a lot going on.

But here's the deal.

The amount of money that we shell out at the top for just 0.08% of the population of benefit, it is shocking.

And here's the thing.

The lie is that we can't just take care of infrastructure or education.

I mean, let's look at how ICE has functioned over the last few months, right?

Okay.

There they just budgeted out $898 million, almost a billion dollars just for employee bonuses in ICE.

Okay, Congress just sent a billion dollars to ICE just for bonuses.

And then on top of that, the cost of these deportations is excessive.

And we're creating a private military industrial complex that is taking care of that detention.

That's all for profit.

It and the government is also paying a lot of that.

So like there is money.

We can actually financially take care of things that are urgent, but we're not.

We're sending it towards detention, which actually doesn't give anything back because the truth is undocumented people weren't preventing wages from being higher or taking jobs from like.

Like that's not a systemic issue that was making life harder for working class people.

So the money is there.

We can address these problems in the short term while we address the actual budget deficits in the long term, if that makes any sense.

It.

It makes sense.

So I'm very torn on ice, right?

I.

When we talk about everything on this episode and even though I lose probably a lot of followers have to open my mouth I'm torn on ICE one.

They're there.

They've been.

They're there because the people of those communities have voted and there's.

That's their laws and everything is because us of the American people, people, we voted.

Right.

Whoever's running this, whoever's in charge of everything, we're putting these people in charge to run these things to a certain extent.

A lot of.

There's a lot of good old boy going on.

I get it.

I get it.

And yeah, trust me, dive.

Jump in anytime.

I keep seeing these things like, well, this how it has to get done.

This is how ICE has to take things.

But if you incorrect me, you're a statistics that data person.

Yeah.

From the last things that I read, Obama has deported more people than Trump has even come close to.

But we didn't have these problems in our streets.

Right.

There are big differences.

And this is where you can use numbers in a manipulative way.

Okay.

For instance, somebody was just talking about, well, how under Obama, 56 people were killed in ICE.

ICE.

And so, you know, know 56 versus 38.

This is, is a more gentler administration.

Okay.

But 56 is eight total years of ICE versus 38 in what, 11 to 13 months.

Right.

Like there's ways that we use information.

Here's the problem.

There was a mass migration for environmental and economic unrest in south and Central America.

See, I don't give a fuck.

No.

Like I'm, I'm trying.

Let's look at where the causes come from.

Why something happened.

Okay.

So then Covid happened, and we weren't able to handle the southern border, and they made the disastrous decision to do title 42.

So all of a sudden we had so many people coming across the border, and we didn't have the immigration courts, lawyers, judges, border agents.

We didn't have any of the funding in any of these areas to handle that.

See, I put that all on Biden.

I mean, yeah, it was the administration.

Yes.

But here's the thing.

This also started happening under 20 Trump.

Yeah, the, the migration, the mass.

Like, it started under Trump.

So it wasn't like Biden did this one disastrous thing and caused it all to go awry.

Right.

I feel the border was a mess,

opened the gates and just allowed.

I mean, you could see the numbers.

And I'm not saying Trump's doing anything better, but you can see the numbers just right during that.

So then.

But here's, here's where I really struggle because I think we should be really specific with how we talk about it.

Right.

Okay.

Open borders.

We did have way too many people coming in, and we didn't have the systems to.

To get them in the correct way.

But that doesn't mean we just had open border.

There were still contacts.

Like, they.

We still understood who was coming in.

That doesn't mean that there weren't more undocumented people coming in.

So, like, I. I try to be very reasonable with how I say things.

I don't know.

Like, I got buddies that have been on the border for years, and they.

I mean, I call one of them, right?

And he said it was insane.

He said they would just sit there and just watch these dudes.

Asians, Russians, South Americans.

He said during that time, he's like, bro, it was so bad, we couldn't even say.

And they would just laugh at us, and we'd have to watch.

We would watch groups of hundreds, hundreds at a time, just pouring in.

And I've asked, what's the difference?

Now he's like, oh, dude, it's night and day.

He's like, we were dealing with thousands in a month.

Now we're dealing with a couple hundred.

Right?

But that's at the border.

Border, right.

Nobody is saying that what is happening at the border right now is a problem.

Like the.

The shutting down and making sure that migration stops at the southern border is not the issue that anybody has right now.

Okay?

And I feel a lot of the left.

That's a huge, major issue for them.

No, so what the left, like, what I'm hearing and what the issue is is that they are now targeting legal residents.

Because what is.

Here's what I hear all the time.

ICE can't go at you unless they have a warrant.

They can't take you without due process.

They cannot detain you without lawyers.

But that is what is happening.

So these aren't.

ICE has an undocumented person that they know is in this community, and they are trying to find that person and deport them.

What they are doing is grabbing black and brown people and people of color in these communities and then checking to see if they're citizens.

Yeah, I have a problem with that.

That is a huge problem.

But here's.

Here's the issue now.

A memo has gone out from the executive branch that gives ICE the authority to go into homes without a warrant.

And we're seeing, like, there is.

It is documented.

Oh, no, I'm not arguing that's gonna be a problem.

They are knocking door to door in these communities, asking about neighbors who are people of color.

Like, they are running License plates.

And if the name is Hispanic, they are stopping that person.

Sure.

There are hundreds of US Citizens who have been detained.

And now it's the.

The.

It's just rising and rising and rising.

I have never, ever, ever seen an executive federal branch go against local law enforcement, state law enforcement.

The information coming out from the Department of Homeland Security is actually different than what's being reported from the FBI in that same area.

So nobody's saying, like, we want open borders.

We're saying, yeah, let's invest in the immigration at the southern border.

Under the Biden administration, we actually had started to make strides.

There was a $1.3 billion investment into the technology at legal ports of entry to stop things like fentanyl.

Yeah.

But then the Title 42 disaster happened.

We needed to plug that.

But, like, in Idaho, they canceled the legal visas of four of my grad students at the University of Idaho for no reason.

They are going to people's green card appointments.

And this is things that I have seen firsthand.

This isn't just speculation or lies or.

Or.

So what started as, okay, this is a problem we need to address, this problem has all of a sudden become almost like a push of the executive versus states in what this one agency is able to do.

And here's my problem is.

So I, Like I said, criminal justice background.

Right.

Most of my mentors are in law enforcement.

I actually have worked with the Border Agents Union.

Like, this is an agency I work with.

They rush hired over 12,000 agents in less than eight months.

We have people that have never had military experience, law enforcement experience.

They're being rushed through.

And that's what I see.

A lot of the times that people are getting hurt or killed in the street streets.

I see a lack of.

I see somebody accidentally fire discharging a gun because they're not using it properly.

We saw a guy who had no idea what he was doing, dropped the firearm, and a random passing by had to give it back to him.

And that's an agent who has the authority to deport someone, a citizen, out of this country.

So that's where the issue is for sure.

And that's where I think the right and the left can come together.

And all of us are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Like, we're all that.

We're with all this ice, ice, ice going on, where's all the.

Don't tread on me, bros. Because they're treading.

They're treading.

Where are you at, bro, with your.

With your little snake yellow flag?

We're on the same side here.

Yeah, but that's the problem and that's the.

Where we're at as a country is that we're so divided, we can't.

How I explain it, I don't support left or right, but I like, I don't support mega, but I can't get on the side of Democrats because they're just.

There's.

To me, there's just, there's so many.

So the left, the far left are so far.

I'm like, oh, God.

But then I'm looking at these.

Oh, these bros that are out there and they're standing there with the flags.

I'm like, you're just as dumb supporting something that he's treading on.

They're, they're, they're going in people's homes, they're snatching people.

I see a video of this guy blowing leaves and three cars pull up and he runs into people's house.

I'm like, to me, that's.

That guy's working.

Yeah.

So this is.

I guess I catch flack here.

And this is where I feel.

As far as immigration, if you're a family, like, I fought for this country, right.

I fought because everybody here, everybody has the right to come to this country.

This is how I feel.

The right way.

I have buddies that have married illegals, foreigners.

They got their green cards, dude.

I'm all for it.

Like I said, that's the.

Yeah.

Our president, United States, right?

Like, you can't argue.

They could be like, oh, yeah, I don't agree with that.

Our president has literally done this.

So it.

That's what our country is built on.

On is immigration.

Immigration has built this country.

It'll always build this country.

I support it.

But obviously with the huge influx coming in, if you're a military age male here by yourself, you gotta go there's.

I don't care about that.

Like, but these families, these people that are trying to just live this American dream.

The.

But the process is so expensive.

So long years of going back and forth to try to get any documents and paperwork done.

Done.

They're not making it.

Like they're, they're fleeing a country for a reason.

So we have to, obviously have to change our, our.

We have to streamline that process.

And you want to be really frustrated.

Millions a year.

But at the same time, I don't see a bunch of white boys out in the strawberry fields picking strawberries.

Well, and we just decimated.

If you go talk to our local farmers, and these are Republicans.

These are Idaho Republicans.

Robbed.

Who are now being robbed of their local community by people that were their neighbors.

Neighbors and students and friends and co workers.

Did you notice what you just did there, though, when you talked about it?

And this is where I'm trying to get the, the message across.

Because when we look on social media, we're only seeing the fringe because that's what hits the algorithm for sure.

So when conservative voters see liberals online, they're seeing whatever craziest thing hit the, like rage baited or got the.

And so it's so funny because when we talk like I'm for.

I'm not for Democrats or I guess not for the far left, but these far left and far right are such

a small percentage represents the parties.

But that's just because of the communications.

Like, that's just what we're seeing because of the way our messaging systems work now.

And if we can get back down to that local, like, if we can start.

I always say that the real way that we win right now is getting like the 1960,'60s phone tree back.

Like when everybody had a landline phone and you just called somebody to let them know what was happening locally or to know that an event was happening or there was an emergency or because I don't know a single Democrat that's for open borders.

So that said that what happened under Biden at the southern border wasn't a problem.

Like, I've never see, I've never met

one that has that said otherwise.

Because we sit here and we watch Congress and you watch Nancy Pelosi's old rotten ass up there, and they're fighting against everything.

And it's like, what the fuck?

So like, to me, me as an average American, those sitting up at Capitol Hill, that's.

Those are what's representing that party.

But then I talk to my neighbor that's hardcore, hardcore left, dude.

One of the greatest people.

Yeah.

And I'm like, am I gonna sit?

Actually, I have.

I've walked by, walk into the gym.

I've caught her outside.

We've sat and talked.

Didn't get anything political.

If she want to push and agendas and whatever, I.

That's where I have problems with both sides party.

When you're pushing agendas, that's where I'm out on either side.

But it's the fact that like a few years ago, I would have seen her little poster out in her front yard.

Been like, we got one in the neighborhood.

Right?

Because that's how we're trained to divide and conquer.

And that's what they're doing with these algorithms.

But she's a. I. Oh, yeah.

I have no.

I walk.

I see her all the time.

She walks her constantly.

I have no problem with her at all.

And I have no problem talking with anybody.

But this feel that's in this country right now, we can't.

Oh, you're a Democrat.

Oh, you're Republican.

Well, and that's.

It's just that all or nothing language.

And I think that's why the problem is especially with the sound bites.

Like, you have five to ten seconds to catch someone's attention right now.

But what we desperately need as a country is the nuanced, comprehensive.

We need to be talking about the ins and outs.

We need to talk about how the border was a serious problem, but what ICE is doing right now is not the way to fix it.

Like, we need to have a.

A in depth conversation with that.

So it is.

It becomes the biggest problem with how do we address this?

However, obviously right now, I mean, I.

It's hard because Alex, the man who was killed in Minneapolis two days ago, he was actually a union brother.

He was a member afghi.

He worked at the VA hospital and he was an ICU nurse.

So he did final salutes for veterans.

You know, this is a very.

Especially.

I work with Afghan.

I work with the federal.

Like, I was just in D.C. with that group.

Like, these are especially also, like, I lost my dad at the VA hospital in Lexington, Kentucky.

So, like, I know what the VA is and how important they are because I've sat and watched somebody, you know, who's a veteran and the way that the VA steps in.

So it's hard because it's like we're still talking about the border when it's just so easy to distract and take away from the real conversation that needs to be had, which is let's like, how do we break apart and dismantle a communication system and a government that is trying to distract and disseminate and monopolize power and money and influence and get to the real conversation.

And it's so tough because now you take that incident, right?

And the one before.

You don't know me from Adam, right?

Besides this out 2 hours and 11 minutes we've been talking and very briefly on social.

I am a very make it make sense person.

I actually have buddy.

I have a T shirt.

Buddies have made T shirts like make it make sense.

I live my life by making if it makes sense Cool.

This recent one.

I understand protest and I understand ICE has a job.

If you're going to kick A hornet's nest.

You're gonna get stung.

It doesn't matter what side you're on and what your beliefs are.

If you're pushing the wrong people, there's going to be backlash.

And I'm not saying I support them protesting, and I'm not saying I support ice.

I think it's all fucked right now.

But when you're putting yourself in these situations with untrained individuals, you have this huge influx of stress.

Everything's anxiety.

You got these antifa online, shoot, Kill them all.

Stand up to your neighbors.

We need to.

Da, da, da, da.

I've worked very stressful situations.

I've worked executive security all over the world.

There's things when it's in your mind, it's planted.

Hey, on alert, high alert right now.

Hey, we're rolling into this area.

Everybody eyes up, guns up, whatever it needs to be.

So then it's planted, right?

So then you get a guy, which I don't feel he did very much wrong.

Right.

The woman gets pepper sprayed, the whole thing.

He's.

Yeah, he's filming.

They grab him, he turns, he ends up on the ground.

I was explaining this to my wife because she asked me.

She goes, break it down to me.

She's like, for somebody, that makes sense.

And this is how I'm gonna break this situation down.

So as a.

As somebody from the outside, because I, I'm.

I'm torn because I'm watching everything.

I'm watching.

They're pushing a lot of boundaries.

ICE is.

But at the same time, ICE has a job to do, and that is to get illegals out of our country.

So I support that.

What I don't support is when you have a man on all fours.

Here's my big question.

I don't know the gun laws where he's at.

If he was legally carrying or not

was 100% legally caring.

That changes everything.

He was permitted and it was holster.

You have a man that got an altercation with a police officer, with a.

With an ICE agent.

He's disarmed, he's on all fours.

He is no longer a threat.

Here's where it gets tricky in that situation.

You have all of these men on him as a cop, as a private security, as anything.

If you have somebody detained on the ground and you hear guns, everybody, zero to a thousand.

I don't know if I want to put this up.

When they pulled his pistol out, I feel that dude that had his pistol negatively discharged his pistol.

That's what it.

You could see a recoil like it's not 100.

I can't say 100.

I can't either.

When that shot in my.

This is my theory and my speculation.

When that shot goes off, everybody's hearing, go.

Gun disarms him.

Nobody else knows where the gun is.

You got guys at the head.

You got guys at the feet.

You got guys on the ground.

They're detaining this dude.

You hear gun, you hear a shot go off, you are so amped and ready to go.

You're just waiting for a cricket to fart before you can start smoking dudes.

And that's the reality.

I don't care who you're training.

You're tr.

You're not training for that, bro.

When you're in an environment like that and you are max level, you got dudes that are threatened to kill your families, you got all this going on.

Did they execute that dude?

100%.

He's unarmed.

He's a civilian legally carrying a gun, protesting what he needs to do.

If he didn't put hands on an ICE agent, you're not getting detained.

Here's the problem.

And here's where.

Here's where I will disagree.

Okay,

let's see.

How do I.

He didn't put hands on an IC agent.

The ICE agent approached him.

For sure.

For sure.

Here's the problem.

And I hear this a lot, specifically in Idaho.

And I. I don't know if this is going to get me in trouble or not.

I want to.

I want to address this because it is something I see a lot.

And I'm.

I'm really curious about it because I see a lot of my Republican neighbors saying, well, that's what you get.

Like, you're anti American.

You're out there protesting.

You're protesting law enforcement.

But that's one big issue, is these aren't law enforcement.

These.

This is against the state's will.

And these are not like trained ICE officers with warrants.

They're not looking.

They don't have targeted individuals.

They are there picking up people of color to check and see if they are undocumented.

So.

And then on top of that, you have protesters who are filming and stepping away, and you have ICE that is coming up and interact.

Like, I can't tell you how many people I've seen get pepper sprayed.

Like, this is not even something where.

It's just my perception.

There have been four separate federal judges that have looked through one required body camera footage, but two found that ICE agents have completely lied about how altercations began and have escalated.

But here's the thing that I see that I think is really interesting.

I know so many of my people in Idaho communities that if they were approached by cops or law enforcement, the way that these people are, would have fought so much harder.

I'm fist fighting everybody.

Well, and here's the thing.

I.

Because we have such a safe and calm community, our law enforcement tends to have great relationships with community.

Like we aren't overly police.

East, I live up in the North Eagle foothills.

I think I've seen like a police officer up there three times.

And it's because they went out to park and have lunch and watch the beautiful view.

Right?

But if, if a cop just came up to one of our residents without a warrant, without probable cause, didn't tell them why they were approaching, I'm fist fighting.

Because a cop can demand your identification for very.

They can pull you out of a car without telling you why.

They actually have quite a bit of authority in these situations.

And we saw it with Ammon Bundy, we saw it with several different groups where when they are faced with this kind of law enforcement interaction within the legal frameworks, they feel as if they are being tread on.

And so what I want us to do is really look at these situations where this is not law enforcement, these are not properly trained people.

These are people operating outside of that frame framework.

And I want the don't tread on me crowd, like I'm here for that.

I don't want the US Government to be able to dictate how you live, how you believe, what you do with your family.

Like, I don't want that.

I want the government to provide the economy you need to be successful, the infrastructure we need to build out, successful.

Like that's it.

So it's hard for me because I look at ICE and I look at what would have happened if that had been a white Idaho family.

And this state would have have had an uprising unlike anything else.

And I have never.

I am not someone who overreacts.

Like I said, I faced quite a bit of violence.

I have never been more afraid with the amount of just unregulated, no oversight over like untrained people going out and starting and escalating conflicts with legal citizens and people.

There's a lot of situations where I watch and I'm like, oh.

Because I've been, I mean, my whole military career, I had an.

I owned.

I started a very successful executive security company, worked for guys all over the place.

I worked private security in Afghanistan.

I've been there.

I watch a lot of what are these law enforcement officers are doing in these, these situations?

And I'm like, like your, your number one job is to de escalate.

Like why aren't we out here talking to these people?

Like I watch an ICE agent roll up and he goes, you idiots.

He's like, we're trying to grab a pedophile right now.

He's like, okay, go do your thing.

But like if you're just snatching random, give me your id.

Who are you that.

Hey, if it's the law though, that's the law.

It's not the law.

That's the problem.

They grabbed a 17 year old American citizen.

They're not like, I, I've seen videos

of him screaming, I'm an American, I'm a citizen.

Like I've seen these videos with drivers.

It, it is just unbelievable because the problem is we expect law enforcement to be honest because our law enforcement communities are.

But then we watch ICE and what they're doing and they're saying, well, we didn't know.

And it's like, well, they have their birth certificate, they have their driver's license, they had documentation.

And now I've never, I've never seen this before.

I have always been someone.

Like, I watch body cam footage all the time because it's such a great way to see how we behave in public and perception.

And I can't tell you how many times I've seen somebody who's being investigated.

I know my rights.

You can't do this.

They don't know what they're talking about.

The cops with 100% within their legal rights.

Right.

It is always the situation.

But we get into these camps and it's really dangerous because if all of the sudden we are going to support ICE no matter what because we believe in law enforcement.

Even when ICE is not law enforcement, they are not legally treated, trained, they are not vetted and they are not operating within their rights.

That becomes very dangerous.

We have to start looking at these situations and I look at the database that they have started of domestic terrorists.

So if you are on social media and you are talking about certain issues, you are now, and it just happened, they canceled the passports of multiple American citizens who flew out of the country without realizing there was an issue.

And then Interpol stopped them as they got out of the country because they are now on a list.

List.

See that's, that was, that was a topic that I have every one of these protesters that are getting arrested and how I personally, I hate that they're labeling him as a domestic Terrorist.

Yeah.

Now, so for me, this is subtle foreshadowing when they want to take control.

Now you're a terrorist.

Oh, you don't like it?

You're a terrorist.

You're against us.

You're a terrorist.

We're throwing around domestic terrorists way too easy.

You, you tell me that's a domestic terrorist.

I'm thinking some dude making pipe bombs, planning plots, we're going to drive a, a car into a building.

That's domestic terrorism.

But I, obviously, I don't, I can't sit here and say that I've looked up the definition for our government of what considered illegal domestic terrorist is.

But I'm going to go out on a limb and say this white dude that worked for the VA that was legally carrying his gun, that got tackled to the ground after the officer, officers pepper sprayed the chick and he tried to help her.

Now he's on the ground getting disarmed, and they shoot him in the back like 20 times.

To me, I'm like, I would argue that's not a domestic terrorist, right?

Well, if he was a domestic terrorist, he would have rolled up their guns, ablazing, right?

Proving his point that he's a domestic terrorist.

And I get.