Astead Herndon

How achievable is this stuff?

If I hear you right, it sounds like you're saying some of this agenda should be seen as a signal to fellow Democrats in 2026, 2028, saying this is what affordability means to us.

To that point, is that the reason that I don't see things like climate change or even Medicare for all listed amongst these planks?

You're mentioning that you wanted to focus on things that have consensus across the party and across kind of an achievable group of people.

Is that the reason I feel like some progressive priorities that of the past I remember hearing things like the Green New Deal, for example, aren't on this list?

Flagships and battleships.

It does feel a little bit, though, that Democrats are talking about climate less.

Is that true?

I hear the connection between climate and affordability that maybe wasn't front and center five or six years ago.

I wanted to also ask about the ban on surveillance pricing in particular.

I know you introduced a bill on that policy, and your bill would prohibit the use of surveillance-based pricing and wage setting.

It would also prevent the use of AI to set wages and personal data, like an individual's finance history, rather than their performance.

This all makes sense to me, but I wanted to ask—

And that it feels kind of downstream from a bigger question of tech and AI regulation that we've heard from members of the House who have called for a moratorium on data centers overall.

I was wondering why isn't something like that on this list?

And it's instead of focus on surveillance pricing and that more narrow issue.

So this is still a priority of that achievability, it sounds like.

Mm-hmm.

Part of the premise of this episode is we want to break down buzzwords like affordability and even progressive.

You know, we talked about the former, but I think the latter matters as well as it's one that can be misdefined.