Chapter 1: What do the terms 'progressive' and 'affordability' mean in current politics?
Buzzwords like progressive and affordability are thrown around all the time in politics, maybe now more than ever. But what do they actually mean? And is there a difference between what it means to the elected officials and what it means to the people? Today, I'm going to talk to the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to give his answer.
And then we're going to go to one of the most progressive districts in the country to see what people actually think. Last week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, one of the largest blocs of Democrats on the Hill, released their new affordability agenda. That's 10 planks meant to make Americans' lives cheaper in areas like utility bills, child care, or prescription drugs.
And I'll highlight some of the biggest policies included in the list because I think it's important. Like requiring companies to pay double wages for overtime, not just time and a half. Banning surveillance pricing, where companies use personal data to raise prices through AI. And offering every first-time homeowner $20,000 in down payment assistance. and expanding rental assistance.
But if you ask me, I think the most interesting thing about this proposal is the timing of it all. Democrats aren't in control of Congress. Donald Trump will still be the president for the next couple years. And it doesn't feel as if these policies have any kind of short-term viability on the Hill. Why is this happening now?
I think we should see it as an effort in flag planting, in litmus test creation. And progressives in Congress are trying to define what affordability means to them ahead of the 2026 midterms and ahead of a 2028 presidential election that will define the party's future. And so as we think about a post-Trump America, this feels to me like a good place to start.
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Joining me now is Congressman Greg Kesar. He's the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a member from Texas. Thank you for joining us. I mean, as we talked about, we wanted to talk about the new affordability agenda that the Progressive Caucus released.
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Chapter 2: What is the new affordability agenda proposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus?
And my first question was kind of why release this agenda now? Democrats are obviously not in the congressional majority. Why at this moment?
Look, the new affordability agenda is the Progressive Caucus's 10-point plan to bring down costs for everyday people, especially by taking on the big corporations and the ultra-rich that are screwing you over and making their money jacking up your prices. And the reason that we put this agenda out now is because we want... candidates campaigning on this agenda in their primaries.
We want people to win their elections by going and connecting with their voters about driving down costs. And then here's the radical part. If we take the majority, I want us to pass these kinds of policies to bring down your utility bill $500 next year, to pass policies to cap your childcare cost or reduce the cost of that prescription drugs cost, and then dare Donald Trump to try to block it.
If they pass it,
Chapter 3: How does the affordability agenda aim to impact everyday Americans?
Great. If they block it, then voters will know who to blame. But right now, the idea I hear from a lot of voters is, okay, they know who Trump is. They might be really pissed off at his lies and how he is, but they want to know what Democrats stand for, especially when it comes to these day-to-day economic issues.
It sounds like you find these planks achievable in, you know, the ability to kind of keep Democrats together and kind of unify the caucus around them. Can you explain that to me? Because, you know, Congress hasn't necessarily gotten itself a reputation for passing big bills over the last couple of years. How achievable is this stuff?
Voters are so upset and rightfully pissed off right now at the way their costs keep going up and up and up. For sure. And so I hear from elected officials all over, but especially my Democratic colleagues, that we've got to do something about this. And so I think this is a key opportunity to finally beat big pharma today.
and start producing tons of our own generic drugs as a country and collapse the prices of so many of the drugs people rely on for their health care. Right now is a moment to finally take on these super PACs that are trying to buy politicians and elections and policies. And so I smell blood in the water in this moment while voters are upset to forge a new consensus in the Democratic Party.
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.
Yeah, look, as a progressive in a progressive district, I could put forward an economic agenda that polls really well in Austin, Texas, but maybe has more trouble, say, in some rural parts of the country. We chose strategically not to do that and instead put out an agenda that polls very well with two out of three Trump voters, seven out of 10 independents.
And I didn't just do that for political reasons. We did that because we want to get this agenda passed. This is a kind of no excuses agenda. It plays well in every district and helps voters with the thing we hear, number one, from every day, especially disengaged voters about, which is how damn expensive life is getting in this country.
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?
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Chapter 4: Why is the timing of the affordability agenda significant?
But these are not our flagships. This new slate are our battleships that go in addition to our flagships. These are the kinds of issues-
Flagships and battleships.
Yeah, these battleships, man, we've got in some cases 80 percent support of voters, not just right now, but consistently. And so let's move that stuff since we can have consensus on it while still pushing for the big ideas.
It does feel a little bit, though, that Democrats are talking about climate less. Is that true?
I think that what we need to make sure we do in the climate movement is connected to everyday people's lives. The moment that Republicans tried to make it seem that tackling the climate crisis was about buying more expensive products or was kind of an elite luxury, we took a big hit.
And so I think that it's very important if we care about having a livable climate agenda, we need to talk about how electrification is going to make things cheaper. Let's get this restarted by taking on the insane price of your electric bill, earn people's trust, and then show folks how a agenda on climate can actually make your life more affordable instead of more expensive. Mm-hmm.
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?
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Chapter 5: How do progressives define affordability ahead of upcoming elections?
And it's instead of focus on surveillance pricing and that more narrow issue.
We need AI regulations big time. But let's get started with, in my view, taking on the AI lobby on something that makes sense to basically everybody watching at home.
So this is still a priority of that achievability, it sounds like.
Yeah, yeah. But let's just talk about the surveillance pricing just for a second because it frankly pisses people off. We had the other day somebody on Twitter tweet at JetBlue, I'm trying to get to a funeral. Somebody just died. And in the last day, the price on this flight has gone up like $250. Mm-hmm.
And the customer service rep responded from JetBlue saying, clear your cash, clear your cookies. And this is the thing that people know is going on. You're getting your private data scooped up. They run it through AI and they figure out how to set a price for you.
That is the kind of thing that should unite Democrats, but also tons of independent and Republican voters to say, yeah, these folks are using AI to screw us.
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. What does being a progressive mean to you in 2026? And how would you distinguish it from just being a Democrat?
For me, being a progressive means at least two things. One, being willing to unite lots and lots of people, all of the folks that are getting screwed over against the powers that be that are making your life worse, whether that is oppressing you on a civil rights issue or jacking up your costs like we just talked about.
It's about bringing the everyday person that may not have money power, but should have political power together to take them on. And then second, I think being progressive is essentially a hopeful enterprise. That you think, I think that the world can be much better, that we don't have to settle for crumbs or settle for the status quo.
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Chapter 6: What challenges do progressives face in passing their agenda?
For prisoners.
For prisoners.
Every transgender. inmate in the prison system would have access.
And I've been across the country as people have used that ad or even just the progressive focus on cultural issues. To your point, to kind of say that the party had been pulled away from its core concerns. Is those things no longer a priority for progressives?
We should, of course, defend groups that are being attacked by Donald Trump. Trans folks, immigrants, whoever it might be. What we also need to do is point out who the real villains are. Because Donald Trump told this complete story. He said, your rent is going up. Let's blame it on some Venezuelan immigrants. Your healthcare is getting worse. Let's blame it on wokeness.
But it was not wokeness that raised your rent. It was a Wall Street hedge fund, right? It was not trans folks that made your healthcare worse. It's a healthcare CEO. But I don't think we told that story. Yeah. I think what we need to do is make sure we're targeting the real villains in the story.
Because there's a lot of people here in Texas who go, Greg, you might be more progressive or more liberal than me on this or that social issue. But you care about making sure I can afford my house without having to work 10, 20 hours of overtime every single week? You know what? I'll be for you even if we may have our differences on this issue or that.
And that's the kind of coalition I think we need to be able to build.
Mm-hmm. I want to ask about what more. Let's talk about defund the police, because I read in 2020 that you were one of the elected officials that kind of stood with Austin's movement. And they were one of the few cities that successfully reallocated funds from the police budget to other issues like housing.
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Chapter 7: How do voters perceive the connection between affordability and progressive values?
Because if all people learn about our brand is that we're the anti-Trump party and they never learn what we're for, then that will have been a big mistake and a huge failure.
Congressman Kesar, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate your time. Thanks so much. Next up, we're headed to Queens, home of one of the most progressive districts in the country. And we're going to go to the streets to ask people directly, what do you actually want from progressives?
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of prioritizing affordability over cultural issues for progressives?
So we don't tax corporations enough? Their argument was that they should tax them more. They're just trying to drive them out. So when we think about the priorities that Democrats and progressives have talked about, it doesn't always sound like cost of living. Sometimes it's been LGBT rights, abortion rights, immigrant rights.
Like, you know, they've been thinking more about social cultural issues. I mean, how much do they focus on that versus things like cost of living?
None.
You think that you're saying focus on the money, focus on affordability.
Because that is what all humans can relate to. We all work. If you work, that means you want a better life. Not even that you want a roof over your head. You want to eat. If you work, it's because you want to not want to walk around naked. You need clothes. You need to eat. You need to be healthy. You need help. That means groceries. That means money.
So money is essentially the root of everything. I don't care if you're gay. I don't care if you have all that. That's like secondary, third. That's not a priority. So yes, that should have been the main focus.
So here's a little secret. I actually live in New York's 7th congressional district. So it doesn't surprise me at all that when you ask people about the progressive nature of this community or about the diverse nature of this community, they have a lot to say. And when we talked to people, they really helped us understand buzzwords like affordability and progressive a lot clearer.
I feel like I heard people say that they wanted their members of Congress to prioritize cost of living above everything else, even if that means deprioritizing some of the cultural issues that progressives have focused on in the last four or five years. In fact, it sounded pretty close to what Congressman Kesar told me in our interview.
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