 Hello, everyone. I am here with 2020 congressional candidate from New Jersey's eighth congressional district His name is Hector Oseguera, and he's running against Albio Cirrus, and he's here to talk about his campaign Hector Thank you so much for coming on the program Thank you for having me on really happy to talk to you. Yeah, you're the third. I want to say Politician from New Jersey who I have interviewed and all of them have been recommended by Russ here in Tione So shout out to him also was on the program as well So your history is very interesting You're you're a millennial and you kind of follow this political trajectory where in 2014 you volunteered for Elizabeth Warren's senatorial campaign 2016 Bernie's presidential campaign 2018 AOC's congressional campaign and now you're running yourself in 2020 So I as someone who would never want to run for Congress. I view this as like tremendous self-sacrifice So what made you want to step up and run for Congress? Because I think this is something that is uh, it's very noble considering I just would find it horrible to do Well, I really appreciate that and like I said, thank you for having me on what really made me want to run is Sort of this political awakening I've been interested in politics my whole life I was a polycyne major and Public policy is always something that I've really cared about and I come from a poor immigrant community So there are a lot of issues that are constantly on the forefront with us. Not just immigration, but wages Labor rights a whole host of issues that are always affecting the community gun violence is big where I live and I think it's just time for people who are sick and set up with this system to step up and do something about it I live in an area that's a hundred percent Democrats almost completely run by Democrats And so for a long time a lot of people were sort of complacent and thought that everything was okay, right? Because even if national politics are sort of screwed up, we have all these Democrats and they'll protect us But what started happening with me is I started digging into our local politicians And I started coming up against these really bad horror stories. So my opponent I'll be all theorized He was my hometown mayor. I was raised in the smallest city in America It's called West New York, New Jersey, right? And that is because we are directly west of Manhattan it is a one square mile city and My congressman had activists go to his office When the ICE detention centers were making headlines and these activists made a very pragmatic ask of him They said would you At least vote to reign in ice spending, right? And I'm telling you this is a heavily Democratic district mostly immigrants mostly Hispanic, right? So what do you think someone like that would say right? They'd be like, okay, sure He says absolutely not he says ice does great work And I will never vote to cut a single dollar from ice. That's his Response to activists asking him in the height of the immigrant detention center crisis that's his response to the activists and So the more I dug into it the more horror stories I came up with about my congressman and I just decided that it's about time He didn't have a primary challenger in 2018 So I didn't want this election cycle to go by and for people to feel like this guy's doing such a great job That he doesn't even deserve a challenge. So that's really what made me want to run and to run against him specifically Yeah, that's that's a really great thing to say a lot of people like in Congress they they become complacent They hold fewer and fewer town halls as the years go by and people just get comfortable You think oh, it's a Democrat. So they're gonna represent me, but I mean for someone like that To I mean for one I think that every single politician should commit to wanting to abolish ice But if you can't at a minimum admit to like cutting funds to ice You're irredeemable like your career should be over So I'm so glad that you stepped up like I always like whenever somebody comes on I thank them for running for Congress because it's just such it's such a huge thing to do to put yourself through to kind of Sacrifice your time when you know, you're a regular working American So it's difficult to find time to do this But we have to have people step up politicians have gone on for too long haven't been checked and I'm so glad that people across the country are You know just rising up and they're finally challenging them because these Democrats They benefited from having a D in front of their names and they just kind of felt comfortable But now I think that they're learning we're not going to just accept the status quo We're not going to accept, you know, you barely representing your district and keeping that seat warm. It's unacceptable So I'm so glad that people are starting starting to finally like rise up So I want to learn a little bit about yourself because you have a really robust campaign I've said this before a lot of congressional candidates Have better campaigns than the people running for president Um, a lot of people running for president yours is no different, of course Um, so I wanted you to talk through your campaign and on top of that I wanted you to talk a little bit about yourself because you have like this typical millennial story that I feel like really resonates with people myself included um because you you graduated law school And you couldn't find a job you had to work at five guys. Thankfully you ended up getting a job You're currently an anti-money laundering specialist. So just tell us a little bit about yourself And um a little bit about your platform as well and kind of like how your personal story influenced your current platform because I always think that that's really interesting Yeah, so I think all these things tie in together. So let's just start with uh, the lack of representation, right? My congressman, he has never held a single town hall and is never going to hold one. That's his stated stand So that is off the rip one of the things that really gets my blood boiling about the lack of representation, right? So I grew up in this town And new jersey behaves like a bunch of little kingdoms. They're all these systems where you have a county boss Who controls everything from the board of education up to the senator, right? And I grew up in this system and everybody's a democrat. So you sort of assume everything's okay I go away to college and I Go I went to bu and I start meeting all these leftists and I start getting involved in sort of Progressive politics and learning a lot more I eventually found my way to law school like you said and yeah, I come out of law school and the job market is crappy So what ends up happening is I have to pay for rent. I have needs that need to be fulfilled So yeah, what do I do? I had to take a job at five guys. I'm flipping burgers with uh, you know a jb and Like you said, that's a kind of typical millennial story Being hispanic and sort of like being from this blue collar Community my dad was a blue collar worker his whole life. He was a truck driver. He was a taxi cab driver He did he was a plumber. He was a handyman. He did every blue collar job under the sun And so I've never had this sort of like elitist. Oh, well, I have a degree so I can't do that, right? Like that's just not in my reality. That's not in my work ethic so When times got hard I had to get to doing things and I took a job at five guys You know, I'm flipping burgers for a few months and eventually I was able to find a job How I ended up in anti-money laundering is that while I was in law school I had this wonderful professor. Her name is elizabeth spawn and I really owe everything to her Professor spawn if you're listening. I love you. You are the reason I'm here today And she actually is on a list in china Whenever she goes to china, she's followed around by their government because she's heavy into the anti-corruption space She does a lot of writing about anti-corruption and anti-money laundering in general and what I came to see is that corruption Is the sort of in the backdrop of all the issues that affect us if you're talking about Healthcare if you're talking about education if you're talking about the war machine There's always this person in the background who's pulling these strings and the strings are always money that it's always money And it's never legitimate money. It's always money that they've stolen either or gained Illegitimately and now in their quest to make that money look legitimate They engage in all these corrupt activities that end up really hurting working class people Like me and like the people in my community. So one of the key pillars of our platform is affordable housing, right? Why is it so hard to find affordable housing where I live in hudson county or in new york city, right? What you have is all these developments going up these real estate developers are putting up these high rises these luxury High rises and they cost so much, right? So i'm an attorney, right? I Tend to be doing better than the average person Just because of the position that I hold and even I could absolutely never afford One of these high rises one of these condos no way in hell could I afford these things? So who's affording these things, right? You have all these investors coming in. There was a scandal with trump Bringing paying I think it was about a half a million dollars to get these investors coming in from china you have a lot of Corrupt people trying to bring their money into the united states and so what they'll do is they'll buy up all these High rises they'll buy up all these condos nobody lives there But nobody cares because all the right people are getting paid off so Affordable housing is because of corruption if you go into health care the insurance industries It's because of corruption if you go into almost any issue that progressives are talking about today immigration labor rights Any issue that you go into you eventually come up with a guy with a ton of money who's trying to hide it And that's so interesting and i'm glad that you have this background like i'm never someone on my show My audience knows this who will you know command that anyone running for congress have like the right type of experience and whatnot But I think that it's so Neat that you're an anti money laundering specialist because you kind of see like a behind the you know The curtain look that we all don't really get to see like you understand all of these underlying mechanisms That lead to corruption and I think that probably arms you with more knowledge than most people in congress going in To be able to take on these crooks, which I think is great. So, um, I kind of want to expand the conversation Let's talk a little bit about your worldview very very big question But generally speaking like let's say you're elected to congress Um, what would you hope to fix? Are we looking at structurally uh short term long term? Like what do you want to accomplish? Let's say within your first term and what are like long term goals that you think the left can and should accomplish Great question. So there are a couple big ticket items like, uh Medicare for all that I would jump right on to so promila jaya polls bill and bernie sanders bill is Something that I would start pushing day one. We're gonna get that passed in my first term Beyond that now that we're talking up on the anti money laundering stuff I would be really big on a 21st century glass seagull act a 21st century antitrust act antitrust was one of those really important classes that I took in law school that Again gives you that uh behind the curtain look at what are these mega corporations doing in the background? That is so anti competitive, right? So america's supposed to be this capitalist bastion Free markets, right? But what you don't see what you don't hear that much about is all the monopoly power that exists in our economy Which actually makes it not really much of a free market at all. We're actually living under a bunch of corporate thief dumps corporate masters who Are heavily invested in not having any competition in their market because that'll mess up their bottom line It's the same thing with health care, right? Why is there? Only a few Insurance companies when you look at the insurance market what you have is a bunch of state by state monopolies Which is the reason why we can't get affordable health care in this country. It's one of the big reasons So a 21st century glass seagull I'm really interested in the stock act the stop trading on congressional knowledge acts Because what you also end up seeing is a lot of Politicians will go into congress and they will start regulating an industry, right? Now lo and behold the day that they leave congress They will go into being a lobbyist for that very same industry. So john vaner. I think is the best example It was essentially the tobacco industry's congressman as soon as he left congress He became the tobacco industry's lobbyist So that's something that we really need to cut back on like a hundred percent You have a lot of things very similar to that not quite as blatant, but someone's my background definitely has the tools to buy the sort of lobbyist powers because You know publicly funded elections is another one I'm basically trying to get the money out of politics I guess is the big banner you could put that under but that comes under a lot of Shapes and sizes depending on whether we're talking about electoral politics or whether we're talking about You know in the legislative acts of being uh in congress Yeah, I wanted to ask you because the way that you break down like corruption and the way it works It's really simplistic and it helps people like me understand like I have a very broad sense of like What to look for but you kind of really know all the intricacies and nuances of it So when you talk to people, you know when you're knocking on doors and whatnot What's the response because whenever you see like a populist type of campaign in any country, not just the u.s Anti-corruption is usually like at the top of their agenda because people around the world see that global capitalism has corrupted a lot of Institutions everywhere and I would imagine that the response to that Especially knowing who the incumbent is currently it's got to be like you've got to be making a lot of people You know uh want to jump on board with your campaign, right? Like what's the response? Yeah, well, you know, you're not going to make a lot of news talking about corruption in new jersey, right? It's sort of like a running dope that new jersey is like politically corrupt and there is so much we could touch upon in that regard Specifically with my district, right? So one quick story. I'll tell you about is that um, like I said the part of new jersey where I exist is run like a bunch of systems and my congressman Basically has Go down the line the line is something that we probably will talk about It's a mechanism that the establishment uses to perpetuate itself in new jersey But essentially what you have is that these higher end politicians your senators your congressman Will go down to the local level the police the firefighters the teachers the crossing guards And they basically make them feel as if they are only in their position Because that politician sort of pityed them and gave them a job, right? And so you find a lot of Local teachers who you know get into it for all the right reasons. They love children They want to teach and then a couple months into their job They'll come to find out that they have to go canvassing for their local politician Not kidding and These sorts of things Constantly repeat themselves throughout new jersey politics Uh, these are mechanisms that the establishment uses to continually perpetuate themselves So the response is amazing because people know what's going on It's it's like an open secret, right? Everybody knows what these politicians do There was a story that broke not that long ago about people in a town in my district Where the local party boss had people who lived in different towns had moved away years ago But still maintained an address in that town and they would come back and vote there They lived they usually had another address somewhere else in the district. They'd go there and vote as well So there are all these like really small like Insidious and hard to know about mechanisms that the politicians use To perpetuate themselves and to keep themselves in office and a lot of people are really sick of it It's not a secret everybody knows about it and a lot of people are just sick of that and they are ready for change The reception has been tremendous every single day. I've got my dms are blowing up with people like, oh my god I can't believe someone's really going to challenge the boss because that's that's essentially who i'm challenging I'm challenging the county boss And you know, it's a great risk Nobody thinks that anyone would ever do something like this So just the fact that someone's doing it the reception is really good That's awesome. I see and I think that it resonates with people because for members of congress There's this sense of entitlement like they are the ones who are elected there And if you want to be the next person, you've got to wait your turn You've got to pull all the right strings get to know all the right people and it's so frustrating And to see someone kind of like buck that type of orthodoxy if you will it's really nice um So I want to ask you because you you kind of touched on something that I think makes up a lot of the issues that Americans have with congress So people don't want to take action That help them get elected. So an example is health care, of course, you know A lot of democrats and republicans, but democrats specifically who don't support medicare for all They take money from private health insurers big pharma and then in turn they don't support policies like medicare for all And this is specifically because you know, if they support that policy Then all that donations go away and that reduces the chance that they get elected because if you want to get elected in america or reelected You need money. So my question for you is strategically speaking How do you convince them if that's even possible? Like do you think you can basically Put democrats in a headlock, you know, your colleagues if you get elected and get them to come on board with policies Like medicare for all or do you actually have to support primary challenges? Like what do you think is the best way because I kind of feel like it's in, you know, all Kitchen sink approach. Let's do all of that. But I don't necessarily know what will actually be conducive to victory So what's kind of your plan going in? okay, so I kind of shy away from what conducive to victory because nobody knows What's going to win here, right? We have to do everything we can so I support all the primary challengers You mentioned the other new jersey Primary challengers that you had on russ and zina who I know well and who I'm completely behind But yes When we're in office, we do have to so this is from my anti-corruption career But you have to name and shame them, right? So we have to say This person is taking money from this industry A great one from new jersey is somebody who's running for president quarry boker Someone who I don't support personally because he takes a ton of money from the pharmaceutical industry And that's been well known in jersey for a very long time. So yeah, you have to name and shame them You have to say this person takes money from this industry and that's why they won't vote the way that they should Yeah, and I love that naming and shaming. I think it's important And the reason why like we don't see more of that is because like nobody can really name and shame in congress because they're all corrupt Like aoc yeah, they're all doing Yeah aoc can name and shame, but like if you're let's say you're in congress and you're donald norcross another corrupt Politician from new jersey. He can't who is he gonna name and shame because he's just as corrupt as everyone else. Oh, yeah He's gonna name himself Exactly. So it's like this is why nothing is getting done because they're all bought and paid for Albeit, you know, maybe from different industries and whatnot But nobody wants to you know, call out corruption because if you're participating in it Then you're a hip upgrade and you don't want that to Get turned around on you. So it's frustrating. So this is why I think like for the first time I feel like cautiously optimistic I stress the cautious because so many people are like standing up and running for congress like I remember back in 2016 When I just started the humanist report, I could count like the number of progressives primarying Uh other democrats like on one hand now It's impossible to keep track and I've brought on like almost 30 people on the program including yourself now So it's it's so exciting because it feels like Finally, there's this sense that America is waking up But my question to you is and this is something that I genuinely don't know the answer to How do we keep the movement sustained? I oftentimes try to like come up with these good hypotheticals like, you know, let's say Bernie's elected and you're in congress What can we achieve? But I kind of want to get a little bit grim for a moment if you're if you'll indulge Um, so let's say the worst case scenario happens. Um, let's say that we lose in 2020 and trump is reelected How do we keep the movement like galvanized because that's one thing that I'm worried about like Demoralization and just apathy and cynicism. It makes it really difficult Like it's a huge barrier and I don't think that people talk about that enough So how do you keep this momentum going even if it feels like, you know, the situation is hopeless Just from your experience because you're an organizer. You're an activist So what would you say to that because I genuinely don't know it's hard to like keep people um, you know Feeling encouraged on my show when it's like I report bad news after bad news after bad news. So what do you what would you say? Yeah, no, that's a very legit question And I think what we're doing now is that we have a plan for the alternative, right? So Yeah, we're always planning for yet a 2020 bernie gets elected There's a progressive sweep of all congress and we're all in office, right? But I think aoc is actually the model for this is that when you're in that position of power You don't let your foot off the gas. We can't get complacent, right? Because in a lot of ways complacency is what brought us trump, right? All this complacency about the obama years and sort of feeling like oh, we won we won the ideological war The right has been defeated and you know, rainbows and butterflies forever That is what got us trumped because that opens the floodgates for people to organize And to fight back against us. So I think aoc and the squad in general They are the model for what we're doing. They have not let their foot off the gas They've been you know causing mayhem left and right and we're loving it and that's what we have to do, right? Worst case scenario everybody loses 2020 trump has reelected worst case scenario, right? What we do is that we get out in the streets the very next day. We apply pressure We make phone calls, you know, it's it's basically a continuation of the energy that's going on now Because there is a tremendous amount of progressive energy out there And it's going to go somewhere in that worst case scenario, right? Those people are not going to just poof out of existence. They're going to be somewhere. They're going to have priorities There are So many groups that I speak to on a daily basis that have been sort of doing this long slog for a long time when it I mean, if it's uh domestic workers, right if it's gun violence These are people that have been in the trenches fighting these fights for a long time with no fame and no glory And just the sweat on their brow and these little victories that they can pick together. So worst case scenario Talk to people in our communities and let them know that we're not going to go away because they're not going to go away And these problems are not going to go away. So Just applying the pressure and not letting your foot off the gas. I think is the best Sort of contingency plan. Yeah, I would agree with that You know, it's um, it's easy to kind of see where we went wrong At least for myself because like you said, we were complacent after obama. I think generally speaking You know, for me, I was in college. I was working at blockbuster and subway while in college and it's like, okay He's elected. I could just kind of hang out now, but that's not really the way the politics works That's not the way that change happens. And then you do kind of see You know these little windows of opportunity. We had the occupy movement and now with the bernie sanders movement I think that what he created will persist throughout the years. I really do feel confident about that And like you said, it really it comes down to leadership from progressives like aoc that we now have that we didn't really have before Who are very visible and I think that really does make a difference like having people represent a movement It does help. Um, so let me ask you this by now. Anyone who's watching is going to be convinced They're gonna want to support you. So what can we do to make sure you are elected? Give us your pitch and tell us what we can do and where to go Well, if you want to support you can go to my website, which is also get out 2020 my last name also get out 2020.com Please donate sign up to volunteer if you live in new jersey anywhere in new jersey Specifically in my district. Please look me up. I'm very responsive on social media Someone from my team will get back to you where you know, this is going to be a push of all of us So if you're interested if you care about these issues, please sign up Donate uh sign up to volunteer sign up to canvas with us. We'll be canvassing and elizabeth on saturday We have a meet and greet and we halk in next week. We're just you know, really hitting the campaign trail hard We're not going to leave this up to chance. This is a campaign to win We're fighting to defeat the democratic establishment. That is what this is about and if that's something that people are interested in I you know, I will beg you to sign up Do anything you can to push this movement along Absolutely. Well, we will leave that there hector. Thank you so much for coming on the program. It's been a pleasure We will be watching and rooting for you, man Thank you so much my pleasure