 CodePink Congress. I'm the coordinator for CodePink Congress, and I'm pleased to be here with my co-host, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, and Hami Oshadad Barnes, PDA Muslim Alliance. And tonight we have a very exciting program with Congresswoman Katie Porter, who's expected to join us in a moment, and the executive director for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Michael Darner, as well as keen body policy analyst with the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Before we get started, though, we are going to give a few updates. So, Medea, you want to start with that? Yes, sure. Well, a big update on the Israel-Palestine. We were so excited to see AOC and 14 other members of the House signing on to this resolution to put a hold on the weapons sales to Israel, and then Bernie Sanders doing it on the Senate side. But then the word just came out now that the State Department has already granted the export license for these weapons to go to Israel. And so those two resolutions are no longer viable, but there will be other chances as we go forward to try to stop weapon sales and get our Congress people on record. And of course, we do have the Betty McCollum bill that we will still be pushing. Thank you, yes. And I wanted to add that Code Pink has a terrific page, and we're going to put, or maybe Mary Wynch has a chance, can put that link or Allie in the chat that Allie has worked on that has a lot of actions we can take to express solidarity with Palestine and that there were 500 Biden staffers, campaign workers, Democratic Party staffers who signed a letter urging him to do more to protect Palestinian human rights. Honey, is there anything you wanted to add? Sure, I would give a quick update on Iran. Obviously, that's something I do follow closely as well. We're entering the fifth round of talks at the moment with regards to sanctions. The last time there was a conversation, we knew that 700 of the 1500 sanctions were being lifted. The Iranian National Guard was added to a terrorist group or deemed a terrorist group by the Trump administration. So those sanctions on our National Guard, which I think consists of about 800, are subject to more studies to see whether they will be lifted or not. Just to quickly add on to this thing about Palestine, this movement on Palestine, I think that I am very proud to see the solidarity within our progressive movement and our allies, not only in Congress, but organizations who have come together to really support Resolution HR 49 by Representative Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Sanders. I would say the conversation shouldn't stop here. We're going to continue to move forward until all of us are free and Palestinians have the very basic human rights. I'm not sure if... We also wanted to mention that there is a big march on Saturday in Washington, D.C. for anybody who can make it at the Lincoln Memorial at 3 o'clock. And it should be very big. We're excited about that. And just to show the momentum, there were, I think, over 300 organizations that signed on opposing the weapons sales. And people have been doing arms control kind of work, so they've never seen so many organizations that signed on to this and so quickly. So momentum is changing from the bottom up, but the last ones to change are the ones who hold the purse strings and are in the White House. But that's it. We have stadium yet. No, not yet. I did want to add that Biden is expected to release his budget, his more detailed budget this Friday, the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. Code Pink will be releasing... We'll send out a press release in response to that. Medea and I have been working on an article which should be published by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft tomorrow on entitled Nuclear Rearmament. Who is driving this and why are they so dangerous? And next week, next Tuesday, we'll have William Hartung, an arms control expert on with us to talk more about that issue and what we can do. So I don't see Katie yet. Why don't we go ahead with... Start with Michael. And Michael, I know you're flexible if she comes on. I hope you don't mind if we give her the floor and then return to you as that sounds. Okay. We are very excited to have Michael Darner with us tonight. Michael is the executive director of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Prior to that, Michael was the legislative director for Congressman John Conyers. He's also an election specialist, election protection specialist. So welcome, Michael. If you could maybe talk for about seven minutes, we'll ask some questions and we'll learn more about what your objectives are and goals for the year. Absolutely. Well, it's lovely to be with everybody here and we really appreciate the invite, but Keen and I really appreciate all the incredible activism I see a lot of friends on this call. So it's awesome to be with you. So I thought I would just start off a little bit by sort of like laying out the playing field as the progressive caucus sees it for this Congress. Michael, before you lay that out, we actually have some, Katie Porta just joined us. So if it's okay with you, Katie, are you there? I am. Terrific. Welcome. I'm Marcy Winograd, my co-host or honey is your dad Barnes. He's one of your constituents and Medea Benjamin and honey would like to introduce you properly before we turn it over. Okay. I am such a fan girl, Katie, and it's truly an honor to have this opportunity to introduce you. California Congresswoman Katie Porter is the deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. She also chairs the oversight and investigation subcommittee where she leads efforts to hold polluters accountable. It's an honor to be in the same space with you. Please take the floor. All right. Thank you so much, everybody. I hope you can hear me. My daughter is watching Simpsons in the background. So if you feel a little bit like I'm shouting at you, you can just consider yourself one of the family. But thank you so much tonight for the introduction. And thank you to everyone for being here. I'm delighted to be talking with you a little bit about what we've been doing in the Congressional Progressive Caucus to try to strengthen the energy that we are seeing new members and existing members and how we keep refreshing and resetting the caucus both as the problems that American and the world need us to think about change, but also as the people within the Congressional Progressive Caucus change. So in December, I was elected deputy chair. That is the number two slat. It was by far and away my favorite election of the whopping three that I've been part of because this was the only one in which I did not have to beat out a major Republican challenger in order to win. In fact, I ran in a post. So it was my favorite election. And I work very, very closely with our chair, Pramila Jayapal. And for those of you, I'm sure you all know Pramila. She was co-chair with Mark Pokan. He is rotated off and working now on the other side with our PAC. And so Pramila is in that sole chair. That decision was really to make the CPC have the same leadership structure as other caucuses. And so Mike and Keenan and so many other people on here, when they need a quick decision, they only have to track down one person, Pramila. And that is helpful to making our caucus more nimble and more effective. We have a terrific leadership team. In addition to Ilhan Omar continuing his whip and then my role as the deputy chair, we have some terrific new members including Maureen Newman, who's been doing great work on communications for us, trying to consolidate and make as consistent as we can with progressives. Some of the messaging that we're doing and fabulous people like my personal favorite new member of Congress, Mondaire Jones. I think new members are kind of like children. You're not supposed to have favorites, but my favorite is Mondaire. And so he's just really, really terrific. And he's been helping both with the CPC, but also with a leadership role engaging with the speaker and others. And that's really, really important. We've depended on Barber Lee. I think Mike would agree for a lot of years to be a consistent voice to House leadership on the Democratic side. And we need to keep adding the members who have that capacity and that ability. So that's really, really exciting. So the Congressional Progressive Caucus represents just a little under half of the House Democrats. And one of the things that Mike has gotten to preside over, and I was lucky enough to come to Congress when it was already on the wane, was really kind of the demise of what used to be called the blue dogs. What do they call themselves now, Mike? The New Americans. Problem solvers, blue dogs, yeah. Yeah, but they still have an official blue dog caucus. So in his shrunk way down, the new Democrats, like sort of broken it to. And that smaller group of blue dogs, I think there's eight or nine people. It's quite small. And so they've really do most of their work, as Mike mentioned in conjunction with the Problem Solvers, which is a bipartisan group in which Democrats and Republicans work in tandem. And I have to say, I think this is self is progress. I find the Problem Solvers, they have their moments. But the concept of beginning to build relationships with Republicans so that we can make the things that should be bipartisan bipartisan is really, really a different project. That's what the Problem Solvers are engaged in. It's a really different project than advocating that the entire Democratic Party ought to go to the middle or ought to go to the right. And that was the purpose of the of the old blue dogs. And so I think that there are a number of numbers of the Problem Solvers who are new Democrats, some of whom are aligned with us on a lot of issues. So Hailey Stevens is an example from Michigan. She's not a member of the Progressive Caucus, but she does a lot. And she's a Problem Solver, but she does a lot in conjunction with the Progressive Caucus. And she's an ally on a lot of our issues. So I think moving that group to truly being bipartisan, rather than being a very difficult wing of the Democratic Party that was trying to haul everyone to the center is helpful. I think one of the things that, you know, I think that I'm often given as an example of is as someone who ran as a progressive in a red district and one, there are three frontliners. I'm not the only one. It's me, my colleague in Orange County, Mike Levin, and my terrific colleague in New Jersey, Andy Kim. And if you, you know, Mike and I will see what happens with the district thing. His district has been historically more Democratic than the one I represent. But we're making strides. So we'll see what happens in Orange County. Andy Kim is going to need your help no matter what, because that area of New Jersey is just tough. So I encourage you all to consider inviting Andy to come talk to you if you haven't. He's terrific. And talk about a person who really understands the mission of peace and what it takes to create the conditions to moving toward a path of peace around the world. So I, if I have a favorite, you know, 2018 member that I've rediscovered in the 117th Congress who would be Andy Kim. So there are a couple of us. I think we need to continue to grow the and push back. I think we need to continue to grow the number of frontliners who are members of the Progressive Caucus, but even more importantly, to not allow anyone, including sometimes house leadership and the media and others, to claim that there is inherent, permanent, irreconcilable conflict between majority makers and those of us who flip seats and the values of the Progressive Caucus. And Pramila has done something here that I just want to highlight to you all as a terrific example of this. I'm a supporter of Medicare for All. Obviously, Pramila is a wonderful champion on that issue leading away. And one of the things Pramila did was reach out and engage some members like Jared Golden and Connor Lamb, who represent respectively Maine and Pennsylvania, traditionally Republican districts, they both flip seats, they're frontliners, they have tough races. And they are the people who accompanied Pramila to the White House to argue for the expansion of Medicare, lowering the age and expanding the services, because they support the cause. So I think we have to both think about how does our caucus come together as a body to be more effective, but also making sure that our caucus doesn't silo itself from opportunities to say, you know, for instance, we are big, I'm speaking for the CPC here, this is really me, but I think it's safe to say that Pramila and I anyway are big, big fans of lowering the price of prescription drugs. That is an issue that a lot of people in conservative seats flip those seats on that promise to lower the cost of prescription drugs. That's an issue that they can run on and win on in the toughest districts in the country. So there's a natural partnership there between the progressive caucus and our commitment to taking on big pharma, to calling out corporate abuse, to fighting for an equal and just healthcare system. And some of these frontline members who represent districts that are disproportionately rural, older, who need tangible improvements in the lives of their constituents to be able to win. And I think those are the kinds of connections that we're able to be able to bring together. We did make some changes to our caucus. And so one of the things that we attempted to do was to define a little bit, what does it mean to be a member of the progressive caucus? And the first and most important principle that I think that we brought to bear on this, and there was a wonderful group of members who worked on this project, was the idea that to be a progressive means to ask the hard questions and to take on the tough fights. It isn't looking for the path of least resistance. Now it doesn't mean picking every fight, but it does mean having a certain amount of courage, courage of your convictions, courage to stand up to corporate power, courage to try to change our political democracy to make it more reflective and fair, change to try to encourage our economy to make sure it really gives opportunity for all. And then what we did is create a set of bills that reflect collectively our main principles as progressives. And that includes fighting for peace around the, trying to advocate for peace around the world, diplomacy, demilitarization, those things. It also includes the economic issues that I mentioned, things like expanding Medicare for All, prescription drug pricing, and then also includes issues working on structural racism and immigration and law enforcement and a bunch of those issues, justice and law enforcement. So within those three buckets, we then came up with a core group of bills. And the requirement is that you have to support. But I think we give people a full year to do this. You have to co-sponsor, I believe it's 75% of those bills. So yes, you can be in the Progressive Caucus and not support Medicare for All. We have a real debate about that. You can currently be in the Progressive Caucus and not support the Green New Deal. We had a real debate about that. But you know what you can't do? I see you, Dr. Bill. You know what you can't do? Be in the Progressive Caucus and not support Squat. So you can take a pass on one of these things, but you can't be somebody who wants to be a Progressive but doesn't back any of the bills. So there are members. I was not on the Green New Deal last caucus. I'm on it this caucus. I had a really successful collaboration with AOC and my building trades so that they are, I'm not going to say they're proud of me for being on the Green New Deal, but they understand that my commitment is to create good high-paying green energy jobs and that I understand the risk of de-unionization that can come with industry transformation. So we continue to have this debate about what are the right boundaries? Is there a litmus test to be a Progressive? And the conclusion of the caucus was no, but there is a sense of self-identity that we need to have and a sense of shared value so that we can work together as an effective advocacy organization. And you know Code Pink has values. You have things you fight for. You know what it means to be a Code Pink member. You may debate about some of it, but there's some core principles that you're working for. Now the Progressive Caucus has those and they're taking the form of both this platform of three big buckets of issues, economic issues, social justice issues, and fighting for diplomacy and peace around the world. I think I got the three buckets right, Mike. So those three buckets, but then also has these tangible bills so we can hold people accountable. So oh, you're not on any of the Progressive bills. We're going to gently ask those people to find a caucus where they might belong better. And what's been interesting is do you know how many people have left? So that really shows that if you try to organize people and focus them, that actually what you end up with is just a more organized focus group. You don't end up with a split in the caucus. We are more united than we were. And I'm not going to tell you who the member is, but I'll just say this. I don't begrudge that member at all. That person continues to be an ally on many issues and simply chose to be a member of a caucus where they felt more comfortable. That's not a bad thing. What's a bad thing is having half of our members working to undermine us while we're trying to work. That's the problem that we can't have as effective advocates. And so I think it's been extremely successful. I think it has helped focus our CPC members to be more consistent across conversations on their committees, in conversations with media, in conversations with their constituents. I think it has been a very, very successful thing. And I think one of the things we did in creating this structure was also really alert people to, hey, the progressive caucus is not someplace to show up once a year and get like a free day at Coke. We're like a real organization here. And so we've been doing more surveys of members, more effort. So recently we set out a survey asking people, which of these ideas to invest, to generate revenue, to invest in our economy, do you not support? And notice how we framed that. We assume you're with us. What do you not support? And I think those whip questions and that engagement has been much more steady this Congress than last Congress. And I think is producing really good outcomes. So that is my generic take on how it's going in CPC. But I think we're doing a great job. And I think we have work to do. We know that. And I think our hardest battles are sometimes not the ones we fight on the other side of the aisle, but to navigate with people who can be allies on some issues and enemies on others. And that was a tricky one to walk. Thank you so much. There are a lot of questions in the chat. So I hope you can stay with us a little bit longer. We're going to start out with the question about your bill to end taxpayer welfare for oil subsidies, oil companies, rather oil and gas and why that's important. And there are quite a few questions about Israel, Palestine that we do want to get to as well. And so with regard to the ending taxpayer welfare for oil and gas, this is a bill that has bipartisan support in the Senate. Senator Grassley is the lead Republican on this bill in the Senate, because he actually has the history of standing up to waste from abuse and fighting for taxpayers. Now it's not always been put to good end. But what's interesting to me about this bill is that I cannot find a Republican in the House. And that says something about where the Republican caucus is in the House, that I have multiple things I'm working on where I have a Republican in the Senate and not not the most moderate Republican. I have people like Senator Grassley, who have the Senate companion bill and I can't get a House Republican. But what this bill would do is raise the rental rate for onshore oil and gas drilling. And that rate has not been changed in 100 years. And the federal rate is roughly half to drill on federal land that we all collectively own is roughly half of what it is to drill on state land, including in deep our big fossil fuel producing states like Texas. So this bill would raise that rental rate and also modernize the bonding system for oil and gas well so that what they do now is the bonds are have not changed price in 100 years. So they're not commensurate with the actual costs of cleanup. And these oil and gas entities form little LLCs each for each LLC each drill has one little entity. They drill they extract fossil fuel, then they make that little LLC go bankrupt and poof there's nobody on the help for the cleanup cost but the taxpayers. So that's the idea behind this bill is to use the fiscal system as a tool to make sure that fossil fuel companies are actually internalizing the full cost of fossil fuel extraction and that will help put us on a level playing field with regard to clean energy development. With regard to Israel and Palestine, such a difficult situation, both in terms of what is happening there but also the way it is played out within Congress. And you know I think one of the things that is really painful about Donald Trump. You should just fuck a bitch. Please mute yourself. I'm not kidding. Mary, can you mute everybody else? I am. Yeah, yeah. We have a bomber. Oh, fuck me, daddy. Fuck me, daddy. Oh, fuck me. Okay. Yeah, specifically, Katie, they're asking if the caucus will oppose the weapons. 700. I am so sorry about that, everyone. So, okay, thank you. So with regard to Israel and Palestine, you know, I think that one of the hardest parts about this is acknowledging that the part of the Trump legacy is going to be years and years and years of rebuilding, not just diplomacy, but some of the foundational elements that you need to have in place before you can have diplomacy. So things like, you know, closing the East Jerusalem consulate office, closing the PLO office in Washington, all of these things, these are preconditions to beginning to have conversation about things. I have said that, and I think this is very, very important as a starting premise, that every dollar we give an aid to any country, including Israel, should come with the requirement that that money not be spent in violation of international or U.S. law, including the Leahy law. So that is not about creating, that's not about Israel per se. That is a general statement of our foreign policy, and it's the only rule that you can actually have. So to say that we cannot expect people who take U.S. aid to follow U.S. law is simply not a tenable position. Now, the question here is, with this particular sale of weapons and how we think about this, that's a little bit harder question, because part of the decision here is the Republicans are waiting, and you saw this today if you saw what Kevin McCarthy said, the Republicans are using Israel and the specter of anti-Semitism, not to fight for the rights of all people to be treated equally, including Jewish people, but they are using it as a political divider to try to weaken the Democratic Party. And so there is a need for us not to be sucked into what are Republican traps that are being sent for us. So I think that it is entirely appropriate for us to say that we ought to consider and reconsider and have discussions about our military aid to Israel and how that aid is being used and whether it is being used in ways that are consistent with U.S. law. I also think that it's important not to have a reaction that actually worsens the problem. And so that is not a perfectly happy answer in the sense that it's a difficult situation and the timing of seeing weapons potentially being approved and being sold in U.S. aid going to Israel and a time in which Israel is engaging in hostilities is really a difficult unpleasant situation. But I also think we don't want to play into the Republicans' hands on this one, and they are banking on it. And I will tell you, Mike probably remembers, but I don't remember at times, I've only been in Congress three years, in which motions to recommit were not almost always about Israel. So rather than a motion to recommit to address making a bill more in line with Republican policy, they simply, they simply just whip out something with regard to Israel and anti-Semitism and attempt to create a wedge, not just within the Democratic caucus, but within the progressive caucus in particular. So that is something that we are trying, you know, we've called for a ceasefire, premella brought out a good statement. We have a lot of members in different places on this issue, but I think it's important that we are clear that a blank check with no conditions on the spending just simply isn't consistent with U.S. law. We just, we have a law in the books, we've had it there forever called the Leahy Law. We have to continue to follow that or we have to amend it. Judy, judging from the comments in the chat, people would love to see the congressional progressive caucus push for an end to those weapons sales. And some have said, you know, there are also progressives who may feel that they are not compelled to vote in the next election because if they don't see progressives in Congress standing up. So that's, those are some of the comments. No, and I think that is, that this is a very live debate that we are having. And I think there's a question of both our values, which I think we share in our caucus. And then there's a question of strategy about how and when we push. And I think that is, you know, I just see that tension all the time every day. And there, the constant refrain is don't do this now, don't do this now delay. And we have to balance the costs of that in terms of our energy and our grassroots support against the fact that there are a lot of issues where we waited and waited. And I never thought we'd get there, but boom, we got there. And if you had told me that if you said five years ago that the house was going to pass twice a bill with a public finance matching option and a bill that, you know, contain the gerrymandering provisions and all of that of HR one. If you were told me five years ago we're going to have 70 members who didn't take corporate PAC money, I would have laughed at you. And yet here we find ourselves. So there is a time and a place, I think, to push and, you know, the American public's understanding of the situation, which is informed by listening to the voices of Palestinian people, as well as of people living in Israel, both Jewish, Arab, and other. There's a divergence, I think, between where the American people are on this issue and where the Congress is. And I think President Biden knows that and is trying to communicate that to the government of Israel and to Netanyahu. And I also have to say, you know, I'm not a big fan of Netanyahu. Like, I don't like the man, but can I say that we should just be like, Israel, they elected a bad leader. Shit, we elected Donald Trump people. So we have to, like, there will be a new leader in Israel and hopefully a leader who honors some of the international rules, international laws and policies that allow the preconditions for peace and the preconditions for prosperity and security and the well-being of people in Gaza and in the Palestinian territories to flourish. And we are not there right now. That is not the leader we have in Israel. And so there's a sense of which we need to try to support Israel, collecting a leader with a different mindset. And how can we best as a country make that happen? Katie, thank you. There are a lot of comments in the chat. So what I'm going to do after this is I'll send you the chat. You can, you know, see what people are, you know, their responses. A lot of them want to see a state where everybody's equal, equal rights, you know, are not a Jewish majority. But those are some of the comments. I do want to ask you about some of the immigration and the Green New Deal, those bills. What are the, what are our chances? And can we keep, I mean, there's so many questions, can we keep Pentagon money out of the infrastructure bill? I hope so. We don't have any drafting of this infamous bill. Mike and I were talking about this, like, every time we talk to a committee chair and we ask them, and you know, we don't have a lot of progressive committee chairs, we have a couple. But every time we ask them, what are you going to support? They say, well, I'll support whatever we put together. Well, what's that going to be? Like we're trying to tell you that we want ARV or C in it and you're saying, I'll get back to you when I know what's in it and you're going to have to vote, you know, take it or leave it. So I think one of our problems has been during COVID and it was existed before COVID is trying to get leadership and the committee chairs to give us, bill contours if not language sooner so that we can then have time to look at them strategize and figure out where there are problems. What is infrastructure that's actually going to DOD and how can we assess whether that money is going to be spent and whether it's truly consistent with infrastructure? The military is the largest user of fossil fuels in the US military. So they need to be part of the solution. And fossil fuel reduction and greening of the military is a really, really important strategy. We're not going to be able to make the progress we need to make without doing that. So there may be places where, if we're talking about moving toward green energy development, that it would be appropriate to have DOD related funding. But that is a far cry from what we so often see, which is defense industry lobbyists swooping in and simply adding pork to weapons programs. And there's no space for that in this bill, in my opinion. This bill is about jobs and families. That is what the bill is about. So I think about it as being about work and workers. That's the criteria. The criteria that this bill needs to meet to get into this bill isn't are they infrastructure or not. It's are they things that will help set our economy on a path to stable economic growth with opportunity for prosperity for every American? That's the criterion. And so to the extent that we need our military to become greener as a way of doing that, fine. But I've seen this playbook from the defense. I mean, this is where I just want to say like Barbara Lee, like she has seen this so many times and she is so over it. And it is so wonderful to see her tackle these issues again. Thank you so much, Katie. I know that you only have a limited number of minutes to spend with us. And we really appreciate your presence here tonight. And as I said, we will be sending you the chats. You can see the comments and a recording of the show, which we always post on YouTube. And again, thank you so much. And, honey, I think wanted to say something special. Oh, absolutely. I look forward to working together with you, Representative Porter, as your constituent. And as a Middle Eastern, I look forward to working together on issues like Palestine and Human Rights for Palestinian. So yeah, when I appreciate I've been looking through the chat and I appreciate and I will just tell you every minute of every day reflects this level of compassion for the people of Gaza, this level of commitment to peace. But we hear there are a lot of views on this from a lot of constituents. And it is one on which we have to find a way to both fight for our values, but also in a way that bring us along as many allies as we can. And so this is a particularly painful, tough issue for so many people. And I felt better when I heard Andy Kim speak the other day. And he said, I spent my whole life as a diplomat in the Middle East. And I don't have the answers to these questions. But he has some things he thinks we ought to be going in the right direction of. And I think that I appreciate you all your passion and your advocacy and your efforts to hold people, including me, accountable on this issue. I really, really do. Well, thank you so much. And I know Alan Minsky and Danette and Dr. Bill are with us tonight. And perhaps Dan and Neil, also from Progressive Democrats America, and they're very interested in working with you to support your efforts as well. And we'll be calling about your bill tonight during our capital calling portion. And we urge everybody to stay with us to support Katie's bill, mobilize co-sponsors to end the taxpayer welfare for oil and gas. So thank you so much, Katie. We're going to now. Thank you. Thank you. Everybody can unmute. Thank, thank Katie. Thank you. Thank you, Katie. Thank you. Bye. All right. It's now my pleasure to introduce Michael Darner. I introduced him earlier, but hey, I'm going to do it again. I'm Marcy Winnigrad, Coordinator, Codepin Congress. Now it's my great pleasure to introduce Michael Darner, who is the Executive Director of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, formerly the Legislative Director for Congressman John Conyers. Welcome, Michael. You have about seven, eight minutes. But we need to unmute Michael first. Ah, there we go. Fabulous. Well, always hard to follow up. Katie Porter, one of our most dynamic and amazing members. So she actually did a fabulous job talking a little bit about the ways in which the Progressive Caucus has reorganized itself to be ready for this governing moment here in the 117th Congress. And I think what might be most helpful is I can tell you a little bit about some of the key areas where we're looking to take advantage of this moment, to think about where we can use this trifecta of a very slim Democratic majority in the Senate, a slim Democratic majority in the House, and a Democratic president in the White House to hopefully enact some real reforms and improvements for peace and justice. You know, I've been working on the Hill since 2008. One of my first jobs when I worked for Congressman John Conyers from Michigan was he asked me to put together an out of Afghanistan caucus. And I worked on that with Norman Solomon from Progressive Democrats of America and the late great Tom Hayden. And it's amazing that we're in this moment now where we have a president in the White House who's committed to ending that war. And that's a key focus for the Progressive Caucus to lean in and support the president where he's going to take bold stances to end conflict and occupation and promote the cause of peace. So we're very excited to support efforts to end this war by September 11th of this year and remove all of our troops, also very supportive of the president's efforts to rejoin the Iran deal. We think that's critically important and we're very supportive of that. We know it's been a little bit slow getting back to the negotiating table and rejoining the deal, but we are hopeful that we're in a good place to do that. And then, you know, we're trying to think about the bills that come up every year, the bills that touch on issues of the military industrial complex and how we choose to spend our national resources as a country, whether on domestic investments or on the military. So we're very focused on the defense bill, which will be coming up, we think, a little bit later than usual in September, the defense authorization, and then also the defense appropriations bill as a part of our appropriations process. And one of the things that's really exciting is having this trifecta, having unified democratic control of government, means that we have the possibility of making law in many key areas, but it's challenging. You know, while every member of the Progressive Caucus, I think, supports policies that we think are right and just, you know, related to, you know, dramatically cutting the military budget, we know that there aren't 218 votes for that in the House. And so one of our challenges is to think of the governing moment and think of what can we do where we can get the most progressive policy that can still get the votes of a majority of the Senate, a majority of the House, and can be signed into law by the President. And that's really what we're focused on. And we actually have a great track record of doing that. Two years ago, the Progressive Caucus really focused on making the defense authorization as progressive as it could possibly be. And we actually passed amendments through the House that cut off funding for any unauthorized military conflict with Iran, that cut off funding for sending military grade equipment to police and local law enforcement through the 1033 program that ended, functionally ended the war in Yemen, ended U.S. support for the war in Yemen. We passed all of these things through the House in the defense authorization. And unfortunately, they died in the Senate. And they died in the Senate mainly because we have President Trump in the White House, who was not supportive of any of these things. And frankly, we had, I think, Democrats in the Senate who knew that because the President wouldn't sign a bill like this, they weren't willing to fight for these things. And so this is the challenge we've taken upon ourselves to say let's see if we can actually make progress on these things. Let's see if we can actually govern, let's see if we can actually enact some progressive policy into law this year. So we're hopeful to do that. I want to turn it over to my colleague, Keen Bhatt, who I think you all know, who is a brilliant foreign policy mind. And we'll be happy to take your questions if that's useful. Terrific. Thank you so much, Michael. Really appreciate you being with us today. Medea is going to introduce Keen now, but we can't hear you, Medea. We had to tighten security a bit because of what happened earlier, so I just asked her to unmute herself. So wonderful. Well, Keen Bhatt is the policy director for the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Before that, he was communications director and policy advisor to our beloved Bernie Sanders. And he focuses on foreign policy, including Congress's constitutional authority over war, global poverty alleviation, humanitarian impact of US policy abroad. I've known Keen for many years. I know some of the things that aren't in his bio, like he makes a mean Indian dinner, and he is a fabulous salsa dancer, but I know he worked so hard that he probably doesn't do any of that anymore. So Keen, thank you so much for being with us and please unmute him. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Medea, for that generous introduction, maybe overly generous. And obviously, delighted to be with all of you grassroots activists who are helping to transform this country and to help transform the world towards greater peace and justice and military restraint. And obviously, it's a real honor to be able to accompany Katie Porter, our deputy chair, and who's been doing incredible organizing within the caucus to make it more powerful and more nimble, and Mike as well, who's a longtime friend and mentor and has been helming a lot of these major changes that Representative Porter was speaking to, to kind of really think tactically. And I think that that brings us to just jumping off of what Mike was discussing, because this is the first time that I've witnessed the progressive caucus in such a nimble and dynamic and really engaged posture, willing to take on real fights and to build power and to enact meaningful policy. So I'm going to lay out just a few additional policy areas that I think are ripe for activist involvement and where there is momentum in Congress. There's potential momentum in the administration, you know, post-Trump areas that may have been underlooked, but which could certainly benefit from all of your energies and interest. And the way that I'm thinking about this is, you know, how U.S. policy can advance the greatest amount of kind of benefits for the world right now. And most immediately, some of these kinds of policies include, you know, the kind of alarming tendency towards a potential of global vaccine apartheid. That's something that threatens not just, you know, millions of deaths from COVID directly, but through increases in economic instability, poverty, food insecurity and hunger. It can threaten many tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of more. And so this is a really profound moment that we can draw on the lessons of how widespread and global this pandemic was to come up with global solutions, cooperation and solidarity. And I think that a very promising opening was created with the work of a lot of our members led by Congressman Jen Shkowsky, along with representatives Dogget, Doloro, Levin, Espayot and others, to basically pressure the administration to do something unprecedented, which is to support a waiver proposed by India and South Africa to these very rigid rules of intellectual property and patent monopolies that have been depriving a lot of the global South from access to the recipe and the technology to produce vaccines for the world. And this was a really remarkable kind of a decision by the United States to go ahead and support this effort by India, South Africa and 100 other poor and low income and medium income countries. And I think that there's a lot more that we can build on them with the promise, as I mentioned, of alleviating this pandemic, ending it much more quickly, preventing the, you know, prolonged kind of exposure of COVID, where it can mutate and potentially, you know, generate vaccine resistant strains and, you know, basically improve the global economy to minimize a lot of the economic harms that have been inflicted on so many innocent lives. And so some next steps that a lot of members in Congress are thinking about right now are include working and pushing the administration to support technology transfer. And that is to say that some of the vaccine production is so proprietary in the process that just having the availability of the vaccine recipe isn't sufficient to improve the production. And so that's an area in which the U.S. has an enormous number of tools, including U.S. kind of control over particular patents that it can be using to leverage licensing agreements that expand that production across the globe and sharing that technology and the industrial processes to make that a reality. And to mass produce these vaccines using the Defense Production Act and other kinds of tools that were first kind of brought into public consciousness under Donald Trump, to really kind of, you know, show what the U.S. is capable of and to show that, you know, we can be a force for good in providing, you know, billions of vaccines to people around the world who need them. So that's just one of the many things that we in Congress are working on that's very much ripe and available for international cooperation. And I would invite all of you to pay attention to that and be involved as you'd like. Another very important achievement in the Biden administration is reversing Trump's opposition to a tool called special drawing rights. And this is a reserve that's provided by the IMF that is distributed across the entire world based on the size of each country's economy. But it basically is a cost-free reserve that provides a lot of financial stability and protects a lot of these vulnerable countries by giving them international reserves that they can actually use to buy imports, food, medicine, personal protective equipment and so on. And a lot of these low-income countries are especially hard hurt. So the special drawing rights that this administration has supported amount to about $650 billion and much of which is going to be going to some of the hardest hit countries across the globe. So the Progressive Caucus played a key role on this. Senator Sanders and Senator Durbin also played a key role and we are looking to push the administration even further in utilizing that tool. I also want to point out that there is, as Mike said, a lot of interest in Congress in moving the administration towards acting more quickly on rejoining the JCPOA. There's also movement on trying to normalize relations with Cuba and reaffirming some of the Obama administration policies that were so significant for progressives. So US policy towards Iran and Cuba were significant milestones in that administration and we should certainly be seeing action on that front. Interestingly enough, we had two bills introduced in the Senate very recently by both Ron Wyden who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and Amy Klobuchar who is a very prominent member of the Judiciary Committee and they are both looking to alleviate the US blockade and sanctions policy there and list the embargo and in the case of Senator Klobuchar, she's actually partnered with Kansas Republican Jerry Moran to try to open up space on Cuba sanctions. Similarly, on Venezuela, our chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Chairman Gregory Meeks, has also issued an interesting statement calling for a diplomatic opening with Venezuela in light of some of the accommodation that the Maduro government has made in terms of allowing in opposition leaders into the national electoral commission and so that's an interesting space as well for advocates to be involved in in addition to the JCPOA which is again another sanctions policy. And then lastly, I would say that there is a lot of congressional momentum in seeing through a really unprecedented development in Congress throughout the Trump administration and which I had the privilege of playing a humble role in which is an unprecedented effort to end the US participation in the Saudi-led war in Yemen. And right now, we have had about 76 members of the House of Representatives led by progressive caucus members, Congresswoman Dingle, Ro Khanna, and Mark Pokan to basically end US involvement in military participation in Yemen, which is ongoing, unfortunately, and to basically call on the Biden administration to pressure Saudi Arabia to lift its economic blockade on that country, which threatens about 20 million people and will, if not changed, lead to the deaths of 400,000 children under five by the end of the year. Elizabeth Warren in the Senate has led 16 senators in a recent letter as late as last week, basically echoing that call and urging the administration to use all of the political tools that it has at its disposal, including weapons sales, military involvement, including spare parts transfers and maintenance for Saudi warplanes, and economic relations with Saudi Arabia to compel an immediate lifting of that blockade, which again is producing the world's worst humanitarian crisis. So I hope I've laid out some promising opportunities for engagement for all of you that have very large ramifications for many millions of people abroad, and which can be accomplished in this extremely promising governing moment, which Mike mentioned. So I'll leave it there. Thank you so much, King. What a pleasure to have you and Michael with us tonight. We have about five to 10 minutes for questions and answers. So I'm going to turn that over to Medea and Hania, and here goes the firing line. No. Yeah, I'm asking. Thank you. Well, that was wonderful. Thank you both of you and so many issues and so many questions. I'll just start out with them for Mike and then one for Keen. Mike, you brought up the amendments that were put on to the NDAA that were positive ones. And, you know, we supported a lot of those amendments, but then we see every year one, those amendments just get dropped and two, the members, even progressive ones oftentimes vote for these horribly inflated Pentagon budget. And so we've been pushing for the progressive members of Congress to come out now saying that they won't support a budget that is larger than the last Trump budget was. And we wonder what you think that we could do to push these members of Congress to just finally say no, we won't keep supporting these gargantuan Pentagon budgets. And then for Keen, you brought up so many important issues on the issue of the sanctions. Why isn't there a bill on the House side? Why aren't there bills on Cuba on the House side? Why are they all on the Senate, which seems very strange to us? Why haven't McGovern, for example, put forward his bills as he has in the past? Why isn't there more movement about sanctions in general? You talked about the special drawing rights, and we totally support that and think that's fantastic. But as long as the US keeps strangling countries like Iran and Cuba and Venezuela and North Korea and Syria, there is no way for those countries to be able to not only help their people in general, but to deal with the issue of the pandemic. So those are two sort of big, big areas if we could start with you, Mike. Absolutely. So as I think everybody on this call knows, Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Congressman Mark Pocana, our former two former co-chairs of the Progressive Caucus, have joined together to create a defense spending caucus. And they've been extremely active in terms of putting together letters, asking the president to put forward a smaller budget, to think through amendments. Last year on the defense authorization, I know we had the support of a number of folks in the peace community for an amendment that was author on the House side by Mr. Pocana on the Senate side by Senator Sanders that would have cut the Pentagon's top-line budget by 10%. If you remember, we got over 90 members to support that amendment in the House, which was, we thought, was like a tremendous sign of progress. I'd have to go back and look, but I think the last time a defense cuts amendment had gotten that many votes was when the former member Barney Frank in Jared Polish proposed, I think, just like a small $1 billion cut to the top line, just to see if we could do it. So we've come a long way, I guess, is what I want to say there. I think we're trying to think about what's the most strategic way to cut the Pentagon budget. I would expect you guys will see a big amendment to cut the budget again, similar to the Pocana-Sanders amendment. I think we're also trying to look at particular cold war weapons programs that don't relate in a meaningful way to our current, you know, military and defense needs. The president always, you know, I think one of the things we'll be looking at in the president's budget that comes out on Friday, the president always proposes a number of cuts to outdated military programs. And those are, we think, ripe to cut as a part of the defense appropriations and defense authorization process. But I will actually like turn it around a little bit just to understand the stakes at play here. It is one of the things we saw last year when the Progressive Caucus chose to oppose the defense bill from the outset was that the bill moved right, that we actually ended up having a higher defense appropriation. And we ended up actually having like really some additional like very bad policy provisions that were included in the House version of the bill. And I absolutely hear what you're saying, Medea, about the fact that there is no guarantee that if the House passes good policy, good progressive policy, that it can become law. But one thing we know for sure is if the House doesn't pass any policy, we know for sure that it won't become law. There's nothing to fight for in conference. So we're trying, I just want to be honest with everybody here, we're trying to balance those things that we're in a governing moment. We have a Democratic president in the White House. Progressive Caucus thinks we can work with this president on a number of things. And so we want to explore the possibility of seeing if we can eliminate, if we can finally repeal the 2001 and 2002 AOMFs, both of those things have passed the House in recent years. And we think that there are probably the votes for that to happen in the Senate. We want to see if that's a possibility. So we will push for defense cuts in all of the ways in which it makes sense, but we don't want to close the door on creating lasting permanent change that becomes law that improves peace and justice in our country. So I don't know if that's the answer you wanted to hear, but it's complicated. If it's all right, I'd love to follow that up with the question that I'm sure a lot of us want to know the answer to. So what if the Congressional Progressive Caucus, nearly 100 members, were to act as a body or many of them and say, President Biden, we want to have a meeting with you and we want you to guarantee that you are not going to continue to fund this nuclear rearmament program that is a violation of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty that we signed in 1968. And if you don't, we will not vote for X, Y, and Z. That's absolutely something members could do. And our members do that, you know, on a variety of issues. One of the things that Ms. Porter talked about is that we passed these reforms last fall to create a situation where the Progressive Caucus is able to leverage its powers of block in key ways. I think, again, the key question is, are we engaging in a way where the President or the Democratic leadership needs to listen to us? Or are we leveraging our power in a situation where they can say, well, if we don't have your votes, we'll go and find the votes on the Republican side of the aisle. And unfortunately, on many national security issues, they can find Republican votes on the other side of the aisle. They don't mind moving bills to the right. So it's a balance. We can leverage our power on bills where they're partisan bills, where they're Democrat-only bills and there's no way you can get a Republican to support it. So we have a lot of leverage on bills related to expanding access to affordable health care, on expanding paid leave on this jobs and infrastructure bill. We've got a lot of leverage. And I don't want to lie, we have some leverage on those defense bills, but we don't have as much. So it's a balance. And that's the kind of thing that we're trying to work through. Thank you. And Keene, if you could spend a couple of moments to respond to that. Okay, I'll unmute you. Thank you. Yeah. And to put a finer point on what Mike said, he's being very focused and intentional in how we can think about Congress as an organizing landscape. You have all of these pieces. You have the Senate, you have the White House, you have the House of Representatives, and how can progressives be able to build these kinds of coalitions. And so sometimes that comes in the form of bipartisan votes. And so it came to the war in Yemen. We feel confident that if we are able to get to the floor, we can build a bipartisan coalition around this issue and get that passed through both chambers because we have done so previously. And on some of these other things, it's a separate judgment call. I would say that on the trips waiver, for example, this is a perfect example where a kind of a global and domestic grassroots movement partnered with a lot of leading progressives to build a kind of a moral voice to the administration based on Biden's previous comments on how important it was to make sure that there was nothing preventing vaccine access if and when it was created in an interview with the activist Abby Barton. And so that was a powerful kind of a campaign, but it didn't really involve these kinds of procedures. And so that's another option for us is to build on spaces where we feel that the president has made a promising and important commitment where nudges from his allies can be helpful, where a kind of a grassroots movement led by folks like you can kind of present this issue and be that voice of moral clarity and to push back against entrenched interests like the pharmaceutical industry, which is desperately trying to prevent this from occurring and making change. And that happened with a letter by 100 representatives representing half of the Democratic caucus. And they found an ally in President Biden and some of his key advisors, including Catherine Tye as the U.S. trade representative. So those are alternatives, but we have to think in very deliberate ways on how we can best leverage progressive power, both in Congress and on the outside. Very briefly to get to Medea's question on Cuba, there actually has been some movement. So I will share a letter by members of the Progressive Caucus who have already urged Biden to reverse the Trump administration's kind of accelerated sanctions and embargo policy towards Cuba. And I expect there to be further action in a letter that should be forthcoming to follow up on that. And I think that the sanctions issue is absolutely critical. I think that a lot of the issues that I raised have a lot to do with structural violence and economic violence and that don't involve bombs and missiles being blown up, but soft kinds of forms of harm, including this economic blockade, which prevents fuel and food from arriving into places like Yemen. I would say that in Iran, they are dealing with significant humanitarian crises there. We have had a lot of subgressive caucus members weigh in on that specifically, and particularly in light of what you said, Medea, this global pandemic, this horrific economic downturn that for reasons of humanitarian compassion that a lot of these sanctions should be eased. And I think that there is strong momentum in Congress outlining exactly what you expressed. Thank you so much, Kayne. If we could spend some time talking about how to see PC supporting progressive allies in opposing the Strategic Competition Act S1169, which massively increases military funding and aggression towards China and in dangerous Asians and Asian Americans in the US, especially now with the API hate crimes on the rise, can both of you perhaps address this? Kayne, you want me to try this one first? You can open. Sure, sounds good. Yeah, so we are tracking this bill as it moves through the Senate right now. I think everybody knows this bill actually started as a bill called the Endless Frontiers Act, which was pretty narrow. It was authored by one of our best progressive caucus members, Representative Rokana, in the House and his companion in the Senate was Senate Majority Leader Schumer. And that bill was basically aimed at providing $100 billion for funding for the National Science Foundation to do really transformational work to help build up our supply chains, to do R&D research, to basically do industrial policy, which is something that all good progressives think we need to do more of to fight back on the deference to the market, I think, and all of the bad things that have happened as a result of that over the past 40 years. But as you guys alluded to, we have seen this bill be amended significantly as it's moved through the Senate, and we are aware of the provisions you're referring to that were raised by the peace community, by when without war and a number of other folks. We are very conscious of the fact that we do not want to be endorsing another Cold War this time with China. And that, you know, as you're going back to the defense authorization, it's something that the progressive caucus focuses on every year and making sure that that bill does not include overly hawkish language or overly hawkish policy. And so we will look at this bill as they have not finished amending it in the Senate, but we will look at the finished product when they send that over to the House for us to potentially take up during the June work period. And we will have a very serious conversation within our caucus about ways to improve that bill to cut out any sort of offensive provisions that would harm our ability to have good relations with China and other countries in the world. And, you know, we'll see what we end up with. Keene, do you want to add anything there? Yeah, I think Mike laid it out beautifully. You know, I think that we are tracking this, and I think that, you know, right now, you know, the peace community, you know, should be paying attention to how this is developing in the Senate this week, potentially it could pass out of the Senate this week. So to the degree that, you know, that is a concern, there's specific findings that you object to. There are specific provisions. There are, you know, negative consequences of particular language. I think that like now would be an important time to focus your energies there and to, you know, keep us abreast of what you're hearing in your engagement with, you know, particular offices and how, you know, we can help to improve that bill if and when it passes the Senate here in the House. I did also find a comment really briefly in the chat referring to special drawing rights. And I think that Madeleine Johnson had a question about how the CPC can push wealthy countries to donate their SDRs. And that's something that we are indeed paying close attention to. It is true that the developing world receives 40% of the SDRs because that's a vestige of how these assets are allocated, according to the IMS. It's based on how big the economies are. But we are very attuned to this and also we are, you know, looking towards, you know, the opportunities to create a new issuance in the coming year, which is very feasible. And given how imbalanced this global recovery appears to look where countries like India and Brazil are being ravaged by, you know, new surges in infections and deaths, you know, this, you know, economic crisis will certainly need more assistance. And I think that, you know, that's something that we're keeping close tabs on. I'd love to just throw a last question at you. That's a very practical question from Mike Fox of Progressive Democrats of America. Michael, you work for John Conyers. You were his legislative director. Keen, you were communications director for Bernie Sanders. Is there a magic number? How many calls need to come into an office for that person to take notice? To go, oh, wow. What do you think? I think they may be on mute. Okay. Maybe I'll go ahead, Mike. Oh, yeah. So this is, so I will say, you know, I started working on the Hill over a decade ago, more than a decade ago in 2008. As technology has changed, the way in which it's most effective to reach members of Congress has also changed. So when I started on the Hill, I think we paid a lot of attention to calls coming into the office and people still pay attention to calls coming into the office. You know, usually the front office person will take Italian, especially pay attention to calls that are coming from the district. One thing that we also pay a lot of attention to now is emails, emails that come to the legislative director or the person who covers a particular issue. You know, that's a great way to get a hold of folks. And then I will also say that like social media is incredibly powerful as well. You may, you may not, it may not feel like it, but members of Congress are paying attention to their Facebook pages, their Twitter mentions. It's a really great way to get, you know, to, you know, if a member of Congress sees a tremendous amount of Twitter mentions on a particular issue, they will they will pay attention. So my recommendations do all of the above. And, and, Keene, what do you think? Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I would say that you know, a lot of, you know, engagement with the front staff does get conveyed to senior staff. And that, you know, it does actually reach the member of Congress. So, you know, the phone calls are important. The emails are important. I think sometimes one tip is to, you know, if you are polite and well-versed in a particular issue and you are a constituent, you know, asking to set up a meeting with the policy staffer can sometimes deepen the relationship. It's not just a kind of a rope phone call. I mean, and that's, that's important. And that's like something that they can tally. So I'm very kind of like, let's say, high octane, like legislative battles, like, let's say, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership. That was something that was coming down the pike, you know, members were kind of like, like, kind of surveying the field and they were keeping close tallies of how many phone calls they were getting and so on. And they were using that in their messaging. They were kind of conveying that back and forth with the administration. So that's important. And the phone calls also work on lower stakes things. If there's a messaging bill that's kind of, you know, hanging around and they get a, you know, a handful of calls on that, that can be enough to go from, hey, this wasn't on our radar to, hey, this is a totally reasonable bill and we just haven't had the time to look at it. And now we are going to add ourselves as co-sponsors. So that's a good space for it. But I think that for a lot of you who are investing the kind of time to be with us this evening at, you know, 9.15 in the evening and who care about a lot of these issues and are asking really deep questions, you know, building a rapport with the staffer who covers your particular area of interest is actually probably more important. And so sending an email, showing that you care about this, explaining how this connects with you, you know, recognizing they remember the district, setting up a meeting, you know, trying to look at the legislative calendar, sometimes during the recess weeks, that's a great time to reach out to a staffer who's not constantly in the kind of like a frenzy of legislative activity and can sit down and meet with you. And I think that, you know, building those relationships, knowing that you're a credible person, that you're coming from this particular angle, that you are part of a kind of a grassroots community, all of those things matter and can be very productive and fruitful for your activism. At that, I want to thank you both so much for joining us. On behalf of all of us at Code Pink, Keen Bhatt and Michael Darner, both with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and we've learned a lot listening to you and to Katie and we look forward to continuing this relationship. So thank you very much. And thank you. That would be great. Okay. Can people on you? I don't know at this point. Uh-oh. Maybe not, but if you want to leave a comment, that would be great.