Saikat Chakrabarti’s Plan for the Political Revolution

It s the end of an era Rep Nancy Pelosi D-Calif who counts among her legacies in Congress successfully undercutting the push for Medicare for All informed last week that she is retiring from Congress The two-time former speaker of the House made her announcement after Democrats made remarkable gains in nationwide elections campaigning on affordability and standing up to the Trump administration We are in this era where we need new ideas we need new leaders we need people who are going to push the party in a new direction says Saikat Chakrabarti who is running to replace Pelosi and represent San Francisco in Congress making economic inequality and corporate power the focal point of his politics This week on The Intercept Briefing host Akela Lacy speaks to Chakrabarti the co-founder of the progressive outfit Justice Democrats who helped run the primary campaign of one of its first candidates Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez becoming her first chief of staff Answering Lacy s question as to how he ll get it done Chakrabarti says In the s we had a really powerful far right in this country We were definitely seeing Nazi rallies in Madison Square Garden it was filling the stadium And the way we defeated that was FDR came in with the New Deal movement He built this whole new economic system and a whole new society that improved people s lives so dramatically it just killed this idea that you need an authoritarian to do it for you FDR wasn t advocating for going back to a pre-Great Depression era He was advocating for something new So that s the way we get it done and I see chosen movement towards that Related Insurgent Democratic Candidates Are Ready to Run on Shutdown Betrayal Chakrabarti has been openly calling for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries D-N Y to be primaried and tells The Intercept that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer should be too following the end of the longest cabinet shutdown in U S history after eight Democratic senators none who are up for reelection joined forces with Republicans to pass a spending package My goal honestly is to replace a huge part of the Democrat establishment says Chakrabarti I m calling for primaries all across the country I think we authentically have to get in there and be in a position of power where we can do all that so it s not going to be this constant compromising with the establishment trying to figure out how we can push He adds I tried the pushing strategy that s what Justice Democrats was We were trying to elect people to try to push the Democratic Party to do the right thing It s not going to work We have to replace them Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts Spotify or wherever you listen Transcript Akela Lacy Welcome to The Intercept Briefing I m Akela Lacy It s the end of an era Nancy Pelosi I will not be seeking reelection to Congress AL U S Representative Nancy Pelosi who counts among her legacies in Congress successfully undercutting the push for Medicare for All broadcasted last week that she s retiring from Congress The Democrat and two-time former speaker of the House represents one of the country s greater part liberal districts San Francisco California And she has done so for nearly years Pelosi made her announcement after Democrats made remarkable gains in nationwide elections One takeaway as we discussed in last week s episode is that voters want leaders who will fight for affordability and stand up to the Trump administration The race to replace Pelosi began before she publicly shared that she would not run for reelection And although the California primary is seven months away it s already looking like a crowded and competitive field Saikat Chakrabarti was the first to jump into the race for Pelosi s seat setting up a challenge from her left Chakrabarti co-founded the progressive outfit Justice Democrats and helped run the first campaign and office of one of its first candidates Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez He s running on a campaign promising to push for universal wellness care and child care enact a stock trading ban for members of Congress cost-of-living issues and to stop funding the genocide in Gaza He s also criticized selected of his colleagues in the progressive movement So how is he positioning himself amid a wave of other primary challengers And how would he definitely fulfill his campaign promises Saikat Chakrabarti joins me now Saikat welcome to the Intercept Briefing Saikat Chakrabarti Hey thanks for having me AL Saikat you ve been described as a bit of a contradiction You re independently wealthy you re a founding engineer at the payment processing company Stripe and Business Insider has mentioned you may be wealthier than Nancy Pelosi one of the wealthiest members of Congress You ve also made economic inequality and corporate power the focal point of your politics You ran Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez s campaign became her first chief of staff and co-founded Justice Democrats The bulk tech millionaires aren t necessarily also progressive anti-establishment politicians How do those two identities fit together for you The bulk tech millionaires aren t necessarily also progressive anti-establishment politicians How do those two identities fit together for you SC I d say majority of tech millionaires are really working toward their own demise as well in the long run Because I mean look I ll give you my whole background I grew up middle class in Texas I grew up going to population schools My parents definitely grew up fairly poor My parents are from India They immigrated here in the s and my dad was a victim of partition which was a catastrophic event we basically split up India along religious lines after the Indian Revolution And so his family were refugees that had to flee overnight from Bangladesh over to India And so I grew up with the stories of their struggles My dad grew up with a family of in a one-bedroom apartment often didn t know where his next meal would be coming from The way our economic system is set up and has been set for so long is a lottery I d say my values really come from that in two procedures Like one it s both these values that are shaped by how hard people who are totally capable have to genuinely work when they get a bad plate handed to them in life But also just the way our economic system is set up and has been set for so long is a lottery Because at the end of the day my dad struggled but he won a lottery ticket he got a visa to come to America And I go back to Calcutta and I meet his friends and his family who all had it just as hard or just as hard-working just as capable people who never made it out And so I joined the tech industry back in or veritably after college And it was a time when tech really was being pitched as a response to a lot of the big problems in the world I was a entirely apolitical person and I bought it I did think I was going in to try to solve chosen big issues At the time like Muhammad Yunus was doing microfinance to alleviate poverty yada yada And living in San Francisco and seeing unhoused people on the streets while I m going to my tech job it just gave me the feeling that maybe I m truly not solving the problems I really want to work on So it sounds really cheesy now but I quit the tech industry and I wrote a list I was like I want to work on inequality poverty and environment change Again I was not political at all I was looking at mainly working in nonprofits And that was around the time Bernie Sanders started running for president I didn t know if he had all the answers but he was talking about those things in a very compelling way And so I joined that and I ended up working on the Bernie campaign I started a group Justice Democrats to recruit people to run on progressive values all around the country And that s how I ended up recruiting AOC to run and ran her campaign and ended up as her chief of staff I worked hard but I did not work harder than a facilitator or a nurse or the people cleaning our offices did every single day I just won the startup lottery But I really believe at the end of the day like a fundamental thing and this is why I don t think it is a contradiction I experienced that lottery market that the startup financial market really is in San Francisco It s this system where you can just hit it big if you just happen to be in the right place at the right time That s what happened to me And like I worked hard but I did not work harder than a lecturer or a nurse or the people cleaning our offices did every single day I just won the startup lottery and that to me is wild to have an market system set like that where you can just win a lottery and never have to work again While preponderance people indeed running society working hard to run society we re saying You re never going to be able to afford a house You re never going to be able to have a secure retirement I think a society and financial system set up like that is doomed to fail I think that is the ultimate demise of America And I d say to people who are in my position who have wealth who don t see it that way who aren t willing to just accept certain taxes on themselves to make an business activity that authentically works for everybody you re being shortsighted because this won t end up good for you either if you end up in a society that s a complete dystopia that s fully unequal You re being shortsighted because this won t end up good for you either if you end up in a society that s a complete dystopia AL Speaking of the people on whose backs the society runs as we re speaking the longest executive shutdown ever is on the verge of ending after eight Democratic senators decided to join forces with Republicans to pass a spending package For years you ve been critical of Democrats saying they re too weak too compromising too establishment Do you think they should have ended the shutdown without a healthcare guarantee SC No I mean this has been my main critique of the party for so long A lot of my critique is on the policies and what they genuinely want to do and what they want to stand for Strategically they preemptively cave But a big part of my critique is strategically they preemptively cave and this was a prime example of that I mean not through any leadership by Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries but we were literally winning on this fight And it s not like I don t think this is a political fight We were genuinely fighting for once to deliver something real for people who are suffering in this market right now This business activity sucks and we re talking about doubling or tripling people s fitness insurance premiums in the middle of this right So Democrats were winning that messaging You saw it in the polling you saw masses sentiment on the shutdown going towards Democrats And then we re coming off the back of a massive electoral domination last Tuesday where Donald Trump literally went on TV and announced you know he was saying part of that was because Republicans were losing the messaging on the shutdown fight So I mean call me naive but honestly I thought like OK certainly we have the leverage we have the upper hand Maybe Democrats will realize they can push So watching them cave I mean oh my God why Like why You re winning You could have really delivered something and then you could have gone into the next polling and reported We fought Trump and we won Because right now I think the main reason people don t want to vote for Democrats part of it s the agenda but part of it s they re weak Do you want to vote for people who aren t going to get shit done for you No So this just proved I think that image to a bunch of people I m not seeing Democrats go out there and persuade the constituents in the way that I saw Dick Cheney and George Bush persuade the inhabitants to go to war in Iraq which was an veritably an unpopular thing to do So no they absolutely should have kept fighting I think they could have won And honestly my opinion if we had seen Hakeem Jeffries and Schumer and chosen of the Democratic leaders definitely fighting way more because my big critique of this whole fight was I m not seeing it be front-page news every single day I m not seeing Democrats go out there and persuade the citizens in the way that I saw Dick Cheney and George Bush persuade the inhabitants to go to war in Iraq which was an authentically an unpopular thing to do If we use that sort of tactic I think we could have ended the shutdown way earlier because Trump s numbers on this would ve been plummeting way faster and we would ve genuinely gotten something done for people That s the part that pisses me off AL You re touching a little bit on sort of this tension between the inside-outside strategy versus pushing for everything that you possibly can for responding to constituents On this topic Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has faced criticism for what a few say has been a moderation in her approach speaking on the DNC stage saying Kamala Harris worked tirelessly for a ceasefire in Gaza What s your response to that and how do you see yourself navigating that inside-outside competition if you re elected SC Look I think AOC she s kind of alone in there right Like there s only a insufficient a handful of progressives in Congress right now And I think they re all trying to do the best they can with a limited amount of power And that means trying to push the agenda trying to push from the inside and working with outside organizations to create pressure My goal honestly is to replace a huge part of the Democrat establishment I ve been very clear about that from the start I m calling for primaries all across the country I m trying to recruit people to run across the country and I m talking to folks who are stepping up and challenging the establishment right now across the country I think we veritably have to get in there and be in a position of power where we can do all that so it s not going to be this constant compromising with the establishment trying to figure out how we can push I tried the pushing strategy that s what Justice Democrats was We were trying to elect people to try to push the Democratic Party to do the right thing It s not going to work We have to replace them We just have to replace them And that s you know to me that s where I m headed That s my politics It s because the American Dream has been shattered Children in current times are not going to do as well as their parents I think it s not just existential for the party I think it s existential for the country Because ultimately I think people have been voting for anybody who s standing for bold sweeping economic change ever since the Great Recession I d say that was why Barack Obama got elected I think that s why Donald Trump got elected And it s for good reason It s because the American Dream has been shattered Children in the present day are not going to do as well as their parents People s wages have been stagnant for decades while the cost of essentials are going up And so what we see is people are really open to the kind of change but all they know is that the status quo is not cutting it So Trump has a version of what that change is MAGA It s saying You can t afford a house you can t afford a secure retirement because of immigrants because of our attention to people in foreign countries because of trans people or scientists what have you And we have to present an actual vision and a plan on the other side and then deliver on that plan to improve people s lives And that s not going to happen by pushing people to get on the right policies It s going to be a whole movement that has to take power and make it happen put the country on a path to implementing something like that AL In this vein you have talked openly as you are now about the fact that the first Squad members who came into Congress have only been able to do so much because of a lack of broader organization among progressives One of the key proposals you ve been working on for the last scant years is what particular people are calling the Green New Deal on steroids a successor to the Green New Deal that you led work on as AOC s chief of staff What are your plans and how do you think you can bring them to fruition where other progressive program priorities have so far failed SC So the thing I ve been working on at my think tank New Consensus we re calling it the Mission for America And it really harkens back to basically what FDR did during the New Deal but also during the mobilization for World War II to build a whole new market system because I think that s ultimately the way we defeat authoritarianism Because back in the s we had a really powerful far right in this country We were certainly seeing Nazi rallies in Madison Square Garden it was filling the stadium And the way we defeated that was FDR came in with the New Deal movement He built this whole new financial sector and a whole new society that improved people s lives so dramatically it just killed this idea that you need an authoritarian to do it for you It just killed this idea that you need an authoritarian to do it for you He proved democracy can work And he did that through the social safety net But he also did that by building an industrial base that created the modern-day middle class So that s really what the Mission for America is It s basically taking a lot of the institutions and the lessons from that era and saying how do we do that in contemporary times Because I argue that it s not just about specific policies it s truly this whole other kind of governing that we had back then This is going to get a little bit in the weeds but we re on a podcast so I m going to go there all right AL Go for it SC So when you look at the way we used to govern in that era it wasn t just like FDR came in with his like three policies that are going to pass No It was a whole new framework for how to envision society And he put the regime into this mode that we ve been calling mission mode And in mission mode it s really different from how we govern in the modern day in three really distinct options One is you have a leader who actively puts the country on a mission and then follows up makes civil society join in on the mission persuades uses action as a way to create political capital So FDR did this through his fireside chats but he also was very operational in veritably going out and recruiting CEOs to be a part of it And if CEOs were standing in the way he would call them out and kind of vilify them publicly as well if they re truly just preferring short-term profit over long-term prosperity And the second piece is in mission mode you make comprehensive plans So you say This is where we re getting to and then you deliver those plans You don t just pass selected policies and then take your hands off the steering wheel that s how we govern in the present day And the third piece is you create institutions to finance and coordinate and execute those plans We used to have a whole bunch of institutions like this all across our society We had constituents banks in every state The largest by far was an institution called the Reconstruction Finance Corporation that was kinda the engine of development during the New Deal in the World War II mobilization But after the war we started dismantling all these planning and financing institutions for a whole bunch of reasons I can get into that but I think we ve just forgotten that whole playbook And so the Mission for America is this playbook that is a tried-and-true playbook because it wasn t just America After the war Europe used this playbook to get rich All the Asian countries used a similar playbook to develop in the s and s and s They certainly called it the American system After the war Europe used this playbook to get rich All the Asian countries used a similar playbook to develop in the s and s and s They indeed called it the American system And so we got to do that again to in fact show this other road to emerging our business sector so that the authoritarians don t win So your answer to How do you get it done It has to be like I m imagining we re going somebody running for president We got hundreds of people who are running for Congress who are lined up on this overall vision the same way FDR came in with a whole new New Deal movement He wasn t advocating for going back to a pre-Great Depression era He was advocating for something new So that s the way we get it done and I see a few movement towards that I will say I think certain of the pieces of this have already become sort of common sense Things like industrial program the Green New Deal managed to get that into the lexicon The idea that we certainly need to focus on the cost of living problem but not just say affordability because plenty of Democrats say affordability but it has to be backed up with real plan I think that s why you had Zohran win in New York But it s also why you had Mikie Sherrill win in New Jersey because she was calling for rate hike freezes against utilities and calling out the corporations that were getting in the way So you need chosen substance It s not just messaging You need substance But yeah the answer at the end of the day is we have to have a movement that s really dedicated to doing this all the way who aren t bought out by the corporations That s another piece of it right You re not sold out and you re not just in there to build a political career for you which is what largest part people in Congress are AL I want to ask you a little bit about how you view the timing on this because we re talking about Right now bulk Americans are thinking about How do I get through a day with the terror and chaos that is the second iteration of the Trump administration You ve also commented that Justice Democrats in certain tactics was before its time but that you feel like now there is momentum here Why do you think right now is the time for this particularly if you re talking about two to three years in the future where we have no idea what the political landscape is going to look like And right now obviously this is timely for your race the disappointment with the Democratic Party is at an all-time high but we don t know where it s going to be in SC So I want to be clear like the reason I m talking about is in we re still going to have Trump as president and I think the real work for is to start building this movement And to truly get victories and get new people in there and use that as a jumping-off point to doing the larger stuff and defining what is going to be That s going to be part of it And in fact stopping this coup like that s something I haven t even touched on yet But we literally need people in there who know how to stop what s happening who know how to stop the authoritarianism Because if we don t have fair and free elections in it s challenge over anyway right So we veritably have to stop that But why do I think it s feasible now I m seeing it in the campaign Like in it was a similar moment Trump had just won in A lot of Democrats were really frustrated with the party Democrats were looking for what comes next But a lot of people also thought it was maybe a fluke And I d say when we were working on all those Justice Democrats races in it was largely like progressive activists coming out progressive activists who were getting involved But a lot more new progressive activists who were coming into the fold Right now what I m seeing in the race is you know I do these calls with voters in San Francisco every day anyone can go to my website and sign up for a video call with me The kinds of people showing up to those calls it s not just progressive activists It s like lifelong Pelosi voters selected mainstream Democrats people who thought was a fluke but then Trump just won again and they re like clearly something is wrong And they re looking for those answers In it was a similar moment Trump had just won in And we just did a rally a couple of weeks ago in the Mission and we had people show up It was so countless people we couldn t fit them in And this is like almost a year out from the voting That kind of potency I did not see in So I think this is just a very different moment The polling bears it out too If you look at the Democratic Party s polling amongst its own base against Trump I mean we re polling worse than Trump right So the party s in an existential emergency It has to be new people leading the party and I d say the mainstream of the party realizes that So that s I think the opportunity because we re in such a predicament But yeah I agree with you In the short term the difficulty is how do you keep this coup from veritably happening And what can we really do in the short term to in fact fight where we have leverage like on this frickin Senate budget bill AL On this I want to push on this authoritarian thing because what would you be doing or what would you want to see Democrats in Congress doing that they re not doing right now to stop Trump from doing what he s doing particularly in the minority SC Yeah I think it boils down to three big things One I do think Democrats in positions of power could really be showing up when say ICE is in our cities kidnapping people off the streets You have specific privilege in your power We saw Mayor Karen Bass do this to an extent in LA when ICE was rolling through MacArthur Park She displayed up and she stated I m not leaving until you do She put the ball in their court to escalate So do it nonviolently but you put it on them to escalate and they really weren t willing to go there Related How Columbia s Leadership Refashioned the University in Trump s Image I think the second piece is Democrats need to realize that their position as opposition leaders right now is not just about writing procedures and bill We really need to organize civil society I think the way the bulwark against fascism is civil society So what I mean by that is when Trump s going after law firms or media companies or universities he s going after them one at a time and they fall like dominoes it s easy But if they could in fact organize as collective blocks they could be a real opposition I ve talked to particular people who work at law firms who ve been trying to do that It s very complex for them to organize each other as peers But if you have political backing behind you if you have a legislator who s authentically trying to organize you I think that s something you do Or similarly like you see AOC or Bernie going around doing the anti-oligarchy tour drawing big crowds Turn that into a real citizen force to be an actual bulwark against fascism The way authoritarianism works it s this constant process of them trying to make the abnormal normal But the third piece I d say is a bit on messaging It s like when Trump oversteps his bounds call it out and stick with it And we saw this happen with Kilmar brego Garc a where Trump deported him to CECOT and then Sen Chris Van Hollen D-Md went down there and wouldn t leave and just stuck with it And then Trump started seeing his numbers go down and he got sent back And it s just this thing where like the way authoritarianism works it s this constant process of them trying to make the abnormal normal They re pushing this tide and we have to be the force that s constantly pushing that tide back calling it out keeping things abnormal abnormal Because if we let them just do it before we know it it s normal for them to own all the county polling boards It s normal for them to own all the balloting machines And it s normal for them to stuff the ballot boxes and then it s competition over Right So it s daily work It s daily work You just have to be fighting every single frickin day Break AL Switching gears to affordability which you touched on a little earlier This issue cost of living is top of mind for various plenty of voters and you ve mentioned building millions of units of affordable housing and social housing is a priority for you How would you try to achieve that Especially running in one of the country s the majority expensive cities to live in And I sympathize with you talking from New York SC Yes you re maybe the second the greater part expensive But I really think of housing the way we need to be thinking about housing is as infrastructure You know the way we think about building out our road systems or the way we think about building out our power grids So what we certainly need is real plans for the housing we have to build and then have every tool available to us to make it happen So part of that means the establishment directly funding and building social housing Right now it s literally illegal for the executive to build new inhabitants housing because of something called the Faircloth Amendment So we should repeal that But the other piece of this is like we don t have the institutions like we don t have a general bank that can directly finance social housing And that s something that I call for recreating Things like right now material costs are really high Well if we had something like a modern day version of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation like I was talking about that FDR had which is something I call for doing we could do things like stockpile materials when costs are low so that we can try to keep inflation costs from hitting housing construction costs So it s just this whole of society approach to try to just tackle this issue and genuinely build housing Because building housing is not an impossible task We ve been doing it for hundreds of years right It s just this matter of we currently have this approach of just let s do several deregulation there Let s you know do selected plan reforms there and then see if the private markets will handle it And I m not someone who s against making it easier and cheaper to construct housing I absolutely think that s also a matter in my city And I think that s also a complication in New York And the way Zorhan talked about this was We gotta cut red tape build affordable housing and freeze the rent Right That s basically my approach is we really need to make it easier to construct housing build the housing and then the other piece of it is certainly get a control on costs Get a control on speculation That s another piece I didn t touch on but get a control on hedge funds and private equity coming in buying up housing propping up the industry and making it unaffordable AL How do you define social housing I just want to clarify here SC Yeah Lots of strategies to potentially define it Yeah that s a good question So one course here is I think the administration should have a populace developer that can straight up go out and build the housing right That s just something that we at present don t have in our tool chest The state owned corporations for specific reason that s supposed to be a taboo thing It makes no sense We used to have it before Plenty of countries do it this way but also I think there is options for the leadership to say take equity stakes in housing developments as a way to control pricing there Right And that s a model we saw in Montgomery County that s worked really well for them But it boils down to like all of the above approach to making sure the housing gets built and that it s definitely affordable and people of all income levels can live in it AL You ve touched on sort of changing the mindset and the way that we think about this and instead of doing piecemeal deregulation thinking about this as an institutional a larger institutional shift But why do you think you ll be accomplished given that this is something that people have been trying to solve for years particularly in San Francisco the housing predicament SC Again I think it boils down to can we have a mindset shift in the entire Democratic Party on how we approach not just housing but all of our problems because this is sort of the theme of the larger idea I m trying to push here Is this how you solve problems in society in general Like if we want to build a new clean strength business sector it s not going to work to just do specific tax incentives and do particular deregulation here and there You veritably have to have a plan a goal milestones and then use tools like financing and society developers and everything else you need to hit that goal Execution matters just as much if not more than passing the policies And this is just you know I do have chosen experience getting these new ideas across the finish line through things like the Green New Deal That s the approach I m going to take with something like this is I just got to get the ideas to happen and I want to recruit a movement of people who believe in this approach I think it s the approach that works is the approach that s worked historically But yeah I mean I think the answer is we need new leaders who are willing to genuinely care about solutions and not just fundraising AL Relatedly you you talked a little bit about this in terms of your political advancement San Francisco has been a bit of a dog whistle for the Trump administration on issues of crime and homelessness and addiction I think back to the recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin I mean where do you fall here and how would you respond to that kind of targeting if you represented this district in Congress Because it sounds like you re saying there are several elements of truth to this and there are chosen elements that are Trump machinations but where do you fall here SC Yeah I mean I honestly get really pissed off when I do see kind of essentially caricatures of this city because if you come here I mean it s an amazing city It s the greatest city on earth It s beautiful Majority of of the city is doing great but of class we have particular problems But I am a big believer that if you look at the problems that we have you really see versions of it everywhere We have them particularly hard here because things like inequality the cost of living are worse in San Francisco and I think that s the root cause of a lot of the issues that we see whether it s the homelessness we see on the streets or even the drug addiction mental robustness crises we see on the streets But it s really going all over the country I think we have to literally solve these larger structural issues at a national level And this is something I m trying to really get across in my campaign is these are not problems San Francisco created on its own it s not problems San Francisco s going to be able to solve on its own Just to take one example You know if you look at our city budget the largest driver of costs of our city employees is healthcare benefits And the only answer a city can have to that is cutting more and more services right Like that s basically the approach we have because the city has to balance its budget So we have to solve healthcare at a national level if we want to save our cities And that s why what I m talking about these structural things that we have to do at a national level that I think both parties have just ignored for decades has just come to a urgent point So yeah I think that s the way we tackle San Francisco s biggest problems AL One of the moderate groups that helped shape the recalls of Chesa Boudin and several San Francisco school board members Grow SF has disclosed you might have a shot at winning particularly if you focus on issues that matter to moderate voters in San Francisco What do you make of that SC You know I don t think it s about progressive versus moderate And this is kind of my take on the country as a whole I really think you re just going to keep getting backlash politics to dysfunction and failure of governance And I think that s really what we saw in San Francisco I think when you look at the recall elections that happened it was a reaction to just general dysfunction at the city governing body It was a reaction to COVID honestly resulting in a lot of disorder on our streets And my view on it is yeah we elected in a new moderate executive but if they fail to veritably govern well there s going to be a backlash to that as well And nationally I m seeing this in the same way that you see people voting for Obama and then Trump and then Biden and then Trump again Is just that nothing is working People are looking for change They re looking for real structural solutions to these big problems So I agree with GrowSF that I do have a shot I m going to win this race But I don t think it s just about appealing to moderate voters If you ask majority of voters of discipline preponderance voters will say they re moderate but you ask them like What do you think necessities to happen Views are veritably all over the place but the thing that they re right about is you do have to talk about the real issues that are affecting people s lives and how are you genuinely going to solve them So I would argue everything I m talking about solving those issues they re all overwhelmingly popular So I guess definitionally they re moderate or centrist who knows But they re also you know they make sense They re just practical AL I want to talk about the Democratic Socialists of America On the national stage they re having a huge moment after Zohran Mamdani s success in New York He s one of the hottest politicians in the country right now And several of your supporters and other people have compared you to Even though it s a national brand DSA is made up of local chapters and the San Francisco DSA has bristled at that comparison between yourself and Mamdani pointing out that you supported a local centrist Democrat who ousted the only Democratic socialist on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Are you trying to court DSA s encouragement and if so how do you plan to get them on your side And if not why not SC Yeah I mean basically the way I run my campaigns every time is I run on what I m running on and if people want to aid that great I ll invariably talk to everybody right Like I ll of syllabus talk to DSA San Francisco I ll talk to other folks as well But to kind of talk about you know the specific thing DSA San Francisco is upset about like I would not say the person I supported was a centrist I backed him because I ve known him for a while We worked together on rule in the state We wrote an op-ed together about a Green New Deal for California And you know since being elected I haven t agreed with everything he s done But I really think he is a good guy who s a progressive who was trying to chart this path that was about how do we veritably do progressive things He was good on criminal justice reorganization while also making sure we re building housing in the city especially affordable housing as well And I think he s a real complication solver you know And it s engaging in the past he veritably got a lot of crap from the abundant YIMBY people because he was supporting the progressive in one of their races right So he was trying to chart this new path and I think that s admirable That s like something I would like to do as well We can t I think we have this weird polarization especially in San Francisco between these two factions and there is a version of the YIMBY faction that s just like you know neoliberalism like let s just deregulate let the private markets rip I don t agree with that but I think there s a lot of folks who literally want to use every tool to make sure we re building all the housing we need And similarly in DSA I have a lot of folks from DSA who are volunteering on the campaign and it seems like there s a split there too where there s various folks who are a bit more like you know YIMBY-DSA people right And I d argue Zohran is kind of in that camp So yeah I mean I m not going to shy away from saying I like what Zohran did because I like what he did You know I m not trying to say I m Zohran at all But it s very exciting to me to see him win But at the end of the day I am trying to run perhaps a new lane of politics Like we indeed have to do the things like expand the social safety net We veritably have to do things like Medicare for All and we have to build industry we have to build housing we have to do all of these building projects to make life better for people Now one thing that sometimes gets conflated with is you know the influence of tech money and oligarchy in both national politics and locally And I want to be clear that is a bad thing that has a corrupting influence And in that vote that I supported Bilal Mahmood he was very clear that he doesn t want Elon Musk I mean it sucks that like the tech fascists were trying to get involved in that polling but Bilal communicated Elon to go fuck himself And so I want to be clear that they are my enemy right Like the the fascists who have lined up with Donald Trump Peter Thiel Elon Musk David Sacks they are doing a craven coward project of cowardice where they re just doing political opportunism to enrich themselves and they absolutely have to be called out on that and cut out from power in the long run But I do hope we can get to a place where we are truly solving these problems AL I have to ask because you mentioned it What is your abundance take SC It s yeah I mean I did a long podcast with Ezra Klein on it But I mean look when we did the Green New Deal that was abundance like we were talking about we got to in fact do vitality abundance We have to really do this to create high wage industries so people have tens of millions of jobs But my argument my critique of the abundance folks is that a lot of the times I see them falling to a camp of Oh if we just did the exact right permitting adjustment or zoning adjustment or deregulation we would get abundance And I think that s fully unrealistic If you look at the history of every country that s ever developed their economies and I m talking about all of post-war Europe all the Asian countries America during the World War II mobilization it has never happened by just having the right permitting you know guidelines You really have to do this mission driven approach which has been what I ve been pushing for the last decade in my politics It really is how do you literally do it which is huge amounts of state limit society financing comprehensive plans You set the country on a mission and you just go for it So that s my answer is like yeah I mean great like I would be all for getting rid of the counterproductive regulations that at the moment get in the way of building things that everybody necessities But that s not going to be enough You know it s not even going to be close to enough We have to do way more than that if we are serious about abundance AL The race to win the San Francisco district is already shaping up to be competitive among Democrats The bulk widely recognized of the candidates State Senator Scott Wiener released his candidacy last month In Sacramento Weiner has fought to increase housing density and protect transgender rights Board of Supervisor Connie Chan has not officially thrown in her hat but is inferred to be considering and could potentially secure the help of the city s largest part powerful unions Former San Francisco Mayor London Breed has also stated she s considering a run What makes you stand out from the pack You haven t held residents office before why do you think you re the right person for the job now SC Yeah I mean first off I m the only one here that s talking about in fact doing the political revolution inside the party to get us to a point where we can do the big structural changes I don t know what the theory of change is for any of these other folks who are running because what are you going to do You know someone like Senator Wiener or any of the folks running like if you re just going to go in and be another Democrat in the current system and not talk about changing the system what are you going to definitely accomplish How are you going to accomplish anything I don t know You know maybe they have particular answer to that but I haven t heard it So and I d say like the other piece of this where I do have a difference from someone like Senator Wiener I mean Senator Wiener has been in cabinet in San Francisco in certain form for the last years And his main focus has been housing And in that time I mean rents in San Francisco have more than doubled We have a housing problem I wouldn t say he s been thriving in the outcomes on what his focus has been But also it s really different to be a state senator in a largely Democratic Sacramento where you re passing specific measure reforms here and there I d say in Congress we have to figure out how to get past the gridlock And that is what I have experience doing I mean when I was in charge of writing and launching a Green New Deal as AOC s chief of staff and that wasn t just a framework that we re trying to pass It was a political strategy because at that time the entire Democratic caucus was just trying to talk about carbon taxes and cap and business And we came in and stated A literally this is not going to do anything for situation change But B it s politically stupid You re talking about punishing people as a way to solve weather change What we definitely need to do is talk about building the clean high wage high tech industries that ll create tens of millions of jobs The situation of circumstances change is in fact the greatest opportunity in our generation to reverse decades of economic devastation And we were saying the plans out there were just way too small And so the way we introduced the Green New Deal was AOC did a sit-in in Speaker Pelosi s office on her first day in D C which was this huge act of political courage She joined the Sunrise Movement and then we did inside-outside organizing with Sunrise Sunrise was doing sit-ins while I was calling up the staffers on the inside to get them onto Green New Deal And then we did that with the presidential candidates And Sunrise would go into town halls while I was calling up the you know the staffers on the campaigns for president And the aftermath of that was every single person running for president had to respond And they did They responded with their own ambitious plans for environment Even Joe Biden who responded with the Build Back Better And that turned into the Inflation Reduction Act which wasn t everything I wished but it was the largest commitment in environment change and clean manufacturing in the history of this country So that s the kind of experience I bring So if you re someone who thinks we need to tackle these structural problems and have someone who s going to creatively work to in fact push through new ideas that s what I m running for AL Closing out I m going to ask you about Nancy Pelosi the person you re running to replace How do you view her legacy SC I ve been pretty respectful of her You know I do think she has had a long career and she s done a lot of good stuff in that time I think especially when she first came in she was kind of this fearless voice calling out attention to the AIDS epidemic that was ravaging San Francisco at the time and it wasn t necessarily popular countrywide But it worked like she managed to get help and money into the district and provide real relief for people You know I think I would say like I m also honestly struck by the level of leadership it took for her to step down because that is something that we don t see a lot of people in D C do I think it s going to conclusion in people remembering her for what she did rather than her just being in there too long like people like RBG and Diane Feinstein And the reason I ran this race in the first place was I was really saying you know speaker Pelosi former Speaker Pelosi she s had this long career she had specific skills but we are in this era where we need new ideas we need new leaders we need people who are going to push the party in a new direction I just don t think that s what her role is and that s what she was necessarily in the position to be able to do So yeah I ve got a lot of respect for her but I m glad she was able to make the decision to pass the torch AL Do you want her endorsement SC That s for her to make I mean look I m going to run the race I run And this is how I constantly run any race it s on me to prove myself and prove that this campaign is worth it And so anybody who wants to be a part of that campaign anybody who wants to endorse who thinks they see themselves in this welcome to have your endorsement AL I understand what you re saying but can you explain if she decided to endorse you why you would welcome it if you were previously running against her SC I mean I don t I just don t think it s going to be a predicament because I m pretty sure she s not going to offer an endorsement given that I just primaried her I mean come on AL The thought exercise Let s do the let s do the thought exercise I m just try I m trying to get at this tension between having criticism for someone and still having respect for them and how you see sort of SC Because it s a criticism it s a criticism of a system right It s a criticism of the Democratic Party So if somebody realizes that Oh literally Saikat was right I mean this is really getting outlandish But say Nancy Pelosi suddenly says OK You know what Saikat you were right to challenge me You were right that we need real change in the party You were right that we need new ideas So I d like to endorse you I will invariably accept people changing their minds and coming over I m never going to say no just because I disagreed with you in the past I ll never accept anything you say A key thing here is I m not going to change who I am or what I m running on to get anybody s endorsement I m going to run what I m running on I m going to run the way I m running I m going to run still calling out Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and all the leadership that s failing us right now And so if you think that s the race you want to be a part of great But if you think you re going to change me to get an endorsement sorry it s not going to happen AL You ve been very openly saying Hakeem Jeffries should be primaried What s your take on Schumer Where do you stand on him particularly after this shutdown showdown SC I mean he should absolutely be primary I mean there s no question Chuck Schumer has entirely failed as leader for Senate This is He s getting too a great number of chances and he s perfectly out of step with the party and frankly I think he s damaging the party especially when it came to something like the Zohran race in New York where Schumer he never endorsed As far as I know he didn t even say if he voted for him AL Saikat Chakrabarti thank you for joining me on the Intercept Briefing SC Thank you Thanks for having me AL That does it for this episode of The Intercept Briefing We want to hear from you What do you want to see more coverage of Are you taking political action Are there organizing efforts in your region you want to shout out Shoot us an email at podcasts theintercept com Or leave us a voice mail at -POD-CAST That s - - This episode was produced by Laura Flynn and Andrew Stelzer with editorial promotion from Maia Hibbett Sumi Aggarwal is our executive producer Ben Muessig is our editor-in-chief Chelsey B Coombs is our social and video producer Desiree Adib is our booking producer Fei Liu is our product and design manager Nara Shin is our copy-editor Will Stanton mixed our show Legal review by David Bralow Slip Stream provided our theme music If you want to advocacy our work you can go to theintercept com join Your donation no matter the amount makes a real difference If you haven t already please subscribe to The Intercept Briefing wherever you listen to podcasts And leave us a rating or a review it helps other listeners to find our reporting Until next time I m Akela Lacy The post Saikat Chakrabarti s Plan for the Political Revolution appeared first on The Intercept