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Utah lets artificial intelligence start prescribing medication, Elon Musk’s Grok AI violates privacy by “undressing” non-consenting users, and a death inside a Mississippi jail raises familiar questions about brutality, cover-ups, and accountability. DeRay interviews Brooke Butler, Political Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, about Our Power, Our Country—the party’s earliest-ever investment to mobilize voters of color and rural communities ahead of the 2026 midterms.

 

News

Artificial intelligence begins prescribing medications in Utah

‘Misogyny by design’: Is it possible to escape getting ‘undressed’ by AI?

Death at a Mississippi Jail: Brutal Beating or a Fall From Bed?

 

Follow @PodSaveThePeople on Instagram.

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Hey, this is DeRay, and welcome to Pod Save the People. On this episode, it’s me, Myles and Sharhonda, back to talk about all the under reported news with regard to race, justice, culture, and equity. And then I sat down with Brooke Butler, political director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram at @PodSaveThePeople. Here we go. [music break]

 

[AD BREAK]

 

DeRay Mckesson: I’d hoped that 2026 would start off a little more chill, but it has not. We are back for another week of Pod Save the People. This is DeRay at @deray on Twitter. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: This is Myles E. Johnson at @sunpulpit on Instagram. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: And this is Sharhonda Bossier at @BossierSha on Instagram, at @BossierS on Spill. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Boom. Well, let’s actually start with the news that has taken the country by storm, which is ICE, because ICE has just been causing havoc all over the country. But the story that really has gotten a lot of people, people who had defended ICE before, to even be outraged is the killing of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old white woman in Minneapolis. If you remember, the police also killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, that did change the country’s attitude around policing back in 2020 and now we have Renee Good, a 37 year old white woman who was killed in Minneapolis. The police alleged that she was using her car as a weapon. And if you’ve had the misfortune like I did of watching the video, you know that was not true. But they shoot her in the head at almost point blank range and she dies. And you know it was the middle of the day, there’s footage of it. The FBI has taken over the investigation and has removed all local police from participating in the local in the investigation. They are not sharing any information with the local police department. The Minnesota National Guard has been activated because of what is happening with ICE and then schools in Minneapolis have also been closed because ICE has been targeting schools. If you don’t know about Minneapolis, most people know that Minneapolis has one of the largest communities of Somalians inside of the United States. But it also has one of the biggest concentrations of Hmong, of the Hmong community in the United States as well. I used to work at Minneapolis public schools and we had a hundred languages spoken in 70 schools. It was really an incredible place of cultural diversity, but I bring it here because Renee Good was killed and then Keith Porter was also killed by an off-duty ICE officer in Los Angeles. And he was 43 years old, a 43-year-old Black man who was killed by an off duty ICE agent. But these two killings are the first killings of the year by ICE agents, and historically ICE does not kill a lot of people in these situations, so it is alarming that they both have happened right now. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, I think what this really makes me feel is I wish that we were in a space where, like, a white woman’s death wouldn’t be in vain. Like, there would be an era in history where a white woman dying would mean something, would kind of get more attention, get more people to care, get more people to see how out of control something’s gotten. But that’s just not the truth anymore. The first person who came to my mind was Heather Heyer from Charlottesville who um who passed away. So you know, I do think that we are in like a culture of identity. So when you see something, just put it blunt, but when you a white woman getting treated like a nigga, we’re in a dark, dark, dark place. And I think, you know, we’re recording this on the Friday after that shooting after that incident. So of course, I think the immediate reaction is alarming. The immediate reaction as people in the streets, but you know we’ll see in two months what the reaction really is. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes, Myles to that. And I also think that one of the reasons we didn’t hear, or many of us didn’t here about Keith Porter’s death until Renee Good was killed, was because we, as in the public, are still looking for the perfect victim. And so in talking about Renee, we’ve really played up like her wife, her children, her glove compartment having all of the kids’ toys in it, right? There’s something about wanting her to be perfect. And wanting to say like if they will kill this perfect person, right? Like who else do you think they will take out? And in the Keith Porter instance, right, there are reports that he was shooting a gun in the air to ring in the new year, which if you were from Southern California is a long-standing practice. It’s a dumb one. It’s an idiotic one. Stop it. But it is not something that should have resulted in his death. In fact, I don’t even think most people get arrested for it when they do it. I think they get a citation for it, right? And again, it’s dangerous. I’m not saying it isn’t. But I think one of the reasons that people didn’t talk about his death was because there is this sense that like he might have been doing something that warranted this off duty ICE agent’s actions. And Renee Good is as close to a perfect victim as we could get, which is why I think her death sort of set off this set of rallying cries. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Now what I do think is different about this, and this I think is uh you know seems to be one of the big catalysts, it’s Mike Brown in Ferguson, then we get George Floyd in Minneapolis, and so many other killings obviously in between. So Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, Tamir. But these these ones that sort of become these really long sustained national conversations, what’s interesting about Renee for me is you see these mayors come out and make statements about it, mayors who are nowhere near Minneapolis. Mamdani is like, I called the White House. This isn’t a front. You know he doubles down on the sanctuary city. The mayor of Minneapolis literally holds a press conference and says, get the F out of my city to the ICE agents. You see the sheriff in Philadelphia who is under fire right now because she is like literally try that [bleep] here and calls them fake law enforcement. Rochelle Bilal, the Philadelphia sheriff is facing calls to resign after saying she would arrest ICE agents and calling them a, quote, “fake law enforcement,” adding, “you don’t want this smoke.” It’s like, this is an interesting moment where you see the police and you see elected officials, local elected officials up against ICE publicly, which, you know, I never thought I’d see that. We said abolish ICE and people said we were crazy. Like this is nuts, da-da-da. And you actually see this happening in real time. I wanna know if that, does that feel different to you? Does or does this feel like sort of just these are the performances that happen and then people go back to business as usual?

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I think it’s the latter for me, that these are the performances that happen. I also think that this is, it’s like the Derek Chauvin thing, right, where it’s like there’s got to be a sacrificial lamb, right? So this person is acting with the power validation, justification of an entire system behind them. And what we are trying to do is say that one individual act is wrong, right. And the feds have locked out local and state law enforcement from investigating, right? Like Minneapolis City, the state of Minnesota have said like, we don’t have access to any of the evidence. The feds are there. The FBI has said we will investigate. The vice president, the press secretary, everybody has already said this guy’s gonna walk away. He will face no consequences. And so while I think it’s important to be on the record as having dissented, right? You don’t see anyone at, you know, moving in a way that says that the outcome will be materially different. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Re-tweet Sharhonda. [laughter] [indistinct banter]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Or Myles you know we have three more years ostensibly of Trump, and it seems like ICE is just getting more intense. J.D., I don’t even know if you saw the the press conference, J.D. Vance said, and I quote, “that ICE agents have immunity,” absolute immunity is what he said. So what’s the end of this? Do you think it just is martial law? Do you that there is a backlash in Congress? Do you, I don’t know. What do you think? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I don’t think that it’s martial law. I don’t really follow any of like the melodrama of what people kind of think is going to happen in their head. I think that you now know that ICE is like the police and they are another government system who can kill you if they want to. But, when I really think about it, they’re just joining a long country club of systems that can kill you if you want to, including your doctor, ask Black women. Like of course, including police officers. So I actually don’t think that us having another established entity that can kill you with immunity is actually very new to American citizens. And I think that the shock of it being created creates protests, creates dissent, creates this. But I think in three months, four months in one year, people get over it. Hence why we’re still talking about this same thing over and over again. When we were talking about abolish ICE, abolish the police years ago, I’ve been doing a lot of kind of like feminist reading on BDSM and kink culture and seeing a lot of parallels in the BDSM kink culture. If last year was cults, this year is kink for me. And seeing a lotta parallels in just the psychology of what we do and the power dynamics and us restraining and resisting and saying no, and then welcoming. So many Democratics welcomed ICE. So many people were collaborating with ICE before this. And unfortunately, it does not take one singular white person, and it damn sure don’t take one singular Black person, to stop those institutions. And that’s what really needs to happen. And I don’t think this is a catalyst for that. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Before we go, a little bit of levity on this, if that’s okay. Y’all remember when we talked about the Vince Staples interview on Ziwe and how Vince Staples– 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yes. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: –was like, if Black people have our January 6th, we gonna look good, right? It’s gonna be the Met Gala. Did y’all see the clip of the older Black man who was shouting at ICE agents. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yes. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: In his firm? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yes, yes.

 

DeRay Mckesson: He looked great too. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: He looked great. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: And was poised! [laughter]

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yes! Yes. And you know, like, you know I’m party pooper core sometimes. But even with stuff like that, it’s because we’re in this digital sphere. Um. I’m super fascinated. My news this week is around AI and around I’m so interested in now what people create now that they have the freedom to create everything and they just recreate the same thing that oppresses in the first place. So I’m also really interested in people. Something happens. White woman dies. Oh, let’s let’s make this a viral Black man in the fur coat go viral because we need our Bill Cosby, we need out Black Daddy. Like we forget, here go the kink, the Black Daddy, we need the Black Mammy, we need all we need all of that in order to feel better. And I’m like not only am I kind of tired of seeing Black people in the streets trying to resist this stuff, I’m also getting tired of seeing Black people digitally being used to assuage the trauma. I think people need to sit with the pain that you’re in a neo-fascist hell hole and you don’t need no Black joy or no Black man with the swagged out to make you feel better. Feel uncomfortable. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: No Black excellence, uh rest is revolution?

 

Sharhonda Bossier: [laugh] I’m just going to say I was into the optics of him being out there in his fur, I was into it. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Not ministry. Y’all are my sisters. I love y’all. Y’all got. That shade was DeRay only. [indistinct banter] I give enough shade. I don’t need no shade by proxy. I give enough on my own. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I was just trying to I was trying to understand what is the revolution. I just wanted to know. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: In seriousness and not to say that those things don’t still need critique, but I do think there’s a difference between what you tell other Black people, other Black women, versus what you’d tell all of America. And how I digest rest is a resistance, how I digest the work of the nap ministry and other kind of Black feminist thinkers who have used rest, that is a direct conversation with a Black woman. Because I talk to my mom every single week, I talk to my aunt every single week, these are Black women in their 60s who do not have it in them. They have seen enough, so I do think that just because something’s popular because a Black woman created it doesn’t mean that it should be employed to every single person who can hear it. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: This is a push to understand, is that how you feel about Black excellence or do you feel differently about Black excellence? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I don’t think Black excellence is a theory. I think it’s propaganda. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Okay. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Rest and all that other stuff. There’s books, I read the books. Um. It’s connected to other theories. I read Audre Lorde’s cancer diaries. I’ve read beyond the meme, right? And there’s something beyond the meme. Black excellence doesn’t really live beyond the meme. And that’s how come the Diddy documentary is so good because when you look beyond the meme, you’re like, I think that what we meant was the wrong E word. I think that we’ve been celebrating Black evil. I think that is what really has gotten power in an evil system is Black evil that we can dress it in gold and bling it out. Yeah, I haven’t seen any theory like I’m like the the talented 10? Like that, I can’t think of any like Black excellence theories like that. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I am interested in what happens with the midterms and, you know, I think that ICE has been so out of control that I do think if we can win back the house, I think there can be real pressure to force a rollback of ICE. The question is like, how much will they roll back? I don’t think this Congress will delete ICE. And I was actually shocked at Hakeem. I mean, I shouldn’t be shocked, but Hakeem Jeffries was unwilling to use the budget process that they’re going through now as a way to cut some funding from ICE. Like he wasn’t interested in that. But I do think that if we can get Congress back. Even, you know, I don’t know if you saw, but the healthcare vote with Lauren Underwood’s. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Oh yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Tax credit vote that just went through, Republicans joined her on that. And I do think that, like, I think that there’s enough backlash to ICE that if we get close to a majority, I think that we will win on the rollbacks. I also am interested, and I don’t know if you have anything to say either one of you have anything to say about this, but I’m interested in, will people and communities make a distinction between ICE, or will they, like ICE and their local police departments, given that the local police are, they are making distinctions now? So they don’t get lumped in as like the police are bad? Or do you think people experience law enforcement as sort of like one and the same? I’m interested in what you both feel about that just because I don’t have a good sense of it because ICE isn’t really in Baltimore and I haven’t seen them in Harlem. So I those are the two places I’m the most and I don’t know how people feel about it. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I mean, you know, I live in Los Angeles uh and shout out to LAPD for always giving us something to talk about or write about. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Can’t we all get along? Sorry. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: LAPD, Rodney King, I don’t sorry.

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes no I yeah I knew exactly where you were going. I don’t think people are drawing a distinction, right? Like LAPD is still LAPD, you know? And I think for everyone, it feels like yet another layer of occupation. You’ll also recall that at the height of the pandemic, right at the height of the 2020 protest, the National Guard was deployed here. Like Los Angeles, particularly the hood, is used to being occupied and I we’re not drawing distinctions. And no one is thinking about what this law enforcement body has a right to do versus this law-enforcement body. You know what I’m saying? There is likely a white man with a gun standing in front of you telling you to do something. And I think it’s setting off the same terror, no matter the color of their uniform or the shape of their badge. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: You can’t really afford to draw a distinction right when you’re a part of certain racial classes because the pattern is if the state sanctions a group of people to be able to police a community or be able to police people, there are going to be people who are inside of that state sanctioned organization who are in there simply for the fun of the cruelty of it. That’s just the truth of it, that’s just what is inside of all of these places. So if you are a Brown person, if you’re a visibly queer person, I would say as somebody who is failing gender, which puts you somewhere inside of the trans community welcome and obviously if you’re a Black person or any of those intersecting places you know that at any moment you might be meeting somebody who’s in it for the cruelty of it and that’s just something that is rotted and infested in all of these organizations so you can’t really afford to draw a distinction because it’s all a gamble, including if that person looks like you. I’m probably more scared of a cop with a rainbow badge who’s Black like me, because I’m like, now what you got to prove in order to prove that you down with him? And now that you see me, you got a prove it. Sorry. So when my one interaction with the police and this came to me was somebody who was light skin. Was queer, I found out later, was gay, a gay male, found out later. And because how I was dressed, they tried to get me in trouble for soliciting sex outside of the club. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Oh wow.

 

DeRay Mckesson: No way! When was this? 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Wow. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I had to be, like, 23. That might also be the size of my waist at that time, too. Hence the no, I’m just joking. But, no, but that was such a strange moment because, I mean, I’ve never engaged in, like, sex work in that fashion at all. In my entire life, that was I was outside of the club, 23, whatever. And in that moment, I kind of thought I would be able to talk to that person and let them know, like I’m just in the club. I know I don’t got no clothes on right now. You know, no clothes on for me. I’ve always been a modest queen. But I was like, I don’t have any clothes on because I’m just out here trying to, you know, catch a break or whatever. And there was no empathy. There was no sympathy. And it was just as hostile, you know? Anywho, that was just something that came to me around this idea about police [?]– 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Can I say something about the people who were in it for the cruelty of it? You know, when ICE was making it’s sort of most recent big hiring push, people were like, oh, we’re going to end up in this situation where the only people who try to work for ICE are people who are in it for the cruelty of it. And what people are on the right are trying to do right now with Jonathan Ross, who is the the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good, is say that he’s not a new hire. He’s an experienced agent. So you all were worried that it was gonna be some like rogue new person, right? But this is an experienced ICE agent. And he did this because he literally was afraid for his life. They’ve also told us already that he was dragged by another vehicle last year, right, so that they’re already sort of paving the road for like excuses around like, he was traumatized previously by being dragged by a vehicle. He’s an experienced agent, and so if he felt threatened and he felt unsafe. Then, you know, this was the right call. The other thing that they’re doing is pointing out that he’s married to a Filipina. And that also is very telling, right? So because we have talked about ICE as this sort of white supremacist, racist enforcement arm, they’re gonna drag out his Asian wife too, right. And so all of this, when you talked about people who were in it for the cruelty of it, again, I think a lot of that public narrative had been focused on people who were recent recruits. And they’re like this guy is a longstanding agent with a good reputation and a good record and an Asian wife. So [laugh] y’all can’t see their faces. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I will say, too, it is, you know, we did this big campaign in 2020 called Eight Can’t Wait. It was about use of force policies. One of the policies was banning shooting into moving vehicles because the police do this all over the country. We actually got the DOJ to change their policy, which included ICE, to limit and ban shooting in moving vehicles. So when this happened, people immediately were like, this is against the policy. And we were like, we know, because we wrote that. But it was we were trying to, you know the news has covered some of the the bans. They conveniently make it sound like the bans like on shooting into moving vehicles just popped up. That it was not activist led, it was not just me. It was a lot of us who did it. But it is interesting because, and you know this is my my day-to-day work, but the police do things like this in ways that people just don’t, they don’t become national stories. Most of the killings happen not like this that make the national news. It’s like somebody running from the police or walking down the street, da-da-da. But the police shoot at moving vehicles all the time. And it is one of the craziest things. Cause you’re like, you know, I don’t know if any of you have ever seen somebody shoot a gun or you shot a gun or been around a police officer shooting a gun. Very few people can aim. It is aiming is harder than people think. It’s not, you know a lot we don’t have a lot of like shooters in communities aren’t good aims, which is why they shoot bystanders. The police are not good aims. That’s why if you ever asked like, why don’t the police just shoot people in the leg? It’s cause they can’t figure it out. They go for center mass because that is the, it’s the biggest part of your body. When you shoot at a moving vehicle, if the police can’t shoot somebody standing still, they certainly can’t shoot somebody accurately driving away. This is why they shot her point blank, like she wasn’t really moving the car when he shot her. So when they try to do the like, well, the car was moving, you’re like the car wasn’t coming at you. It wasn’t really acting like a weapon, but the lies that the police tell, this goes to our story from last week about why they wanna make sure that people can’t film the police. Because the only reason people could push back on the killing of Renee was that there’s 8,000 videos of it. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yep. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned, there’s more to come. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Well, to talk about Trump some more, because we are in this hellhole of of his administration. Remember last week, we talked about Macado, who was the opposition leader who got the Nobel Peace Prize, who praised him so much. And that he was like, she not ready to be the leader of Venezuela. The idea that Trump should be choosing the leader of Venezuela is insane. But I don’t know if you saw. So Trump is trying to get the Nobel Peace prize from her. I’m interested in why you think he cares about the Nobel Peace price so much? But they have released a statement that said, a Nobel Prize can neither be revoked nor transferred to others. Once the announcement of the laureate has been made, the decision stands for all time. As for the prize money, the laureates are free to dispose of it as they see fit. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I don’t know why he’s so obsessed with a Nobel Peace Prize. Right? Also, she’s tried to appease him in a number of ways around this. First, she dedicated it to him, right, and that wasn’t enough. He like needs to possess it. And that’s why we saw the FIFA Peace Prize, which they created to give to him. I don’t know why he feels like he needs every award in all the land. You know? But I do you know recall when she was awarded the Peace Prize that there were some people who took real issue with her proximity to the Trump administration, right, who were like, we don’t disagree that Maduro needs to be replaced, that he shouldn’t be here, etc., etc., but this is not the way to do it, especially cozying up to this administration. So the idea that she’s coming to the United States next week to meet with him, he’s saying it would be an honor to accept the award from her. I don’t know why he’s obsessed with it, you know? I sort of understand her play, if she wants to be installed as the leader of Venezuela, and arguably she can say she won an election and therefore, even though she’s being installed, she’s a legitimate leader. I see the argument she might make there, but like in no democracy is that how [bleep] is supposed to work.

 

Myles E. Johnson: So back to my point on cruelty, right? 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: So specifically for them, when we connect everything that people are doing with the Epstein files, when we kind of remember what Trump did to that white woman in in Bergdorf Goodman. She won her case. Like you have to understand that, not even connected with Diddy, you know because that’s like kind of the latest pop culture thing on people’s heads. The cruelty is fun and it is sport. So the same thing that makes you want to humiliate or rape a 12-year-old, 13-year old, 14-year, or 15-year girl, and the thing that gets you excited about that is the same thing that makes want to take something that you didn’t get from a woman, whether it be her Nobel Peace Prize or her sexuality. It’s all fun and it’s all in the same game of power. So how he does it expresses itself different ways. How he does is different, but it’s all the same. Grab them by the pussy, grab her Nobel peace prize. That’s their game. They’re sick in that way. Even when I think about Pete Hegseth and when you read about what he’s done and the kind of person he is, and we all kind of met a bro-y, frat person who you might be scared to be alone with in the room. That is their thing, you know? Why do serial killers end up killing their pets before they do stuff is something differently wired in your head around it. And the other thing too is, I don’t think it’s really about the Nobel Peace Prize. I just think that he’s a glutton. I think that just like somebody who’s a glutton wants a burger and then after the burger, they want the ice cream and then they want the steak. I think that, you know, I want the presidency, then I want The Nobel Peace Prize. It’s just status burgers that he can eat. And once that status burger is done, he’s gonna try to digest another status burger. And it might come in a different expression. It might look like an invasion of a country or taking of an award, but it’s all to get that status because he’s an empty person. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: It is really interesting how, you know, remember that he got the FIFA Peace Prize, which was made up and means nothing. The Nobel committee, he’s never going to get that earnestly. So he’s trying to do it this way. And Myles, I actually I do agree with you in that sense that like, you know, one of the features of white supremacy, right, is that there’s never enough. And they know they can’t earn the stuff, but they want it anyway. So taking it is second best and they will do that until the end. I don’t live as as public of a life as I did um in the beginning of the protests, but I look up and I just see so many people who, I wish this many people were informed in 2014 and ’15. I look up and so many more people have an understanding of race and justice in a way that they did not, but are paralyzed about what to do about it. And I’m hopeful that some really good organizing comes out of this. So like Mamdani is a great example of like how we get people in structural power. But Mamdani only is able to win because a whole group of people before him laid the philosophical framework for an election like that. So shout out to the organizers and let’s keep going. Myles, MTV, is it gone? Is it here? What’s the what? 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I will apologize for whoever reported the news that MTV was gone. No, in all seriousness, y’all, I was very adamant and annoying about setting a public apology around MTV being gone, because MTV is not gone. So you know those like stations like MTV Classic, MTV2, or whatever, those stations are disappearing but just only in UK and Australia. And one of the reasons why I was adamant about us apologizing around it was because, A, we take seriously giving you all right information, specifically in the age of misinformation, but also because we weren’t the only ones. Even as I was kind of like retroactively looking at all the posts around MTV dying, you have Exhibit, who’s the host of Pimp My Rides, um putting out Carson Daly uh crying and saying goodbye, AI generated, by the way. So, you have all of these people who were participating in saying goodbye to MTV, which means something that was not true grew legs and infiltrated our news process. And that means if it happens to us and we are a pretty well-resourced podcast, if it happens to us, that means that it can definitely happen to you. So I’m all about looking things twice. I put pictures, I call them my auntie and unc checks. I put pictures of two AI pictures and say which one’s AI. Sometimes they’re trick questions, like my last one, they were both AI, because it’s getting even better. Um. And even when it comes to stuff that feels so ubiquitous, because by the time the news happened with MTV, it felt ubiquitous. So I it didn’t even cross my mind to check, to see because it was on places that we trust. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: When you went down to it, it was one of those things where that’s not what’s going on. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: And unfortunately, we have so many people desperate to make money, desperate to have a news story, that that comes first for a lot of people. And yeah, we’re sorry, but also let this be a warning that if it can get us, it can get you. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. Although I think our points about MTV’s declining cultural power and influence remain. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: It definitely still remains, but with the context of nothing changing. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Oh yeah. For sure.

 

Myles E. Johnson: It’s something that we could have said 20 years ago too. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: For sure. For sure. For sure.

 

DeRay Mckesson: Did you also see that um Trump has finally acknowledged that Diddy did request a pardon and Trump said he has no interest in granting a pardon? 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. I wonder if he would feel differently if the sentence were longer or if Diddy had been convicted on the more serious charges versus being like, you can suck it up and take this sentence on the chin. You know?

 

Myles E. Johnson: Sometimes I’m like, because I feel like I pushed back on him giving a pardon a few times. And I said, well, maybe if Diddy really played the game like went full Nicki Minaj and really just like surrendered himself to coonland, I can see that happening. But my idea is that Diddy, no matter what, still has a better bet inside the Black community even after this stuff has happened. So I don’t think that he’s going to be doing that and all of this. It feels stupid, me saying it, so I’m sorry, but maybe it needs repeating. This is all racialized. Like, you know what Nick Fuentes was saying about J.D. Vance’s wife and like being like, like, you can’t tell me nothing. You married to this slur word. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Who’s Brown, like a Brown slurword. Like, it’s so about making sure, oh, a rich Black man is in jail with no money? Great, more money for white people, like they’re already in a racial cultural war, and these systems are their nuclear weapons. And him doing that in front of people just doesn’t, wouldn’t make any sense to them unless that he was able to like be a mouthpiece for white supremacy, which I feel like Diddy is like, I can’t do that. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: You’re like, draw the line there. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Tyler Perry’s still touching and writing checks. He’s still touching them boys and writing checks. Tyler Perry is so Diddy don’t gotta totally oblige to white supremacy right now. He still has other pathways. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Well, I look forward to hearing whether or not you turn a profit on Kalshi when you bet on the potential outcome of this. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Hold on, let me get my app. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: What’s crazy is I didn’t even know Kalshi was a thing or Polymarket until the podcast. Like I didn’t I’d seen like the tweets and stuff, but I like couldn’t like super make sense of it. And now I’m like, oh, this is this is really not good. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That’s what makes it so good. Cause it reminds me how Uber came. So I don’t know. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: So I remember very clearly the integration of Uber. And at the time it was Caviar, which was like the food service. And I remember it just kind of like came. It wasn’t like a big old shout. It just kind of came. And then before you knew it, you’re like, oh, we just all do this five years later. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: That’s how this polymarket stuff kind of comes in. It’s not coming in like AI or about Bitcoin. It’s kind of coming in and just integrating with our life already. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I was at dinner with um the guy who started Uber. [laughter] And we’re sitting next to each other. This is very random, but um and you’d never know you’d never know it was him. So we’re all at this dinner and I’m like, what do you do? He’s like, oh I like started a tech company. I’m, like, oh, what tech company? I like I don’t know. He’s like he is being very coy about it, very sweet, and then I it’s Uber. And I asked him, I’m like why? And he was like, you know, I used to call the cab companies and there was such a mess in New York City. So I’d call all of them. I just call like three cab companies to come get me. And then two would come, but I’d be gone already because one of them, like I’d just go with who ever came first. So he’s like, eventually my address got banned. So none of the cab companies would come to my address anymore because I would call like da da. So he was like, I started Uber because of that. And I was like that’s interesting. It’s my random Uber story. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: You know what, I wanna I wanna predict and prophesize so anybody who has more stick-to-it-ness when it comes to tech and where tech is going than me, please steal this. But I think there’s going to be specifically once this Trump era is over, there’s gonna be like a wave of like woke apps. So what I mean by woke apps is essentially like way more successful Ubers and Lyfts that do background checks, like feminist, socialist versions of things that we already have. So I think that’s going to be like a huge wave that comes by because most Americans want to feel like they’re doing something and they’re going to feel guilty for letting this happen. So instead of doing something, they’re going to consume their way into feeling better about it. And that consumer is going to happen via apps is my prediction. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Polymarket that. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: And book clubs. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: And book clubs. You know, we are we’re going to pilot some teaching stuff for February, so look out. Um. I’ll go to the news. I’m starting with the great state of Utah. So in Utah, it is interesting because they have now made it legal for prescriptions, medical prescriptions to be done via AI. And, you know, I’m torn about the AI thing. I’m like, mmm I just am nervous about it for a host of reasons because I think that with especially medical care. People should have a doctor. You know, AI is not a person. AI is just culling the mass of information that’s been put into the system. But in reading about it, I was actually split. So I’m interested to know what you think of the FDA is not currently regulating AI. So this is really the Wild, Wild West right now, like it is unclear what the rules are, or they get to make the rules up themselves in the great state of Utah. So I hope that there is some regulation, even if we allow this to happen. But one of their arguments for it was that in places where there are not pharmacists or where there not a lot of doctors, this actually is an access issue and that this will allow people to get prescriptions refilled and things like that in a way that makes sense. The company is called Doctronic, and they compare their AI system to human clinicians in 500 urgent care cases, and they show that the treatment plan matched the physician’s 99.2% of the time. 500 people is you know a small sample when it is people’s lives at risk, because you know you screw up one or two prescriptions, one or people, and all of a sudden that is a wrap. And of course, as you can imagine, the Doctronic off at the Doctronic co-founders are saying AI is actually better than the doctors at this and I quote, “when you go see a doctor it’s not going to do all the checks that the AI is doing” so like I’m so fascinated by that but I also am like ah this makes me a little nervous. The program in Utah is limited to 190 commonly prescribed medications so there are a host of things that are excluded so like pain management, ADHD drugs, for instance, still require a person. As you can imagine, this is a profit-making business. So there’s a $4 per prescription renewal price. So, you know, you don’t always have to pay something like that when you go to your doctor just to get a refill or a prescription. And I was actually pretty surprised that this is regulation-less. Like I’m not surprised by the Trump people, but I had just sort of assumed there would be some, I don’t know, some safeguards that would prohibit something like this just happening so easily. Like Utah is just like, hey we’re trying it out. And I think as a consumer, I would just assume there’s some medical board that is putting guardrails up for this. Like I would not think that the company itself is doing it on its own. So I wanted to bring it here because I’m fascinated by it and I’m nervous about it. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I’m terrified because I’ll just talk a little bit about my own health journey. I think I’ve shared before that I have hypertension. It’s something I have inherited. I am on meds for it. It has taken me a long time to find the right meds, right? So the first meds I was on made it really difficult for me to run. And I’m a distance runner. Like that was like my wellbeing. So I was like, okay, can’t be these meds. Right. Next set of meds I’m on my doctor is like, I know your you know you say you don’t want to have kids, but there’s this whole other class of medicine that I don’t wanna prescribe for you because it you know it impacts you if you decide to, my body, my choice, but that’s a different conversation too, right? So they put me on a second batch of meds, right, my hair falls out. Then they put on a third batch of meds. I ended up hospitalized with angioedema because they don’t know why, but like 2% of Black people who end up on this set of meds, right, end up with swelling in like an extremity. Unfortunately, the swelling in my extremity was in my face. And so my best friend was a clinician and when I started to feel unwell, I called her and she was like, take a Benadryl and if you still don’t feel well in 30 minutes, like call me back. What I didn’t know is that she was on her way to my house because she knew based on what I was describing that things were about to get really bad for me. So I get to the hospital. Because she’s like, get in my car. I get to the hospital, I’m masking, right? It’s 2022, they ask me to pull my face down. I’m also delirious from the Benadryl, or pull my mask down. I’m delirous from the benadryl, I have no idea what’s happening. And everybody is panicked for me, right. But my blood pressure was fine, right, and everything that WebMD told me, which is also mostly scraping things from the internet, right was that I would be fine. And I’m going to put in the group chat right now what my face looked like when I made it home from the hospital so y’all can see how bad my swelling was because this is what I looked like when they released me, right? But if I had not had easy access to someone who was a clinician who understood what I was describing was about to get worse, I would have been on my couch taking a nap. This terrifies me. Y’all can’t see Myles’s face and y’all also can’t see the photos, but it’s, yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I remember this, Sharhonda, and I was like, this is crazy. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I mean. No version of what we will say will communicate what’s in this picture. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yes. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: I’m so glad that I did not know you at that time because I’m not that nephew, I’m not that niece. I’m uh if you want somebody to panic with you, I’ll panic, but I’m not that, that whole knowing something was going down and coming to your house. That is so beautiful. I would have been like, oh my God. I couldn’t even describe to you, but it looks, it looks wild. It also looks like the picture I need to show when I get my fillers though. Cause that looks about the right size for my lips. For my lips. [laugh]

 

DeRay Mckesson: Oh Myles you are nuts. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, so I’m in a weird place when it comes to this, right? So because of the story that Sharhonda just told, but also so many stories that I hear about Black people who are interfacing with the medical system in general, it kind of feels like, so, I can even connect this with the kind of the AI in music um argument, where, yes, do I think AI in music is bad? Do I think that it’s stealing? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. When I hear the music that AI creates, because it’s bad. It does make me think about all the mediocre bad music that made this possible, because there are people who are listening to it whose ears have been trained to consume bad music. So I think about, all the people who, ugh I don’t know how to say the stuff you mean, but who all the the people who gave us [bleep] music in order to make a dollar, and now we figured out how to take the people out of the [bleep] music, and now it’s just [bleep] music and a dollar. And I think about that when it comes to the medical industry too, because I know so many people who didn’t get the service they need. So it’s like, okay, plug it into a robot. Maybe that’ll help. But like, it’s hard to create the same type of urgency around this because the medical industry has already been so bad to the participants already. So what’s making it automated? 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Yeah, it blew my mind I and Sharhonda, you’re right. The hard part is that I worry that people are gonna get hurt before there will be regulations for this as opposed to on the front end. Put somebody saying like, okay, we can give out Tylenol like this and we can give out some vitamins like this. We shouldn’t be giving out heart pills and blood pressure pills and you know, like I’m still shocked. I really overestimated government regulation. Here we are. [music break] Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned, there’s more to come. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Speaking of government regulation and oversight, something we’ve talked a lot about is oversight of prisons and jails in our country and where government tends to, I would say essentially abdicate its responsibility to keep citizens who are incarcerated safe. And so my news this week is about a prison assault and death that an inmate confessed to. And that it looks like the guards in the Mississippi prison where this happened and the medical examiner have for all intents and purposes helped cover up, right? So this is a story about the death of William Wade Aycock who was yanked from his bed in his cell, had his head stomped on by a 26 year old inmate named Chancellor Berrong. Chancellor has tried to confess to this death a number of times, but when the prison authorities came to investigate,  other inmates had already cleaned the cell, had already bleached it, cleaned up the blood, et cetera. The medical examiner says that Williams’ death looked like it resulted from a fall from a bunk, which did not make sense. And so people are trying to figure out how you can have someone die in a prison facility. There be no security cam footage, no notes from interviews, guards who are afraid to speak on the record. And the state essentially say, so sorry, we had another terrible accident when not only has the decedent’s family been suspicious from the very beginning, but you have someone who has literally confessed to the crime. And so I’m bringing that here, obviously, because we talk a lot about prisons and incarceration and the way that people are treated and protected or not. Also because we had the team behind the Alabama Solution on a few episodes ago, and if you didn’t listen to that interview, highly encourage you to, if you still haven’t seen the Alabama Solution, definitely worth a watch. But bringing that here, one, to elevate the story, and two, for discussion. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: So fascinated and fascinated that he is saying that he was recruited by a guard to kill Mr. Aycock, which is important to just repeat over and over that he did not do this as like a, the man stole something from him, da da da, he’s like, no, no I was recruited. So one of the things that fascinated me and my activism around prisons and jails is I didn’t realize that one of that biggest issues actually about conditions, that legislators agree with us about the condition stuff. They think solitary cofinement is bad da da da da da, like they don’t think people should be locked up. Like most of the legislators on the left, even on the right, are sort of like, it should be humane. But the biggest problem facing corrections right now is that nobody wants to be a corrections officer. So you get these wild staffing issues and because they are nervous about people quitting, we go in and we try and put some standards in and they’re like, well, everybody gonna quit. And you’re like well, you know the way we think about that is that we’re like well, you should actually just free everybody then, like let them out. If you don’t have the staff to hold them, you should let them out. But the response from the system is like, you know lower the thresholds and just have people just have people do whatever. And it is a fascinating sort of problem. I never would have thought that it is the staffing of prisons and jails that people are afraid to confront. Even in Rikers, if you remember Rikers, the jail in New York City, there was an increase in contraband during COVID. You’re like, it’s no visitors. The only people going in and out of Rikers are the staff. But you ask for accountability and people are like, literally, they’ll tell you off the record. They’re like, people are gonna quit. We don’t know what to do if everybody quits. And when I read this story, I’m like, oh, they know what’s up. But they are like if we investigate these guards, this guy’s just telling the truth this time, they probably have run this same scheme once a week. They’re gonna have to fire everybody in that building and because the solution is not to let people out, the question will become what happens. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: So anytime I hear stories like this, I kind of just automatically go back to like a media storytelling place. And um I’m still kind of on the time that I was on like last year. Around the framing and the talking about abolition and no police and no ICE and no prisons and how that kind of political utopia or fairy tale should consistently be reimagined and given to people as stories and this story specifically feels like such an anchor and it makes me sad that there is not more inventive or innovative ways to supplying the story to your average person. Emphasis on average, you know? And I think the story is really compelling. I think that it shows that most of our organizations like this operate like organized crime and that there is conspiracy happening inside of jails and prison systems. And I think there’s ways to talk about those things and get those things to other people to show that it’s not working. Because unfortunately, if people do not see it, they just assume that it is working. And there’s only a select group of people who are reading it through these news ways. So that’s the first thing that came to my mind reading this, was how I wish there were people who can see these stories and innovate new ways to bridge these stories to people who can change the taste for prisons and police in the culture. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Crazy times we’re in. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yes. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Now talking about somebody who needs to go to jail, too. We’re going to talk about Elon Musk, Elon Musky, Elon Musty. So, I’m not on X anymore, I am not on Twitter, I’m a be real with you. Sometimes I have this, like, imaginary ancestor in my head, and sometimes the ancestor says really good and powerful things, but sometimes the ancestor just kind of gets on my neck, and it’s like, so you what you’re telling me is that we killed people, we carpooled or whatever, but you can’t take your ass off of X? You can’t delete your X account? Is that what you’re trying to discuss to us who art thou in heaven and it just became like kind of like an ethical dilemma for me. And this story kind of highlights it too, because it’s it’s leadership. So if you don’t know, Grok is the AI that Elon Musk put on X and part of its appeal to a lot of people is that it has less guardrails. So, it can make things quicker, it’s less content-censoring, and that exploded because people began to tell Grok to turn people naked. And once that trend started, there was a whole lot of people. Some people were digital sex workers, some people were people who were part of the fitness community, and some people who are just average, everyday people who maybe posted their bodies. And people were requesting to show these people naked and in sexually suggestive positions. So it’s twofold with Elon. First thing that he did was he did say that that’s not okay to do that, and that we banned Grok making illegal content. The second thing he did was get Grok to put him in a bikini. So kind of also signaling to his community that, okay, that’s something I had to say because, you know, the woke fun police, but here’s how I really feel about it. Here I am naked in a bikini. One of the reasons why I really liked this article too is because it did have a kind of feminist critique of what was going on. I’m gonna read a little bit of it. Unfortunately, the misogynistic application of tools like Grok is also no big surprise. Women and girls are disproportionately targeted with online sexual harassment and abuse, including instances that make use of new emerging technologies like deepfakes. The current surge in Grok abuse is no different, McGlynn says. The main prompts to Grok are about undressing women and sexualizing their images, such as putting semen-like images on their body. Regarding image-based sexual abuse, she adds, those identifying as LGBTQ plus are also commonly targeted. So I loved everything that was said there. The one layer I want to add, which is more layer/warning, is that’s what I think we all should understand when we participate inside of social media. I think that we should start seeing social media as a political, social-political realm and reality, where the rules and laws are different, where what you can get away with is different, and also what can happen to you is different. And I think that, and I say this all the time because I think we as Americans can stop seeing our society as a society. We just see it as the way things are. And we see North Korea as propaganda and what a weird society, but we see America as free and as free will, and it’s not. So anytime we’re plugging in our abs and our bodies and our diets, we’re plugging that into diet culture. Anytime we are making sexually suggestive content that can go on people’s algorithms, we are participating in rape culture because there are gonna be people who are seeing that who did not consent to it. And then also anytime we’re uploading our pictures inside of the internet, we are giving license for people, everybody, dark and light web to participate in that picture, and by the time somebody can say no to it, it’s already done. We already know that. In the link, we’re going to give you some resources, so if you find that there’s been a deep fake or AI altered image of you, there’s ways to take it down. But the real truth is, we already know. That’s how come ICE and Trump do what they do. ICE knows we going to take Jay-Z’s song. By the time Jay-Z hits us with a copyright, it is already viral. What you gonna do? So this so what so by the time somebody wants to make a deep fake of somebody by the time somebody wants to make a sexualized image of somebody it’s already done. And we just have to know that that we’re participating in a neoliberal fascist culture and that anything that we add to that can be used for its benefit even if you do not consent with it because we have rapists and pedophiles in charge of us, and I ain’t just talking about Republicans. I’m talking about all of them that it applies to. So, yeah, I just want to layer that warning of anytime you log on, just because it’s happening and you’re doing it in your bedroom or in your office or somewhere that’s familiar, know that you’re walking into another social political realm where there’s different laws and act accordingly. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: My macro point is that I want people to care about things before they have to, because I know some people who Grok made images of them in Speedos or thongs or jockstraps, like that was how I saw it come up, was on Black A Twitter, and they are rightly outraged about it. And they were sort of like, the AI stuff doesn’t matter. Like before this, they were like, it doesn’t matter, and it’s like, I am nervous about all of the rationalization that happens around these things like ICE, like, you know, until it hits people, they’re like, oh, you know this is and you’re like no, no, this is, like, how do we help people understand that this is laying the foundation? That what ICE is doing now with ostensibly air-quote immigrant communities is really so that, you now, when you start saying absolute immunity, it’s like what Myles said, this is what we said at the beginning of of the deportations. Yeah, you do have due process, but how are you suing from a prison in Venezuela? You’re not. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: It don’t matter, right? 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: So like how do we help people understand that and like experience the quote, “little things” as really the urgent things? Like you need to freak out right now about all this stuff because by the time the power has been amassed in such a way, you won’t even have the chance to freak out, like it will be, that chance will be taken away from you. So I will say a super shout out to the activists. I have like an eternal greatness for all the organizers who continue to organize and continue to push because I remember learning about ICE for the first time because they were in a local police department, which is where I got sort of my start. I remember my first conversation about AI when I was like, oh, what is this? Like we had used it on a police thing and AI was gonna read these police union contracts, but like AI wasn’t a thing anymore. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: I remember this yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: And I was like, oh, this feels really crazy. And I’m like, what is this? And then AI becomes a thing. And I’m sitting here like, I got to learn about this. But how do we help people understand the regulation part of this is like a real thing is part of my homework. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know. It feels like maybe a little bit of cynicism and nihilism seeping in to my brain, right? Because I’m like, well, sure, I could like not post that picture of myself in a swimsuit to give people more fodder. I could, all of these things. And the truth of the matter is like, none of that is going to shield me from this potentially happening to me, right. And so, and then the, you know, to your point, Myles, about the Elon Musk picture, right, what he’s doing is like isn’t this this silly harmful thing? I mean, haha, right? Like those people over there are overreacting. There’s no world in which this leads to violence. There’s no world in  which this lead to exploitation. And I am struggling, like, with what to do about it. Increasingly, my friends are pulling their kids off social media and, like not posting their children anymore. You know, you used to get on Facebook, post your family reunion picture all the kids would be in the front. And increasingly, people are understanding the dangers of that, of like uploading the images of of children online. But I’m also curious about, you know, like there are Google albums and like my iPhone album and like, my iPhone is organizing these things. And they’re like, here are these people who are in your and I just don’t know where any of that stuff goes or where it lives, right? Like, I get the thing, your iCloud storage is almost full. And I’m like, well [bleep], how do I get into my iCloud storage to figure out what’s in there so I can delete some of that stuff, right. And so I think they’re just like very basic things. And then the terms and services are always updating and you’re like, I’m clicking yes, because otherwise I can’t use my phone today, you know? And I just think we’ve handed over a ton to the tech overlords that yes, some of it is about us giving it to them by uploading it, but some of feels like increasingly they’re coming into our devices to take it. 

 

Myles E. Johnson: Yeah, they’re patriarchs, right? They’re patriarchs, they are they are at least colluding. I don’t want to call Mark Zuckerberg or anything like that, like rapist or whatever, but they’re colluding with rapists. They’re colluding with people who don’t care about consent and they’re colluding with people who have greed. And like I mean, I think the hard thing is anybody who’s saying the answer is not to log off is full of shit. Like that’s what has to happen. So we have to contend with where we really are, where it’s like, oh, I know I need to log-off. That’s how it has to go. I think that we sometimes want to perform doing the good thing, and it becomes all about not going to Target, not going to Target, and we don’t really talk to the person who’s having a hard time not going to Target. Not because they can’t not go to Target because it’s habit or the abusive relationship we are with convenience and with connection and with social mobility and connection that happens through the digital space. We have to talk about it because there’s really no reason anybody should be logging into X. There’s really no reason anybody should be logging in to Instagram. There’s really no reason anybody should be giving Amazon or Netflix money if you know fully that you are paying somebody to oppress you. That means that we are addicted to something and we gotta figure that out. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Hey, you’re listening to Pod Save the People. Stay tuned. There’s more to come. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

DeRay Mckesson: On today’s show, I’m joined by Brooke Butler, political director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Brooke oversees strategy to help Democrats compete and win in congressional races across the country. And she’s leading a new effort called Our Power, Our Country. The program represents the earliest ever investment by house Democrats to engage voters of color and rural voters ahead of the 2026 midterms. In this conversation, we talk about what it takes to build lasting political power, how campaigns are thinking about persuasion and turnout right now. And what meaningful engagement with communities actually looks like beyond election season. Lets go. Brooke, thanks so much for joining us today on Pod Save the People. 

 

Brooke Butler: Thank you for having me. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Well, let’s start with your story. How did you get into politics? Did you know you always want to be in politics? Did you get swept up by an issue? Like, what was the thing or did you get like a one job and then it just ballooned into a career? 

 

Brooke Butler: A little bit of all of it. So I always had a bit of an interest. My grandfather served in Vietnam and so growing up, he was always very adamant about how important it was to engage in politics and know what was going on around you, what decisions your government was making because of the impact it would have on your life. When I was in high school, my I went to public schools and we had a school levy that didn’t pass. And so the school ended up having to institute things like pay to play, which meant that particularly for students like me, was less access to arts and activities and things like that just because of the cost was could become a barrier to entry. And so from that actually started to organize around the school levy. So me and other folks who were in high school knocking doors, writing letters to the editor, things like to get it to pass. So the third time was a charm and the levy ended up passing. And so the school was at that time actually about to be taken over by the state, although it was still a good school district just because of the budget cuts. So that stopped that from happening. We built a new high school, which I think students still go to today. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Woop woop woop woop. 

 

Brooke Butler: And so it really taught me about how you can affect change by taking action and getting involved. And obviously the impact of voting, even though I couldn’t vote yet. And then, you know, like a lot of millennials in the Obama era, you know everything was exciting and I volunteered for the reelect while I was in college and ended up really just getting bit by the campaign bug, um enjoyed you know, talking to people, knocking doors, strategizing, and understanding how we go about winning. And from there, it just, you know moved to DC, got a few different jobs, moved up in politics, and it’s become a career. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I love it. Now we don’t have a lot of people from the traditional political orgs on mostly because the podcast has been around for a while. And I’m like, oh we’ve already heard this story. But I wanted to talk to you today, because we haven’t heard the story of the DCCC. And, I’m interested in this new commitment around engaging people of color. But before we do that, can you just tell people what is the DCCC? Is it the DNC? Is it the DCSC or whatever the other thing is? Like, help put it in context so people know what it is. 

 

Brooke Butler: Yes. So we are all under the DNC umbrella as the national committee, but the D triple C or D trip, it is sometimes called is the democratic congressional campaign committee. So we are the house democratic arm and our role is specifically to flip or hold the house. Right now our goal is to flip the house, get to 218 and be a check on the Trump administration as they look to harm more and more Americans with every policy they enact. And so we do a lot of things from the committee that looks like obviously recruiting candidates, helping folks to run their campaigns. And we focus on the majority making districts across the country. And so right now that is about 24 incumbent seats and almost 40 seats that we are hoping to flip this cycle. It may be more than that as we get into the on year and we hopefully have some more opportunities so. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Okay, can you zoom out though and tell people how close are we to 218? Like what’s the current landscape for people that don’t know the numbers? 

 

Brooke Butler: Yeah, so while we technically have 215 where we are still waiting on the Texas 18 runoff to fill our last seat, but we need to net three seats in order to flip the house here. Now, as people may or may not be tracking, Republicans are doing everything they can to cheat and stop that from happening. They’ve started to you know try to rig maps. Obviously, Texas was a major gerrymander as they look to stop us from being able to win if they could right? I know Florida is in the process of talking about redistricting the trump administration is pressuring places like Indiana to try to do so. And so they’re trying everything they can to make it harder. But we held republicans to the slimmest majority in history last cycle. And even netted a seat in what was a tough environment for democrats and so we really see the opportunity to win it all back this time around and we look forward to doing that. You know, again, the goal of the DCCC and the kind of, I you know at this point, I know every election cycle people say that, but it really is like, you know fight of our lives when it comes to what’s at stake. And what I think is another version of the redemption era as we look at some of the attacks the Trump administration is making right now so. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: And is 218 possible? Like, what’s the pathway to 218? Because, you know, our listeners have heard about, obviously Congress is, you now, Speaker Johnson is doing whatever he wants, and da-da-da, and there’s nobody, a check on Trump. But I don’t know if people think that 218 is actually possible, so can you tell us the real? 

 

Brooke Butler: Oh, it is more than possible, as I noted, you know, we have 40 seats nearly on our map that we are hoping to flip, right? And some really strong candidates in places that I think we later on could bring on to what is our house battlefield and if you go to our website, all of those districts are listed. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Wait, tell us the website? 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: DCCC.org. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: You saying it like the people know it, people don’t know. 

 

Brooke Butler: Yeah, that’s right. That’s fair. No, that is fair. And so you look at some of the over performances we are having, right, we just had a special election in Tennessee. Where the Democratic candidate is a seat that elected Trump by about 22 points. And they shifted that margin by about 13, right? And if most of our seats were able to flip at that level, we’d win more than enough seats to win back the house. On average, we are overperforming at about 15. When you look at some of the special elections across the country for Democrats, when that puts us squarely in position to flip and hold the house, I think in come 2028, in addition to that, you know, programs like our power, our country help to get us there because we understand that our path will run through a lot of rural areas. It will require meeting goals and maximizing support with Black and Brown voters across the country And that’s how we plan to do it. So our pathway looks very different that I think some people might expect right there are the battleground states that most people are familiar with. We have house seats there, places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, but you also have places like Tennessee, like Florida, like Ohio, where, you know, people haven’t seen Democrats necessarily, or don’t believe Democrats necessarily invest or even show up in a major way where we feel confident about our path and ability to win. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Boom, okay. Last question before we talk about the new initiative is are there any districts or people that we should generally be paying attention to? 

 

Brooke Butler: Wow. I mean, so one, we have some awesome incumbents across the country, right? So we have our frontline seats, which what we call our incumbent protection program. There are 24 of them, again, they’re all you go to DCCC.org, you can check out every single one. But you have people like Congressman Don Davis, who as I noted in redistricting, had his seat gerrymandered, but feel confident about his ability to still hold that seat and run a strong race. We have the longest serving woman in Congress and in history, Marcy Kaptur, who is in Ohio’s 9th congressional district, you have Congressman Derek Tran in California’s 45th, which was one of our tightest races and pickups last cycle and its California. So it went, you know, past November, but in the end, he pulled that one through by a few hundred votes. And so you, you really have some dynamic candidates across our map. And when we look at flipping, we have places like Pennsylvania’s 8th congressional District, where we have Mayor Paige Cognetti running. She’s the mayor of Scranton and running against a Republican incumbent who has become one of the most active stock traders in Congress. In fact, he even dumped some Medicaid stock before voting for what is that, you know, big, beautiful bill. And so I think we have places like Iowa where you have Christina Bohannan, who’s running against Marionette Miller Meeks. So we have some awesome candidates across the country that we’re really excited about and we look forward to being able to support in flipping the house. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Cool, now let’s talk about the new initiative to engage Black voters. Is it new new or has it already rolled out? 

 

Brooke Butler: Yeah, so it has rolled out, Our Power Our Country is the name of our initiative. It is our, an eight figure investment dedicated to targeted constituency groups. So not only Black voters, but Black [?] you know, and Asian American voters. Historically, this is actually our kind of fifth iteration of that program. We’ve been doing it for a few cycles now. What is different this cycle is one, this was the earliest ever that we have not only launched the program, but invested, so we’ve actually been through this program communicating with voters since May. Our first ads ever ran in California in some districts targeted towards Asian American voters and they were ads that ran in Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean because as you now as we know it’s not only important to show up where people are, but also in ways that resonate in the languages they speak in to build trust. And then we also added this cycle, a dedicated rural program, because you know, it’s very important to think about where we can build back margins as we look at some of the swings against Democrats over cycles. I think it’s really important to understand why and how we can not only lost, but can do better with some of these communities and rural communities are really important to our path to victory and we’re confident we can build back support. If you look at governor elect Spanberger, uh, in her race in Virginia, she was really intentional about and dedicated to even go into some of the rural areas of Virginia. And you saw that pay off in a major way and she was able to improve support by nearly double digits. If you look at even in our the Tennessee seven special where Afton Bain was running that I mentioned, not only did she over perform generally, but even in rural areas relative to how we did in 2024, she performed by about 11 points better. Right. And so it really, I think speaks to what happens when you invest, you communicate, and you really try to understand some of these communities that people may feel like Democrats just can’t win in anymore. And so we’re looking to do that with this program as well. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Now, you know, obviously you know I’m an activist and there are a whole crew of activists who have in no um no sort of split terms, they’ve given up on the party. They’re worried about the party, right? That people are like, you know if look at what happened to Zohran, the party was slow to endorse him even after he won the nomination or just never said anything about him. There are places across the country where people feel like the party just left them, people of color. Certainly activists and even I think about people like my father who does not identify as an activist, but is more worked up now because Trump is just so nuts. He’s more worked up than he’s ever been about politics and he too is somebody who’s like DeRay the party has left us. What do you say to those people? What’s the plan to engage them because you know if people don’t vote we sort of are, you know your work will be for naught. 

 

Brooke Butler: Yeah, so, you know, we recognize that that is an issue across, you know, voters. I think in general, you know, people are pretty disillusioned with politics and we see that in a lot of conversation. And I think it is important to restore trust and we look to do that by, you know, showing up in places, talking to people about the issues that they are facing, and showing them how Democrats can do better, right? It’s not only that we are, you know against or running against republicans and what they are doing but also demonstrating what our plans and values are so things like you know going about making life more affordable talking about how we’ve worked to lower costs. Some things we’ve already put into place like working to lower drug costs and things like that in the past. But also things that we look to do when we win back the house and I think you know when what folks will see from us and hear more from the Democratic Party is about how we are looking to tackle the things people care most about. I think, to your point about you know both mobilization and persuading some people, it is really important for us to continually make that case. Right. We know that people don’t live single-issue lives, so I think it’s always interesting to me because I note that some issues may be persuasive and that same person may be mobilized by something else. Right. A lot of people right now are struggling with the cost of groceries, the cost of housing. They are going to be mobilized by just simply talking about making things more affordable because that is an everyday need and also that doesn’t mean that they aren’t persuaded by things like you know abortion and access to choice and we are making sure that we can reach those communities in various ways like through the program as I noted while it recently kind of launched and went live we’ve been doing some work in the background throughout the last few monts. So as a part of the program, we launched kind of what we are calling our engagement on the road tours. And so we had staff who went to South Texas recently, did a leadership and training summit with Democratic activists and leaders on the ground to talk about not only what the party is doing, but also hear from people about what matters to them, what’s motivating their community. I think a lot of times, and I talked a little bit about my background, but I said someone particularly who came up in organizing and in grassroots organizing, I recognize that it is not just about us talking about what we want to do, but it’s also about listening. Right? And understanding what are people actually want from us? What do they feel like they need? I think a lot of times, you know people make the assumption that that we have all the answers when it comes to what policy choices should be or what should be on the table. But a lot of people know their lives and can give you, you, know sometimes better ideas than you might think of from like, you know a staff perspective or even an elected perspective because they are just facing issues. So we’ve done some of those tours, like I said, we’ve been done some in Michigan, South Texas, as well as California. And so we’re looking forward to also doing more of those and really going to talk to people directly, particularly folks who are, you know, what we would call you know activist or base voters, or however they might kind of see themselves as some of our you know most invested people in this party to make sure that they do not feel left behind the way we’ve been hearing. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: I’d be interested to know how you have grown or changed your own understanding of politics given you started out as a young like a student sort of fighting the system and now you are in the system in some ways. I have to imagine you’ve learned so much or sort of grown in the way that you’ve thought about things. I would love to know some of those. 

 

Sharhonda Bossier: Like I said, I always had an interest in politics. I think what has changed is like my role has been a lot more, like I said of the majority making my work. And so when I came into politics, honestly, I started in South Carolina, so it was still pretty much fights, right? Like it was like, you know, trying to win. At the time it was Nikki Haley and trying to unseat her, right. So always been kind of into the tough fights in politics, I think that has stuck with me even through grassroots organizing. How my lens has really changed is really understanding how we leverage the institutions and system to affect change and the roles that everyone plays. Like for me, in this work, through the political party, I recognize you know the party is a big [?]. That means that there will be people that I agree with on some things and people I disagree with on other things, and very rarely people I agree with on all things. And that was even true when I was in organizing, right? Like there, you know, lots, as you know a lot of debates about what we you know, should, should not do, and what is best for, you know the country or the organizations you are a part of. And that’s always a part of any big coalition work. I think that, or how I have grown most in that is recognizing the real importance of like the initial conversations and building alignment around major issues, right? So for us as a Democrat, particularly a Democrat from Ohio, which I always know colors, you know what I feel is most important is like, I’m always like, talk to me about money and jobs, like money in pockets. And how are we going to do that? Because I think that at the end of the day is what’s going to matter the most to people. When we look at 2024 and the feedback people got, it was that they you know not only were they unsatisfied with the economic conditions that they were in, but did not feel like the message told them Democrats were going to something about it. And a lot of people thought Trump would. I think that where we obviously see some advantage now is people are seeing, he’s doing something about it for the rich people. He’s doing some thing about it for the wealthy people, the billionaires. They living great right now and the majority of Americans are facing more and more dire consequences. The cost of everything is going up and he’s like, okay well, you know I’m gonna build a new ballroom like that’s where his priorities are and you don’t have a house republicans of Leadership in any way that is standing up to him or even willing to push back on any of it. And so for me, I was motivated by the understanding that it requires power to leverage change. And so for me, what was always really important was to make sure that we understood how power was moving and who had it and how we can use it to move change in a way that benefits the majority. And I still think that is what I get to do. That’s what I you know like about this work is that at the end of the day, what we’re talking about is winning. And what winning means is that we have the ability to make sure that people can afford groceries, that snap is not cut. That people get healthcare, that we can expand healthcare access in this country. And I think that is crucial. And I think that even when I was an organizer, I kind of felt that way. I think as I’ve grown in my career, it’s only probably become a stronger feeling more than I think a big shift. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Boom. I’d love to hear how like the organizers have grown, you know, because when you start I say to somebody who was in the street 12 years ago and I just know so much more about systems and change now. And there’s a part of me that will always miss the sort of wild freedom of those early days, you know, just the like take it to the man. You’re like, [makes grunt sound].

 

Brooke Butler: Yeah. [laugh]

 

DeRay Mckesson: You know? 

 

Brooke Butler: Yeah. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Like I can imagine you fighting about that school just out there, mad, you know what I mean? Like. 

 

Brooke Butler: You know, I’ve gone to a few, you know, no-kings rallies and things like that, too, just because I do think there is always something to being out there with people. I think there’s something, I even tell staff now that, you know, when Dobbs came down, you know, and there were lots of protests, like, I think it’s always important to, and that is an important part of even what this work is, right? Political is not just the electoral work, as you know. But it is the people on the ground, it’s the advocacy and policy change, and we all have roles to play in what it means to make change in America. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Can people get involved? Like how can people get involved if they can? Like what’s the, what do people need to do? 

 

Brooke Butler: Yeah, you know so we have races across this country that we are looking to flip and people are interested in any of them you could go to dccc.org. And we’re happy to connect you with any of the campaigns that is, you know our first stop. You can volunteer right now people are obviously like I said running races. They need people to start talking to people early as I noted in our programming we are already looking to do that. We’ll be looking to hire people obviously for some of these roles as well as our our power, our country. We also put staff on the ground in some of our districts to do particularly work targeted towards Black and Brown voters and again some of the cycle in rural communities so if folks are interested in work like that they can also go to DCCC.org and submit their resume and we’d love to have more folks involved in work to flip the house. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Boom. Well, Brooke, how can people get in touch with you? Do people follow you on Instagram, Twitter, or should they just follow D Triple C? What’s the what? 

 

Brooke Butler: Uh, you know you should follow at DCCC. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: She said, do not follow me, y’all. 

 

Brooke Butler: You know, but if people do want to get in touch with me, I’m happy to obviously share my contact information to you. I don’t mind that. And I’m happy to share my email address and anyone can always reach out to me. And I am happy to chat about winning or interest in running for Congress. If people are still looking to do that, we have some uh places where we are still looking for candidates. And so I’m always happy to talk to folks, even if you think maybe later in my life, I want to do it, happy to have conversations about just what that’s like too. So right now we’re, well, redistricting may change this, but in Florida, I think we’re still looking for candidates, particularly in like the Tampa area, as well as North Carolina, just given, again, redistricting there’s some seats in like North Carolina’s third congressional district where, and we have seats, candidates in most other places, but those would be the two that are top of mind. If you’re ready to run, or if again, if you think you might wanna run later, we are always happy to keep contact and stay in touch at the committee. And I think sometimes some of the best candidates are people who were like, I never even thought I was gonna do something like this. So, thank you so much. I appreciate the time. 

 

DeRay Mckesson: Well, that’s it. Thanks so much for tuning in to Pod Save the People this week and don’t forget to follow us at Pod Save The People and Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. And if you enjoyed this episode of Pod Save the People, consider dropping us a review on your favorite podcast app. And we will see you next week. Pod Save the People is a production of Crooked Media. It’s produced by AJ Moultrié and mixed by Charlotte Landes, executive produced by me, and special thanks to our weekly contributors, Myles E. Johnson and Sharhonda Bossier. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]

 

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