-Welcome to the show.
-Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
-We are so happy
to have you here.
I have -- I think a lot of
people have really enjoyed
watching this new wave of people
come into Congress.
Of course, you're one of them.
And one of the things
I particularly enjoyed
watching you do is
ask people questions
on Congressional panels.
Now, this is not something
you had experience with.
You famously did not have
any experience in politics
before this job.
Why do you think it is that you
are good at it
and do you think anything you
did that was outside of politics
has been helpful?
-Well, I think
one thing is that --
I was reflecting because --
I was just reflecting today
because exactly a year ago,
I was working in a restaurant.
I was bartending.
And I think that that proximity,
just being a real working person
in the halls of Congress
is actually such a jarring
difference from who has
historically been there,
that it really allows you to cut
through the BS super quickly
and -- especially with someone
who had to, you know, close up
a restaurant at night and have
to kick everyone out, like,
you're really good at just
saying, "Hey. Enough."
[ Cheers and applause ]
-It strikes me --
you know, oftentimes
you're given five minutes
to ask questions
and you're given someone who,
obviously, if given time,
you'd want to ask a lot more of.
It strikes me
some of you go in with a plan.
You strike me
as one of those people.
And this is true of
a lot of other Democrats
as well as many Republicans,
come in with no plan at all.
When you're sitting there,
are you often taken aback by
how bad they are
at asking questions?
[ Laughter ]
-Well, sometimes, especially
with my Republican colleagues,
they say things and I'm like,
"What does that have to do with
what we're talking about?"
There's this one member
who famously,
every single Financial Services
Committee hearing,
he says, "I ask everyone this --
are you a capitalist
or a socialist?"
And the person's in charge of
national flood
insurance program.
They're like, "What?"
-Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
-And the best thing, too, is
this -- you know, last week,
he actually said, "Are you
a capitalist or a socialist?
Yes or no?"
And the woman said, "Yes or no?"
[ Laughter ]
And he says, "Yeah."
And she goes, "Yes."
[ Laughter ]
And it was the whole panel --
and he made everyone go down
and everyone said,
yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
[ Laughter ]
And then I said, "Hey, it's
great. We have a mixed economy.
It's possible."
-Yeah, you don't know
which one they are.
Which one they were
saying yes to.
One obsession, or I should say,
a group of people
that seem to have an obsession
with you
is our friends over at Fox News.
-Oh, yeah.
-They talk about you a lot.
Are you surprised with the speed
at which they seem to have
shifted all their attention
and programming to you?
-I mean, it's weird.
Like, why are so many grown men
just obsessed with
this 29-year-old?
I mean, it's great.
I love the --
[ Laughter and applause ]
-I mean...
-On second thought.
No, but I think
it's really funny,
and the conspiracy theories
are great.
-Yeah, well today, Mike Huckabee
said that there are --
he did that great thing that
people on Fox News do
which he said,
"Some people are saying
she's a Manchurian candidate.
I don't know."
Which is a super classy thing
to do.
If you don't know, Mike Huckabee
is a famous bass player.
[ Laughter ]
Are you -- Just since
I have you here,
are you a Manchurian candidate?
-I'm not.
-That's exactly what a
Manchurian candidate would say.
-Yeah, exactly.
[ Laughter ]
-That's exactly. Caught you.
-Not a Manchurian candidate,
but I do have amazing staff,
and in no part
thanks to the fact
that we pay a living wage
in our office.
We don't pay any less
than $52,000 a year.
Which means --
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Which means so far two of my
staffers have been able to quit
their second jobs in restaurants
and be fully present at work.
And so, you know, I hope
it's a lesson to our folks
on the other side of the aisle
that if you pay your staff,
then --
-You'll be prepared.
-You'll be prepared.
You won't be saying yes or no,
capitalism or socialism.
[ Laughter ]
-One thing I'm curious about,
because obviously
a lot of people,
your colleagues
across the aisle,
they also consume
a lot of Fox News.
Do they then get, you know,
bad information about you?
And how has your interaction
with them been so far?
-Yeah, yeah.
Well, it is funny because one of
the side effects of kind of
this Fox News lunacy is that
other actual members of Congress
believe it
and see it uncritically.
And so I was on the floor once,
and this guy came up to me
and he was like,
"Is it true that you got
$10 million from Netflix?"
And I was like, "No."
[ Laughter ]
It was, like, in the well. Like,
we're voting on gun reform.
And I'm like,
"What else do you not know?"
[ Laughter ]
This is concerning.
-He said, "Did you make
$10 million or no money,
yes or no?
-Yes. Exactly.
