Reimagining Democracy

[upbeat music]

[Announcer] Please welcome Leah Feiger and David Hogg.

[upbeat music]

Hi everyone and thank you so much David

for being here with us today.

Thank you for having me.

So everyone knows who you are, I assume.

You have been doing so much over the last couple of years.

After surviving the 2018 mass shooting

at your high school in Parkland, Florida,

you co-founded March For Our Lives

and helped lead one of the largest youth movements

in the US against gun violence.

With your classmates, you organized marches,

you mobilized millions, you continued your fight nationwide,

and actually helped pass

over 300 gun safety laws around the country.

[audience cheers]

And I went to college.

And you went to college.

We don't talk about that enough.

Yeah.

Fit it in, I don't know how.

But in between that as well, after that,

you co-founded Leaders We Deserve,

a political action committee

that has raised millions of dollars

to help elect the next generation of young leaders

to congress and state legislatures.

You're also the former vice chair

of the Democratic National Committee,

but you have continued working closely

with local and state leaders

to help elect Democrats up and down ballots.

Thank you so much for being here.

Let's get into it.

Let's do it, thank you.

[audience cheers]

So we're officially one year out from midterms.

The government shutdown is over for now.

What's top of mind for you as we head into 2026?

Big question.

Yeah.

I think what's top of mind for me is that, you know,

when we were starting Leaders We Deserve,

one of the reasons why I decided to start it

was actually what I was studying in college,

which was a lot of American history,

a lot of Cold War history.

And part of what I was studying

and I remember learning about

was the end of the Soviet Union,

where one leader after another after another

after another died because they were so old in power.

And when I looked at Congress, I saw,

it's not an identical situation by any means.

It's not nearly as extreme, but nonetheless,

we see a party that is significantly older,

that has been powered by a boomer electorate

that has got them there, that has entrenched themselves

in power and been there, in my opinion, for far too long.

And it's not to say that all of 'em suck.

There are plenty of great boomers out there,

let me be clear.

But it's to say that there's an opportunity for us

to bring in a new generation

that isn't just younger versions

of the people that are currently there.

There's going to be a massive power vacuum,

especially within the Democratic party

because we are not insignificant older

actually in Congress than the Republicans are.

And what we wanna do at Leaders We Deserve

is not just elect younger versions of who's already there.

That would be dumb.

We wanna elect younger people

that have the chance to actually have integrity,

support them with millions of dollars behind them,

and ensure that they don't take money from corporations,

for example, and that they support gun safety laws

and that they're able to actually represent

their constituents and not special interests

to give a generation that for so long

because of us being forced to hide under our desks

during school shooter drills,

to hearing the climate crisis and so much more.

For many of us, it feels like there is no hope.

But when we see somebody out there like Zohran, right?

Where I was with him in Washington Square Park

and we were making this video

talking about our endorsement of him,

we were his largest financial backer.

As you can imagine, that made us very popular.

When we were in Washington Square Park,

I saw something I've never seen before

with a political candidate.

We showed up there unannounced

and there was a group of teenagers that mobbed Zohran.

Because they were just so excited to see him.

And they not only knew his name,

but they were literally reciting

his own platform back to him.

I don't know if you guys have teenagers, if any of you do,

it is really hard to make them care about anything.

And to see the genuine sense of hope

that they had in their eyes is,

I think that is the most important thing

that I'm thinking about in leading to 2026.

Yes, it's about defeating Donald Trump,

it's about defeating Republicans,

but it's about building a Democratic Party

where our message is not that you should vote for us

because we aren't as bad as them,

it's that you should vote for us

because this is what we're here to do for you

if that makes sense.

It does.

So it feels almost silly to ask you,

how are you feeling about the Democratic Party right now?

How are they doing?

Well, I think that either,

how do I say this in a succinct way?

[Leah] Be as candid as you want

with our closest friends here. Absolutely.

[Leah] Yeah.

I think either they're gonna get the message

or they're gonna get voted out, period.

They're gonna get primary.

And I think what's really interesting is, and I don't think

the Chuck Schumers of the world understand this.

I don't think the Hakeem Jeffries

of the world understand this.

I think that if they think that there's gonna be

some kind of democratic Tea Party,

it's gonna be a bunch of progressive lefties

that are younger and like super pissed off

and then vote all these people out.

I don't actually think that's the whole picture.

I think the group that is most out of touch

with their generation in Washington DC

are the boomers, actually.

I think it's people like Chuck Schumer

that are out of touch with their own generation.

And you know why I say that?

It's because the people that are marching

by the millions right now in the No Kings Day protests

are not young people.

They are people of Chuck Schumer's generation

that are extremely pissed off with him.

And I think that there's an interesting coalition

happening right now where there's a lot of energy

in the older segment of the electorate

that want fresh blood.

And there's a lot of young people,

like after Zohran got elected,

there was over 10,000 young people

who signed up to run with our friends

over at Run For Something.

And there's an interesting coalition

of this older electorate that is really hungry for new blood

and these young people stepping up at the same time

that I think poses a real challenge to the Democratic Party

that we've known for decades.

Let's be blunt here, critics think that

you're trying to incite a civil war in the Democratic Party.

How do you respond to that?

It's an interesting characterization

because I think when people think that way,

I think it says a lot more about their sense of entitlement

to their positions, which is bullshit, frankly.

For example, we're supporting Justin Pearson.

We're not only challenging people in primaries,

that's part of what we're doing.

We're also supporting people like Randy Villegas

who's running in California's 22nd congressional district

against one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the house.

But in the case of Justin Pearson,

he's running against an older democrat named Steve Cohen.

And on a podcast, Steve Cohen compared our challenge of him

with Justin Pearson to, and I am not kidding, Pearl Harbor,

because that is how entitled he feels

to having his position of power.

And my message to people like Steve Cohen is,

this is not your seat, it is your voter's seat.

And if voters choose somebody else,

that's their decision to make, not yours.

In this idea in our party that it's unacceptable

to challenge people and actually embrace the democracy

that we claim to be so emphatically committed to,

if we aren't actually willing to use it

to improve ourselves, I don't think that

we can actually say that as a party.

And it's not to question necessarily the premise of this,

like new blood is good,

no one can really disagree with that.

At some point the baton has to be passed.

And I have to wonder if you're thinking about this

and feel free to tell me, you know,

the most honest version of this, could this backfire?

I have to imagine that Republicans right now

are sitting there with popcorn ready to see

and fighting happen in the next year.

Well I think they got their own problems

with Donald Trump being a lame duck

and the MAGA coalition I think

starting to kind of self-emulate with what we just saw

with Marjorie Taylor Greene is what I think is

the first spark in that wildfire they're about to deal with.

But what I'll say is, look, in no way, shape, or form

do we want Republicans to win the majority, obviously.

And that's why when we do challenge somebody in a primary,

it's in a safe democratic seat.

Just because I may not agree with a Marie Perez,

for example, and her stances on guns,

I know that it's better to have a Democrat

in a seat that Trump won by, I think it was six, seven,

or eight points than it is to have a Republican there

who never votes with us in the first place

as much as I may disagree with her.

And that's why we wouldn't challenge somebody like that,

even though, you know, we don't agree with her.

And the challenges that we're posing are to people

that are in super safe congressional seats

that practically stand zero chance of actually flipping

to become Republican in the first place.

So that's why I'm not too concerned

'cause obviously I want us to have the majority too.

That makes sense, and obviously you've taken

a very active role in campaigns with Leaders We Deserve,

like you mentioned, pouring millions of dollars

into Democratic candidates in June.

You guys gave Zohran Mamdani $300,000, is that right?

So we didn't give that money to him.

We gave it to the independent expenditure

that supported him.

Important legal distinction there.

[Leah] Important legal distinction, of course.

But yes, effectively we gave $300,000

in support of his campaign.

And part of what we did there is we asked other people

with that funding to come off the sidelines

to support him as well to help

get him across the finish line.

When you're looking at candidates like Zohran

and you're looking at endorsements these days,

what's most important to you in a candidate?

What do you actually think is gonna help the Democrats win?

I think first and foremost,

sending a clear message to voters

that there are people in this party

who do not take corporate money,

who are willing to stand up against special interests.

And that the best that we can offer

is more than Andrew Cuomo in the first place.

I know that's a crazy premise.

And I think part of what we have to do too,

and part of why I believe, you know,

what we're doing is so important, is last election cycle,

when I was running for the vice chair position,

one of the questions that came up is like,

well why did we lose the election

or should Joe Biden have run for reelection?

And it was remarkable seeing the amount of sidestepping

that happened where it's like, you know,

we really need to let historians answer that question.

It's like, give me a goddamn break.

Like, can we be honest here for a second,

right, and just tell people the truth.

And the truth of matter is, more than anything,

voters told us two things.

They told us that prices are too high,

and we said, No they aren't.

Look at the GDP and the S&P

and look at all these other macroeconomic statistics

that are not gonna lower your grocery prices.

And then when they told us that Joe Biden is too old,

we said, no he's not.

And then 107 days before, yes he is.

And here's a billion dollars to make you forget that in ads.

And when you tell voters not to believe their eyeballs

or wallets, you're gonna lose them.

And thankfully what we just saw in this last election

is an example of, I think increasingly

what our party needs to go towards

in the last election, obviously in 2025,

which is, I don't think the answer for our party

is necessarily that every candidate is gonna be Zohran

or every candidate is gonna be Abigail Spanberger.

I think we need to run candidates where they can win

because that's the most important thing

is that we actually win a majority.

But what that does mean is that if you're Chuck Schumer

and you wanna go out there

and talk about how we're a big tent

and we need to vote blue no matter who,

you need to remember there is a left side of that tent

and a right side of that tent.

And if you're only supporting one side,

the tent's gonna collapse and you can't go out there

and tell me that we just need to vote for the Democrat

when you end up fighting harder against Zohran

than you have against Donald Trump.

And let's talk about that for a second.

And the reason why I brought that up in that whole context

is that I think what we saw in this past election in '25

is that voters are still craving an answer on affordability.

And Democrats have the opportunity to offer that to them

by talking about how we're taking on special interests

on how we're not taking money from private utility companies

that control our state legislatures.

It's absolutely insane, by the way.

Nobody really talks about that,

but that's one of the craziest things

that I've seen is like, I could go on and on about that.

But if we can send a clear message to voters

that our party represents the 99%,

that were economically populous,

and we're here to actually make things less expensive

and be not just the status quo,

but actually offer them something better

and bring in fresh faces and new blood into our party

with new voices that can communicate with voters on TikTok,

on social media where a lot of them are

in the way that Zohran did,

that I think is a really powerful combination

for the future of our party.

Let's rewind for a second

because everything you're saying sounds very good, right?

Affordability.

[David] Depends on who you ask.

Fair enough, but affordability,

that feels like something easy to get behind.

A candidate who's fresh and interesting,

meeting them where at, all of that.

You mentioned the DNC, so I have to bring it up.

You made some enemies bringing up some of these things

that might sound very normal and common sense

to a lot of people.

Don't run someone who can't string sentences together

on a debate stage.

But you once served as a co-chair

for the Democratic National Committee.

That was a really brief role for you

and it ended with quite a bit of acrimony.

Can you talk to us a little bit about what happened there?

Yeah, I mean, ultimately I could go on and on

about Robert's rules of order,

but I don't wanna bore you guys.

I mean, go ahead.

No.

The bottom line is there was a conflict between myself

and what the direction that Ken Martin

wanted to put the DNC in, which is that

when I was running for the vice chair position,

I knew I was running Leaders We Deserve.

This is my job to help elect young people.

And part of what we do is we work in primaries.

I read the bylaws of the DNC and it didn't say that

there was anything against working in primaries

except the presidential election,

which makes sense 'cause that is a role that the DNC has.

And then I looked at former vice chairs

like Gretchen Whitmer and Tammy Duckworth

who were just there previously

who had their own PACs that have given to people

including obviously incumbents that have primaries.

So I figured there isn't anything wrong with what I'm doing.

Then what happened was that

there was a fundamental difference in opinion

that they believed that all party officers of the DNC

should have zero role in primaries whatsoever

and completely stay out of it, and-

Well specifically people at least leaked

or said behind your back to the New York Times

that they were upset that you were primarying Democrats.

Yeah, well obviously that was the reason why.

But they said that, their official line was that,

Oh, we just don't wanna have people involved in primaries

that are officers of the DNC

'cause it's conflict of interest.

And what I offered to the chair,

and what I said was, look, I understand

and I actually agree, I don't want there to look like

there's a conflict of interest here.

But what I also don't agree with is setting the precedent

that we can change the bylaws after an election

that then results in one of your officers,

myself in this case, being outside of those laws.

So if you're gonna introduce this bylaw,

why not just add in a grandfather clause

that says this will start after the term

of the current officers is over?

[Leah] Sure.

That was rejected.

And then, you know, as it continued, they decided,

or I guess they wouldn't say that they decided,

but I would argue conveniently there was an issue

with the gender balance rule of the DNC

where they had to redo the election.

And at that point, I decided that I had bigger fish to fry

and I would not seek reelection in that position

because we have bigger things to focus on

than the rules of the DNC.

That were, again, obviously about primarying Democrats.

Yeah.

My follow up here is, do you think you push too hard?

Is there any part of you here that thinks

that actually doing this from the inside,

staying in the DNC, duking it out,

you could have changed it from within?

At least I tried.

At least you tried.

That was the whole reason, right?

I think that there are far too many, and this is not,

like I've said a lot of negative stuff about boomers.

I'm gonna say some negative stuff

about young people now too.

I'm just gonna piss everybody off here.

'Cause look, we all have our flaws

generationally speaking, right?

I think one of the problems that I see amongst young people,

and you know, I've seen this in myself in the past too,

is it's so easy to just complain.

It's so easy to say, you suck.

This is why this isn't working.

You don't get it and just say all the reasons

why some institution is terrible.

It's easy to do that, right?

The hard thing is making those institutions actually work,

doing the work yourself, that is actual leadership

of trying to make something better.

And when I was at my first DNC meeting

where I was just observing

before I announced my run for vice chair,

I wanted to see how things were being run.

'Cause this is an institution

that is just constantly a punching bag

in the Democratic Party, just nonstop.

And I went to an executive committee meeting of about,

there's 40 people on this committee

and it was the first one that they had after the election.

And I saw them talking about,

well, why did we lose the election?

That was the question they're trying to answer.

The pollster gets out there

and she talks about how the first thing she brings up

when it comes to why we lost the election

was 18 to 29-year-old voters.

And I look at that table and I don't see

a single goddamn person under the age of 40.

And I say, okay, here is an opportunity for me

to do more than tweeting,

for me to actually try to fix this myself

and be at least one person at that table

so that there can be a voice

for at least one member of our generation,

not that I can represent all of us,

but I can at least represent some of us on there

and say, actually, yes, TikTok does connect to the internet,

for example, or something like that.

Educating the masses.

So I saw an opportunity for myself

to be that change and I don't regret it.

And the reason why is because at least I tried

and I know that there's so many people out there

that just wanna sit on the sidelines and complain

and be armchair critics, but don't actually wanna put in

the goddamn work of, that sucks frankly,

of trying to make an institution better.

But that's what we're gonna have to do

if we actually want to try to build a better party,

is we have to understand how it works on the inside,

and at least people, the funniest thing that I saw

after the DNC race and after I decided

not to seek reelection is somebody tweeted at me

and they were like, Man, if you're so angry about

the state of the Democratic party,

like why don't you just run for like a local party office

and like figure it out?

And I was like, well, you're about to lose your mind, right?

Because they didn't understand

that I was just a vice chair of the DNC.

Sure.

So, future of the party then, the leaders.

You're sitting at this table.

Everyone feels disconnected from reality.

Who is the future of the party?

Let's skip ahead from midterms.

Who should run for president?

Who should run for president?

Who should run for president?

What cycle are we talking, like 2040

or are we talking this cycle?

Oh no, we're talking this cycle.

Oh this cycle.

You know, I think that we need to have

a really healthy competitive primary process

and it's really nice to actually be able

to talk about this now that I'm not, you know,

obviously a vice chair of the DNC anymore.

You know, I think that we need to have

a ruthlessly competitive primary as much as possible.

And we need to have people that,

I wanna see the moderates run somebody

that they think is the best 'cause I think that

they have a real charisma problem a lot of the time.

And then I also wanna see progressives run somebody,

I would love to see somebody like AOC run, right?

I would love if she could get elected to that position.

But I think the answer really for our party going forward,

I'm not gonna sit here and be like,

oh yes, I have all the answers.

But I do believe the answer at the end of the day

in where the party should go rests in our primaries.

And it rests in creating culture of competition

in our safe seats where we don't stand to lose

to Republicans basically in any way, shape, or form

because we need to offer people a better democratic party

that they feel like they can actually be represented by,

that a generation feels like it can be represented by.

And not that that party represents

a bunch of special interests.

And frankly, I wanna see people go out there on that stage

and really hold people's feet to the fire

about why they've cited and been silent on things like APAC

and things like Israel that they do not want to talk about.

That these politicians are grilled on constantly

to never talk about.

Because what's not gonna actually help create more peace

or get our party to a better place

is acting like these issues don't exist

or that voters don't care about this.

You are putting yourself out there on so many,

as you have said, issues that people don't wanna talk about

or that infrequently come up.

Your advocacy work is nonstop.

Along the way, you've become

a bit of a bogeyman for the right as well.

We've been talking a lot about the Democrats

for which you are also a bogeyman.

How is it to be beloved by both parties?

It's beautiful. It's good.

Thankfully I will outlive many of the people

that are criticizing me the most.

[audience laughs]

I wanna be there when you say that to them.

Well, I know that you've faced

a lot of threats for your work.

What's the safety calculus here for you right now

as you are putting yourself out there

and putting this all out there?

It's part of the reason why I do this work

at Leaders We Deserve.

I know that I am obviously a lightning rod

when it comes to Republicans.

My goal is to help our party get as much power as possible,

but actually meaningfully use that power

to combat special interests, combat groups like the NRA,

and build a better democracy

where people are actually represented

and not special interests.

And the reason why I did this with Leaders We Deserve

is because when I was in college, I had to hire somebody

to take over my role at March For Our Lives

'cause I actually had to study.

And I called up my friend Maxwell

and I said, Hey, I really need you

to take this job at March For Our Lives.

And I remember calling him from my freshman dorm room

and asking him to take the job and he turns me down.

And then the next day I don't do too well

on a full immersion Spanish test that I had

that I needed to pass in order to graduate.

I call him back, I'm like, You don't understand.

I really need to pass this Spanish class

in order to graduate.

I need you to take this job so I can study.

And he takes the job.

And a few years later he calls me up and he tells me,

he's like, David, I have good news and I have bad news.

The bad news is I'm leaving March For Our Lives.

And I said, It's okay, I passed my Spanish class.

And then he said, And the good news is,

I'm running for Congress.

And I said, Maxwell, you know that you're 24, right?

You have to be 25 to be elected to Congress.

He said, Yes, I know, thankfully I'm better at math

than you are at Spanish.

And when I talked to him about it,

I was like, Well, I've never supported anybody

running for office before.

But I really, I believed in Maxwell.

I didn't see him as a politician,

but I saw him as a friend.

And yet he was fighting an uphill battle.

Two of the people he was running against

were former Democratic members of Congress,

one of whom had committed tax fraud

while they were in Congress and the other

was a hedge fund manager while they were in Congress.

And you know-

Fun extracurriculars.

Yeah, exactly.

And personally, I don't know about you all,

but I think that we can do better than that.

And with Maxwell, he didn't come from

a super wealthy family, but he had worked

in the gun safety space since he was 15 years old

after seeing Sandy Hook on TV and going up to

the first national vigil for gun violence victims

and working with a lot of the families from Sandy Hook.

And he had to Uber drive every night

from 9:00 PM to 2:00 AM while running for Congress.

And as he was doing that and as I was working with him,

you know, on his kitchen cabinet and stuff,

I was also meeting with the White House

over Zoom from my dorm room, it was COVID,

and telling them to create this thing called

the Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

And I got the run around of

all the reasons why this couldn't happen.

I actually got so pissed off about it,

I ended up going and protesting Joe Biden

outside of the White House

'cause they were not creating this office.

And Maxwell ended up winning in that race.

He had to raise $3 million or well over $3 million

in order to get elected to become the first

and still only current member

under the age of 30 in Congress.

And he was elected at 25 years old.

And the first bill he introduced

was create the Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

And within a year of me protesting outside the gates

of the White House, I found myself sitting

in the Oval Office in front of Joe Biden

after he had just created

the Office of Gun Violence Prevention

with Congressman Maxwell Frost introducing him.

And that office ended up overseeing

the two largest one year reductions

in gun homicide in American history, and-

[audience applauds]

The point being, I looked at,

I'm always thinking about how can I build as much power

for the gun safety movement in my generation

as much as possible.

And the fact of the matter is, first of all,

there are a lot of guys that look like me in Congress.

I don't think we need more representation

of people that look like me.

I wanted to ask you,

this all kind of sounds like an amp up

to an announcement for a campaign.

Hell no.

This is an announcement of a campaign

for our generation where no single person

is going to help build a better democracy or save us all.

And frankly, if there is, we got a bigger problem.

'Cause if you wanna get 100% of what you want in politics,

you need 100% of the power.

That is not possible in democracy.

And for our generation,

we have no shortage of issues to solve.

But we need those young people to have the chance

of actually winning while preserving their integrity.

And after, for example, we supported,

I'll get to this in a second, but to answer your question,

the reason why I'm doing this is because

could I raise millions of dollars to run for office myself?

Sure, and maybe I get elected,

but Republicans would raise twice as much as I ever could

because I'd be a lightning rod even more for them

and be like, Oh god, you know, he's in Congress, whatever.

Instead, I can fight asymmetrical warfare doing this

where I can help support this cycle we're aiming to endorse

and support if we close our budget gap

that we have right now if any of you wanna help with that.

We're on track currently to raise just about $20 million.

We need to raise a couple million more

in order to fully support our candidates.

You can write me a check after this.

And what we're trying to do

and when it comes to the safety is,

I know that my life is at risk doing this work.

Not to say that, oh, I'm uniquely in more danger

than any other person would be in this position.

But it naturally comes with this role.

My house has been swatted before with my family.

That's the reason they don't live in Florida anymore.

I've got probably thousands of death threats over the years,

many of which were perpetrated by people like Alex Jones

and people like Marjorie Taylor Greene

spreading conspiracy theories about me being a crisis actor,

being paid by, you know, all that crazy stuff.

And I know, I wanted to make sure that

no matter what happens to me that our candidates

can still be out there doing this work.

So that even if I am killed doing this,

these candidates are still out there doing the work.

And our generation has a chance, at least,

of getting elected and not just being younger versions

of the screwed up people

that are currently in power right now.

And that's what we're doing at Leaders We Deserve.

And what I need as the final part of this,

in my last zero seconds-

You have zero seconds.

What I need is help to do that.

Right now, Leaders We Deserve,

we have a very different fundraising model

from almost every PAC and super PAC that's out there.

We don't take corporate money

and we have 230,000 individual donors to the organization.

And that's amazing.

But the challenge is when we support somebody like Zohran,

even though we're remaining principled in that,

I had two donors call me that said

that they were not gonna give us

in total about half a million dollars

'cause we supported Zohran,

even though he got three times the voter turnout

of 18 to 24-year-olds that Kamala Harris got

just six months prior in his primary.

You know, we have all these donors

and people that say, We need to win back young men,

we need to win back young people.

And then we find a candidate who actually does that.

And then all of a sudden it's like,

No, no, no, not that guy.

And it's like, do you actually want to win

or do you just wanna keep sticking to your version

of the Democratic Party that had two or $3 billion

and still managed to lose to a convicted felon?

'Cause I think that we can do better than that.

And if you all wanna help with that,

I need your support because it's not-

[audience applauds]

It sounds like you have

a very, very busy year ahead for you.

David, thank you so much for taking the time with us.

I really appreciate it.

[David] Thank you.

[audience cheers]

[upbeat music]