Transcript of IN YOUR BACKYARD: The People’s Fight for Affordability

Hey, everybody, it's Luke Radle, and I'm so glad you're here for episode 5 of In Your Backyard. This is it. We're in the final countdown to the midterm elections, and there are few issues that have as much influence over the choices that voters are making at the polls right now than affordability. Things, I don't need to tell you, are really, really expensive right now. All sorts of things from your gas to fill up your car to get in your car and go to the grocery store. Everything on the shelves is more expensive. Everything in life right now is becoming less affordable. And by some measures, more than 7 in 10 Americans think that gas is too expensive, and more than half feel the same thing about their energy and utility bills. Don't even get me started on the rent. Candidates know this. That's why during the first 9 months of this year, they spent $190 million on ads that mention just how expensive everything is getting, especially those energy and utility costs. President Trump meanwhile says he doesn't give a damn about the bad headlines and the stories about how gas prices are crushing people all across America.

In fact, in a recent rally, he said that as a result of his leadership and as a result of these spiking gas prices, that companies here in America are making a fricking fortune.

No, I could just see the fake headlines. President Trump is talking about all the money they're making while people are Suffering at the pump, that'll be the headline. But I said, I don't give a damn, I'm going to say it, we're making a freaking fortune.

Now, whether or not that money is making its way back to your pocket, into your backyard, is a whole different story. So for today's episode, we set out to hear from people who are experiencing the affordability crisis firsthand, to talk about what they're feeling, as well as from a prominent member of Congress who wants to do something about it if and when her party takes back the majority in just a few short days. Later in the show, we'll speak to her, Pennsylvania Congresswoman Summer Lee. But first, as we always do on In Your Backyard, we're going to hear from you, the folks out there in your communities, about the issues you care about. Welcome back to In Your Backyard. Let's first head out to Arkansas, a state that has supported the president and Republicans For many, many years. I spoke to Amber Mader, who is paraplegic, and she depends on ride services to get to her medical appointments. But the cost of gas, as well as changes that have been made to Medicaid, the services that she relies on, it's become a lot more complicated. Here's my conversation with Amber. I'm joined by Amber Mader, who comes to us from Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Amber, thanks so much for joining me on In Your Backyard.

I'm glad to be here. Thank you.

So I understand that you are currently living with a disability. Can you describe how you manage it and what you depend on to get to things like your appointments?

Yeah, sure. I am paralyzed, paraplegic. I have to use a wheelchair for ambulation, and we currently ride the Varida transport vehicles through a Medicaid program for people with disabilities. And that's how I get to all of my doctor's appointments.

So at what point did things get more complicated to use those van services that you rely on from Medicaid?

Honestly, it's been pretty complicated from the beginning. Like many Medicaid programs, there's always a shortage of funding, which leads to a shortage of vehicles, shortage of drivers. It just makes it a really difficult thing to get to your appointments on time. Too many people, not enough slots. It has gotten worse recently. Gas prices are definitely not helping with that. That has been a huge impact on them. Again, that lack of funding, and now you add an even bigger unexpected expense on top of that, and the number of people who need these trips is not getting any smaller. You know, as the economy gets worse for us, particularly here in the local area, more and more people are having to look to this as their only mode of transportation for things like doctor's appointments. So probably the past 2 years it's gotten significantly worse. The past 9 to 6 months it's gotten very bad.

Yeah. Have you been missing some of your appointments lately and what happens if you do?

Yes, I have had to miss for various reasons. Sometimes if you miss, um, a doctor's appointment is really great about working with you. Um, they can get you rescheduled sometimes later that day. Um, you know, if it's just a running late kind of issue. Um, sometimes you just have to completely reschedule. When that is a specialist appointment, it can sometimes take months and months and months to get back in. Recently had to reschedule a neurosurgery appointment, um, and that I had waited about 9 months for the appointment. had to reschedule and it was about another 4 before we could get in. And that's a really serious issue with a spinal cord injury. Like, you need to be able to make those neurosurgery appointments. It's not, you know, something that's optional or something that can really be delayed safely. So you just kind of have to wait and hope that the doctor's office can, can get you in quickly.

Yeah. What are some of the other things in your life that have gotten more complicated as a result of the rise And gas and diesel prices?

Oh, everything. Getting deliveries, prices for a lot of that has gone up because their cost for fuel has gone up. Fewer delivery slots, fewer delivery drivers, everything from groceries to medical supplies to medications from the pharmacy. All of that has been impacted by it. It just touches everything in your, in your life, especially when you depend on things like delivery. Gas is always going to be a huge, huge part of that prize.

One of the issues we tackled earlier during this series is the extreme weather that we've been seeing as a result of the climate crisis. I understand there was a heat wave that rolled through Arkansas during this summer, and there were some grid interruptions and blackouts. How did you manage all of that?

Well, we've had some exceptionally high temperatures. So thankfully, most of ours have been in the evening or overnight when it was already a little cooler. You just open your windows and hope for the best. Sometimes it's just, you know, 20, 30 minutes. Sometimes it's 2 or 3 hours. Our— thankfully, our electrical co-op is pretty good about getting on things as quickly as they can. But when you have older infrastructure with a much higher demand, it's just going to happen. And so we just try to work with them, report the outages as soon as we can. Um, and like I said, try to rely on like backup, uh, battery fans, things like that. Um, all the old school ways of keeping cool, like a mister. Um, you know, kids getting out playing in the water, that, that helps cool them down. Um, so we just try to, I don't know, do the best that we can, stay in the shade, have some iced tea, and, and hope it gets back on quickly.

Yeah. Lastly, before I let you go, when you share your story, do you get a sense that people are listening to you and are responsive?

I do most of the time. A lot of time people are very shocked to hear my story. Um, they think that it's a lot easier to get and manage things than it, than it really is. Um, they have no idea all the, the behind-the-scenes running and paperwork and things that you have to do to keep up with, with these things. Um, so yeah, I do think that they, they listen, you know, that, that kind of like surprises them. And so they want to hear about it and they want to know what actually goes into living with a disability of any kind. So I do think that most people are receptive and, and listen.

Well, we're certainly listening, Amber, and thank you again so much for taking the time to share your story with us here on In Your Backyard.

Of course. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Next up, let's head to Texas, a state that we've all been watching pretty closely as the midterm elections come close at hand. I want you to meet Samantha Lott. She's a social worker there. who has had to keep multiple jobs to cover her housing costs and pay for those rising utility bills. Those monthly costs under President Trump have just continued to spike. Here's my conversation with Samantha. Thank you again so much for taking the time to talk to me and welcome to In Your Backyard.

Yeah, thank you.

So I'd love to share with folks a little bit about your background and what you do for work right now and the additional work that you've had to take on as a result of the affordability crisis?

Sure. Yeah. So my name's Samantha Law. I'm a licensed master's social worker. I live in Denton, Texas, which is north of DFW area. I've been a social worker for over 10 years now, and I'm in community mental health, which I love. But it has definitely been a challenge personally for me just because, as I'm sure you know, we don't always make a ton of money and it be a little bit stressful. And basically over the last few years, I've kind of had to like make some really tough choices as far as like finances go and different things like that with medical debt from a diagnosis and a surgery I needed to have, student loan debt, you know, that kind of stuff. And then ultimately just like the high cost of living. About 3 years ago, I made a decision to get a second job in the evenings and weekends, which isn't really new to me. Like all throughout college and even after, like I worked multiple jobs. So. This recent one, I started delivering groceries on the side. And I will say it's nice because it's convenient. I can pick the times for evenings and weekends, but also it doesn't pay that great.

And with gas costs right now, it is kind of hard. I have to balance, is this a reasonable trip to make or is it too low to even cover the gas mileage and wear and tear on my car? So those are just some choices I've had to make on top of things like rising food costs. Rising energy costs. Do I have to choose not going to the doctor this month or eating food that's really what I'm supposed to be eating for my health concerns? Those types of juggling things that most Americans probably have to deal with right now.

Well, and I have to imagine as well, when you're doing the important work that you do as a social worker, hearing from folks who are experiencing those same concerns of affordability, it has to be challenging for you because you're oftentimes experiencing many of the same things that they're experiencing. What has it meant to you to have that additional stressor placed on that job that you're doing?

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's really like a humbling and hard thing to have to sit across from a table and try to help somebody with coping skills. And then in the back of your mind, almost everything that they're saying, you've experienced or are experiencing yourself and you're having those stressors Like, oh no, like, what am I going to do if my electric bill goes up again? Or, you know, different things, but you're trying to kind of stay calm and be there for the person that's across from you. So yeah, it is definitely really tiring. And then especially to have to go work in the evenings and on the weekends too, when, as you know, in any profession where you have to talk to people and deal with people, like mentally that's exhausting. And so having to be on all the time in some capacity is really hard. But I know a lot of people, especially in helping professions, like those are choices we have to make right now just because like salaries are not, you know, covering everything. And especially as a single person who pays all their own bills, like that kind of thing, like all of that does fall on my shoulders.

I don't have anyone that I split with. So like that in itself is already a struggle.

So it sounds to me that for someone who is working 3 jobs, working in the day, the evenings, the weekends. It doesn't sound like you are at your apartment a whole lot, and yet I understand that this past winter you saw a pretty large spike in your utility bills. What do you think that's attributable to, and just how much more are you paying now than you were even a few months ago?

Sure. So when I moved into my apartment, probably almost 4 years ago, it's a small apartment. It's under 600 square feet, 1 bedroom. It's not the most energy efficient. I think it was built like the '70s. And so it's single-pane glass, like not insulated super great. I probably in the summer, like around July, the highest I was paying was like $140, $150 a month for just electricity. And then this last year it has gone up to like $230. And I know like in my area we use the municipality for like the electric bills and everything, and we don't really get a choice to shop around. And they've had rate hikes like every year. And I also know that like there's data centers being built around me constantly. So also like, I'm sure that probably has something to do with that, especially too with like water and different things like that. I know a lot of people in my area are seeing like a difference in water quality or pressure or the amount of water they're getting out of their faucets due to those as well. And so not only are we having like rising costs of those utilities, but we're also having like decreased like quality of them and availability, which is like really scary.

Yeah. What are you hearing from your neighbors who are experiencing all of these issues related to affordability, related to data centers and a lot of the other issues that we've been talking about here on the show? And more importantly, where is that energy, that frustration going? Where do you see it going into the future?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a lot of people right now are really upset and they're concerned for their communities. I know locally we've had a lot of town hall meetings and city hall meetings, whatever, to address these data centers coming in or these large developments when we don't have the infrastructure to take care of that. And a lot of people are turning out and having their voice heard, but for whatever reason, the city, the state, the governor, they keep approving these permits to still build these things that people in the area don't want. If anybody can Google Granbury, Texas, there's a really great story about that, about how they built a data center. And those people not only have brown leaky faucets with hardly any water, they also have a constant noise all the time that they're bombarded with. And it's to the point where the resale value of their homes, they can't even get out of it. They're stuck there because nobody wants to buy into that. So I mean, I think that that's a really eye-opening And horrific experience. And a lot of people, Texas or otherwise, are gonna probably have similar futures.

Yeah. And that is an issue that we've seen in Texas and also elsewhere across the country. We're gonna keep having those conversations. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me and share what's happening in your backyard. Thanks for— thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

The concerns that these voters are expressing is not unique to any one state. or any one set of governance. In fact, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there are still voters experiencing problems as a result of the affordability crisis. The state's governor, who's running for reelection right now, has talked about how he's been working to put money back in people's pockets, but for every dollar he puts in their pocket, the policies that President Trump and his administration are passing here in Washington are taking 2 bucks out. To talk more about that process of trying to make things more affordable for folks in spite of the president's policies, I had on another prominent Democratic politician from the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. That's Congresswoman Summer Lee. She's one of the founders of the brand new People's Environmental Justice Caucus, and she's been on a mission to make sure that people understand that environmental issues are inextricably linked from issues of affordability. Here's my conversation with Congresswoman Summer Lee. Congresswoman Summer Lee, thanks so much for joining me on In Your Backyard. I really appreciate it.

Yeah.

So we are entering—

You're in D.C.?

I'm in Washington. Yes, I'm down here in Washington. We're entering the homestretch in the midterm elections. I've been out on the campaign trail in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I think, I think we saw each other at the Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh. There are a lot of concerns right now about affordability. What have you been hearing from voters as you've been out there on the campaign trail about how expensive everything's gotten?

Oh, I mean, that's it. You know, just nonstop. I have not talked to a single voter whose primary concern right now is not the cost of everything, the cost of gas prices, the cost of our health care, the cost of child care, the cost of our groceries, the cost of housing. And there is just this overwhelming feeling that no one cares, that this is just— we're expected to accept that this is the way that it's supposed to be. And what my deepest fear is, is when I start to talk to voters more and more, that of course there is a feeling of a little bit of hopefulness that with an election cycle that we can turn this around. But then there's always that nagging feeling that, will this really make a difference? Will it make a difference fast enough when we're struggling right now. So, yeah, I think there is a lot of disappointment, anger, frustration, fatigue. And then you couple that with how much the wealthy are accumulating. They're amassing right now. We think about all of the corporate billionaires whose income, their net worths have bloomed while everyday people are just left to figure it out.

And I think the president kind of got at that point at a rally over the weekend when he kind of said the quiet part out loud that, you know, he was very dismissive and almost had a mocking tone towards people concerned about how much they're paying at the pump and added that right now companies in America that are, you know, putting out gas and diesel, that they're, quote, making a freaking fortune. What was your reaction to those comments?

I have stopped. I have learned to not have individual reactions to ghoulish things that he says, because the reality is, it's just him, right? I don't expect somebody who got his money the way he does, who has lived the way that he does, and who is as unapologetic as he is. I don't expect him to be connected to the needs, to the fears of everyday people. I've never expected him to care about that because throughout his entire tenure in elective office, He has told us such. So this was not outrageous. It was not an outrageous thing for him to say. It is a consistent thing that he has said. He has consistently indicated that he does not care about the fate of poor people in this country. He's consistently said he does not care about how hard people have it, how hard it is for people to get ahead. He is very upfront. He's very blatant about who he serves. About what interests he serves. And they start and end with him, the people in his life, the people in his inner circle. And that's that.

One of the other things that I think it's become pretty clear the president doesn't care a lot about is protecting the environment. We've seen a lot of the regulations rolled back, particularly under this second term. When you're out talking to voters, how do you make the case that issues of environmental protection are related to affordability? How are those two connected?

Honestly, I actually think that that's how we've been able to maintain the drumbeat around environmental justice when it feels— it really, I think, for so many in the community felt like all hope was lost when the administration took over. I mean, it was almost an immediate cutoff of any positive strides that we were taking. Right. Obviously, we recognize from the Inflation Reduction Act to bipartisan infrastructure, those were things that were taking steps toward addressing our role in environmental crises around the globe. It wasn't enough. So it only felt like we were finally getting our politicians to start to move a little bit forward. And then with Trump, it cut off immediately. But with the affordability crisis, it has been one of the things that's easiest. I won't say easiest, but we've been able to connect those dots for people and people have been able to connect the dots themselves. Right. That where we have environmental crises, degradation, you have something that's contributing to the affordability crisis. The data center conversation has been the thing that has just catapulted that into, I think, the public consciousness right now. Where there are data centers, there are these very real and founded concerns that ratepayers are going to see higher and higher and higher and higher electricity bills, right?

That our natural resources are being just plundered, that they're being completely wasted on these projects and there is no corporate accountability. So what this is, I think when I think about data centers especially, it links the environmental crisis that we face and we have faced in our country. It links corporate greed, right? How corporations are able to take advantage of already vulnerable communities, how they really just drive through what they will call innovation or what we would call development. that has very little, not just accountability, but very little recognition of the harms that communities will have to sustain on those communities that have already sustained harms. I think of Memphis, right? A community that's already an environmental justice community that then now has this thrown on top of it. And it's just compounding environmental harms on compounding environmental harms on this community. The cost to our grid, the cost of our electricity. All of those things are linked in this one topic, and it's bringing it back to the conversation of millions of people who may have been overwhelmed by the amount of things that we have to think about now. Right. It's not that people don't care about environmental justice.

It's not that people have forgotten about our climate crisis, but it is that now on top of this, they have to think about ICE. They have to think about wars. They have to think about the ways in which Doge should just run roughshod over our government. There's so many things that makes it for us to keep our focus on this really important stuff.

Yeah, I'm really glad that you brought up the issue of data centers because that's something that we've been talking about a lot on the show and we try and center the show on community voices and folks out there. When we say in your backyard, we mean it like that. What are the issues that are happening in your community? And I'm curious, there was this piece of legislation from last month that passed the House nearly unanimously. You were one of 3 members to vote against it that had to do with rate hikes and utility costs associated with putting a data center in a community. And when you voted against it, you said that it was because you didn't believe it did enough. It went far enough to address this issue. I'm curious, what would it take in order to address that issue properly? And what kinds of legislation are you looking to pass if there is a Democratic majority in the House in the next few months?

Well, not even just whether we believe it doesn't go far enough. It does. It didn't. Right. It has ratepayer in the title or in the description of what we're talking about, which piques the interest of people who are saying, okay, we've been talking about data centers and we've been talking about the burden on ratepayers. This must be it. This must be the thing. But what it actually does at the end of the day is it's a mere suggestion almost, right? A suggestion. We don't need suggestions to corporations. We don't need suggestions to the AI industry. We need serious regulation first, first and foremost. And anytime that we leave the industry to regulate itself, we leave it to maybe develop or hope that it develops a consciousness on its own. It doesn't do it. It never does. People need serious protections, especially frontline communities. I am on— I'm signed on to the moratorium legislation, for instance, which is the step in the right direction. We already know of the just enormous amount of resources, natural resources that it takes to maintain data centers. That's a serious concerned. There are no explanations. There's no accountability coming in from the industry about how they will mitigate that.

The ratepayer issue. Absolutely. We don't need suggestions. We need assurances. What are the assurances? The assurances that these communities that are already overburdened by private equity taking over our utilities, rising utilities around us, no assurances that they will actually do something about it. But what my real fear is that the industry and the Congress would use this as their kind of excuse to say, all right, we did something and now we can continue to move forward. If we build data centers at the rate that we are now and with the regulations, the policies in place right now, we're setting up communities and our futures for failure. And we already know that where you see this strain on the natural resources and what is the overreliance, then it goes right back to fossil fuel industries, which then lines continues to ensure that the pockets of the fossil fuel industry are lined, and it continues to ensure that the pockets of people like Elon Musk are lined, but never the pockets of working people in frontline communities. It never considers the air quality, the water quality in those communities. So I think that we need to take a serious step back, a serious pause to think about what we actually and what direction we actually want to go in.

Across the country, people, everyday people are saying they don't want this. We don't want data centers in our backyard, and politicians aren't listening.

I understand that. I'm just curious because I think 417 of your colleagues disagreed with the position that you had on that issue.

I don't think 417 of my colleagues even knew what my position was. It's not like we announced it on the House floor. It's not like people are listening.

Sure. But they voted for the bill, and you and only 2 of your other colleagues were the ones that voted against it. So I'm just curious, do you think that your Democratic colleagues that voted for this legislation didn't understand what they were voting for or weren't correctly aligned with what the voters are asking for on this issue?

No, I think some of them. First of all, I think that obviously we can't group everybody. I think everybody comes at legislation differently. I think the information that we get into people, because these things come in fast. So the information that sometimes we get in is skewed towards the folks who want to advance something. And those are the people who we have in our corner, the people who I was able to listen to and take guidance from because of my work in environmental justice through the caucus, my work throughout my time from state legislature to now. Right. The people who are giving us advice are people who are in environmental justice communities. So I was able to get their concerns, hear them. I was able to, you know, they send it to my office, they call us. So these are people who we have access to, who have access to us because we've created those connections. We've created these tables that actually give people in frontline communities more grassroots-centered environmental justice policy advocates, environmental justice advocates. We've tried to create this space so they can actually reach us when things are moving fast. And I don't think that we are all doing a good enough job of making sure that those people are there.

So it's not to say that people just took a different consideration or they didn't believe us. I think it is to say that we have an access gap in Congress. Who actually is at the table when we're passing legislation? Is this what they would have wanted? Is this what our grassroots organizations— is this what our communities are asking for? Or is this what the industry is willing to give us right now when we're about to leave for a month break? And I think that that is a conversation that we really need to get into when it comes to how we get legislation. Where does it come from? Who do we listen to when we're making these really quick and really important decisions?

Yeah, we talked about what you want to see a Democratic House majority, potentially a Senate majority, do in the next 2 years after these important elections just a few days. At the end of the day, these pieces of legislation still require the signature of the president, and President Trump, as we mentioned, is pretty skeptical and unlikely to do many of the sweeping actions that you want to do. He's incredibly pro-data center, incredibly pro-AI. incredibly pro-oil drilling, etc., etc., all the way down the list. So looking ahead to the conversation that we're probably going to start having a week from now about what the future of the Democratic Party is going to look like and who its next leader is going to be, where should issues surrounding environmental justice fit into the conversation about what the next Democratic presidency looks like?

I think that it's important that we not run away from environmental justice. And I think that right now, the kind of nudge that we're going to get is that there are so many things going on that are immediate that we have to think about right now, that we can't afford the time to think about things that feel more abstract or that feel maybe less in our control. But I actually think that environmental justice is one of those issues that sits at the intersection of so many of the issues that are important. So we're talking about affordability. Well, frontline communities, our country, poor and working people, we can't continue on. We can't afford to continue on at this pace, at this rate that we're going when it comes to environmental justice hazards, when it comes to industry, when it comes to deregulation that we see that costs somebody money, it makes somebody money and it costs somebody money. And when we're in an affordability crisis, we have to think about the things that actually hurt everyday people. So environmental justice is a public health issue. It impacts your health. It impacts the cost of your healthcare.

Who's sicker? Who's shouldering the burden of those illnesses that you get because you live in communities that have poor air quality and poor water quality? That's an affordability issue. It is a jobs issue. Absolutely. When industries are shutting down, when they're shuttering, who's preparing our communities for future industries? Who is saying that actually we need resilience in our communities? Who is making sure that we are addressing climate resiliency? So when we think about the infrastructure of our country, we are in a country where bridges have collapsed and we are only going to be in a worse-off position if we actually don't take steps right now. That is climate justice. So I think that there are many ways that we can touch it in the future administration. Fighting for what we need while still acknowledging the conditions that we live in. Of course, Donald Trump is not going to sign anything that we care about into law, but it doesn't mean that Democrats should not demonstrate what we should be fighting for and how we should be doing it. That's how we'll keep the momentum to go into 2028. We have to bring more people into this, into electoral politics.

We have to bring them into our movements. And when we don't address the issues that people care most about, you know what it does? It tells people to stay home. It tells them that this isn't a system that's going to work for me anyway. So why should I even show up? And we can't afford to do that anymore.

Wrapping up on this presidential primary conversation, there's been a lot of talk about your House colleague, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, potentially being the person to run for president and to, to lead that progressive movement in the 2028 primary. Is that something you're interested in seeing?

I'm always interested in a progressive, a strong progressive being in the running. I think it's so important that we demonstrate to the country what is possible. We're going to hear from the media. We're going to hear from more establishment parts of our party and our country, what we can't do. And they actually have very little evidence for that. They don't understand what it takes to ignite younger people, more diverse people into this, into the idea that we can actually build change. That's what progressive voices do when they're in the mix. So I am excited for a progressive to be in there. I actually haven't talked to her. I don't know what her plans are. If you're asking, I do not know what her plans are.

Would you like to see her run, though? Is that something you'd like to see?

Excuse me?

Would you like to see her run? Would you like to see her run?

I would like to see a progressive run. I'm not one person. No. And I'm not saying that to be shady. at all. I'm saying that we're a movement and that collectively as a movement, we should figure out who our strongest folks who can perform and if it's her. Yeah, I think we should get behind her. Do you think there's anybody else in the movement that would be— I don't know who else wants to run, though.

Yeah. Do you think there's anybody else, any other names that you think of?

I haven't heard any other yet. I haven't heard any. So it does seem like this is the pathway.

We had Congressman Ro Khanna on the show. What do you make of Congressman Ro Khanna?

About what?

about potentially being a presidential contender?

I think that every single person who wants to run for president, I want to see them acknowledge the base. I want to see them acknowledge the real concerns of working-class people, and I want to see them center them in their politics. So whether it's Roe or it's AOC, I want to see who's going to do that best. I want to see who is going to be the person who is running not towards what they think is the day, the issue of the day, but actually running towards where working people really are, bringing us into the fold, making sure that we are centered in the politics. I don't know between the two of those. We got decisions to make.

Well, I really appreciate all of your time. I have one more question for you before I let you go about your future plans and potential—

I'm not running for president next year.

The 2028 cycle. Thank you for that exclusive. I appreciate the scoop, Congresswoman. I'm sure you'd do great. We need to progress. You said it. We need a progressive. We do.

We need people who want to run for that, though.

So not for president, but I've been on the ground in the Commonwealth. I've been listening to voters there, Democratic voters, people in the progressive movement, even people that maybe wouldn't describe themselves as progressive who are not happy with Senator John Fetterman. He'll be back on the ballot potentially in 2028. At least his seat will be. Is that something you're interested in running for?

I love how straightforward you are with that.

I try. This is the best way to get it straight at it.

I love it. You're like, let's get straight to it. You know, it is what I'm actually interested in. This is not like obscuring. This is like not, you know, this is not like trying to sidestep it. What I'm actually interested in is that, A, people recognize what it takes to run statewide. I am grateful for all the people who think that I should run. I hope that they know how hard it is for Black women to run for office, especially for higher office. It is no small feat when we're talking about just the flood of money in the politics. We're talking about Senate races that can go into the hundreds of millions, and I don't have $100 million. So what actually is less so much about what I want to do, whether I want to run for Senate or or, you know, or I want someone else to run. I think that as a Commonwealth, we need to get real serious about how we plan to actually lift up people, candidates, values that we want to see in these races. And that means that we have to get way more plugged into our electoral politics, how it works, what the barriers are.

We need to start early. We need to start now. So maybe ask us on November 4th or 5th.

All right. I'll take you up on that, Congresswoman. And the reason— I guess the reason I ask is, do you think on these issues that we've been talking about today, specifically environmental justice, do you think you could accomplish more for the people of the Commonwealth, for the people of the country as a U.S. senator than as a member of the House?

That's a really good question. I don't necessarily think so. Right. I am somebody who actually does believe that the 2 chambers are equal. We're co-equal with the president, like we're co-equal with the executive branch of government.

That's the way it's supposed to work. That's what I've heard. I've read that.

we care about our democracy moving forward. I actually believe very deeply in the People's House because I do believe that people should wield power. I do believe that that is the opportunity for us to hear from actual diverse people, Black folks, brown folks, immigrants, poor folks, working-class people. The Senate doesn't always accomplish that because of the barrier to entry. So I don't think that one is more powerful than the other. I think that the most powerful position are the ones where you're actually using it to connect with working people. So whether you're in the House or the Senate, you can do that. I don't think senators do it well enough. I don't think that senators take it as their responsibility to be as connected to people, to like the actual grassroots as they should. I think that would actually make their position more powerful.

Congresswoman Summer Lee, I really appreciate your time. Keep an eye on your inbox November 4th and 5th. I'll send another direct question your way and hopefully we'll get a direct answer.

I got you. I know it's going to be there too.

I appreciate it. Thanks again.

Thanks, Luke.

My many thanks to Congresswoman Summer Lee, as well as to Amber and to Samantha for making time to talk to us on this episode of In Your Backyard about the affordability crisis. I know you folks are going to have a lot of comments about this issue. It is, in polls time and time again, the top issue in this election. So please let me know below what you're paying for gas where you live, how that's been affecting you, the utility costs, the grocery costs. All of this is out of control. And what changes you hope to see if there is a blue wave in the upcoming midterm elections. In the meantime, we'll be following those results very closely here on the Midas Touch Network. We want to keep the conversation going here on In Your Backyard. We'll have one more episode for you in 2 weeks. Until then, thanks as always for watching and continuing to support the Midas Touch Network. Thank you.