-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.