Wanda James on Working for Barack Obama, Being Censured, and Running for Congress

Welcome to CityCast Denver. I'm Bree Davies, and here's what Denver's talking about. So we have invited all three candidates running for the Democratic nomination to represent Colorado's District 1, aka basically Denver, in Congress. Diana DeGette is the incumbent, and today we have one of her two challengers, current CEO region and business owner, Wanda James, joining us. Wanda, welcome back to CityCast Denver. Hey, excited to be here. So, Wanda, obviously, you are a multi-hyphenate. You have a varied career in business and politics. How do you typically introduce yourself to people? Well, good question. And it depends on the crowd that I'm talking to and where I think that, you know, people align most with me, right? So obviously, if it's in the cannabis space, then I'm the CEO of Simply Pure brands. If it is with the veteran community, then I am formal naval officer, Wanda James. If it's with, you know, the students and faculty or education, then I'm C.U. Regent Wanda James. And if it's my friends, it's just, hey, me. It's just Wanda. So why do you want Dunn Rights to elect you to Congress? Yeah. So, you know, that is a great question. And it has become more and more defined for me over the last few months. Look, America's in crisis. It's in crisis from top to bottom. Women's rights, health care are under attack. Birth control is a hot topic. Who would have thought that? We are in the midst of unpopular war, a war where 164 little girls lost their lives on the first day. We've already lost four jets, 14 service people. We have experienced the extreme cost of gas, of food, everything that's associated with the rise of the price of oil. We have... endangered relationships with our allies, which is untenable to me to think about how that's working. We have risked. upsetting a very delicate balance with China and the Middle East. And then most recently, my God, we have silenced the voices of black voters throughout the South. We are losing what was once one of the most powerful caucuses in Congress, which was, whoops, which was the Black Congressional Caucus, which I can't fathom, you know, that caucus has been powerful since the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s with, you know, historic people who have been elected into that Congress, which are now in danger of losing a third of...

black congressmen, or black congresswomen, elected to that caucus. You know, here in Colorado, we are seeing the effects of our immigrant communities being attacked by ICE. We are dealing with situations in education where we are losing the best and brightest minds in the world who want to come and study here at our universities. And quite frankly, I'm running because I'm the only person in this race who has a record of being a fighter for each and every one of those issues. Our current congressperson hasn't spoken up. And so it's time to have folks who are not afraid to actually fight for what America needs right now. And this is a moment that I am uniquely built for. So you mentioned Diana to get the incumbent. She's a 30-year incumbent. There's lots of Denverites who will be voting this time that weren't even born when she was first elected. She's handily won reelection 14 times. What would you do differently from Representative Diana to get? So, you know, I get that question a lot. And once again, we just talked a little bit about all the things that are happening. What I would do differently, I mean, let's be really clear. I respect the fact that she has been there for 30 years. But quite frankly, she hasn't shown any. We had not seen leadership from Diana to get. When we look at all of the things that we just talked about and what's happening, we have not seen. her once on the national stage talking about any of those issues. We don't see her voice in... We don't see her voice anywhere. We don't see her fighting for the things that matter to Americans. Yes, nicely worded. press releases, you know, have gone out. I'm actually right now calling for reform, for court reform, for SCOTUS reform, because we now have an activist court, a Supreme Court that is allowing the destruction of the things that America was built on, of the games that we made in the 20th century. Yes, the 20th century, not 21st century, women's rights, minority rights, immigrant rights. And we're not hearing anything from the Congresswoman here elected to CD1. We hear from Joe Neguse. We hear from Jason Crow, you know, who joined the other veterans to say, hey, you don't have to obey illegal orders. And he was attacked for that. We haven't heard a word, a word from the Congresswoman who is representing Colorado's. capital city, capital district. And that's because she's shown no leadership around that. So the difference between me and everybody in this race right now, you have interviewed me many times long before I was running for office because I am a leader in this city. I am a leader in this district. I bring ideas. I bring fight. It's who I am.

Let's talk about some of those ideas. So say you win this election, what is the first thing you would want to do when you got to Congress? So, you know, I'm reminded when Barack Obama said, which war would you like to see me attack first, right? We have so many. And it's those things that I just said in the opening piece. But right now, what I think is the most important thing that Democrats have to do, we have to solidify the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We have to. If America does not have fair and open elections, if we are not making sure that the voices of all Americans are heard and respected, then we don't have America. The fact that this redistricting war is going on across America right now, started by the Trump administration because they wanted to not have Jasmine Crockett in office. We have now just seen that they have removed, I believe, all of the districts that represent black people in Tennessee in Louisiana.

we're going to see that wave happen across the United States. And it's not just about black people. The next thing we're going to see is removing the rights and the voices of the LGBT community of women. So yeah, we have to fight to make sure that the John Lewis Voting Rights Act is passed. And I will be firm in making that happen and helping build that coalition to make that happen. Secondly, we have to pull back the War Powers Act. We cannot allow a president, Democrat, or Republican taking us to war without a vote of the representatives that are elected to Congress to make sure that we're not being led down. paths that have no end. And that's exactly where we are right now, which is also causing more issues with affordability, gas prices, food prices, and everything that's attached to oil in the world. I mean, there's just so many things, ensuring that we codify, you know, a woman's right to health care. It's ridiculous to me that every time a woman goes into a different state, her health care is different state to state. So these are absolutely just a few of the things, you know, that I would be looking to... you know, to be able to fight and to make happen. We have to abolish ICE. I understand that we need to have custom and border patrol. That's important. But the idea that we have masked people on our streets attacking our immigrant communities just completely unacceptable. My gosh, there's so much.

So you've already sort of mentioned some of these components of this current administration that you would be fighting back against. But if you won this election, how specifically would you plan to fight back against President Trump? So once again, we have to win back the House, knock on wood, and the Senate. We do that, and then we're able to do these things. Most recently as well, too, I've also just called for, like I said, in our opening, Scottish reform. I would love to start to build the coalition that calls for reform of the Supreme Court. Look, nobody but nobody in America should have a lifetime position. Nobody. Nobody. And anybody that believes that the Supreme Court is not a political appointment with political people, with political ideologies, they're kidding themselves. So... While I would also call for term limits on Congress and on the Senate, I would also be calling for term limits on the Supreme Court. I would also look at expanding the court. We have people who are now relatively young that Trump has put on this court. These are activist judges. Clearly they are activist judges because they are removing once again the rights that we have fought for in the 20th century. Women's rights, immigrant rights, voting rights, rights of minorities. I mean, my goodness, the fact that we are having these conversations is crazy to me. So to actually have somebody who is open to having these conversations and bringing these conversations to the forefront, somebody that the news channels want to interview, somebody that is already got coalitions and interests building throughout Congress. That's the difference between me and everybody in this race. I already know how to do this stuff. It's what I've been doing. It's what I have been doing. And even when we talk about something like cannabis, I mean, at the forefront of changing America's drug laws. That happened right here in Colorado, and I was a huge part of making that happen. So I'm not just talking about, oh, yeah, I would like to see this happen. I'm telling you, I'm the only person in this race that's actually done it. And we'll continue to do it. A while ago, we reached out to you for a comment on your position on military aid to Israel, but we never heard it back. We got comments from both of your rivals. What is your position on Israel? Yeah, so my position on Israel is the same as my position on every other country in the world. I am definitively anti-war. I believe that war is the very last thing that we do, not the first thing that we do. I believe that diplomacy is the most important thing that we can do. And war is only something that we take our...

our military into when it is the last opportunity to be able to protect America and protect our allies and protect our interests. Right now, where we're at with Israel, this war makes no sense to anybody. 80 days ago, 90 days ago, the Straits of Hamoos was open, gas prices was below $3. And we had a, well, we had, under Obama, we had a nuclear agreement that we had entered into with Iran. So the fact that we got pulled into this war, which has nothing to do with us. quite frankly, is a disgrace. And it is completely showing that our current president and our current administration has no understanding of history or of military or of diplomacy. And I would feel that way about any country on the planet. So I want to switch gears a little bit and talk a little bit about things that you have done. You worked on campaigns for former President Barack Obama and Governor Jared Polis's congressional campaign. You were also appointed by National Finance Committees by Obama and worked on the governor's transition team. What did you learn from working with them that would inform your approach to Congress to this role? So once again, it's the building of relationships. It's the understanding of how the inner workings of politics works, of how you pass a bill, of how you bring things and introduce, you know, what you would like to see get passed, you know, to a coalition of people to make it work. And now that we have... this news cycle and we have this amazing thing called, you know, social media and the different things of how we talk to the people, how we let the people know what it is that we are doing on, you know, uh... how we let people know what we're doing and able to build those coalitions and to be able to talk about what's important. And I want to bring up, too, you know, what Jason Crow and what Senator Mark Kelly and so many other vets were able to do. They were able to start a whole conversation around you do not have to obey an illegal order. To anybody that has served in the military, You will hear that on your very first day in the military. When you first walk in to take your oath, when you first put on that uniform, those are the first words that you hear. So that wasn't new to us.

That was so that the rest of America could understand what the military gets from the very beginning. And this is how you inform Americans as to what's going on. This is how we talk to people. This is how we build coalitions. This is also how we get more people who serve with us to come along with where Americans are thinking and moving. And... Already having a lot of those relationships with so many elected officials is very important walking into this on day one. I'm not a newbie. I'm not an unknown. So I want to ask you, Wanda, about a situation that you were in last year related to your position on the CU Board of Regents. There was an incident with some messaging from the university that you said used racial tropes. And in early July of last year, the rest of the regions on the board censured you in a seven to one vote. You told CPR that this vote that censured you was a victory. What did you mean by that? Can I say it was a victory? I may have. First off, all the regions did not censure me. Nobert Chavez did not... He was the lone no vote. Let's make this very clear. It was a seven to one vote. And the two regions of color were the two that stood together and said that this was not right. Have you seen those images? I have not. I'll be honest with you. I have not. So this is the problem. People want to talk about those images and they don't want to show them and they have not seen them. And I need everybody who is listening to me right now to go look at those images. They're horrible. They are horribly racist. And under each one of the carcatures that they drew and they are cartoon characters of black people, cartoon characters, drawings of black people, caricatures, and the words underneath them are things like no impulse control, lower IQ, inability to reason, more likely to become a substance abuse user. These images and these words are what have been used to dehumanize black Americans and the black community since slavery. Let me make this very clear. The president of the university apologized for using racially insensitive images. The dean of the School of Public Health apologized for using racist and using images that had racial mischaracterations of them. The people who created it, NTM Health, apologized. They all apologized. It is sad to me that the Democrats on this board, with the exception of the other one regent of color, decided to work with the MAGA Republicans on the board to be able to censure and sanction the lone black regent. The regents have said this, that they were upset at the fact that I kept calling out racist behavior of the university.

For the last year, they have not given me back my rights as a regent. A year. The only other region that has been sanctioned longer than me, or sanctioned, the only other region that has been sanctioned was Glenn Gallegos, and he was sanctioned for abusing and verbally abusing and threatening women on staff. And that's why he was sanctioned because the women on staff said that they would not go to the places where he was at. They were fearful of him. The regents had zero reason to sanction me, and they have no intentions of giving me my rights back. This is the issue. So when I said that it was a victory, the governor of the state of Colorado said that what the regents did was wrong. Phil Weiser, the AG, of the state of Colorado, said what the regents did was trample on my First Amendment rights and what they did was wrong. Mark Kelly is now undergoing the same type of abuse on the federal level, Senator Mark Kelly, the astronaut, for people who want to silence the First Amendment of folks who speak out for what is wrong. Make no mistake that what the university did was wrong, they apologized for it, and these regents decided to investigate me. and not how a $6 billion research institution put out so much false information. They also said that I questioned the science behind THC and breast milk. There is no science behind THC and breast milk. And the reason why there is no science behind THC and breast milk is because it would be unethical. Because the only way that you could get that science would be to give a woman a joint. Tell her to smoke it or to eat a gummy and then to breastfeed her baby. You cannot do that. So every bit of the information that they have is anecdotal. It is not a controlled... It is not a controlled group. So we don't know if the nutritional piece on the woman is good, if she's using other drugs, if she's drinking, if she's just using cannabis. We know nothing about that. It's just anecdotal information. So while I never questioned the science, I questioned how they used these horrible carcatures of black people and attributed to them. to what they have been saying about us since slavery. But I need you all, I need you to go look at those pictures, though. And I ask all the reporters to do that because you all weren't looking at the pictures before you question me about them. Yeah, and I appreciate you explaining that, what the images were, and we will definitely put a link in the show notes for folks to be able to see that. There's one other component of this. This situation that I want to share from CPR's reporting, they said, quote, CU's regions were concerned that she had a conflict of interest in making the comments, meaning she tried to have taxpayer money moved from the campaign to the social equity programs because she felt her business might suffer due to the ad campaign and allegations she's consistently denied. What do you have to say about that piece of this, this bigger conversation?

So there was a number of things in that. After they spent the $500,000 to investigate me, it came back that I did not have a conflict of interest. So the fact that they keep saying that, once again, their own investigators, their own investigation, said that that did not happen. I did not have a conflict of interest. What they found at the end of all of this was that I did not show care and loyalty to see you. That was it. I did not show care and loyalty to CU, which is ridiculous, given that I'm the first black woman commissioned through the Naval ROTC unit at the University of Colorado Boulder. I am asked to speak all the time at CU. The students love me. The faculty loves me. I am probably one of the most popular regions that has ever been elected to the University of Colorado, or University of Colorado, a graduate of CU Boulder. So there is no conflict of interest. And just to clear that up. There is no line of which money would have been taken from the marijuana tax fund and given to social equity. There is no line that that could have possibly happened. It would not, it cannot happen. It would not happen. So the marijuana cash fund is the money that dispensaries put into this cash fund from the taxes that they collect from the sale of cannabis. There is no ability to put that into social equity. They are conflating and being non-truthful about what my comments were. My comments, when asked by a reporter, what do you think should happen to any money that is used from cannabis? And for 17 years, because I've been in this industry for 17 years, I have said, that money from the sale of cannabis should always go to the people who are most harmed by the drug war. Well, thank you for clarifying that. It was just something that we wanted to ask you about. Okay. Thank you. And thank you for asking. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it helps to hear from you. We've heard from many sides of this situation. And again, like I said, we'll share a link in the show notes so folks can see exactly what we're talking about. Okay. Any last words for listeners? Make your case. This is the... They're going to be hearing from hopefully all three of the candidates in this race. What do you want to say to folks who maybe are meeting you for the first time or just before we head out? Why am I running and why should I be the next Congresswoman from CD1? We've had somebody here for 30 years. for 30 years. And in 30 years, we have not seen movement. We don't see any interaction. We don't see engagement. We hear nothing from this congressperson. In 30 years, she has only been the lead on two bills.

Joe Neguse has been there for six years, and he's already number four in the house and has passed over seven bills and has been a part of over 300 bills. Jason Crow, we hear him speaking out for veterans for immigration. We see him on MSNBC. We see him on CNN. We see him on the nightly news. Even Brittany Patterson, you know, came out and was great with, you know, young parents. who are serving and have children and being able to make that a centerpiece of what it is that she does. And from our current congressperson, after 30 years who was supposed to be leading the delegation, we just don't see any leadership from that. I am going to be bringing leadership. As you have said in our opening, I have opened businesses. I have created... hundreds of jobs. We have opened restaurants. We have opened consulting businesses. Obviously, the cannabis business that we have created here in Colorado, which has expanded worldwide. We have changed drug laws. We have worked to expunge. people's records. We have, oh my goodness, been a part of education. I have worked with students. I have changed the procurement system at the University of Colorado to be more open. It's a $1 billion procurement system at the University of Colorado that I had just happened to ask. How many women, minority, blacks, Latinos take advantage of this system? And I found out that the system was not equitable. Because of those questions, we now have an equitable system that allows small businesses to become a part of that $1 billion system. I mean, I am the only person in this race that comes from a working class background. I have worked my way and broken down doors that I was never supposed to be in and kept those doors open so that more women could walk through them. When I graduated from the University of Colorado, there were three women in the battalion. We now had over 29 women in the battalion in the naval battalion last year. So I'm so proud to see all of these things happen. I'm not just talking about what I can do in Congress. I've done it. And I continue to do it. And that is the difference between me and anybody else in this race. And that's why I'm so excited to run. That's why I'm so excited to represent this district that I call home and that I am so proud of because I am a part of this district, not just for women, not just for LGBT, but for blacks, Latinos, business owners, students. I'm a part of this community. I've always been a part of this community, and I'm excited to continue to be a part of this community. Well, Wanda James, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much. I appreciate you all, and thank you for having me on. I am excited to see how all of this comes out.

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