“The midterms await”

Watch Disclosure Day at Home Now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you? Would that frighten you? Well, now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Kep starring Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Coleman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required, also in theaters. Hi, I'm Daniel, founder of pretty litter. Cats and cat owners deserve better than any old-fashioned litter. That's why I teamed up with scientists and veterinarians to create pretty litter. Its innovative crystal formula has superior odor control and weighs up to 80% less than clay litter. Just one bag lasts up to a month, meaning fewer refills and less scooping. Pretty litter even monitors health by changing colors to help detect early signs of potential illness. It's the world's smartest kitty litter. Go to pretty litter.com and use code Pandora for 20% off your first order.

Zip Zero, Stingy with De Niro, nothing to lower the high cost of living for everyday Americans. While at the same period of time, implementing and unleashing Project 2025, now all of a sudden, Donald Trump admits it was his project all along. He just did it earlier today. What we're saying is America's too expensive. Donald Trump has made things worse. Donald Trump, using a government shutdown to inflict pain on his perceived political enemies, is where we begin the hour of some of our favorite experts and friends. Joining us now is Shabon Green. She's a former federal worker whose dream job at USAID was eliminated earlier this year. Also joining us, former Democratic Senator and MSNBC political analyst, Claire McCaskill. And with me at the table, Puck Senior Political Political, Puck News, Senior Political Columnist, MSNBC National Affairs analyst, John Heilman. You have so many titles. I'm sorry, I stumbled over them. I... Just call me Heilman. Hylman, I will. I... I think Chris Murphy and I came Hakeem Jeffries this afternoon have landed on an articulation that is easy to understand about what's going on here. Well, I think it's, they're slightly different, I think, the two of them. And I think the virtue of what Chris Murphy said is that it is. True in the sense that I think what's animating what is stiff in the spine of Democrats is not And some Democratic message person is going to get mad at me for saying this, but I don't really care It's not health care. I mean, they care about health care Democrats care about health care They care but that's not really why the things are different now than they were in the spring when when Chuck Schumer decided to let the vote to keep the government open What's different now is that all of this other stuff has happened. All of these, you know, there's been the deployment of troops, there's been the depredations of ICE, there's been the command of the president to his attorney general to prosecute his political enemies and to declare, why the process declaring them guilty before they've been indicted. We can make a list as long as both of our arms put together. And what there is is, is there's a sense among Democratic voters and among many Democratic members of Congress. That they're just like, how can we fund a government that does all of this stuff? Right. That is unconstitutional. That is authoritarian. That is heinous. That is not American, right? That's the animating impulse and why there is so much, so far at least, so much democratic unity and consistency in spirit. You also understand that as a party, you need to have a... clear, coherent message, and you need to have some kind of an ask. You need to be asking for something. We will give you the vote you need if you give us what. And I think that's where the tricky part comes from Democrats. They are focusing on health care as the ask, right? But it's not health care that's animating what's happening here. And I think what you hear in Chris Murphy is a true articulation of the kind of comprehensive...

anger and outrage over the totality of the Trump government in the last eight months. And so that has the ring of authenticity. I think we in Hakeem Jeffries, you hear something slightly different, which is, you know, there's a little bit of like, are you going to be, are you going to articulate the rage, the emotion, the anger, the righteousness, or are you going to focus on what has been decided is going to be our message? Our message is going to be. restore the cups on health care or we're not going to give you the votes. And I think, you know, when you're the leader, you're in a slightly different position than Chris Murphy as officially the leader of House Democrats. I'm not really critiquing Hakeem Jeffries there, but there is going to be a question going forward about how singular, you know, trying to keep everyone on the same page of like, what is our clear demand? What is our exit strategy? What will bring this to an end? Because I'll, you know, remember, remind everybody, the last time there was a Trump shutdown. It was in December of 2018. It was 35 days long. It was the longest federal government shut down in history. And the wind and weather right now is worse by far. And the prospects of reopening the government, I think, are dimmer than they were then. And the appetite for it on both sides in some ways, the appetite for it is dimmer. And the pain of people going, what is going on here, ordinary voters, is going to escalate with each passing day. That challenge of how do you be true to why you're doing this while also remembering that you can lose this fight if you don't have a clear message for like, what, how do we get the government back open? Because that is what people want in the country. They want the government to be open. And who they see is at fault is what this whole argument is about. How do you frame it? How do you frame where we're going? What do we want? What are we going to get? What will we do if we get the thing that we say we want? All of that is going to be. politically what matters, because in the end, people are going to look up and say, this was the Trump shutdown, or they're going to say this was the Democratic shutdown, and you don't want to be on the other side of that, on the other side of the blame. That's why it's tricky for Democrats, as I say, because I think they're animating impulse, which I think a lot of us share, are not, don't align perfectly with what your ask is going to be, right? You can't really say, stop being the Trump administration, which is really what Democrats would want. Stop doing all this stuff. That's where the challenge is, the political challenge and the communications challenge for the party going forward. Well, why is it only tricky for Democrats? Well, because I think Republicans have a pretty clear, the Republicans are, their position is we won, we're doing what we ran on. And. like it or lump it. And we are perfectly willing to vote to keep the government open, which is under the terms that we've set out. So it's not as complicated a messaging thing for them. We ran a certain way. We're doing the things we said we were going to run on. And now we want to keep the government open and do more of those things. If you want to hold us accountable, the midterms await in 2026. They are voting to keep the government open, right? And that's why it's more challenging because Democrats are the ones who are withholding the votes. Claire, how do you see this moment? Well, I agree with John somewhat, but in some ways, this is much different than 2018, 2019, because remember what happened in January of 2019 and what brought it really to an end, and that was the Democrats took the House. Nancy Pelosi took over his speaker early January of 2019. So it was a much different scenario in terms of what...

cards Mitch McConnell had to play and what Trump could actually get done. And I will say this. Yes, the animation for the base is rage. But for most of the country, it's economics. And what they're doing right now, a lot of the stuff they're doing and are going to do is not popular with not just the base of a Democratic Party, but with most Americans. That is, making energy costs higher by getting rid of all the clean energy projects, by having health insurance go higher because they're not extending the support in the Obamacare program. cutting Medicare and Medicaid. And one thing is different now, Nicole, than was back in March. They hadn't passed a bill cutting a trillion dollars out of America's health care. So I do think the message is pretty simple. We need you to give something back to the American people to deal with their health care costs. That is going to reach not just the people in our party that are... outraged at everything this guy is doing and how he's doing it. It's going to reach the rest of America that frankly doesn't have a lot of patience with either side at this point. Claire, you don't think there's a risk of angering the base if you fund ICE and you fund the things that the government's doing that a lot of people think are illegal, as Chris Murphy said there. Well, I think you have to figure out a way to open government again. And getting some kind of concession on health care costs, I think will give a win not just to the Democratic Party, but also the base of the Democratic Party, because they will see the Democrats stood up and got something that we really care about. And frankly, it's really good politics, too. Costs are not going down for America. And you know, whether it's property insurance, whether it's Homeowner's insurance, whether it's health insurance, whether it's utility bills, all of those things are going up to say nothing and what's going on with food and what's going on with the farmers. So there really is a moment here where the Democrats can build on this shutdown and hopefully get out of it with something and then build on that towards the midterms. And then maybe there won't be a shutdown at the end of next year because there will be a Democratic Speaker coming into the House. Shavon, I am inspired by the great Michael Lewis's book and reporting on federal workers to never cover federal workers without talking to at least one of them and reminding people of all of the sort of thankless things that federal workers do.

from answering phones at call centers to making sure Social Security payments go out, to serving the country in the military, to serving veterans at VA, to serving taxpayers with questions at the IRS. Every aspect of our life is touched by human being. The federal government is not a building and a desk and inanimate objects. It's human beings. And I just want to play for our viewers what the person in charge of eliminating federal workers and exploiting this moment to eliminate more of them how he feels about federal workers. We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma. Did he succeed in putting you in trauma? There's been a lot of trauma. I would say across, so you mentioned I worked at USAID and we've been particularly hard impact by this. USAID was one of the major funders in the international development space. So the impact is well beyond the individual workers at USAID. It's thousands, hundreds of thousands of children dead, harmed. It's very traumatic, especially when you've given your life to service, to change the world for a better place, to help people, and then suddenly realize that you've been named enemy of the people in an EO. There's a lot to deal with there. Shabam, how are you doing now? And what happens after they succeed in destroying an agency like USAID and firing federal workers with the explicit purpose of, quote, traumatically affecting them? So I will say I've been very lucky in the colleagues that I have from USAID. We have developed so many different communities to help each other, find jobs, find income, set up new businesses, find ways to continue, find ways to fight for our democracy. We sort of ironically said, you know, they fired all the people at USAID, but USAID has a longstanding history of trying to fight for democratic principles around the world in places that are very authoritarian and very difficult to work in. And understand the nuts and bolts of how to do that. So I know a lot of people running for office as well as just.

providing more support to, again, fighting for democratic principles, rule of law, and sort of helping people understand why these things that the government's doing oftentimes flies in the face of decades of experience, both bipartisan experience. There are reasons why we've done things certain ways. There's a reason why the government's slow is because it has an outsized impact on the American economy and the American people when changes do happen. And maybe we don't feel those impacts immediately, but they are there and they are coming. Did you ever think that those Democratic principles at USAID under Democratic presidents and Republican presidents, which Democrats and Republicans have said, the agency has always turned rather effortlessly and quickly? Regardless of who is in the Oval Office to carry out the objectives, I worked for George W. Bush, USAID, it was instrumental in a pro-democracy agenda. Did you ever think that you'd be talking about applying those principles to your own country? No, definitely not. So one of the things that I worked in is digital government and especially data governance and making sure that all the data that the governments have on citizens and businesses and so forth are being used. for good purposes or accurate or not being, you know, hacked by cybersecurity, but also not being used for surveillance and, you know, anti-democratic principles. And so we did a lot and we partnered with other parts of the government, the U.S. government, as well as multilateral and bilaterals, to really promote basic democratic principles in a lot of countries where they might have the policy, but not necessarily the implementation, right? Or they... You know, they promised things but didn't necessarily deliver on them. And so a lot of what we did was fund these programs to get civil society and to get municipal government staff to understand why it's really important not to, say, take someone's medical data and use it in law enforcement unless you have very clear governance procedures, rule of law procedures. What's interesting is that when I talk these days about why we need this, I don't really need to give a lot of examples anymore because people say, oh, you mean what's been happening to us recently? I'm like, unfortunately, yes. And it is, you know, it's very disheartening to have to bring that message back home again. But maybe we also have some great examples of how it can change.

Tom Homan, when you think about all the things that they say, hoping that no one will think too long about any one of them, like that's sort of like the architecture behind the volume business that Stephen has talked about. I mean, firing people like Chavon, who was simply helping USAID help countries create civil societies that didn't surveil. their citizens is like such a, it's like a twist of irony that's almost too big to take. Yes, and there's two different parts to the, to the flood the zone with shit strategy, as Stephen, as Steve Bannon put it, I'll quote him out loud here, because we'd want to let an hour go by without getting us. Correct. It's just like been 48 hours since I've used that word. It's, you know, the, it's, there's two cats. One is, pump out so much that people can't think about anything for too long. But the other piece of it is, you know, lie about it, right? And so part of the story, if you go back and look at Trump's address to join a judge to Congress at the beginning of the year, when he characterized at great length what USAID was according to Donald Trump, which is, you know, all like just DC's, they're not just false, but they're the most kind of... race freighted, sometimes outright racist kind of caricatures of what They think their base, he thinks his base, believes about anything that has to do with the words, with the letters NGO, anything that we do abroad, anything that we do in a place like Africa, any way place the thing that we do in a place where people are not white Anglo-Saxons, that they mischaracterized. So flood the zone. And then to the extent that anybody stops and thinks about, like, well, AUSAID, what's that? Oh, well, those look. the people who help these people in these countries that you can't quite pronounce that are filled with black people, you want to get rid of that. So it's the combination of those two things. And I will say that just, you know, earlier I talked about the challenges Democrats face in this. Here's a challenge that Republicans face in this, our very acute one, which is two words. Russ Vought is a challenge that people face in this because I don't think, as we saw with the way the polling went around Doge, the notion that the Republicans are going to use this as cover for the kind of wholesale firing of government workers, not furlowing, but firing. That is not going to prove to be popular in the same way that Doge has not proved to be popular. And I think that Democrats are really helped politically by Russ Vought coming to the four, basically saying, here I am, I'm going to get a bunch of people fired here. That's what this is really all about. That's the way to lose the messaging. I mean, the last guy that did this was Elon Musk, who is credited with giving Democrats victory in Wisconsin in the state Supreme Court race. And 35%

of Americans approved of the Doge class, 57% disapproved. And this was like the earliest honeymoon of Donald Trump's presidency. This was like March or April. All we need now is Russ Vought with a chainsaw. And it will be the same kind of thing. It's a image we will see in the midterms, that image with the chainsaw. And Russ Vought is now giving voice. You reviving that again verbally. Right. Shabon, I am sorry for what you endured for the simple act of serving your country, and I thank you for your service and for joining us here today to talk about it. Claire McCaskill, I'm always grateful to you for your service and for being here to make sense of everything going on on Capitol Hill. John sticks around when we come back. One of the bright lights in today's Democratic Party, but they're getting right in terms of how they're talking to all Americans. Texas State Representative James Talarico will be here on the other side of a break. Also ahead for us, the power of political comedy. Jimmy Kimball's suspension and reinstatement touched off a fight over free speech in this country. And as the White House cracks down on satire and freedom of expression, it is the comedians who continue to point the way forward for the rest of us. Comedian Cristella Alonzo will join us with a message for Donald Trump later in the hour. Deadly White House continues after a quick break. Don't go anywhere. Watch Disclosure Day at Home Now with exclusive bonus features. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you? Would that frighten you? Well, now the truth belongs to 7 billion people in an original event film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by David Kep starring Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Coleman Domingo. Find Disclosure Day on major digital platforms now with no subscription required, also in theaters. Hi, I'm Daniel, founder of pretty litter. Cats and cat owners deserve better than any old-fashioned litter. That's why I teamed up with scientists and veterinarians to create pretty litter. Its innovative crystal formula has superior odor control and weighs up to 80% less than clay litter. Just one bag lasts up to a month, meaning fewer refills and less scooping. Pretty litter even monitors health by changing colors to help detect early signs of potential illness. It's the world's smartest kitty litter. Go to pretty litter.com and use code Pandora for 20% off your first order. Burlington knows you cannot forget Mother's Day. And be real, texting your sibling to add your name to their card isn't enough. Instead, head to your newly refreshed Burlington, where it's easier to shop for deals that'll make Mom proud. Find fragrances from perfume to candles or opt for a brand name bag. Plus, your store had a glow up, so it's more fun to shop for those special women in your life. Mom is Wow upside down after all. Burlington, deals, brands, wow.

Despite Donald Trump and the Republican Party's rather desperate attempts to blame Democrats for the government shutdown, so far the American people are not buying it. A new poll from the Washington Post finds that 47 percent of Americans blame Trump and Republicans in Congress compared to 30 percent who blame congressional Democrats. One independent voter tells the Washington Post this, quote, all branches of government are currently controlled by Republicans, yet they are somehow blaming Democrats for their inability to get something figured out that both parties. agree on. Texas State Representative and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico joins us right now. John Tom Homan is still here and may jump in. Consider yourself warned. Tell me how you see this moment in our politics. Well, you know that in addition to being a lawmaker, I'm also a seminarian. And if you read the New Testament, Jesus doesn't spend most of his time preaching or teaching or even praying. He spends most of his time healing the sick. Right now, we have politicians in Congress with Christ follower in their Twitter bio, but they are kicking the sick off their health care. We as lawmakers, especially those of us who proclaim a devout faith, have a special obligation to heal people, not make them sicker. I feel like we oftentimes sanitize this discussion about health care by talking about premiums and continuing resolutions. But a budget is a moral document. What happens to people when they can't afford their health insurance? Diabetics ration their insulin. Seniors skip their medications, and ultimately people die. And that's exactly what will happen if these Republican cuts are all passed. There's an estimate that 51,000 Americans will die needlessly if all of these cuts go through. That's 51,000 flesh and blood human beings. That's a moral crime. And we have to do so much better in this country. And again, this isn't... really just about policy. It's not about politics. This is about morality. And I think we need to talk more about that. Well, let's do that then. I mean, you have one of the most prominent and longstanding anchors on the Fox News Morning program who recently said that he recently asked, quote, why don't we euthanize homeless people. He did apologize a couple of days later, but that that's even something that you would utter, suggest that we're a long way away from a frame around political discussions like what you're talking about. How do we get to where you're talking about? I think it's a matter of recognition. We have to recognize each other as fellow human beings, as neighbors, as members of an extended family. And only when you have that recognition can we have a politics where we take care of each other, where we're more careful with how we treat one another, both with our words, but also with our politics and our public policies. I think that's what this...

entire discussion about the government shutdown about health care really comes down to is do we value each other as human beings, as neighbors? And currently the proposals that we're seeing from the Republican Party in Washington don't value our fellow Americans, don't value their lives or the lives of their family members. And that has got to change in our politics as we move forward. What do you suggest Democrats in Washington do to make sure that that happens? Well, I'm really happy to see Democrats in Washington finally stepping up and pushing back against these inhumane policies. We should always be trying to work on a bipartisan basis. That's what I've done as a legislator in Texas. But you also have to stand up for your constituents. You have to stand up for the American people. And so I'm all four coming to the table, but I'm not willing to negotiate away the health care of millions of Americans and millions of Texans. Texans are going to be some of the people who are most impacted if these Republican cuts go through in Washington. James, you and I talked a couple months ago right after you guys came back, went back to Texas after you broke quorum, and you had given a sermon in Chicago where you talked about Jesus and flip it over the tables in the temple, and you said it was time for the Democratic Party to do some more table flipping. I assume you think that this shutdown kind of falls into that category. How far we were just talking earlier on the show about... The fact that health care is really important to Democrats, but in fact, a lot of Democrats just have a lot, the totality of the Trump. administration is doing things that it finds immoral, unconstitutional, illegal, outrageous, unacceptable. How far do you take it if you are in the camp who in your heart, yes, you want to see those cuts restored on health care, but in fact, you object just as much to funding ICE under these circumstances. How far do you take this shutdown in the spirit of flipping tables? Well, I don't think any of us want to flip tables just for flipping tables sake. We don't want to shut down the government or break quorum just to do it. These are extreme measures that are only used when absolutely necessary. And in our case in Texas, it was about ensuring that politicians, including the most powerful politician in the country, is held accountable at the ballot box, which is the most American thing you can think of. And he was trying to escape that accountability by redrawing the political maps in the middle of the decade. In Washington, they are trying to raise health care premiums on millions of Americans and including millions of Texans. That is a red line that we shouldn't cross. And again, I would hope this isn't just a democratic statement. I hope all lawmakers in both political parties would recognize that we have an obligation, a moral obligation.

to ensure that every person in this country can access the health care they need to stay alive and ultimately to thrive and to prosper. That should be a bipartisan goal. And so if one party is trying to gut health care in order to cut taxes for their donors, that's corruption. And we should all be standing up against corruption. And we should use every tool in the toolbox. We should play to the fullest extent of the rules so that we can defend the people that we seek to represent. Texas State Representative James Talarico, thank you so much for joining our conversation again. John Halman, thank you for being here at the table, my friend. Great to see you. We want to let you know that the deadline legal newsletter is back ahead of a busy year at the Supreme Court. The legal battles aren't going anywhere, and you can keep up on all of it by becoming a subscriber. Just scan the QR code on your screen, and you'll get a brand new newsletter in your inbox every Friday. When we come back, the power of comedy. To speak the truth, in a time of creeping authoritarianism, comedian Christella Alonzo, who has a brand new Netflix special, will be our guest. That's after a short break. Don't go anywhere. The deadlines, the pressure, the tension. You may just brush it off as stress, but is your hair, I got to tell you, it's eating us alive. weakening our very roots, breaking us apart. And the more you stress, the more we slip away. Now please, take a deep breath. There's something you can do. Panteen, abundant, and strong system strengthens your hair against stress, reducing hair loss by 85%. Only the strongest will survive this shedding. Pantine, abundant and strong. Hi, I'm Daniel, founder of pretty litter. Cats and cat owners deserve better than any old-fashioned litter. That's why I teamed up with scientists and veterinarians to create Pretty Litter. Its innovative crystal formula has superior odor control and weighs up to 80% less than clay litter. Just one bag lasts up to a month, meaning fewer refills and less scooping. Pretty Litter even monitors health by changing colors to help detect early signs of potential illness. It's the world's smartest kitty litter. Go to pretty litter.com and use code Pandora for 20% off your first order. Need a lesson in savings? Who doesn't? That's where Burlington comes in for back-to-school style. Because those school lists get long, but your receipts shouldn't. Find backpacks and sneakers to sweatshirts and jeans. Burlington has them all from the brands your kids keep begging for. Why choose just a few looks? With our prices, just get them all. Burlington. Deals, brands, wow.

Like Canaries in the coal mine, it is the comedians who are usually the most astute observers and therefore among the first targets of any government seeking to silence criticism. And in that environment, simply telling a joke can be an act of bravery. Jimmy Kimmel and his late-night contemporaries are proving it every night, and they share that particular brand of courage with countless other comedians who carry on under threat of an apparent government crackdown. Maybe you already know and love Christella Alonzo. She's one of four children to a single mom who was undocumented until Christella was 10. She has a brand new special on Netflix called Upper Classy. Watch a little bit of that. I feel bad for parents. God, you get tricked. Because when people say they want kids, they usually mean, I want a baby. No one ever says, I want a 17-year-old. And I get it. Babies are cute. Oh my God, they're little, they're fat, they don't talk. You can dress them up in costume. Like, oh, here's my pirate baby. And then when you get tired of it, you just put it in the corner of the couch and it just stays there. I help my sister raise three kids. You think she even asked me if I wanted to? No. She just showed up one day, like, bitch, we got three kids. She was married. I'm like, in your husband, she's like, ah, screw that guy. You and me, we're raising these kids. I still haven't lost the weight from the third one.

I want to bring in someone I had the privilege and honor of knowing and working with a little bit when I was on The View. Very, very successful and brilliant and warm and wonderful and brave and witty comedian Christella Alonzo. She also happens to be the first Mexican-American woman to create, produce, write, and star in her own American primetime comedy, ABC's Cristella. Her new Netflix special, Upper Classy, is available for streaming right now. It is so nice to see you. Thank you so much for being here. Oh, it's so great. It's so great to be here. I watch the show every day. You do not. You do not. I do. I watch it every day. I think I'm the fan club of the show. I'm going to cry. I'm going to cry. I mean, you are one of the smartest and hardest and hardest and funniest people. And that's, you know, that's a success story and a story in its own right. But you also... are so on this moment. And I wonder if you ever, if you ever do your thing, I mean, you know, watching you, it's never apparent, but are you, are you a little, are you any more scared in this moment than, than other moments? No, you can't be. And actually, I think that growing up Latina in this country, you get used to. Really feeling like you have a responsibility to say something. Personally, for me, I always feel like I have to be specific about what I'm saying. I love talking about my community because not enough people talk about the community. So I always think about the priorities. The priority is to live in fear and stay silent or to say something and know that whatever happens, you're honest and open and hopefully. reached people that maybe were unfamiliar with your community to begin with. What is happening in your community? Give voice to everything you see in here. You know, it's weird. Your last segment, you had James Talarico, I was born and raised in Texas. So now I live in Los Angeles. So I live best of both worlds, right? It's just, you know, I keep track of the elections in Texas, but, you know, then we also have Prop 50 in California that you have to vote on next week. So to me, what's happening in my community is something that's been happening for decades. I grew up. with an undocumented single mom in the 80s in South Texas when immigration raids were a thing during the Reagan administration. So immigration raids are a thing that some people are used to. And when the ICE raids started in Los Angeles a couple of months ago, It immediately took me back to being a little kid. I was born in the United States, but my mother wasn't. And people don't understand that with that comes a lot of responsibility for a child. Not only are you American, but now you have to be your parents protector.

And I think that the reason that I talk so much about that, about immigration, is just even though I'm American, I lived with an immigrant family. My experience is completely different. And my story's not original. It's actually the story of so many people. But we don't put a face to it. This administration is great at vilifying groups. that don't have a face. They bank, they hope that you don't have people in the community that you can put a soul to. So they say, these people are the problem. And I've decided to be very specific and open about my life so that people know, I am not only an example of the American dream, I am just like everybody else. My people are just like everybody else. What we want is an opportunity. Just like the American dream was taught, just like everything. When you go to school, they teach you this country is about working hard and having a chance. That's it? The thing about covering a political convention where people had signs that said mass deportations and mass deportations now is that I... I didn't want to think that that was the message they landed on as the message most likely to help them win. And then when they won, that that was something they did out loud. And I wonder what it's like. Like, how do you live open-hearted in a world where the person that ran on that message won? I'm going to be very honest and say that you live with hope because it's all you have. And you hope that things get better because there is no other choice. I have grown up in a predominantly Mexican neighborhood. And then when I left Texas, I became the minority. And I had never been the minority in any place. My neighborhood was a Mexican neighborhood. I was just Cristella. But then when I left, I was the Latina. in the neighborhood. I was one of only. And let me tell you, it's it's one of those moments where you think if you don't fight now, you are helping what is happening happen. You know, we talk a lot about Democrats and Republicans. You know, I watch MSNBC a lot. It's always Democrats, Republicans, but really, if we don't say anything now, we actually become two new parties, and that is supporters and critics. And that is not something that this country was about when I was growing up. You made me cry. I need you to stick around. I have thousands more questions for you. We're going to sneak in a quick break. We'll both be right back. Latinos are the only ones that name their kids Jesus. White people don't do that. I love that for you. White people will name their kids friends of Jesus, you know? There's Mark, there's Paul, there's Joseph. How are you?

That's another reason I have low self-esteem, I think. I was raised super Catholic. And if you're Catholic, you're not allowed to like yourself at all. Oh, you have to be modest and humble. And my family could be like, I hate myself. And my mom's like, someone's going to heaven. So laughing feels like its own subversive act these days. And I wonder if that feels like a burden or a gift or how you carry that in this moment. Oh, it's so important. I keep telling everybody, joy is a form of resistance. It's a form of protest. The people that don't like you want to see you miserable, and you cannot give them that. You cannot give them the opportunity to see you sad. You know, my oldest brother was undocumented for years. He became a citizen in 2016 after 30 years of trying. And we grew up in the same household. We grew up with the same family, same mother. Years ago, about 10 years ago, he told me, you know, so many times when I see undocumented people on TV, they're always so sad. And I don't know why, because I love to laugh. I like music. I like enjoying life. And it's funny because at that moment, I realized he, my own brother, has had a different experience that I have in this country. And we grew up in the same household. And that's when I realized. how important it is to have joy. And that's one of the things that I talk about in the special, too, because in this country, we have been taught that work is the most important thing in our lives. We get told you have to work first, work hard, and then you enjoy life. But they never tell you how much work is enough. They never tell you when do you go live life? So it's important for us to work hard. The problem isn't that you don't work hard enough. It's that you work too much. You have to take a break and enjoy life. You have to learn how to love life. And through that, you do it by by. watching shows by making people laugh. I love that I can do that. And when I see people laugh, especially people that grew up like me, it's one of the biggest joys of my life. It's an honor. Tell me what this special is like having this out there in this moment where comedians are right now, one of the brightest lights we have. You know. The first special I shot in August of 2016, my very first special, and I had jokes about Trump, and they told me not to do them because they said, well, he's not going to win. And I thought, no, it's important to have those jokes, even if he doesn't win, because it shows a snapshot of where we are in this time. My second special, I was going to shoot around my birthday. The same, my birthday is on January 6th. That January 6 was when I was going to shoot my second special. I ended up getting COVID. I moved it. The third one, I shot on June 14th, which is no Kings Day. So this man has followed me the entire time that he's been running.

And let me tell you, I didn't know what to do, but I knew that on Kings Day, I was shooting it in Dallas, Texas, where I started doing stand-up, and I thought, I have to do something. I have to say something. And it wasn't, you know, I did my hour. I did the special I was going to do. And then at the end, I had a come to Jesus moment with the audience and basically told them, this is the time when we have to decide what kind of person we are. Who are we to our children? Who are we to the future? This is the time when we decide who we're going to be. And I did it at the end after they had been laughing for an hour so that they could leave with that in mind after having laughed. Because that's one thing that I think we can use in our arsenal. We can teach people through laughter. We can sneak in lessons in life through laughter. And I love doing that. And the special to me was a snapshot in this moment. that this is part of a trilogy. My first special was called Lower Classy. The second one was called Middle Classy. This one's called Upper Classy. And it's been a 10-year scope that shows the ascension of my life. And I didn't know what my life was going to do. I didn't know where it was going to take me. But I knew that what it was was part of the American dream, whatever it was going to be. And that's how I approach the special. This is to show you that if you have hope, if you have hope, you have a chance. to get your voice out and make change. And I guess if we can laugh together, it's pretty hard to feel anything other than connected to the other person laughing hysterically with you in the moment. We're going to need you to come back. We're going to need you in our lifeboat, Christella. Thank you so much. And honestly, just really quick, I just want to tell everybody, it is never too late to wake up and try to be a better person for you and everybody else. I always believe that we're going to win. I love that. I love that. And anyone that needs more like myself, you can stream Upper Classy tonight on Netflix. One more break. We'll be right back.

Quick programming note, Rosie O'Donnell is my guest on this week's episode of The Best People. You can watch the whole thing now on YouTube or scan the QR code on your screen to listen to the conversation right now. I hope you'll let me know what you think. One more break. We'll be right back. Thank you so much for letting us into your homes today. We are grateful. Burlington knows you cannot forget Mother's Day. And be real, texting your sibling to add your name to their card isn't enough. Instead, head to your newly refreshed Burlington, where it's easier to shop for deals that'll make Mom proud. Find fragrances from perfume to candles or opt for a brand name bag. Plus, your store had a glow up, so it's more fun to shop for those special women in your life. Mom is Wow upside down after all. Burlington, deals, brands, wow.