From Public Housing to Public Office? Meet Deja Foxx.

Hi, everybody, and welcome back to the Find Out podcast.

I am Tim Fullerton, and last week, or actually on Tuesday, we talked with a veteran DC reporter, John Harwood.

And today, we're going to go in completely the opposite direction and speak with Deja Fox, who is running for Congress in Arizona's 7th district, and if elected, would be the youngest member of Congress.

So, Deja, thank you for joining us today.

Thank you for having me.

I just stepped off the debate stage last night, and you're my first interview since.

Oh, great, great.

Well, before I dive into, how did the debate go last night?

I mean, we got into the issues.

We talked about immigration, we talked about the economy and healthcare, but I think more than anything, you can see a stark difference between career politicians and a new generation of leadership in tone and tactic.

And that's what we want to talk about because

you are 25 years old.

And a lot of people, when they hear that age, they're like, oh, she must have just got into politics.

You know, she's only a few years out of of school.

But you've actually been in politics for about a decade, right?

We'd love to hear a little bit about your journey.

Like you, you jumped into politics at 16.

Why did you do that?

Yeah, I mean, I didn't pick politics.

It's not some career choice or area of study.

I was born and raised right here in Tucson in the district that I'm running in.

And I was raised by a single mom.

We relied on things like Section 8 to keep a roof over the head, right?

Snap benefits or food stamps to put dinner on the table and Medicaid to get a physical when I wanted to play sports in school.

I was a free lunch kid in our public schools, and all of that is inherently political, right?

My personal story overlaps with policy.

But when I was 15, my mom really struggled with addiction.

And she ended up navigating a rehabilitation process that left me navigating life alone.

I bounced around between friends' houses and experienced something that one in 30 teens in the U.S.

go through called hidden homelessness.

I ended up living with my boyfriend at the time and his family, but at the very same time, I was taught a sex education curriculum as a sophomore in high school that was last updated in the 80s, that didn't mention consent, that was medically inaccurate, that was taught by the baseball coach.

And no shade to Mr.

Wiley, but he was not well suited to do that job.

And it was people like me who didn't have parents at home to fill in the gaps that were left behind.

And so I started showing up to my school board board meetings, telling my story and demanding that they do better.

I was 15 at the time when we started that organizing journey.

And after six months of bringing my peers along and eventually packing the room, we won a unanimous victory to rewrite the sex education curriculum in Southern Arizona's largest school district.

Hell yeah.

By chance, was that where Trump got his sex education?

Because that would explain a lot of his current behavior.

Yeah, I mean, you're

you're you're hitting the nail on the head.

It's, it was one of those things that when I went off to college, I was like, wow, the kind of sex education that people got, depending on where they went to high school, geographically, private, public, right?

Completely different.

And it's a disservice to the young people all across this country who go into these college environments with vastly different information.

I'm curious too, like, did you get it rewritten so the health teacher wasn't the coach?

Because Because I had the same thing in high school where like the person teaching it was the coach.

I think it was the football coach.

Like, why are you the person teaching this?

It doesn't really make sense.

Horrifying, right?

It's like, yeah, I know who's best suited to talk to these young, impressionable people.

It's the baseball coach and the football coach.

They know what to do.

Yeah.

I mean.

Some of my memories of that too are him going through this PowerPoint on contraceptives and he seemed so uncomfortable.

He didn't want to be there either.

And he told us, like, your parents are going to talk to you about this.

And I sat there knowing that that wasn't true for me, right?

There was no parent at home to fill in the gaps and that I needed this information truly to take control of my body and my future.

And so it is both a disservice to the students and the baseball coaches across this country.

I think it was my football coach, too, to be honest.

English teacher.

There we go.

At least it was a good question.

That's a little bit better.

She actually was about it.

Our strongest soldiers, our English teachers.

Yeah.

That's that's pretty lucky.

I've, I remember them, I think in two different classes, maybe like eighth and eleventh grade, they just showed us like horrifically graphic pictures of STDs.

Yes.

And that was, and that was,

and it's like,

just don't touch other people and you won't get any of these diseases.

And it was like, oh, that was like abstinence only, like scared, scared straight sort of like

education.

And it turns out it didn't work very well.

I had the the double whammy because my English teacher's daughter was in the same class as I was.

So like the entire time, the daughter was just losing her shit at the fact that she had to listen to her mom tell us all about this stuff.

And the mom was just mortified at the fact that she was teaching all of us in front of her daughter.

Well, mine was seven, my seventh grade.

I got it in seventh grade.

And the teacher, it was the science teacher.

So like you would think that that would be good.

But then she went on to tell us that she was abstinent until she got married.

So then we were like, why are, first of all, it's seventh graders.

So everyone's laughing, you know, being idiots about it.

But like, also, it's like,

are you equipped to have this conversation?

Like, I, I just, it's, it's baffling to me.

And I, I have a feeling that they basically were like, who is the most junior person in this team?

And she was the one.

And they were like, well, you're doing this now, which shows how much people actually like, you know, pay attention to this when it's like one of the most important things for kids to learn.

Yeah.

And I mean, we're having a lot of conversations about who teaches sex education, but it's school boards by and large that decide the curriculum and the standards and we do not have a national standard for sex education in this country um but you know i think about my school board they had decades to update that curriculum right but it was never a priority for them even though there were decades of young people uh who went through this curriculum and you know left not having the information they needed to be prepared going into the world.

And, you know, I'm actually in this race for Congressional District 7 here in Arizona.

I'm running against one of those school board board members that had decades to fix it, who sat there, and who I pushed to do better.

And so it's an interesting full circle moment in that way, too.

But we need to acknowledge the importance of our most local electeds, school boards, city councils, right?

They have a huge impact, and so do congressionals.

But I mean, really.

If you start up to your school board meeting and just keep talking at community call, you can really get something done.

I think that what Deja has said so far has

me convinced that

she's ready for prime time.

I came into this not knowing anything, right?

We're coming into this conversation totally fresh.

I'm going to admit that, just had a baby, don't have time for research right now.

So, Deja, you've impressed me so far.

But what I think that

a lot of folks my age, I'm about to be middle age, like 40 is middle age, right?

A lot of people my age look at younger generations and keep saying like, oh, they're not ready.

And part of the reason is they just don't interact with young people at all.

I

think I probably felt that way.

And a lot of it is because I look at myself at like the age of 21, which is after I came home from Iraq.

I was all sorts of messed up, but I was really immature.

And I look at myself at 21 and I was like, I was not ready to make decisions about anything, let alone joining the army, let alone running for office or anything like that.

But in 2020, I went to a Black Lives Matter protest organized by the high school students in my town, and I watched them get up.

They had permission from their school to do a walkout.

They had their principal with them, and I watched them negotiate live with their principal to change their curriculum, to get commitments.

on the spot in front of the whole town, knowing that they had the pressure of that moment of literally the entire town staring at them.

them.

I think that this generation is unique in that, in being willing to speak truth to power in a way that frankly, millennials like myself, we weren't very good at.

There were very few of us, I think, who were good at that at your age.

Yeah, well, I want to, I mean, point out some of the differences.

Just in our political upbringing, Donald Trump has been running for president since I was 15 years old.

The MAGA Republican Party is all my generation knows.

His particular brand of media and spectacle and circus and chaos and cruelty is exactly what our generation was raised on, right?

Obama was elected when I was something like eight years old.

And then we saw this hard pivot into Donald Trump.

And so when you put yourself in the perspective of people my age, Gen Z, you can understand our sense of urgency because we recognize that the arc is not always bending towards justice, not unless we bend it, right?

We've seen things get worse and worse and worse.

And, you know, I organized under the first Trump administration.

I scaled up my work after that first sex education fight.

When I was 16 years old, Donald Trump had been elected.

It was the first administration.

And Republicans here in Arizona, in fact, my senator voted in lockstep with him to defund Planned Parenthood Centers.

This is where I got care.

Again, setting the tone.

I was homeless.

I worked at a gas station.

I lived with my boyfriend and his family out of need.

And I got my health care at Planned Parenthood.

When I had no money, no parents and no insurance.

I walked in and walked out with months of the birth control that I needed to take control of my body and my future at no cost to me.

And that was because of good policy, Title 10.

And that's exactly what these Republicans were voting to take away from me and millions of others.

And so, you know, I didn't just back down.

I couldn't.

It was too personal.

I started showing up to town hall meetings where my Republicans had been dodging me at their office.

And in this one particular town hall, Senator Jeff Flake,

who had just voted to defund Planned Parenthood Center, stripped Title 10 funding from me and millions of others.

And I waited 45 minutes in line to ask him a question.

And when I finally got to the front, I asked why he, as a middle-aged white man, was making these decisions about me and my body when he would never be a Planned Parenthood patient, when he had never been a Title 10 recipient, when he was dodging me at his office and refused to sit with constituents like me who were impacted by his votes.

And this

makes me actually laugh now that I'm running for office because I wonder who prepped him.

He told me, in response to this, like, emotive, personal story and plea to do better that he supports policies that support the American dream.

And I asked him,

I was like,

even at 16, I was like, these guys.

But I asked him why he would deny me the American dream.

If birth control and Planned Parenthood were helping me to be successful, reach for higher education, be the first in my family to go to college, why he would take that from me.

And he said, thank you.

And I said, no, thank you.

And I woke up the next day and millions of people had seen this video.

And it totally changed my life, turned my life from private to public.

I got my first death threats that year.

And I was on even footing in the public discourse with a United States senator as a 16-year-old girl working at the gas station.

And in the course of history, that is unheard of.

It's remarkable.

And it also speaks to the kinds of tools, social media, that my generation was raised on.

Well, I think it's really, I mean, that's a really powerful story.

And

thank you for saying what needed to be said to a senator.

You know, that guy.

Also,

there he is.

They used to gloss over it with things like that.

Like, well, it's the American dream.

Well, now we know.

Like, they used to say, well, it's about limited government or it's about personal freedom.

It's about states' rights.

Like, they would always tiptoe around it.

Now they're just saying it.

It's about controlling women.

And to a large degree,

if you look at what J.D.

Vance is saying and

what their policies do is they want women, even if it's victims, to be pregnant and have babies so that they are more dependent on the system,

the system of

men providing for them.

And it gives them more hooks.

It gives them more ways to

keep you barefoot and in the kitchen.

And now that they're just saying it out loud, I don't think

when you look at from sex education, like this is a wild trajectory because I can see a young man thinking like, well, what does sex ed have to do with me or whatever like i'll just run away you know if she gets pregnant um

the trajectory from bad sex education to abstinence only education to dependency to teenage pregnancy rates to dependency on government programs which is then when the older republicans start to pay attention it's a straight line and it's all of the same people in all of the red states who then end up with all of these kids they can't support and then they and then they need government assistance and at that point i mean they're still voting against their own rights, right?

But how do we make people understand that like they're mostly destroying their themselves and destroying their own path to prosperity by not embracing from the get-go the kinds of policies that you are endorsing?

I think when I paint the picture for people through this personal story, right?

As Democrats, sometimes we get a little too lost in the sauce of our own press releases, our own polling, right?

We believe that we could just create the perfect press release.

And if we put it out, everybody else is going to fall in line.

The comment section is going to get in our corner, and we're wrong.

Democrats are failing.

Republicans listen to the comment section and they govern up, right?

Comment sections turn into what creators are saying, turn into what legacy news is picking up, and then the president is talking about it in the Oval Office, right?

That's their direction.

And we expect things to go the other way, and it doesn't.

But when we break through with these personal stories, right, those millions of people who heard me stand up, speak truth to power, and not just paint in broad strokes that we need birth control access because it's about equity and it's about bodily autonomy, which all of that is true, but that's not landing with anybody.

When I tell them that this is the difference between me being able to go to college and make a difference for me and my family, that is something that people young, old, red, blue, urban, rural, understand

because they have that same American dream, right?

Jeff Flake might have been on to something.

I'll give him some credit here.

But they have that same, that same want to not just get by, but have a shot at getting ahead.

And when we can paint that in personal story and serve it to them in a way that connects to their hopes, their dreams, it's not about party anymore.

And that's what I've seen through my ability to be a storyteller and a candidate, right?

These policies are not just talking points for me.

I've lived them.

Good policy is what made it possible for me to be the first in my family to go to college and now to run for Congress.

So on that, I'm really interested because, you know, we talk a lot about the youth vote and,

you know, we saw some pretty rightward shifts and particularly with men,

including Chinese right because, you know, Biden had won in 2020 and then Trump won in 2024.

What are we doing wrong there?

Because

it seems like

if you look at just sort of how the world is, like we handled inflation as well as anybody, if not better, even though it was high.

We put money in pockets for people.

We announced factories in red states, red areas.

The CHIP Act is literally bringing tens of thousands of high-paying jobs back to the United States.

And we're going backwards.

Why do you,

as a 25-year-old, because if you can't tell, I'm the oldest one in this group.

Help people my age and older understand like what is happening with the younger, like the Gen Z

demographic.

I mean, you point out that we're doing the right things on policy, right?

Democrats are fighting in some ways and winning where we can,

but we're failing to communicate.

This is an information problem.

And the split you're seeing between young women and young men has everything to do with the information they are consuming.

And so that's why I think the work you all do in this pod is incredibly important because we need to be creating spaces for young men who are building their political opinions online to see themselves reflected.

One of the things our campaign does differently

and One of the reasons that this election is so important is that we are going into these social media and new media spaces, right?

We're going on Substack Lives.

We're taking the podcast interviews.

We're going viral on TikTok and even Facebook and Instagram, if going viral on Facebook is still a thing.

But even, you know, look last debate.

It aired on our local news and our public broadcast system.

But

10 million people watched our clips on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok in a special election primary in Arizona.

That is not supposed to happen.

But that's where young people are getting their information.

And what I've seen since starting this run is that I have been belittled by other people in this race who call me nothing but an influencer, right?

That this isn't a serious campaign.

It's just online.

And yet that is where Democrats are losing with a 27% approval rating, right?

Losing young people, particularly young men.

Young people are going to apathy and to the other side because we are not communicating with them where they're getting their information.

It's something like 39% of adults under 30 here in the US getting their news on TikTok.

And if we don't start electing people, better messengers who can communicate in those spaces, right?

Who can break through that noise, provide good information,

then we are going to be in a really bad spot come 2026 and 2028.

And, you know,

one of the moments that was pivotal for me getting into this race, I've done digital strategy.

I worked behind the scenes on on the Kamala Harris campaign in 2019 as an influencer and surrogate strategist, and then in front of the camera in 2024.

Content creation, spoke at the DNC, the whole thing.

In 2025,

during the joint address or the State of the Union, I was at the Capitol interviewing with my little mini mic members of Congress, and I left so incredibly disappointed.

These are the people who are supposed to be standing between Donald Trump and my mom's access to healthcare, between our immigrant neighbors being kidnapped on the streets.

Like, you have to be kidding me.

You put a phone in their face and they freeze up.

Like, they are not our strongest fighters.

They cannot be.

Like, I have to believe something better is possible.

And it was in that day that I started having conversations about running for office.

Are you suggesting that 90-second TikTok videos with thousands or millions of people is a better sharpening stone for storytelling than a two and a half hour committee meeting on C-SPAN?

I dare say.

Is the mic on?

Don't forget to get about strongly worded letters.

So, what do Democrats need to do to break away from the consultant class who has told them in the last couple of months, oh, you need to curse more to look more authentic?

How do we get these stiff old Democrats who, you know, I'm a former lobbyist for a veterans organization, have worked with a lot of them, have a lot of respect for them, but they're stiff as hell.

Like, how do we get them to just be real?

Or do they all need to get out?

Like, do they, if if they don't have the communication skills right now do they need to be replaced

that is an excellent question i think it's a both and we get 435 members of congress we just need some more balance in here right that's what i'm a proponent of we need people who have the institutional knowledge who know how these systems work um

But we also need newer and younger voices who are going to lead our party forward in a time where we are in a deficit of messengers, where there's nobody communicating clearly what is the Democratic, or rather the Democrats brand, right?

And where

we see people trying on things like curse words, and it feels embarrassing and cringy, and it pushes people further and further away from us.

But the other thing we need to have a hard conversation about is that a lot of these electeds have never had to make hard decisions in the grocery checkout line.

They've never known what it's like to not make rent.

They have never had to choose between bills and back to school clothes for their kids, right?

And so the inauthenticity that we sense sometimes comes from the fact that they have never lived the policies that they are putting forward.

And I'm telling you, it is hard to be young and working class and running for Congress.

It's difficult by design.

But we don't just need people who are social media savvy, right?

Which I am.

People who can break through the noise, understand the algorithms and the way people are consuming information.

We need people who have strong personal stories.

People who, when they call their mom, are reminded what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck, right?

When they go walk down the streets in their neighborhood,

see cookouts and barbecues on the day that food stamps gets renewed.

Like people like me are still in our communities, still having these conversations.

And that is one of the biggest losses is that as people get into office, they have either never lived the policies that they're putting forward or get so far away from their communities that they forget the implications.

Deja,

talking about storytelling and the opportunity that's right in front of us with the protests,

we have

Gavin Newsom gave, you know, we're recording on Wednesday.

Gavin Newsom gave a major speech last night.

I think he's changed a lot of minds about how he is approaching the, you know, 2028 prospects, but his approach still has really fundamentally been about the pushback against fascism and Trump's overreach.

I am deeply craving the

human first approach to this debate, and I don't hear anyone telling that story.

I feel like that's the angle that you would take as

like these are Americans at their core.

Like these people are trying to be Americans, the people who are protesting, the people who are getting raided and deported.

How are you approaching this absolutely operative moment in American history over the next couple of weeks where we're trying to balance like immigration protests and the no kings rally?

Donald Trump doesn't care about safety.

He is not interested in policy even.

He's interested in spectacle.

We must remember that he is a reality TV show host by trade, and we are seeing it on full display.

Whether it is deporting people on military planes and judges saying no, and him saying, I don't care, right?

Or sending troops into California as state and local governments say don't do it, or

kidnapping our friends and neighbors

by masked agents and unmarked cars.

Right.

And people, neighbors standing between them, truly our people, Americans, standing between saying no, and Donald Trump saying, I am above political consequence.

I don't care what people have to say.

This is authoritarianism, right?

We have been primed for it.

We are like frogs in hot water.

And it is on full display right now.

But what we need to remember is who we are fighting for.

And you are absolutely right that it comes with telling good stories because the reason we are in the position we are is because Donald Trump has and his MAGA extremists dehumanized our immigrant neighbors, right?

Story after story, soundbite after soundbite.

Even Caroline Levitt in the

press briefing room saying that everybody who has immigrated

without proper papers is a criminal because that's a criminal offense.

And that is not true, right?

And

last night at the debate, I had an opportunity to reflect on what we're seeing in the streets of LA and on our screens.

And I felt like it was the the right moment where I had to tell an important story, which is that when I was 15,

as my mom struggled with addiction, the family that took me in were two Mexican immigrants.

These were people who did not speak English, still don't.

The dad is a landscaper.

They didn't have anything extra to give, but they made space in their home.

for me.

That is a lesson people like Donald Trump could learn a little something about.

That is, that makes our communities safer.

There's nothing about his policies that do.

Immigrants make our communities safer.

ICE does not.

Donald Trump does not.

And,

you know, it is stories like those that I think we need to be focused on right now to remember who we fight for.

And when I see people standing between Trump and this administration and their cruel policies and their neighbors.

I think there is nothing more American.

Yeah, I think you're totally right.

And I think that one of the things that I've been a little surprised from Democrats, and I'm going to criticize them for this, is that there was an American citizen,

a woman that was nine months pregnant that was round, that was just grabbed and thrown in a van, and I think released a few hours later.

But like, this is, this is not a surgical or strategic effort to go find, you know, undocumented workers who have committed crimes, for example, which I think most people would say if they've committed crimes, they should go, depending on the severity.

But

I'm not hearing, unfortunately, those stories being told, which is really, really important.

And I think is also how we change the narrative because the right has been telling a story, a lie.

about immigrants for years, right?

They say that there are criminals.

Trump said criminals and rapists when the fact is that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at about a quarter of the rate because, of course, they don't want to get caught.

But it's also just that if you are worried about crime, then you need to go after American citizens.

It's not the way to do it.

And I think we lose when, like, when it just becomes a big, like unidentified group of people that don't have faces and names.

And, like you said, like, would this country be better off if those two people hadn't taken you in?

Like, what would have happened, right?

Like, there would have been a chain reaction of events.

Maybe you would have had to have gone into a foster care system, which would cost people money, have a bad, obviously a bad experience.

And like, it's just, but I think we have a real problem

with telling those stories because I'm not sure that some of these folks even know it's happening or actually think that their audiences care, but it's really, really, really important.

So I'm glad you're doing what you're doing.

Yeah.

And I mean, we have to have that conversation here.

I'm running in Arizona's 7th congressional district.

It's parts of South and West Tucson, which is the town I was born and raised in.

But it's also hundreds of miles of the U.S.-Mexico border and every port of entry.

It's towns like Nogales, Somerton, San Luis, Yuma.

We are on the front lines of the border.

And for people here, immigration is not a theoretical issue, right?

It is about our friends, our family, our neighbors.

Don't forget, I saw yesterday that they had, there was an ICE impersonator who zip-tied a legal resident and took $1,000 from her.

Like, that's another thing that is directly, you know, that's what happens when people get to walk around with masks and no badges.

I mean like i i predicted that in a video like three weeks ago and i was like that's coming and there it was yeah i mean the vigilanteism uh who gets to take advantage of this right

uh it's it's horrifying really i mean it is i wish i could say it was like a slow slide into authoritarianism but it actually feels like a really fast uh slide and um we all need to be paying close attention uh because this administration is moving really quick to normalize what we're seeing.

Well, I want to ask you

because obviously we all agree that our immigration system is broken, right?

The current policies do not work.

They're antiquated.

I think the last time we had a real change in immigration was actually in the 80s, when actually Ronald Reagan

gave citizenship to millions of undocumented workers.

Now, Republicans won't even talk about it.

I guess they have a new patron saint in Donald Trump and not Ronald Reagan anymore.

But

what does a humane immigration policy look like?

Because I think a lot of people just hear kick people out or either give them citizenship and

it's very black and white and this is a very gray issue.

So from your perspective,

what would changes in the immigration system look like that would work?

Yeah, I mean, there's some immediate things we need to get done.

And we have to be clear that under this Trump trifecta, what we are able to do is limited.

But

the job of congressional member has completely changed under this administration.

It's not enough to just check the boxes on legislation anymore and vote the right way.

We need people who are willing to stand up.

Our campaign has stood sign and sign with protesters outside of Tucson Medical Center, where ICE immigration officials attempted to separate a mother and her newborn, right?

We need members of Congress who are willing to go to ICE detention facilities, even if they're going to be jostled and pushed around and threatened with arrest, to exercise their right and responsibility to oversight.

And so, on a structural level, we need to understand that the role of congressional member is not the same under this administration.

We need our members of Congress to be doing more, and we need to be electing people who have advocacy and activist experience and are ready to go toe-to-toe with this administration.

But then, on a more humane level, right, what can we get done?

And what do most Americans actually agree with?

We need to stand up to Donald Trump and say no to his policies of making our safe places less safe.

I would first and foremost stand up and vote against Trump's attempts to allow immigration officials into places of worship, medical centers, and schools.

Once again, he does not have anybody's safety in mind.

He is thinking about the spectacle and the showmanship of his immigration policy.

And so that's first and foremost.

Right here in the borderlands that we call home, we need to be protecting our safe spaces, medical centers, schools, places of worship.

And as it stands, ICE is going into these places and making us all less safe.

Yeah, for sure.

And I'll just add, like, that's such an important issue to me because I live in New York City and I have a five-year-old that is a kindergartner in a New York City public school.

And there have been conversations about what we do if ICE agents armed, armed, by the way, right?

Armed going into elementary schools to either find, I don't know, teachers or paras or other school officials with children.

I mean, this is a real threat.

And, you know, I think in my area, I've made it a point that I'm like, I will not support anybody who does not take a hard line and will do everything they can to keep ICE agents out of schools because guns in schools equals bad news, no matter what, as we have seen over and over again.

And it is just absolutely barbaric and inhumane to subject a five, six, seven-year-old to guys in masks carrying AK-47s going to find someone who's doing absolutely nothing wrong.

And think about it this way.

I told you Donald Trump started running for president when I was 15.

Your child is five, right?

If this is the frame they are getting on America, that they're being trained on active shooter drills and also what happens if ICE comes into your school and attempts to take away your friend's parents, right?

I mean, this is the political system.

This is the world we are giving to our children.

I'm only 25 years old.

I am that future generation people talked about just 10 years ago.

And we're left holding the bag on issues we didn't create, whether that's climate change or a slide backwards on reproductive rights.

I'm a part of the first generation of women to have less rights than our mothers or the complete decline of our political system and democracy at the hands of Donald Trump and his authoritarianism.

I mean,

it's...

It's interesting.

A lot of Democrats think if we just put our heads down right now and wait this out, that we are going to see the other side.

But it is clear to people like me who have been entrenched in donald trump's mess for the last decade that if we don't do something now things can and will get worse what he is pulling apart somebody will have to rebuild and if we don't do everything we can to set ourselves up for success through this special election in 2025 our midterms in 2026 and the presidential in 2028 the person who gets to rebuild this could be worse than Donald Trump.

There's no question.

I mean, to me, this has been the, like, this is the first opportunity for a real pivot point.

Because, you know, I've said on my channel forever, like, once ICE starts executing these operations on a high level and people are seeing it every single day, the word authoritarianism will go from like this sort of magic word that Democrats just repeatedly regurgitated and sort of like lost its value over the period of time to go, oh, wait a minute, maybe they were right this entire time and there was a reason they were saying it over and over and over again.

And we can get that back into the vernacular of what we're trying to do.

Because, really, like, I think Democrats' biggest problem is that, you know, a lot of the stuff we warn with Trump, it's not going to hit every single American.

You know, there's going to be certain things where it's going to affect a couple of people here, a couple of people there, a group they don't care about, whatever.

This is going to affect everybody because it doesn't have a like the border of this country is the entire operation place for the ICE right now.

So I really think like if Democrats ever had an opportunity to reshuffle how we're going to talk about anything, it's right now and it's pointing out the fact that that this is going to change how it feels to live in America, full stop.

And do you want this to be the place you want to be?

So I'm curious, how would you approach the messaging on that?

Because I do worry about the word authoritarianism and fascism.

Like they're probably accurate, but how do you think we should go after this?

Because it really is our best opportunity.

Like you said, we have very limited power at the moment, but these are our moments where we're like, okay, we got to just grab this one by the horns and show people like, this is the future that's right in front of you.

Do you want this?

How do you think we best do that

i mean we can use words like authoritarianism right and fascism

but it does you know we have to ask is that landing do people do they know what that means and what it feels like and we are in a different information ecosystem right now where everyone can pull out their phone record go live show you what is happening in the streets and to me i think that's one of our greatest tools that we have first person real-time access to what is happening.

Not only does it make organizing more effective, but it allows us to tear down the barriers of traditional media, right, and the gatekeepers who say what is and is not respectable enough.

And yes, there is a bit of a worry here around credibility.

But in a time where Trump is trying to control the information ecosystem and we have the opportunity to communicate in real time live with video, we need to be using that superpower to exercise oversight on these agencies where our members of Congress and our government are failing to.

And then in terms of how we actually talk about it, once again, we spoke about this on the debate stage last night.

And I think the most important question we can ask people is, do you think things are normal right now?

Does this feel normal to you?

And I promise you, people will tell you no across the aisle.

This is not normal times.

And the right has already responded responded by electing people who they believe will save them from not normal times, right?

And the Democrats are still running the same playbook.

And that is where we have let people down is that they recognize our voters, our constituents, Americans look around and say, this is not normal times.

And then their member of Congress puts out.

a press release like this is normal times and they are incredibly frustrated it's why they're sitting out it's why they're going to the other side.

And it's people like me who are offering a different alternative, right?

People who have been activists, who are now standing up to run,

because

this moment calls for more than career politicians.

Frankly, they don't have the right skill sets.

We need people who are willing to be fighters, who are going to risk something, who are going to use these positions of power to demonstrate what it means to stand up and fight back.

And really, the operative question is, do you think this is normal?

I think it's important to call out because you said that they're sending out press releases as if this were normal.

But when he spoke to Congress, they held up signs that said this is not normal.

So we know that they're hearing us and they are telling the story that needs to be told because it's on a paddle.

Oh, yeah, big time.

I probably used it for pickleball afterward.

I want to say something to every politician that may be listening or anybody.

I guarantee you that Deja gets more views on one TikTok video that she puts out than all of your goddamn press releases that get sent to the three same reporters over and over again, which basically means that they're just getting it going, yep, oh, there's another press release.

Like

your point about not being prepared for this moment is so accurate.

And I'm somebody that's worked.

in the federal government before uh and in the state level of government and it's so true like Like there, I think one of the problems with Biden's administration was that they were not, and I, there were people there that are very capable, but like we're not prepared for this moment and the way to communicate with people.

Yeah.

And I don't think that was the staff.

I mean, I think we had a candidate that it was very difficult for him to do those things because he was 81 years old.

But, you know, I, it's a message to everybody that like, and actually John Harwood, who has, you know, been a reporter forever, was saying the same thing.

Like, we had the, we had the presidency, but we didn't have a messenger.

And the messenger thing is so important now.

It's honestly like, I mean, obviously background experience still matters, but like being able to communicate issues to people who are paying attention to politics for five minutes per week at most is maybe the most important quality that a candidate can have right now.

Right.

And we're doing things differently because we have to.

It is,

there are so many problems that are built into our political system that make it impossible for people like me to run.

I'll just share a few of them, right?

From the very beginning of this campaign, when I filed my paperwork to run, I had to publish into the public domain my residential address.

Like I had to dox myself to be in this race, which is enough to keep most young women out of politics.

This is incredibly expensive.

My savings is on the line in this run, right?

I am not just like stumbling into this race without thinking about the seriousness and the consequences.

And if it were normal times, maybe I'd be doing normal 25-year-old shit, but I'm not because authoritarianism is at the door and these are not normal times.

And somebody has to do more than what I'm seeing from these career politicians that are more interested in advancing their careers, more worried about their reelections than they are about families like mine.

And I want to talk about what makes this run even possible, though, because I've pointed out why it is so difficult.

But we are doing things differently because we have to.

Somebody else in in my race, the former congressman's daughter is running as well.

She inherited an email fundraising donor list, right, from the former congressman's team.

It is one of the biggest advantages you could possibly have in this race, including a legacy last name.

And it is the political system of political dynasties that is exactly what got us into this mess.

I saw a tweet back in 2024

that

since 1976, we had not seen a presidential ticket without the last name Bush, Biden, or Clinton on the ticket at some level.

That is incredibly frustrating to regular people, to families like mine, who are on the losing end of the policies these people are voting on.

And so we have to take a hard look at our political systems.

Our campaign is forcing people to have that conversation, whether it is because my member of Congress passed away, one of the three Democrats in the last few months, and I am 25 years old.

I'd be the youngest member and we are forcing a conversation around age or because there is a legacy last name candidate in this race and somebody else who's taking corporate dollars, neither of which our campaign is doing, 99% of our contributions are small dollar donors.

That means people who pitch in less than $200.

99% of our donors.

It is a different way of doing things and we're doing it at scale.

So one thing that I would like to know what your approach is going to be is how are you going to continue getting the message out if you get this seat?

What is your relationship with creators, people like us going to look like?

I mean, you can already project your own message out there on your own.

But right now, the Democrats, they are trying.

I will give them that.

And, you know,

a few of us were, a few of us in the creators community have been invited to like, you know, connect with these committee staff.

But what that has looked like is they're just treating us like reporters and they're sending us press releases, which is like, you're just spamming my inbox.

How am I supposed to do anything with this?

What's your approach going to be?

Yeah, I mean, the mini-mics are in the room,

that's for sure.

And yet, these members of Congress, they don't know, or, you know, even beyond members of Congress, just folks in our government and on the left, the Democratic Party,

are not prepared to

meet this moment, this digital moment.

They don't understand

online consumption of information.

They don't know how to talk in TikTok and Soundbite.

And

they're too primed for legacy and traditional media because they see it as the only valid way to communicate.

So that being said, I actually believe that I'm turning this relationship on its head beyond just the ways that I am engaging with creators because I myself am a creator, right?

My first viral video, let's be clear, was me bird-dogging my senator.

It was me marrying good organizing with strong digital strategy.

But that's exactly what I'm doing in this campaign.

I am running for office.

This is a serious campaign for Congress that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, 99% of it from small dollar donors

in 70-something days, by the way,

because we are using digital differently to reach people at scale.

And so I think the point that I'm making here is not just about how I would engage with creators, but with how creators can engage with the political process.

That it is entirely possible that if you have a strong political persuasion, like I do, 10 years of real activist and organizing experience, and know how to use these digital tools, that you're uniquely suited

for a run for office, in fact.

And I think this is true across industries, right?

We're seeing it in politics through my run, but we're seeing it in media and small businesses that social media, maintaining a personal brand, communicating effectively online is a prerequisite to leadership in every industry these days.

And so I think we need to start looking at it that way, that digital storytelling, social media strategy is an essential skill in 2025.

It's not something you can move around, right?

And so that's my roundabout answer.

I think I work with creators differently.

You can see it through the ways that we collab with pages like Feminist and Betch's News, right?

On our debate clips, or the ways we've worked with Courier on this new docuseries that follows this whole run.

But I think the most interesting piece is that I am a creator running for office.

I mean, you're here, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm here.

I'm chatting.

And because I know you all have incredible and important reach, that you've built a niche audience that has stake in this.

Real quick, I am curious.

It's like we're recording on Wednesday, and Saturday are the No Kings protest rallies.

I'm curious what your take is on that.

I'm going to go.

I don't know about the rest of you guys.

I'll be there.

We're headed down to Bisbee for Pride on June 14th.

We'll be in the Bisbee Pride Parade, and then we're going to go on to a no-kings rally in one of our more rural communities.

Very nice.

Very nice.

Well, Deja, we are just about a time because I know you are busy and you've got events scheduled today, but we want to give you an opportunity to plug, of course, where can people find more information about you or potentially support your campaign?

Visit us at dejafox.com.

It's where you can read more about our story, dig into the issues, even leave a comment at the bottom of our issue areas page if there's something you don't see reflected that you care care about, you can get involved with us.

We have virtual phone banking and text banking.

And if you want to pitch in, I would so appreciate it.

We are running a campaign without billionaire donors or corporate PACs, no inherited donor list,

just people like you.

And I really do mean that 99% of our contributors are small dollar donors, people who pitch in less than 2000.

200 bucks.

I mean, that's families like yours and mine.

And our average contribution is $28.

So if you want to be a big dollar donor to Deja Fox, it only takes like 30 bucks to do it.

I'm not going to compare you to Barack Obama.

But

the last time I was inspired by a young candidate who had a personal story that was mocked because he was a community organizer,

he ended up being the best president of our lives.

Maybe you're next.

Maybe you're next.

I'll take it.

10 years from now.

10 years from now.

Sorry.

Those Those were good days.

Those were better days.

There are better days ahead of us.

Really, I know this is true.

There will be days after Donald Trump and people like us will be around to see it and lead through it.

There are better days ahead of us.

I know it.

Great.

I agree.

Deja, thank you very much.

And for everybody, please go to our website, dejafox.com.

Check it out.

Also follow her on TikTok.

She's bigger than half of us, at least here, much bigger than mine.

So please go follow her.

Thank you very much, Deja.

Best of luck to you, and uh, hopefully, once you win, we'll have you back.

Thank you.

It's a sprint to July 15.

I'll see y'all out there.

Bye, have a great day.