“As an adjudicated insurrectionist, Trump is an illegitimate president according to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and therefore every official act as president will be illegitimate.”
–Mike Zonta, co-editor of OccupySF.net
The 14th Amendment states: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
Call your Congressperson and your U.S. Senators at (202) 224-3121
US Vice President JD Vance speaks alongside Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz during a press conference on anti-fraud initiatives at the White House in Washington, DC, on May 13, 2026.
(Photo by Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images)
“Withholding reimbursements only further hurts patients, strains providers, and drives up costs,” said one Democratic congresswoman. “We will fight this with everything we’ve got.”
“Political retribution, plain and simple,” was how US Sen. Alex Padilla described an announcement by Vice President JD Vance late Wednesday regarding the White House’s decision to withhold $1.3 billion in Medicaid reimbursement payments to California.
Vance and Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, claimed the state’s Medicaid records have generated “red flags” and demanded officials clarify $630 million in billing, $500 million that’s been spent on home health services, and $200 million in what Oz called “questionable expenditures,” which he claimed had been used to provide coverage for undocumented immigrants, who are not eligible for Medicaid.
The announcement came a month after Vance’s federal anti-fraud task force suspended the licenses of nearly 450 hospice care facilities and 23 home health agencies in the Los Angeles area, accusing them of fraud.
Vance also warned that all 50 states could soon see federal funding for their Medicaid Fraud Control Units frozen if they fail to “aggressively prosecute Medicaid fraud.”
“We can turn off other resources within their state Medicaid programs as well,” said the vice president.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has frequently sparred with the Trump administration, said Vance and Oz were “attacking programs that keep seniors and people with disabilities OUT of nursing homes,” which are far more expensive to run than home healthcare agencies.
Newsom said the growth of the state’s In-Home Supportive Services program has saved taxpayers “$107,000 per person” by reducing reliance on nursing homes.
“MAGA hates in-home support programs—which help people stay out of costly institutional settings like nursing homes and get the care they deserve, typically from loved ones,” said Newsom.
Newsom also said the Trump administration had informed state officials that the deadline to review California’s Medicaid records “before deciding whether to defer funding” would be later in the month.
Democratic members of Congress warned that their constituents rely heavily on Medicaid, with seven out of 10 of the congressional districts with the highest Medicaid enrollment located in California.
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) said that 56% of her constituents rely on “this lifesaving program,” and many have already been harmed by the Republican Party’s slashing of Medicaid funding in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year.
“Withholding reimbursements only further hurts patients, strains providers, and drives up costs,” said Kamlager-Dove. “We will fight this with everything we’ve got.”
Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) said more than 120,000 people in his district depend on the federal healthcare program for low-income households and people with disabilities.
“This administration needs to stop playing politics with people’s health and lives,” said Panetta. “When people commit fraud, they should be punished accordingly. However, this administration continues to punish California for political purposes, including penalizing innocent people by taking their healthcare away.”
State Attorney General Rob Bonta noted that California has “not hesitated to challenge unlawful actions by the Trump administration,” and suggested the state could file a legal challenge against the withholding of Medicaid funds.
He also accused the administration of targeting the heavily Democratic state “for political reasons.”
The anti-fraud task force led by Vance has so far exclusively focused on rooting out alleged fraud in federal programs in blue states. The White Housesuspended $259 million in federal payments to Minnesota earlier this year after a scandal regarding the state’s social services system.
“The Trump administration is attacking California over claims that they can’t back up,” said Padilla. “Let’s be real, this isn’t about fraud—it’s about punishing a state that didn’t vote for” President Donald Trump.
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Taiwan on Saturday maintained it is a “sovereign and independent” nation and that US arms sales were part of Washington’s security commitment to the island. The foreign ministry statement came a day after President Donald Trump warned Taiwan against declaring formal independence following his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a state visit to China.
Taiwan on Saturday said it is thankful for US President Donald Trump‘s long-standing support for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and asserted it was a “sovereign and independent” nation.
The statement was issued a day after Trump, following his visit to China, warned the democratic island against declaring formal independence.
Taiwan “is a sovereign and independent democratic nation, and is not subordinate to the People’s Republic of China”, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The ministry also insisted that US arms sales were part of Washington’s security commitment to Taiwan, after Trump flagged that he was considering the issue.
“Regarding Taiwan-US arms sales, this is not only a US security commitment to Taiwan clearly stipulated in the Taiwan Relations Act, but also a form of joint deterrence against regional threats,” the ministry said.
Speaking to reporters in Taipei on Saturday, Taiwan Deputy Foreign Minister Chen Ming-chi also asserted that US arms sales are confirmed under the Taiwan Relations Act.
“Taiwan-US arms sales have always been a cornerstone of regional peace and stability,” he said.
In December, the Trump administration approved a record $11 billion arms sale package for Taiwan. Reuters has reported a second one, worth around $14 billion, still awaits Trump’s approval.
Chen declined to comment on the second package because it has yet to be made public, saying Taiwan will continue to communicate with and understand the situation from the US side.
Taiwan’s statements came a day after Trump wrapped up a visit to Beijing where Chinese President Xi Jinping had pressed him not to support the self-ruling island, which China claims is part of its territory.
“I’m not looking to have somebody go independent. And, you know, we’re supposed to travel 9,500 miles to fight a war. I’m not looking for that,” he told Fox News host Brett Baier.
“I want them to cool down. I want China to cool down,” Trump said.
“We’re not looking to have wars, and if you kept it the way it is, I think China’s going to be OK with that.”
The US recognises only Beijing and does not support formal independence by Taiwan, but historically has also stopped short of explicitly saying it opposes independence.
Under US law, the US is required to provide weapons to Taiwan for its defence, but it has been ambiguous on whether US forces would come to the island’s aid.
Xi had begun the summit with a warning on Taiwan, whose President Lai Ching-te considers the island already independent, making a declaration unnecessary.
Xi had told Trump that missteps on the sensitive issue could push their two countries into “conflict”.
A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, Eric Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises in his spare time while living in the railroad yards. The True Believer — the first and most famous of his books — was made into a bestseller when President Eisenhower cited it during one of the earliest television press conferences. Completely relevant and essential for understanding the world today, The True Believer is a visionary, highly provocative look into the mind of the fanatic and a penetrating study of how an individual becomes one.
Eric Hoffer was an American social writer and philosopher. He produced ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983 by President of the United States Ronald Reagan. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, although Hoffer believed that his book The Ordeal of Change was his finest work. In 2001, the Eric Hoffer Award was established in his honor with permission granted by the Eric Hoffer Estate in 2005.
Early life
Hoffer was born in the Bronx, New York City in 1902 (or possibly 1898), the son of Knut and Elsa Hoffer, immigrants from Alsace. By the age of five, he could read in both German and English. When he was age five, his mother fell down a flight of stairs with Eric in her arms. Hoffer went blind for unknown medical reasons two years later, but later in life he said he thought it might have been due to trauma. (“I lost my sight at the age of seven. Two years before, my mother and I fell down a flight of stairs. She did not recover and died in that second year after the fall.I lost my sight and for a time my memory”). After his mother’s death he was raised by a live-in relative or servant, a German woman named Martha. His eyesight inexplicably returned when he was 15. Fearing he would again go blind, he seized upon the opportunity to read as much as he could for as long as he could. His eyesight remained, and Hoffer never abandoned his habit of voracious reading.
Hoffer was a young man when his father, a cabinetmaker, died. The cabinetmaker’s union paid for the funeral and gave Hoffer a little over three hundred dollars. Sensing that warm Los Angeles was the best place for a poor man, Hoffer took a bus there in 1920. He spent the next 10 years on Los Angeles’ skid row, reading, occasionally writing, and working odd jobs. On one such job, selling oranges door-to-door, he discovered he was a natural salesman and could easily make good money. Uncomfortable with this discovery, he quit after one day.
In 1931, he attempted suicide by drinking a solution of oxalic acid, but the attempt failed as he could not bring himself to swallow the poison. The experience gave him a new determination to live adventurously. It was then he left skid row and became a migrant worker. Following the harvests along the length of California, he collected library cards for each town near the fields where he worked and, living by preference, “between the books and the brothels.” A seminal event for Hoffer occurred in the mountains where he had gone in search of gold. Snowed in for the winter, he read the Essays by Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne’s book impressed Hoffer deeply, and he often made reference to its importance for him. He also developed a great respect for America’s underclass, which, he declared, was “lumpy with talent.”
Longshoreman
Hoffer was in San Francisco by 1941. He attempted to enlist in the Armed forces there in 1942 but was rejected because of a hernia. Wanting to contribute to the war effort, he found ample opportunity as a longshoreman on the docks of The Embarcadero. It was there he felt at home and finally settled down. He continued reading voraciously and soon began to write while earning a living loading and unloading ships. He continued this work until he retired at age 65.
Hoffer considered his best work to be The True Believer, a landmark explanation of fanaticism and mass movements. The Ordeal of Change is also a literary favorite. In 1970 he endowed the Lili Fabilli and Eric Hoffer Laconic Essay Prize for students, faculty, and staff at the University of California, Berkeley.
Hoffer was a charismatic individual and persuasive public speaker, but said that he didn’t really care about people. Despite authoring 10 books and a newspaper column, in retirement Hoffer continued his robust life of the mind, thinking and writing alone, in an apartment.
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) brought his Fighting Oligarchy Tour to Mumford High School in Detroit, Michigan on May 3, 2026, appearing with Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed.
(Photo by Sarah Rice/Getty Images)
“Our political revolution is a multiracial, multigenerational working-class movement built from the ground up,” ready to “fight for the kind of changes our country desperately needs,” the senator said.
US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday announced his endorsement of more than five dozen progressives running for local and state political offices across the country, from Arizona and Missouri to Georgia and New Jersey.
“In this pivotal and dangerous moment in our country’s history, we need leaders at every level of government who are prepared to take on the billionaire class and fight for working families. We need bold solutions to the crises we face, not tinkering around the edges,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement.
The 84-year-old caucuses with Democrats in the Senate and twice sought the party’s presidential nomination, in 2016 and 2020. During those campaigns and since—particularly with the Fighting Oligarchy Tour he launched shortly after Republican President Donald Trump returned to office last year—he has encouraged Americans, especially younger people, to get involved in US politics.
“In the last 15 months, we have recruited over 8,500 Americans to run for office, many of whom are Independents,” the senator noted. “Our political revolution is a multiracial, multigenerational working-class movement built from the ground up.”
“Today, I am proud to endorse 61 progressives running for state and local office across America,” said Sanders. “They will fight for the kind of changes our country desperately needs.”
In Arizona, Sanders is supporting Bobby Nichols for Tempe City Council, Analise Ortiz for state Senate District 24, Mariana Sandoval for state House District 23, Brian Garcia for state House District 8, and two candidates for state House District 9: Lorena Austin and Jacob Martinez.
In California, he is backing four state Assembly candidates: Jessie Lopez for District 68, Ada Briceño for District 67, Fatima Iqbal-Zubair for District 65, and Sandra Celedon for District 31. He’s also endorsing Joz Sida for Fontana mayor, Marissa Roy for Los Angeles city attorney, and multiple people running for LA City Council: Hugo Soto-Martinez for District 13, Faizah Malik for District 11, Estuardo Mazariegos for District 9, and Eunisses Hernandez for District 1.
In Colorado, he is endorsing Chela Garcia Irlando for state Senate District 34, Gabriel Cervantes for state House District 31, and Tyler Quick for Adams County Commission. In Delaware, Sanders is backing Shay Frisby for state Senate District 5, Adriana Leela Bohm for state Senate District 1, and Rae Krantz for state House District 6.
In Florida, he is supporting Kyandra Darling for state House District 62, and in Georgia, he is backing Ruwa Romman for state Senate District 7. In Iowa, the senator is endorsing India May for state House District 58, Leila Staton for state House District 54, and three Johnson County supervisor candidates: V. Fixmer-Oraiz, Jon Green, and Mandi Remington.
Sanders is also supporting Scott Houldieson for Indiana Senate District 1, Frank Henderson for Kansas House District 6, Robert LeVertis Bell for Kentucky House District 43, Eboni Taylor for Michigan Senate District 3, Justice Horn for the 1st District in Missouri’s Jackson County Legislature, Tick Segerblom for Nevada’s Clark County Commission, Ali Aljarrah for New Jersey’s Passaic County Commission, and Daisy Maldonado for New Mexico’s Doña Ana County Commission.
In New York, where Sanders was notably an early supporter of democratic socialist NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, he is now endorsing three state Senate candidates—Yuh-Line Niou for District 27, Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas for District 13, and, Aber Kawas for District 12—as well as several state Assembly hopefuls: Adam Bojak for District 149, Maurice Brown for District 129, Dan Livingston for District 123, Conrad Blackburn for District 70, Eli Northup for District 69, Illapa Sairitupac for state Assembly District 65, Eon Huntley for District 56, Christian Celeste-Tate for District 54, David Orkin for District 38, Samantha Kattan for District 37, Diana Moreno for District 36, and Shamsul Haque for District 30.
In Pennsylvania, the senator is supporting Mark Pinsley for state Senate District 16, Sierra McNeil for state House District 195, and Brad Chambers for State House District 41. He’s also backing David Morales for mayor of Providence, Rhode Island; Julio Salinas for Texas House District 41; and Jaelynn Scott for Washington House District 37. In West Virginia, he’s endorsing three state House candidates: Olivia Miller for District 80, Cody Cumpston for District 6, and Dave Cantrell for District 3.
Sanders had previously announced his support for US Senate candidates Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, and Graham Platner in Maine, as well as multiple progressives running for the House of Representatives, including Dr. Adam Hamawy in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District earlier this month.
“We’re building a movement for the future,” Sanders told The New York Times, which first reported on his new endorsements Friday.
“Our effort is to lead a national movement against Trump’s authoritarianism and kleptocracy and unnecessary wars and his contempt for the Constitution,” he explained. “But equally important, the American people need an alternative to the Democratic establishment, which is significantly dominated by big-money interests.”
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Attendees hold signs as they listen to speakers during a rally calling for an end to corporate money on January 21, 2015 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“The far-right Supreme Court hijacked the Constitution to let corporations spend in our elections. But we are not powerless. We can fight back,” said US Rep. Greg Casar.
The state of Hawaii has passed a law that poses a direct challenge to the infamous 2010 Citizens UnitedSupreme Court ruling, which opened the door to unlimited corporate spending in US elections.
Democratic Hawaii Gov. Josh Green on Thursday signed into law a bill that takes aim at the court’s ruling that corporations are effectively people with full free speech rights who can face no limits on what they can contribute to political organizations.
As explained by More Perfect Union, the law, which is set to take effect next July, classifies corporations as “artificial persons” who do not have a constitutional right to make political donations.
“The bill could limit the influence of super PACs,” noted More Perfect Union, “and be a model to challenge the influence of money in politics.”
Democratic Hawaii state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole, a supporter of the law, said on Thursday he was proud that Hawaii has become “the first state in the nation” to take direct action challenging Citizens United.
“As elected leaders, we do not serve artificial entities,” Keohokalole said. “We serve the people.”
US Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, hailed the law as “big news” that should inspire opponents of limitless corporate political spending across the US.
“The far-right Supreme Court hijacked the Constitution to let corporations spend in our elections,” said Casar. “But we are not powerless. We can fight back.”
The new law passed despite opposition from Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez, who argued that defending it in court could be difficult and expensive.
The law’s passage earned praise from campaign finance watchdogs who have long called for overturning Citizens United and reestablishing guardrails for corporate cash in US democracy.
Michael Beckel, who directs the Money in Politics project for the advocacy group Issue One, said the Hawaii law is a “model for the country” that other states should rush to emulate.
“This measure… is among the most innovative and impactful ideas to curb corporate and dark money spending in campaigns since the Supreme Court’s disastrous Citizens United ruling in 2010,” Beckel said. “Those looking to bring more transparency and accountability to elections should embrace this powerful proposal and follow Hawaii’s lead.”
End Citizens United, the nonprofit campaign finance reform organization dedicated to overturning the 2010 Supreme Court ruling, also pushed other states to look at Hawaii’s law as a roadmap for their own legislation.
“Hawaii has provided a blueprint for how to prevent super PACs from spending dark money by passing state law,” the group said in a social media post. “Let this win be a testament to the ability states have to put power back in the hands of everyday people by neutralizing the effects of the Citizens United ruling.”
Tom Moore, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, praised the Hawaii law in an interview with The Associated Press, calling it “a brave and bold step to get corporate and dark money out of America’s politics” that “will send a powerful message that will be heard loud and clear across the Pacific and across the mainland.”
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KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco May 15, 2026 California’s Department of Justice on Friday released a new report on living conditions in facilities across the state, which include allegations of overcrowding, undercooked food, inadequate clothing and poor access to clean drinking water, which amounts to cruelty.
Photos: Saikat Chakrabarti, Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Fair Share America
It’s the end of an era. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who counts among her legacies in Congress successfully undercutting the push for Medicare for All, announced last week that she is retiring from Congress. The two-time former speaker of the House made her announcement after Democrats made remarkable gains in nationwide elections, campaigning on affordability and standing up to the Trump administration.
“We are in this era where we need new ideas, we need new leaders, we need people who are going to push the party in a new direction,” says Saikat Chakrabarti, who is running to replace Pelosi and represent San Francisco in Congress, making economic inequality and corporate power the focal point of his politics. This week on The Intercept Briefing, host Akela Lacy speaks to Chakrabarti, the co-founder of the progressive outfit Justice Democrats who helped run the primary campaign of one of its first candidates, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, becoming her first chief of staff.
Answering Lacy’s question as to how he’ll get it done, Chakrabarti says, “In the 1930s, we had a really powerful, far right in this country. We were actually seeing Nazi rallies in Madison Square Garden, it was filling the stadium. And the way we defeated that was FDR came in with the New Deal movement. He built this whole new economy and a whole new society that improved people’s lives so dramatically, it just killed this idea that you need an authoritarian to do it for you.” FDR “wasn’t advocating for going back to a pre-Great Depression era. He was advocating for something new.”
Chakrabarti has been openly calling for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., to be primaried and tells The Intercept that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer should be too, following the end of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, after eight Democratic senators — none who are up for reelection — joined forces with Republicans to pass a spending package.
“My goal, honestly, is to replace a huge part of the Democrat establishment,” says Chakrabarti. “I’m calling for primaries all across the country. … I think we actually have to get in there and be in a position of power where we can do all that, so it’s not going to be this constant compromising with the establishment, trying to figure out how we can push.” He adds, “I tried the pushing strategy — that’s what Justice Democrats was: We were trying to elect people to try to push the Democratic Party to do the right thing. It’s not going to work. We have to replace them.”
Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Transcript
Akela Lacy: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing, I’m Akela Lacy.
It’s the end of an era.
Nancy Pelosi: I will not be seeking reelection to Congress.
AL: U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi, who counts among her legacies in Congress successfully undercutting the push for Medicare for All, announced last week that she’s retiring from Congress. The Democrat and two-time former speaker of the House represents one of the country’s most liberal districts: San Francisco, California. And she has done so for nearly 40 years.
Pelosi made her announcement after Democrats made remarkable gains in nationwide elections. One takeaway, as we discussed in last week’s episode, is that voters want leaders who will fight for affordability and stand up to the Trump administration.
The race to replace Pelosi began before she publicly shared that she would not run for reelection. And although the California primary is seven months away, it’s already looking like a crowded and competitive field.
Saikat Chakrabarti was the first to jump into the race for Pelosi’s seat, setting up a challenge from her left.
Chakrabarti co-founded the progressive outfit Justice Democrats and helped run the first campaign and office of one of its first candidates: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
He’s running on a campaign promising to push for universal health care and child care, enact a stock trading ban for members of Congress, cost-of-living issues, and to “stop funding the genocide in Gaza.”
He’s also criticized some of his colleagues in the progressive movement. So how is he positioning himself amid a wave of other primary challengers? And how would he actually fulfill his campaign promises? Saikat Chakrabarti joins me now. Saikat, welcome to the Intercept Briefing.
Saikat Chakrabarti: Hey, thanks for having me.
AL: Saikat, you’ve been described as a bit of a contradiction. You’re independently wealthy; you’re a founding engineer at the payment processing company Stripe; and Business Insider has said, you may be wealthier than Nancy Pelosi, one of the wealthiest members of Congress.
You’ve also made economic inequality and corporate power the focal point of your politics. You ran Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign, became her first chief of staff, and co-founded Justice Democrats.
Most tech millionaires aren’t necessarily also progressive anti-establishment politicians. How do those two identities fit together for you?
Most tech millionaires aren’t necessarily also progressive anti-establishment politicians. How do those two identities fit together for you?
SC: I’d say most tech millionaires are really working toward their own demise as well in the long run. Because, I mean, look, I’ll give you my whole background. I grew up middle class in Texas. I grew up going to public schools. My parents actually grew up fairly poor. My parents are from India. They immigrated here in the 1970s, and my dad was a victim of partition, which was a catastrophic event — we basically split up India along religious lines after the Indian Revolution. And so his family were refugees that had to flee overnight from Bangladesh over to India. And so I grew up with the stories of their struggles. My dad grew up with a family of 12 in a one-bedroom apartment, often didn’t know where his next meal would be coming from.
“The way our economy is set up and has been set for so long is a lottery.”
I’d say my values really come from that — in two ways. Like one, it’s both these values that are shaped by how hard people who are totally capable have to actually work when they get a bad plate handed to them in life. But also just the way our economy is set up and has been set for so long is a lottery. Because at the end of the day, my dad struggled, but he won a lottery ticket; he got a visa to come to America. And I go back to Calcutta and I meet his friends and his family who all had it just as hard or just as hard-working, just as capable people who never made it out.
And so I joined the tech industry back in 2007, or 2009, actually, after college. And it was a time when tech really was being pitched as a solution to a lot of the big problems in the world. I was a completely apolitical person, and I bought it. I did think I was going in to try to solve some big issues. At the time like Muhammad Yunus was doing microfinance to alleviate poverty, yada, yada. And living in San Francisco and seeing unhoused people on the streets while I’m going to my tech job — it just gave me the feeling that maybe I’m actually not solving the problems I really want to work on.
So it sounds really cheesy now, but I quit the tech industry and I wrote a list. I was like, I want to work on inequality, poverty, and climate change. Again, I was not political at all — I was looking at mainly working in nonprofits. And that was around the time Bernie Sanders started running for president. I didn’t know if he had all the answers, but he was talking about those things in a very compelling way.
And so I joined that, and I ended up working on the Bernie campaign. I started a group — Justice Democrats — to recruit people to run on progressive values all around the country. And that’s how I ended up recruiting AOC to run, and ran her campaign, and ended up as her chief of staff.
“I worked hard, but I did not work harder than a teacher or a nurse or the people cleaning our offices did every single day. I just won the startup lottery.”
But I really believe at the end of the day, like a fundamental thing — and this is why I don’t think it is a contradiction — I experienced that lottery economy, that the startup economy really is in San Francisco. It’s this system where you can just hit it big if you just happen to be in the right place at the right time.
That’s what happened to me. And like I worked hard, but I did not work harder than a teacher or a nurse or the people cleaning our offices did every single day. I just won the startup lottery — and that to me is wild to have an economy set like that where you can just win a lottery and never have to work again.
While most people actually running society, working hard to run society, we’re saying, “You’re never going to be able to afford a house. You’re never going to be able to have a secure retirement.” I think a society and economy set up like that is doomed to fail. I think that is the ultimate demise of America.
And I’d say to people who are in my position, who have wealth, who don’t see it that way, who aren’t willing to just accept some taxes on themselves to make an economy that actually works for everybody — you’re being shortsighted because this won’t end up good for you either, if you end up in a society that’s a complete dystopia, that’s completely unequal.
“You’re being shortsighted because this won’t end up good for you either, if you end up in a society that’s a complete dystopia.”
AL: Speaking of the people on whose backs the society runs, as we’re speaking, the longest government shutdown ever is on the verge of ending after eight Democratic senators decided to join forces with Republicans to pass a spending package.
For years, you’ve been critical of Democrats, saying they’re too weak, too compromising, too establishment. Do you think they should have ended the shutdown without a healthcare guarantee?
SC: No. I mean, this has been my main critique of the party for so long. A lot of my critique is on the policies and what they actually want to do and what they want to stand for.
“ Strategically, they preemptively cave.”
But a big part of my critique is, strategically, they preemptively cave, and this was a prime example of that. I mean, not through any leadership by Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries, but we were actually winning on this fight. And it’s not like, I don’t think this is a political fight. We were actually fighting for once to deliver something real for people who are suffering in this economy right now.
This economy sucks, and we’re talking about doubling or tripling people’s health insurance premiums in the middle of this, right? So Democrats were winning that messaging. You saw it in the polling, you saw public sentiment on the shutdown going towards Democrats. And then we’re coming off the back of a massive electoral victory last Tuesday where Donald Trump actually went on TV and said, you know, he was saying part of that was because Republicans were losing the messaging on the shutdown fight. So, I mean, call me naive but honestly, I thought like, “OK, finally we have the leverage, we have the upper hand. Maybe Democrats will realize they can push.”
So watching them cave, I mean, oh my God, why? Like, why? You’re winning. You could have actually delivered something and then you could have gone into the next election and said, “We fought Trump and we won.” Because right now, I think the main reason people don’t want to vote for Democrats — part of it’s the policy, but part of it’s, they’re weak! Do you want to vote for people who aren’t going to get shit done for you? No. So this just proved, I think, that image to a bunch of people.
“I’m not seeing Democrats go out there and persuade the public in the way that I saw Dick Cheney and George Bush persuade the public to go to war in Iraq, which was an actually an unpopular thing to do.”
So no, they absolutely should have kept fighting. I think they could have won. And honestly, my opinion, if we had seen Hakeem Jeffries and Schumer and some of the Democratic leaders actually fighting way more — because my big critique of this whole fight was, I’m not seeing it be front-page news every single day. I’m not seeing Democrats go out there and persuade the public in the way that I saw Dick Cheney and George Bush persuade the public to go to war in Iraq, which was an actually an unpopular thing to do. If we use that sort of tactic, I think we could have ended the shutdown way earlier because Trump’s numbers on this would’ve been plummeting way faster, and we would’ve actually gotten something done for people. That’s the part that pisses me off.
AL: You’re touching a little bit on sort of this tension between the inside-outside strategy versus pushing for everything that you possibly can for responding to constituents. On this topic, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has faced criticism for what some say has been a moderation in her approach: speaking on the DNC stage, saying Kamala Harris worked “tirelessly for a ceasefire” in Gaza. What’s your response to that and how do you see yourself navigating that inside-outside game if you’re elected?
SC: Look, I think, AOC, she’s kind of alone in there, right? Like there’s only a few, a handful of progressives in Congress right now. And I think they’re all trying to do the best they can with a limited amount of power. And that means trying to push the agenda, trying to push from the inside and working with outside organizations to create pressure.
My goal, honestly, is to replace a huge part of the Democrat establishment. I’ve been very clear about that from the start. I’m calling for primaries all across the country. I’m trying to recruit people to run across the country, and I’m talking to folks who are stepping up and challenging the establishment right now across the country. I think we actually have to get in there and be in a position of power where we can do all that so it’s not going to be this constant compromising with the establishment, trying to figure out how we can push.
I tried the pushing strategy — that’s what Justice Democrats was: We were trying to elect people to try to push the Democratic Party to do the right thing. It’s not going to work. We have to replace them. We just have to replace them. And that’s, you know, to me that’s where I’m headed. That’s my politics.
“It’s because the American Dream has been shattered. Children today are not going to do as well as their parents.”
I think it’s not just existential for the party; I think it’s existential for the country. Because ultimately, I think people have been voting for anybody who’s standing for bold, sweeping economic change ever since the Great Recession. I’d say that was why Barack Obama got elected. I think that’s why Donald Trump got elected. And it’s for good reason. It’s because the American Dream has been shattered. Children today are not going to do as well as their parents. People’s wages have been stagnant for decades while the cost of essentials are going up.
And so what we see is people are really open to the kind of change, but all they know is that the status quo is not cutting it. So Trump has a version of what that change is: MAGA. It’s saying, “You can’t afford a house, you can’t afford a secure retirement because of immigrants, because of our attention to people in foreign countries, because of trans people or scientists,” what have you.
And we have to present an actual vision and a plan on the other side, and then deliver on that plan to improve people’s lives. And that’s not going to happen by pushing people to get on the right policies. It’s going to be a whole movement that has to take power and make it happen — put the country on a path to implementing something like that.
AL: In this vein, you have talked openly as you are now about the fact that the first Squad members who came into Congress have only been able to do so much because of a lack of broader organization among progressives. One of the key proposals you’ve been working on for the last few years is what some people are calling the “Green New Deal on steroids” — a successor to the Green New Deal that you led work on as AOC’s chief of staff. What are your plans, and how do you think you can bring them to fruition where other progressive policy priorities have so far failed?
Scott Wiener debates Saikat Chakrabarti and Connie Chan for California’s 11th Congressional District seat at the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, on March 31, 2026. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via Gett
The leading progressive candidate to replace longtime Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi in Congress is opposing a pair of wealth taxes on the ballot in his state and district: a one-time statewide tax on California billionaires and a local San Francisco tax on the city’s wealthiest businesses and corporations.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener’s opposition might seem uncharacteristic for someone running a progressive campaign, but it’s consistent with the priorities of two top donors to a super PAC backing his candidacy.
Crypto mogul Chris Larsen and venture capitalist Garry Tan — a pair of wealthy Bay Area tech executives funding a pro-Wiener super PAC called Abundant Future — have been outspoken advocates of stopping the taxes, both of which aim to help fill funding gaps in healthcare and social services after the Trump administration’s recent cuts to Medicaid. Larsen has poured millions of dollars into the fight.
The statewide tax, known as the Billionaire Tax Act, would levy a one-time 5 percent tax on the state’s billionaires’ wealth and assets. The local San Francisco proposition, colloquially known as the Overpaid CEO tax, would tax companies whose CEO makes 100 times more than their median worker, which mostly applies to companies with billionaire CEOs. Both will likely be on the ballot in November, as Wiener also hopes to be.
Larsen, the billionaire co-founder and executive chairman of the blockchain service Ripple Labs and now a mainstay in Bay Area political funding, has donated $100,000 to the PAC backing Wiener — the most of any individual donor — and $700,000 opposing the Overpaid CEO tax, according to federal and San Francisco city records. He’s spent far more fighting the statewide billionaires’ tax, sinking $5 million of his own wealth and another $5 million from Ripple into the Golden State Promise PAC, an anti-tax PAC he founded, per state records. Larsen gave an additional $2.5 million to a separate anti-billionaire tax group, Building a Better California, founded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. (Brin has reportedly already left the state to avoid the tax.)
Tan, the CEO of startup incubator Y Combinator, has less money to throw around, but he’s made vocal opposition to the tax measures a key part of his brand. He frequently invokes the specter of billionaires and startups fleeing the state and spreads claims that the statewide tax would mean Google’s founders would owe 50 percent of their stocks, which the tax’s backers have dismissed as false. He’s contributed $25,000 to Abundant Future.
Larsen and Tan likely see their support as “political investments that they expect a return on,” said Jeremy Mack, executive director of Phoenix Project, which tracks corporate spending in San Francisco politics. Wiener owes much of his political strength to the donors who have boosted his housing causes during his state Senate career, including Larsen and Tan. With those backers now animated against the wealth taxes, Mack said that supporting them would be “political suicide” for Wiener.
But Wiener’s opposition to the taxes positions him against the political currents now driving the Democratic Party’s progressive wing. California’s major labor unions, a supermajority of San Francisco’s board of supervisors, and national progressive leaders like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., all support the pair of taxes. Even Pelosi, Wiener’s would-be predecessor and a known moderate, is in favor of the local San Francisco tax. SEIU California, one of the state’s largest labor unions, withdrew its endorsement of Wiener in early April over his opposition to the tax measures.
Both of Wiener’s opponents in the three-way June 2 primary — progressive member of San Francisco’s board of supervisors Connie Chan and Justice Democrats co-founder Saikat Chakrabarti — are in favor of the taxes. Most California voters support the statewide billionaire tax, according to a March poll, including 72 percent of Democratic voters.
“If you look at who is bankrolling [Wiener], he is doing the bidding of massive corporate interest,” Justin Dolezal, a San Francisco bar owner and co-founder with Small Business Forward, an advocacy group that supports both wealth taxes, told The Intercept. “That’s what he’s looking out for, rather than the average, everyday working San Franciscans.”
Wiener’s campaign did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.
“He is doing the bidding of massive corporate interest. That’s what he’s looking out for, rather than the average, everyday working San Franciscans.”
While Wiener in the past has brushed off concerns of corporate backers influencing his policy, saying that he and his wealthiest donors “have agreements and disagreements,” their alignment in opposition against two popular wealth taxes has drawn concern from housing and homelessness advocates, who were already skeptical of Wiener for boosting housing development in the city that they argue favors real estate corporations. The real estate industry was consistently among his top donors during his state Senate elections.
Wiener is a proponent of the “Yes in My Backyard” movement that seeks to address the housing crisis by increasing the housing stock, while opponents criticize it for its emphasis on boosting development rather than redistributing wealth. The movement has morphed over the past several years with the growth of the abundance movement, which is popular among San Francisco’s powerful billionaires and aims to remove regulations and red tape to speed up development.
In addition to being top donors to Abundant Future, Tan and Larsen, along with Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppleman, have been consistent supporters of Wiener’s YIMBY vision. During his decade in the state Senate, Wiener introduced a series of bills that cut regulations to accelerate housing development across the state, a core tenet of YIMBYism and abundance. Critics on the left dismissed his policies as rewards for corporate commercial real estate developers that failed to meet San Francisco and the state’s housing needs, as well as exacerbating gentrification and displacement of its low-income residents. Opponents instead argue for redistribution of wealth, using the housing that already exists and direct investment in services for low-income people.
Confronting challenges over his support from wealthy donors during his campaign for Congress, Wiener often refers to his track record of taking on corporations, such as introducing AI regulation bills, one of which drew the ire of some of his tech backers, including Tan. But earlier this year, Wiener and Tan partnered on a failed state bill that would have restricted Big Tech companies from self-preferencing their products over smaller companies. While Wiener touted the legislation as a way to rein in the likes of Apple and Google, Tan’s company, Y Combinator, likely would have benefited because it helps launch new startups.
Tan has also worked to insulate the tech sector from organized labor, accusing the state’s labor leaders of having the goal of “killing the tech golden goose and taking maximum waste into the budget … until CA ceases to work for everyday Californians.”
Larsen, meanwhile, railed against unions at a San Francisco business event in January, calling on his peers to “start fighting on par with the unions when they propose these absolutely stupid propositions like this crazy CEO tax.” Larsen echoed the message at a separate tech donor gathering Tan hosted months later.
Larsen did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment. A spokesperson for Tan told The Intercept to “look at Mr. Tan’s posts on X/Twitter,” where Tan has called the billionaire tax “a destroy tech in California proposition” and the overpaid CEO tax “bad policy wrapped up in anti-billionaire bullshit.”
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Wiener’s legislative record reveals an inconsistent history of supporting progressive taxation. In 2018, he opposed a successful local tax on big businesses to fund homelessness services. Two years later, Wiener supported the first iteration of the CEO tax, the first of its kind nationwide, before it was undone in 2024.
At a candidate forum in January, Wiener said he supported progressive taxes, but he would wait until the Billionaires Tax Act got on the ballot to decide. In April, Wiener said he opposed the local CEO tax, saying he didn’t want to interrupt San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s economic recovery agenda and that he would pursue similar progressive tax reform in Congress. And last week, after the state billionaire tax’s backers announced they had the necessary signatures to enter it on the ballot, Wiener said he was also against the statewide tax.
“California already has an unstable boom-bust tax system because of the devaluation of property taxes and reliance increasingly on income taxes on wealthy residents,” Wiener told the San Francisco Standard. He said he disagreed with the approach, especially given that it’s a one-time tax.
“It sounds like a person that’s in opposition, but doesn’t want to be seen as Republican,” said Paul Boden, a longtime advocate for people living unhoused. “It’s the neoliberal justification for continuing down the same neoliberal path since Reagan: that doing something that might impact some wealthy people is bad for all of us.”
“It’s the neoliberal justification for continuing down the same neoliberal path since Reagan: that doing something that might impact some wealthy people is bad for all of us.”
Boden, the executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, has long sparred with Wiener on his housing and homelessness policy. In 2016, when Wiener was a San Francisco board supervisor, Boden spoke out against a letter Wiener wrote to the city’s police chief, which had called for a sweep of homeless encampments amid that year’s winter storms. He has criticized Wiener’s housing policies, arguing they prioritize middle-income San Franciscans over the city’s poor.
The results of Larsen and Tan’s ad spending can already be seen on the airwaves in and around San Francisco. Abundant Future has been running ads and sending mailers that paint Chakrabarti, who is advocating to nationalize AI by turning struggling AI companies into public utilities, as a carpetbagger amid his surge in recent polls. Larsen has said that he supports candidates promoting AI regulation, and he plans to spend millions backing Alex Bores, a New York congressional candidate facing heavy oppositional spending from a PAC backed by openAI.
Larsen-funded ads released by his Golden State Promises PAC aired during California’s recent gubernatorial debate, saying the billionaire tax would “backfire and hurt you.”
Supporters of the local and state wealth taxes argue that more revenue is needed to address California’s shortfall due to federal healthcare funding cuts, which is estimated at a $100 billion loss over the next five years. There are more than 200 billionaires who live in the state, according to Forbes data compiled by tax advocates. Most of the revenue from the one-time state tax would go to healthcare, with some set aside for food assistance at schools and other education programs.
Revenue from San Francisco’s local Overpaid CEO tax — which has been estimated to bring in $250 to $300 million each year — is designed to go to the city’s general fund, with its supporters hoping to invest in healthcare, mental health treatment, and housing support. Larsen and opponents are also funding support for a dueling “poison pill” measure, which would negate the Overpaid CEO tax if approved.
To Mack of the Phoenix Project, this kind of spending is par for the course in politics but should inspire voters to think critically about whom they support.
“The more politicians are in their pockets,” said Mack, referring to wealthy donors, “the less we can expect regular Californian/San Franciscan people’s voices to matter.”
Correction: May 14, 2026, 4:05 p.m. ET A previous version of this article misstated the first name of a San Francisco bar owner and co-founder with Small Business Forward; he is Justin Dolezal, not Jerome.
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