The Tape Deck Hour

0:00The following commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff and management of WBCA on the Boston neighborhood network. If you would like to express another opinion, you can address your comments to Boston neighborhood network 3025 Washington Street, Boston Massachusetts 0211N. For your own comments, you can call WBCA at 617-708-3215 or email radio at bnmd.org. Hey, what's going on? What's going on, ladies and gentlemen? This is your buddy Cuban Mike. You listen to the 102.9 take deck. And today I have the man of the hour. He's running for Senator. He is Mr. Seth Bucket, Congressman Seth. Good morning. How you doing, sir? I'm doing great. How are you, man? Good. Awesome. Awesome. First and foremost, how do you feel this morning? But everything is going on. I'm feeling excited. I'm feeling energized, ready for change. Like Massachusetts is ready for change.

1:02Well, first and foremost, I just got to get this out the way because everybody been telling me that I told everybody we'll come to the show and everybody was, you know, they're telling me to ask you a whole bunch of questions. So first and foremost, the one thing that people want to ask you, you know, why should we vote for you? And if you were to get elected, what are the first thing you're going to do as Senator? Okay. First of all, first thing I would do is lower costs because costs are out of control in Massachusetts. People can't afford rent housing, grocery costs are going up, gas prices are going up. And we've got to admit that whatever we've been doing for the last 50 years under Senator Markey just hasn't been enough. And I say that with respect for him, he's a good man. He's served for half a century. I mean, he's been elected longer than we've been alive. All right. So we should honor him for that service. But you got to admit it's not going well. And that's the whole question, right? If you're happy with the way things are, if you're happy with Washington today, then vote for six more years of it. But if you think we can do better, if you think it's time for a new generation of leaders, well, that's what my campaign is all about.

2:09Awesome. Awesome. Well, you've been a congressman for more than a decade. What do you believe Washington is getting wrong? And what will you do as Senator? As things to change in that to your direction? Well, first of all, the biggest thing is we've got another term of Donald Trump. We've got Maga running everything in Washington. And one big difference between myself and the senator, not the staco, not going to vote for the same democratic leadership like Chuck Day 1 promise, not voting for Schumer. Senator Mark, he's kind of joined at the hip with with old Chuck. And the reality is that Democrats in Washington, the democratic establishment has not been effective at standing up to this racist, fascist administration. And so we need better fighters down there. Now look, I'm a marine veteran. I know a few things about fighting. I know what it means to stand up for progressive values. By instant, you can take on the headset and other agape. We got to take them down. I've also been working on building the democratic coalition across the country.

3:16I started an organization called Serve America to recruit, mentor, and support other Democrats, often outsiders who've not been in politics before. And we flipped 24 seats from red to blue, 24 to none from the senator at a time when we're in the minority, when we got to get back majorities in the house from the Senate to take down Trump, hold them accountable and prevent another mega takeover again. That work on building the democratic team really matters. Awesome. Awesome. Well, you know, I live in Massachusetts. And you know, my, my fellow Massachusetts folks, one of the issue that we have in is, you know, housing is become very unaffordable for working family. What would you do a sender if you would make housing a little bit more affordable to us, Massachusetts folks? Absolutely. So again, this is where it's not a new problem, right? Senator Marquis has been in office since 1976, housing prices have only gone up.

4:17And so we need a different, I think, transformative approach. And what I have proposed is remaking our transit system so that it's faster than driving to get around Massachusetts. And this has been shown to create hundreds of thousands of more additional units in a affordable housing. This would be transformative because it would mean that you could work in working doorchester and live in Salem where I live or vice versa, you know, live in Roxbury and work in no report. I mean, places that are inconceivable to commute to today live on the South Shore and working on the North Shore, take, get trained straight through Boston to Springfield, getting from Springfield to Boston in 45 minutes instead of two hours. So you could afford to live in Springfield and work in Boston or the other way around. So this is about investing in next generation infrastructure. I'm a big high speed rail guy and it's been shown to create a lot more housing. Now look in the short term, we also just got to make rents much more affordable.

5:23That means building more housing, like it's simple supply and demand, you got to build more housing, more affordable housing. I represent Lynn right now. And I've brought over $2 billion to Lynn alone. I want to bring that kind of federal investment to all of Massachusetts as the senator working for the whole state. Awesome. You describe yourself as a moderate democratic. Where do you disagree with the way with the progressive framework your own party? Because there's been a lot of in house war going on either with the moderate, progressive and even with this phenomenon going on with the DSA party. So how can the party. I don't describe myself as a moderate because I am a progressive. I mean, look, I've planted a flag in the ground and said that housing, healthcare and education should just be human rights, like not even debatable. And I'm actually glad that Senator Markey has started to talk about housing in the same way. But the point is, that was my flag. I said housing, healthcare and education should be human rights because there should be no debate.

6:32I don't want to see anybody on the streets in the wealthiest nation in the history of the planet. Nobody in America should not have healthcare. I don't care where your immigrant status is or what you got a job or what your ages, you know, where you are on your parent health plan. That should not matter. If you want Medicare, you can get it. If you go to the VA, you're going to get those those benefits, but healthcare for every single American. And then on education, I think we should have universal pre K because right now in Massachusetts, only the wealthy get to send their kids to pre K universal pre K would be not only good for kids. It's great for working parents too. Like my wife and I both work. Kids are still not back in school. It's kind of tough to juggle all of that. And we need to, we need to help families out. Well, I'm glad you brought that up because you know, there's been a lot of situation going on with the youth and they feel the losing hope. So how can you get the young youth that, you know, what a state in Massachusetts cannot buy a home.

7:39That's the one of the day because you have a lot of the kids that go to school, they graduate and somehow they either have like five roommates or they're back with the parents house or they either moving to state. So how can we get that with the youth to make a feel. Well, this is such a big problem. One out of three people in Massachusetts last year thought about leaving the state just because it's so affordable to live here. I mean, that's crazy. Like we, we want people to want to live here to start careers here to start businesses to create jobs, right, to have a bright future. And so that's why I'm talking about this affordability agenda, right. Everybody goes to pre K. You don't have to worry about it. When you get older, you don't have to worry about where you are on your parents health plan or anything like that, what your job is, where you're in school, you just get health care 100%. And then how about being able to afford to buy a home before you're like 50 years old, right. That's what we've got to do to get people create and encourage people to stay here because there are a lot of young people who are just like, look,

8:42I like Massachusetts. Maybe I grew up here. Maybe I came to school here, but I just can't afford to stay. And that's not a recipe for success in the future, right. Like we've got to get young people to feel like they have a bright future right here in Massachusetts. It's also one of the reasons why I support small businesses because small businesses, they're the ones creating jobs, growing wealth in the community. I mean, I was just at an amazing small business yesterday buying cupcakes and Roxbury and it's such an amazing story of what this woman has done to start her business. She started in a sort of shared kitchen. Now she's got her own shop. I mean, she's really growing this business to be successful and create, you know, create jobs for the community. She's I think she's got her kids are helping out with the business and everything like that's that's the future, but not enough people see that opportunity today. Okay, we're respect with Senator Markley. What is the one thing you believe that he has failed to accomplish?

9:49Well, look, just look at our costs. I mean, in the last debate, he talked about what a champion he is for energy policy, right. You know electricity heating oil, all that stuff, right. And look, he's done a lot of work and I told him, you know, Senator, I respect your work and I've supported some of it myself in Congress. But when our electric bills are twice the national average, you got to admit that it's not been enough, you know, and then we talked about AI because AI is like, okay, we got all these things like housing and electric bills and everything that just like we haven't been able to solve these problems and actually been getting worse, you know, for the last 50 years. But then we got these next generation challenges like AI and unfortunately in the last debate, the center explained that he can't even tell the apps apart on his iPad that he's not sure which ones use AI and how are we going to make AI safe for our community, safe for our kids in the way that we by the way totally failed to do with social media, social media is like, you know, kids are dying online because the social media and the big tech companies have zero accountability.

10:53Well, how are we going to fix that for AI if you have a senator who doesn't doesn't even understand it. That's why I think it's time for next generation leadership, you know, next generation leadership to do bring new solutions like high speed rail to the old problems, but also to take on new challenges like AI that the senator doesn't even understand. So I have to emphasize like senator Markey and I agree on most policies like it's not like he's in favor of higher housing or we don't share a commitment to healthcare for all health care as a human right. But it's about taking a different approach. It's about a willingness to challenge the establishment when it's not getting the job done like voting against Chuck Schumer, you know, it's it's a willingness to say, hey, we've tried. It's been good. Thank you. But time to pass the torch to the next generation. Well, I know what press for time. So you've got a couple of more questions. I'll get you out of here. I know you're the days of big day. But, you know, I can't stress us out. You know, first and foremost, thank you for your service. I know you serve in Iraq. What did your military experience teach you about leadership with that you being the congressman?

12:00You know, I didn't grow up interested in politics. Not at all. In fact, you know, the first congressman that my parents met was a guy was me. Like that from a political family or anything like that. Didn't have any money paid all my loans to go to college and all that got the GI bill when I was in the military. But when I was in Iraq, I saw the consequences of failed leadership in Washington, you know, of decisions made by people who were totally out of touch with what was going on on the ground. Sarah Markey was one of the people who voted for the Iraq war voted alongside George W. Bush to send us to war there. And a lot of people, a lot of Americans got died or died or got screwed up as a result. And there was a day when a corporal in my platoon said, you know, sir, you ought to run for Congress someday so that this stuff doesn't happen again. Now he used a marine term for stuff, but I'm not sure we can use that on the radio. So, all this.

13:01Thank you. Thank you for seeing you get you in trouble. All right. But the point is like that was my motivation for getting in politics. Like I don't want this to happen again. Like we need to stand up and until Washington, what's happening here on the ground in the dirt and the mud, the sand in Iraq. Why think a lot of people across America feel the same way today that Washington is out of touch with what's happening here on the ground. And that's why I've spent so much of this campaign going all over Massachusetts. I've held over 55 town halls where I take questions from anybody who wants to ask the center is only held to only two in the course of this whole campaign. So you can't even get to the center like he kind of shows up on election day, but that isn't really around much the else of the time. I believe that your center should constantly show up in your community. Always be accessible. Have the best constituent services of anyone in the country we've actually won an award for that. I'm very proud of that of my team. And that's the kind of leadership that I want to bring to all of Massachusetts.

14:04All right. Awesome. You know, I know what didn't go to real competitive election this year. And I stressed earlier on. There's been a lot of in house fighting with the Democratic Party. Voice case scenario. It's like raining out here. So I'm going to take. How's this? Not here. Okay. Sorry about that. No worries. No worries. Well, like I was in early on that. I know there's been a lot of in house party with the Democratic Party. You see what's going on with Jackson with Jasmine Crockett and tell Rico worst case scenario. If you don't win, will you support marketing during the general election? Yes. Of course. I'm on team Democrat. I've been working to build the Democratic team. And that is an important contrast here. I mentioned earlier. I flipped 24 seats from red to blue. That's really critical because we need majorities in Congress. Democratic majorities to stop this mega Trump craziness. Senator Markey instead just took $62,000 out of the fund that's dedicated to flipping. These Senate graces across the country. You know, money that the small dollar Democratic donors have donated across America to help get back the majority.

15:12He just took that money out to bail out his campaign. And that's not a commitment to building the team. That's a definition of just clinging to power. And that's sometimes a problem is you get these 80 year olds in Washington. I mean, think about it. If he gets reelected, he'll be closer to 90 at the end of his next term than even to 80. And it's just not a time to cling to power, to time to pass the torch to the next generation. You know, be a mentor. Invest in the future. Enjoy your retirement. I mean, that's not too much to ask, I think, especially when you're taking away money that we should be using to win Democratic seats across the country. All right. Well, you press for time. I know you like that. I go on. I mean, have any final words for my audience? Just vote for about, you know, I want to work for you. I'm applying for a job to work for you across Massachusetts. Not the other way around. I work for you. And I believe in that public service. It's in my bones since I put my life on the line serving the country in the Marines.

16:17I want to bring that commitment to service to all of Massachusetts at a time when we desperately need change. So, like I said before, if you're happy with status quo, if you think Washington's doing a good job. But if you think we can do better, if you want change, if you want next generation leader, ideas for Senate, Seth molten, Seth molten.com. Hope to see you out there. Yes. And my audience, please do not forget God, the rainbow. You want to see some change? Where will you pick for? Just do your part as a citizen of America and Mr. Maltes, that's how this may think you've come into it. I know you press the time and go look at tonight, sir. Absolutely. Hey, thanks so much for having me on. It's great to be back. Don't be a stranger. Come back. Oh, no, don't worry. I love being on your show. It's great. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I have a good day, sir. You too. The preceding commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff and management of WBCA, older Boston neighborhood network. If you would like to express another opinion, you can address your comments to Boston neighborhood network 3025, Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02119.

17:25To arrange a time for your own commentary, you can call WBCA at 617-708-3215 or email radio at bnmedia.org.