Welcome to Democracy Ish.

And I'm Moodie.

And we are very excited to welcome to Democracy Ish for, I believe, the very first time.

The author of the new book, The Squad, AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution,

as well as the Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Intercept, Ryan Grimm.

Ryan, welcome.

Thanks for having me here, yeah, this first time, first time, long time.

First time, long time. Ryan, I guess my first question for you is, you know, I watched a couple of your

of your interviews recently. And, you know, I thought that what was interesting is that was the squad formed, right?

Or was it created, like was it formed by the inside, right, by those that are considered members of it?

Or was it something that was put upon them, these group of

diverse, young, passionate, progressive, largely women, but a couple of men? You know, I just,

I think about this in the way that oftentimes people, generally people of color,

do not get to define themselves for themselves, as Audrey Lord once said, right? And so were they

defined before they had an opportunity to define themselves? I think the short answer to that is yes.

And we could actually walk through kind of how it happened and people can decide for

themselves whether they were, they defined themselves or they were defined because it's

kind of circumstantial for each one.

And we'll start, you know, we can start with the four original squad members.

The future ones that have since joined,

they kind of get asked, like, are you a squad member? Would you, do you want to be in the squad?

Would you be in the squad if you come to Congress? Then you can kind of go by their answer.

...