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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host David Axelrod.

Fair to say that Katie Porter has done for whiteboards what Michael Jordan did for Jim Shoes.

The California Congresswoman's whiteboard aided withering committee interrogations of financial executives, captains of industry and government officials, have made her a viral sensation, a progressive favorite and now a leading contender for the US Senate.

I spoke with her recently before crowd at the Chicago Humanities Festival. Here's that conversation.

What an enthusiastic group for a Saturday morning. My goodness. Congresswoman Katie Porter, welcome.

Thank you. Great to be with you.

So you've written this terrific book. I swear politics is messier than my minivan and I feel like the appropriate first question is just how messy is your media or your minivan.

So when I when the book came out to a new station wanted to come and do an interview in my home and they said, please tell her, don't clean your minivan.

I was like, look, you're not after worry about that. Like so it was it was embarrassing. They opened up all the sliding doors and they were filming what's on the floor and the juice box and the cereal and the library book that is still up in return.

No, those were authentically there, right? Yeah. So it was it's pretty messy. Yeah. So the fact of politics isn't ashy or it tells you something about the baseline more working with.

And as between Congress and the minivan, which is easier to drive. Definitely the minivan. The minivan. So you've done more for the whiteboard. I mean, you're like to the whiteboard what Michael Jordan is to Jim shoes.

And so I thought to make you feel at home, I start with a whiteboard. And I'm not going to use it once because my handwriting is bad. This was done by one of my trusty team. But this is what it says.

It says Laura. I will be because this is the most famed Laura Iowa has ever had. All 149 people are super proud in this moment.

But it is kind of a through I had in your life that's reflected in the book and in your history. Talk about growing up in this little farm town in Iowa.

You grew up, I guess, in the house that your great grandfather built the farmhouse. So talk a little about that because your family says like a cross between the Walten's and the Hunger game.

Yeah, yeah. So I grew up at Iowa, as he said, I'm a sixth generation, Iowa. And I tell this funny story in the book about my very first day in Congress in January, 2019, January 3rd, 2019.

And in the elevator, and there's just a scrum of people we're going to go be sworn in. And there's a members only elevator and that's that feels intimidating. And I'm heard it into that. And there are a couple of older gentlemen in there. I don't recognize. So I assume they're Republicans.

They say to me, where are you from miss? And I said, Iowa. And then I realized I represent California. Like I just kissed my political death certificate on a very, like the very first day.

But you know, growing up, when you ask someone where you're from, what you mean is where you're people from, right? And so I grew up in Iowa in a farm. I was a nine year four, and one of the things that's very true about growing up in Iowa is that you have a strong sense, even as a child, you can't vote of being politically important.

And when I got to Orange County after moving around several times, it was, it was immediately apparent that regardless of pardon, people in Orange County, particularly Democrats, though, and independence, basically understood in their minds, they thought that their vote didn't matter. That they were not important to democracy. And every Iowa, whether they whether they are or not, thinks that they are.

Yes, I got to spend some time there. I love Iowa. Yeah. So part of what I tried to do. I think part of how I've approached campaigning, part of how I've approached doing the job of Congress is with kind of a much more grassroots retail politics commitment, even though I'm doing it in a state where there is virtually none of that tradition.

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