Hey, everybody. It's Glenn Thrush with Politico's Off Message podcast. I'm going to cut right to the chase. Our guest this week is Keith Ellison, the congressman from Minnesota, who was, I think, until the beginning of this week, the frontrunner for the Democratic National Committee chairmanship.

I think he's still considered a favorite, but Tom Perez, the Secretary of Labor, the former head of the Civil Rights Division of Justice Department, jumped in, really kind of at the behest of the White House and the Clinton folks,

which is my sense.

But I want to talk about Ellison, who is a really interesting guy.

He is one of the few Muslims ever to serve in Congress, and he has to put up with the craziest

questions about this.

The most famous one was, I think, in 2006 when Glenn Beck asked him whether or not he was an enemy of the United States, which is just freaking hilarious.

I mean, it's hilarious in retrospect.

For him, man, I don't know how you didn't just get up and throw the, you know, throw the microphone down.

But Ellison is a guy who's roughly my age.

And something happened, you know, when I was talking with him, where he was just kind of

talking about growing up and how it is that he behaved in school.

And I have to say, I've never had an experience because we interview a lot of people who a lot of Harvard pass through this podcast.

A lot of Yale passes through this podcast.

A lot of people who were the best students in their schools.

I guess you probably figured this out by now.

I was not the best student in college. In fact,

I went to a school called Brandeis on a full scholarship when I was 16 and a half years old, and I was

asked after six months, very politely if I might leave on account of having a 1.22 grade point

average.

But I was somebody who always spent my time buying books, going to use bookstores, reading,

learning how to play instruments, and just kind of picking things up on my own,

...