345: The Promise of Queens

What does it look like when someone walks away from a prestigious career, on principle, and comes back fighting? Chuck Park did exactly that. A son of Korean immigrants who sold T-shirts on Canal Street, he rose to become a U.S. diplomat, then resigned in 2019 after the El Paso mass shooting and published his letter in The Washington Post. Now he's running a 100% grassroots campaign for Congress in New York's 6th District — Queens against a seven-term incumbent. No corporate PACs. No AIPAC money. No focus-grouped talking points. In this conversation, Saadia sits down with Chuck Park to talk about what it means to run as a true outsider: abolishing ICE (and why that's not the same as open borders), calling Gaza a genocide out loud, the Working Families Party's closed-door betrayal, and why dumplings might be the most radical political tool in Queens right now. They also get into the MSG myth, the difference between progressivism and leftism, and what Chuck says he'll do if he loses...