Students launched a weekly podcast earlier this month discussing current events and political issues facing the Democratic Party co-hosted by a member of Congress.

The pilot episode of “Who Dem?” aired March 18, with the first three episodes focused on getting to know the personalities of Democratic leaders beyond their politics. Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-CA), who co-hosts the podcast alongside GW senior Max Katz, said the show focuses on platforming Democratic political leaders figures and breaking down their views on current issues to advance political understanding among listeners.  

Cisneros, who earned a bachelor’s in political science from GW in 1994, said he called Junior Damian Galvan, the show’s executive producer, in September and expressed interest in starting a podcast due to his struggles of getting “bumped” in media coverage. He said he was a guest in fall 2023 on Galvan’s first podcast, “PolitiTeen,” in which teenagers and young adults discussed current events and politics, so he knew Galvan had previous experience in producing and creating a show.

Cisneros said in creating the podcast, he wanted to create a platform where he and other politicians could promote their ideas and discuss any political issues, like the recent threats posed to public education by the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts within the Department of Education.

“It was really to be able to get my voice out there,” Cisneros said. “To be able to talk about issues, to be able to talk about what’s going on, and not only in my life, but in my political life and kind of really discuss things too.”

Cisneros said the podcast is “evolving” as it hosts natural, unscripted conversations about issues and concerns for the Democratic Party, like the dramatic cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency as well as light-hearted topics, like baseball. He said there are no bounds to the topic of discussion in a given episode as he and Katz are choosing not to limit the conversation to just one topic.

“We want to be able to discuss many things and talk about many different issues and not always trying to keep it about the hard stuff but kind of maybe let it be a little light and kind of funny, too, at times,” Cisneros said.

Galvan, a junior studying sociology and political science, said the first five episodes of the podcast will feature just Cisneros and Katz to allow the audience to get to know the hosts, and then the pair will invite guests like other politicians and celebrities onto the show. He added that the podcast is working with Simpson Street — a network founded by GW alum Kerry Washington to foster and distribute ideas of democracy — to connect with A-List celebrities who could be featured on the podcast.

“Wherever we can find a guest, where we can have those candid conversations, if we feel like it’s a good opportunity for people to get to know the representative, get to know Katz and get to know the guest more, then we’re going to take it because there’s no shortage of conversations to be had at this very moment,” Galvan said.

Galvan said “Who Dem?” stemmed from Cisneros’ interest in creating his own platform and took about six months to organize from when Cisneros initially proposed the idea in September. He added that in those six months, he and the podcast team worked to familiarize the hosts with the recording equipment in their studio downtown and coordinated the “aesthetics” of the shows, like cover art, thumbnails and introduction music, as well as ensuring compliance with the Federal Election Commission and the House Ethics Committee.

Galvan said he formed a working relationship with Cisneros as a scholar of the Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute, an academic leadership program for undergraduate students which the congressman founded in 2015. Galvan said the podcast is the newest show produced by the Ox Institute, an organization founded by him and Max Calman, a junior, during their first year at GW that produces and distributes media oriented toward social justice.

“The Ox Institute always had this, what we’re doing right now, as its core vision, facilitating a conversation between politicians but people that are politically inclined and the general population, making conversations like these accessible to the common American,” Galvan said.

Katz said he agreed to co-host the podcast last December because he was “upset” about the results of November’s presidential election. He added that the Democrats lost the election due to their lack of new media presence, which he said is the “driver” of the podcast.

Katz, the executive producer of Left-Middle-Right, a social media account that promotes multipartisan dialogue through man-on-the-street-style interviews, said the public wants to see elected officials for “who they really are.” He said the podcast provides a form of entertainment to the audience and allows them to foster connections between the hosts and listeners.

“It’s not just about fitting the right points on a policy sheet,” Katz said. “It’s about your character.”

Junior Ava Dufault, an executive producer for “Who Dem?” and “PolitiTeen,” said last academic year, the “PolitiTeen” team decided to “pass the torch” to younger college students in order to better serve its initial goal of providing younger students with a platform. She said they worked with Samuel Goldman, an associate professor of political science, to recruit a cohort of students to take over the “PolitiTeen” podcast.

“Podcasting is the new face of media,” Dufault said. “It is how the dissemination of information happens, and if we have the ability to give young people, or just anyone in general, a representative, a GW student, whoever, the knowledge and expertise of how to get into this space, so that they don’t have to figure it out themselves from scratch. It’s just such an amazing opportunity.”