Van Jones: Republicans "Never Figured Out" Democrats' Secret Online Organizing Network, The "American Accountability Network"

Democratic strategist and CNN commentator Van Jones discusses how Democrats quietly organized tens of thousands of people through the "American Accountability Network" to push their affordability message.

"The Republicans never figured out what we were doing," Jones said on Thursday. "There's something called the American Accountability Network, tens of thousands of online humans, not bots, coordinated to make the affordability message a winning message online. 32.5 million people hit on Instagram every day. 88.8 million hit on Twitter, X, every single day. And 185 million Facebook hits every single day. And they never figured it out."

"The Republicans could not understand it wasn't bots. It was actual human beings," Jones added.

KAITLAN COLLINS: Joining me now is my Democratic source tonight to weigh in on what's going on with his party. Van Jones is a former Obama administration official. Van, you've been smiling a lot since Tuesday night.

VAN JONES: I'm still happy.

COLLINS: But a big question, you know, now that we are getting into it.

JONES: Whoop them. Whoop them.

COLLINS: I mean, the Texas races alone are pretty crazy.

JONES: Look, I mean, look, if we were sitting here talking about California being run by Republicans, that would be shocking. That's how shocking this is. And listen, you know, Georgia, every statewide office held by an African-American woman. I mean, it's just we're in a different planet somehow.

COLLINS: So what do you want Democrats to do with this? Because it is a big question.

JONES: Yeah. Well, listen, they're going to be people who want to do the accountability. They call the oversight.

I'm less interested in that. Obviously, you've got to spray these guys up with a bunch of subpoenas. If you're in there grabbing, drifting, getting money, you should sit in front of the gavels and have that.

Most people, I think, in America, though, want to see the Democrats accomplish something that will help them in their daily lives. There is a big emergency coming up. These Medicaid cuts are going to be literally devastating.

People are going to lose their lives because the Republicans rammed through all these Medicaid cuts that don't kick in until next year. I think Democrats should, on an emergency basis, grab the Republicans by the hands and say we've got to do something. Stop closing these hospitals.

Stop letting poor people die. And I think that should be the first thing. The second thing, to stay focused, is we do have this whole AI looming crisis in the data centers.

There's a way to get some federal guidance on that so we can have data centers that don't poison people, data centers that don't drive up energy bills, and get some federal guidance there. But the big problem we won't be able to solve easily is the gas prices, because that's about the war. And so the real pain that's been driving this is the gas prices.

We have almost no leverage on that, but I believe if we have 57 seats in the U.S. Senate, we should be able to get three, four, five Republicans to come with us to stop these Medicaid cuts. And it's gas prices, groceries, and health care costs. We can do something about the health care costs immediately.

COLLINS: And you think Democrats are ready to do that?

JONES: Well, look, I think some...

COLLINS: Can you lead on that?

JONES: Listen, we've got a bunch of Democrats that I think ran for the right reasons. Also, it's not just about the people who are elected to office. Now it can be told.

Now it can be told. How did we win the narrative on affordability? Was it just these nice little Democrats out there running for office and going to... No. The Republicans never figured out what we were doing. There's something called the American Accountability Network, tens of thousands of online humans, not bots, coordinated to make the affordability message a winning message online. 32.5 million people hit on Instagram every day. 88.8 million hit on Twitter, X, every single day. And 185 million Facebook hits every single day. And they never figured it out. The Republicans could not understand it wasn't bots. It was actual human beings.

The most effective online organizing campaign called the American Accountability Network flew under the radar screen, never been told before.

COLLINS: And they were talking about the issue or they were saying you need to elect Democrats to deal with this?

JONES: Driving the kitchen table affordability message and tying that to Democrats on a positive and Republicans on a negative, the Republicans never figured out what we were doing. And what that meant was everywhere you go, people were talking about affordability and they were talking about kitchen table issues. They couldn't get any traction on these cultural war issues anymore because we figured out how to get around all that.

So it's not just all the door knocking that was done, which is amazing. It's not just our amazing candidate quality. We had something called the American Accountability Network.

Don't get mad at me. I was given permission to reveal this. They never figured it out. And that network is going to continue to push for kitchen table issues and hold our Democratic lawmakers accountable.

COLLINS: That's fascinating.

JONES: Yep.

COLLINS: Van Jones. Well, I hope you don't get in trouble. But thank you.

JONES: No, I got permission.