MacCallum Picks Apart Radical DSA Co-Chair, Exposes Their True Goals

Siena Do
July 20th, 2026 3:01 PM

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The radical leftist group Democratic Socialists of America recently pulled off a number of Democratic primary wins in New York, and several of their candidates in other states are seeking elected positions in November. As the DSA has grown, liberal media outlets have consistently been unwilling to challenge their insane policy goals, and even defended them. But in an actually probing interview, Fox News Channel’s Martha MacCallum pressed DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo on Friday’s The Story, their talking points collapsed almost as catastrophically as the Soviet Union.

MacCallum started by asking Gordillo about his family, who immigrated from Peru when he was a child. When asked why they moved to America, Gordillo wasted no time blaming their new country:

The economic situation in South America and in Peru was in a really bad place. But I think that much of what we could say is responsible for that actually was the imposition of capitalism and American imperialism, in many cases, is what brings immigrants to the U.S. outside - coming out of Latin America.

MacCallum immediately pushed him on that point, asking, “So they come here because they don't like the imposition of American imperialism in the country that they're in?”

Logically, Gordillo blaming America for his family moving to America is like a Londoner during the Blitz in 1940 railing against Nazi Germany and then moving to Germany and working for the very Nazis that destroyed their home country.

 

 

The U.S.’s relationship to Latin America is, of course, very different from Germany and Britain’s in World War II. But the point still stands. If Gordillo’s family truly believed that America was the enemy, why would they move here and contribute to the evil, capitalist economy?

MacCallum also challenged Gordillo about the DSA’s stated goal to “abolish the Senate.” After failing to dodge the question, Gordillo asserted that “the United States Senate is an un-democratic institution,” but that he thought, “the Senate should be reformed,” rather than fully dissolved. 

 

 

MacCallum questioned how “the government become[s] more democratized if the government takes over more of the power.” She used the example of a government-run grocery store putting a local bodega out of business, to which Gordillo flatly responded, “If one publicly-owned grocery store that brings prices down in the neighborhood is enough to put someone out of business, then maybe they shouldn't have been in that business in the first place.”

 

 

The government should kill small businesses? That doesn’t sound very democratic, does it?

Another answer from Gordillo that clearly stunned MacCallum pertained to the debate over homelessness and the housing crisis in New York City, which has only grown worse since Zohran Mamdani became mayor (Click “expand”):

GORDILLO: The problem we're facing in our housing system is that, we talk about tenants and we say they have to put - pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They have to be responsible financially. When we look at the landlords, we don't use those same standards. Landlords in New York have been making a 12 percent return on their investment for - on average--

MACCALLUM: How much should they make? What is fair for the landlord to make if you don't like 12?

GORDILLO: They're complaining that 12 is not enough. And we don't think that anybody should have a Constitutional right to double digit returns on their investment. That's why we've implemented--

MACCALLUM: No one should have a right to a double digit return on their investment?

GORDILLO: No one has a right. That's not--

MACCALLUM: What are you talking about?

GORDILLO: -- no one's - that's not in the Constitution. 

 

 

Gordillo claimed that the DSA was made up of people simply “struggling against the economic reality,” “coming together, and they're organizing for a new political and economic system.”

But, as MacCallum exposed, the DSA doesn’t want to enrich anybody. They only want everyone to be equally poor and unable to gain any substantial wealth. As Secretary Marco Rubio put it, the world the DSA works for “is small, flat, gray, levelled of all exception, drained of all that is good and noble in the human soul.”

The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:

Fox News Channel's The Story with Martha MacCallum
7/17/26
3:22:36 p.m. Eastern


MARTHA MACCALLUM: Democratic Socialists starting to look ahead to the 2028 Presidential race after this year's victories in the Congressional primaries. 

Their agenda includes getting rid of the U.S. Senate, letting Congress choose an executive and judiciary to replace the president and the Supreme Court, amnesty for all immigrants, ending deportations, defunding the Department of War, a wealth tax, and passing a Green New Deal, among other issues there that you see on the board. 

So, with that, we bring in Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America. Thank you for joining us. 

Obviously this a really hot topic right now.

GUSTAVO GORDILLO: Thanks for inviting us.

MACCALLUM: Thank you for being here. We were just talking in the break, we were saying hello to each other. 

Your family came here from Peru, really in the middle of the heat of the Shining Path. They were Maoist communist guerillas in Peru. So, why did your family come to America?

GORDILLO: The economic situation in South America and in Peru was in a really bad place. 

But I think that much of what we could say is responsible for that actually was the imposition of capitalism and American imperialism, in many cases, is what brings immigrants to the U.S. outside - coming out of Latin America. And--

MACCALLUM: So they come here because they don't like the imposition of American imperialism in the country that they're in?

GORDILLO: Yes. In many countries--

MACCALLUM: So they come here?

GORDILLO: In many countries, there've been un-democratic coups that have destabilized countries and that's pushed people out.

MACCALLUM: Oh, well you would think they want to go somewhere that wasn't imposing that on them, if that was - if that were the case. 

You know, it's interesting, the Shining Path, if you look at what they wanted, they want to overthrow the democratic institutions in Peru, they wanted to abolish capitalism in Peru. 

And we see some of those same threads in the DSA, in terms of what it stands for. 

And one of the things is basic - you know, we just celebrated the 250th anniversary of the country - and one of the most basic things is Article One in our Constitution. Are you in favor of abolishing Article One of the Constitution?

GORDILLO: No. We support a democratic route to transformative change in the United States. 

We think that we need to put the working class before the billionaire class.

MACCALLUM: So you don't want to abolish the Senate, the United States Senate? Because that's what Article One is.

GORDILLO: The United States Senate is an un-democratic institution. It gives more representation to people in smaller states than to the 30 million people in California.

MACCALLUM: But that's why you have the balance. So, you've got the House of Representatives, which is population driven, and then you've got the Senate. 

So, every state, if you're a small state, you still get two Senators even though you only get maybe one congressman in order to make all of the states have fair representation. 

So you say - I'm just confused.

GORDILLO: When you ask normal Americans if Congress and the Senate and our political system is working for them, most people are very unhappy with the political system and they say it's not working for them. 

When we think about the 250th anniversary of the United States and we think about our proudest moments in U.S. history, I think of times like when ordinary people rose up and they changed the Constitution to abolish slavery, to give women the right to vote--

MACCALLUM: Everyone is proud of that. That's a nationwide pride in the country.

GORDILLO: But back in those moments, those were considered radical movements because those people dared to say we need transformative change in the United States, and I think that we see--

MACCALLUM: Right, well, we struggled to become a more perfect union. But I just want to ask you again, do you want to abolish the United States Senate? Because you said you approve of Article One, but then you said you didn't think the Senate works?

GORDILLO: We think that the Senate should be reformed, that we should have a more democratic government system. But that's a long-term change that we're seeking. 

(...)

3:27:12 p.m. 

MACCALLUM: Yeah, I guess the question is, how does the government become more democratized if the government takes over more of the power? 

So, for example, here in New York, if you have government-owned grocery stores, right, and that was what Mamdani promised. I know you were supportive of his election and I interviewed him here. 

So they're up - like, breaking ground on one grocery store so far. It's going to cost $30 million to build a grocery store. 

In what world does it make sense to build a $30 million grocery store and put competitive pressure on the bodegas that are in the neighborhood?

GORDILLO: I think that what we saw in the mayoral campaign, is the Mayor was able to build a movement that inspired people to believe that we could have a government that works for ordinary people, that is actually responsive to the working class.

MACCALLUM: Inspiration is great, but if you're the bodega owner, how would you feel if the government opened a big grocery store right next to your bodega? How would you feel?

GORDILLO: If one publicly-owned grocery store that brings prices down in the neighborhood is enough to put someone out of business, then maybe they shouldn't have been in that business in the first place.

MACCALLUM: Interesting. 

Let's play - you know, let's look at the big picture for a second here, and play this from Marco Rubio, because his family came from Cuba. You were talking about your family coming from Peru. 

And he wants nothing of any socialist, Democratic Socialists, whatever you want to call it, communist presence in the United States. And he may be running against one of your candidates, potentially, in 2028. So, let's take a look.

[Cut to video]

SEC. MARCO RUBIO: One of the criticisms you sometimes hear of communism, for example, is that it sounds good in theory but never works in practice. 

That's actually not true. Communism does not sound good in theory. The world that it envisions for all of us is small, flat, gray, levelled of all exception, drained of all that is good and noble in the human soul.

[Cut back to live]

(...)

3:31:38 p.m.

Let's take a look at the homeless encampment that has just sprung up along West 45th Street. And this is after Mayor Mamdani is in office, he doesn't want to remove any homeless people from the streets. And it's causing a lot of problems for they - small business owners that try to have a company, a business, along that route. 

What do you think of this when you look at this squalor in New York City?

GORDILLO: I think it's a huge crisis, and it's been around since capitalists have been mayors for decades--

MACCALLUM: No, not like that it hasn't.

GORDILLO: Yes, it has.

MACCALLUM: It has not been like that. I've been here a very long time, and these things come and go. 

Mayor Adams actually removed the homeless encampments from the streets because they're not safe for the people that live there. They're not safe for the people that live around them.

GORDILLO: The problem we're facing in our housing system is that, we talk about tenants and we say they have to put - pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They have to be responsible financially. 

When we look at the landlords, we don't use those same standards. Landlords in New York have been making a 12 percent return on their investment for - on average--

MACCALLUM: How much should they make? What is fair for the landlord to make if you don't like 12?

GORDILLO: They're complaining that 12 is not enough. And we don't think that anybody should have a Constitutional right to double digit returns on their investment. That's why we've implemented--

MACCALLUM: No one should have a right to a double digit return on their investment?

GORDILLO: No one has a right. That's not--

MACCALLUM: What are you talking about?

GORDILLO: -- no one's - that's not in the Constitution. 

But what we see is that when we implement a rent freeze, we have landlords who are crying, that the government is going to put them out of business--

MACCALLUM: Well, they're trying to run a business. And they're trying to do it effectively. 

No - are all landlords perfect or are some lousy? Of course they are. 

But I just think that the idea that no one should make a double digit profit is the antithesis of the desire to, like - you can be anything you want to be in New York. 

(...)

3:36:12 p.m.

GORDILLO: I think that what's happening now is, people are struggling against the economic reality. They're coming together, and they're organizing for a new political and economic system.

MACCALLUM: All right. We're going to be watching the progress of your group, the DSA, and you had some big wins in recent primaries. 

It's an interesting debate to have about what makes this country tick, and who we are. 

So I thank you very much for joining me. Thanks, Gustavo. Good to have you with us today.

GORDILLO: Thanks for having me.

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