 This is The Humanist Report with Mike Figueroaido. The Humanist Report podcast is funded by viewers like you through Patreon and PayPal. To support the show, visit patreon.com forward slash humanistreport or become a member at humanistreport.com. Now enjoy the show. Welcome to The Humanist Report podcast. My name is Mike Figueroaido. This is episode 233 of the program. Today is Friday, March 20th. And I don't know what you're doing here because Animal Crossing New Horizons just came out. You should be playing better not watching this. But regardless, if you're here, I appreciate your viewership. So before we get to the news, I want to take some time to thank all of our newest Patreon, PayPal, and YouTube members, all of which signed up for the very first time to support us this week or increased their monthly pledge. And that includes Adam Crane, Alex Handworker, Barbara Craven, Blanca Capio, Cassandra Smith, Charles Sansone, Chris Sokolowski, Christopher Stocking, Claudette Cohen, Daryl Slotin, David Wynne, Elizabeth Martel DeVolder, Eric Madigan, Espanessa Jenkins, Esteban, Francis Emma, Gabby Guida, Gregory Brown, H. Ellis, Hunter Antonelli, James Beltran, Jockbuster, John Burns, Juno H, Just One Guy Four, Kyle B. Campion, Laura McPhail, Mark, Mary LeBlanc, Martina Holzbecker, Matt Kalora, Mike D., Orlando Terazus, Pierre Thyrin, Progressive Geek, Sasha Nuttel, Steve and Tamara Tompkins. So thank you so much to all of these kind individuals. If you'd also like to support the show, you can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support or patreon.com forward slash humanist report. So this week on the Humanist Report Podcast, we will talk about the latest democratic debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, and specifically how Bernie Sanders cornered Joe Biden when it comes to social security, Joe Biden's pitch to Bernie Sanders supporters, and Bernie Sanders blasts Joe Biden's record overall. On top of that, we will talk about COVID-19 in Italy and how the United States has a lot to learn from them and how it could be even worse if we don't, in fact, learn from them, how a lot of Republicans are starting to sound like Bernie Sanders during a global pandemic. I'll share some thoughts about COVID-19 and why we really need a paradigm shift when it comes to the way that we think about policy in this country. We will talk about the Democratic Party Establishment Hacks that want Bernie Sanders to drop out. Tom Perez basically forcing the primaries to continue on in spite of the necessity of social distancing during this COVID-19 pandemic, and I will talk about the results of Super Tuesday 3. So all that and more will be discussed in today's episode. Hopefully you guys will enjoy the program. Let's get right to it. So last night was possibly the last Democratic Party primary debate of this election cycle, and my overall breakdown isn't going to be as long as they usually are because I think it makes more sense since this is a one-on-one debate to talk more about individual instances of what happened, specific moments. With that being said, I do wanna give you an overall breakdown of what I think happened. And really going into this debate, we needed the stars to align. We needed two very specific things to happen. First of all, we needed Bernie Sanders to have a really solid performance. And second of all, we needed the public to see that Joe Biden is incapable of standing up for himself in a one-on-one debate scenario against Donald Trump. We needed people to see that Joe Biden is struggling to collect his thoughts. He's incoherent oftentimes, right? However, we did not get that. Bernie Sanders certainly performed very well, but Joe Biden was not incoherent. Joe Biden was competent, seemingly. He appeared decisive. He didn't seem to struggle to collect his thoughts. The usual Joe Biden was not at this debate. He brought it, and because of that, it's really difficult for me to imagine a situation to where this debate really creates this sort of seismic shift in the way that the Bloomberg debate changed the dynamic of that race and took him from being a front-runner and basically eliminated him. I just, I can't imagine that happening because of this debate. Now, of course, putting aside Joe Biden's performance, he lied repeatedly. He was condescending. Bernie Sanders, I think, backed him into a corner. But what voters were really looking for at this debate, I think, is whether or not he could hold his own against Donald Trump. And if you're just basing it off of that alone, I don't think that this debate is gonna have much of an effect on the overall race. And that's really unfortunate because we all know that Joe Biden, I mean, he's in cognitive decline. I think that that is undeniable at this point. But at this debate, he did not show evidence of that. And because of that, I don't think that this debate is really going to change the momentum that is clearly in his direction. I don't. Now, I will be getting to very specific portions in different videos, but I do wanna kind of bring up some things that really stood out to me in this overall breakdown. Joe Biden, throughout the entirety of the night, he lied the entire time. Voters aren't going to be savvy enough to know whether or not he's telling the truth or not. Certainly Bernie Sanders is more trustworthy overall, hence why he's the most popular politician in America. But when Joe Biden lies, he does so like Trump with confidence to where you kind of just, you take his word at it, right? And there was a moment in the debate where Biden looked really strong when taking on Bernie Sanders and this bogus line that he likes praising dictators. I mean, Joe Biden has done the same exact thing. He praised, you know, Xi Jinping of China. He praised, I think it was Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Like he and his administration, him and Obama sold weapons to Saudi Arabia. So I mean, this talk of Bernie just loves dictators. It's bogus. It's done as a ploy to link him to Donald Trump. And since Democratic Party voters have this visceral reaction to Donald Trump, anyone who's associated with Donald Trump or, you know, like him in any way, shape, or form, that's going to be a major turnoff. And, you know, the media knows this. Joe Biden knew this and I'm worried that that portion hurt Bernie Sanders even further. He claimed that his climate change plan is ambitious enough to take on climate change, which is laughable. I mean, look at his Greenpeace record. What is it, a D? I mean, it's just, it's awful. He claimed that he is now in favor of progressive policies that essentially undo the damage that his bills caused. For example, he pushed the bankruptcy bill, which was incredibly disastrous, but now he's embracing Elizabeth Warren's plan to undo the damage caused by his bill. So I just think that like judging this from the standpoint of an average consumer of politics who isn't like in deep like you and I are, where we know all of these lies, I think that Joe Biden came across as someone who looks prepared and ready to take on Donald Trump. And that sucks for us, right? Now, I'm really, really genuinely hoping that voters saw through Joe Biden and, you know, his disingenuous nature with the way that he talked about some of these policies. And I wanna play a clip for you about Medicare for All. He literally with a straight face claimed that Medicare for All, you know, that and Coronavirus, COVID-19, they're not related. So why are we even bringing up Medicare for All when we're talking about Coronavirus? And this is a point in the debate where if there was any opportunity for Bernie Sanders to stand out, I think this was the moment right here and it was at the very beginning, which is important because, I mean, Joe Biden looked like a clown. Take a look at what he says here. What is it that we need? Listen to the experts. What do we need? And with all due respect to Medicare for All, you have a single payer system in Italy. It doesn't work there. It has nothing to do with Medicare for All. That would not solve the problem at all. We can take care of that right now by making sure that no one has to pay for treatment, period, because of the crisis. No one has to pay for whatever drugs are needed, period, because of the crisis. No one has to pay for hospitalization because of the crisis, period. That is a national emergency and that's how it's handled. It is not working in Italy right now and they have a single payer system. Now, with regard to what else I would do? Well, first of all, the dysfunctionality of the current healthcare system is obviously apparent. As I said earlier, there are people who hesitate to go to the doctor. You're gonna have a maze of regulations. Well, if this is my income, but that's my income, can I get it? Can I not get it? Clearly, we are not prepared and Trump only exacerbates the crisis. When we spend twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other nation, one might expect that we would have enough doctors all over this country. One might expect that we would have affordable prescription drugs. One might expect that we are preparing effectively for a pandemic, that we were ready with the ventilators, with the ICUs, with the test kits that we need. We are not. And bottom line here is in terms of Medicare for all, despite what the vice president is saying, what the experts tell us is that one of the reasons that we are unprepared and have been unprepared is we don't have a system. We got thousands of private insurance plans that is not a system that is prepared to provide healthcare to all people. In a good year without the epidemic, we're losing up to 60,000 people who die every year because they don't get to a doctor on time. And clearly this crisis is only making a bad situation worse. I mean, to suggest that having a single payer wouldn't help, it's literally an idiotic thing to say. Like, I don't know how else to describe it. Yes, Italy has a single payer system and they are doing really bad right now. But what I was hoping Bernie Sanders would bring up is what would happen if Italy didn't have a single payer system? How much worse would this be in Italy? Like, you don't understand that a single payer system that isn't going to be the end all be all in solving a pandemic. You need other things in place, the infrastructure, the readiness to deal with these types of things. But a single payer, would that help with this situation? Of course it would because we have a situation where our healthcare system is broken to where if you have health insurance, you may not be able to go to the doctor because you can't afford the copay, right? So I mean, the fact that he said this with a straight face, it's so disingenuous that I think, I hope that voters see through that. Now Bernie Sanders brought up a point that like on a good year, when we don't have a global pandemic that we're dealing with, more than 60,000 people die due to a lack of health coverage. And that's probably a conservative estimate because there are people who have health insurance, but they are under insured, meaning that if they go to a doctor and their doctor says they need a specific procedure done, but their insurance won't cover that and they don't get that procedure, they end up dying. So on a good year, lots of people die in this country, a good year. So that was a really powerful point. And I think that that instance may have been the only real instance where Joe Biden was damaged throughout his lives. I mean, there are other moments where Joe Biden was caught, there was a moment in particular where Joe Biden and his confidence was like putting up this illusion of him being ready and prepared to take on Donald Trump. I think that voters are smart enough to see through that in particular because it was so disingenuous and nonsensical, quite frankly, because if you're trying to tell us that having a single pair of universal healthcare system wouldn't be beneficial in times like this, like I don't know who would believe that. You'd have to be a moron to believe that. And throughout this debate, you just, you really saw two worldviews that are just diametrically opposed because Biden now is starting to slowly but surely pivot. He wants it to seem as if he's open to progressive policy ideas, but you just see Bernie has a different worldview than Joe Biden because he thinks through all of the ways that people are impacted, not just in terms of like the need for healthcare during times where we have this global pandemic, COVID-19, but how it affects people who are in quarantine and they can't go out to get groceries, elderly people. I mean, take a look. And I think one of the things that we wanna remember here is that we got a lot of elderly people in this country who are told, stay home, don't leave your house. Who's gonna get food to them? How do we get food to them? You got schools all over this country now being shut down. Okay, how are we gonna make sure that the kids do well in this crisis, not become traumatized? What do we do about the parents now who have to stay home with the kids and can't go to work? So I think what bottom line here is that in this crisis, we have got to start paying attention to the most vulnerable. That includes people who are in prison right now, people who are in homeless shelters right now. What about the half a million people who are homeless tonight? Who's gonna respond to them? I mean, that is so important. He's bringing up people who politicians don't generally view as a constituency. Like homeless people don't usually vote. People in prisons can't vote. So no other politician views them as a constituency. Bernie has nothing to gain by citing these people needs to be taken care of during times of pandemics. He just did it because that's what he believes in his heart. So I think that one thing that was clear, like putting aside the fake confidence that Joe Biden was trying to showcase, I think that you're going to see that Bernie Sanders just has a different philosophy on the world in comparison with Joe Biden. But with that being said, I just feel like because Joe Biden was articulate and eloquent, dare I say at times, because he was so confident with his lies, I think that the average person may believe him in instances. Sure, there were moments where Bernie Sanders really had him on the ropes with regard to social security, for example, and super PACs. And we'll talk about that in a separate segment. But I mean, he had excuses for himself that I think the average voter is going to buy. Like, for example, he talked about the Hyde Amendment when Bernie Sanders brought that up. And he said, well, look, a lot of people in Congress voted for the Hyde Amendment because it was locked in with other bills. Now that is something that, you know, he's giving himself plausible deniability. It's a horrible excuse. But if you're just someone who's watching TV and you're trying to decide who's the best person to take on Donald Trump and you don't know any better. And, you know, a politician brings up this excuse. I think largely people will buy it. Now, the same thing is true for Hillary Clinton. She had a lot of excuses for her horrible votes and decision-making. And I think that, you know, they thought people, you know, voters, just casual observers of politics thought, oh, well, she has a good enough excuse. So, you know, first of all, she just has to make it through a primary and there's no way a Republican would bring this up. But Donald Trump did bring that up and all of her excuses fell flat. And I'm worried that the same thing is going to happen with Joe Biden. So overall, just to kind of wrap all of this up, I was disappointed with this debate. And when it comes to who's the winner, I'm gonna have to, this is a draw to me. I don't think there was any definitive winner. You can make the case that Bernie Sanders, by far, had the best performance objectively speaking. And I would agree with that. But also, on another hand, you can make the case that Joe Biden is the de facto winner because of what Bernie Sanders needed to accomplish. His task here was just, it was gigantic, right? He had to have not just a phenomenal debate performance, but Joe Biden had to have a bad debate performance, something that Bernie Sanders couldn't necessarily control. Bernie can't control if Joe Biden is going to seem as if he can't collect his thoughts during a debate. That's something he can't control. So I don't know what Joe Biden's staffers did to help him prepare, but he came more prepared than ever. And because I don't think that this debate didn't have to move the needle, nothing is going to change. And that is really disappointing. Now, I'm not going to say, oh, well, since we didn't have the debate that we were hoping for, this election is over because things are changing very rapidly in the United States of America, right? We have a global pandemic currently. And this is making a lot of people reassess their philosophy on politics more generally speaking. You have people like Ben Shapiro, all of a sudden crying for government intervention. Are these COVID-19 tests going to be widely available? You have Mitt Romney floating the idea of a universal basic income temporarily. I mean, people's views on the world change when they're faced with these types of crises. You kind of reassess things. So maybe that could help Bernie Sanders because obviously everything that Bernie Sanders has been promoting in his entire career has been something that would benefit us more so than we are and make us more prepared to deal with these types of issues. So if anything is going to give us a chance, maybe it's this crisis, maybe that's the only light at the end of the tunnel. But again, I still think it's a long shot and I'm not going to say that this election is over, but in terms of us hoping that the debate would change this race fundamentally, I just don't think that this debate did that. And it's not because Bernie Sanders wasn't a good debater tonight. I think that there are criticisms of his performance. I would say that he needed to be more aggressive but just in terms of sheer skill, he backed Joe Biden into a corner when it comes to social security, got him to admit that he did want to cut social security, got him to basically admit that his smear of Bernie Sanders having super PACs was nonsense because Joe Biden said, do you want me to name him? And Bernie said, yes, name my super PACs and he wouldn't do it. So Bernie did a good job in this debate. It's just that Joe Biden, he needed to show voters, we needed him to show voters his true colors, that he's not prepared, that he's in articulate, that he can't hold a zone in a debate stage. But if you're watching this and you're just an average consumer of politics, I don't think that people got that impression if they're paying attention, right? So overall, not the performance or the outcome rather that I was looking for, nonetheless, we'll talk about specifics because that's not to say that this debate was all bad because Bernie, like I alluded to, he had some really just phenomenal moments that exposes Joe Biden's weaknesses and we'll talk about them coming up. Throughout the course of the CNN debate between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, it was very clear that he is painfully out of touch. Now, I think that he projected confidence and decisiveness qualities that people look for in a leader, unfortunately, because I was hoping that he would implode at this debate. Nonetheless, he did come across as someone who was more sharp than regular. I'm not sure what his staffers did to prepare him for this debate, but whatever they did, it worked. But still, one thing that Joe Biden can't hide from the public is just how out of touch he is, how broken our political system is and how he is unaware of all of the ways in which it is broken. So at this debate, knowing that it's coming down to the wire and if he's going to win, he needs young voters. He needs Bernie Sanders supporters in order to beat Donald Trump. Well, he made a pitch to us. Now, it's funny because before he made his pitch to us, he said this about, you know, revolution versus reform. People are looking for results, not a revolution. Now, that is just factually incorrect. We want a revolution because anything short of a revolution isn't going to solve the issues that led to Donald Trump. Like more neoliberalism, more incrementalism isn't going to quell all of the widespread dissatisfaction and desperation that Americans currently feel. So to say that we don't need to have a revolutionary response, the campaign finance reform, a revolutionary response to healthcare and the student loan crisis and global pandemics, it really communicates to us just how out of touch you are in short. Like the bubble that Biden is in, you know, it leads him to believe that Americans don't want a revolution. The rich people he hangs around with his donors don't want a revolution, but ordinary Americans can't accept anything but a revolution and not just any kind of revolution, a very specific revolution where the working class actually is empowered and they have rights and purchasing power, right? So he just, he doesn't get it. He's painfully out of touch and he was asked to make an appeal to Bernie Sanders supporters. And this was genuinely embarrassing because this attempt, it just communicates to me that he may be worse than Hillary Clinton and her have asked attempt to appeal to Sanders supporters back in 2016, but look what he tries to say to convince us that we should vote for him. Character of the nation is on the ballot. It goes well beyond whether or not, Senator Sanders and I both agree we need healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. We both agree we have to deal with student debt. We both agree we have to deal with education and access to education. We both agree that we have a new green deal to deal with the existential threat that faces humanity. We disagree on the detail of how we do it, but we don't disagree on the principle. We fundamentally disagree with this president on everything. That was really bad. That was really, really bad. First of all, he said we both agree that we need a new green deal. Sad. Just pathetic. First of all, just saying that you need a green new deal, that doesn't mean anything to us. You're taking the name of the green new deal or as he calls it the new green deal and you're attaching it to your milk toast, incremental approach to climate change when we can't afford an incrementalist approach to climate change. If we want to save the planet, keep it habitable for generations to come, we have to be absolutely comprehensive in our approach and his total climate change proposal costs $1.7 trillion. Now, just looking at the cost alone, that doesn't tell you much, but when you think about all of the things that we have to change in order to make ourselves prepared to deal with climate change and mitigate it and adapt to it, I mean, that just is a little bit of a hint of what he's offering, not nearly enough and a green new deal, I need people to understand what this is. It's not just a policy proposal. It is an idea, right? So it's basically a blank slate and politicians can fill it in with whatever they want. Hence why people like Amy Klobuchar said, oh, I support the green new deal. But in actuality, the green new deal doesn't mean anything unless you look at the details. So anyone can say they support a green new deal, but that is meaningless unless you dive into the details. And when you look at the details of Joe Biden's green new deal, it's not going to suffice. Not only that, ignoring his green new deal, he doesn't support a ban on fracking. He's taking money from fossil fuel executives. In fact, one of them held a fundraiser for him a day after his climate change town hall on CNN. So you've got to understand that just saying that he supports the green new deal doesn't mean anything. The devil is in the details. And on top of that, he claimed that Bernie Sanders supporters should support him because both him and Bernie believe healthcare is a right. Now this irritates me to no end because corporate Democrats have been saying this. Oh, we all believe that healthcare is a right. They've literally co-opted the language that proponents of Medicare for all use. No, you can't say that you believe healthcare is a right. Joe Biden's healthcare plan would leave 10 million people out. So if something is a right, what does that mean? What are the implications of a right? You can't be denied access to that right. Everyone has it because it's a right. So to say that healthcare is a right, but yet you don't believe that everyone should have it, that it should be free at the point of service and universally accessible, it's insulting. You're lying. You're patting us on the heads and you're saying you support our policy, but you're just paying lip service to it. Saying healthcare is a right now has been effectively meaningless because corporatists have co-opted that language. Tom Perez says healthcare is a right. Corporate Democrats say healthcare is a right. So for you to just say healthcare is a right, that means absolutely nothing. I don't believe that you believe healthcare is a right if you don't support a single payer Medicare for all system where healthcare is free at the point of service. Now it doesn't necessarily have to be Medicare for all. I think that's easiest because you just expand on an existing framework that actually functions. Medicare, not Obamacare, which has been gutted in a million different ways from Republicans in the courts. Like if you make it so that way, healthcare is free at the point of service, I'll believe you. We can disagree on specific details here and whatnot, but if you literally don't believe that healthcare should be free when you show up to a doctor and you pay $0, you can't say it's a right because that means that if you are a homeless person and you don't have a nickel to your name, it's not gonna be free, therefore it's not a right. Or if you have a sickness and illness and you need to see a doctor and you have insurance but you can't afford the $35 copay, is it really a right? No, so Joe Biden's appeal here, it just, it shows me that he doesn't get it. Like he doesn't realize what's its daycare and with how many young people are against him, he doesn't understand that they're going to stay home. Like Democrats have got to grapple with the fact that we're not just trying to convince people who are young to not vote third party. Like mass amounts of people are going to stay home and they don't get it. They're still not adapting. They're not offering voters anything. The same exact thing happened in 2016 and they haven't adapted. They're not responding accordingly. It's not about trying to not get people to vote for Donald Trump. It's not about trying to convince the people that came out to support Bernie in the primary to vote for the Democrat in November and not vote third party. Like large swaths of voters will not come out to vote for you if you do not offer them something substantial that they believe will genuinely improve their lives. And Joe Biden, it was clear in this segment, genuinely does not get it and that should scare everyone because that means going up against Donald Trump, turnout will not be high enough to defeat Donald Trump. And that means Donald Trump gets to fill that Supreme Court seat that will almost inevitably be vacant. Right? Donald Trump gets to still stack the federal judiciary. Donald Trump will remain in control during a COVID-19 global pandemic, which we don't know how long is going to last. And Joe Biden doesn't get it. So he may have been able to at least put on a show for people watching and appeared confident and he didn't seem as if he was in cognitive decline like he is in actuality, but at the end of the day, he still proved he is painfully out of touch. And if Democrats don't wake up, they'll have only themselves to blame for another four years of Donald Trump by nominating the school who's clearly not interested in solving our problems. So I wanna show you a couple of clips from last night's debate where Joe Biden was caught in a lie and Bernie Sanders masterfully backed him into a corner and wouldn't let him out and got him to admit that he was lying. So when it comes to the issue of social security, Biden has repeatedly denied that he ever floated cuts to social security. In fact, he once accused Bernie Sanders team of doctoring a video of him where he says very clearly you can watch the video that he wants to cut social security. Now what Bernie Sanders did was get him to basically admit that he was open to it. Now he still denied it after he admitted it in this debate. Nonetheless, I think that it was very clear what was happening here. Joe Biden showed his cards and Bernie Sanders played this very well. Take a look. Joe, let me repeat it again. I want you just to be straight with the American people. I am saying that you have been on the floor of the Senate time and time again talking about the need to cut social security, Medicare and veterans programs. Is that true or is that not true? No, it's not true. That is not true? That is not true. What is true is in terms of the negotiations that are taking place, how to deal with the deficit, everything was on the table. I did not support any of those cuts in social security or in veterans. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Everything was on the table. All right, you're right. You just said it, including in your judgment, cuts to social security and veterans. In order to get the kinds of changes we need on other things related. Joe, but we did not cut it. I know because people like me helped stop that. But Joe, you just contradicted, Joe, you just contradicted yourself. One minute, excuse me, one minute you said I was not on the floor. The next minute you say, well, yes, there was a reason why I was worried about the deficit. Maybe that's good reason. Maybe it's not. All that I am saying is you were prepared to cut and advocated for the cuts of programs. I did not. I never voted to cut social security. Not talking about voting, Joe, that's not what I said. I never voted. But look, I voted to protect it. I was the, just go look at the debate with Paul Ryan for the vice presidency. Look at what I did. And Bernie, will you acknowledge your campaign took out a context that whole exchange between Paul Ryan? Are you saying political fact is wrong? Are you saying- Yeah, well, believe me, the Washington Post political fact has won a whole lot of times. But- Are they wrong on that, Bernie? Okay. Bernie, did you miss- Joe, did you, wait a minute. I'll answer your question. You answer mine. I answered yours. No, you didn't. All right. One more time. Were you on the floor time or time yet for whatever reason, talking about the need to cut social security and Medicare and Veterans program? No, I did not talk about the need to cut any of those programs. Okay, all that I would say to the American people, go to YouTube. It's all over the place. Joe said it many, many times. I'm surprised, you know, you can defend that or change your mind on it, but you can't deny the reality. So, Senator, because you brought up social security and you've been talking about it, I want to ask you about something that you wrote in 1996. You were a member of the House and you wrote an op-ed that said, quote, it is clear we will have to make incremental adjustments in social security taxes and benefits. Why are your past comments any less relevant than- Incremental adjustments. What I advocated, adjustments that I advocated and have advocated for years is, among other things, increasing the cost of living assistance. No, you're not gonna find me ever calling for cuts to social security. I mean, what do you even say to that? If you watch that and you don't see how disingenuous Joe Biden is being, I don't know what to say. Like he admitted there, he was open to cutting social security. I never said I'd cut social security, Bernie Sanders, you're lying. All I said was that I was open to put everything on the table, including social security, which I specifically named and called a sacred cow, but I never said I'd cut social security. Wait, you just admitted that everything was on the table, including social security, but you don't wanna cut social security? Like this really I think should show people how easy it is for politicians to just outright lie and use doublespeak. No, I never said the words specifically verbatim. I wanna cut social security, therefore I never floated cuts to social security. Now, what I love is that once he was back into the corner, he tried to get out of that by basically saying, well, look, I never did cut social security in actuality. And I'm paraphrasing, you know, even if he proposed cuts, it never happened. And then Bernie Sanders came in with a death blow and said, because I stopped that from happening. Brilliantly, brilliantly played by Bernie Sanders. That was just, that was phenomenal. And this is what Bernie Sanders needed to do because Joe Biden has the support of older voters and they don't realize that by voting for Joe Biden, they are voting against their own self-interest because this is someone who has throughout the years said he's open to cutting social security. Now, you can choose to not believe that in spite of all of the evidence that's online, go to the YouTube to find it, as Bernie Sanders put it, but he's been saying he wants to cut social security. Not necessarily that he wants to do it, but he's open to do it. And if he's in power, what would Republicans want to do? Of course, they'd want to cut it under a democratic administration so they can blame Democrats for it and then boast to the public, we never supported cuts to social security. We voted to cut social security, but it was a democratic president who cut social security. Now, what irritated me to no end was how Dana Bash came through and basically implied that Bernie wanted to cut social security. She said, well, Bernie, you floated adjustments to social security. Now, she didn't provide you with that additional context that what Bernie Sanders meant by adjustments was that we need to increase the standard of living for recipients of social security, lift the cap on taxable income so it's solved even longer in the future. And that's just it shows how the media tries to manufacture consent because a lot of people point to Joe Biden using that code word adjustments, right? And back in the 90s, Bernie Sanders did say we need to make adjustments to social security. So what they tried to do when the story originally came up was say, aha, gotcha, Bernie, because you and your team said adjustments is code for cuts, but you said adjustment. Except the problem is that if you follow the word adjustment and see what else he said after that, you know, follow the entire sentence to its conclusion, you'd see that he said specifically how to adjust it. When politicians say adjusted and they leave it vague, that means cuts usually because we've been dealing with this for decades. Wall Street has been salivating over social security. They want to cut it. So we've had to be incredibly vigilant and look out for double speak, look out for code words or weasel words, as Cal Kulinski would put it when politicians, they say something, but they try not to reveal their true colors to the public when we know what they actually are intending to do. But overall, I mean, this was a great move by Bernie Sanders. Now, another move that was just so painfully bad for Joe Biden, it was cringe worthy, was when the subject of super PACs came up. Now, to give you some additional context, because I'm not gonna play the entire clip because it would be too long, Bernie Sanders was talking about the power structures in America, right? That the reason why Americans are losing their voice, the reason why politicians are almost exclusively doing the bidding of their corporate donors is because of the power structures in the country. Large multinational corporations and billionaires, they buy off politicians, hence why all of the policy outcomes reflect their interests. So, Bernie Sanders, he tacitly implied that Joe Biden's financial contributions are the reason why we're in this state, not just Joe Biden, but all of the politicians. And Joe Biden is just a pawn in the game that's being played to rig the rules against normal Americans. And Joe Biden basically tried to pivot by saying, well, look, if you're trying to point to, you know, my campaign contributions, I haven't taken more than $2,800, which is when Bernie Sanders correctly identified, the problem is that there are these super PACs that flood campaigns with dark money. To which Joe Biden then tried to accuse Bernie of also having super PACs didn't go too well, as you're gonna see. And the implication is I'm getting these, I've not accepted a contribution of anybody over $2,800, number one, my average contribution is $44. Just this month I've raised $33 million, average contribution $51. The idea that this is Bernie's implication is somehow I'm being funded by millionaires. Bernie, look, in the last Super Tuesday and before that, Bernie outspent me two, three, four, five, six to one. And I still won. I didn't have any money. And I still won. Senator Sanders. It's good that you had an idea 30 years ago. I don't wanna join you, why don't you join me? Why don't you get rid of the super PAC that you have right now, which is running very ugly negative ads about me, by the way. Don't laugh, Joe, that's just the truth. And they got two other super PACs running ads against us. Why don't you just say right now, go on television and say, hey, you know what? I think in the past, Joe, if I'm not mistaken, you condemned super PACs, is that correct? You get rid of the nine super PACs you have? I don't have nine super PACs. I don't have any super PACs. You want me to list them? No, yeah, you go ahead and list them. Come on, give me a break. No, I won't give you a break on this one, Joe. You condemned super PACs, you got a super PAC is running negative. But here's the point. This is the point. In the richest country in the history of the world, half of our people should not be struggling to put food on the table. And the reason for that is you have a political structure in which big money interests not only dominate the political system, but dominate our economy as well. Somebody makes a decision, we're gonna shut down a factory in America, we're gonna move to China, we're gonna move to Mexico, pay people's starvation wages there. This is an issue that has got to be ultimately deal with who has the power in America? Are we content with so few exercising so much power when so many people have given up on the political process? That was really embarrassing. That was perhaps the worst moment of the debate for Joe Biden. Are you gonna condemn the nine super PACs that you have Bernie, you want me to name them? Bernie Sanders then says, yes, name them. And then Joe Biden says, give me a break. So he tried to play chicken with Bernie Sanders and he backed down immediately. This tells you everything you need to know about Joe Biden. Now it's funny because this is the same lie that Elizabeth Warren used against Bernie Sanders and the rationale for her getting her own super PAC. Well, Bernie has super PACs. So it's only fair that I get my own super PAC when what they were referring to as super PACs were our revolution, sunrise movement, dream defenders, organizations funded by either their members like the National Nurses United PAC, which is technically a PAC, or grassroots donations like sunrise movement. So they're trying to suggest that these are dark money groups. That's what people to judges did as well because they wanna hide their own corruption. But what it did was make them look like disingenuous fools. And when you try to play that game with Bernie Sanders, sometimes you end up fucking yourself over. That's what happened with Joe Biden. That's what happened when you tried to call out Bernie Sanders super PACs and you end up looking foolish. So these two clips were my favorite moments from the debate. It really made Bernie Sanders look strong. And I really, I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping that people see through Joe Biden, right? See how disingenuous he was because he didn't display how he was in cognitive decline. He hid it well enough for that two hour debate, which is astonishing. Nonetheless, I think he hid it well, but he still proved how much of a liar and disingenuous, regular, standard politician he is, saying and doing anything to get ahead. And I really hope that the voters see that in watching this debate if they did watch it. So during the debate, Bernie Sanders pointed out Joe Biden's atrocious record and he explained how this shows that Joe Biden didn't have good judgment on numerous issues, right? And this is a leadership issue. If you don't have the foresight to see how the policies you support will impact normal Americans, then going forward, how are we supposed to trust that you're going to represent our interests because if you made bad decisions in the past, then you're going to still keep making bad decisions. So Bernie Sanders pointed this out and this was a really important moment during the debate because it shows that Joe Biden is not someone who is going to represent ordinary Americans. Like you might vote for him because you think he's more electable going up against Donald Trump, which is not true. But at the end of the day, we can't lie to ourselves and suggest that he is someone who would benefit anyone's life, unless you're rich, because as he said to donors in a closed door meeting, nothing will fundamentally change if he selects him. So Bernie Sanders called out Joe Biden's record and this is a really important moment. This is a little bit about leadership as well. Joe talked about bankruptcy. Joe, if my memory is correct, do you help write that bankruptcy bill? I did not. All right. And that bankruptcy bill, by the way, when we talk about education, we got 45 million people in America struggling with student debt. Some of them really struggling with student debt and that bankruptcy bill made it impossible, very difficult for people to escape from that student debt. It was a very, very bad bill. You said, Joe, that a majority of the people in the Senate voted for it, you're right. Overwhelmingly. Overwhelmingly. Well, I voted against it in the house and I was right. And I don't have to rethink my position because that's what leadership is about, having the guts to take an unpopular vote. But it's not just bankruptcy. The difference between Joe and I on higher education is four years ago. It was not a popular idea, Joe. I'm glad you're coming around now. Four years ago, when I said that public colleges and universities should be tuition free, people were saying, Bernie, that's a radical idea. Well, you got states and cities and counties all over the country that are moving in that direction. And I'm glad that Joe is on board. But what leadership is about is going forward when it's not popular, when it's an idea that you get criticized for. So I'm proud of that fact and I'm proud of my leadership on many issues. Joe, since the campaign has come around, I talked about raising that minimum wage, 15 bucks an hour, four years ago, Joe. So did I and I went out and 15 dollars an hour. 15 dollars an hour, New York City, go talk to the governor. I will talk to the governor, I'm not aware of that. I am not aware of that. You should be aware, look. All right, four years ago, it was a radical idea. Very few people in Congress were talking about it. I was. So Bernie Sanders was right on all of these issues. Joe Biden was wrong on all of these issues. And I like that Bernie Sanders called out how, you know, the logic here doesn't make sense because you're now supporting bills that would basically undo the damage caused by your bills. So I mean, going forward, are we going to in 10, 20 years need additional legislation to undo the damage caused by you in the event you're president? Like, you've got to understand that if you can't get it right on a number of very basic issues when Bernie Sanders had it right, then why should we vote for you over Bernie Sanders? And I think that at this point in time, like most voters agree with Bernie Sanders on the policy and they disagree with Joe Biden. Hence why Medicare for all is winning in every single state, even in states where Joe Biden is landsliding against Bernie Sanders. So we've won the policy debate. It's just a matter of really showing people that Joe Biden is not electable against Donald Trump. That's our last ditch effort because that's really why I'm assuming they're voting for Biden over Bernie, even if they disagree with Biden more. It's because they think he's going to be more electable. But what we have to do is point out how these bad policy decisions make him uniquely weak against Donald Trump. Donald Trump will take all of these issues and he's going to weaponize them and use them very effectively against Joe Biden. Donald Trump will brag about the crime bill that he signed into law. Donald Trump will brag about how he's against the trade deals that Joe Biden supported like NAFTA, PNTR with China. So Bernie Sanders continued here and I think that what he did in bringing up all of Biden's bad decisions was important but it's missing one really key ingredient that I think would make this a more potent attack. It was going to pass anyway. I made it, let me finish. I made it incrementally better. I did not like the bill, I did not support the bill and I made it clear to the industry I didn't like the bill. Number two, this bill now calls for the opportunity to fundamentally change the mistakes we couldn't correct in the bill the first time around. And that is why I support Elizabeth Warren's idea and it's a very good idea. Senator Sanders, go ahead. Well, this is kind of circular logic. We're gonna reform the bill that I voted for. Well, if you hadn't voted for it and if you had rallied other people as I try to do in the House voting against it, we might not have the problems with it we have today. You know, what leadership is about Joe and it deals with, you know, whether you know, your opposition or your support I should say, for legislation regarding gay communities and the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. You remember that bill, right? You remember the Defense of Marriage Act. It was, you know, gay marriage today is considered a little bit differently than it was 25 years ago. I remember that vote. It was a very hard vote. I voted against the Defense of Marriage Act. You voted for it. I voted against the bankruptcy bill. You voted for it. I voted against the war in Iraq, which was also a tough vote. You voted for it. I voted against disastrous trade agreements like NAFTA and PNTR with China, which cost this country over four million good-paying jobs. You voted for it. I voted against the Hyde Amendment, which denies low-income women the right to get an abortion. You have consistently voted for it. I don't know what your position is on it today, but you have consistently voted for it. In other words, all that I'm saying here, we can argue about the merits of the bill. Vice President Biden. It takes courage sometimes to do the right thing. We can argue about the past, the future. This man voted against the Brady Bill five times. Background checks. Background checks. Five times. Number one. Number two, this man is the only one of the few Democrats I know who voted to exempt the gun industry from being able to be sued. Talk about a special, special interest. So I think it's really important that Bernie Sanders brought up all of these different issues that Joe Biden was wrong on, and he's been on the wrong side of history consistently. And bringing up leadership is important, but none of these issues matter if you don't assign a motive to them, right? Why is Joe Biden consistently wrong? Does he just have really terrible judgment? Well, the answer is probably yes, but the reason why he always seems to side with special interests against voters is because he's corrupt. That is what you have to tie it to. You have to tie these policy decisions directly to the financial contributions that he has received from the industry. It's a corruption issue. That's why Joe Biden is wrong. You're bankrolled by the military industrial complex and the big banks. Of course, you're going to support wars. Of course, you're going to support pro-corporate trade agreements. Of course, you're going to support all of these policies that hurt normal Americans at the behest of special interests. And you've got to link it to corruption, otherwise it's not going to lend. Now, Bernie Sanders did link it to corruption, thankfully, but I don't think he did enough to really make the case as to why Joe Biden is, in fact, very deeply corrupt. I have taken on every special interest there is out there, and that is what I will do in the White House. That's a very different record than Joe's. That is not a different record than mine. That is a totally different record than yours, all right? I mean, it's manifested in this campaign when you're getting all this money from wealthy people and billionaires. So I think if you want somebody who will take to the White House what I've done for my whole life. Thank you, Sanders Sanders. And that is take on special interest. I think I'm not candidate. Thank you, Sanders Sanders. Let's, let's, let's. It is astonishing to me that he thought that it would be persuasive if he told everyone that his average campaign contribution is $144. That's not something you brag about. That's something to be embarrassed about. $144. That tells us that you are taking a lot of very large contributions for it to be that high. Bernie's average donation is what, $18, $27? So $144, not something to brag about. So Bernie Sanders is correct to point out money in politics, but he's not doing enough because you have to sell voters on the fact that Joe Biden is corrupt. All of these campaign contributions, all of these private fundraisers he's doing with bankers and fossil fuel executives, it is corrupting him. And Bernie didn't sufficiently make that case. He didn't sufficiently tie Joe Biden's decisions to corruption. You've got to connect the dots for voters because they're not going to do that themselves. I don't think Bernie did that enough. And the problem with Bernie Sanders is that he kind of kneecapped himself here. He had surrogates who were willing to do this, severed teach, outpended op-ed in The Guardian, which was phenomenal. That said, Joe Biden has a corruption problem and it's making him weak against Donald Trump. Bernie disavowed that attack. And now I think he's probably wishing he didn't do that because I mean, by just saying Joe Biden has bad judgment, that's not enough to convince voters that they shouldn't vote for him because Donald Trump, you know, what did he say when he was clearly clueless? Look, I'm going to surround myself by the smartest people in the world. So like Americans, if they don't think about this in terms of corruption, they're just going to think, okay, well look, Joe Biden has made bad decisions, but if he chooses a VP, if he picks a treasury of secretary, that's good, then he could be pushed in the right direction. But if you're not specifically telling them that the reason why he supported that bankruptcy bill was because he took large contributions from the banks, it's not going to matter at the end of the day. And that's been one of my biggest criticisms of Bernie Sanders, it gets to that. He hasn't been direct and harsh enough against Joe Biden. And I get it, Bernie is not that kind of a person, we just have to grapple with that fact he's too nice. He's too nice. And it may ultimately be his downfall, but if you're not specifically using the word corrupt to describe what's been fueling all of Joe Biden's bad decisions, voters just aren't going to get it. Like people have this vague sense or amorphous view of money and politics. They don't know what the issue is and how it affects politicians, but they know that money and politics is bad. So you have to make that picture clear for them because the media is not going to do it. Other politicians aren't going to do it. So you've got to paint a picture for them and you've got to educate them. Joe Biden voted for the Iraq war because he's corrupt. He's corrupt. He's taking money from defense contractors. That's why he supported this war. If you don't do this, I mean, what is there to be said? You can't prove to people. Judgment, the thing about judgment and why it's an attack that lacks potency is because you can have bad judgment, but if you surround yourself with smart people, you can correct that. You can try to improve your judgment, learn from your past mistakes. So there are ways that voters can rationalize and really explain away something that is just reduced to a decision that was bad judgment. But if you actually tie it to corruption, that's something that is really a powerful attack against Joe Biden. And I'm glad Bernie Sanders brought up campaign contributions and money in politics, but if you're not going to say the word corrupt, if you're not going to really explain how Joe Biden has been corrupted, it's not going to land. And he tried to do this against Hillary Clinton and on a debate stage, and I forgot what he said, but they asked him, can you name a single time when Hillary Clinton changed her position because of money in politics? He could have said the bankruptcy bill and he didn't say something like that. So I mean, it kind of backfired because of that. So I think that Bernie Sanders is probably feeling as if he's trying to walk on eggshells to not be too divisive, not damage Joe Biden. But the thing is that Joe Biden is a liability against Donald Trump. And if you're not the nominee, Bernie, Joe Biden, is probably going to lose to Donald Trump. It's not a foregone conclusion, but I mean, Jesus Christ, do we really want to roll the dice with him? So this was a good moment, but there's a lot to be learned here and progressives have got to stop playing nice with these liberals and corporate Democrats, right? If you're not willing to call out the corruption, then I think that all of these arguments about their judgment, they're just going to fall flat at the end of the day. None of us have dealt with a global pandemic before. We don't necessarily know what to expect. We don't know how long it's going to last. There are some estimates that suggest this could last until spring of 2021. We're looking at 12 to 18 months for a vaccine. There's a lot of uncertainty, but the thing about the United States is that our citizens, Americans, we've been conditioned to basically handle all of these things on our own because we live in a ruthless capitalist system. But what's interesting is that in times like this where there's this huge crisis, you have to take action, you have to do what's practical. And for those of us on the progressive left, we're often told that our human-centered solutions aren't practical, but at a time when there's a crisis and there's really no room for idealism, we just need solutions fast, it's interesting to me that everyone is suddenly sounding like Bernie Sanders. For example, you will have Democrats suggesting, hey, maybe we should have Medicare for all single payer now. That's what Ed Markey tweeted. And even Republicans are sounding a little bit like Bernie Sanders because Ben Shapiro tweeted, so what exactly are coronavirus tests going to be widely available? Now, of course, these tests should be free. They should be widely available and they shouldn't just be free. If you have coronavirus, if you test positive for COVID-19, you shouldn't have to worry about your healthcare bill. And this is something that people realize because the thing about this global pandemic is that this virus doesn't discriminate against people on the basis of their class, right? So if poor people get COVID-19, then rich people can get it as well. So it is in the interest of elites to make sure that poor people are taking care of. So what's interesting is that people who oftentimes speak out against socialism, speak out against big government intervention, all of a sudden they're realizing that maybe socialism is the more pragmatic, more practical thing. Maybe progressives do have the best approach. And it's not like I'm trying to brag here that we were always right, but we were told for so long that our policy solutions were pie in the sky and everything that we were talking about, the need to respond to human beings to give them healthcare, paid sick leave. Now this is the most practical thing. So it's really interesting. And I think that this global pandemic is causing people to really reflect and think about what their priorities are, what really is practical. And the practical measures are measures that the left has been suggesting. Now what's interesting is that even Mitt Romney is floating something that nobody would have expected him to float. Universal basic income. Now he did come up with a UBI for kids, it's like UBI light with Michael Bennett back in late 2019, but he's proposing UBI full stop to deal with coronavirus. So as Jordan Carney of the Hill reports, Senator Mitt Romney on Monday proposed giving $1,000 to every American adult as lawmakers scrambled to try to bolster the US economy amid growing concerns over the coronavirus. Romney outlined a handful of proposals on Monday saying that while the Senate should take up the house pass coronavirus package, Congress needs to start working on additional steps. We also urgently need to build on this legislation with additional action to help families and small businesses meet their short-term financial obligations, ease the financial burden on students entering the workforce and protect health workers on the front lines and their patients by improving telehealth services. Romney said in a statement, the checks would go to every American adult to help ensure families and workers can meet their short-term obligations and increase spending in the economy. Now what I say to this is, of course this is something that we have to implement. People are missing work and even if they have a job that tells them to stay home for purposes of social distancing, they may not get paid time off. So they're literally just like having to lose money and then struggle to pay their bills and they have no control over it. So what people are realizing because of COVID-19 is that we need a better safety net. Like we don't have anything in place. We don't have the readiness to deal with these types of crises, this global pandemic. And this is forcing people to stop thinking so much about ideology. I mean, I think about ideology, but this really is, it's forcing people to realize what is practical and what's practical is government intervention, right? Government intervention to help the American people. And we keep worrying about how the banks are going to do, how certain industries are going to do in this crisis. But meanwhile, nobody is talking about what working Americans are going to do. I mean, think through this. If you are just a worker, you work at the grocery store, you're getting paid minimum wage, you're getting exposed to all kinds of illnesses, not just COVID-19 potentially, but you don't get paid time off. You kind of have to be there because people need supplies and groceries. So why should that person, if they get sick doing a job that is necessary for society to function, why should they be forced to foot the bill for healthcare costs when they don't have a choice in that matter? If they don't go to work, people don't get their groceries. They need somebody there to bring them up to restock the shelves. They need people there. So why should these people who are doing crucial work suffer? We have to rebuild our society. We have to retool the way that things are done in this country because just the fact that we have to think through all of these things, we shouldn't have been thinking about what to do about workers who can't take time off. We should have already had a system in place for this. And I get that, you know, hindsight is 2020, but now is really the time going forward that as a country, we have to reckon with the fact that we have no social safety net for Americans. What we have isn't sufficient and it's being chipped away at again and again and again. And, you know, for all this talk of socialism and big government, even people like Tom Cotton are sounding a lot like Bernie Sanders during a global pandemic. Take a look at what he said on Fox News because he was asked about the next set or the next package for COVID-19 that Congress is looking at. And he says that even if the House passes the next COVID package, it doesn't seem likely that the Senate will pass it. Now, is it because, you know, Mitch McConnell is blocking it? You know, you can argue about that and argue what their real reasoning is, but just listen to his reasoning as to why it's not gonna pass the Senate. This is just, it's honestly unbelievable. The U.S. Senate's scheduled to convene later today to consider passing the House pass coronavirus relief bill. So what can we expect from here? Arkansas GOP Senator Tom Cotton joins us. Senator, you've had a chance to look at what Treasury Secretary Mnuchin put together with the House and backed by the White House. Can you get behind it as it's read now? Good morning, Brian. I don't think the House bill is going to pass the Senate as it's written for one basic problem. It doesn't go far enough and it doesn't go fast enough. There are too many gaps in coverage for the smallest businesses and for medium-sized businesses. And I and a lot of other senators who I've spoken to over the weekend are worried that we're not doing enough to get cash into the hands of affected workers and families quickly. So we're gonna be focused this week on how to do just that. If you've got the virus, if you've been quarantined because you've been exposed to the virus, if your business is shut down, or even if you have to stay home to care for a child whose school is closed, you should not worry about buying the groceries, making the car payments, paying your rent. We're gonna do everything we can to get cash into the hands of affected workers and families as quickly as possible so we can all get through this epidemic, this pandemic together. He literally sounds like Bernie Sanders there because look, the Republicans know that people aren't in the mood for politics and you shouldn't trust Republicans. I don't want you to take away from this video that all of a sudden, Republicans are having a change of heart because every single thing that they do is at the behest of their donors. It is in the interest of their donors. So the only reason why they're really thinking deeply about helping people, make no mistake about it, is because it's in the interest of their donors. If people stay home and don't have money, who does that affect? You can't have a capitalist system if the working class has zero purchasing power. And if that decreases even more, then that's going to impact all of the people, all the large multinational corporations specifically who contribute to their campaigns. So they're realizing that they have to do something to help Americans because they don't have a choice. If you want this system to remain in place, you can't just let people suffer and lose money and struggle to pay the bills. You have to do something. They don't have a choice. And I understand that they're trying to put politics aside but that is just political theater. I mean, in the last bill on Friday, Republicans tried to sneak abortion restrictions into the coronavirus bill. So they're still political. They still got an agenda, but one, they're trying to read the room. And two, they're realizing that in times of crisis, you don't have a choice. You can't not look out for the American people because if people have nothing, if they can't go to work, if we can't buy the products made by capitalists, then the entire system implodes. It collapses. It can't survive, literally. So it's really interesting to me that during times like this, everyone sounds like Bernie Sanders. Everyone is realizing the necessity of taking care of the working class, tending to healthcare needs, realizing that working people, they're not robots. They can't just be worked to the death. They have to take time off and in times like this, where for example, the governor of Oregon has banned events with more than 25 people. I mean, you don't have a choice. If you work for a catering business, you can't work, you can't find work. So I mean, how do you pay your bills? We can't just have a situation where a bunch of people can't pay rent or mortgages. The system needs to at least look out at a minimum level for the lowest tier of the economic class in this country. So you just kind of see that now is the time when people are thinking more deeply about what actually is pragmatic. And ironically, what's pragmatic is what everyone told us is pie in the sky. But it shouldn't have taken a global pandemic. And when this is over, assuming it will be over in the near future, hopefully knock on wood, we have to go forward with this mindset all of the time. We can't just adopt a socialist outlook on life during times of crisis during global pandemics because understand this may be the first of many global pandemics with climate change coming up with new diseases that will be exposed to once the ice caps melt. So we've gotta understand that we can't just have this obtuse view of the world to where we can only respond to the needs of the people during times of crisis. We'd be much more capable of dealing with crises if working class people were not just one emergency away of bankruptcy or falling victim to homelessness. And so our elites need to realize that, but also the people who vote need to realize that and acknowledge that politicians, they don't have their interests and they've been lied to. So I mean, when you vote, assuming that these primaries aren't canceled, I know a lot of them are getting pushed back to Ohio, there's talks of it getting pushed back and I'm not gonna report on that yet because things are changing as I record this. So I wanna wait until we know. But I mean, as you cast your vote, I understand that Bernie Sanders has been saying that we need to do this throughout the course of his career, not just all of a sudden during a global crisis. So we have to going forward actually think more deeply about our capitalist system and what it does to working people and not just think about these things in times like this. And I'll leave that there because there's nothing else to say. I mean, we were right about everything and it's proving us right. And it's not like I'm giddy to be proven right about this. I would have preferred that we just had these policies in place to begin with. But now I truly, like I want people to see and this is why I'm making this video. I want them to open their eyes and realize that we need the working class to be strong, emboldened and have a social safety net that can protect them in times like this. Outside of China, Italy has been hit the hardest with COVID-19 and I think it is absolutely crucial that us in America pay attention to what's going on in Italy and we take notes. What are they doing right? What are they doing wrong? Because we may be less capable of dealing with this crisis than Italy is because they have things that we don't have. They have a single payer healthcare system. Individuals feeling symptoms can go to a doctor but that's not necessarily the case here in the United States. If you feel ill and you don't have health insurance, your primary care physician is the ER. That's the only place where you can go and just being at the emergency room that will likely increase the chance that any types of illnesses and airborne illnesses and diseases COVID will spread. So we may be less capable of dealing with this than Italy and if we don't pay attention and take action then we may be looking at a really worse problem than anywhere else in the world. So the latest update on Italy gives us just a taste of what we can expect if we're not smart here. So as Justine Coleman of the Hill reports, Italy on Sunday reported its biggest one day increase in cases and deaths during the coronavirus outbreak. Italy recorded 3,590 cases and 398 deaths in a 24 hour period. Italy's Civil Protection Chief Angelo Borelli announced Sunday the Associated Press reported. In total, the country has confirmed more than 24,700 cases and more than 1,800 deaths. The country which has been on lockdown since last week reports that almost 2,000 people have recovered from the coronavirus in the nation. Italy's previous record number of deaths in a 24 hour period was 250 which was announced Friday. Italy's National Health Institute Chief Silvio Brusefero said it is unclear if Italy is reaching its peak number of cases meaning it could soon decline according to the AP. The World Health Organization has said most people will recover from the virus and almost 74,000 have mostly in China where the virus is believed to have originated. The coronavirus has infected more than 156,000 people and killed more than 5,800 leading several countries such as the United States to encourage so-called social distancing to avoid the spread of the virus. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CBS on Sunday morning that Italy left the virus to its own devices, leading the number of cases to go way up. So we need to learn from Italy. They left the disease to its own devices and this made the situation exponentially worse. Now in the United States, we can already see that we're not doing enough and we're not getting out enough tests to people. We don't necessarily, like we're kind of operating in the dark and that's a really dangerous thing. Like we should be currently arming ourselves with the supplies that we need, the information that we need and we're just not doing that. And to kind of just look at how bad it could get, this is what an Italian doctor said in an interview with Sky News. It was just, it was horrifying. And when I watched this, I felt like this sick feeling in my stomach because to imagine that situation is just, it's horrible and the fact that this could spread to other countries that aren't prepared, it's truly a nightmare scenario. Right now I'm in an operating theater that we closed last week and transformed it into a COVID ICU. And this is the second block, I'll go three in my hospital. So now we have a general ICU that is clean with no COVID patient. But now we are, we canceled all the elective and non-emergent surgery and we are using two other theaters for COVID patients. So we are expecting a surge in the next days and we all hope that this surge will not reach the intensity of Lombardy. We are probably nine to 10 days behind Lombardy and the intensity that this epidemic reached in the area around Milan was really, really hit very hard the healthcare system. So many hospitals are nearly collapsing and the force costs for the next 10 to 15 days is even worse. So this situation changed completely our lives in a little more than one week. We are working very hard with extraordinary efforts in order to increase our ICU capacity and hospital capacity with also high dependency units working a lot in order to increase availability for patients. But we are not sure that we'll be enough. So my suggestion is that you get prepared as soon as you can because once you start admitting severe ICU patients it's probably too late for social distancing, isolation and lockdowns. Now I will link you to the full interview down below because he goes on to talk more about how the doctors are overworked and they're barely getting sleep. It's just, this is a global tragedy. You know, it's a global pandemic, but it's also a tragedy. And what he said there was absolutely horrifying. They're creating makeshift COVID ICUs. They're canceling elective procedures. Hospitals are nearly collapsing, that's his words, not mine. This is terrible. And I want you to see what's happening in Italy and not to scare you, understand that the United States is poised to have even a worse situation, a worse fallout from this, if you will, than Italy because we're just not as prepared as Italy is. I want to read this article from Vice News, Tim Hume. He explains, I think very obviously, to those of us on the left, why the US is uniquely positioned to be worse off than Italy if COVID does in fact spread to the extent that it has in Italy. Italy is implementing radical new measures against COVID-19 and that could soon be the new normal for other countries fighting the virus. But experts say a number of unique factors in the United States, a sluggish approach to testing and a lack of public healthcare and paid sick days for home workers are likely to make its battle to contain the outbreak even more difficult than Europe. The situation is worse for the United States, Francis Bellow, a professor of computational systems biology at University College London told Vice News, quote, the US is a special case. Despite the US government's pledges to ramp up testing capacity, it appeared that far fewer tests were being carried out in the United States than in other affected countries in Europe. There's very little testing. It's lagged quite badly behind, he said. There's a lot of unknowns. Exact figures are difficult to establish since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that it would no longer provide an official tally of tests conducted under the investigation because states and private institutions had been authorized to conduct their own tests. But an analysis by The Atlantic published Friday could only confirm 1,895 tests carried out in the United States where the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases passed 550 on Monday. By contrast, in the UK where 319 cases have been confirmed, health authorities have conducted more than 20,000 tests. William Schaffner, professor of preventative medicine and infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine told Al Jazeera that problems with the US testing system meant the country lagged behind much of the rest of the world when it came to testing. We don't know yet in the United States whether the coronavirus is widely distributed or whether it is just present in certain small spots, he said. Below said the lack of a public health care system and of guaranteed paid sick leave for all workers would also hamper efforts to respond to the outbreak in the United States. It will make it much more difficult to convince people to self-isolate and impose the required social distancing methods, said below. So in a multitude of ways, we are uniquely positioned to be worse off than Italy. And it's scary. So basically when it comes to testing, we're kind of in the dark. We don't necessarily know the full scope of COVID-19 in the United States because we're not conducting as many tests as other countries are. So the problem could be more widespread than we know, but we don't have access to tests. Like ask yourself this, if you feel as if you wanna test, do you know how you would get a test? Has your private health insurance provider reached out to you? A lot of us have no idea what to do. So there's that on top of it. The fact that we don't have a guaranteed paid sick leave means that people are forced to go into work. Now, hopefully that will change. Hopefully these private companies will realize that they are stupid to force their workers to work if they are in an industry that is non-essential, right? But at the end of the day, capital is the most important thing. So they're not going to jeopardize their profits. So that's another issue, right? Workers just, they can't stay home because they're afraid that they'd lose their jobs. And even if they weren't afraid that they'd be fired, they'd lose money. So we're just, we're in this situation where having basically no social safety net makes us uniquely vulnerable in comparison with other developed countries. And that's something that has to change. We can't do this. We can't continue to pretend as if not having Medicare for all is acceptable. We can't continue to pretend that not having paid sick leave and looking out for workers more generally speaking isn't going to hurt us. I mean, with climate change upon us, this could be the first of many global pandemics that we're dealing with. So we have to arm ourselves with the capability to stay home if the government says we should be practicing social distancing. But the fact that that's not something that people can do because of the economic system that we have built, it makes it really bad where we see how bad it is in Italy and can only speculate how bad it's gonna get here in the United States. And just the thought that we don't have, makeshift facilities built to accommodate hospitals that will undoubtedly be overburdened if this gets worse. The fact that we're looking at a shortage of ventilators and not acting immediately, what do we do? Like, we get to a situation where you're literally choosing who lives and dies. That's horrifying. We should be prepared for this. We should be able to deal with this. But the fact that we're not and the fact that it's so bad in Italy and it could be worse here, that's really scary and it's something that we have to deal with. And as much as we can, we have to try to stay home, self-quarantine. But I just want people to understand, like I'm not doing this video to scare people. I want you to realize that we have to do everything in our power to make sure that it doesn't get to the point that it is in Italy. And a lot of us, that's not in our control, right? This is something that the government and government, state governments, local governments have to do. They have to take action. But if it gets to a point where it's like Italy, it's gonna be worse for us than it is in Italy because of the way our system is built. So just pace yourselves. We don't know how long this is going to last, but whatever you can do to protect yourself, do it. So it seems like because of COVID-19, a lot of people are being more introspective than usual. They're thinking outside the box and they're really reassessing what is and isn't actually practical. And in times like this, where we're facing a global pandemic, people are realizing that government intervention is necessary. We need leadership. We need to be able to arm ourselves with the capability to deal with these types of issues. And it goes beyond COVID-19. But what I think that people need to do, just generally speaking, is try to think bigger than what we usually think through in times like this. Like a lot of people are looking at what's practical, what do we need, and obviously it's healthcare, right? We need people to have access to tests. It needs to be free if they have COVID-19. Obviously the treatment should be free, but it shouldn't just be free for that because there are other illnesses that people deal with and it shouldn't take a global crisis to make us acknowledge the necessity of healthcare in this country. It shouldn't just be a global pandemic to where we realize maybe there is a need for healthcare for everyone. And part of me is cynical because elites wanna make sure that the working class don't have COVID-19 because this is a disease that doesn't discriminate. So if poor people get it, rich people are gonna get it too. But we have to expand our thinking even further than that. When we're faced with a global pandemic, this is something that's unique to a lot of us. We haven't dealt with this. We have no experience and the most that we've seen, our only introduction to global pandemics is from the movies, if you've watched Contagion. So we don't know what we're dealing with. And this is also going to lead to an increase in mental health crises as well. People may watch the news and feel anxiety and if they have panic disorder already, feel like they're more nervous than usual if you have obsessive compulsive disorder. This will certainly exacerbate that. So we have to make sure that we think not just about our physical wellbeing but the mental wellbeing and the toll that this takes on people at a time where they're self quarantining and we have to look out for individuals with depression, who may be susceptible to self harm. We have to think outside the box. And I think that we've kind of just been conditioned in the United States and this ruthless capitalist system to look out for ourselves and just think about the immediate need of things and what we do and don't need. But these things are also really important. These things are really important. And if you have a mental health crisis, then what do you do during a self quarantine? What do you do? I mean, a lot of people in this country, they can't afford to just go see a therapist. It's costly. And even if we set up a system to where you can call a therapist via Skype and have them prescribe you medication. One, we don't have that in place. But two, how would you do that if you can't afford it? And a lot of people, if you have a crisis, if you have a breakdown, you show up at the ER if you don't have insurance. That's your primary care physician. If you're poor and you don't have insurance, but then you may be causing more harm to yourself because you're exposing yourself to illnesses, potentially COVID-19 at the ER facility. So there's a lot of issues. And I want people to think through the cascading effects of these types of global pandemics. And I want you to apply this thinking not just to COVID-19, but to every single issue, to healthcare. Like if you have a healthcare crisis, what is that going to do for someone psychologically, student loan debt? How does that affect people's mental health, depression, whatnot? And not only that, how does that affect their loved ones? If you're dealing with someone who is facing mental health crises and they can't get help for it. Like these are times when we have to really expand our range of thinking and not just think about the direct consequences of issues, but indirect consequences of issues as well. And this goes beyond mental health. Like there's countless examples. What do you do if you're an elderly person, you live by yourself and you have no relatives around you to look out for you and you're kind of on your own. You drive yourself to the grocery store. You pick up your own medications. Like my family knew someone like this. We lived by a lady like this before she died who had no one until we came along. And where that family that looked out for her kind of adopted her. So like what do you do if you don't have anyone? Who's going to pick up the groceries for elderly people who have to self-quarantine? Who is going to babysit the children who are home from school if you still have to go to work? Maybe you're lucky enough to where your job allows you to work from home while you self-quarantine. But you still, if you have like a two month old who's crying and you're working, what do you do in that situation? Like I have great nephews who are very young and they're loud. So you still need someone to tend to them. Like we've just become so accustomed to kind of just like let people deal with things on their own to where when we have these types of crises, like it's not just the crisis itself. It's the ripple effect, the crisis, the crises that are created by the main crisis that we have to think about. And I'm really, it feels good to see people think about the policies that we need in terms of UBI. Like it's astonishing to see Mitt Romney propose UBI which I'm cautious of because that can be a right wing policy that hurts us if not implemented the correct way. But I mean people are clearly thinking outside the box but at this time I want everyone to try to use this opportunity to think deeper about the way that policies impact people. And the reason why we haven't been thinking about policies and the real concrete impact that crises have on people and how policies can address them is because we live in a ruthlessly capitalistic system to where every aspect of our lives has been economized. We're not thinking about the real human impact on people. We're thinking about the market impact, right? We're not thinking about how X affects humans or Y affects humans. We're thinking about how this will impact the stock market. Human beings are just cogs in a machine. And I really, I want to influence people no matter what your political ideology is to really think deeply about how precious human life is. I don't care if you're a conservative or a liberal or a socialist. Like this should be something that is apolitical. Everyone should acknowledge the tremendous value in human life. And it shouldn't just take a global pandemic for us to realize how important human life is and not just making sure people are alive but that they can thrive. Making sure that during these times of crisis people aren't left wondering, what am I gonna do? Who's gonna be there for me? So I mean, this has kind of gotten me thinking deeper about this just because it's personal. Like for me, I told everyone my father passed away less than two weeks ago. And we've been, my family has been basically rushing to plan the memorial service for my dad but we had to cancel it due to COVID-19 in Oregon. Our governor issued an executive order rightfully so that, you know, bands events with more than 25 people because what else do you do? You have to have social distancing. But, you know, for people in my family who are taking this really, really bad, you know, for example, my brother, one of my sisters, like, what do you do in this situation for them? They can't really go to a doctor because they don't wanna expose themselves to other illnesses. The memorial service is, you know, that was going to be like a way that all of us can feel a little bit of closure, but now that's gone. So, you know, it's not just that COVID is going to cause these types of issues for people. People already were dealing with things. Imagine if you already had cancer or you're on dialysis and now you look at COVID and you're worried about catching that. Like, some people can't stay home. As much as you say, stay home, everyone should stay home as much as they can. Like, my dad, before he died, he was on dialysis for 15 years and he can't stay home. You know, in that situation, if you stay home from dialysis, like, you die. It's just a matter of time to where your body basically poisoned itself because you need that machine to act, you know, to be your kidney. So there are people who are already vulnerable and this just makes them more vulnerable, right? So we have to think deep and, you know, comprehensively about the way that the crisis causes other crises and how it exacerbates issues that people already have. And I just like the main takeaway to kind of like wrap this all into one little bow and give you a nice little package to take away is that human beings have a lot of needs and it's not just that we should make sure that those basic needs for human life are met, healthcare, you know, food, but they should be able to thrive, you know, outside of this global pandemic when it goes away. Why are we working five to six days a week? Human life is too precious to dedicate the majority of our time to work. Why are we burdening people with student loan debt that they will never pay off? It's these are things that you have to think about. These are things that you have to think about. And, you know, you don't have to agree with me about democratic socialism. You don't have to become an anti-capitalist. I just want you to think in terms of human need and really stop allowing the system to force you to believe that everyone is on their own because we live in an interconnected globalistic society to where, you know, a lot of these things are going to impact all of us. It's not just gonna be that that poor person down the street is going to struggle and starve. That person's crisis will impact all of us in a way because maybe that person works at the grocery store. We need groceries. Maybe that person is a healthcare professional. We all rely on each other. And this is why we have to turn away from this, you know, morally reprehensible yo-yo philosophy. You're on your own and embrace wit, which is we're in this together. That's what I want people to really think about. And even though right now we're literally like distancing ourselves, we are at the end of the day in this together. And I just want people to think about why we need policies that reflect that philosophy, that, you know, of togetherness and just looking out for one another. And that's it. Maybe I'm rambling. You know, maybe I'm not making much sense, but I just think that, you know, we need to turn away from this economized version of human life and actually acknowledge that there's more. That's more important than just money and capital and the economy. Surviving, not just surviving, but thriving is, that's important because we're all human beings. At the end of the day, we all wanna have good lives. So we have to make sure that we fight to deliver that to everyone. Well, tonight was Super Tuesday 3 and the results are not good. It was a clean sweep for Joe Biden. Three states voted, Florida, Arizona and Illinois and Joe Biden won all three handily. In the state of Florida, with 98% of precincts reporting, Joe Biden won with 61, almost 62% of the vote overall. And Bernie Sanders got just under 23%. When it comes to Illinois, Joe Biden won with 59% of the vote. Bernie got 36%. And in the state of Arizona, it was called almost immediately for Joe Biden once the polls closed. He is with 56% of precincts reporting at the time I record this video winning with 42.6% to Bernie's 30.2%. By the time you see this, we'll likely have 90 to 100% of precincts reporting but I don't really expect Joe Biden's lead to shrink. Now going into Super Tuesday 3, there were a couple of things that we were looking at with hopes that that would maybe shift the dynamic of this race because this has been an incredibly volatile primary process. The first failed. So that was the Democratic debate on Sunday. Joe Biden was able to keep it together long enough for two hours to at least seem as if he's not in complete cognitive decline even though he showed that at previous debates but he held his own. And I don't think Bernie was aggressive enough. I think that at the end of the day, it wasn't enough to move the needle. So the second thing that could have possibly changed the dynamics of this race was the global pandemic that we're all facing. At every single state so far where the vote took place, exit polls showed that people support Medicare for all regardless if they were voting for Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders. So you'd think that given how important healthcare is especially now people would maybe wake up and opt for Bernie Sanders and not vote against their own self interest. That wasn't the case. They still voted for Joe Biden. And before I start to talk about what we need to start thinking about going forward I do wanna get to some additional numbers because once again Medicare for all was a winner. In Illinois, 59% of voters supported. In Florida, 55% of voters supported. In Arizona, 58% of voters supported. So far in every single state Medicare for all is winning by large margins but yet people are still voting for the candidate who is openly hostile towards it and said he would veto it. So it's completely nonsensical and people are now knowingly voting against their own self interest but they're clearly making this decision out of what they believe to be necessity. They think Joe Biden can beat Donald Trump. That's why they're opting for him over Bernie Sanders. Now one poll that I found absolutely nonsensical is this exit poll from Florida where it shows that when it comes to who voters trust to handle social security Joe Biden is winning this with 59%. So it really doesn't matter that there are numerous videotapes of Joe Biden saying he wants to cut social security. Voters in Florida still think he's the best to handle social security. Incredible. Now one thing that I find interesting is that Bernie Sanders over the last month has been beaten over the head with this attack because he apparently praised Cuban dictator Fidel Castro even though he just praised their education and healthcare system and they claimed that this would hurt him among Cuban Americans but he actually won over Cuban Americans by a percentage point over Joe Biden and I just found that kind of funny. So what's happening now is the same thing basically that happened in 2004. You had a Democratic Party base that was so anxious, so terrified at the prospect of the Republican incumbent being reelected that they just voted for the first person who seemed to have momentum and Bernie had the momentum at first but having Obama pull the strings behind the scenes to get everyone else to drop out and endorse Joe Biden that really made a substantial difference. You know, everyone, the voters who were backing Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and also Elizabeth Warren seemed to opt for Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders and here we are. Now as the results come in, dropout Bernie is trending on Twitter. So it's funny because all of these people are very giddy. They're kind of dancing on Bernie Sanders' political grave so to speak but have fun beating Donald Trump without Bernie Sanders supporters because now is the time for unity as you all like to say and you're getting what you wanted, you're winning. So what you have to do now is try to convince people who are not going to be voting for Joe Biden who are going to stay home to get on your team and gloating like this is not a good idea you should be reaching out, saying, look, we'll work towards Medicare for all in the future doing anything, right? Because you saw what happened when you ran a centrist back in 2016, a centrist lost to Donald Trump. Now the economy is crashing, stock market is falling, we're facing a global pandemic so if that doesn't change, Donald Trump could very well be defeated by Joe Biden and I want to think through the consequences of that and what we should do as a left movement going forward but I don't just want to be 100% down, there are two pieces of really good news. The first is that Marine Newman defeated Dan Lipinski in Illinois, she ran before but she lost and now she beat him. He is an anti-choice, anti-gay, conservative Democrat that the establishment supported over her who's a justice Democrat and she just beat him. That is phenomenal news. I don't know how good of a progressive she's going to be. Maybe she'll be an AOC, maybe she'll be an IANA Presley, a more warrant type Democrat. Don't know but I do know that that is a drastic improvement over basically a Republican in Dan Lipinski. Now I don't know if Anthony Clark won his primary so we're waiting on that but overall let's kind of talk through the implications of this and what the left should do going forward. There's a lot of people talking about leaving the Democratic Party and I intend to do that. I had to re-register as a Democrat in 2019 after dem exiting in 2016 because I live in a closed primary state so I can't vote for Bernie Sanders in Oregon if I don't register as a Democrat. However, after I cast my vote for Bernie I will promptly re-register as an independent because I don't identify with the Democratic Party. So there are people talking about dem exit. There are people talking about Biden possibly picking a progressive VP to woo Bernie Sanders supporters. I don't think he's going to do that because it's Joe Biden. So I feel like that's almost out of the question. We have people floating the idea of creating a third party and I think that that's something that we always should have had on the table. I was in support of the draft Bernie movement back in 2017 and 2018 I believe created by Nick Branham but with that being said I want people to think pragmatically for lack of a better word about having a third party because if you're going to have a third party you don't want it to just eat away votes from the Democratic Party. I mean, certainly that's important for having leverage but I want a third party that can win and I don't just want like a third party I want five to six parties. I think that's a pretty good number to really represent the range of ideologies in the United States. And the way that you do that is very simply you call on your representatives to support HR 4000 which changes us from winner take all to proportional representation it increases the district magnitude from one to two or three which means rather than us just having one representative we have two to three which means that the results will be more proportional because if you have two people going up against each other corporate Democrat and a progressive for example maybe they both get elected to Congress so that increases automatically the number of progressives in Congress that's important. On top of that it institutes nationwide ranked choice voting that's something that absolutely is crucial if we want a viable third party and we do we want green party members in Congress we want socialists in Congress and in Maine you see a very competitive race with a progressive Democrat there's a corporate Democrat but also a green party member so ranked choice voting would do wonders and even if it doesn't get passed through legislation like HR 4000 ranked choice voting is something that at the state level you can try to get on the ballot, right? Have a vote on it the statewide referendum if that's available in your state as an option it's tough you have to collect signatures put in the work but it is something that I think is warranted but certainly don't do that during self quarantine of course but the thing about having a third party or a fourth party is that it may solve some of our issues but I want people to really think broader because our system is a very very ruthless and vicious capitalist system so we might be temporarily satisfied with a viable third party alternative but capitalism is like a virus so it eventually will destroy that third party and make it a corporate party as well so you really have to be fighting to reduce the influence of capitalism as much as you possibly can and that's so hard to achieve when we don't have political power so like we have to focus on electoral politics but really I think that the thing that gives me hope is not just this hyper focus on electoral politics not the prospect of a third party and attacking capitalism head on and trying to teach people about how capitalism is impacting their lives in a very negative way I think that we need to really harness the power of grassroots organizing and I think that that's really the only way that we can influence electoral politics until we get power because we can't just keep waiting every four or two years to have elections and then we do nothing we need to have action that is taken immediately because we don't have much time left to act on climate change thousands of people die every single year because they don't have healthcare so I wanna see like a nationwide mobilized effort like Occupy like we can't just wait for elections we have to demand now regardless of who's president regardless of the makeup of Congress action we need a really simple message you know a student at cancellation Medicare for all, a Green New Deal something that is going to be clear, concise and communicated to people it's based off of popular policy positions the thing about Occupy is that it was difficult to get it to last because there was no leadership and movements need leaders that's I think you know an unfortunate fact of reality but on top of that the media it smeared Occupy because it claimed that it didn't have any underlying goals so we need to be clear and have underlying goals but we do have to expect the media to be equally hostile to whatever movement emerges out of this if that is in fact something that happens but we have to take on the media as well protest the media like you've gotta understand that at every single town hall we should be occupying these town halls protesting these town halls demanding Medicare for all if we need to we should have a general strike to get the policies that we need to help working class Americans like we don't have time to wait for you know the next four to eight years to try to get someone who's progressive that may lose in a democratic primary or maybe a fake progressive like Barack Obama we don't have time to try to build up some type of new organization like we need action right now it can't wait so that's why I think all this grassroots power that was you know that manifested in 2016 and I think reemerged or at least came back together in 2019 and 2020 that needs to be harnessed in a new way to just put constant pressure on both Democrats and Republicans and never stop organizing getting people out to vote you know these are just things that I'm kind of throwing out there right but I think that one thing that's clear is regardless of what happens you know you shouldn't give up you shouldn't give up and trust me I know how easy it is to want to give up there are times where I feel like I don't want to get out of bed in the morning it's difficult to not be blackpilled you know because the system just beats you down and it just feels like every single thing we do is hopeless like trying to spread the word about Joe Biden's record on social security and Floridian's think that he's better to deal with social security so it's just it's so frustrating and I feel your pain I feel you I live it with you right I get it and on top of that I'm dealing with my own issues currently you know besides the selection we're all dealing with COVID-19 so I get how easy it is and how desirable it seems to just check out of politics but you have to keep fighting and I don't necessarily know how to fight going forward to be honest I don't know what that entails I think some type of organization would really be important some type of movement you know a wide massive movement that is a rainbow coalition you know that is of all working class people of all colors and you know origins I think that's important I don't know how we get there I don't know who organizes it there's a lot of things that we have to do but on top of that I also think that this is a time of introspection I think that we have to try to figure out what we did wrong in this election cycle maybe the amount of things that we can control because again there's things that are out of our control the media is always going to hit us so that's something that we can't control maybe we need a better media strategy though but the things that we could control what could we do better did Bernie Sanders campaign do enough to reach out to older black voters that's where he was lacking that this was something that his campaign needed to address back in 2016 I don't think that in 2016 he did enough and in 2020 clearly he didn't do enough because he didn't win them over so there's a lot of things that we have to think about what did we do wrong because I don't think we're perfect you're never going to run a perfect campaign we're never going to be a perfect movement so it's not going to be helpful for us to just say well we got beat by the establishment that's true but we also have to try to figure out what we could do differently and I don't want you to base it off of what the mainstream media says oh we were too aggressive Bernie Bros that's not like we have to be realistic about what actually we could control no matter what we would be labeled Bernie Bros I think that's out of our control no matter what the media is going to paint Bernie Sanders movement as disproportionately white straight males so there are things that we have to do better in the future and I don't know when the next progressive champion is going to come along you know the problem and I heard Jamie of Majority Report and the Michael Brooks show made this fantastic point that left-wing movements around the world they have an issue with succession like they have leaders but these leaders oftentimes are older and there's nobody else really that can take their place like after Bernie who's the next progressive champion AOC is very young I don't think she's going to want to run I don't know that she you know is going to be able to do what Bernie Sanders did you know she has to work on foreign policy um so who's next is it Elizabeth Warren hell no she is a clown she revealed herself so we have to think about succession we have to think about our next steps going forward but one thing that I just want to stress overall is that you stay engaged in the process and you don't check out of politics as difficult um as it may seem um if you check out then um all hope is gone and so long as there are people willing to fight then I think that there's something to be hopeful for because we have made some huge gains I mean it sucks that we're not getting a nominee who supports Medicare for All but the fact that we convinced everyone in four years to support Medicare for All that really is important you know because it shows that we have been effective at messaging so we just have to figure out what to do differently and I'm not um I'm not suggesting that Bernie should drop out I have a separate video coming tomorrow where I talk about why he should drop out where I talk about why he shouldn't drop out because he has to stay in the race for very specific reasons he has leverage and political capital and he needs to spend that wisely but I just think that you know it's very obvious I'm not gonna sugarcoat it Bernie can't really win at this point unless something giant happens that is completely unforeseen we're on a trajectory to where Joe Biden is basically going to be the nominee and the Democratic voting base just wants to coordinate someone who can beat Donald Trump in their view can he beat Donald Trump? Generally speaking no but if there's like a huge recession not good for the sitting president so Joe Biden might just have the luckiest timing ever right where you're running against an incumbent and a demoralized and fearful Democratic base and there's this huge crash now the scary part with the economy by the way now the scary part about this is that Joe Biden is not fit to deal with this economic downturn he's not fit to deal with a global pandemic is he better than Donald Trump? Yes and certainly if he's the nominee I'll be rooting against Donald Trump but I won't be rooting for Joe Biden I hope he beats Donald Trump but I mean if he beats Donald Trump we may be better off for four years but long term we're not gonna be better off right? He takes control of the Democratic party apparatus you know once again centrists are in control and it doesn't matter if he is the nominee and then loses to Donald Trump centrists will still say a centrist is the most electable the media will still push that so you know I don't know what we do as a movement going forward but the one thing that I do want people to take away is that you can't give up as long as you're still willing to fight in some way no matter what that way is maybe we don't know yet maybe it's not clear right away but so long as you are committed to fight then there is still hope but once we say we're not gonna fight once we say we're giving up once we say we're all black peeled then the hope diminishes so I'll leave you with that because this is, this sucks and I think that you should take some time to you know give yourself a little bit of a break animal crossings coming out on Friday play that just you know distract yourself if you need to because we have so much on our plates the deck is stacked against us and I get how easy it is to be demoralized and part of me wants to give up a big part of me wants to give up but I know in the back of my mind that that's something that I can't do we don't have a choice we don't have a choice we have to continue to fight for what's right in whatever capacity going forward that gets us change and maybe we keep losing but as long as we keep fighting then that's just that's something that holds us all together and makes us stronger so look it sucks I get it it absolutely is depressing I know that a lot of you are feeling this but you're not alone we're all experiencing the disappointment together we're all feeling incredibly demoralized I mean I'm grieving Bernie Sanders campaign and my dad at the same time he just passed away two weeks ago as of today so times are tough you know we can't leave our houses because of self quarantine it's so easy to give up right now but just if there's any fight left in you at all even just the tiniest spit 0.01% hang on to that hang on to that little fight I don't care what it is what how which way you want to fight just hang on to it because that's the only thing that we have going for us going forward and I'll leave that there just hang in there that's all I can say so yesterday more states voted on Super Tuesday 3 and I'm sure that by now you all want to move on from that but I just want to take a moment to really just talk about how the DNC and state democratic parties put people's lives at risk now thankfully Ohio chose to postpone its primary I think they made the correct decision but nonetheless three states still went ahead with their democratic party primaries Florida, Arizona and Illinois and at a time where the CDC is telling us to avoid large crowds and to self quarantine and you know practice social distancing the fact that this would still go on it's it's deeply problematic I would even argue that it's undemocratic because even if the right to vote is sacred and postponing any election in and of itself it makes me feel uneasy think about the impact that this has on democracy like maybe you want to vote but you're choosing to be responsible and not leave your home so you don't vote imagine if you did choose to brave it and vote anyway and then if you're immunocompromised or you know you are exposed to COVID since this is asymptomatic you could expose others who are vulnerable the elderly and make more people sick like how many people is this going to endanger by going ahead with these primaries that could have easily been postponed right we don't know how long maybe four weeks maybe eight weeks but we just know that currently to contain the spread of COVID-19 social distancing is of the utmost necessity if you don't have to go out you shouldn't and we should have these state democratic parties and the DNC all trying to follow these guidelines but that didn't happen the opposite happened look at this tweet from James Packard he shared this video of a line of people waiting to vote in Chicago, Illinois and it obviously had more than 200 people they weren't standing far enough from each other and this is at a time when they're being told to avoid crowds with more than 10 people Apshir Omar shared this video of people waiting to vote at the Thurgood Marshall Public Library and they're waiting around two hours to vote this is mostly elderly people and then he also shared this photo of people waiting to vote in a poorly ventilated basement at Gage Park and he pointed out that the line here you know you're waiting a little more than an hour but people are just choosing to go home because they just don't want to risk it they feel uneasy being in public when we are being told to stay indoors and then you have this tweet from Adam E. Ross who I think very reasonably was scared he says I'm so effing scared to vote tomorrow that I'm crying I don't want to get coronavirus I don't want to die and then he says update it's 6 a.m. I'm in line I'm scared shitless I'm doing this for Bernie I'm doing this for me I'm doing this for you so I mean people shouldn't have to make this decision I get not wanting to postpone primaries because democracy is sacred but at the same time you can't really have a democracy that is you know robust if people are afraid to vote because of a global pandemic where every single country in the world is trying to deal with this and contain it now you'd think that the DNC the DNC chairman in particular Tom Perez would be doing everything in his power to encourage states to adopt vote by mail and you know tell them to postpone this if they need to but he's not doing that and this is what he said on MSNBC in an interview with Chris Hayes this was just completely irresponsible Is your view that this can be safely conducted tomorrow who are you been consulting to come to that view? Well again we didn't intervene in that case No I know this is a state matter but I'm asking your position as Tom Perez the head in DNC my understanding is you're saying you agree with the states that are going forward Yes we respect what they're doing and we always encourage everyone and I was in contact today with people in a number of these states including but not limited to Arizona and again asking them if they do they believe they have the systems in place that enable them to put the elections on tomorrow and they do and Republican and Democratic governors have made that judgment that they can do that I don't think it's for me to second guess those judgments Chris and so I respect that So in other words ignore what the CDC is saying ignore the necessity of social distancing you know these state party leaders and governors they think that the primaries can still go on as planned so I'm gonna trust them except you are in a position of leadership and you are complicit now in endangering their lives how much of this virus will spread specifically because of these primaries that are taking place will people die because of this I mean these are serious implications like we should be talking about this so currently what Tom Perez should be doing if I'm the DNC chair if I'm in a position of power as I'm saying listen every single state should postpone their primary for at least four weeks and meanwhile we are going to be rolling out a vote by mail system we're going to be helping these states have the capacity and the resources that they need to actually carry out a competent vote by mail system because this is just too serious and we don't want to take any chances but that's not what's happening in fact the DNC is actively encouraging states to not postpone their primaries I mean look at this headline here from the Hill DNC calls on states not to postpone primaries and on top of that as the Guardian reports states delaying primaries past June 9th may face delegate penalty warns DNC memo Democratic National Committee reacts to Ohio Postponent with memo that says party working with states on coronavirus measures so I mean this is criminal this is criminal and we'll get to the articles but how could you put people's lives at risk when you don't have to do that there's other options you can postpone it you can roll out vote by mail four to eight weeks is more than enough time to have a vote by mail system in place for these states who haven't yet voted we're not looking at all 50 states you know and the additional territories like you have a limited amount of states that haven't voted you have states like Oregon that already have vote by mail so you don't have to worry about that why are you doing this it's just it's unbelievable to me now getting to that article from the Hill as Jonathan easily reports in a statement DNC chairman Tom Perez said that states should begin mailing ballots to all registered voters and to implement no excuse absentee voting which allows voters to drop their ballots off at pre-approved sites in addition Perez said that polling places should expand their hours and days of service to reduce lines and crowds the DNC chairman said that postponing elections as several states have done is not the right answer states that have not yet held primary elections should focus on implementing the aforementioned measures to make it easier and safer for voters to exercise their constitutional right to vote instead of moving primaries to later in the cycle when timing around the virus remains unpredictable Perez said the right to vote is the foundation of our democracy and we must do everything we can to protect and expand that right instead of bringing our democratic process to a halt he added now him encouraging vote by mail is important but the message here isn't unequivocal he's saying if you can't roll out vote by mail then there are other measures that you should be taking you can extend polling hours to make sure that the lines aren't as long and there's you know less people in closed quarters except you should have been doing that anyway like why does it take a global pandemic for you to want to reduce the size of lines that should be something that you're already doing having nationwide vote by mail is something the DNC could have been encouraging under your leadership I get that states ultimately are in control but you can be using the tools and resources that you have as DNC chairman to encourage these things but the fact that you're encouraging them to not move these primaries back just a little bit to see what's going to happen it is deeply, deeply irresponsible and the DNC sent out a memo basically saying look if you choose to postpone your primaries there's a cutoff date to where we are going to penalize you if you do in fact do that three states will hold primaries on Tuesday they already voted by the time you see this video fourth Ohio postponed its vote on Monday due to COVID-19 and its drastic effect on public life Louisiana, Kentucky, Georgia and Maryland have also postponed their votes as in virtually every part of US society election officials at every level have been discussing ways to safely administer elections without spreading the coronavirus the new DNC memo obtained by the Guardian was sent to members of the Rules and Bylaws Committee on Wednesday night we are working with state parties that need to make adjustments as needed to their delegate selection process so they can continue without major interruptions wrote James Roosevelt and Lorraine Miller the co-chairs of the Rules and Bylaws Committee in the memo the regulations allow technical changes to be approved by the co-chairs number of states have taken dramatic steps to prevent spreading the coronavirus late on Monday night Ohio's governor Mike DeWine announced that his administration would order polling stations closed because of the health emergency several states have taken steps to change the date of their first determining step the DNC memo said it continued the delegate selection rules provide that each state's first determining step must take place by 9 June if a state violates the rule on timing or any other rule they could be subject to penalties as described in rule 21 including at least a 50% reduction in delegates which will need to be reviewed by the RBC that's the Rules and Bylaws Committee the deadline to elect convention participants is the 20th of June so state parties should have plenty of time to elect their delegates alternates and standing committee members now June is quite a ways away so states by then absolutely should figure out some way to carry out vote by mail right that's more than enough time if you can't do that then what are you doing but I mean the message from the DNC isn't one of hey we're here to help you out use our resources use us for information and planning they're saying get it done or we're gonna penalize you and possibly strip 50% of your delegates away this is just insanity I don't know how else to describe this it's insanity it is insanity what is Tom Perez and the DNC doing on one hand he's saying well look we care about this disease and you know we do wanna practice social distancing and we would like vote by mail but on the other hand if you can't get it done we're gonna screw you over rather than trying to assist them you're trying to flex and intimidate them into not postponing the primaries now the question is why are they being so irresponsible I mean at first you'd think it's because they wanna hurry up get the primaries over with because they wanna protect Joe Biden if you extend it that opens the door to a momentum shift and Bernie Sanders regaining ground but at the same time I mean is that really going to happen how likely is that so I don't even know what their reasoning is if they're that paranoid then they're kind of being unreasonable but I mean there's really there's no excuse for what they're doing look I get that the right to vote is sacred I truly believe that but you can't really have a true democracy if people are afraid to come out and vote because they don't wanna be exposed to something that could kill them so either way democracy is being jeopardized here if you go on with these primaries as planned then you are discouraging people from voting because they are being responsible and they don't wanna expose themselves and their loved ones to COVID-19 but if you postpone it sure that's problematic but it's not like they're going to be canceled altogether so I just I don't know what to say it's just it's it's brainless it's irresponsible it's borderline criminal now thankfully someone who agrees with me here said this exact same thing albeit on a much larger platform so this is what Alexander Rojas said on CNN unprecedented measures and so even if it's just one vote or a few votes right it matters the fact that we are it feels like we were kind of talking about how young people were crowding bars and going into public places just a few days ago yet we're pushing forward on primaries when you're saying you shouldn't have voted I think that Ohio made the right call they prioritize the health and well-being of their citizenry and I think that if the question right now is if we gather in more than groups of 10 which those lines I think anecdotally I did not see people standing six feet apart that's really frightening especially when it comes to the older population the younger population where could easily spread it and so as a young person seeing this in the midst of a pandemic a potential another recession within my lifetime it feels very frightening in this moment and I hope that democratic leadership follows good work and she is absolutely right to force people to choose between exercising their right to vote and remaining safe self-quarantining because it's something that we have to do given the gravity of the situation that we're in it's just it's truly inconceivable to me that this is what the DNC is doing at a time where we should all be trying to protect one another Tom Perez is basically trying to bully states into having their primaries now you know Super Tuesday 3 is done Georgia postpone their primaries I don't know what's going to happen with the Puerto Rico primary but there's no more primaries I believe until April so for now hopefully we can practice social distancing but just the thought of how many more people were exposed the fact that not postponing the vote may have exposed more people it's just it's so irresponsible and Tom Perez should be ashamed of himself but I say that all the time and he has no shame so he absolutely won't but regardless if anyone gets sick or dies the blood is on his hands because he chose to go about it in this way for whatever reason maybe it's politically expedient maybe he's just ignorant but regardless you know the blood is on his hands if people die so by the time most of you see this Super Tuesday 3 will be over but before anyone even cast their vote there were already Democratic Party super fans basically declaring the race all but over now look admittedly the numbers didn't look good for Bernie Sanders going into Super Tuesday 3 with that being said you know they don't want the process to play out because they want to hurry up and finish it coronate Joe Biden and just allow him to be the nominee and they want us to back down so this is what they're saying and this is my response and basically my response is what I think Bernie Sanders should say to what will become increasing calls for him to drop out so Bakari Sellers tweeted after tonight with no path to secure the nomination Bernie Sanders should drop out we should proceed to the mission at hand beating Trump we don't have time to waste getting beat by 10 points plus I'm being generous and getting swept isn't a path to winning anything Jennifer Rubin tweeted out Sanders by remaining in the race will prevent Biden from assuming control of the DNC planning for virtual convention and shifting to an unwieldy general election he needs to exit today period now supposedly Jennifer Rubin is a conservative but she's really concerned with what's going on in the Democratic Party primary now also just ask yourself this if the shoe were on the other foot would they all be telling Joe Biden to drop out if Bernie Sanders were in this position we'll know because after Nevada when it seemed as if he would secure a plurality of pledged delegates they were all talking about the prospect of stealing the nomination away from Bernie Sanders at the convention everyone in the race including Elizabeth Warren said they were gonna stay in rack up as much delegates as they possibly could and make their case to the superdelegates at the convention so there was no talk of letting us focus on the real mission at hand defeating Donald Trump they're only saying that now because the guy who they like is winning these are political hacks now after Super Tuesday 3 we will all see this become more common more and more Democratic Party loyalists and establishment hacks and news pundits are going to call on him to drop out and I'll admit his path to the nomination is diminishing very rapidly it sucks to say that but it's true he's not mathematically eliminated but it's getting to a point where it's very clear that the Democratic Party's base is just coalescing around Joe Biden because they believe the propaganda about him being more electable in spite of the fact that they agree with Bernie Sanders policies more but regardless it seems like Bernie Sanders is not going to win based on the trajectory that we're on so if I'm Bernie Sanders and I hear these calls what do I do? I refuse to drop out I commit to stay in to the convention at a minimum but possibly beyond because here's the thing they would never give Bernie Sanders this luxury if he were the presumptive nominee Joe Biden said he would contest the convention if Bernie Sanders didn't get a majority of Pledge delegates and here we are in a situation where Joe Biden has not even secured a majority of Pledge delegates and there's already loud calls for Bernie Sanders to drop out so if I'm Bernie Sanders I'm saying absolutely not I will not drop out and I'll stay in all the way until November if I have to because guess what? We're all dealing with the severity of COVID-19 and we're responding I think in a way that it recognizes the gravity of this situation but there's another crisis that Joe Biden is refusing to address. Medicare for all. A Yale study just confirmed that 68,000 people die every single year due to a lack of health insurance and that estimate is conservative because when you account for people who are underinsured the number is probably far higher so if I'm Bernie Sanders I'm saying look you want me to drop out? I'll drop out but I need a firm commitment both in video form and in writing that Joe Biden will introduce or tell Congress to introduce legislation that is my Medicare for all bill. If he does that, then I'll drop out and if he doesn't commit to that then guess what? This is a crisis that so far at this point in time is worse than COVID-19. We have 68,000 Americans dying every single year due to a lack of health insurance so I can't drop out right now because we need a president who is going to treat this crisis with the seriousness that it warrants and Joe Biden isn't going to do that so it looks like I'm gonna have to stay in and run independent against Joe Biden and Donald Trump because we can't not have a president who takes this issue seriously so if I've gotta stay in all the way until November then so be it because for Joe Biden to assume the role as Democratic Party nominee and say he vetoed Medicare for all, that's unacceptable so if he doesn't commit to Medicare for all, I drop out. Now, there's a couple of caveats here. First of all, Joe Biden even if he committed to Medicare for all that in and of itself isn't going to guarantee that we get Medicare for all. Of course, I wouldn't even believe him. He'd just be doing it because it's politically expedient in that situation but the goal is to get him to not veto it at a minimum, right? At least sign it into law if Bernie Sanders using his influence in the Senate can somehow get it passed and this is a long shot but at the same time we have to move the Overton window. We have to move the needle. We have to make sure that Americans know what's at stake. People are dying. They may not know anyone who died because they don't have health insurance. No access to healthcare whatsoever but it could happen to them so people need to realize the gravity of this situation. Now, I know that Bernie Sanders would never ever threaten to run third party and he doesn't have to but he just has to make them think that he's willing to do that if Joe Biden doesn't concede on this one very important issue and this is why the Republican establishment back in 2015 and 2016 they couldn't actually successfully rig it against Donald Trump in the way that they wanted to because Donald Trump was playing hardball with them. He threatened to run independent. It's why they introduced that bogus loyalty pledge that they made him sign and then I think right after that he was saying, maybe I'll still run independent. It just depends. So Bernie has got to play hardball and I know that Bernie won't do this. He is too nice of a guy and he doesn't want to risk taking votes away from Joe Biden that would otherwise help defeat Donald Trump and I get that. I empathize with that situation. He doesn't have to actually run third party but he has to play hardball and really use the leverage that he has now. That's the thing that's so irritating like Bakari Sellers and Jennifer Rubin they're basically saying go away all the leverage that you have throw it in the garbage. Like, do you think that when Obama most likely made that call to people to judge and named McClobuchar and Beto O'Rourke to come out and endorse Joe Biden, they did it just out of the goodness of their hearts? No, they were expecting something. Now, I don't know what it is. Maybe it's a position in Joe Biden's cabinet. Maybe it's the promise to endorse people to judge if he wants to run for governor of Indiana. I don't know what it is but you don't give up your political leverage without getting something in return. So the fact that they would think Bernie would be stupid enough to do the same thing, these political hacks that is, it's just inconceivable to me. No, Bernie needs to stay in as long as possible because he has a lot of leverage. He has a gigantic movement that Joe Biden and Democrats know they need if they wanna win. And if you want to actually try to make a difference, get Joe Biden to concede. Do not drop out unless he firmly commits both on video and in writing to the American people that he will tell Congress to introduce Medicare for all and put it on his desk. If he doesn't do that, then you've gotta basically threaten to stay in the race indefinitely. Because I mean, we have a crisis where thousands of Americans die every single year. Every single year in this country, multiple 9-11s are happening. I mean, what was it like 3,000 people died on 9-11? 68,000 people are dying every single year according to this Yale study. Now you can basically say that the methodology in that study is flawed. You can doubt it. It's a peer-reviewed study. But I mean, like even if we cut that number in half, 35,000 approximately, is that what you want to go on in this country? I think the American people don't want that to go on. Hence why at the exit polls, they're overwhelmingly siding with Medicare for all even in states where Joe Biden is winning. They just are prioritizing beating Donald Trump and the mainstream media told them that Joe Biden is more electable and they're listening. So you've got to use this leverage. And I really hope that Bernie Sanders resists these calls for him to drop out, take the leverage that he has gotten and utilize it to do good for the country. I think he will try to do that in whatever way. But I just know that he's not going to play hardball as much as he should. And that's really unfortunate because he has a lot of political power and political capital currently. And he could really use that to potentially at least, you know, shift the Overton window. I don't think he'd get any policy concessions that actually become codified into law, but to just move the rhetoric in the Democratic Party, use that leverage to get them to stop attacking Medicare for all. Use that leverage to at least get them to commit to supporting Medicare for all, even if we don't believe them. I think that's a step in the right direction. And I think that Bernie Sanders is at least going to try to use it, the leverage that he has that is in some way. So we'll just have to wait and find out. All right, folks. So I've got a little bit of a feel good story for you. And I know that some people might think, Mike, how is this a feel good story? Well, to me at least it's a feel good story because we've seen now for months, years if you've been paying close attention, how the media has been absolutely vicious and hostile towards Bernie Sanders and his movement. Bernie Sanders just went off on a reporter. And I love this. So as CNN's Manu Raju tweeted, Senator Bernie Sanders grew angry when asked about his campaign plans during a gaggle with reporters in the Capitol, I asked Sanders about his timeframe for making a decision and he lashed out, quote, I'm dealing with a fucking global crisis. You know, we're dealing with. I noted he's running for president and he said, quote, well, right now, right now I'm trying to do my best to make sure that we don't have an economic meltdown and that people don't die. Is that enough for you to keep me busy for today? The blow up occurred about halfway through a five minute gaggle where Sanders talked about the unprecedented crisis of our lifetime, calling for a range of measures that the US government should take in the midst of the economic crisis. Then Lisa Masquero asked what he's saying to his supporters and he sidestepped the question, noting he sent out a statement. Then I asked him about his timeframe and he was furious. Afterwards, he mellowed out and answered the questions about the crisis for about two more minutes. So finally, Bernie Sanders was rude to them. And I'm sorry, but you have to be. This is a global pandemic and you're worried about whether or not he will or won't drop out. Why does it matter at this time? The next primary isn't for what another three or four weeks, it doesn't matter at this time. It doesn't matter. Stop hounding him. You're speaking to an individual who was a United States Senator who has a tremendous amount of power to actually stop the spread of COVID-19. Why aren't you asking him right now about that? Why isn't that your utmost focus? Like there's so hyper focused on the horse race that they can't turn it off. Like they can't focus on anything but that. So I love that Bernie Sanders snapped at them. You have to go off on them from time to time because their priorities are completely out of whack. And that's why I think this is a feel good story because for months we've seen MSNBC CNN just speak with nothing but contempt towards Bernie Sanders and his supporters. And now it really doesn't matter. I mean, as his path towards the nomination diminishes, now it doesn't matter. He could be rude to reporters and not worry about how this is going to impact his campaign. It doesn't matter anymore. We are dealing with a global crisis and CNN just wants to make sure that he drops out so we can officially coordinate Joe Biden. I say, fuck you, Bernie should stay in and worry about the global pandemic because that is the only thing that matters right now. So just the fact that he went off and said, I'm dealing with a fucking global pandemic, I love this. And I will say that if Bernie Sanders was this Frank if you will with reporters from the get go, I think it would have increased his chances. Now CNN is trying to make a story out of this. Does anybody care? Does anybody care currently that CNN used the, that Bernie Sanders used the naughty word towards the CNN reporter? Does anybody really care? Is that of the utmost importance currently that a CNN reporter got his feelings hurt? I mean, this reading this tweet, it made me so happy. It honestly kind of made my day because I'm just, I'm so frustrated with the state of media in America. You know, I'm not going to, you know, denounce their coverage of COVID-19. I think that it's been acceptable but like in terms of just politics more broadly speaking, they've done nothing but push their own pro corporate agenda. And you know, now we don't have to play their game because the primary is winding down. We don't have to try to be nice to them. If you're a Bernie Sanders supporter, you no longer have to be on your best behavior for fear of the 15th Bernie row article this week being written and maybe featuring one of your tweets. No, we can just be ourselves. Not that we weren't already. I was certainly myself. I wasn't gonna self-censor, but I mean like it just, it doesn't matter. So Bernie Sanders needs to be, he needs to realize that he is in a position of power and influence and I think he does. Even if he doesn't become the Democratic Party nominee, he is a leader. He is a leader. And what he says matters. And I think that he needs to realize that people look to him and even if the media is going to smear him, it doesn't matter because he has enough people on his side to where we trust him and we know that he's looking out for us. So if you have to swat down a question and cuss out a CNN reporter from time to time, do it. Because now it doesn't matter. We're dealing with a global pandemic. All bets are off. Civility and respectability politics, that can all go in the garbage. We just have to make sure that we are focusing on the people. So if you have to force CNN to focus on what matters the most now at this very crucial time in human history and yelling at them gets them to pay attention to what matters, do it. At a time when all of humanity, every single human being, every single government around the world should be working together to end this global pandemic that is COVID-19, the United States, our government is choosing now to do the unthinkable. So as many of you know, we have sanctions imposed on Iran. And these sanctions are absolutely brutal. It is leading to people dying. We have sanctions on Venezuela, Iran. And at this time, the best course of action would be to halt those sanctions. Like if you still believe that the sanctions are something that you want to have in place, I vehemently disagree with you. I think that they are immoral, but for now at least have the humanity to pause the sanctions while we get COVID-19 under control. But the US government is doing the opposite. On Wednesday, the State Department announced new sanctions on Iran. I repeat, when the world is dealing with a global pandemic, the United States government announced new sanctions on Iran. As Reuters tweeted out, the United States imposed fresh sanctions on Iran, keeping up its economic pressure campaign, despite an earlier offer to help Tehran cope with the coronavirus pandemic. So think about how the sanctions were already impacting the people of Iran before a global pandemic. But now in the midst of a global pandemic, imagine how much worse off they'll be because of the sanctions and imagine how it's going to get even worse than it was previously because of this new round of sanctions. Like this is psychopathic behavior. You can't even really describe it. It's inconceivable that this is what they're choosing to do now. Give it a rest. I mean, we're at war with COVID-19. We're not at war with Iran or any other country even if the United States government continues to bomb Iraq, they're doing that currently. We're at war with COVID-19 and it doesn't discriminate based on countries that are at war with us or are our allies or enemies. This is something that the human species is dealing with. And this is what Trump's government is prioritizing. Now, as Julia Conley of Common Dreams reports, quote, how evil and heartless can this government get? Peace activists, Medea Benjamin asked Wednesday after the State Department announced it would impose new sanctions on Iran as the country faces one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world. The move by the U.S. government flew in the face of demands from advocacy groups and the Iranian government to suspend sanctions to ensure Iranians can access life-saving medication and supplies. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the U.S. will introduce fresh sanctions on nine entities and three individuals who the U.S. says provide the Iranian government with revenue in order to deprive the regime of critical income from its petrochemical industry and further Iran's economic and diplomatic isolation. The move follows rocket attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, which the Trump administration claims were linked to Iran-backed forces. Iran is one of the hardest-hit countries in the world by the coronavirus pandemic. More than 17,300 people had tested positive for the respiratory disease at press time and more than 1,100 have died. Under normal circumstances, U.S. sanctions on Iran, which were last strengthened last year, have kept people in the country from accessing medication as well as raising prices on food and rent. As Iran faces the coronavirus outbreak, however, the impacts of the sanctions have been heightened as Iran is left without sufficient testing kits, ventilators, antiviral medicine, and other life-saving supplies. The imposition of fresh sanctions as the country battles the outbreak amounts to the U.S., quote, literally weaponizing the coronavirus, said human rights lawyer Arjun Safi, a Salarad research fellow at the National Iranian American Council, said the new sanctions would make the U.S. complicit in the deaths of an untold number of Iranians while Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute accused the Trump administration of inhumanity. Now, it's not just that we are imposing sanctions on Iran and implementing even more sanctions on them, we already have sanctions on other countries, such as Venezuela, and this makes it more difficult for them to obtain critical medical supplies. Now, we make ourselves feel better by saying, you know, we're going to exempt any medical equipment and medical supplies, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's not going to make it more difficult for them to obtain the medical supplies that they need because it will indirectly impact the things that they need, such as medical supplies, medication. So what we're doing is we are killing people. These sanctions are killing people. And the fact that this is happening now, that the Trump administration would be cruel enough to not just refuse to ease the sanctions on Iran, but to double down and impose even more sanctions, it's just, it's unforgivable. It is unforgivable. And as Vijay Prashad and Paola Estrada wrote for Salon, the embargo against these countries in this time of COVID-19 is not only a war crime by the standards of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, but it is a crime against humanity as defined by the United Nations International Law Commission of 1947. And remember, this is our government that's doing this. This is a war crime. This is a crime against humanity. And it's just, it is morally reprehensible. Whenever our government says that we care about human rights, understand they don't mean that. And they're proving that they don't mean that now. And I genuinely hope that the media talks about this because to impose these sanctions now, it shows how ruthless and cruel the Trump administration is. And the US government generally speaking is, I can't believe why I shouldn't say I can't believe. I just, I can't imagine what would go through somebody's head to think that this was acceptable. Now, because Bernie Sanders is a leader, he actually condemned the sanctions. Tweeting out, Iran is facing a catastrophic toll from the coronavirus pandemic. US sanctions should not be contributing to this humanitarian disaster. As a caring nation, we must lift any sanctions hurting Iran's ability to address this crisis, including financial sanctions. And that really is key here. We have to lift financial sanctions because right now resources are needed. Governments need money. They have to buy supplies. They have to make payments to their workers so they don't face economic devastation that's even going to be greater than we're expecting because of COVID-19. And Bernie's the only one who gets it. He's the only one who actually has a humanist view of the world and actually moral foreign policy. The fact that this isn't something that we're all talking about, it's disgusting because we see how worried we are about COVID-19. We're all self quarantining. We're all practicing social distancing, but imagine living in Iran currently. We're worried about shortages of ICU beds and ventilators here. Imagine how much worse it is in Iran where we're imposing sanctions on them and it's killing more people. This is just a cruel world and our government is making it even more cruel than it needs to be. And I don't, like this is one of those stories where I'm at a loss for words. I am embarrassed of my government imposing sanctions on a country that is struggling to save its population from the same virus that we're struggling to save our population from currently. There's no word that can really sufficiently capture just how cruel this is. We need a new word for this because whatever we have in our vocabulary doesn't do this justice. This is just, it's horrific. So I think that most people, most are starting to see that this COVID-19 global pandemic, it really is serious. And at first, I think a lot of people doubted its severity because this really is unprecedented. And I can give normal people a pass for not necessarily knowing just how serious this is or would be because this is a lot of information to take in. It's pretty overwhelming. So a lot of people don't necessarily know what to do to protect themselves. But what matters at times like this is that we have responsible leaders to instruct people instead of good example for them because people are scared. People don't necessarily know if it's safe for them to leave their homes. And if so, what can they do? But when it comes to the issue of responsible leadership, we have some individuals who aren't just irresponsible, but just downright dumb. One is Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt who implied that it's perfectly fine if you go out and eat at restaurants even though the CDC says we should be practicing social distancing and self-quarantining. This is what he tweeted out and then promptly deleted. Eating with my kids and all my fellow Oklahomans at the Collective OKC. It's packed tonight. So in other words, this tells people, look, I know what the CDC says, but I'm eating out so it's perfectly fine if you do the same thing. This is very stupid because people who follow you, people who believe what you say and trust you are going to go out, expose themselves or potentially get exposed to COVID-19 and expose their loved ones, individuals who are immunocompromised, individuals who are elderly and vulnerable. So I mean, this is just, it's downright idiotic and things like this, they're borderline criminal. Like I said the same thing about Tom Perez instructing states to not postpone primaries during a global pandemic. It's criminal for him. It's criminal when Democrats do it and it's criminal when Republicans do it. Like this shouldn't be a partisan issue. This shouldn't be something where people play politics. Like stop being stupid, stop trying to be cute. This is a global pandemic. Yes, it's new. Yes, we've never dealt with this before, but let's take it seriously. And people will take it more seriously if those in power positions of leadership take it seriously. Now on Fox News, a channel that has not been helpful in taking this seriously, until recently arguably, they brought on Devin Nunes. He is a member of Congress and he basically downplayed the severity of COVID-19 and diminished the need for social distancing and self quarantine by actually recommending that people leave their homes to eat at restaurants because since everyone else is self quarantining, you can get right in. Take a look. And there's a lot of concerns with the economy here because people are scared to go out. But I will just say one of the things you can do if you're healthy, you and your family, it's a great time to just go out, go to a local restaurant. Likely you can get in easily. Let's not hurt the working people in this country that are relying on wages and tips to keep their small business going. You know, we're very sympathetic. Don't run to the, don't run to the... Understood. Yeah, just don't run to the grocery store and buy $4,000 of food. Right, they're cleaning off the shelves. Go to your local pub. We'll want to eat. Yeah, that's just downright stupid. And if anyone ends up getting sick because of what he recommended they do, he should be held accountable for that. Anyone who is telling people information that is going to get them in trouble, in danger of their lives, they should be held accountable. Again, when Tom Perez says that people should go out and vote when we need to practice social distancing, when Republicans say go eat at restaurants because you can get in easily now, this is all borderline criminal behavior. It's unacceptable. And it's just disgusting. And he basically tries to pretend as if he cares about working people. No, you should go out and eat at restaurants according to him because we want to make sure that those people who rely on tips, they still get paid. Well, how about this? You're in governments. If you truly cared about low wage workers, you can do something. You're in a position of power. Don't encourage people to risk their lives and expose themselves and others because you refuse to take action in Congress. Like this is just maddening. Now he got a lot of pushback for this and he kind of started to walk back his statements and rather than just basically trying to downplay the severity of COVID, now he's saying in this interview with Sean Hannity that actually, the reason why I told him to do that was not because I was diminishing the severity of this global pandemic, but because it's actually safer for people to go to restaurants. Take a look. We have a problem out here because we have people standing in line for 45 minutes at Costco. And so what I was saying is you have empty restaurants. You can go through the drive-thru. You can do takeout. It's a great place to go. The media freaks can do what they want, but they're endangering lives here by continuing this panic when we have no food shortage in this country. The farmers of America produce an abundant food supply. We have more food than we can eat in this country and we ought to stop panicking and ensure that people know they don't have to wait in the line at Costco for 30, 45 minutes. They need to stay calm. So the only reason why he told people that we should ignore what the CDC recommends is because it's actually safer for them. Don't listen to the CDC. Listen to Devin Nunes. That's essentially what he's saying because waiting in line at Costco, that's a lot more of an issue. You're exposing yourself more than just going to a restaurant. Devin, stop talking. Just stop talking. You can apologize and admit that what you said was irresponsible and dangerous and try to instruct people going forward how to best protect themselves. Again, you're in a position of power. You have a large platform on Twitter, on social media, to where you can reach out to your constituents and help them protect themselves. But now you're trying to do damage control when we don't have time for this. We don't have the time for this. And he says, the media freaks. They're the ones who are endangering lives here by continuing this panic. By reporting what the CDC says, the CDC is telling people, avoid crowds that are larger than 50 people. The White House is saying avoid crowds that are larger than 10 people. But Devin Nunes knows more than everyone else. He knows more than the scientists. He knows more than the CDC. And he's saying, you know what? The best way to protect yourself is to go to a restaurant where there's really like closed quarters. And that's how you could protect yourself rather than buying supplies to stock up long term. I mean, the guy is a fucking idiot. And what he's doing is dangerous. But in a separate video where he went back on Fox News, he tacitly admitted that his previous recommendations were moronic because guess what's happening now? Restaurants are starting to close because to stay open when there is a global pandemic that we are desperately trying to contain, that's just downright dangerous. One of the things that I've been harping on the last few days since I've been back here on the ground in California is the hoarding and the lines at the grocery stores. You know, and up until today, we still had a lot of restaurants that were open and they could have met some of those needs for people that needed food. Now, just on my way here to do this show, Laura, most of the restaurants are shuttered in my area. And so, you know, this is not a good situation at all and people are going to be hurt. I wonder why the restaurants are closing. It's almost like your previous recommendation was completely idiotic and dangerous. Listen, everyone needs to acknowledge the severity of this. And if we aren't going to have individuals in power be responsible, then we have to arm ourselves with information. It is of the utmost importance that we contain this virus. That means we practice social distancing, extreme social distancing. We make sure that we do not leave our houses unless we absolutely have to. This is something that we are not ready to deal with. Just if you wanted to get a test, if you feel symptoms for COVID-19, there's an article in the New York Times that explains just how difficult it is to get a test. So there's a lot of cases currently. There are deaths every single day in the United States, but whatever the issue is now that we're dealing with, the extent to which we may not know because we're not doing enough tests. So we're kind of operating in the dark and we have to make sure that we put a cap on this, right? We lower the curve so we actually can survive this. Because I mean, you see what's happening in Italy and the US is even less prepared to deal with this than Italy is. So we have to be responsible here. Stay home. Some people don't have a choice. Some people cannot stay home. Some people work in emergency services, but if you possibly can, stay home, ignore idiots like Devin Nunes who just casually suggest that you should go to restaurants because you're gonna get in easily. That is deeply irresponsible at this point in time. We all should be practicing self-quarantine if we can. And anyone who does this, anyone like Devin Nunes, Tom Perez, who suggests that you should go out and expose yourself potentially to a disease that is fatal in some instances, they are deeply irresponsible and should be held accountable for saying things like this. The COVID-19 global pandemic is something that is new to all of us. We've never dealt with a global pandemic of this nature before. And I think that there is a sense of disbelief. There is a desire, if you will, to kind of downplay the severity of the pandemic. And part of that may be due to ignorance. Part of it may be due to cognitive dissonance, but either way, it doesn't matter. You have to make sure that you take all the precautions to not just protect yourself, but others. That means staying the fuck home. But regardless, if you know you think that maybe this is just being blown out of proportion, it's a story that's being sensationalized by the media. If you have this sort of mentality, you're gonna get us all killed. If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying. I've been waiting, we've been waiting for Miami Spring Break for a while. About two months we've had this shit planned. Two, three months. We're just not even having a good time. Whatever happens, happens. Like it's really messing up with my spring break. What is there to do here other than go to the bars or the beach and they're closing all of it? It's really messing up. I think they're blowing it way out of proportion. I think it's doing way too much. We're doing this bad. We need to refund. This virus ain't that serious. It's more serious things out there like hunger and poverty. We need to address that. Yeah, I mean, we planned this a long time ago and it was kind of up in the air if we still go. But like we're here, I just turned 21 this year. So I'm here to party. So it's kind of disappointing. But we're just making the most of it. We met these other people in our little Airbnb spot. So we're just hanging out with them and trying to get drunk before everything closes. I mean, it sucks, but we're gonna make the best of it. We're enjoying ourselves. It sucks. And I'm from New Orleans, so this really sucks. However, we're gonna enjoy ourselves. We have a day party. It's all day. It's my birthday, St. Patrick's Day. Turn it up. We're just trying to roll with the boy. We're just living for the moment. We're just going for, we're just gonna do what happens, when it happens, when stuff closes. We're gonna do it when it closes, but... I shouldn't be touching my face. Listen, that video made me so, so depressed. Like it didn't make me angry. It just, it made me feel like, okay, how many people like this are still out there? Who are this careless? This idiotic. I mean, what the fuck are you doing? You care that much about partying, that you're going to expose everyone to COVID-19. First of all, let me just say that even if you don't care about getting COVID-19 yourself, even if you're exposed to it and you think you're fine, this is asymptomatic. So you could be exposed to it, and then therefore expose other people thinking you're fine, but expose them unknowingly people who are vulnerable, the elderly individuals who are immunocompromised. And then what's gonna happen? You're going to get them sick. And it's not just that you should care about other people, but this is also very serious for young people as well. Because even if it's the case that older people are more vulnerable statistically than young people, that doesn't mean that this doesn't pose a threat to young people. In fact, we're finding out this is very serious even if you are young and healthy. Because as the Hill reports, CDC analysis shows coronavirus poses serious risk for younger people. So let's just pause for a moment and reflect on that. CDC analysis shows coronavirus poses serious risk for younger people. So that means that it doesn't matter if you're healthy currently. It doesn't matter if you're not immunocompromised. It doesn't matter if you don't have anyone in your life that you could potentially expose. You should be responsible enough to take the proper precautions and stay the fuck home. Because if you don't care about anyone else, you should at least care about yourself because this is serious. Now, as Reed Wilson of the Hill explains, a new CDC analysis of more than 2,400 cases of COVID-19 that have occurred in the United States in the last month shows that at least one in seven and perhaps as many as one in five people between the ages of 20 and 44 who contract the virus require hospitalization, a level exponentially higher than the hospitalization rates for influenza. Between 2% and 4% of people that young are admitted to intensive care units. The fatality rate is low, only 0.1% to 0.2%, but it is about two times higher than a bad flu season. Health outcomes are much worse among those who are older and those who have underlying health conditions. The early estimates show that a fifth to a third of those between the ages of 45 and 65 who contract the disease are hospitalized. Among those over 75 years old, hospitalization estimates range from 30% to more than 70%. Among the oldest cohort, those over the age of 85, somewhere between 10% and a quarter of all patients die. The data show adults over the age of 65 account for 80% of the deaths associated with the coronavirus, but younger Americans are contracting the virus at the same rates as those who are older. The initial round of data actually found more people between the ages of 20 and 44 who landed in the hospital than those over the age of 75 who wound up in treatment, even though mortality rates were lower for the younger set. Quote, lots of young people are getting hospitalized, a lot more than we're messaging. And yes, maybe you don't die, but living with a damaged lung or damaged organ is not a good outcome, said Prabjahat Singh, a physician and health systems expert at Mount Sinai Health System at the Icon School of Medicine. So do you understand that being stupid, being careless can affect you for the rest of your life because if you get hospitalized and you end up surviving coronavirus, this can still do long-term damage to your health. Why would you want that? Why would you want that for anyone else? You shouldn't. So I know that these people are, in that video, are young and naive, and I know that it's not just young people with this attitude. I talked about a video where Devin Nunes, a member of Congress, went on Fox News and encouraged people to go to restaurants because since everyone is self-quarantining, you can get right in. We have to be responsible, we have to act like adults. This is new to all of us, right? And even though this is something that we can't see, that doesn't mean it's any less of a threat, right? You can be exposed by leaving your home and in turn affect hundreds of people potentially if you are not responsible enough. So I don't care if you don't care about yourself or other people. At least just have the courtesy to be a decent human being and not do things like this, not expose yourself. I get it, right? It's springtime, spring break is here, you wanna go outside, you wanna go have fun, but this is serious. This is serious. And I'm glad that seemingly Trump's administration is taking it serious. It took the stock market to crash for that to happen, but nonetheless, like you've gotta understand there's a good reason why non-essential businesses are shutting down. There's a good reason why the CDC is telling all of us to stay home. It's because coronavirus is here and the United States is uniquely unable to deal with this. So we see what's happening in Italy. I have a video on that. But it could be worse here because of how unprepared we are. We lack the readiness, we don't have the healthcare system that other countries have. So we're not capable of dealing with this and it's going to be bad if we don't put a cap on it, if we don't lower the curve. So people have got to wake up and they can't be careless. Like this is the beginning of quarantine. We don't know how long this will last, maybe two weeks, maybe a month. This could last as long as spring 2021, regardless if we want to be healthy, if we want people to actually not get sick from this, be fucking responsible and just stay the fuck home. Don't be stupid. So aside from the obvious health risks that COVID-19 poses, we're starting to see how this global pandemic is having cascading effects on other areas, right? It's not just impacting the health and wellbeing of Americans and human beings generally speaking. It is taking its toll on the economy. It's taking its toll on working people who are missing work and now worried about paying rent on April 1st. It's having a psychological toll. It's causing excess anxiety. So there's a lot that this is going to, a lot of issues that this is going to create for us and kind of understanding what's happening is really crucial so we can respond accordingly. Now, I wanna share an article from the Huffington Post because what they show is that at least in one industry, this is going to potentially be devastating for workers. Now, we don't necessarily know how this is going to affect different industries but at least when it comes to hospitality, it's not looking good according to one union. So as Dave Jamison of HuffPost reports, the leading labor union for hospitality workers said Wednesday that it expects 80 to 90% of its 300,000 members to be out of work due to the coronavirus outbreak. The estimates from Unite here illustrate the staggering economic damage inflicted on the service sector by the pandemic. The union's members, a majority of whom are women tend to work in hotels, airports and casinos. All businesses that have been hammered by closures and a precipitous drop in demand. On a call with reporters Wednesday, union officials said employees in the hospitality industry are facing an unprecedented crisis and that members of Congress and the White House need to put workers at the center of any rescue packages. Detailer, the union's president panned the emergency paid leave bill past Saturday by the Democratic controlled house as quote, completely ridiculous, saying it had huge car belts and did not go far enough in helping workers. He also said the plan being floated to cut Americans up to $1,000 checks would be insufficient given that each such payment wouldn't cover a month's rent in most cities. They've met with the titans of industry and that's great but we all know what we face right now. Taylor said referring to the members of Congress and the White House, I'm very worried that the American worker is not at the table, just American industry. Companies in the airline, hotel and gaming industries have been asking federal officials for help and the White House has been reportedly considering aid such as low or zero interest loans or tax deferrals. Taylor said any bailouts would need to be done in tandem with increased unemployment insurance, paid sick leave, money for food stamps and housing and guarantees on continued healthcare for workers who lose their jobs. Quote, we need to get workers bailed out and secure, he said. And I couldn't have put it better myself. As these industries, you know, casinos, airlines ask for government assistance, welfare, socialism, whatever you want to call it, workers are the ones who should be at the center of our concerns, not corporations, but working people. Working people are the ones who are going to bear the brunts of this disaster, this global pandemic because people are currently worried, what am I going to do? Am I going to be able to pay my rent? That's due April 1st. Am I going to be able to buy food? How long is this going to last? People shouldn't have to deal with that anxiety on top of the anxiety that already comes with just dealing with the global pandemic, right? We should be doing everything in our power to make things easy for working people so they don't have to worry. And it's a little unfortunate or a lot unfortunate actually that we haven't really been talking seriously about paid sick leave and healthcare and basic income until now. Like I said this in a previous video but I think it's important to note it again. It shouldn't have taken a global pandemic to get us to actually acknowledge the importance of workers. But you see, this is something that capitalists have to deal with. They exploit their workers until there's nothing left to exploit. But the problem is that capitalists, the ownership class, they still need us to buy their products. They still need working people to go out and stimulate the economy. But when they can't do that, guess what? Everything collapses. The entire system implodes because capitalism can only function if people have purchasing power, if people actually are able to stimulate the economy so to speak. You can ask for tax cuts for the rich. You can have the government bail out all of these companies but at the end of the day if working people can't purchase airline tickets, if working people aren't able to buy the goods and services offered by capitalists, then the system can't sustain itself. It collapses. So that's why we're starting to see even Republicans float solutions like universal basic income temporarily. It's why they're talking about paid sick leave because you can't have a capitalist system if you just completely eliminate workers purchasing power. And this pandemic is so serious that it does threaten to do just that, which is why for the first time in a very long time, we see bipartisan support for bills aimed at helping people. Now we can argue that these bills don't go far enough. I absolutely agree with that sentiment. In fact, the House bill did carve out a big loophole for large multinational corporations and Nancy Pelosi is trying to do everything in her power to make sure nothing gets through unless it's means tested, which is a joke because you can means tested on the back end if you just tax millionaires in large multinational corporations more, you don't need to make it harder for working class people to apply for social safety net programs, make it universal and just tax the rich. So I mean, there's issues, right? Congress is still a clown show, but I will say that the fact that they're seriously considering actually passing things that benefit the working people, it goes to show you that they know how serious this is. They know how serious this is. And again, you know, there's still going to be people doing political theater. Rand Paul tried to block this because at least the Senate version because there was no way to pay for it. So I mean, there's going to be people in Congress who are just, they don't realize the damage that they're causing, but the fact that both Republicans and Democrats are realizing that they've got to do something, no matter how meager their response is, it shows you the gravity of this situation. So this is just one industry. This is the hospitality industry, but we don't know how other industries will be affected. So this is why when we're talking about bailouts, we have to focus on workers, not the corporations because this country can survive if large multinational corporations go under. But if the American people aren't able to survive this, whether this storm, our system cannot survive. It implodes. So I really hope that we do get a comprehensive package that ameliorates the fear of working class people that at a time when we're facing this global pandemic, they don't have to worry about paying to keep the lights on. They don't have to worry about paying rent. It's going to be taken care of because they have a government who's taking their tax dollars. And finally, it's going to benefit them at least when it comes to global pandemics, hopefully. After pledging to run all the way until the convention, Tulsi Gabbard has decided to drop out and endorse Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders. She put out this video today. Now, after Tuesday's election, it's clear that Democratic primary voters have chosen Vice President Joe Biden to be the person who will take on President Trump in the general election. I know Vice President Biden and his wife, and I'm grateful to have called his son, Beau, a friend who also served in the National Guard. Although I may not agree with the Vice President on every issue, I know that he has a good heart and he's motivated by his love for our country and the American people. I'm confident that he will lead our country guided by the spirit of Aloha, respect and compassion, and thus help heal the divisiveness that has been tearing our country apart. So today, I'm suspending my presidential campaign and offering my full support to Vice President Joe Biden in his quest to bring our country together. Yeah, so we'll talk about my thoughts on this in a moment, but first, I wanna show you the response. Joe Biden actually did acknowledge her endorsement, tweeting out, Tulsi Gabbard has put her life on the line in service of this country and continues to serve with honor today. I'm grateful to have her support and look forward to working with her to restore honor and decency to the White House. And on top of that, she got the approval of Neera Tandon, surprisingly, who tweeted, in this moment of national crisis, Tulsi Gabbard meets it and works to unite the party endorsing Joe Biden. I've been tough on some of her past positions, but grateful for her leadership here. So my first response is, I'm wondering what the rest of the people who claimed that she was a Russian asset will say now, namely Hillary Clinton, they said that she would run third party and here she is falling in line like a good little soldier and endorsing Joe Biden. Now, here's the thing, this absolutely without question undermines her credibility. I don't know what else to say. Like I really started to grow disillusioned with Tulsi Gabbard a couple of months into her campaign, namely by summer of 2019, because she started to do things that I just, I don't agree with. It, you know, it wasn't just her moving away from Medicare for all, it was the BDS vote. It was the rhetoric that she was using on the campaign trail. I just kind of got turned off by it. But this year, if you weren't turned off by everything else, then how could you not be turned off by this? Her entire platform was to just run on this unapologetic anti-war platform. And she could have dropped out and endorsed Bernie Sanders and helped an anti-war candidate who had a chance to get elected, but instead she chose to keep running. And you know what, like if she wanted to stay in a civil convention, that's her choice. But the writing was on the wall. It seemed clear that she had no path to the nomination on Super Tuesday two and three. She was losing to people who had already dropped out. So really in that situation, you have to make a choice. You have to realize, what do I wanna do? Do I really care about these policies that I'm pushing? And am I willing to see the reality? Am I willing to read the writing that's on the wall? If she dropped out and endorsed Bernie Sanders like she did in 2016, which I appreciate, I think that that would have proven that she's principled and she cares. But she chose at a time when there are still two candidates left to endorse the one who is not anti-war. She endorsed Joe Biden, who voted for the Iraq war that she served in. Yeah, so when we were, you know, seeing her take these questions about Joe Biden's vote for the Iraq war, and she kind of just brushed him aside and said, well, you know, he made a mistake. This is why she was probably planning this for quite some time. And that's really disappointing. That's really disappointing. But to me, it's not surprising, but I absolutely do feel bad for Tulsi Gabbard supporters. And I've clashed with them because I've been critical of Tulsi Gabbard. But anytime I see people who truly believe in a candidate, get their hearts broken, it does suck. It does suck. And it's happening to us right now, right? Bernie Sanders supporters, Tulsi Gabbard supporters, Andrew Yang supporters, even Marianne Williamson supporters, Mike Gravel supporters, we all got beat by the establishment. All of us did. So it sucks to see so many candidates fall in line and I'll keep it real. If Bernie Sanders drops out, I hope he stays in longer. But if he does drop out, I know he will endorse Joe Biden. And I think that's a horrible decision. Don't endorse Joe Biden. He stands for nothing. He's not gonna get my vote. It just, look, this is what I want people to take away from this video. We have to realize that political leaders, at some point in time, they're most likely going to let us down. But we have to realize that we are the ones that have to keep fighting. We can't let people running for president or running for Congress divide us. Because at the end of the day, all of the anti-establishment people, we are a block, right? And we have policies that we care deeply about. Hence why we support specific candidates. If you support Tulsi Gabbard, being anti-war is probably your number one issue. If you support Bernie Sanders, Medicare for all is probably your number one issue. If you support Andrew Yang, obviously UBI is your number one issue. So I do think that people need to realize that all of these squabbles that happened during the primary, you have to try to put that aside and work with these people who are anti-establishment because look what just happened throughout the course of the 2020 primaries. The establishment came together and absolutely steamrolled us. That's what happened. So going forward, we have to try to be a unified front and take on the establishment and really be cognizant and mindful of all of these policies that we all wanna see. No more wars, universal basic income, Medicare for all. And let me just say this because a lot of people were disappointed by my coverage of Tulsi Gabbard because I was seen as overly critical. Now I actually went through all of the videos that I posted after she announced her run for the president and I was actually overwhelmingly positive but people thought that I was a little bit too unfair to Tulsi Gabbard and that my critiques of her were in bad faith. But now like there's nothing to lose. Like Bernie is losing, Tulsi's out, Yang's out. So there's nothing to lose. So I have nothing to gain by lying. My criticisms of Tulsi Gabbard were all in good faith. My criticisms of her were based specifically on policy and I knew that criticizing someone who's popular online like Tulsi Gabbard, even Andrew Yang, that is going to be something that gets me criticism but I can't lie, I have to be objective. And even if I think that doing something might get me hate online, I have to be truthful because when I see red flags, I have to call them out. Like I learned from experience with Obama, right? I ignored the writing on the wall with him. I ignored the red flags and I got devastated by that. I was incredibly disappointed. So I try to help people understand what these moves are, why you have to read a little bit more into the language that politicians use because oftentimes they use double speak. And some people don't see it that way. A lot of people thought that I was being overly critical but it wasn't like I was just trying to tear down candidates like Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang at the behest of Bernie Sanders. I was trying to be objective even if people don't think that that's what I was trying to do. I have my criticisms of Bernie Sanders as well but I just wanted to make sure that we push the Overton window as far left as we possibly could. And so it sucks. And look, I'll just say this, Marianne Williamson was also criticized by me because she backed away from Medicare for All and now she's kind of the only one who showed she's principled by endorsing Bernie Sanders over Joe Biden. Although I can't really support her in the future if she doesn't back Medicare for All because it's like you, I have standards. I have standards, right? So it's not like I'm trying to tear these candidates down because I want to boost Bernie Sanders. I support the person who I think is the best. This may be subjective but this is my view. And just to like show you, I donated to all of the anti-establishment candidates from the get go because even if I knew I would support Bernie because I agreed with him on more issues, like I wanted the left and the anti-establishment candidates to monopolize this course. I bought a Andrew Yang button. I bought a Tulsi Gabbard button. I bought their shirts. I bought the Yang shirts, which is actually very comfortable material by the way. I bought the Tulsi Gabbard shirt. Like I genuinely wanted to support these candidates even if I wasn't going to vote for them because like with Tulsi Gabbard, I mean, it's like, well, you endorse Bernie in 2016. Let me help you out by donating to and buying a shirt, you know, just to give you a boost. Andrew Yang supports UBI, so do I. I don't necessarily agree with his implementation of UBI. I wanted to stack on top of existing social safety net programs, but just the fact that you're getting this conversation out there is important. You know, here's a couple bucks. Let me buy a pin and a shirt. And this is something I shouldn't admit. I'm actually embarrassed about this and I was reluctant to do this, but I did. I bought a set of three Warren pins at the very beginning and I bought a Warren shirt. I bought a Warren shirt too. So the good news is that during, you know, social distancing and self quarantine with this toilet paper shortage, if I do run out of toilet paper, I've got a lot of toilet paper right there. And the Warren one will be the first that I wipe my ass with. But like the reason why I'm showing you this is because I want people to understand that when I criticize candidates, I am doing it because I genuinely want them to do better. And that's why, you know, after I did my initial video criticizing Tulsi Gabbard in January or February, I can't remember when, you know, I was pleased to see her reach out, you know, and want to come on my program. Now, eventually I submitted questions to her campaign or not necessarily questions, but I gave them the topics when they asked about what I wanted to ask them. And they clearly, you know, they didn't, there were some subjects that were untouchable that they didn't want me to press them on. So maybe that's why, you know, that fell through. I don't know what it is, but like for me, I was genuinely trying to criticize her to make her a better candidate and to just educate people about her, you know, positions. And what I thought she was doing, right? What I thought she was doing wrong. Now, the thing is that like, after she endorsed Bernie in 2016, I just automatically supported her because I thought, look, you support Medicare for all, you co-sponsored the bill, you didn't do it before. But I mean, you're on board now. So I was desperate for someone to be the next leader of the progressive movement. I am now, right? Because Bernie Sanders is old. He's not gonna run for president again. So we need a successor, right? So I mean, back in 2016, 2017, I was hoping that it would be Tulsi Gabbard. She showed up to Standing Rock, right? And as much as I disagree with her, I don't think she did us as dirty as Warren at all. Even though she's endorsing Joe Biden now, she still didn't criticize Bernie Sanders. You know, Elizabeth Warren has been attacking him and us. So she's not like Warren level trader to me. I'm disappointed in her endorsement. But what I'm trying to say is that like, you can support candidates as political allies, but once they start running for higher office, I do think it's our responsibility to vet these candidates. And as I, you know, did my research on Tulsi Gabbard, I just thought she wasn't as strong as I had initially hoped. In short, there was some cognitive dissonance. I didn't want to believe everything. And what I tried to do in that initial video when I kind of went through all of my disagreements with Tulsi Gabbard is there was a threat on Reddit that kind of responded to all of what they called were smears. And I basically, anything that I disagreed with her on, I tried to debunk it and find, just so I could be extra courteous to her. And what was left in that video that I posted was just what I genuinely disagreed with her on and things that were open questions that I wanted her to answer. And we didn't get answers to a lot of the questions that I had, but I mean, people supported her overall because she did prioritize anti-war. And that's fine. Like you can support whoever you want. Your support is not owed to Bernie Sanders, but you do have to acknowledge that there are other people who just disagree, right? I disagree and that doesn't necessarily mean that I tried to tear down Tulsi Gabbard in stating where I disagreed with her. I think in some ways she brought good things to the table, but overall I don't think she ran a good campaign. I think she ran a very poor campaign. And that's not me saying that because I'm disappointed that she didn't endorse Bernie Sanders, it's me saying that because objectively speaking, I think that during a Democratic Party primary, you do have to court the left. You have to try. And if you don't do that, especially if your base is kind of anti-establishment, anti-war Bernie Sanders supporters, then you could lose some support. I think a lot of people who supported her were previous Bernie Sanders supporters. So I don't think that she chose the correct lane this time around. With Andrew Yang, I actually do think that he ran a good campaign. And Tulsi Gabbard is young. Andrew Yang is young. So if they ever want to come back, I'm sure that they can. I'm sure that they will run for president again. But just from me personally speaking, now that 2020 is over, I absolutely refuse to support anyone that doesn't support Medicare for all. And I lose respect for anti-establishment candidates if you fall in line, like a good little soldier and back the establishment's choice. I respected Andrew Yang's decision to withhold an endorsement until someone in the race endorsed UBI. But he still endorsed Biden. And in fact, I think Tulsi Gabbard actually endorsed UBI. She picked up the mantle after Yang dropped out and he didn't endorse her. So like, I would have respected if he just withheld an endorsement until the convention when it was officially over, right? But he didn't. I would have respected if Tulsi Gabbard didn't endorse anyone. And she just ran into the convention, even though that doesn't, I mean, she doesn't have a path, right? But if she is doing that, then clearly she's not going to endorse anyone. But I mean, she chose to fall in line this time around. She didn't last time. And I will always appreciate that. Even if I don't know what her intentions were, I never will. We can't read people. You just have to take them at their word. We can't read people exactly. But what I'm trying to say is, look, in the future, these candidates will come back and it sucks that she gave up her seat for a failed presidential run that ultimately led to her being less popular among a lot of progressives. But if she wants to come back in the future, and this goes for Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson as well, people who I expect to see in the future, you have to really listen carefully to the left, listen to socialists, even if you're not socialist, and understand that there are some things that are just non-negotiable, right? Medicare for All is one of them. The minute that you start to equivocate on Medicare for All, I can't support you. And as pleased as I am, as I alluded to, that Marianne Williamson endorsed Bernie, if she doesn't back Medicare for All in 2024, 2028, or for a congressional run, I can't get behind her because I just, I refuse to fall in line and support this disgusting murderous capitalist system. I'm not voting for Joe Biden. I refuse to fall in line. You can't control me. I am my own person. And if you don't represent me, if you don't want to represent me, I won't vote for you. It's as simple as that. And I think that we are at a time where we have to demand and expect more from politicians, all of them, including Bernie Sanders, like we should have been maybe more vocal about the need for him to be more aggressive. And I just think he doesn't have it in him at this point. I don't think he does. But I mean, we have to be very vocal and you can't basically be overly critical of a politician. I believe that. Certainly we don't want to be too cynical. We don't want to try to drag them, because we need allies. But at the same time, if you want to represent us, then you've got to acknowledge that we have very, very high standards. And if you don't live up to those standards, then we will call you out. It doesn't mean that we have to agree on 100% of the issues, but we will call you out. So let me end with this. To all of the Tulsi Gabbard supporters, I'm sorry that we all kind of butted heads. And it sucks that the Yang and Bernie Bros and Tulsi supporters butted heads at times during this primary, same with Marianne Williamson supporters. I criticized her too. But like at the end of the day, you've got to understand that it's all of us against the establishment. All of us against the establishment. So if we can somehow come back together and acknowledge what a behemoth the establishment is, then I think that we will have a chance in the future. And I don't know if there's going to be one candidate who we can all collectively rally around. I don't know if that's going to be the case. But what I do know is that if you are anti-establishment, acknowledge that people on your side may disagree with you, but they're still your allies. It doesn't mean that, you know, they should be hated. Now the same is not true for Elizabeth Warren. I absolutely am done with Elizabeth Warren. I think that she has burnt that bridge permanently. And I was absolutely wrong and laughably naive to try to give her a second chance in 2020. And it's not like I was going to vote for her, but I just, you know, I was willing to hear her out. But that, I'm burnt on that. But when it comes to the other anti-establishment candidates, I can't imagine myself supporting Tulsi Gabbard. I could see myself supporting Marianne Williamson if she embraced Medicare for All. I like what she says about foreign policy, US policy in Latin America. I can maybe see myself supporting Andrew Yang if he moves away from the libertarian things. Like if he embraces actual single-payer Medicare for All and not a public option or whatever it was that he was supporting, if he tweaks his UBI program a little bit more to stack on top of our existing social safety net, I can, you know, support him. But if these candidates come back and I criticize them, understand that it's coming from a place of love and wanting to just have a better future for America. And I'll leave that there. I kind of feel like I've been rambling here, but I didn't expect to make this video today. This is kind of unexpected that she dropped out, but it's not too surprising that she endorsed Biden. So yeah, it's disappointing. Tulsi Gabbard, unfortunately, she kind of went down in my book. I shouldn't say kind of, she substantially went down in my book running for president, but going forward in the future, whatever she does, because she's not gonna return to Congress, I hope that she is going to fight for what's best for the country. You know, I don't agree that Joe Biden has the spirit of aloha. He's a terrible human being who would veto Medicare for all and let thousands of Americans die every single year. So I don't agree with her here. Maybe I'll never agree with her. You know, maybe she's just not a political ally like I thought she was, but just acknowledge that if you are a Tulsi supporter and you're genuinely anti-war, then if there's another candidate that comes along in the future who is anti-war, I think that we should put all of this that happened in 2020 behind us because we all got beat by the establishment. We all lost. And now we have to just figure out how to go forward. The establishment is unified, so we should somehow find a way to come together as well. So I'll leave that there. All right, folks, that is everything. I have got nothing left to talk about. I will see you all next week, but before we go, as usual, I wanna send a thank you and shout out to all of our Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members for helping the show to not just survive, but thrive as well. I am off to go play Animal Crossing New Horizons. I hope that you will do the same. It's the perfect game during quarantine. And I hope that when the government is considering these types of response packages, UBI and whatnot, they also throw in a free Nintendo Switch and copy of Animal Crossing because it is the perfect game to have during quarantine to get your mind off of what seems like is an apocalypse happening. So, yeah, I'll leave that there. Take care, everyone. I'll see you next week.