 Chris Cuomo hosted Bernie Sanders second CNN town hall of the 2020 election cycle and before we get into the specifics of This town hall with Bernie Sanders I want to talk about what happened last time when Chris Cuomo hosted a town hall with Bernie Sanders What they were doing was trying to lob gotcha questions Against Bernie Sanders in an effort to extract a specific headline That frames Bernie Sanders as a candidate who said something bad. So to show you a more explicit example of that Back in 2016 when Chris Cuomo hosted his first town hall with Bernie Sanders Chris Cuomo was trying to get Bernie Sanders to say we will raise taxes in order to fund Medicare for all Now what he was trying to do was get Bernie Sanders to agree to this so he can take Bernie out of context and CNN can then write articles about how Bernie Sanders says that we need to raise taxes But the problem with that is when you remove away the context You're not telling people if your goal as a news outlet is to educate people You're not telling them that overall you're going to net save them money because you're also eliminating private health insurance premiums and co-pays and deductibles, but nonetheless all they wanted was to take Bernie out of context and Communicate to you that he wants to raise taxes and therefore he's bad. Well, guess what unsurprisingly they did it again so when it comes to this question here of Whether or not felons who are currently incarcerated should be able to vote the way that they framed the question Was to take the most heinous crimes People who are terrorists people who are rapists and say well Bernie You want these people to vote so the person who asked that question was obviously anti Bernie Sanders and the reason why We extend Suffrage University University is because we believe in democracy if you think that people should not be allowed to vote because they're currently incarcerated then you just have to admit that you're against democracy so she posed this question to Bernie Sanders He didn't really take the bait. Can you guess what Chris Cuomo did? The same thing he did last time he reiterated the question reframed it So Bernie would directly respond to whether or not he thinks someone like the Boston bomber Should be allowed to vote and look at the headlines that were produced They stripped away the broader context of Bernie Sanders explaining the necessity of universal suffrage extending voting rights to everyone including felons who are currently incarcerated and They got what they wanted out of this they got exactly what they wanted out of this I Hate to say it, but they were actually more unfair to Bernie Sanders than Fox News 100% of the questions that were asked Forced him to play defense They were incredibly combative and you could tell that every single person out of all the questions that they curated intentionally tried To get Bernie Sanders, this is gotcha journalism and it was disgusting and throughout the course of this town hall I was just furious because if you Contrast Bernie's town hall with you know, Elizabeth Warren's and Kamala Harris's they were able to discuss policy at length Bernie was not able to do that. He was denied That luxury because he was forced to defend himself he went into that town hall and CNN assumed that he was public enemy number one and the goal was to take him down not give him a chance to explain himself Which is completely egregious. It is Not good journalism it's garbage journalism and I think that Chris Cuomo should no longer be allowed to host these town halls because He did the same thing now that he did last time He tries to get Bernie so we can take him out of context completely unacceptable completely now in addition to make matters worse Bernie Sanders He let his guard down. He just did when he went into the Fox News Town Hall He knew what to expect. He knew that there would be a plethora of biased questions lobbed against him But he was prepared to swap that down But when it comes to CNN because they're more legitimate than Fox News He just kind of let his guard down and wasn't as prepared to swap down these questions when he needs to treat CNN The same way he treats Fox News because they are as out to get Bernie as Fox News is In fact Fox News may not be as out to get Bernie because they've somehow deluded themselves into thinking that Trump could beat Bernie So maybe they want to try to prop Bernie up as a pied piper if you will But for the most part CNN is out to get Bernie Sanders This was incredibly clear during the town hall and if you look at the headlines that came away CNN got exactly what they wanted. So with that being said, let's get into some of the specifics and Try to extract out the substance because again, what a disappointing town hall So when it comes to reparations, I notice a measurable improvement here from Bernie Sanders. He brought up Willfully so HR 40 Thank you because I like that he's talking about this is see where he needs to be on this No, I think he still has a way to go. He still needs to do better, but for the most part by Saying that he supports HR 40, which is the bill that studies reparations He's showing his willingness to listen and grow He shows that he's not being as stubborn And I think that this is the right move because strategically if you think about this If Bernie Sanders just did a 180 and said look, I endorse reparations they'd attack him for that. Anyway We know that they're weaponizing the issue of reparations against Bernie Sanders Julian Castro tries to do this, but if he flipped on it, they'd say well Bernie, this is disingenuous You're flip-flopping, but by endorsing HR 40 He's showing his willingness to listen, but he's still not necessarily compromising from his original position Now where do I think Bernie stands personally? I think as president if the study concludes that reparations would be something that benefits American descendants of slavery I think he'd sign that into law. I really do think that so I think that this was a good answer And I was incredibly happy to see improvement there Other areas where I think he did a good job, you know when it comes to the Green New Deal He talked about people in current dirty jobs and how we need to just transition When it comes to student loan debt cancellation He was asked about Elizabeth Warren's plan and he kind of you know signaled a willingness to Learn more about it. Overall He needs to get on board with student loan debt cancellation This is something that I as a Sanders supporter for many years now had been begging him To take notice of and pay attention to and it's nice to see that he's being influenced by Elizabeth Warren from the left So I hope to see movement here as we saw with reparations when it comes to the issue of compromising with GOP he said look, I'm willing to work with Republicans, but I'm not going to jeopardize my own Position. I'm not gonna sacrifice my own principles. I thought that was a great answer When it comes to impeachment I was a little bit bothered by his answer because it felt to me like he was kind of dodging the question not a direct dodge But he was dodging it in the sense that he didn't seem to be inclined to want to address head-on Should we or should we not impeach Donald Trump? He seemed open to it but by and large I think that he needs to come out with a very direct answer and Stick to it. But with that being said, I think that he Was probably even though his answer was not as lengthy as Elizabeth Warren's he was more nuanced in discussing The issue of whether or not Democrats can actually pursue impeachment without getting incredibly sidetracked I think Bernie is right to stay focused on the policy substance And if I had to choose a course of action it would be for them to stay focused on policy because I have no faith in Democrats I think if they pursue impeachment This is the only thing that they're gonna talk about and I even have my doubts about Elizabeth Warren Can she actually pursue impeachment while talking about policy simultaneously now? We'll have to see how that turns out so far It's going well for her because she advocated for impeachment over the weekend But she came out in favor with this amazing student loan debt cancellation plan And you know, we'll have to wait and see but I think his answer for the most part was sufficient He's more nuanced than Warren and I think that if you kind of combine both of their answers You have the amalgamation of a perfect response With that being said, let's get back to the topic of CNN and their bias Somebody literally posed the question that their family escaped the Soviet Union Therefore, you know, Bernie, you need to explain why you are proposing Soviet style policies to implement in the United States This question Nearly made my head explode My father's family left Soviet Russia in 1979 fleeing from some of the very same socialist policies that you seem eager to implement in this country How many people did this question have to go through? The person who posed the question the college student from Harvard Who is not bright enough to realize that there's a difference between social democracy and a Soviet style authoritarian Country, but nonetheless, she thought this was a good question The CNN producers thought this was a good question and they greenlit this question Which was obviously just a smear because they want people CNN specifically wants people To think that Bernie isn't just a social democratic He's not just advocating for a Scandinavian type of Social democracy or Scandinavian-esque redistributive policies he supports Soviet Union type of socialism you can tell how How his head almost exploded when he got that question because he said are you are you basically accusing me of supporting authoritarian socialism? Is it your assumption that I supported or believe in Authoritarian communism that existed in the Soviet Union. I don't I never have and I opposed it that was the dumbest question out of the entire five hours and I really mean that like the person who asked that question Needs to educate herself The people at CNN who greenlit this question need to do better because this shows that you don't actually care about Policy you don't care about asking fair but tough questions. You just want to get Bernie Now the last thing I want to talk about they asked him a question about Israel and it was framed from the position of Bernie, why don't you want to suck off Israel as much as all of the other politicians? I mean no matter what the policy position was or the question was rather They asked it in a way that put Bernie on defensive and I'm glad that Bernie did not really back down He called Netanyahu a racist, but he does need to get better I think his answer was not perfect here, but overall let me just say this not the best town hall from Bernie Sanders I think that he felt like well, this is CNN, you know, so I don't have to be as prepared as I was with Fox News I think that he felt like you know, he would have an easier time swatting down the bias and the bullshit But certainly he was not as aggressive and I wish that going into future town halls He'd do exactly what he did at the Fox News Town Hall because what Andrew Cuomo did was a disservice So that was the Bernie Sanders Town Hall I may do a follow-up video where I go through some clips, but for the most part, you know CNN They they are terrible. This is why Basically people on the left and the right hate CNN and they don't trust CNN. They are dog shit They are a phone news organization that doesn't actually care about policy substance All they want is to push an agenda and their agenda was explicitly clear They wanted to attack Bernie. They wanted to get Bernie Sanders and that's why basically a hundred percent of the questions were Framed in a way that forced Bernie Sanders to defend himself or defend an existing position He was not given the same opportunity as every other candidate was given to really talk at length about something that he was proposing He wasn't given the opportunity to talk more specifically about Medicare for all now to be fair He did talk at length at the first CNN Town Hall about Medicare for all with Wolf Blitzer, but I mean Part of being a good host is allowing candidates to shine You have to at least give them the opportunity to shine and if they don't shine at least you were fair in giving them the time he was denied that and It wasn't just Bernie who was wronged here It was the American voter the average person who maybe genuinely wanted to know more about Bernie's policy positions But was forced to watch this pseudo journalism where they just tried to get him Unbelievable shame on CNN