 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 humanist report or become a member at humanistreport.com. Now enjoy the show. Welcome to the Humanist Support Podcast. My name is Mike Figueroaido. This is episode 251 of the program. Today is Friday, July 24th. And before we get started, I want to thank all of the people who make this show possible. Our newest Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members. And that includes Brian Thessler, Cody Ellis, D. Ragland, Eric Lords, John Gould, Julie Watts, Kirk Goulson, Ryan Lago, Siddiqui Cleaning Service, Scott Wiener, Suzanne Harris and Ultra Orb Zero. So thank you so much to all of these kind individuals. If you'd also like to support the show and join the Independent Progressive Media Revolution, you can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support, patreon.com slash humanistreport or by clicking join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. We will have a show as normal as it can be, but I will say that, you know, it's difficult to pretend like everything is normal when our community had such a substantial loss. And of course, I'm talking about the great Michael Brooks, who was a co-host on The Majority Report and the host of the Michael Brooks show. So this episode is dedicated to him. Towards the end of the podcast, I'll have some words about him and what his commentary meant to me. But with that being said, we will continue the show because I think that Michael wants us to fight. That's exactly what he would have wanted for us to keep fighting the good fight and fighting for justice. So that's what we're going to do. This week, we are going to talk about Donald Trump's continued occupation of US cities and how federal agents are continuing to do violence against protesters in Portland, Oregon. Trump is forced to now pretend that he cares about COVID-19 again because his strategy of just pretending like it's not a thing has been a colossal failure. And we'll also talk about the more bizarre aspects of Donald Trump lately, such as his interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News, which was certainly something. And we'll talk about his anti-Biden attacks that may actually end up helping Biden. That's how weird they are. And also Democrats may invite John Kasich to speak on behalf of Joe Biden at the DNC convention. I'll share my thoughts on that. AOC was verbally accosted by a Republican at the Capitol. And finally, we'll close the show by talking to 2020 congressional candidate for the U.S. Senate, Jessica Skirain, about her decision to challenge corporate Democrat Chris Coons. So that's what we've got on the agenda for this week's episode. Hopefully you all will enjoy the program. Let's get right to it. So I want to follow up on the conversation that we had last week about Donald Trump's decision to deploy federal agents to cities like Seattle and Portland. And in the case of Portland, there's been a lot of viral videos on the web that are just downright disturbing of federal agents who don't have any identification in unmarked vehicles, abducting people literally on top of that. They are doing violence. They're assaulting protesters. One of them shot a protester in the face at Point Blank with a tear gas canister. So I mean, what they're doing here is unspeakable. And all of this action that's taking place is happening as the governor, as local officials, you know, the mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler are saying, we don't want you here. Get out. Now, just to kind of give you a little bit of a glimpse of what's happening. Take a look at this video and pay close attention to what the agents say as they're detaining this individual and people around bystanders who are watching and filming object to what they're doing. That should send chills down the back of your neck just because you have these people in an unmarked vehicle abducting people. I mean, this is literally what we see in authoritarian regimes. But to make matters worse, in case you didn't hear one of them said, if you follow us, you will get shot. So the people who are concerned that these strange men are abducting someone, putting them in a vehicle that's unmarked could be anyone, could be a psychopath, but they're abducting someone and they're saying, follow us and you will get shot. This is taking place in the United States of America, threatening people, abducting people, doing violence. And when I say doing violence, they're doing violence. Take a look at this video of an old Navy vet. He's probably in his 50s or 60s. He's literally not doing anything and police officers assault him. Now he took that beating like a champ. He was pepper sprayed in the face, took it like a champ. He still turned around and flipped him the bird. But I mean, regardless of how well you handle this, you shouldn't be assaulted and sprayed in the face with pepper spray for nothing. If you're out there protesting, exercising your first amendment, right? You shouldn't be assaulted by militarized federal agents. It's completely unacceptable. So it's disturbing and there are dozens of other viral videos you could find online of that same very thing happening. But the silver lining of all of this is that the response from the community has been nothing short of overwhelming. I mean, the words fed goons out of PDX was projected onto the Multnomah County Justice Center and even a small army of moms showed up to form a literal human shield around Black Lives Matter protesters to protect them from police brutality that some of these protesters are seeing from these federal agents. What we're seeing here, the streets on Portland. It looks like a war zone. And not too long ago, in cities across the country when the George Floyd protests broke out, lots of America looked like a war zone. But the difference is that these were local police officers. People were demanding their local governments take action to stop police brutality. But now what we're seeing are these federal agents unaccountable to local authorities that Trump has dispatched to Portland and other cities and they're wreaking havoc. I mean, to say that this is a violation of states' rights is an understatement. But we don't hear much from small government conservatives who purport to care about states' rights. In fact, as Mike Jollett pointed out on Twitter, these idiots went from wearing a mask as tyranny to the government can snatch people off the street in unmarked vans in two fucking weeks. Exactly. This is literally tyrannical. It's unconstitutional. If you are going to arrest someone, if you are in law enforcement, you have to read them their Miranda rights. They have to understand why they're being arrested, but they're just being abducted. And taken to unknown locations. Like this is not something that democracies are supposed to allow. They're supposed to be institutional checks that prevent this from happening. Constitutional checks. Civil rights and civil liberties that protect us from this. But the fact that Donald Trump is just flippantly violating this and these federal agents from DHS and ICE are complying, that is incredibly disturbing and terrifying. And it should shake everyone to their cores. And look, think about if the shoe were on the other foot for a moment. Let's say Donald Trump lost the election and he said it was rigged and he said the results are illegitimate and people took to the streets in Alabama and they started rioting. What this allows is for the president to expand his or her authority and do what Trump is doing. So now if Joe Biden wanted to, he could deploy federal agents to Alabama. It would still be unconstitutional. But since Trump did it and set up this precedent, well now this is a possibility and you would guarantee that the conservatives would not like it if a Democrat did it. But because someone on their team is doing the tyranny, is resorting to authoritarian tactics, they're okay with that. I mean if Obama did this, if Obama deployed troops to Texas, can you imagine the outcry from Progressive's Fox News would never shut up about it? I mean they were fear mongering about Obama becoming a tyrant and a dictator when he was signing too many executive orders according to them. So for a Democrat to do this, it would be beyond the pill to them. But because it's Donald Trump, that's okay because you know, he's their guy and if the authoritarian isn't hurting them directly, then it doesn't really matter. To them, democracy is a one-way street and really these abductions, these illegal detainings, these are just the tip of the iceberg because as journalists Ken Klippenstein uncovered, there are predator drones reportedly on standby, presumably to provide the feds with additional surveillance of protesters. Let me repeat that, drones are on standby. The same drones that we use to blow up the Middle East and North Africa are on standby in America. So what we're seeing in the United States reflects what our military is doing abroad. So we took the war on terror and you know as unacceptable as that was, we're doing it domestically at home. And the reason why Donald Trump thinks he has the authority to do this is because he signed an executive order that protects statues and anyone who chooses to engage in suspected vandalism in many cases even if they're not doing anything wrong, well they are deemed a national security threat. I mean we already know Donald Trump wants to treat so-called antifa protesters as terrorists because that's what he said via Twitter. Now we don't necessarily know legally what the implications of that will be but it certainly tells us what his actions are. You know what he's trying to, how he's trying to justify rather these types of actions, you know going into Oregon even if the governor wants him out. Now in response to this the state of Oregon is now suing the U.S. Marshall Service, ICE and DHS for illegally abducting citizens which amounts to arrests without them being read their Miranda rights which is obviously unacceptable, it's illegal, they're also suing for civil rights violations and they even press charges against the one federal agent who shot a protester in the face with tear gas and additionally senators from Oregon such as Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden are taking action as well. Jeff Merkley tweeted, when I get back to DC next week I will be introducing an amendment to the defense bill with Ron Wyden to stop the Trump administration from sending its paramilitary squads onto America's streets. We won't let these authoritarian tactics stand and specifically this legislation would force federal agents to identify themselves, curtail their crowd control abilities, notify local authorities of their presence and also make violations of said rules illegal and representative AOC is releasing a house bill that requires federal agents also to identify themselves but even though this would make a difference it's not, it's not good enough like these agents need to leave immediately. Nobody in Portland wants them there, the governor doesn't want them there, state senators don't want them there, members of the House of Representatives such as Suzanne Bonamici do not want these federal agents there, the people don't want them there and the city is basically collectively screaming at them to leave but they're not leaving. And in an interview with Fox News, acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf basically remained defiant and said I'm not going anywhere, I don't care if they want me there or not, I don't care what the governor said, I don't need their consent to occupy these cities. And so I don't need invitations by the state, state mayors or state governors to do our job, we're going to do that whether they like us there or not, that's our responsibility. So think about how troubling that is, you have the acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf saying, I as a member of this federal agency, I don't need the consent to treat citizens in US cities like terrorists and patrol these areas. We're going to do it anyway whether they like it or not. I mean this is an extension of the war on terror but in the United States and it really should scare every single person who cares about democracy, who doesn't want to see us devolve further into authoritarianism and on top of that, he admitted basically in a different interview that they're arresting people who aren't even necessarily guilty of any wrongdoing, because they're being proactive. I mean, look at this Freudian slip. We are having to go out and proactively arrest individuals and we need to do that because we need to hold them accountable. Now after that interview took place, Minority Report was trending on Twitter because this is literally what we saw from the movie Minority Report with Tom Cruise where people were arrested because there was some device that was able to predict when someone was going to do a crime if they were thinking about it or something like that. It's been a while since I've seen that. But I mean, they're arresting people who aren't necessarily guilty and they're admitting it and they're not telling them why they're being detained. They're not reading them their Miranda rights. They're taking them to weird locations. They don't know where they are. I mean, this is exactly what we see from authoritarian regimes. And I know I sound like a broken record because I've said that multiple times but this really is a new thing in the United States. We have been stripping away our constitutional protections and chipping away at civil liberties in this country. You know, eroding the Fourth and Eighth Amendments. But this is a new thing. This is a new low even in our low standards in 2020 America. On top of that, Donald Trump also, in spite of all of the pushback that he's getting, has remained defiant, double down and threatened to occupy even more cities if they don't get things under control, whatever that may mean according to him. And then the police are afraid to do anything. I know New York very well. I know the police very well. New York's finest. And the fact is they're restricted from doing anything. They can't do anything. So what are you planning to do? Well, I'm going to do something that I can tell you because we're not going to live New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these Oakland is a mess. We're not going to let this happen in our country. All run by liberal Democrats. More federal law enforcement to some of these cities. We've got more federal law enforcement that I can tell you. In Portland, they've done a fantastic job. They've been there three days and they really have done a fantastic job at a very short period of time. No problem. They grab them. A lot of people in jail. They're leaders. These are anarchists. These are not protesters. People say protesters. These people are anarchists. So first of all, note how he just flippantly bragged about how federal agents grab them, grab people as if that's a good thing. Abducting people is something that he's literally bragging about. But on top of that, you know, he saw weeks of protests after George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis where police officers in New York, for example, were driving into crowds of protesters, shooting pepper spray out the window, marching down streets, militarized police vehicles, yelling at people to go in their homes and shooting at them with tear gas or rubber bullets, whatever it was. I mean, we've seen how brutal these police officers have been, locally speaking. And Trump is complaining that they're too restricted. In New York, for example, where we saw a lot of brutality, they're too restricted. They can't do enough. So that's why we have to send in federal agents because they need to be more brutal. And I don't have to point out the pattern in the city seat threatened to send more feds to because he revealed that pattern himself. He said, you know, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, and Oakland. These are all cities run by Democrats, his political opponents. So he is using war tactics against his political opponents for personal gain because he thinks that if he appears really tough on crime and is really pro law and order, this can help him get reelected. This is disturbing on so many levels. This is something that we'd see from a country like Turkey with Erdogan, who consolidated his power. And it really, like, again, I don't want to sound like a broken record in saying that this is authoritarian, but it is. And as Charles Pierce of Esquire argues, why in the hell is this not a bigger story? A major American city is being softly pinot-shade in broad daylight. And if we know one thing, if this president and his administration get away with this, it will only get worse. You'd have to be out of your mind or comatose since fall of 2016 not to suspect that this could be a dry run for the kind of general urban mobilization at which the president has been hinting since the summer's protests began. This is not an authoritarian impulse. This is authoritarian government. Straight, no chaser. And this administration has a powerful thirst for it. It will do anything if it thinks it can get away with it in order to benefit a president who wants to bring the republic down on its head. I agree with this. I mean, we can't keep saying, oh, well, Trump has these authoritarian impulses. Now he's just doing authoritarianism. This is what we see in authoritarian regimes. I mean, if you look at Tunisia under Ben Ali's control, this type of shit was happening and they ended up having a revolution. I mean, not necessarily because this wasn't the catalyst, but I mean, you had people so skeptical of one another that they could be working for the government. People were being abducted. You know, that's why it spread paranoia. You saw this happening in Chile with pinot-shade, people getting abducted. I mean, this is exactly what you see from dictatorships. But it's happening now in America. And Trump may be able to get away with this. I mean, what exactly check is there? I mean, you see people taking legal action, but Trump isn't taking legal action to actually do these things. He's just doing it willy-nilly, right? Using his executive power to do just that. So what recourse is there in actuality? Is Congress going to pass a bill stopping this? Will the Senate allow it through? I mean, what can actually be done? And that's what's really scary. There was some type of mechanism to reign in Donald Trump here. Immediately. That would be one thing. But the fact that he can do this and all we can do essentially is complain, that's really terrifying. And it doesn't help that the federal agencies and the individuals who are in control of these agencies basically are psychopaths who are loving this. Like they're getting their rocks off on this. Because as CNN's Frida Gittis explains, this is far from over. Acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan calling the demonstrators criminals flashed a dark glimpse of Trump's playbook on Fox News Thursday that should concern all Americans who cherish the freedom to exercise their constitutionally protected First Amendment rights. I don't want to get ahead of the president and his announcement, Morgan said, but the Department of Justice is going to be involved in this. DHS is going to be involved in this. We're really going to take a stand across the board and we're going to do what needs to be done to protect the men and women of this country. And that right there is really what makes this disturbing. Because Trump, you know, it's not like he's saying, hey, Mark Morgan, can you go ahead and send some federal agents to Portland so we can occupy that city and stop the protests from happening? And he's saying, I'm sorry, sir, I just don't have the authority to do that, or I don't feel right about doing that. It's not like he's even saying, look, I listened to the president. I deployed troops or agents to the United States at the request of the president, but I would like this to be, you know, legitimized through legislation or I would like the governor to formally invite us there. He's just saying, oh, we're going to do it and I love it. And you have the DHS acting secretary saying the same thing, basically. We don't need their consent. We're going to go into these cities because we are tasked with rooting out terrorism. And if it's happening domestically, if Trump says these people are basically terrorists, we kind of agree with him. We're also fascists just like him. So I mean, this is disturbing. This is disturbing. You see an expansion of the executive and executive power taking place, you know, since the Bush years. Obama also expanded executive power. Trump's doing the same thing. And Biden will most likely do the same thing. I don't want any president to do this because this may necessarily be something that you like and you're cheering on since it's a president and power that you like. But what happens when, you know, there's a power transition and Trump is no longer in office and now a Democratic president wants to do this in a red state, then what? You don't get to scream about tyranny then if you're saying nothing now. And this is a problem that I have with, you know, these small government conservatives. They're only small government selectively. If it's, you know, a particular issue that they really care about, like gun rights or something. Then they're small, small government pro-states rights or pro-states rights if they can, you know, clamp down on civil rights and discriminate against trans people or something like that. I mean, what we're seeing now, this is honestly something that a lot of people aren't taking seriously enough and I know that this is getting more attention. I know that mainstream media is slowly but surely starting to talk about this and its severity. But still, this should be so profound to people like individuals in America should just instinctively know that this is so troubling that they should all speak out and be collectively outraged, including Donald Trump's own supporters and the fact that they're not, the fact that probably half the population doesn't even necessarily know that this is happening. It shows that democracy in America is not something that's going to last forever. It's fragile. And we may have, you know, an advantage that other states who devolved into authoritarianism don't have. You know, we have these institutions that have been there forever. But this really shows that democracy is fragile because people, in order for democracy to exist it has to be legitimate. Like people have to buy into the idea of democracy, right? It can't be selective where they only support democracy depending on who's in the White House. People really have to deeply believe in democracy in order for it to work. And the fact that so many people in this country, either one don't know or don't care and are cheering on what's happening, it shows you that democracy is in deep trouble and it's in so much trouble that it's not going to end if Donald Trump is kicked out in November. This is something that requires absolute massive reforms, systemic reforms, institutional reforms because if we actually believe in democracy and want to protect democracy, we have to make sure that this doesn't happen ever again. Not that someone from our team does it, but that nobody can do this again. This is unacceptable. And I don't think it would be appropriate even if a governor had requested federal agents. But the fact that they're not and they're doing it without their consent and they're bragging about it essentially, I mean, it spells trouble for democracy to say the least. I know that this is kind of old news now and a lot of you have moved on, but I still really want to talk about Donald Trump's interview with Chris Wallace and Fox News. This was bananas. This was a spectacle. I don't know how to even describe this interview. We can really pick it apart and talk about this for hours quite literally. We had to use one word to describe this. That word would be moist. It would definitely be moist because throughout this interview, Donald Trump was very moist. And I'm not sure why he chose to have this outside. Apparently, this was up to him. He claims that he wanted to have Chris Wallace sweat during this interview, but really it was him who was sweating the entire time. I mean, it literally looked like his face was melting. You can tell he was extra hot because he smothered his face with Jurgen's natural glow, self-tanner. Sweat was rolling down his cheeks. His upper lip was especially wet, which kind of grossed me out and made me feel queasy. I mean, goddamn, he looked like shit, but I digress because I'm not actually going to focus on that, but I had to point this out. I mean, disgusting. But there is a portion that is getting a little bit of attention and I think it really does... It warrants further conversation and I don't know that I've ever addressed this on the program, but what would we do in the event Donald Trump lost his re-election campaign and he just chose to not step down? Now, we already know that he's kind of laying the groundwork to delegitimize this election and the justification as to why this election might be rigged according to him is because of mail-in voting. I mean, just the other day he tweeted, mail-in voting unless changed by the courts will lead to the most corrupt election in our nation's history. Hashtag rigged election. So, I mean, he already has the excuse in place so it's not necessarily out of the question to assume that if it doesn't go his way, maybe he just says this was rigged, I don't accept the results. And he was asked about this directly and he kind of did confirm what we all thought would happen if he lost. He's not saying he won't reject the results, but he's not saying he will either. He has to see the results first. Are you a good loser? I'm not a good loser. I don't lose too often. I don't like to lose. But are you gracious? You don't know until you see it depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do. Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results of the election? I have to see. Look, Hillary Clinton asked me the same thing. No, I asked you the same thing in the debate. There is a tradition in this country, in fact one of the prizes of this country is the peaceful transition of power and that no matter how hard fought a campaign is, that at the end of the campaign that the loser concedes to the winner, not saying that you're necessarily going to be the loser or the winner, but that the loser concedes to the winner and that the country comes together in part for the good of the country. Are you saying you're not prepared now to condemn to that principle? What I'm saying is that I will tell you at the time. I'll keep you in suspense. Well, Chris. And you know what? She's the one that never accepted her. I agree. She never accepted her loss and she looks like a fool. And you give a direct answer. You will accept the election. I have to see. Look, you I have to see. No, I'm not going to just say yes. I'm not going to say no. And I didn't last time either. Whether it's in 2021 or 2025, how will you regard your years as president of the United States? I think I was very unfairly treated. Now, I had to leave in that last tidbit there because rather than supplying Chris Wallace with some generic answer that, you know, my legacy will be, you know, a period in the United States where the economy witnessed, you know, substantial growth. He has to make it about himself. Oh, people were mean to me. I mean, he thinks like a juvenile. Like he thinks like a child, a petulant child. And I don't know how he's not embarrassed, how his family is not embarrassed with his behavior. Like this is weird. But nonetheless, he basically, he won't say he will deny the results, but he won't say that he won't either. Like he's kind of leaving that door open. I think it will hinge on his mood. How he's feeling after the results come in. I think that part of him would be relieved if he lost because I genuinely don't think he wants to be president. He just wants the prestige and the power that comes with it. But I mean, he wants, he wants to not do this, right? I mean, he's rich. So why would you want to do something? Why would you want to work and do this, even if you're not really doing a good job or working that hard and you're still mostly golfing? Like why would you want all the drama associated with this? So I think part of him would be relieved. But at the same time, he wants to be able to leave knowing he had two terms because that's what I think under him, you would qualify as a successful presidency and he wants to win at everything. So anyways, he may not necessarily accept the results of the selection. This is something that we're all kind of grappling with. And this begs the question, what would happen in the event? You know, he says the election results are illegitimate. They're rigged and he doesn't accept it. And when it comes time to us, we're in Joe Biden, Trump doesn't leave. What if he just stays in the Oval Office and refuses to leave? Well, there are causes for concern with regard to Trump, you know, trying to delegitimize the election. But this isn't necessarily the biggest concern because I think that Fred Kaplan of Slade really broke this down phenomenally and catastrophized a bit about what would happen in the event Trump did behave this way. And he explains that it wouldn't go the way that, you know, a lot of us picture it. So it's the morning of January 20th, 2021, Trump doesn't meet President-elect Joe Biden and his wife in the White House driveway, nor does he attend the inauguration on Capitol Hill. Instead, he proclaims, as he has many times by this point that the election was a fraud, he has set the stage for this with his false claims about mail-in ballots and at noon, instead of acceding to the transfer of power, Trump proclaims that the swearing-in was fake news and that he remains the president. Here's what would happen next. On the dot of noon, the nuclear codes which currently allow Trump to order and authenticate a nuclear attack expire. The officer who has been following him around everywhere with the football, which contrary to popular belief, is not a button or a palm print, but rather a book filled with various launch codes, leaves. If Trump and whatever lack he stay with him prevent the officer from leaving, another officer holding a backup football would join Biden at the inauguration ceremony. By the same token, the entire US military establishment will pivot away from ex-President Trump and salute President Biden. The principle of civilian control is hammered into American officers from the time their cadets and the 20th Amendment of the Constitution states, the terms of the president and vice president shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, no ifs, ands, or buts. If Trump orders the military to do anything, they will refuse his order. If any officers obey his order, say to circle the White House to keep him in power, they would certainly be tried and convicted on charges of mutiny and sedition and they would know this before taking the leap. Meanwhile, the Secret Service will abandon Trump as they do every president whose term is up except for a small detail assigned to protect him and his family for the rest of their lives. Overseas, foreign leaders will cut off relations with the US ambassadors in their capitals and await instructions from Biden or his acting secretary of state. Meanwhile, Biden's acting attorney general will have drawn up arrest warrants for Donald J. Trump and anyone who remains at his side on charges at minimum of criminal trespassing. If Trump calls on the armed forces or militias or the nation's sheriffs to come defend him, he might also be charged with incitement or insurrection. If any of Trump's aides or cabinet officers continues to take his orders, they too could face criminal charges and in any case would have a hard time finding respectable employment after the pretend monarch is taken away in handcuffs. If armed militia men and sheriffs rally to the White House and they refuse to let US marshals through the gates, a small contingent of Secret Service or the National Guard could be called up to enforce the law. If that doesn't work, a few M1 tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue should make the would-be rebels flee. It would be terrible if the standoff came to this but Commander in Chief Biden would have this option available if necessary. So this situation, this scenario where Donald Trump loses and refuses to concede and on the day where Joe Biden is being sworn in, Trump just like refuses to leave, it's highly unlikely because in order for him to pull off a coup like that a lot of, you know, steps would have to be taken. He would have to have other world leaders acknowledge him as the rifle president if he declared himself the forever president of the United States. You'd have to have like military generals and Secret Service all flip on Joe Biden and in order for Trump to pull off something like this not only would you need to be absolutely quiet without this leaking out but you'd have to actually be smart and persuasive and they'd have to respect you and not think you're an idiot. So this is highly unlikely. Does that mean that I think it's out of the realm of possibility that Trump wouldn't try something like this? I mean it is possible, it is possible. In spite of, you know, this not leading to Trump actually being forever president where it's like hey guys, I'm gonna stay president. I don't accept Joe Biden as the president. Oh, well there's nothing we can do. No, there actually is something that we can do in that incident. So that's highly unlikely. But what I'm more worried about isn't necessarily like Joe Biden not being able to be president because Donald Trump just declares himself permanent president. What I'm more worried about is what would happen if Trump invalidates the election and does step down eventually or if he sets himself up if he thinks the numbers aren't gonna go in his favor to invalidate the election beforehand because in either of those instances even if he doesn't directly incite violence he has a lot of unhinged supporters who are psychopaths and they would take up arms. They would potentially if, you know, Trump sent out a signal that this election isn't gonna go his way because it's rigged, they could potentially show up with guns and intimidate people. Trump could theoretically say I have it, you know, according to my intelligence officials they've told me that there will be a large portion of undocumented people voting. What would that mean? That means that a lot of his supporters may show up to polling stations if they're still in-person voting to intimidate people of color which is a reliable population for the Democratic Party who always votes Democrat most of the time. That could happen. If he chooses to say I see the results, it shows Joe Biden won and I don't accept these results that in and of itself could still cause a type of shitstorm in this country where it could lead to armed thugs right-wing or storming the capital buildings of certain states, you know, and refusing to accept the results, something like that. Like there could still be chaos even if that worst-case scenario doesn't in fact come to fruition where he just declares himself the permanent president. Like I think that's highly unlikely although still within the realm of possibility that's something that he could attempt. But I mean he could still cause a lot of problems and I'm honestly more worried about what he would try to do before the election more so than what he would want to do after the election because voter intimidation by his supporters if he feels like he's going to lose is something he could tacitly encourage while not explicitly endorsing it. Like he can kind of give himself enough legal leeway while not explicitly saying, hey, go harass black people and brown people at the polls, he could say something that triggers that type of response and that to me is honestly what I am more worried about than anything. So I think that this conversation is interesting because as Americans we've always lived with democracy. That's all that we know unless we grew up in a different authoritarian regime. The devolution of democracy we're becoming more and more authoritarian we're losing civil rights and civil liberties mostly civil liberties but at the same time we still have democratic institutions that are stronger than the institutions in these authoritarian regimes. If you don't consolidate democracy in the way that we did, then I'd say sure we would be susceptible to a military coup with Donald Trump leading it but that's really unlikely in this instance because that doesn't necessarily mean that we're protected from voter intimidation or some sort of insurrection that emerges organically even if Donald Trump doesn't necessarily encourage it. So I think that this conversation it is fascinating but it all assumes that Donald Trump will in fact lose and I'm not necessarily willing to pound the gavel yet and say that Donald Trump is definitely going to lose because there's still a lot of time and now in November Donald Trump could change up the strategy and that could be successful Joe Biden could absolutely face-plant during the debates that is entirely possible and if 2020 has taught us anything it's that we are in the darkest timeline so you know it's entirely possible that Donald Trump could still win but I mean if the numbers hold if Joe Biden is still pulling outside the margin of error we need over Donald Trump not just nationally but in swing states Donald Trump will most likely lose so it is interesting to kind of think about this because as Americans we haven't really had to entertain this idea what would happen if we had a president who went rogue Republicans were fear mongering about Obama wanting to do just this very thing when Obama made a comment about how if he were to run for a third term he would win but I can't do that of course because they're hypocrites but you know this is something that you have to worry about with Donald Trump he's tweeted out you know jokes to troll the libs and trigger the libs about him staying in office forever but that is that's something that is unlikely but that doesn't mean that he's not gonna cause chaos if he does lose and reject the results of the election so you know we're gonna have to wait and see hope for the best but prepare for the worst because at all it's entirely possible that he could still win a lot can change between now and November so just you know remember that and don't underestimate your opponents because voter suppression is a real problem and you know Donald Trump is trying to fight mail-in ballots and if people are forced to vote during a pandemic assuming this is still a thing in November you know that could suppress the turnout suppress the vote so we don't know what's gonna happen you know we have an indication that Donald Trump holds what will happen but you know we'll just have to wait and see so lately on this program we've been talking a lot about how Donald Trump's approach to COVID-19 has been to functionally pretend like it's no longer a thing his staffers have reportedly said that they just hope people grow numb to the deaths eventually so you know if you if you can't beat it then just pretend like it doesn't exist that's been his strategy and needless to say this strategy has been a colossal failure people are dying and regardless of what excuse you want to use for cases rising people want this to go away they want you to be a leader and take action so if you actually want to have a shot at being re-elected you can't pretend like COVID-19 isn't a thing you have to at least pretend do window dressing but you have to at least make it known that there's an inkling inside of you that you care so now because his numbers aren't freefall because his approach to this has been such a huge failure you can't even really describe how harmful it's been to his re-election campaign he is now forced to do a 180 and actually start trying to at least pretend to take it more seriously again he resumed daily press briefings again this week saying I think it's a great way to get information out to the public as to where we are with the vaccine with the therapeutics and generally speaking where we are and after weeks of his own supporters making matters worse because they refuse to wear masks because Liberty well he tried to encourage them to wear masks by tweeting out a photo of himself in a mask and suggesting that it's actually patriotic to do so saying we are united in our effort to defeat the invisible China virus and many people say that it is patriotic to wear a face mask when you can't socially distance there is nobody more patriotic than me your favorite president now he may be insufferable in the way he can wear a mask he may be racist which I unequivocally denounce but you can tell here he wants to get this under control he knows now that he's not going to stop hemorrhaging support and votes if he doesn't at least pretend to try but it's not just Donald Trump because other republicans know that if Trump's in danger they're in danger too and even Mitch McConnell is changing his tune now suggesting that the next COVID-19 relief bill must include another stimulus payment to Americans now I want you to understand that these actions are being taken these statements are being made out of necessity not out of concern for the American people the reason why they're doing this is because they are terrified that not only they're going to lose the White House but they're going to lose the Senate possibly they're really close like if you watch some of the ads some of which were featured possibly before this video there's an ad of Chuck Schumer excuse me Mitch McConnell fear-mongering about how Chuck Schumer only needs four seats to get the majority so they're worried they know that if they don't turn this around at least somewhat before November they're going to lose and they're going to lose badly if nothing changes so they don't actually care like what we're seeing even if you can argue like the encouragement for his supporters to wear a mask is a good thing this is nothing more than political theater this is window dressing because they don't want to lose but make no mistake about it they're not actually trying to solve this crisis in fact behind the scenes they're making matters worse because during this unprecedented crisis that we're facing they know that 32% of households missed their July housing payment they know that 23 million families could face eviction come October because of this pandemic that's why they're changing their tune that's why they want you to think they're taking this seriously because they know you're suffering and they don't want you to blame them but they're only going to do what they can publicly so you think that they care about you but behind the scenes they're trying to actually make matters worse because for example because of this pandemic because so many people are now unemployed well the demand for food stamps has increased by about 17% and as a result food stamp benefits have been expanded to accommodate the increased demand but Republicans rather than trying to keep this demand or expand food stamps further well they're trying to end the expansion that was made during this pandemic to accommodate people which means people who are newly unemployed will have less food on the table they may go hungry people may die because of what they're doing and I'm not being hyperbolic and that's not all because as cruel as Republicans are they at least try to expand funding for COVID-19 testing or at least that's what they want to do but Trump has made it very clear he's not interested in doing this presumably because he really does believe his own bullshit lie that more tests equal more cases so as Republicans try to get this under control which requires testing Trump is saying no I don't want to do that this is all happening behind the scenes and you can tell if they're scrambling because they don't know what to do they waited so long and now there's 4 months before the election and they're trying to hold it together but it's all coming apart it's all you know traveling before their very eyes they waited too long and you know their lack of empathy for the Americans they're supposed to look out for it's coming to finally bite them in the ass if these numbers do in fact hold this is damage control and even if you want to give Donald Trump credit for recommending that it's patriotic to wear masks because that's the idiotic message that will resonate with his supporters like he's not willing to actually be serious about it he's not willing to take it a step further to actually stop the spread of the virus because in an interview with Chris Wallace and Fox News he was asked would you actually institute some sort of federal mandate to whatever extent you can do that legally speaking and he said no then there are masks from the first day that the CDC said that people should wear masks on April 3rd you said you weren't going to you wore a mask for the first time in public at Walter Reed this weekend question the CDC says if everybody wore a mask for four to six weeks we could get this under control do you regret not wearing a mask in public from the start and would you consider will you consider a national mandate that people need to wear masks no I want people to have a certain freedom and I don't believe in that no and I don't agree with the statement that if everybody wear a mask everything disappears hey Dr. Fauci said don't wear a mask our surgeon general terrific guy said don't wear a mask everybody was saying don't wear a mask all of a sudden everybody's got to wear a mask and as you know masks cause problems too with that being said I'm a believer in masks I think masks are good but I leave it up to the governors many of the governors are changing they're more mask into they like the concept of masks but some of them don't agree I do say this schools have to open young people have to go to school he still makes matters worse because he says I'm able to have a certain freedom and I don't believe it so on one hand you say hey everyone lets wear masks because it's patriotic but on another hand you are basically legitimizing their idiotic argument that it's somehow tyrannical to wear masks in the first place therefore you won't mandate it so you're saying please wear a mask but you're also right that it violates your freedom I mean he can't help himself he can't not fuck up and he said you know I just want to leave it up to governors as he put it they're more mask into okay well what if the governor in a particular state is a complete moron endangering his or her people I mean take governor Brian Kemp of Georgia for example he's literally trying to block local governments from mandating masks what then well I'm assuming his answer would be well that's just freedom states rights so I mean he's not serious about this oh and also he said kids should still return to school so I mean he wants you to think he cares he wants to ameliorate your suffering republicans are looking for you finally but then he says now we're gonna send your children to school to act as guinea pigs to see how far this is going to spread if we continue acting like it's normal so I mean do you understand are you seeing the pattern here even as they do political theater and try to get people to think that they care at all they still end up showing their true colors they end up revealing who they are it's still mask off I mean it was already mask off when your staffers reportedly were saying that they hope people grow numb to the deaths right I mean you can't really put that cat back in the bag people know about that now and we know that you don't actually care we know that this is all for political purposes but if somehow you stumble upon you know the right strategy that actually makes you effective at combatting this that's a good thing like I'm not hoping Trump fails at stopping the spread of covid-19 because of the election I want to stop the spread of covid-19 because this is a highly contagious deadly pandemic I'm removing political considerations from the equation here because dealing with the pandemic seriously in and of itself is a good it's a good for America and it's a good for the world but Donald Trump can't help himself he doesn't know how to seem authentic his actions will be driven by what he believes is going to best help him get re-elected and currently I mean it's statues using federal agents to occupy democratic controlled cities under the guise of defending statues that's exactly what he thinks is going to help him get re-elected and the same is true for Republicans I mean they're gonna do what helps him get re-elected it's not necessarily unusual for politicians to act this way but I mean they're so bad at pretending to care that they can't even hold the facade for like five seconds before they end up showing their true colors we care about we want to give you another stimulus but we're also gonna roll back them food stamps we're also not going to extend that $600 bonus for unemployed people I mean they cannot help themselves that's how little they care so I mean it may be too little too late for Donald Trump like it's certainly a good thing that you know there's this inkling within his administration that you have to at least try to take on COVID-19 even if you're pretending and maybe if you pretend you accidentally end up being effective in some way I don't know how but I mean going in this direction to try to take this seriously is important because at a minimum maybe this will signal to your supporters that it's not a hoax and that they should wear masks because if you take it seriously or at least present yourself as someone who takes this seriously maybe they'll follow you but I mean who knows so I just I can't see this getting under control and I think that he waited too long like functionally speaking just pretending like this isn't a thing hurt him so bad that I don't know that he's able to undo the damage that he caused but we'll have to wait and see because this is America, this is 2020 anything is possible but it is interesting how quickly he abandoned that strategy how you know this shouldn't even be surprising but of course you can't just pretend that a pandemic isn't a thing unprecedented when people are losing their jobs and their loved ones because of this pandemic like of course that's going to fail what are you thinking so during the primaries if you'll recall I laughed at the idea that you know Bernie Sanders can't be the nominee because he'd just be too far left and the GOP is going to fearmonger about a socialist being the Democratic Party's nominee and it's going to lead to Bernie losing I mean I maintained rightfully so and I've been proven right that it doesn't matter who the Democrats choose as their nominee that person automatically will be labeled a socialist because that's been the playbook that the Republican Party has used now for a very long time I mean I don't have to remind you they literally tried to make you think that Obama was some sort of secret Marxist and socialist that's laughable he was just a moderate Republican so after you know the Democrats nominated one of the most conservative options perhaps the only other more conservative person was Mike Bloomberg the GOP is predictably doing what I said they do saying that he's basically a socialist but because that argument doesn't really resonate with people any longer they did have to tweak that argument a little bit so rather than idiotically saying Joe Biden is a secret Marxist as they said about Obama now they're saying well he's not necessarily a Marxist or a socialist but he's being controlled by the radical left who are definitely socialists and Marxists for example Trump tweeted this saying the radical left Democrats who totally control Biden I wish will destroy our country as we know it unimaginably bad things would happen to America look at Portland where the police are just fine with 50 days of anarchy we sent in help look at New York, Chicago, Philadelphia no I mean there's so many stupid things within that one tweet I don't even know where to begin first of all if the left were controlling Joe Biden I would be really happy he would right now be supporting Medicare for all vocally he'd be supporting the funding the police and pot legalization but the fact that he doesn't support those things when he needs our votes shows you that we don't actually control him if that were true maybe I'd like him but that's not true you know and Donald Trump he doesn't really even know how to be specific in attacking Joe Biden so he just has to say unimaginably bad things would happen to America like what? you can't say because you don't necessarily know and because you can't really imagine what America would be like down the road if things are really unimaginably bad right now when you're literally sending federal goons to cities to occupy them to treat American citizens as terrorists I mean so it's not going to really land aside from the fact that I think it's ineffective the attacks that we're seeing on Joe Biden from Republicans it's just downright stupid and I think that it's probably not going to help Donald Trump if anything it may actually help Joe Biden and I say that because when you consider the demographics that Joe Biden is struggling with the most young people there's a lack of enthusiasm what the Republicans are basically doing is campaigning for Joe Biden to young people for example the official team trump twitter account tweeted this out Bernie Sanders said that Joe Biden has moved a whole lot in many areas towards adopting Sanders far left policies crazy Bernie and the radical left control Joe Biden and will run America if he is elected president and they of course share a picture of Bernie Sanders taking off a Joe Biden mask now there's a number of reasons why that's stupid first of all you're trying to say that Joe Biden is being controlled by the most popular United States senator I mean you could pick anyone else and make more sense but if you're trying to hurt someone politically associating them with someone who's incredibly popular and loved by young people a demographic who is currently hurting with isn't necessarily a good strategy right it wouldn't be who of you to get people to think that Joe Biden is a lot like Bernie Sanders that's good for Joe Biden the more he is seem to be in alignment with Bernie Sanders that helps Joe Biden if this were true if Bernie really were controlling Joe Biden to that extent I think he would be in an even bigger lead than he is now and certainly you know that that may be something that you view as conjecture because there's no way to really prove that it's speculation but I mean Bernie Sanders is popular in spite of the fact that people voted for Joe Biden they supported Medicare for all overwhelmingly according to exit polls so for you to do this to use this strategy I don't know what you're thinking it's like you're campaigning for Joe Biden but it gets even better because take a look at what Vice President Mike Penn said about Joe Biden and what he apparently wants to do with regard to climate change who withdrew America from the job killing Paris climate accord and saved thousands of American jobs Joe Biden wants to join the Paris climate accord again placing a crushing weight on American businesses and the American economy I mean under President Trump the United States has actually achieved energy independence no longer relying on the Middle East for oil and now America is a net exporter of energy for the first time in 75 years Joe Biden would destroy our fossil fuel industry Yes, you heard that correctly you are not mistaken Vice President Mike Pence just said that Joe Biden wants to go further than even Bernie Sanders I mean Bernie Sanders was talking about net zero greenhouse gas emissions he wasn't actually talking about completely dismantling the fossil fuel industry but what Mike Pence is communicating to people particularly young voters is that hey I know that you guys are not very enthusiastic about Joe Biden based on polling but he's actually going to go further than Bernie Sanders in taking on this issue that is very near and dear to your hearts climate change he's going to destroy the fossil fuel industry all together I mean most Americans take climate change seriously and believe in climate change so for you to basically campaign in this way against Joe Biden it's like you're taking his biggest weaknesses and you're turning them into strengths for him but not it goes even more in this direction in terms of the hyperbole and how they're basically trying to make it seem like Joe Biden is more left wing than he is in actuality take a look at this because Joe Biden if he wins we're going to get socialism Before us are two paths one based on the dignity of every individual and the other on the growing control of the state our road leads to greater freedom and opportunity their road leads to socialism and decline I find it highly ironic that Mike Pence brings up freedom and the desire of Joe Biden to control us with big government as Donald Trump and his administration are literally occupying cities in America even if governor and mayors are saying get out we don't want you here so that's interesting but basically what he's saying here is if you vote for us you're going to get the America that you know and love but if you vote for Joe Biden you're basically going to get socialism in other words young people who hate Joe Biden hey guess what I know that according to one poll 70% of you actually support and prefer socialism to capitalism but Joe Biden actually will give you socialism I mean at this point we're going to be campaigning for Joe Biden they're telling young people who Joe Biden is currently struggling to attract that he's going to fulfill all of their hopes and dreams this would be like Joe Biden saying why would you vote for Donald Trump he supports Medicare for all I mean it's equally stupid like that right but by all means proceed team Trump because you're going to lose if you keep doing this but look here's the thing about this if you want to claim that Joe Biden is far left you can't be that hyperbolic if you want to be effective right you have to take one policy where he's actually bold and you have to really run away with that but the problem for them is that Joe Biden is a moderate Republican he's not really progressive he's not that bold so for them all they can do is make things up about Joe Biden but I think that even though this may inadvertently help Joe Biden I mean overall most young people they're informed they're going to know what Joe Biden stands for but if this doesn't help Joe Biden they're certainly not going to help Donald Trump because the lengths that he's going to you know smear Joe Biden as some sort of secret radical it's just getting embarrassing and it's getting especially embarrassing when you watch him get fact checked in real time so he was interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News this weekend and he made an assertion about Joe Biden that was completely preposterous he says Joe Biden wants to defund the police and abolish the police to which he was fact checked and subsequently embarrassed completely and I honestly I almost felt bad for him it's really because they want to defund the police and Biden wants to defund the police he does not he signed a charter with Bernie Sanders I will get that one just like I was right on the mortality rate did you read the charter that he agreed to oh really it says abolish it says let's go get me the charter please you've got to start studying for these reasons he says defund the police he says defund the police they talk about abolishing the police they talk about illegal aliens I look forward to seeing that so let's see what this says here prosecution sanctuary cities incentivize illegal aliens expand asylum abolish immigration detention that's not what I well fine this thing is many pages long end prosecution of illegal border crosses support deathly and these are the worst I'm not disagreeing with you on any of those I'm disagreeing about defund police the White House never sent us evidence the Bernie Biden platform calls for defunding or abolishing police because there is none it calls for increased funding for police departments that meet certain standards Biden has called for redirecting some police funding for related programs like mental health counseling I mean imagine being that confident when you're so wrong I mean this is the done in Kruger effect so look this is deeply embarrassing you can kind of see the logic behind these attacks like what Donald Trump is trying to do is win back these suburban voters and whatnot but here's the thing Joe Biden is exactly what suburban voters want like what these moderate voters he's everything that they can dream of so you're not going to convince them by just outright lying about the policies that he supports you're not nobody believes that Joe Biden is going to defund the police nobody believes that Joe Biden is a radical leftist that is just absurd even for the most you know a Kool-Aid drinking MAGA chat like if you've bought in entirely even you know that this is a lie so you're not going to persuade anyone if this message actually gets out it's not going to hurt Joe Biden but it could help him as I alluded to earlier if young people think oh I didn't know Joe Biden was actually radical and he supports defunding the police cool maybe I'll vote for him so it's hilarious that he thinks this is going to work associating Joe Biden with the most popular politician in America that's not going to be something that will be conducive to your success right if you want to win you actually have to present policies to people and while you're in charge right now do something about the pandemic do something about unemployment do something about the housing crisis that's going to get worse as more and more people lose their jobs and their housing as a result but I mean Donald Trump doesn't know what to do he has this one size fits all approach to campaigning and that is to just attack attack attack if he's not attacking Joe Biden he's attacking the quote unquote far left he doesn't know how to you know rekindle the magic that he saw in 2016 as a result he's flailing and he's doing things like this where he's saying hey guys Joe Biden is just like this person you all love and adore don't vote for him I mean this is utterly idiotic but I'm not mad I think you should keep up with the strategy if it means you know he's going to end up losing and if he does lose I don't necessarily believe it's going to be because of the strategy I think that this is not going to be an important conversation that ends up leading to and whatnot I think that it's ultimately going to be due to Donald Trump's own incompetence but certainly this isn't going to help at all it shows you why he's not doing good he doesn't know what to focus on he's completely lost and I'm not going to lie I'm kind of enjoying watching this this goes without saying I am a very opinionated person and chances are if you're watching this you're also a really opinionated person so when it comes to politicians in congress there's nobody who's perfect 100% I align pretty closely with some individuals in congress but even if I align with them 100% on policy I maybe disagree with them with regard to strategy having said all of that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is doing a damn good job at representing me and even if I don't necessarily agree with everything that she does or I dislike a vote that she casts I will never deny that she is genuinely trying her best but she actually wants to affect change and she has a command of policy details that people who have been in congress for decades still lack she's doing a phenomenal job so it really is this hard thing to me to see all of the attacks lobbed against her I mean the minute she won her primary she was public enemy number one for republicans they tried to demonize her smear her dishonestly and it is truly heartbreaking and you know all of this is a reaction of what Ilhan Omar faces but still when you have so many members of congress taking corporate money representing only their donors to see all of the hatred be directed to people who are actually trying to make a difference it pisses me off it really pisses me off so when I heard that a republican verbally accosted AOC at the capitol it really took it personal it angered me because he took issue with something that she said and the response was to basically have a meltdown to her rather than trying to be an adult and vocalize his disagreements like a grown up this is such a weird story so as Mike Willis of the Hill reports tensions flared on capitol hill this week when a republican lawmaker challenged representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in an unusual and decidedly personal confrontation on the capitol steps representative Ted Yoho was coming down the steps on the east side of the capitol on Monday having just voted when he approached Ocasio-Cortez who was ascending into the building to cast a vote of her own in a brief but heated exchange which was overheard by a reporter Yoho told Ocasio-Cortez she was quote-unquote disgusting for recently suggesting that poverty and unemployment are driving a spike in crime in New York City during the coronavirus pandemic you are out of your freaking mind Yoho told her Ocasio-Cortez shot back telling Yoho he was being rude the two then parted ways Ocasio-Cortez headed into the building while Yoho joined by representative Roger Williams began descending toward the house office buildings a few steps down Yoho offered a parting thought to no one in particular fucking bitch he said to me ever she said I've never had that kind of abrupt, disgusting kind of disrespect levied at me approached a few hours later Yoho declined to discuss any aspect of the exchange no comment he said yeah so as a millennial I have had that kind of like disrespect lobbed at me from older people who think oh well just because you're younger you know that doesn't mean that you have the wisdom that I have you don't know about this or you're naive you're insane to suggest this or that you know so I kind of like I took the attack that he lobbed against her personally because that condescension is something that I personally experienced but on top of that let's play a game here let's assume that the roles were reversed and AOC approached him because he said something about Medicare for All that it's a government takeover something stupid about Medicare for All he attacked it and she approached him and she called him a fucking asshole or a fucking dickhead could you imagine the outrage that we'd hear from Republicans I mean Fox News would cover it and cry about there being no civility or decorum Donald Trump would tweet about it and demand that she apologize a lot of Republicans, Mitch McConnell Ted Cruz would tweet about this and say that she's disgusting for saying that and being disrespectful they would be calling on Nancy Pelosi to remove her from committee assignments I mean we know exactly what Republicans would do because we've seen the way that they've reacted when Rashida Tlaib for example said we're gonna impeach the motherfucker they lost their minds they lost their minds but here when a Republican congressman calls one of his colleagues a fucking bitch I mean nothing the talk about decorum and civility and respect goes out the window it goes out the window right Chuck Grassley isn't taking to the floor to denounce this lack of civility we're not going to see Fox News call out Yoho here for what he said nothing because there's a double standard they are allowed to treat us with no respect they're allowed to openly disrespect us and you know vocalize their contempt for us and that's fine that's to be expected but if the shoes on the other foot well they're entitled to our respect I mean this is this is infuriating to me now AOC later tweeted about this saying I never spoke to representative Yoho before he decided to accost me on the steps of the nation's capital yesterday believe it or not I usually get along fine with my GOP colleagues we know how to check our legislative sparring but hey bitches get stuff done so I mean need this to say I think that she handled it a lot more responsibly and mature than I would have I would have fired back and called him a prick something like that it's just you know this is only acceptable if it's being done to the left or to someone who is younger because there's this assumption this ageist assumption that young people don't know any better than AOC to suggest something that he disagrees with that's just outrageous it's just it's so infuriating that you see this and will her colleagues in the Democratic Party come to her defense I mean maybe you get a couple of them but will Nancy Pelosi call for civility will Chuck Schumer speak out against this lack of decorum lack of mutual respect among colleagues probably not a surprise that doesn't necessarily mean that we shouldn't talk about it and shame people who are hypocrites here I know I'm super late to the party on this particular subject and it may not be a foregone conclusion but even if this doesn't actually happen just the mere fact that Democrats are considering it it shows you how little they value the left and you know for those of you who haven't heard will take a look at this headline Kasich to speak at Democratic Convention on behalf of Joe Biden now a lot of you may think what's the big deal there I mean sure he's a Republican but doesn't a Republican speaking at the Democratic Party's National Convention really just demonstrate how bad Donald Trump is no not necessarily it really says a lot about the Democratic Party and their values you know a platitude that they like to say they put front and center right because if you are willing to align with someone like John Kasich that says a lot about you and in particular that really undercuts the one thing that makes the Democratic Party appealing because why do we have a reason to vote for Democrats at all I mean it's because they're basically woke Republicans right they may be economically conservative and align with Republicans on the military and whatnot but at least when it comes to social justice issues they're relatively good you know they may be a lot of talk about Democratic but at least they aren't openly bigoted or explicitly bigoted as the Republican Party is they support women women's rights women's reproductive rights LGBTQ causes and whatnot but John Kasich everything he stood for during his tenure as governor of Ohio flies in the face of what they claim that they represent I mean when it comes to abortion he signed one of the most restrictive abortion bills into law in the country and I'm assuming he did this under the guise of it being some sort of compromise because he ended up vetoing the really draconian heartbeat bill but his bill was still pretty bad it subjected physicians abortion doctors to felonies if they violated his state's stringent standards with regard to abortion it also made no exceptions for rape or incest and if that were the only thing with regard to social issues or cultural issues regarding John Kasich I would say okay he's just really bad on this one issue but he's bad on other issues as well when it comes to LGBTQ rights he is terrible when it comes to this but don't take it from me take it from the Democratic Party who in 2016 tweeted this during a Republican primary debate Ohio had a constitutional ban on gay marriage and John Kasich fought to keep it there now let's just pause there for a moment the fact that he fought to keep their state's constitutional ban on gay marriage on the books that is unforgivable but I can't even say it's unforgivable because he hasn't even asked for forgiveness I don't even know if he's evolved he may still hold these same bigoted views where he believes that gay people should be second class citizens this is who the Democrats want to speak on top of that back in 2012 after he endorsed Mitt Romney they criticized him on Twitter for being a union buster and rightfully so but as this reply points out damn I hope you guys are never involved with him and I think that'd be a really bad look now that was obviously a reply from 2020 to kind of highlight their hypocrisy because now they're contemplating getting in bed with him and he's not the only Republican who I'm worried that the Democratic Party will get in bed with I mean we see these Lincoln project grifters take prominence now individuals like Rick Wilson the architects of Bush's Iraq war and I mean if they help Biden win then I think as Emma Viglin pointed out on Twitter really astutely this could be a Trojan horse to get more Republicans involved in the Democratic Party where this becomes like a bush light party overall and you know by associating with someone like John Kasich you're sending a message to women to LGBTQ people to workers that you don't actually value them and take them as seriously as you claim to and if you don't actually have that credibility if people don't believe that you're serious about social justice issues and we have reasons to believe that you're not then what's gonna happen you lose all of your repeal the one catch that you have the one reason why the left vote for you that goes away that justification goes completely out the door because if you're going to be economically conservative and disregard social justice issues then you're useless at that point you're just Republicans you're just moderate Republicans and that's unacceptable but you know it gets even more outrageous and infuriating when you consider how selective the Democratic Party is in determining who they should or shouldn't work with because as Socialist MMA points out on Twitter the same Democratic Party that had a complete meltdown regarding Joe Rogan endorsing Bernie is allowing John Kasich an extreme homophobe to speak at their convention yeah isn't it funny how that works now to make matters worse in 2016 there was another politician from Ohio that was scheduled to speak at the DNC convention that individual was Nina Turner but they removed her inexplicably from the convention program let me repeat that to you the top surrogate for Bernie Sanders in 2016 who came in second place and almost one was barred from speaking at the DNC convention so to the Democratic Party Nina Turner isn't welcome to speak at our conventions but John Kasich he is welcome I mean this is infuriating and it's a slap in the face to the left I mean they're currently trying to court us are they not they're trying to win us over what else was the point of the unity task forces with Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders if you're serious about wanting to win over the left and young people you can't do things like this you can't associate yourself with people your party you can associate them with individuals like this who are harmful who are as extreme as Donald Trump but the difference between John Kasich and Donald Trump is that John Kasich doesn't put out mean tweets so as long as you're polite you can be a bigot and the Democratic Party will want to work with you if they think there's going to be a political gain in that to you know capitalize on anti-Trump Republican ism in this weird like three-person phenomenon because anti-Trump Republicans is not a very big thing but I mean like for them to do this it's just it's unacceptable so if he is going to speak then there should be a lot of pushback I can't even say that there should be protests because I don't think that this DNC convention is going to take place in person because of COVID-19 so I'm not sure they may just do it and that's that we have no say they've already kind of showed us that they don't necessarily care about what the left has to say they don't really value our input otherwise they would actually endorse policies like Medicare for all nonetheless I mean this shouldn't take place and if they actually are serious about winning over the left don't do this we don't need to have John Kasich speak because he's a moderate Republican I mean come on this is not something that you should be doing at all if you ever want to win back the trust from young people that you lost if you ever want to actually have the left support you again because I mean there's already not very much enthusiasm for Joe Biden and if he wins it will be because people hate Donald Trump that much but I mean don't make matters worse don't spit in our faces right this is just not okay hi folks once again I have another phenomenal candidate running for congress in 2020 to introduce you to her name is Jessica Scurrain running running against Chris Coons in the state of Delaware for the US Senate Jessica thank you so much for coming on the program welcome yeah thanks so much for having me you know you are one of the few candidates that I've talked to who are actually running for the Senate so it's a little bit different you know the reach is bigger it's a little bit more of a difficult task in terms of like what you have to do with regard to you know outreach and the number of people that you have to reach so tell us why you decided to run against Chris Coons and how you're able to accommodate the changes you know given the severity of COVID-19 you know it's difficult now and you're running a state wide race so how has your team adapted yeah no it's a loaded question there so I decided to run in this race because of the work that I've been doing in the state since I lived here so I've moved to Delaware ten years ago this is where I've made my home and started you know my family here and I first saw it to build community in some way and the way that I look to do that was through doing some work through nonprofits and I volunteered as a tutor and a mentor for young students and then I got connected with an organization that's a statewide organization that delivers programming to girls from under resource neighborhoods to ensure that you know they develop self worth and they recognize that they can find their place in this world and succeed and that work really made it clear to me that frankly it's just not enough because while I was so proud of the work that that nonprofit was able to do it wasn't changing the fact that there was always another girl ready to come through that door because we were not doing the work to actually solve the problems that she was facing in her day to day life and we can't rely on this network of patchwork nonprofits to deliver social services that we need to thrive and survive in our country you know nonprofits are filling the gaps that are left by our government that is refusing to adequately adequately care for us so that's what got me kind of off the sidelines and recognizing that a lot of the things that people in Delaware support are not being championed by our current senator in fact he is standing in the way of the progress that we are demanding and that we need when I talk about Medicare for All for example that is a policy that is supported by upwards of 68% of people in Delaware but our senator tells us it's not possible he uses all of the language that has been put out by the right wing and insurance companies to say this will be too expensive, it will cause rationing of care, you won't like it people like their private plans and to scare people but people still want it same thing goes for a Green New Deal in Delaware we are already facing climate crisis and we are the lowest lying state in the country and we have a senator who puts forward plans that fly in the face of what climate scientists are telling us who tell us we need to get to net zero emissions by 2030 he proposes small ideas that maybe get us there by 2050 but 60% of Delawareans support a Green New Deal so I am running to actually support the things that Delawareans are already demanding to relieve the senator of his duties because we need someone who is actually going to lead on the things that Delawareans need to improve our lives and to make the lives of working people in our state better so you did ask about COVID and I want to touch on that and I want to touch on a little bit about what you started out with because you make the point that this is a senate race and it's statewide race but in a state like Delaware that's very different from a statewide race in Texas or California it's a statewide race in a state that has 900,000 people so our state is smaller than some congressional districts and when we look at the dynamics of this race this is an incredibly winnable seat this is the most winnable senate seat for leftist and progressive policies because we are talking about a a for example the last senate primary 84,000 votes in that primary that's very different than what we have seen in a lot of senate races that we have come really close in and haven't pushed over the edge so we see this as an incredible opportunity not something that's daunting because there's a real opportunity here to connect with the voters that we need to connect to and turn them out and win this race and we've translated the way we're doing that we launched this campaign in November of last year and from day one we're doing voter contact we were out knocking doors we had throughout the winter Saturdays we're 25 people we're showing up even though it was 20 degrees out to knock on doors because that's how engaged people were and how passionate they were about this campaign and what we had to do is translate that to phone banking and that's where we've been instead we're still making incredible amounts of progress there we had our best week of phone banking last week we had 5,000 dials so we're increasing and continuing to scale up and do the voter outreach that we have to do to win this race even in the face of coronavirus this is really exciting because running in a smaller state it makes it really possible and having another leftist attain power in the senate is so important because there's only 100 senators so you have more power, you have more influence and so just to add one more to that mix would possibly transform the country not to sound hyperbolic but I mean we can't just have there be a couple of senators beyond board for Medicare for All we really need a bigger and broader coalition and it's really nice to see you step up like this and it's so exciting to see you put everything that you're running on front and center so one of the first things that I do when I learn about a candidate is I go to their healthcare page and I check do they support Medicare for All that's the most basic litmus test that I have if you support Medicare for All then okay that's good we'll talk but I mean you're really leading with this you're not burying the lead and I think that's especially important now like back in 2019 I maybe could have given people a pass for not being on board with Medicare for All but during a pandemic I can't give them a pass anymore it seems like it's not just inhumane it's unreasonable and irrational to be against Medicare for All so can you talk through that need during a pandemic especially with regard to you know Delawarians and how it impacts them mm-hmm yeah I mean I think everyone who is continuing to oppose Medicare for All should be called on the carpet for that every single day and forced to explain their reasoning for that because it's the nonsensical position at this point and Medicare for All is actually the responsible pragmatic policy we know it saves us money we know it saves us lives and in the middle of a pandemic when you have millions of people losing their employer-based insurance how can you continue to say this is the right system how can you say that the answer for them is the affordable Care Act marketplace where the lowest cost plans in the state of Delaware so first of all this is why it's relevant in the state of Delaware we have one insurer in our marketplace one there's no competition there they can set the prices however they want and what has had to happen is that the federal government and the state government have actually had to step in and create a reinsurance program to take the most expensive people and cover their costs because this for-profit insurance company does not want to cover people so we already have our federal and state government putting money into this insurance system and the plans that you get there the most affordable plan was $300 a month with an $8,000 deductible so if you just lost your job and you can't afford your Cobra payments which I've had to be on Cobra my payments were upwards of $700 a month which is not sustainable when you don't have income and your option is the ACA you can't afford that either so we are creating a situation where people who were probably already underinsured are now going to be uninsured in the middle of a public health crisis and I don't know how that is not a moment of radicalization for you we have seen that it is for voters who are not on board with Medicare for all are open to that conversation now and it's relevant for Delawareans we have approximately 30% of people in our state who are struggling with medical debt and that is debt that is completely unnecessary and it impairs their ability to keep their housing it impairs their ability to put food on the table to keep a car all of the things they need to otherwise survive so this is a problem we can absolutely alleviate and remove but I really think that we are beyond the point of people who support Medicare for all needing to explain that position it has turned a corner and people who don't support they need to be the people that we are calling out and saying how could you possibly not support this I totally agree with that we've won this debate proponents of Medicare for all we've won everything that we said has been proven right especially now during a pandemic unfortunately we didn't want it to be this way where we are proven right it's common sense and you know the thing that's striking to me is that out of all of the issues that Democrats could get on board with like I get you know the stranglehold that big pharma and the health insurance industry has on the party you know as a whole but I mean this is one of the issues where you can't really lie to voters and gaslight voters we all see firsthand how this impacts all of us I mean I was just talking to my niece this morning about how she needs to get her tonsils removed and she has insurance but she has to fight them to try and get them to cover that it's like even if you have insurance you can't tell us that we love it we hate these insurance companies so it's just I love that I see people like you running really just leading with Medicare for all because it's so important and I think that if Democrats really embrace Medicare for all they would be unstoppable so it's frustrating to see not just the reluctance but just the almost harsh tone that they have like as you stated Chris Coons uses Republican talking points these manifest from within the industry these aren't things that he's coming up with because he just has some you know some agreements disagreements with you on you know some of the specifics no these are lies that the industry spreads because they want to protect themselves because they know that Medicare for all poses an existential threat to them so I want you to talk through Chris Coons because he hasn't been in the Senate for like that long right I mean almost a decade there's certainly people who've been there longer but it's more than just Medicare for all with Chris Coons he's not adequately representing the people of Delaware can you talk through some of what you think are his biggest failings yeah the one that I always start with is siding with corporate interests over the needs of Delawareans and we can see this over and over he we just you just talked about the influence of insurance and pharmaceutical companies he takes the second most amount of money from pharmaceutical companies second only to Mitch McConnell and you see it in the policy that he pushes forward he opposes things like Medicare for all he opposed the Klobuchar Sanders bill to import drugs to lower drug prices he has championed bills that would actually allow pharmaceutical companies to strengthen and protect weak patents so that they could keep generics off the market and can and protect their profits so he is working in favor of these corporate interests another one that is incredibly kind of local to Delaware but important here is the work that he's done to help the chicken farmers that are in our state so that is something about Delaware there's like more chickens than people and there's chicken processing plants in our state and they are the the the heads of those companies are very large donors to the national chicken council the national chicken council is a very large donor to Chris Coombs and he has voted to allow those chicken processing plants to not report their air emissions these are plants that were actively poisoning the water of the residents who live around the plants there are now hundreds of residents who can't use their wells because they have been poisoned by this corporation and yet our senators not standing with those people he's standing with the corporation and allowing them to continue that that poisoning behavior and standing and not you know fighting back against the fact that they are also working to decertify a union right now and he hasn't returned the money that he's given them he hasn't stood up and said you know you need to stop this poisoning of our environment he did show up at a union rally but you can't play both sides here because whenever these corporate democrats have historically played both sides it always ends up being working people who end up losing out so the votes are one big problem the legislation that he puts forward is one big problem another is the way that he has helped trump enact his agenda and this one is mystifying because he will go on MSNBC and Fox News and all of these tv stations and he'll talk about how concerning and dangerous Donald Trump is but he will vote for over 120 of the judges that trump has worked to put on our judiciary these are extreme judges who are uniquely young uniquely partisan federalist society judges who have turned the court for the rest of my life they are outwardly anti-choice they are outwardly anti-civil rights they were outwardly anti the ACA which the senator purports to support so how are you making those votes how are you voting to confirm Alex Azar a drug company executive to lead health and human services who right now you'll notice is failing in our public health response to a pandemic and you championed him he went and like he drummed up votes for Alex Azar because he was the executive at Eli Lilly who is a massive donor to Chris Coons so I see someone who is failing to represent Delaware and work in their best interest and it's time that we need to get someone in there who is centering the needs of people in our state yeah I'm so but you said all that just beautifully I mean the representation that we're getting from a lot of corporate democrats it's just it's ha it's hollow I mean you get the rhetoric sometimes they'll say the right thing but their actions they'll come up with the rhetoric and now it's not necessarily just about rhetoric I mean it's they'll say things like oh well health care is a right but then they say that's why that drives me nuts I will tell you that gets under my skin unlike anything else because that's like me saying that you know I think that I don't even like I don't think there's even an equivalent so bringing up an analogy isn't going to work because I'll butcher it but I mean like it's absurd to me if health care is a right then that's guaranteed you know it just it's bizarre so I wanted to ask you about because for me like just thinking from an individual standpoint you're only one person but you still would be in a position of power if you won this primary and got elected to the senate where do you begin I mean I think through everything that needs to be done and the amount of time that it would take to save our country and from the numerous crises that we face I have no idea where to begin so I mean if you were elected your work would be cut out for you so my question to you is and this is huge where do you begin what do you do, what do you prioritize if you're elected yeah and it is a daunting question it's hard to answer right because so many of the things we are facing are interconnected issues our health is influenced by the environment our housing is influenced by the economy and wages and jobs and all of these things really do need to move together but what I have been more focused on is really driven by what I hear from voters and that number one thing is healthcare it comes up on virtually every single call in some way shape or form it's either I'm insured but to your point earlier when I have to use my insurance it's terrible I'm uninsured so I don't go to the doctor I'm underinsured or my drugs are incredibly expensive so that is the number one thing I hear from people I think we absolutely need to and can champion universal healthcare very close behind that though we need to be looking at climate legislation that takes seriously the scale of the issue that we're facing and that is another place where we see a lot of these corporate democrats co-opting the language of the left and saying climate change is an existential crisis of the global scale of those legislation that doesn't nearly match the scale of that issue and doesn't even come close to getting us where we need to be so I really see that as integral to saving not just our country but our planet and again it's interconnected with healthcare you know we are in Delaware right now we've been experiencing terrible extreme heat it's been 95 degrees humidity hard to breathe but it's not just uncomfortable effects that come from that and Delaware is on track to have more than two months of extreme heat days every year and that impairs physical and cognitive performance it makes it harder for people to breathe and it's actually the extreme weather event that kills the most people every single year more than hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes all of that combined so we're already experiencing these things and we're on track for them to get worse so I really see climate change as imperative for a state like Delaware that is the lowest lying in the country and already seeing the effects of it and the other piece is again that kind of interlocking place of economic justice and guaranteed housing too many people in this country are struggling I mean we are the wealthiest country in the world we should be absolutely ashamed of how we force people to live I spoke to a woman yesterday who's on a fixed income gets $700 a month and the only place we can live is in a motel where she's able the only thing she's able to do is basically take that money and hand it over to the motel every single month and has virtually nothing left over and she is just clinging trying to hold on to to survive it's completely inexcusable we need to raise wages we need to expand social security we need to institute a federal jobs guarantee we need to actually legislate in favor of the people of our country we need to take back the power from the corporate influence that has really taken over particularly in the last 40 to 50 years and I'm really confident in you because you don't just have a plethora of good policies that you're introducing you always speak to the root causes because it's not just well this is a problem let's fix it you try to look for the causal mechanisms and I think that that's really what's lacking because with a lot of these incrementalist approaches that we see from corporate democrats like what we see moving towards progress it's not enough and it never addresses the underlying root cause and so the problem persists these crises worsen and that's why I think that people like you who are really aware of these things are so crucial because it's just not being addressed by our current party I want to ask you about the democratic party itself because as a whole you've been critical of them corporate democrats I think that even though we're starting to see a shift a little bit they're still they make up the majority of the party so how do you how do you get them to change is it a matter of like playing hardball with them or do we just have to one by one vote out the ones who aren't taking people you know and their issues serious like this is something that I've kind of struggled with and I've kind of gravitated towards we need an all of the above approach but you know practically speaking like as a United States Senator what will you do to get someone on board to support Medicare for all how do you think you'd be able to influence people and does grassroots activism kind of play a role into that we saw Bernie Sanders talk about I'd be the organizer in chief so do you think that if you were able to cultivate like a real grassroots presence in DC for example that would move them or they're immovable and we just got to kick them out of this because this is something that I think is genuinely difficult for us to kind of process like I don't know what is going to be the main thing that gets us success gets us to where we want to be yeah and I don't think it's one thing I think we really have to attack this from all fronts I mean we have to say yes let's use our influence inside the government to champion good policy and let's do a much better job of actually communicating that policy to people this has been such a gap for me because it is not enough to go to Washington and make the quote unquote right vote if you don't also bring the people along with you because that is actually where change comes from that is where all of these policy ideas have come from the people who are actually facing the problem are the best at solving it so how do you ensure that you are always reaching back and pulling the activists who are doing the work at home up with you and boosting their work at the power of a Senate seat a little differently I mean when you're a senator you're basically like what most powerful 150 people or so in the country like that is important and it can be used in such a better way than I think a lot of people have because you can do a better job of explaining what is this policy what is this bill why do I want to vote in the way that I want to vote and how do I get people to aim their energy at the people who might not be voting in the right direction so we need to make sure that we actually think like an activist think like an organizer and yes use the power of the people to direct change but there are always going to be people who are just not going to be responsive to that like we can build as much political will as we want we can show that three quarters or more of the country believes in this policy there are people who are going to be unmoved by that and I think we cannot be afraid of challenging them and I will not step back from saying this person needs to be replaced if there are people who just will be completely unresponsive to the needs and the wants of the American people. I wanted to also ask you about executive authority I mean you're not running for president you're running to be a check on the president theoretically speaking but I mean we've this really troubling trend that started really substantially with the Bush administration where you know executive authority has been expanded and then that trend didn't stop with Obama he also increased the power of the executive Trump is now taking that to what seems to be a really dangerous conclusion you know when you go so far in terms of like increasing power we start to see you know more dictatorial methods and we see basically an occupying force in Portland currently you know against the consent of the governor and you know the mayor of Portland Ted Wheeler and this is my city and it feels really weird to like to feel like we have this invading force that's not foreign it's the federal government so I mean you know this is a states rights issue and I don't hear conservatives saying you know the states rights conservatives you know speaking out so I'm curious what could you do in this instance because let's assume that Joe Biden actually does beat Donald Trump and the polls hold I mean I would suspect that he'd expand his federal power as well and now that kind of we've seen this precedent with Donald Trump I wouldn't be surprised if let's say like hypothetically speaking this is all speculative Donald Trump refused to concede and riots broke out in a state like Alabama in support of Donald Trump then Joe Biden can do what Trump did and send in the fed so we're going to see this trend continue on and I don't think it's going to end with you know Donald Trump's tenure in the White House so is there anything that you can do as a senator or would try to push for it to reign in the power of the executive I mean we saw that attempted with the power to wage war you know Bernie Sanders and Mike Lee they actually got that bill passed you know this was influenced in the house by real cona and Trump vetoed it so what other steps could you take to reign in the power of the executive because this is something that does actually worry me increasingly especially considering the trajectory that we're on right yeah no I share that concern because we have given up so much of that check and so much of the privacy that you know Americans had in the name of security in a lot of ways and I think that it's important in moments of crisis when people are looking for safety to really think about what they might be giving up because I think that's how we got here in a lot of ways you know after particularly September 11th and the feeling that everyone had of just wanting to be safe and protected has really put us on this trajectory so I think it's a lot of it can come from rhetoric in some ways like so much of what has been the message that we get from anyone in government has been a lot of fear has been you know terrorists has been about Donald Trump running on undocumented immigrants being the problem and that's why so many people were calling for the abolishment of ICE because this is what ICE has been doing to undocumented immigrants for years and now we're seeing it extended beyond that one group and I'm glad that people's eyes are being open to that but they need to recognize that this has been going on and this is authority that we gave up out of fear so I think it's really important to talk more about like to run on hope and the concept of actually building something better not run on fear because I think when you put people in that place where they're in crisis they're more willing to kind of go along with giving up of these rights so there's that element the other thing is that we need to be obstructionists if we need to be obstructionists like when you vote to increase the military budget and create a space force and extend FISA and all of these things you are going along with it so then to turn around and say oh we didn't really want to do this well what have you done to raise the alarm before that and that's I think something that needs to be done more publicly as well is to talk about like what are you actually opposing when you oppose something and for what reason and I think in this moment we have to really think about you make the point of you know conservatives don't seem to be saying that this is a states rights issue and they're oddly quiet on it in fact I kind of called this out and some of the responses I got was well then they shouldn't be defacing property or rioting and it's like okay well they're using the federal these federal agents to take away first amendment rights what if it's now second amendment rights how are you going to feel about that and they'll say you know they'll come out with their guns and they'll defend themselves but the federal government has drones the federal government has a much more intense arsenal and I think that we really have to make sure that we are appealing to people like from the direction that it's going to make sense for them because yes maybe people oppose the protesters that are going on but I think you can expose to them the slippery slope that this might be and really talk through how like we have to demand that these powers get real real back in and I think we have to use the the power of the ability to not approve budgets to enact some of the change that we need to see to basically restrict the funds restrict the way they can be used and and protect people that way yeah and I'm so glad that you said that this is why I think that like your election is so crucial because we don't have really that many voices that are like yours in the senate I mean people are either unprincipled or complicit I mean in the sense of being unprincipled Republicans are silent they're okay with it because someone on their team is the one who's doing this and when it comes to Democrats as you alluded to I mean Chris Coons is largely complicit I mean how many times have Democrats voted to expand Donald Trump's military budgets and you know the power of the federal government to spy on Americans illegally which is obviously unconstitutional so I mean even just like I think the step of not being complicit in and of itself would be huge which is why we have to elect people like you because the current status quo like the corporate Democrats in office they are enabling Donald Trump I mean they can use the rhetoric that they want they can say I don't like it when he does this but at the end of the day you are the one who are giving him this authority to do that if you continuously vote on bills that give him the power that approve his federal judges that basically take what he does that's unconstitutional and legitimize them right and say you know I approve of this so it's troubling which is why I mean this election is so so important and even if people may be disappointed with the results of the presidential primary I mean there are so many great candidates including yourself to where this is still so so crucial you know that we change the makeup of congress so I know that anyone who's watching this they're gonna love you you know you are you check all the boxes I feel like in terms of like what we want in a candidate so I you know yeah you're great so what can we do to make your victory a reality yeah so volunteers are incredibly crucial I'm I talked in the beginning about the size of Delaware if we put 20 to 30 people on our dialer every day we could call every democratic voter in the state every week that's the size that we're talking about and so just getting another 5 10 people on every single day makes a difference in this race and your hours are incredibly valuable because the scale is smaller and that's why your dollars go further you know like I said before the 2018 senate primary had about 84,000 votes so that's not a ton we can win those votes we are working to win them right now and earn them right now we still have about two months until our election it's on September 15th so now is the time to actually join us because there have been too many near misses this summer like where momentum was building and the Calvary just got there a little too late right like a week more and we'd have Charles Booker and we don't want that to be the case in our race this is like the last stand for leftist policy in the country this is the last primary in the country and we have a real opportunity to win so volunteering is crucial and you could sign up to do that at justfordelaware.com and of course you know this is the grassroots funded campaign we don't take any corporate pack money so donations are always welcome and you could do that at justfordelaware.com slash donate yeah and I will say this that I think that your victory is guaranteed so long as everyone knows about you like I think that a lot of these races ultimately comes down to name recognition because people are sick and tired of congress they want new representatives fresh faces but often times they don't necessarily know about the alternative and maybe they don't have the time to look up whoever the primary opponent is and they don't want to necessarily take a gamble and get someone worse so it's just a matter of like if more people knew about the options that they had and all these great leftist candidates I think that you know there would be more victories and we're kind of seeing you know a lot more victories just in this cycle in comparison with 2018 so that's really encouraging and if this trend continues like we're looking really good as a movement so you know I just I'm so thankful that people like you are stepping up and running and I really hope that people at home do their part do what they can chip in a buck you have it and really dedicate time because this is you know even if you take time out of your day and it's not successful like a lot of people who I know who phone banked for Bernie Sanders or even went down to Iowa for example to canvas for him they kind of feel like man that was all a waste of time it's not actually a waste of time this is really like you are changing hearts and minds in the process so it's so crucial so if we get Jess into the U.S. Senate I mean imagine the difference that would make and imagine how freaked out the establishment would be exactly you nailed it so Jessica thank you so much for coming on the program thank you Mike for having me well that's all that I've got for you today thank you so much for tuning in if you've made it this far in the episode hopefully you enjoyed that in spite of the topics that we discussed which are certainly not fun it's been a really difficult week for a lot of us but hopefully you know and feeling you know just demoralized about the situation and that's all I really need to say I think you get it if you're watching this so thank you so much to all of our Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members for helping the show not just to survive but really to thrive I mean you guys are the lifeblood of this program and in times like this I truly I can never fully vocalize how much you mean to me and mean to the success of the show thank you all so much so with that being said with my my segment that I put out on Monday where I talk about you know the great Michael Brooks and what his loss means to the progressive left this community and to the world as a whole and we'll close the show with that hopefully you'll find what I say comforting you know there's no perfect words to deal with grief nobody is going to be able to say the correct thing to be cathartic to know that you're not experiencing this loss alone like even if you didn't know Michael Brooks personally you know you may have been a fan of him and you've watched him for years and laughed with him and felt like you know him personally so you know I wanted to include this in the episode so people are able to maybe digest what happened a little bit better even though we're still confused and a lot of this isn't going to make sense for quite some time or may never make sense but you know maybe this will just be cathartic but here is my thoughts on the passing of Michael Brooks recorded on Monday it is with a heavy heart that I bring you news of the passing of Michael Brooks who is the host of the Michael Brooks show he was also a co-host on Majority Report with Sam Cedar and we learned about this today when the official twitter account for the Michael Brooks show tweeted this out like everyone I'm kind of grappling with this and I just kind of feel shocked I feel really numb I don't really know how to process this it's difficult because you know this is someone who was so special so important to the left and to the world and you know when you see you know currently he's trending on twitter all of the people remembering him you really see the impact that he had on the world and it was so large I mean this was someone who was such a kind soul I mean we didn't deserve him but because he was around because he shared his political commentary I think that the world is genuinely a better place because of him and that sounds corny and cliche but I mean let me tell you how influential Michael Brooks was just to me personally um had it not been for Michael Brooks and the Michael Brooks show I probably would still be a social democrat like I feel as if I'm an anti-capitalist because I was so influenced by Michael Brooks I mean his commentary the way that he reached his conclusions like you really you trust what he he said because everything was so well thought out it came from a place of empathy and humanity and respect and he tried to cultivate the sense of international solidarity among workers that was really lacking and you know it didn't matter what section of the left you were on like he truly was kind to everyone and you know him and I were talking for a while now about collaborating and just a couple of weeks ago we talked about you know doing a collab I wanted to bring him on my show I have you know his book displayed on the set because I read it and I loved it and once again like his thinking here it really like to me anyways it helps to re-center where I am politically what I focus on like it helps to recalibrate everything that he says is it's always well reasoned and thoughtful and you know what he means to the left you just can never put that into words and my heart goes out to his family his girlfriend you know the crew at majority reports Sam, Jamie, Matt, everyone this is something that you know it's just it's so shocking he's so young he was a couple years older than me and you know I really I looked up to him like I live on the opposite side of the country but you know it really felt like I knew him so well because I was such a fan of his show you know when you have someone as such a crucial part of your indie media diet and you watch this person and you laugh with them you grow with them you kind of find yourself because this person is so influential it feels like you you know you're so close and so it's really hard to even like grapple with this and you know I'm feeling the same sense of shock really inability to collect my thoughts that I felt when my dad passed in March because there's a sense of disbelief at first and then you have this really long period of you know just kind of going through the motions of you know daily life you know you don't pretend that it didn't happen but you you just you be as normal as you can be until you know the fog that kind of clears and then it feels like if it really hits you right there's this deep sense of sadness that this person isn't going to be around again that this person doesn't get to you know experience the joys of life that we all take for granted the simple things like listening to music or eating food something so simple you know this young life is gone and will never be around again and it's really hard to digest this news and you feel such sadness for them and you know you know the impact that he had you know on all of us but the family you know that he had you know they're feeling more hurt than everyone but it's just there's not really there are no words to really put it into into the right way you know I'm struggling to collect my thoughts this is really hard I really really admired and looked up to Michael Brooks I really respect him so much and enjoyed his show and laughed so many times I mean he didn't just help me with my own political evolution and where I am today but I mean this is someone who's comedy just his impressions you know picked me up when I myself was in a bad place I just put a smile on my face I mean this is just this is a loss that you can't really put words to the left will never be the same without Michael Brooks but I will say that you know we have to never let his legacy be forgotten this man was a legend and what he wanted we have to carry out we have to try to carry out and make his vision a reality and it takes time we on the left are very ambitious we have goals that we're not going to fully see through in one lifetime little and multiple but so long as we lay the groundwork to carry out this vision of empathy and solidarity then we're honoring Michael Brooks's legacy and I'm not really sure what else to say about this it's you know it's just I don't know it's not something that a lot of us are going to understand right now we're going to you know feel really vulnerable and emotional and you know we're not going to know what to do with ourselves right like when I heard the news I kind of just started cleaning like doing random things because you know you don't know what to do with yourself like this news really hits everyone like a ton of bricks you know and everyone who watched the Michael Brooks show you know you felt like you knew him this was someone who made you laugh they made you smile and educated you so it's hard but you know for all of us I think that we have to try to take some time for self-care because this affected all of us and you know honor his legacy don't let him be forgotten and you know just try to carry out his legacy the best that we can you know there's a lot of people right now that are hurting because of you know his passing and it's gonna be a really tough couple of months and years we're never going to get over this but we do have to find a way to continue living and take what he put into the world and use what he gave us to grow for you know use the logic that he exercised in examining these political topics and apply that to our own political analysis and yeah I'll end that there because I'm kind of just rambling but you know just take care of yourself and really hug the people around you call them let them know how much you appreciate them because life is truly fragile it's there's been so much loss this year and we can't take things for granted, we can't take each other for granted or we can't take life for granted so Michael would have wanted all of us to keep on fighting and keep on keeping on so that's just what we have to do so that's what I'll say rest in peace Michael Brooks you absolutely meant the world to me you were a role model to me you are someone who I looked up to and respected so much and you'll forever be in our hearts comrade we absolutely love you well let me be clear the white race doesn't disappear overnight but if you look at the longer trends white mortality increasing fewer white babies being born the devil isn't thrown back into a cave overnight the arc of history is long but it bends towards Sharia so you do like just oh father is that dude except it's all bitter people in hip hop clinging to their game mafia to try to silence people like Lord Jamar what brother Jamar say is that when the gay or rotty got into the hip hop game see a lot of these brothers they're on the down low and they come out and they talk like they run the game meanwhile I know for a fact that he sucked Elton John's dick so it becomes kind of difficult to take them seriously as artists let me be clear there was a gay rapper that flowed I would give him props but there just has there will never be one up here look can a gay rapper flow theoretically yes practically no