 This is the Humanist Report with Mike Figueredo 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 Report podcast. My name is Mike Figueredo, and this is the 195th edition of the program. Today is Thursday, May 30th, and before we get started I want to take some time to acknowledge all of our newest Patreon, PayPal, and YouTube members All of which either signed up for the first time this week to support us, or increased their monthly pledge. And that includes Adriel Hernandez, Anu Nayik, Carlos Estevez, Cosmic Outlier, Gabriel Stein, K. Keen, Lionel Garza, Niko Gillespie, Sean St. Hart, and Victor Holguin. So thank you so much to all of these kind individuals. If you'd also like to support the show, you can do so by visiting humanistreport.com slash support or you can check out patreon.com forward slash Humanist Report or click join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. Today on the Humanist Report podcast, Bill Crystal attacks Bernie Sanders. Politico releases a questionable story about Bernie Sanders' wealth, and other news outlets attack him for completely innocuous things he's now doing. Bernie Sanders also calls out the military industrial complex and Tulsi Gabbard sends a message to Donald Trump on Fox News about the warmongering he's doing against Iran and on the subject of Donald Trump. He is now pretending to be a populist again in order to attack Joe Biden. I'll talk about why I think this could actually be an effective strategy and devastating for the country. Noam Chomsky talks about the Green New Deal. Bernie breaks his silence finally on Julian Assange as does Elizabeth Warren and we'll talk about the new medical condition that the World Health Organization deems burnout, which is applicable to most Americans. So that's what we've got on the show for today. Hopefully you guys will enjoy the episode. So as many of you know, anti-Trump Republican and neocon Bill Crystal decided to go after Bernie Sanders over the weekend. Now when I saw that he actually went after Bernie, I found this odd because Bill Crystal has so thoroughly embarrassed himself by being wrong about virtually everything that if I were Bill Crystal, I would never want to tweet. I would hide my face because I've embarrassed myself so much that just by putting my name out there, I'm giving people the opportunity to make fun of me, but the guy is shameless. He doesn't care. So what he did is he decided to go after Bernie Sanders. Now we're gonna talk about what he said about Bernie Sanders and the dumb reason why he chose to go after Bernie Sanders. But I want to give you some much needed context before we get to their little squabble via Twitter because this is someone who again, he has embarrassed himself so many times and we all know back in 2016, cable news pundits were so incredibly wrong about everything from Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump, but Bill Crystal was more wrong than them when it comes to Donald Trump. So much so that the claims he made about Donald Trump were so preposterous. He was proven to be wrong so many times that they literally laughed at him when they were wrong themselves. Take a look. I don't see a path where Donald Trump probably doesn't become the nominee. People I respect think Trump is peaked that a lot of people are intrigued by Trump. I believe that Donald Trump's candidacy was dealt. I've said this before and I've been wrong, but I really do believe last night could be a moment where finally Republican voters say enough enough with the engagement. Trump's interesting. He's saying some things I like. He's sticking it to those politicians and finally maybe people will focus on can and should he be president of the United States. And I think Republican primary voters will say no. I think Donald Trump's winning the Republican nomination honestly makes Hillary Clinton president for the next four years. So at first he says, look, Donald Trump's poll numbers may be high, but you know, he's gonna he's gonna fade away. Then he says, all right, he's gonna win the nomination, it seems like, but ultimately Hillary Clinton will win the general. He is just he can't help himself. He's so wrong about everything and the pretentious reasons as to why he was against Donald Trump probably was what made it the most insufferable because he kind of approached this as well. I'm better than Donald Trump. I'm more moral. I support decorum and he's not like the rest of us virtuous Republicans. When he's one of the worst Republicans, he's no better than Trump. You can even make the case that he's possibly worse than Donald Trump in many ways because as John Schwartz of the Intercept writes, no one outside of the inner circle of the George W. Bush administration bears greater responsibility for the war in Iraq than Bill Kristol. He co-founded a think tank whose purpose was to make the case for war, wrote a book and dozens of articles calling for an invasion and appeared constantly on TV explaining why it had to happen. And here's a little taste of what he was saying about Iraq back when Bush was trying to make the case for it. And he was right there as a cheerleader, trying to convince everyone that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. I would be shocked if we don't find weapons of mass destruction. And I think that is one of the main rationales for the war. I expect us to find them. And I think if we don't find them, that is that would undercut in part the rationale for the war. Obviously that would be a great blow if Saddam has not been developing weapons of mass destruction. I would agree that if after the war we aren't treated more or less as liberating force, then that would also be a rebuke to the Bush administration and to those of us who counseled that this war was just and necessary. I accept the possibility that I'm wrong. We need to follow through and be serious about helping the Iraqi people rebuild their country and about helping promote a decent democratic government in Iraq. It would be a much less morally satisfying and fully defensible war if we don't follow through as we should. I'm happy to be held to a moral standard. I ask that it be a serious moral standard. Turns out he was wrong, unsurprisingly. Now he was wrong about the Iraq war and him being wrong on that had catastrophic consequences. He was then wrong about Donald Trump doesn't necessarily have negative implications. But nonetheless, it shows that he doesn't necessarily have his finger on the pulse of America. But I mean, he's been wrong time and again and again. So in a normal world, cable news pundits wouldn't take him seriously. They would stop bringing him on their program. But nonetheless, this grifter is still around and since he still is legitimate because he's being propped up by the mainstream media, well, he decided to attack Bernie Sanders. And he tweeted out a hit piece that The New York Times recently published where they basically implied that he was a communist sympathizer because he tried to foster dialogue between the United States and countries like the Soviet Union and Bernie also vociferously opposed the Vietnam War. And in response to this article, Bill Kristol tweeted out, never Sanders. Now, first of all, I'm sure you have the same thought that I did when I saw his tweet here. Why would he think that anyone cares what he has to say? I get that cable news pundits like to bring him on. I mean, maybe they do it because he's a good punching bag. So he generates ratings in that regard. But nonetheless, you are not legitimate. You have zero credibility, Bill. You've been wrong about everything over the course of the last 20 years. So why would you think we care at all about what you have to say? So the way that I wanted Bernie to respond and I'm sure the way that we all wanted him to respond is exactly the way Bernie Sanders responded. He responded, saying, have you apologized to the nation for your foolish advocacy of the Iraq War? I make no apologies for opposing it. Bill Kristol then responded to that, saying, nope, I dislike quasi Stalinist demands for apologies. I've defended and will defend my views on Iraq and Syria and Milosevic and the Soviet Union and more as you defend yours. How about a real debate on US foreign policy? I'll ask for no apologies on a campus this fall. So first of all, like clockwork, any time a conservative is name dropped or acknowledged by a lefty. What is their first go to reaction? Debate me, debate me, debate me. It's it's so odd that this phenomenon is emerging. Like I named dropped H.A. Goodman a couple of months ago in the podcast and he responded essentially by saying, debate me. It's like they keep saying, debate me, debate me, debate me. And all that this does and I think what they know this accomplishes is it gives them credibility. It gets us to recognize them tacitly as legitimate honest actors by engaging in a debate with them. But the reason why lefties won't debate if they choose not to like Bernie, I'm assuming he wouldn't want to debate Bill Kristol. But the reason why he doesn't debate you, Bill Kristol, is because you have no credibility. I'm not opposed to debating right wingers. Like I will be actually doing a debate with a right winger this week. And I don't know if I'm allowed to reveal that, but I engage with people who I believe make arguments in good faith that they actually believe. But to debate someone who's a grifter, to debate someone that's constantly wrong and just says the things that they say to garner attention that doesn't accomplish anything. So notice how the people who are the biggest idiots on the right, they're the loudest when it comes to debates. Debate me, debate me, please give me your attention. Fuck off. That's what I say to that. Now another thing that struck me with his response was, no, I haven't apologized for the Iraq war. I've defended my views. And he says, I dislike quasi-stalinist demands for apologies. Why is Bernie Sanders telling you that you should apologize, quasi-stalinist? What does that even mean? Do you even know what that means? I don't think he does. I don't think he actually has a concept of what he's trying to communicate by saying that. He just wants to take a jab at Bernie and say, well look, Stalin's a communist. You're a communist. He probably thinks Bernie's a communist. So, gotcha. This is so mind-numbingly stupid. Bill, what you advocated for was one of the biggest, if not the biggest foreign policy blunders in the history of our country. You advocated for something that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people, that costs our country trillions of dollars. And for you to say, oh, you know, I'm unapologetic. I'm still defending my views. You have no credibility. And even if these news pundits bring him on their programs, because it's funny, you know, he is often made fun of rightfully so, I think on the left and the right, stop doing that. Stop doing that, because you're propping up and legitimizing this figure who has zero credibility. Nobody takes Bill Crystal seriously. Lefties don't take him seriously. Republicans don't take him seriously. But yet, because he's an anti-Trump right-winger, there's this weird niche market in mainstream media where they just bring on these anti-Trump Republicans because they like to hear them talk about how bad Donald Trump is. You're arguably worse than Donald Trump, Bill Crystal. You were in favor of the Iraq War. You advocated for death and destruction. And Donald Trump is doing the same thing. He's propping up the military industrial complex. He's increasing drone strikes. But still, with everything Donald Trump has done, I don't think it has amounted to the damage caused by the Iraq War yet. Now, maybe give him time and, you know, that could possibly transpire. Maybe he invades Iran and it's worse. But as we speak right now, you can make the case that you've done more damage than Donald Trump, Bill Crystal. So nobody cares about what you have to say. You have no credibility. You've been wrong about everything. And you have consistently made predictions that have not come to fruition. You're constantly wrong. You don't have your finger on the pulse of America. And mainstream news pundits probably only bring you on because they like the response that you generate. People make fun of you because they know you're a joke. So just do yourself a favor and do all of us a favor and go away because nobody takes you seriously, Bill. On May 24th, to no one's surprise, Politico published yet another hit piece against Bernie Sanders. And I'm assuming that they thought it was incredibly brilliant, like you see the photoshopped image of a tree behind Bernie Sanders. But it's evident to me that they didn't think this one all the way through. So it's titled The Secret of Bernie's Millions. How did he amass three houses and a net worth approaching at least two million? The surprisingly conventional middle class climbing of a radical sounding socialist. Now the article itself, it's accompanied by this weird imagery of the money tree that I showed you and also an image of Bernie Sanders being depicted as what I assume is a giant. He's carrying three houses, two of which are on his shoulders. And it's just really weird and bizarre. And just by reading the title and looking at the imagery that's in this, you already know what's in here. They're rehashing the same argument that we were beaten over the head with from a couple of weeks ago. Bernie Sanders is a socialist, but he's also a millionaire. Gotcha. And if you assumed that that's what this article was about, you'd be correct. Now, to be fair, this isn't the worst hit piece on Bernie Sanders ever. I've read dozens of hit pieces against Bernie on this program. And this by far is not the worst. But with that being said, it's still dumb. They have this long article that contains absolutely no bombshells. Rather, what it was evident that they're trying to do is construct this narrative about how Bernie Sanders wants to radically transform the very system that made him successful. Therefore, he's a hypocrite. It claims Bernie Sanders is cheap while simultaneously very wealthy. It asserts that he's become what he hates in oligarch. And he once claimed in the 1980s, I believe, that he never desired to be rich, but now he's rich. So we got him, folks. It quotes democratic strategists that imply he's hypocritical. And overall, it really goes into great detail about the history of his finances, how much he made while he was the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, how much money he had, what his net worth was during the 2008 financial crisis. Just a lot of details that don't matter. But nonetheless, it's a long article that essentially, if they want you to take away anything, I'm assuming it's that, hey, this guy's a hypocrite. It's not compelling. Bernie Sanders has never claimed that millionaires and billionaires are inherently evil. That's probably something that I would claim, certainly with regard to billionaires. But what he's always railed against is their greed. They hoard their money in offshore bank accounts. They don't want to pay their fair share of taxes. They lobby the government to do their bidding. It's the greed that he cares about. That's always been the crux of his concern with millionaires and billionaires, not their existence. But yet, what they're essentially doing is building this straw man. He's a socialist, so he shouldn't be a millionaire. He should donate all of his money to charity. It's just, it's preposterous. But here's where it's evident that they didn't think through this article, especially when it comes to the images. Because if you look at the photo of him with the money tree and the houses on him, when you look at the tweet that accompanied the images from this piece, they say Bernie Sanders might still be cheap, but he's sure not poor. Take a moment and think about this. How is this not shamelessly anti-Semitic? Because Ilhan Omar criticized an interest group and Politico published an article heavily implying in the title that her comments about A-PAC were in fact anti-Semitic. There was no inclusion of the word allegedly anti-Semitic or comments that were perceived as being anti-Semitic. They implied it was anti-Semitic. Now, I get it, this is from a different author, but nonetheless, the overall response from the establishment and journalists was that what Ilhan Omar said was incredibly troubling because we need to be hypersensitive of anti-Semitism in order to avoid hurting the Jewish community. And I absolutely agree that we should be hypersensitive because there is an increased amount of anti-Semitism, but what Ilhan Omar said was about an interest group, which is not representative of the average Jewish American or Jewish human being. It's just not. But yet, if you're going to be extremely hypersensitive, if your standard is going to be very high for what you deem as anti-Semitism, then how is it that I'm assuming multiple people greenlit this article where Bernie Sanders, a Jewish American, is called cheap? They talk about the money he has. They depict him with a money tree behind him. I mean, what this is, is it's hypocritical. This is hypocrisy. When it comes to Ilhan Omar, she better watch whatever she says. Otherwise, she'll be called an anti-Semite. But when it comes to Bernie Sanders, we don't like him. So let's be openly anti-Semitic by our own standards. And let's call him cheap and talk about all the money he has and make it seem as if he's a greedy Jew. I mean, how is that not offensive? How are establishment news outlets not calling Politico out after calling Ilhan Omar out? It's insane. So it's a double standard. And thankfully, there were a lot of people that called out this double standard. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, can Politico explain to us how photoshopping money trees next to the only Jewish candidate for president and talking about how cheap and rich he is, isn't anti-Semitic? Or are they just letting this happen because he's a progressive politician they don't like? Notice the people willing to explain this away, yet when Ilhan's words are taken out of context, they are the first to jump on her. Look at how these accusations are selectively enforced on the left, especially when it's the alt-right actually committing anti-Semitic violence in the United States. And that's exactly it. And it's why when they continuously weaponize this anti-Semitic claim against people who are progressive, like Ilhan Omar, who call out Israel and APEC, they're playing politics. They don't genuinely care about anti-Semitism like progressives do. They're not concerned with it because if they were concerned with it, this would be completely unacceptable. A photograph of the only Jewish presidential candidate next to a money tree. They call him cheap. They talk about all the money he has. I mean, how is this acceptable by their standards, not by our standards, not by your standards, by their own standards? How is this passable? How is every single mainstream news outlet that called out Ilhan Omar not screeching at the top of their lungs now? It's because they never cared about anti-Semitism. They cared about attacking their political opponents and weaponizing something that's a serious issue, anti-Semitism, to their own advantage. That's what this is about. So thankfully, there were a lot of people on the left. Nobody really super prominent, but enough people that called them out in response to this tweet especially, where they were forced to take action. So they apologized saying for the record, this replaces a deleted tweet that needed more context. Our apologies. And the new tweet reads, Bernie Sanders has three homes and a net worth approaching at least $2 million in a strict bottom line sense. He has become one of those rich people against whom he has so unrelentingly railed. Now, Ari Robin Haft responded saying, Politico Stylebook needed more context equals the previous tweet contained an anti-Semitic trope. The current tweet contains a doctored photo of Bernie in front of a literal money tree and a house that is not his because that is better. Jeff Stein of the Washington Post says, What if we Photoshop a money tree next to the Jew? Exactly. So they were pretending like this one was better when it's really not that much better. By their own standards, if they claim, we need to administer strict scrutiny when it comes to possible anti-Semitism, how does this pass their test? How does this get green lit? It just goes to show you that they have contempt for Bernie Sanders. What's unacceptable for other politicians is perfectly acceptable for them. Ilhan Omar is not allowed to call out the influence of a literal interest group like APAC without being considered anti-Semitic. She can't call out Israel, the government of Israel's war crimes against Palestinians and human rights abuses without being called anti-Semitic. But Politico can literally Photoshop a money tree next to Bernie Sanders and publish an article where they talk about how cheap he is and how much money he has and go into great detail about his finances. And that's perfectly reasonable. I mean, these people are hypocrites. This tells you everything you need to know about the mainstream media news pundits. They don't actually have any objective standards for what is and isn't anti-Semitic. They don't necessarily care about the damage that's being caused to our Jewish brothers and sisters because there has in fact been a rise in anti-Semitism. They don't care about any of that. They're going to do what's politically expedient for them. And that's one thing they keep proving to us time and again. Twice this election cycle, I have done videos basically detailing all of the really idiotic attacks against Bernie Sanders by the mainstream media. And one of the common themes in those videos is that, look, these attacks are getting more and more desperate and dimwitted. And I think just like a month or two ago, I released the video saying the attacks on Bernie are getting even dumber and more desperate. And it's like each time I put out one of those videos, they're listening and they're taking it as a challenge because I've got a couple more attacks for you that are so stupid that it's breaking my brain. Like I don't get how they can print this and think, this is a scandal. We've got them now. Like it's honestly baffling to me. But nonetheless, they keep doing it because they're looking for whatever they can possibly find. And if you'll recall last week, I did a video talking about how they're just trying to overwhelm Bernie Sanders with a plethora of attacks so that way if they hit them with a bunch of things simultaneously, you can't possibly dodge all of that. You can't respond to all of it. So you have to let some of it kind of go. And then their goal I'm assuming is for that, you know, attack to go unaddressed and hopefully grow and ultimately consume Bernie Sanders because it's no secret that he's against the status quo and they want to take him down because he's a threat to the status quo. So last week, The New York Times published a hit piece on Bernie Sanders that essentially portrayed him as an un-American hippie communist sympathizer. And this week, political claim that he's turned into an oligarch that he once railed against with his whopping $2 million in net worth. Now, I want to talk about some new attacks against Bernie Sanders this week because these are the more moronic attacks where I read this and I thought, why would they think this is a scandal? Now the title is, it kind of suggests that, you know, there's something really nefarious going on here when it comes to Bernie. So the first example I have is by Kristen Tate published by The Hill. The headline reads millions of taxpayer dollars fueled Bernie Sanders to wealth success. Now, if you just read that headline, you'd think, okay, that sounds pretty odd. So what he's benefiting off of our tax dollars, like it reminds you of something that Duncan Hunter was doing, was literally indicted for corruption, mind you, because he was taking campaign funds, I believe, something along those lines and buying like steam games. So you get the sense that it's something like that, something overtly and explicitly pertaining to corruption. But what's the actual scandal here? He takes a salary as a member of Congress. That's literally the scandal. That's what this headline is about. Bernie Sanders used taxpayer dollars to propel himself to wealth by accepting a salary as a mayor, as a member of the House of Representatives, and ultimately as a senator. How is that a scandal? And I know that you're going to think that I'm being hyperbolic. Let me read to you a paragraph here, so you can get a sense of what this person was trying to accomplish. Today, Sanders rakes in $174,000 every year from serving in the upper chamber Senate. He has earned $2,248,500 in his 12 years there, and had earned $2,272,500 from his 16 years in the House. So federal taxpayers have financed his life to the tune of more than $4.5 million. So he's taking a salary. Okay, Bernie, you hypocrite, why aren't you working for free? I mean, is that the assumption? I don't get it. This is the attack? That's what the article was about? He's propelling himself to wealth and to success because he accepted his salary. Duh, no shit, Sherlock. Now, you can make the argument that members of Congress are paid too much, because I would certainly agree with that. I think that they don't do enough to get paid six figures. But with that being said, the fact that he is accepting the salary is not controversial at all, not even a little bit. In fact, I would be a little bit weirded out if he was working for free. Because if you're a member of Congress, this is time consuming, right? You have to be in DC if that's not your actual home. You spend hours upon hours traveling every single week. So it's incredibly draining, I'm assuming, and taxing on someone. So it would be weird for him to not accept a salary, but that's literally the crux of this argument. He's accepting a salary. Okay, but that's not all. So there's another article. This was published by Politico, by Holly Otterbeen, and Politico loves publishing hit pieces on Bernie Sanders. But this is an article that supposedly demonstrates how Bernie Sanders has changed since he accumulated all of his wealth. Now, it chronicles his transition from humble outsider in DC to an insider, I guess, shill, with an article titled Bernie Sanders Extreme Makeover, a candidate with an aversion to schmoozing and ring kissing bows to the necessities of a top tier presidential campaign. So when you read that, what's the implications? You assume that it's pointing to him selling out. Oh, what? He's no longer being principled, I'm assuming. He's bowing to the necessities of a top tier presidential campaign. So does that mean that he is courting wealthy donors? He's holding these private fundraisers? Is that what they mean? Whenever I hear words like schmoozing and kissing up and kissing the ring, that tells me, oh, well, they're trying to court donors. But what does it actually mean? What is this actually about? Let me read a paragraph to you. So the candidate with an aversion to schmoozing and a reputation as a loner in the Senate is bowing to a side of politics. He's long despised. Sanders is making dozens of calls each week to elected officials, labor leaders, and party chiefs according to his aides. In between his rallies, he regularly meets with politicians behind closed doors and surrogates, including Representative Ro Khanna, the co-chairman of his campaign, are aggressively courting house members. In other words, he's campaigning. That's the scandal. Because if you want to run for president, I think it would behoove you to try to build coalitions, make connections, and maybe court the endorsements of members of the House of Representatives. That's what Ro Khanna's doing. So that's the scandal here. Do you get it? He's campaigning. Gotcha, bitch! Now, the reason why he's changed, well, you know, back in 2016, when he ran against Hillary Clinton, he didn't do this. He wasn't having these closed door meetings with politicians and try to get their endorsements. He just said, you know, screw it. I'll just campaign on the issues. And if I get their endorsements, then I get their endorsements. If not, then whatever. But what they failed to realize here is that Hillary Clinton basically had the endorsement of basically every politician and insider locked up before Bernie even entered the race. And furthermore, I don't even believe he was entering with the intention of winning. I think he just wanted to offer voters a left-wing choice and wanted to push Hillary Clinton to the left. So now that he's a front-runner, he is a front-runner, one of two maybe. I mean, he's in it to win it. So why wouldn't he court endorsements? When we saw how powerful that was back in 2016, a lot of the endorsements from Hillary Clinton, you know, particularly pertaining to superdelegates, gave everyone the impression that she was a foregone conclusion. Why wouldn't he pursue that if he knows how powerful that is, especially when it comes to mainstream media? But he's attacked for it. He had an extreme makeover because he is changing up his strategy a little bit. I mean, do you understand? These are the scandals that they're reporting on, the quote-unquote scandals. He's accepting a salary and he's campaigning. Okay. I don't know why they would publish something like this. Like, for me, I dislike a lot of politicians, right? Donald Trump, Joe Biden. I just like a ton of conservative and centrist politicians. However, this is my thought process. If I am covering a story that I don't think actually is credible or it doesn't say enough about a candidate, I withhold from publishing that video because what it is going to portray me as is someone who's just looking for any and all reasons to criticize Joe Biden and Donald Trump when that hurts your credibility. I'm not going to criticize them unless I believe there's a good reason to criticize them. And even when I've published some videos, I did one about, what's his name? The guy from Alabama, the senator who defeated Roy Moore. I'm blanking on his name. What's his name? Doug Jones. I published a video on Doug Jones and in the video, and I don't even remember what this was about. It was an interview that he did and I said, look, maybe I'm just being, you know, a little bit overly skeptical about him and maybe he doesn't mean X and I'm just kind of imposing what I think he means. I even put that caveat. But here, they're just basically, they're going out of their way to be idiotic and say, Bernie, you took a congressional salary. Gotcha. It's just, if they think this is going to hurt Bernie Sanders, it's not. It's going to hurt their credibility more than anything. After the New York Times published their now infamous hit piece on Bernie Sanders, where they try to portray him as an anti-American hippie communist sympathizer who was against the United States' war in Vietnam, there's been this weird, I guess you could say implication in the media that he was somehow wrong to oppose the Vietnam War and that he should apologize. So he was asked about that article in an interview with Chuck Todd and Meet the Press. And when they tweeted out his response, they worded it in a way that suggests that maybe Bernie Sanders should apologize. So this is what their tweet said. Bernie Sanders said he won't apologize for supporting anti-Vietnam war efforts and voting against the war in Iraq. Now, we already talked about this tweet on the show. I don't believe or I don't think anyways, I'm not sure that MSNBC in making this tweet or Meet the Press in making this tweet is explicitly suggesting that Bernie Sanders should apologize, but when you invoke the word apology and refuse to apologize, like, there's almost this feeling that, you know, maybe they should, right? Maybe they're culpable because you used the word apologize anyway. So if somebody won't apologize, that assumes that they're guilty in the first place. When Bernie Sanders has no culpability, he was in the right. Like, why would you apologize for being on the right side of history? So it's just, there's this weird underlying application here that makes no sense to me. Nonetheless, Bernie Sanders has been using this to campaign and I think to his credit, it's been working out wonderfully. So he released this video on Twitter where he talks about how I refuse to apologize. Yeah, absolutely. I'm not going to apologize for being anti-war and he wasn't just talking about Vietnam, but Yemen and Iran as well. This is what he released. Recently I've been criticized a bit because of my opposition to war and my beliefs that we got to do everything possible to solve international conflict without going to war. So let me be very clear. I make no apologies to anybody that when I was a young man, before I was elected to anything, I opposed the war in Vietnam and I know what that war did to my generation. And when I was a member of the House, I helped lead the effort against the war in Iraq because I knew that Cheney and Bush and these other folks were lying about weapons of mass destruction. I'm opposed to giving the president a blank check to launch a unilateral invasion and occupation of Iraq and why I will vote against this resolution. And that war and that vote was the worst foreign policy blunder in the modern history of the United States. And as a senator, I'm proud that I helped for the first time in 45 years to utilize the War Powers Act to get the United States out of an unauthorized war in Yemen. Unfortunately, after passing in the House and the Senate Trump vetoed that legislation. And I'll tell you something that right now I'm going to do everything that I can to prevent a war with Iran because if you think the war in Iraq was a disaster, my guess is that the war in Iran would be even worse. So let's work together and prevent that war. If people want to criticize me for that, go for it. That's okay. I don't apologize to anybody. Thank you. So that was good. I'm glad that Bernie Sanders is finally talking more about foreign policy because there's no anti-war movement in America and there's not many politicians who are speaking out against regime change. You have Tulsi Gabbard and maybe Ron Paul and Ro Khanna, you know, just a handful of people actually calling out regime change wars. So I'm glad he's doing this. Now, I want to play one more clip for you. And this is a clip from a rally at Vermont. He says largely the same thing, but I want to show you this clip as well because he takes some additional jabs this time at the military industrial complex. And what he says here is brilliant. And we say to the military industrial complex that we will not continue to spend $700 billion a year on the military. We want and need a strong defense, but we do not have to spend more than the next 10 nations combined. We are going to invest in education. We are going to invest in affordable housing. We're going to invest in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, but we are not going to invest in never-ending wars. And while we are on military policy, let me say a word about foreign policy because they are obviously interrelated. Now, recently I have been attacked in the media because of my views, actions, and votes on foreign policy issues. So let me be as clear as I can be. Yes, as a young man, along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many others, I marched against the war in Vietnam. A war which ravaged my nation, which left 59,000 brave young Americans dead, as well as killing over a million Vietnamese people. I make no apologies for having opposed that war. So just stop for a moment and think about how remarkable that video clip is. We have a very prominent presidential candidate speaking out against military spending and the military industrial complex in a very direct and explicit way. Like if you told me five years ago there would be someone running for president who would be bold enough to do this, I would have laughed at you because it seemed unfathomable at the time because it felt like, look, we're just going to spend a lot on the military industrial complex and if you don't like that, then tough shit. But now we have someone who is taking shots directly at the military industrial complex and it's still honestly astonishing to see. And Bernie's not the only one, right? We have Tulsi Gabbard who's doing the same thing but this is great. He says we need to take on the military industrial complex. That's incredibly bold seeing that they could very well bankroll Donald Trump, your opponent. Now, I think Bernie Sanders is smart enough to know that they're going to do that anyways but nonetheless, to hear him say that, it's like music to my ears. He also says we want and need a strong defense but we do not need to spend more than the next 10 nations combined. That is so brilliant. And I've been saying that, you know, it's not like that's unique but just to hear a presidential candidate say that is really remarkable. Now, I wish he would have said, you know, the next 10 nations combined, most of which are our allies because it really, I think adds another layer of the absurdity of our military spending but it's still important. He says we are not going to invest in never ending wars. Again, very important. So I love this. I love that Bernie Sanders is taking what is maybe a smear attempt by the mainstream media and saying he should apologize and he's using this to his advantage. He's saying, damn right I'm not gonna apologize because I was right about Iraq. I was right about the Vietnam War and guess what? I'm right now. I'm right that we should end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's genocide in Yemen. I'm right that we shouldn't intervene in Iran. So he's using this to prop himself up when it comes to credibility and he's also, he's unapologetically coming out unequivocally against war and that is so important. So there's this divide among 2020 Democratic Party presidential contenders when it comes to Fox News. You have people in one camp like Bernie and Tulsi who believe that it is, you know, it's reasonable to want to go on Fox News to try to reach those new voters you wouldn't otherwise reach and then you have people like Elizabeth Warren who refuse to go on Fox News because she doesn't want to legitimize them. Now I have come to agree more with Bernie and Tulsi here. I was more sympathetic towards Elizabeth Warren's argument a couple of months ago but I've come to realize especially after seeing Bernie Sanders' performance that it's really important to go on Fox News because regardless you may not win over every single person who's tuning in but you need to at least try to reach some of them but certainly one thing that I think we all can agree on is that if you want to get a particular message across to Donald Trump you should absolutely go on Fox News absolutely without question because you're not going to reach Donald Trump if you go on MSNBC like if you go on Chris Hayes' show and you say this is my message to you Donald Trump you're wrong Mr. President he's never going to get that message but if you have something very specific that you feel as if he needs to hear the only possible way you're going to reach him is by going on Fox News you can tweet at him but I mean he probably has like millions of people tweeting at him every single hour so the best bet is to go on Fox News now Tulsi Gabbard went on Fox News and I've been incredibly impressed with her lately because she's been speaking out vociferously and passionately against Donald Trump's saber-rattling against Iran because it seems like we're inching closer and closer towards war we're trying to use overwhelming force to kill their regime economically possibly catalyze regime change that way but with that being said John Bolton is essentially steering the ship which is what it seems as an outsider and Donald Trump he may have campaigned as someone who's anti-intervention but there are warmongers in his administration that are hell-bent on invading Iran so Tulsi Gabbard did what I think is the smart thing and she went on Fox News and called out Donald Trump's warmongering take a look I know you have some strong thoughts meanwhile on how to proceed with escalating tensions with Iran here's the president on that yesterday and I'll ask you about it after they're a nation of terror and we won't put up with it the deal that was signed by President Obama was a horror show it's a terrible deal the minute I collapsed that deal and terminated it Iran went in a very bad direction they're now suffering massive problems financially they have inflation that's about the highest in the world how should the United States proceed congresswoman well let's talk about where we are now we're unfortunately and very concerningly on the brink of war with Iran these escalating tensions have brought us here and like I said my experience as a soldier having deployed twice to the Middle East service in congress on the foreign affairs and armed services committees for over six years I'm very familiar with the region the cost of war and where this path leads us and the American people need to understand how devastating and costly such a war would be how it would impact almost every part of our lives it would undermine our national security it would strengthen terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda it would take a terrible human toll look the cost of countless American service members lives my brothers and sisters in uniform the cost to civilians in the region increasing the refugee crisis across Europe and it would cost trillions of dollars trillions of dollars that would come out of our pockets taxpayers pockets to pay for this endless war resources that we would not be able to use for things like rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and to build on that and to prevent that as a deterrent will you give this administration credit for squeezing groups that are offshoots that are supported by the Iranian government just to report this morning suggesting Hezbollah and Hamas are reaching out to get more funding and money because they're being strangled would you give them that well the decisions that this administration has taken towards Iran have made things worse not better they have made our country the American people less safe not more secure by pulling out of this Iran nuclear deal that there are some flaws and there are concerns that should have been addressed separately while maintaining and upholding the Iran nuclear deal to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons instead by the Trump administration pulling out from this deal they've essentially given Iran an excuse to be able to restart this Iran nuclear weapons program which is something that they've started talking about something that makes us and the world far less safe so as president I would re-enter the Iran nuclear deal I would work out the differences separately outside of that and de-escalate the tensions that are unfortunately bringing us to the point where we are at a brink of war with Iran today so overall that was great I'm glad she went on Fox News and delivered that message because again if you want to get Donald Trump a particular message you do that by going on Fox News you never sacrifice your own values or abandon your principles but you just say what he needs to hear and that's what she did so I'm going to get to what she said but first I want to address what Donald Trump said in that video because we didn't talk about this last week when we were talking about his warmongering but think about how stupid what he said was Iran is a nation of terror and we won't put up with it you vetoed a bill that would have ended US support for Saudi Arabia's genocide in Yemen but yet you're concerned about terror he has no ideological consistency whatsoever he has no strategy additionally he talks about how once he withdrew from the Iran deal their economy collapsed well yeah that's because you reimposed sanctions the reason why they joined the Iran deal and agreed to those conditions was so that way you would ease up on the sanctions so if you're telling me that their economy started to suffer once you reimposed sanctions my response is no shit so Donald Trump he's in over his head here and he has absolutely no idea what he's doing because in one breath he'll brag about withdrawing from the Iran deal but in another breath he talks about trying to facilitate the same type of deal with Kim Jong-un in North Korea it's maddening there's no consistency here when it comes to foreign policy it just depends on his mood well you know I like Kim Jong-un today so no war for him let's do an Iran deal with him but you know I have a lot of people in my ear trying to convince me that Iran is this big bad buggy man so let's withdraw from the Iran deal there and maybe invade so it's just it's so stupid and the more I listen to Donald Trump here on foreign policy the more I feel like I'm losing IQ points so with that being said getting to what Tulsi said so she makes the very powerful point that yes if we invade Iran there's going to be a tremendous economic cost it's going to cost a lot of money but most importantly there's going to be a human cost a human toll US troops will die Iranian citizens women and children and innocent men will die if we choose to invade for whatever nefarious reason John Bolton has in his head so that's unacceptable she also says what Donald Trump's administration has done with regard to withdrawing from the Iran deal and ramping up tensions escalating that made us less safe that is absolutely correct because if you withdraw from the Iran deal and you start saber rattling well what are they going to try to do they're going to try to take action to protect themselves and part of that maybe is actually getting a nuclear weapon as a means of deterring the United States from ever invading and with another country having a nuclear weapon of course that makes us all less safe so I mean what she's saying here is incredibly important the one thing that I took issue with is she said this about the Iran deal quote there are concerns and there are flaws that should have been addressed but pulling out was not the not the right answer so I'm glad that she said it was a bad move to pull out from the Iran deal and overall she says that it was good but I actually don't really like that she said this because you kind of legitimize Donald Trump's reasoning for pulling out so if you say that there were flaws I do believe it's incumbent on you Tulsi to prove what the flaws were so that's the one issue I took with this but overall the broader point and what she conveyed here was super important she said war with Iran is bad it would be a disaster it would be an unmitigated catastrophe and to say that on Fox News of all places where you will most likely reach Donald Trump that is incredibly important and the point she made was that it doesn't behoove us to escalate with Iran and it certainly wouldn't benefit anyone but the military industrial complex and war mongers like John Bolton and Mike Pompeil if we went to war with Iran so I give Tulsi a tremendous amount of credit because she's one of two presidential candidates who've been speaking out consistently about the military industrial complex nobody has said as much about foreign policy as she has but Bernie Sanders has also been speaking out a lot lately I expect more from people like Elizabeth Warren like she should be saying a lot more about why war with Iran would be a disaster but nonetheless I'll take anyone who's gonna speak out and do the right thing and say the right thing and I'll praise them because this is incredibly important we need all hands on deck and the reason why I think that I'm so worried about the prospect of war with Iran is because we just don't have an anti-war movement in America we see tensions building between the United States and other countries and people don't take to the streets there's no real movement there's no pushback from the media at all and basically we've just accepted that whatever the government does well so be it we may not like it but certainly we're not going to mobilize and cool us around stopping them from doing that but that's bad like we wouldn't need to rely on just two politicians Tulsi and Bernie if we took matters into our own hands and took to the streets and protested and built a really large anti-war movement but it just dissipated whatever happened to the Vietnam War era and the protests whatever happened to the protests against the Iraq War I think part of the problem is that we're all just we're so drained when we come home from work because we work so much we don't have time we don't have the resources necessary to take time off of work to protest so it's difficult but if we really want to stop the military industrial complex from basically doing what they want no matter who's president we've got to have a real anti-war movement and I don't know how to get that started but I know that there are two leaders Bernie and Tulsi who could potentially be the leaders of a new anti-war movement so if anything whenever they speak out I feel inclined to praise them because this is incredibly important especially now Joe Biden he keeps putting his foot in his mouth he can't help himself so last week he not once but twice defended the 1994 crime bill he defended it which is unbelievable because it was an unmitigated disaster now if I'm advising Joe Biden if I'm on team Joe Biden and I'm getting paid to strategize for him this is what I tell him one never ever mention the crime bill but if it is brought up to you which it will be you always apologize and unequivocally commit to undo the damage caused by the crime bill because objectively speaking it was a disaster it exploded the U.S. prison population and exacerbated this crisis this this mass incarceration crisis which was already a problem but it made things a lot worse so that's what I would be telling Joe Biden however the people closest to him aren't really instructing him to do that otherwise he would have not bragged about the crime bill but nonetheless you saw what happened when his senior advisor Simone Sanders tried to defend his remarks she utterly face planted so with that being said Joe Biden I said this once I'll say it again he is a threat in the event he becomes the nominee he could very well lose to Donald Trump because Donald Trump can weaponize these issues exploit these things that are very big weaknesses that hurts Joe Biden and use them against him in the same way he did this to Hillary Clinton when it comes to trade and guess what Trump is doing it again he's doing what he did to Hillary to Joe Biden except this time he actually is going after Biden for the crime bill so he tweeted out anyone associated with the 1994 crime bill will not have a chance of being elected in particular African Americans will not be able to vote for you I on the other hand was responsible for criminal justice reform which had tremendous support and helped fix the bad 1994 bill super predator was the term associated with the 1994 crime bill that sleepy Joe Biden was so heavily involved in passing that was a dark period in American history but has sleepy Joe apologized no so first of all let me to say that Donald Trump's nickname for Joe Biden sleepy Joe Biden is lame as hell like what was it crooked Hillary that was something that actually made sense because she was crooked she was corrupted now he was corrupt as well he is corrupt but nonetheless I mean it still was something that was more catchy but sleepy Joe Biden really so that's stupid however getting to the substance here when he hits Joe Biden here this has the potential to be a devastating attack on Joe Biden because Donald Trump is right he did in fact sign criminal justice reform into law and it's not the end all be all but nonetheless it's still a positive step in the right direction and it had bipartisan support so when you have Joe Biden bragging about the 1994 crime bill and Donald Trump attacking him from the left I mean this could be a disaster and Donald Trump knows how to exploit these weaknesses how to attack Democrats from the left because let's look back at 2016 when he criticized Hillary Clinton for her support of NAFTA and free trade deals that essentially devastated the middle class look at how masterful and I hate to call anything Trump does is masterful but look at the way he played Hillary in this clip and I had your husband signed NAFTA which was one of the worst things that ever happened well that's your opinion that is your opinion you go to New England you go to Ohio Pennsylvania you go anywhere you want Secretary Clinton and you will see devastation where manufacturers down 30 40 sometimes 50 percent NAFTA is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere but certainly ever signed in this country and now you want to approve Trans-Pacific Partnership you were totally in favor of it then you heard what I was saying how bad it is and you said I can't win that debate but you know that if you did win you would approve that and that will be almost as bad as NAFTA nothing will ever top NAFTA that that is just not accurate I was against it once it was finally negotiated and the terms were laid out I wrote about that in you called it the gold standard well I hope you called it the gold standard of trade deals you said it's the finest deal you've ever seen no and then you heard what I said about it and all of a sudden you were against it well Donald I know you live in your own reality but that is not the facts the facts are I did say I hoped it would be a good deal but when it was negotiated which I was not responsible for I concluded it wasn't I wrote about that so is it president obama's fault is it president obama's fault you even announced look secretary is it president obama's fault there are because he's pushing it there are different views about what's good for our country our economy and our leadership in the world if he does that to Joe Biden but on the crime bill he could beat Joe Biden because I don't think that Donald Trump's claim that you know he'll win over black voters or that Joe Biden will lose support from black voters there's no legs to that Brexit isn't happening or whatever kandace owens calls it that's not going to happen right black voters are not going to vote for a party that is explicitly against their interests that does harm to them however Donald Trump doesn't need to win over black voters all he needs to do is communicate to democratic party voters all of them that you have someone who is a shit candidate and that's all he needs to do to win demonstrate that the democrat isn't really looking out for you and he could win because democrats always lose when turnout is low so if Donald Trump can convince people to not vote for the democrat that can serve him very well again I don't think he's going to win over these voters who are dissatisfied with Joe Biden because of his support for the crime bill but he doesn't need to win them over in order to win all he has to do is demoralize enough voters in order to win now remember back in 2016 Hillary Clinton couldn't barely generate enthusiasm all of her crowds were small nobody really cared and we're already seeing the same signs that Joe Biden is struggling as well he's technically the frontrunner right if you look at current public opinion polls and averages but he's suffering from the same enthusiasm gap that Hillary Clinton suffered from so what Donald Trump could do is capitalize on this by pretending to be a populist again hitting Joe Biden from the left in an area where Joe Biden is objectively terrible and that could be enough to discourage the democratic party base from coming out to vote for Joe Biden and Trump could win and Joe Biden even if I think he is a little bit more strategically savvy than Hillary Clinton he could potentially be more vulnerable because Donald Trump doesn't just have the crime bill where he can hit Biden from the left Joe Biden also voted for NAFTA so we can replicate the exact same attack that he used in 2016 Joe Biden also voted for the Iraq war Trump can use that as well so if Joe Biden becomes the nominee this could be a disaster now what matters is how Joe Biden responds to this if he's actually going to be apologetic about the crime bill or if he's going to continue on with this trend of narcissism and brag about it I mean the fact that he would brag about the crime bill is honestly absurd but it's Joe Biden so you never know so here's the thing if I'm Joe Biden how do I respond to this if I am smart first of all again you apologize for the crime bill but the second thing I think maybe it could work if he called out Donald Trump's pro-crime pass because he actually has a relatively dark history even if he wasn't a politician when it comes to the issue of being tough on crime because as Eugene Scott of the Washington Post writes while Trump is taking credit for criminal justice reform his track record advocating for harsh responses to criminal activity greatly precedes his political career most notably his affiliation with the Central Park Five a group of five teenagers was wrongfully imprisoned following the brutal sexual assault of a woman in Central Park in 1989 the teens were deprived of food, drink and sleep for more than 24 hours before they falsely confessed to the crime during the 2016 presidential election Yusuf Salam one of the teenagers wrote about how the current president responded to the headline grabbing story for the Washington Post during our trial it seemed like every New Yorker had an opinion but no one took it further than Trump he called for blood in the most public way possible he wrote Trump used his money to take out full page ads in all of the city's major newspapers urging the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York I don't know why the future Republican nominee bought those ads but it seems part and parcel with his racist attitudes Trump has never apologized for calling for our deaths in fact he's somehow still convinced that we belong in prison Salam added it's further proof of Trump's bias racism and inability to admit that he's wrong and if I'm Joe Biden I'm definitely bringing up the fact that Donald Trump took out a full page ad to call for the death penalty of these teens who were wrongly accused now is that definitely going to help him deflect I mean maybe but certainly he can't do what Hillary Clinton did right he can't just say well no I don't support the crime bill anymore you have to actually play off venture self you can't just play defense because what Donald Trump did in that clip is he had Hillary Clinton on the ropes he was playing offense and Hillary Clinton was playing defense Joe Biden would be smart to actually hit back at Donald Trump and put him on defense as well but we don't know if he's going to do that and furthermore that's assuming he becomes the nominee but the best case scenario for all of us is if we defeat Joe Biden so he doesn't become the nominee because I don't want Donald Trump to get reelected and if you put up Joe Biden Democrats you're opening the door to Donald Trump replicating the exact strategy that made him successful in 2016 put up a shitty centrist neoliberal Democrat Donald Trump does his fake populism thing and attacks him from the left which I mean if he's attacking you from the left and there's some credibility to his claim that he's more electus on this particular issue that's really harmful that's damaging because Democrats should never be outflanked from the left by a Republican so let me just emphasize we want to defeat Joe Biden otherwise we could see a repeat of 2016 we could see four more years of Donald Trump and if Democrats are clearly trying to think about electability which a lot of them do then you would be a fool to go with Joe Biden because out of all the Democratic party presidential contenders he's probably the least electable am I saying that it's a sure bet that Joe Biden would lose to Donald Trump no in fact it's possible that he wins right there are reasons to believe he has a better shot than Hillary Clinton just because I think he's a little bit more strategically savvy than her but nonetheless it's still you're rolling the dice if you go with Joe Biden we'll just leave that there you're rolling the dice if you go with Joe Biden someone a little bit late to the party on this particular issue but nonetheless I still think it's really important and I want to talk about this so last Thursday on the show we talked about how Donald Trump's administration is choosing to indict Julian Assange under the Espionage Act and basically the next day we got some more responses from politicians who matter who are running for president Tulsi has been a leader on this issue she's been talking about Julian Assange and how this is you know it's more important than just Julian Assange it's really not about him this is about a broader issue that's more important it's about press freedom so I've really given her a lot of praise and I made another video about a month or so ago where I talked about how I wish Bernie Sanders would speak up so on Friday the day after we posted that video turns out not only Bernie Sanders released a comment but Elizabeth Warren did as well to their credit so I want to share what they had to say so Akila Lacy of the Intercept writes let me be clear it is a disturbing attack on the first amendment for the Trump administration to decide who is or is not a reporter for the purposes of a criminal prosecution Sanders wrote in a tweet Friday afternoon after the intercept contacted his office for comment Donald Trump must obey the Constitution which protects the publication of news about our government Warren distanced herself from Assange but condemned the Justice Department's move to curtail press freedom Assange is a bad actor who has harmed U.S. national security and he should be held accountable Warren said in a statement but Trump should not be using this case as a pretext to wage war on the First Amendment and go after the free press who hold the powerful accountable every day so when it comes to Bernie Sanders I'm glad he spoke out I really don't have any problem with what he said there when it comes to Elizabeth Warren I take issue with what she said here this is deeply deeply mixed on one hand she's doing what she needs to do in saying that this is not the right move Donald Trump's administration should not be indicting someone because they don't like the information that was leaked but then again she adds the caveat here Assange is a bad actor who has harmed U.S. national security and he should be held accountable so we'll take this in two parts because really there's two claims being made here one is that Assange is a bad actor and two is that this threatens national security what he did in releasing the Manning leaks that posed a threat to national security first of all when it comes to Assange being a bad actor I think that you can make a pretty reasonable case that that is true because there were leaked DMs that disclose he did in fact support Donald Trump they created this imbalance of information where they released dirt on the DNC which they were right to do but at the same time they withheld information that was also in the public's interest which made it seem like you know Democrats were more corrupt than Republicans whereas if we saw the RNC emails you know we likely would have seen them plotting against Donald Trump so you can make that case however that's if you consider 2016 when this isn't actually about 2016 it's about 2010 and the 2010 Manning leaks so in that instance if you're going to say that Julian Assange was a bad actor to release what Chelsea Manning gave to him that exposed our war crimes how we bombed first responders in foreign countries you cannot make the case that he was being a bad actor in that instance but with that being said to even dwell on his character I think you miss the point so you know it's iffy that portion of her response is iffy but when we get into the second portion of her argument she says that what he did was harm US national security now again maybe she's talking about 2016 but this entire thing is about 2010 so I have to assume that she's referring to the release of the Manning leak and that supposedly harmed national security by exposing our government's war crimes and my question is how? how does that harm national security? have you ever heard the story the boy who cried wolf? because that's what's going on when it comes to the United States invoking national security anything that they don't want us to know they say oh well you can't you can't have that information because it poses a threat to our national security and we have to withhold that information that may or may not be in the public's interest because you know we don't want to jeopardize national security it's the ultimate Trump card you know Donald Trump says the same thing about articles he doesn't like if you know some outlet publishes something that doesn't portray him in a positive light he'll call it fake news is it actually fake news? no usually not is it biased? sure you can make that case but he says it if he's trying to deflect so whenever the US doesn't want us to know something they'll say you know national security so Elizabeth Warren you can't just say you know what he did in releasing those leaks posed a threat to national security you can't just say that without making the case for it like we need evidence you need to make an argument as to why that harms national security because thinking about this logically I can't see how that would harm national security how? now one of the arguments that they made was oh well you know the reason why it harms national security is because it makes our veterans abroad vulnerable because if other people who are enemy combatants who we are fighting against and people in these other countries that we're occupying know that we're committing these war crimes and that may make them feel hostile towards the United States first of all there's no evidence that that's true and I think that's what they really tried to say about the Chelsea Manning leaks but second of all then you need to be a lot more cautious about conducting affairs have more accountability and stop doing war crimes most importantly so what she said here what Elizabeth Warren said here absurd completely absurd on one hand I'm glad and I give her credit for you know saying that Donald Trump should not pursue Julian Assange he shouldn't prosecute Julian Assange she's essentially taking Obama's stance but in saying that the Manning leaks posed a threat to national security that's a really weak response so lately Elizabeth Warren there's peaks and valleys with her right at time she'll go up in my book because she'll introduce a lot of great policies but then she'll go down because she'll say something that doesn't even make sense it's not progressive and the biggest thing is she's against Medicare for all but then she also came out you know against fundraisers and then she said on the young Turks but if I win in the general it's you know all hands on deck we're gonna go and do these fundraisers so she's just she's hot she's cold she's there's no consistency when it comes to whether or not she's progressive it's clear to me that she is someone who has progressive instincts but she's always going to be more than willing to put the establishment first and that's why a lot of people don't even have her as their number two it's because of things like this so look strong response from Bernie it's it's better late than never you should have spoke out sooner but nonetheless but Warren's head here is deeply troubling but the point is that this is about press freedom so they both at least got that right and also Ron Wyden spoke about this too but I focused on Warren and Bernie because they're running for president but look you can't mess up on this issue you cannot mess up on this issue we are losing our civil liberties the constitution is being eroded and it's incumbent on you as an elected member of the senate to stand up for our freedoms so I mean I feel mixed on this on one hand I'm glad they spoke out and they're technically on the right side here but what Elizabeth Warren said it it just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth so Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as we all know has been pushing for the Green New Deal and it is incredibly popular when you look at public opinion polls it's supported not just by a majority of Democrats but by a majority of Republicans as well surprisingly with that being said though there's been you know a couple of months of media just harping away at it saying how stupid it is how it's not feasible and now presidential candidates have joined in you have people like John Delaney talking about how this is not practical you have Howard Schultz explaining how this is something that can never ever come to pass you know so it's frustrating because this is something that is clearly the right course of action but yet you see mainstream media completely taking a dump on it when we need something this ambitious if we actually want to meet the IPCC's 12-year deadline and save the planet but nonetheless you know it's now become something that is a target of conservatives and mainstream media and part of the problem is the rollout of this was a little bit sloppy admittedly right AOC loved her death but they initially released a fact sheet where they talked about you know farting cows and getting rid of airplanes and what she said was incredibly cheeky but you've got to understand that and I think she's probably learned this by now when you're dealing with Republicans they will they will take anything that you give them and they will run with it there's no such thing as context there's no such thing as being cheeky if you give them an inch they're gonna take a mile so with that being said the Green New Deal is popular I don't know if it's still popular after months of it being attacked but somebody who I respect very much spoke about the Green New Deal and I assume you know you respect as well his name is Noam Chomsky I think we've all heard of him so if you had a couple of doubts about the Green New Deal since it has been a target he's gonna assure you that this really is as he puts it exactly the right idea here's what he has to say first of all I think the Green New Deal is exactly the right idea you can raise questions about the specific form in which Ocasio-Cortez and Markey introduced it maybe it shouldn't be exactly this way it should be a little bit differently but the general idea is quite right and there's very solid work explaining developing in detail exactly how it could work so very fine economists that UMass Amherst, Robert Pollan has written extensively on an extensive detail with close analysis of how you could implement policies of this kind in a very effective way which would actually make a better society it wouldn't be that you'd lose from it you'd gain from it the costs of renewable energy are declining very sharply if you eliminate the massive subsidies that are given to fossil fuels they probably already surpass them there's and the there are many means that can be implemented and carried out to overcome to certainly to mitigate maybe to overcome this serious crisis so the basic idea is I think completely defensible in fact essential the a lot of the media commentary ridiculing this and that aspect of it are essentially beside the point you might you can change the dates from 2030 to 2040 you can do a couple of other manipulations but the basic idea is correct I love Noam Tromsky he is someone who even if I disagree with him and there's been few times where I disagree with him I still respect what he has to say because no matter the position he takes you can guarantee it's going to be well reasoned he's going to reach his conclusion with logic with rationale and you could disagree with it but nonetheless you know that his intentions are pure so I'm glad that he defended the Green New Deal because the Green New Deal there's so much misinformation out there what is the Green New Deal this is a non-binding resolution it's a non-binding resolution that just commits to action that matches the scale of the crisis so the IPCC says we need to take action within 12 years the Green New Deal reflects that urgency and says we will try to meet that demand it's incredibly incredibly important and another aspect that the Green New Deal covers and which is why I think AOC is brilliant here is before I've talked about climate change mitigation as well as adaptation adaptation is never talked about we always talk about solving the climate change crisis right but some studies show that it's irreversible even if we take action there still is this runaway greenhouse gas effect where we might not be able to stop a climate catastrophe so we genuinely need to grapple with that and try to figure out what to do and that means we also build in adaptation meaning we not just try to stop climate change but we adapt we prepare ourselves economically and through infrastructure to adapt to a climate catastrophe that's really important and what AOC did in this non-binding resolution is just that she thought outside of the box unlike every other lawmaker and she included in basically a wish list of things that would meet that criteria so for example she was criticized because she included Medicare for All in the Greenwood deal now I get it that doesn't seem germane to something like climate change and you want to make sure that you are including things in this non-binding resolution that are relevant so you get as much you know support from lawmakers as possible right however if you do that you're being disingenuous and you're not admitting the truth and that Medicare for All is going to be even more of a necessity when or if hopefully if and not when climate change becomes a catastrophe you're going to see the thawing of the ice which will expose us to ancient diseases that we may not necessarily know how to deal with what's the implication of that we will have an increased need for healthcare Medicare for All is the only thing that's going to do that now is it a priority if you're talking specifically about climate change ostensibly no but in actuality it really is it's part of adaptation because if you want to prepare ourselves and arm ourselves with the tools we need to adapt and not be crushed by climate catastrophe you've got to prepare for things like this and you need healthcare for every single American during a climate catastrophe people can't be worrying about whether or not they're the doctor that they need to see is in their network or whether or not they're going to be able to afford a particular deductible they should just have healthcare full stop that's specifically why Medicare for All is included in the Green New Deal AOC is taking a two-pronged approach to climate change climate change mitigation as well as adaptation I can't emphasize how important adaptation is because we can try to do whatever we can to stop further catastrophe right we can try to I guess lessen the blow if you will when it comes to climate change but regardless if you like it or not if you want to admit this or not climate change is still coming regardless it's still happening so we're dumb if we think we shouldn't need to adapt so by including Medicare for All AOC has foresight unlike any other lawmaker because she's trying to embed adaptation into her climate change policy another thing that I have seen that has bothered me is there's kind of this these I don't know what the right word is for it I guess divisions within the progressive community between like people who support AOC and people who support Tulsi Gabbard like somebody tweeted me the off act from Tulsi Gabbard and said Mike why don't you support this instead of the Green New Deal but that's a false dichotomy and I've seen this so much you don't have to choose between the off act and the Green New Deal because the Green New Deal is not a replacement for the off act the off act can be implemented within as part of the Green New Deal so the Green New Deal ultimately can become the amalgamation of the off act and the Green New Deal the Green New Deal can consume the off act you don't have to choose between one or the other and in fact I think it makes sense for Tulsi Gabbard's off act to become part of the Green New Deal one day because it's already a fantastic piece of legislation I do think you need to adjust it to meet the IPCC's 12-year deadline because it was written in 2017 before we got that new study out but nonetheless it's still really solid mitigation legislation so I need people to understand that the Green New Deal is basically a non-binding resolution that says we need to commit to meeting the urgency legislation that reflects the scale of the catastrophe that's all that the Green New Deal is about there's going to be misinformation there's going to be Fox News and even you know other supposedly left wing outlets that will tell you you know the Green New Deal it's just unfeasible and if you add all of the stuff that it you know has in its wish list up it's like 90 trillion dollars listen as AOC said we're going to be paying for climate change one way or another it's just the matter matter of whether or not we choose to prepare for this catastrophe because it's coming but again if we can adapt we lessen the blow if we mitigate climate change stop it from getting worse we lessen the blow so I'm glad that Noam Chomsky spoke out and defended the Green New Deal because he has credibility he has sway and what little factionalization I've seen among progressives even I think by him saying this it sends a message look you don't have to choose between your favorite politician's plan of action for climate change the Green New Deal is a non-binding resolution that's all it is don't think it's something that is more than it actually is I found a story that really demonstrates how detrimental capitalism is to our well-being it's literally now a medical issue a medical diagnosis according to the World Health Organization to experience burnout burnout specifically with your job we're being overworked and underpaid and it's affecting our health physically and mentally so for more on this we go to Jenna Amatouli of the HuffPost who writes the stress, depression and lack of feeling and control that comes with burnout are finally being formally recognized by the medical community burnout is now an official workplace syndrome the international classification of diseases or the ICD-11 the World Health Organization's handbook that helps medical providers diagnose diseases classifies burnout as a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed symptoms include feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion increased mental distance from one's job or feelings of negativity or cynicism related to one's job and reduced professional efficacy the ICD-11 notes that burnout is a specific occupation and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life research on burnout dates back to a 1974 study on the state of burnout by psychologist Herbert Frudenberger according to CNN since then while burnout has been widely discussed as a problem in society it hasn't been taken seriously or viewed as a legitimate medical condition most recently burnout has been closely associated with the millennial generation in January Ann Helen Peterson penned a viral BuzzFeed article titled how millennials became the burnout generation so as I read this I kept thinking it doesn't have to be this way it does not have to be this way but it is specifically because we designed an economic system capitalism where we essentially become slaves to the system and our survivability hinges on us participating in capitalism and having burnout experiencing that it makes sense especially for millennials I mean everyone can experience burnout but think about millennials and why this especially affects them we are working longer hours for lower wages we're worse off than our parents and we are really facing the reality that we may not ever be able to retire so if you're working at some shitty job that you hate you may have to work until the day you die because we may not be able to retire there are efforts to privatize social security which would essentially ruin it pensions have essentially been abandoned in favor of 401ks that don't pay out as much I mean the prospect of enjoying life and not just living to work and serve capitalism it's diminishing so of course people are experiencing burnout of course there's also no federal guarantee for vacations no sick leave so if you're sick well you need money so you gotta come into work if you have a baby there's no mandatory maternity and paternity leave and additionally to make matters worse we're not even really benefiting from the fruits of our labor you work five days out of the week in many instances and you don't even get to spend the money that you get it goes to student loans it goes to rent it goes to bills so if you worked but there was like this light at the end of the tunnel where you can go and purchase anything that makes you happy you know some consumerist thing if you can participate in capitalism and buy an xbox for example maybe that make matters a little bit better but it's like you're working just to get by it's a grind and it doesn't have to be this way and i think it's really unnecessarily cruel think about just stop for a minute and think about how crazy this is we have as human beings very short lives if we're lucky we live to be 80 years old right but we spend most of that time working five out of the seven days each week is spent going to a job that we hate doing something we don't like and not getting paid enough it's such a just a really a grim thing to think about when you really kind of dwell on this and think about what capitalism has done we are slaves to capitalism and we have no choice if we don't participate then we can't survive and to be fair it's not just millennials because I worked at Walmart and I absolutely hated life like I felt strong depression but I remember thinking you know there was these 80 or 70 year old probably co-workers old ladies that I worked with and I just thought why are you here these are supposed to be your golden years you should be retired by now you shouldn't have to be dealing with these asshole customers who treat you like a servant to them you shouldn't be having to fucking pick up you know all the toys that the kids throw on the floor in the toy section like you should be enjoying the golden years of your life and then when you think about that and think man this is gonna be what it's like for millennials we have to do this possibly we have to work until we're that old because we won't have enough money to retire it's so sad it's such a devastating thought so this is why the more that I think about this the more that I explore my own political ideology I'm gravitating away from social democracy and closer towards democratic socialism because capitalism is such a virus that even if you get social democracy capitalistic forces will try to destroy the progress that you made because that incentive to generate profit is so powerful but it is antithetical to what human beings need to live fulfilling lives I mean you shouldn't have to get up every single day or most days and work at a job you hate we should be able to pursue things that we feel passionate about art if you want to paint pictures you want to play video games we should be able to enjoy lives more but the fact that most of the time most of our waking hours most days were forced to do something we don't like just to survive that's really sad we could do better we can design an economic system that isn't like this and it's not like we're all going to be lucky enough to land jobs that we love but we shouldn't be spending the majority of our days at these jobs that we hate because even if you have a job you love you're bound to hate it if you're forced to spend all your time there so this is why you know I read stories like this and I move a little bit closer towards democratic socialism because I think we can do better we can give human beings more to make their lives more fulfilling we can give them more security when it comes to just getting them the basic necessities so that way they don't have to feel as if they are slaves to the state and slaves to capitalism and big business so that way they can actually I don't know try something crazy and maybe enjoy life travel explore the planet run you know play with dogs that's lovely just do something that you enjoy because life is too short to spend most of the time doing something you don't like I mean how cruel is that capitalism only benefits the rich it only benefits the people who are exploiting us for our labor so I don't know what else to say about this it's not surprising but it's still it's sad because it really puts things into perspective to see that it's now officially a medical diagnosis that people are getting burned out with their jobs yeah well that's all that I've got for you guys today and thank you so much for tuning in if you've made it this far as usual I want to thank all of our patreon paypal and youtube members for helping the show to survive and thrive you guys are all absolutely amazing this has been a relatively short episode in comparison with the last episodes but we had a holiday which I did not film on so you know it made the show a little bit shorter because you know less days to cover but nonetheless hopefully you guys enjoyed what we got I'll talk to you all next week I'm Mike Figueredo this is The Humanist Report take care