 So as you all know, last week, Bernie Sanders took a pretty bad beating from the press and from the GOP, namely because of his position on voting rights and his belief that felons should be allowed to vote while they're still incarcerated. Now, is his position the morally justifiable one? Absolutely. However, I do think it's important for us to admit that it's still a politically toxic position to take in a media landscape where pretty much every unpopular opinion will be susceptible to sensationalism and smear attacks. Now, we saw what happened at the CNN Town Hall. He was asked if his position on universal suffrage would extend to people like the Boston Bomber, which the media obviously had a field day with because they try to make it seem as if Bernie Sanders was specifically advocating for this position because he had some weird affinity for the Boston Bomber, but I mean, we all know as supporters of Bernie Sanders, he didn't take this position originally because he loves the Boston Bomber and he loves psychopaths. He took this position because he sees how racially biased our criminal justice system is and how disenfranchising felons is just one of many ways that our system disenfranchises black and brown Americans. And by agreeing that felons should be allowed to vote, you're acknowledging that black and brown people are affected the most by mass incarceration in our nation's prison industrial complex. So by advocating for this position, you're sensitive to institutional racism and the reality of how our system works and how it specifically targets people of color. However, with that being said, I'm just objectively speaking. I don't think Bernie Sanders answered that question in an ideal way. However, it's been about a week. He's had some time to think about it and he's had a little bit of time to mull over how he's going to try to reclaim this narrative away from the GOP and away from the mainstream media. And he came up with something that I've got to give him credit for. It's pretty damn clever. So here's what he's doing to take back the narrative. In an op-ed for USA Today, Bernie Sanders writes, Everyone deserves the right to vote, even felons like Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen. Now, before we get to the article here, just take a moment and think about how clever that is. We're no longer talking about voting rights in terms of the Boston bomber. We're talking about voting rights in terms of allowing Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen to vote. Now, is this really the conversation that Bernie Sanders wants to be having? Of course not. Because he wants to talk about the real reason why we should allow felons to vote. It's because this is an issue related to criminal justice and institutional racism. But with that being said, if Republicans are going to play this game, where they try to straw man Bernie Sanders and make it seem as if he specifically wants felons to be allowed to vote, just so the Boston bomber can be allowed to vote. Well, now he's forcing them to acknowledge that this isn't really about the Boston bomber. This is just about being principled in my stand that people should be allowed to vote. So Republicans, do you not think that Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort should be allowed to vote? I like it. Now, when you actually dive into the article itself, he is a lot more nuanced. And here's what he writes, I have been attacked in recent days by President Trump and others for my conviction that people who are incarcerated should be given the right to vote. I make no apologies for that position. Our country has had a long and shameful history of voter suppression. At our founding, despite rhetoric to the contrary, only land owning white males were given the right to participate in our democracy. Lower income people, women, Native Americans, African Americans, and young people were excluded. We have been engaged in an ongoing 243 year project to expand participation in our democracy. Thankfully, we have made much progress in that struggle, but our work is not done, not even close. If we are serious about calling ourselves a democracy, we must firmly establish that the right to vote is an inalienable and universal principle that applies to all American citizens 18 years and older. Period. As American citizens, all of us are entitled to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and all other freedoms enshrined in our bill of rights. We are also entitled to vote. Yes, even if Trump's former campaign manager and personal lawyer end up in jail, they should still be able to vote regardless of who they cast their vote for. Indeed, our present day crisis of mass incarceration has become a tool of voter suppression. Today, over 4.5 million Americans, disproportionately people of color, have lost their right to vote because they have served time in jail or prison for a felony conviction. It goes without saying that someone who commits a serious crime must pay his or her debt to society, but punishment for a crime or keeping dangerous people behind bars must not cause people to lose their rights to citizenship. It should not cause them to lose their right to vote. This should not devolve into a debate about whether certain people are good enough to have the right to vote. Voting is not a privilege, it is a right. In my view, the crooks on Wall Street who caused the Great Recession of 2008 that hurt millions of Americans are not good people, but they have the right to vote and it should never be taken away. The reason why this issue is so important right now is that Trump and cowardly Republican politicians all over this country are working overtime to suppress the vote. Instead of trying to increase voter turnout, they are making it harder for people to participate in the political process. In Florida, the Republican legislature is trying to undermine the will of 64% of people who voted to re-enfranchise formerly incarcerated people. In Georgia, we have a Republican governor who took office by instituting barriers to voting for people of color. In Tennessee, the Republican legislature is trying to shut down groups who do voter registration work. In New Hampshire and Iowa, the Republicans have tried to make it harder for college students to vote. The point here is simple. At a time when voting suppression is taking place all across the country, we must make it clear that casting a ballot for American citizens is not a privilege. It is a right. If you're an American citizen who is 18 years or older, you must be able to vote, whether you're in jail or not. So I think that this op-ed does a number of things. First of all, it shifts the conversation away from the Boston bomber and onto a more nuanced conversation. And really, he name drops Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen specifically. So we're talking about them as opposed to the Boston bomber, but once he kind of ropes you in with that catchy title, then he goes on to explain in a very detailed and thorough way why we need to allow felons the right to vote, people to vote in prison. If you truly believe this is an inalienable right, then we should extend suffrage universally. Now, also what this does, which I think is important, is it disarms this Republican line of attack against him that he only wants people in prison to be allowed to vote because they're most likely to vote for Democrats. What he's saying here is, no, look, even people like Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen, who obviously wouldn't vote for me. They'd vote for Donald Trump. We should let them vote too, because this isn't about who they're going to vote for. This is about the principle of democracy. And I love how Republicans completely miss the irony because as they institute all of these arbitrary, racist, quite frankly, voter ID laws, they're doing that specifically to decrease voter turnout. They are creating barriers to voting so that way people don't turn out as much and poor people of color don't come out to vote. And those people are overwhelmingly likely to vote for Democrats. So they're essentially projecting. They're saying that Bernie is trying to tweak the voting laws to give himself the edge when that's what they do all the time. So I think that this was a really important article for Bernie Sanders to write. And even if it may not be the perfect solution to get the media and Republicans off of his back, I can tell that it kind of worked. And I'll tell you why I think it worked. So in an interview on CNN, which was a pretty combative interview for the most part, if you watched the whole thing, you can see that the way that the CNN host questioned him here was very different. It was no longer about, you know, trying to get Bernie to explain why he thinks the Boston bomber should be allowed to vote. So I'm going to play that clip for you and also take note of the quick jab that Bernie throws in against media here. Speaking of jail, speaking of jail, speaking of incarceration, I read your opinion piece. I mean, today you wrote this opinion piece. USA Today, everyone can go read it on why you think felons deserve the right to vote. And you point out in the middle part of the piece that over 4.5 billion Americans, disproportionately people of color, have lost their right to vote because they've served time. And so, Senator, on this issue, only 28% of Democrats or Democratic leaders say that this is very important to them, that the candidate that they support take this position. And I just wanted to ask you, why is this so important to you and your campaign? Well, Brooke, I think you know how politics works. I was asked that in a question. In fact, I didn't come up with it. I asked the question, I gave an answer. And I think we should do what Canada does, what Israel does, what many countries around the world do. And that is to separate. If somebody commits a serious crime, they're going to go to jail. And if they're violent people, they may spend the rest of their lives in jail. That's the way it is. You pay a price when you commit a crime. But this is what I believe. At a time when the Republican Party and Donald Trump are working overtime to suppress the vote to make it harder for people of color, poor people, young people to vote, we have got to make it clear, in my view, that if you are an American citizen, even if you do something terrible, even if you're a bad person, we cannot take away your right to vote, whether you're in jail or whether you left jail. Clearly, what Republicans are doing is trying to deny people of color the right to vote. And this is an issue I think we have to address head on. So even if you are in jail. Even Democrats disagree with you. I mean, I'm sure you saw what Cory Booker said. Yeah, but let me say this. Four years ago, people disagreed with me on Medicare 4, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Criminal justice reform, spending a trillion dollars on rebuilding our infrastructure. People disagreed with me. They'll be disagreeing with me now. But you know what? I will tell you what I think. And that is, if you're a citizen of this country, you have the right to vote. And I will oppose all efforts to try to deny Americans the right to participate in our democracy. Okay. So now they're essentially objecting to this position that Bernie Sanders is taking because it's not popular. So the line of attack has shifted, which tells me that Bernie Sanders op-ed here, accomplished what he hoped it would accomplish, at least thus far, judging by this one anecdote. But what I find interesting is that just above allowing felons the right to vote is reparations in terms of one of two least popular issues among the Democratic Party space. But just a couple of months ago, they were attacking Bernie because he didn't come out in favor of reparations. But now they're attacking him because he's taking the position of a policy that's not popular. But back then they were attacking him because he didn't come out in favor of a policy that's obviously not very popular. So do you understand what this tells me is that they're not going to stop attacking Bernie Sanders? He's never going to silence all of their criticism. It's just going to change. They're going to be able to adapt. And it doesn't matter what Bernie Sanders does or doesn't do throughout the course of this campaign because they're going to attack him regardless because their goal isn't to educate voters. It's to take down Bernie Sanders and sabotage his campaign at all costs. But nonetheless, the point of getting his critics to shut up about the Boston Bomber was really important. And I think that demonstrated the success of his op-ed here. However, notice the jab that he took at the CNN host because this was never really Bernie Sanders' most salient issue because just strategically speaking, you never want to prop up the policies that you have that you know aren't very popular. You kind of endorse those ideas or you state your position on those ideas, but you kind of put them on the back burner and you promote the ideas that you know are more popular. That's just good politics. But he took a jab at the CNN host because he said, look, you know how politics works. I was asked about this and I responded to this question. I just answered truthfully. And now you all are trying to make it seem this isn't him saying this, but this is the point. He was trying to get across. Now you're trying to make it seem as if I'm going to die on this hill. I support this position, but my entire campaign is based on universal redistributive policies that would help the middle class survive and fix the country and unrig the economy and unrig, you know, our racist criminal justice system. So by and large, I hope that this at least at a minimum puts a cap on some of the criticism and hate Bernie was receiving with regard to this issue, but we'll have to wait and see. Either way, you know, as I stated, they're not going to stop criticizing him. They're just going to adapt their critiques and smears are going to evolve with time. And as I've stated before, they're just going to move on to something else. If they think it's going to be more effective at bringing down his numbers. And we're going to see this continuously throughout the course of his campaign. report. Sad. My views are much higher.