 So I pulled a couple of clips from Kirsten Gillibrand's Town Hall and CNN because I think that she Is someone to look out for and I know that she isn't necessarily pulling too well just yet But I think that what she demonstrated over the course of this town hall is that she is incredibly slick I think she's extremely charismatic and she reminds me of Hillary Clinton if Hillary Clinton was more strategically savvy and Didn't piss people off every single time she opened her mouth by saying something smug or elitist because what Kirsten Gillibrand does is She says something that makes Progressives feel satisfied with her answer, but she's saying this all while remaining firmly in the camp of Corporate America now let me Explain what I mean by that so recently a pharmaceutical executive named Sally Sussman hosted a fundraiser for Kirsten Gillibrand so in my view That's something that I deem disqualifying after you've done a Fundraiser a private fundraiser a multi-thousand dollar fundraiser with a big pharma executive what little interest I already had in you advantages and I think she knows that that pissed off a lot of people so she was asked about this Surprisingly to CNN's credit at her town hall and the answer that she gave Was really really interesting to me because even if she still defends her decision to have a fundraiser the policy solution that she proposes is So good that I think that she may actually be able to distract people from the fact that She did something that was overly corrupt in the first place I know that you speak very passionately about supporting Medicare for all But you also have a long history of taking a campaign and lobbying money from pharmaceutical companies A lot of whom manufactured drugs at prices that I could not afford without insurance Are you committed to questioning your contradiction and supporting Medicare for all while remaining close to drug companies? How exactly do you plan to reform these practices and can we expect to see the change reflected in your Senate votes? And if you're president well, I my voting record I stand up to the drug companies I've sponsored legislation to stand up to the drug companies and I'm not beholden to donors It's why I'm in favor of publicly funded elections. It's also why I don't take corporate PAC money It's why I don't take federal lobbyist money, and it's why I don't want to have an individual super PAC I believe if you want to restore this democracy into your hands, you're gonna have to get money out of politics You're actually gonna have to fight for publicly funded elections So I'm not beholden to any industries and my voting record proves it So given the optics of being too cozy with pharmaceuticals and the point that scout was making Why did you allow a Pfizer vice president to host a fundraiser? She's my friend and I've known her for lots of years and she supports my positions on LGBTQ equality And she supports my positions on women's rights and women's empowerment So, you know individuals will support you for all sorts of reasons and you don't want to undermine an individual's right to participate But it's one of the reasons because you've made that assumption it's one of the reasons why we need to get money out of politics because it Corrodes people's belief that our democracy is strong. So you want publicly funded elections It's the quickest and best way to restore people's faith in our democracy That to me was just a masterful dodge It was art It really was a form of art because what she does to get you to forget about the fact that she just did a Fundraiser with a pharmaceutical executive whose company rips people off and who just gave their CEO a 61% pay raise she wants you to forget about that and she invokes a really bold progressive policy She says that's why I support publicly financing Elections all of them and the only other person who really talks about this is Bernie Sanders and she said it unequivocally she said I support publicly financed elections full stop She didn't add in the caveat that I want to get money dark money out of politics She just said I want to get money period out of politics and I think that that is absolutely a Great way to get people to forget about the fact that you're not serious about wanting to get corruption out of politics because again You just attended a fundraiser with the pharma executive So why should we believe you because if she's willing to cozy up to big pharma executives like Sally Sussman Who's a multi-millionaire and a campaign bundler Then obviously if she's friends with these types of people these powerful individuals obviously She's going to be susceptible to their influence So if she does one day become president and proposes Legislation to publicly finance all elections and get money out of politics Don't you think that since she's friends with them and they have a vested interest in fighting that that they have at least Some influence over her and could potentially get her to reverse course of course So what we need is less talk and more action because she's not practicing what she's preaching She's saying exactly what she needs to be saying when it comes to getting money out of politics but simultaneously she's participating in the corruption and The process where money does corrupt our political system if you're doing private fundraisers with big pharma executives That's part of the problem. So you can't identify the problem and still participate You have to practice what you preach. She's not doing that But she's slick because she's saying what you want to hear and she's hoping that Saying the right thing will be a big enough distraction from the fact that she's not walking walk I think it's really brilliant. It's it's a great way to dodge, you know, this issue It's it's a great way to kind of distract you from the core issue that I think plagues her overall campaign But it's lazy. It's absolutely sleazy now on the note of health care and big pharma She was asked about whether or not she would support the abolition of private insurance companies now The person kind of worded this in a way that may be misleading because I don't think Bernie Sanders is Explicitly saying that we ban private health insurance companies He's just saying we should construct a Medicare for all plan That's so good that they would go out of business because nobody would need private insurance We fill all the gaps with our Medicare for all system that makes those private health companies Unnecessary and hopefully non-existent. So, you know, besides the framing which I think is a little bit problematic Here's what she says overall and what she says is very unclear with regard to her stance on Medicare for all Hi, Senator Gillibrand. Yeah, my name is Comron I have two heart conditions and a spine condition that have required me to get life altering surgeries throughout my childhood and If my family wasn't able to afford those surgeries if my family couldn't pay for a pacemaker and two steel rods in my back Yeah, I wouldn't be alive today. So would you abolish the private insurance industry that has taken advantage of people like me? Well, first of all, thank you for being so brave and thank you for sharing your story with all of us It's bravery of yours that inspires me to work harder every day to take on the insurance companies to make sure health care Is a right and not a privilege That's why I am for Medicare for all and I believe that the best way to get there is let people buy in and that was how We get to single-payer over a very short transition period I Think part of the corruption and greed in Washington is the insurance industry as the middleman for health care Because they don't necessarily care about which surgeries you need or which medicine you need or how many days in the hospitals You need ultimately they're for-profit companies and they have to care about their bottom line and their shareholders And I think that's the misalignment in health care today I don't think you can actually get to universal coverage unless you have a not-for-profit public option That is focused solely on human health Would you be able to say though that an option that you support would be able To get him everything that he needs without his family paying a dollar extra with no wait time and no Okay well pacemakers aren't included or something like that you should ask anyone in America who has access to Medicare It covers the things you need certainly covers the medications It kind of covers the surgeries the hospital stays everything you need And I think if people bought in at a price they could afford like 4% of income That would work and if you match it with your employer and you had a choice over the way we wrote Senator Sanders's bill I got to write the transition piece or work on that piece. We had a buy-in over four years I think most Americans if you do your number crunching in your own head 4% of your income Yeah, it's probably less than you're paying now and people will choose it I would choose it in a New York minute and I think if you got to if you got to Medicare for all What you're gonna do is have economies of scale, which will bend the cost curve You'll have all Americans have access to preventive care Which bends the cost curve and then you need to actually get some costs out by ending fee for service Making sure our doctors can work on a continuum of care model like they have at the Mayo Clinic, right? And And make sure that you get the price of Pharmaceuticals down that means taking on the drug companies So I do want to talk to you about that because we have a question about pharmaceutical prices The Medicare today back to greed and corruption The reason why Medicare patients don't have the lowest cost for drugs is because under George W. Bush They negotiated in the dead of night to make sure that drug manufacturers would never have to negotiate in bulk with Medicare So first of all, it's important to note that she did not answer his question She did not unequivocally say that I'd support getting rid of the private health insurance companies We're not expecting her to say we're gonna pass a law making them illegal We're just saying that you're going we want you to commit to a bill that would make them unnecessary And therefore go out of business because your Medicare for all plan is so strong. She didn't answer the core question Now additionally if you'll notice she talked about a Medicare buy-in as a way to get to Medicare for all But the problem is that you don't need to establish that unnecessary Step in between our for-profit system and Medicare for all you can just go directly from our current system To Medicare for all but I don't know if she's saying that a Medicare buy-in would just be established once we pass Medicare for all and simply serve as a Transitionary necessity You know once we pass Medicare for all and until we get to there I think that it feels anyway like she's being Intentionally unclear because I think she's trying to leave herself room for plausible deniability So if she's ever elected and she doesn't do Medicare for all and she gives us a public option then She can say I never fully committed to Medicare for all. I supported Bernie's bill. I co-sponsored it But at the same time I also co-sponsored other half measures. I said I supported a public option So I didn't lie. It's not it's not a lie technically. I'm not going back on my campaign promise I'm doing what I said I was going to do It seems like that's the case but also she's leaving Room for interpretation that she actually does support Medicare for all and she only supports Medicare buy-in as a means of establishing that as a necessity during the transition process But when you hear someone like Pete Buddha just talk about Medicare for everyone who wants it He just says you know Or he implies certainly that Medicare for all is more of a long-term ideal But now we should just do a Medicare buy-in now I don't know if she's saying that so she needs to be clear But I think that this room for interpretation is really it's it's a tactic, right? She's trying to be purposefully vague to Give herself enough room to make you think she supports Medicare for all But also allow her to weasel out of it if she doesn't pass it if she's elected and again because of her relationship with Pharmaceutical executives like Sally Sussman my default position with respect to Kirsten Gillibrand is always to be Overly skeptical of every single thing that she says because if you're friends with someone who has a vested interest in Maintaining the for-profit status quo that we currently have I can't trust you I have to be skeptical of you because I'd be a moron and I'd be really naive to not be skeptical of what you're saying So overall she is someone who is clearly Politically astute she is Strategically savvy perhaps more so than a lot of her colleagues more so than better or work certainly more so than Pete Buddha judge But she's one to watch because she talks in a way that allows her to firmly Keep her feet rooted in two different camps the establishment corporate wing of the party and the progressive wing and She'll adopt really bold policy proposals while simultaneously probably behind closed doors Promising her donors something else so I don't trust her one bit and if you're gonna do fundraisers then I don't think it's Irrational or unreasonable for us to question your loyalty and if you're serious about Medicare for all because we've been fucked over How many times now rock Obama said he supports a public option? He didn't even push for it So we've been screwed over in the post Obama era of Democratic Party politics We're not going to interpret anything a politician says charitably We're going to expect you by default to betray us and it's your job to prove to us that that's not the case And in my opinion, she hasn't done that. It's clear. She is another bullshitter and I don't trust her. Sorry Stop doing fundraisers with big pharma executives I don't care how lovely a person Sally Sussman may be personally. I don't care that she Supports LGBTQ rights. I mean how how progressive to support LGBTQ rights in 2019 She's still a big pharma executive who's fucking over Americans ripping people off That doesn't make you a good person Overall, you can have these good qualities about you and be supportive of equality and a more equitable society but if you're still ripping off Americans and Profiting off of pain. You're not a good person and to be friends with them to want to be friends with the shitty person like that Um, I just I'm sorry. I can't trust you Mike is a total loser. So don't hit the subscribe button, okay? And whatever you do folks do not hit the notification bell either Mike treats me so unfairly