 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 humanistreport 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 episode 209 of the program. Today is September 6th, and before we get started, I want to take some time to thank all of our newest Patreon, PayPal, and YouTube members, all of which signed up for the very first time to support the show this week, or increased their monthly pledge. And that includes Dan, Denise Rose, Devin the Deviant, Douglas Kelbon, Grimacevr, Hunter Louise Jelf, NS Fernandez, Kimberly A. Robinson, Naomi the Barn Owl, Ralph W. Moss, and Yogesh Gaj. 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 going to humanistreport.com slash support or patreon.com forward slash humanistreport. So today we have a jam packed episode, because I will not be filming next week. There is a Democratic debate that I will cover on Thursday individually, but there won't be no new episode next week because I will be going on vacation for my second wedding anniversary. But on this episode, what we will be talking about is Bernie Sanders' plan to cancel all medical debt, as well as his condemnation of Modi's crackdown in Kashmir. We'll also talk about a fossil fuel lobbyist who on Fox News called AOC's renew deal proposal anti-labor. We'll talk about Alyssa Milano's plan to help Democrats beat Trump in 2020. Fox News is creeping on AOC's Instagram once again. CNN decided to attack Bernie Sanders for the dumbest reason imaginable, and Donald Trump flip-flops on universal background checks. Additionally, we'll talk with Representative Ro Khanna about his BDS vote, as well as 2020 Congressional candidate Paula Jean Swearingen. This is a long episode, so bear with me. Let's go ahead and waste no time, let's just get straight into it. Hopefully, you guys will enjoy this long, but hopefully informative podcast. The concept of medical bankruptcies, this idea that someone could actually die if they don't have health insurance, or maybe they have health insurance, but their insurance won't cover the cost of a particular procedure. This is all foreign to people who live in the UK, Australia, Canada. This is foreign to them. In fact, if you listen to David Dole of The Rational National, my brother from another mother, he will tell you that health care is something that he doesn't necessarily have to think about. Now, this isn't to say that these health care systems are perfect because they absolutely have their flaws. They have omissions of certain types of coverage, for example, eye care, dental care. However, when it comes to the United States, this really is an issue that is unique to us in the developed world. We are one of the few existing countries still that have people go bankrupt and die because they don't have health insurance. And that's absolutely insane. So if we win, if we have our way, we will move to a single-payer Medicare for All system. We will eliminate private for-profit insurance companies. And we will go forward knowing that every single American is secure. With that being said, the current system that we have, it still has done so much wrong that all the damage that it caused can never be undone. If you have a child that died because he or she could not prove that they have health insurance, we will never be able to bring them back. And that's really painful to think about when I think about people like Amy Volella with her daughter, Shalyn. However, there are some areas where we can write the wrongs of what I hope will soon be the past. And that is medical debt. People will still have medical debt if we move to a single-payer Medicare for All system. That's one area where we can take action and we need to take action because this is a huge, huge crisis. Prior to the ACA, the Commonwealth Fund found that 79 million Americans have problems with medical bills or medical debt. And it's often the number one reason why Americans file for bankruptcy. And a study conducted by Dr. David Himmelstein cited by Bernie Sanders, correctly so, I might add, states that more than 500,000 Americans per year go bankrupt due to medical bills. So this is something that is absolutely a crucial issue that we've got to address. But thankfully, Bernie Sanders has a plan for that. So what's his plan? Well, when it comes to existing medical debt, he's going to cancel it. Simple as that. So as Annie Greyer of CNN reports, the plan, which the Sanders campaign says would cancel $81 billion in existing past due medical debt and make changes to the 2005 bankruptcy bill is not expected to be released in its entirety for another month. The proposal, which is still in the works separate from the Senator's Medicare for All plan and meant to address debt under the current system, does not explicitly state how Sanders will eliminate medical debt. But says under this plan, the federal government will negotiate and pay off past due medical bills in collection that have been reported to credit agencies. Sanders announcement came during a healthcare focused town hall in Florence, South Carolina, in response to a question from an audience member on how he would address the issue. The campaign was still developing the details of the plan when Sanders hinted at its release Friday night. But released an outline Saturday after the Vermont Senator was asked about the issue directly. A woman at the town hall stood up and asked, is there anything in your plan that would actually work for people that are drowning right now for their medical debt? We're looking at that right now, Sanders responded. In another piece of legislation that we're going to be offering, we will eliminate medical debt in this country. I mean, just stop and think for a second. Why should people be placed in financial duress? For what crime did you commit? You got a serious illness? That is not what this country should be about. So yet again, this is incredibly important and it's forward thinking. And one of the main criticisms that I had of Bernie Sanders back when he was talking about free college was that, look, this is great. Going forward, we need to make sure that future generations do not accumulate the type of debt that millennials have. However, there's still 1.5 trillion in debt currently that is plaguing an entire generation. It's harming the aggregate economy. So let's boost the purchasing power of millennials and start talking about student loan debt cancellation. Bernie did that. And now this is another issue where even if you make Medicare for all going forward, that will be a huge substantial improvement and save lives and stop medical bankruptcies. But that doesn't automatically erase the debt that people have acquired under our current system and hopefully soon to be gone system. But Bernie Sanders has a plan for that and he has a plan for everything. So I think it's time for him to just straight up steal that slogan from Elizabeth Warren because think about this. In the span of the last week and a half, he proposed a fully fleshed out Green New Deal proposal that costs 15 trillion but pays for itself within 15 years. He proposed a Workplace Democracy Act that would save and expand unions. He proposed sweeping criminal justice reform and now he's hinting at legislation that will cancel medical debt. Bernie Sanders is the only candidate that is fundamentally rethinking our entire system. And I absolutely love that if this primary comes down to a race between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, that they're having to one up each other with regard to policy. One puts out a policy proposal, the other is forced to respond and so on and so forth. This is exactly what candidates should be doing during the primary process. Like I don't care about these idiotic arguments about electability, I mean that matters, but whoever proposes the best policies, that's who you should vote for. Not vote on whatever subjective measure you think makes a candidate more electable. That's just a fool's game. Primaries are about competition. Primaries are about challenging the candidates to put up the best policy proposals. And for Bernie Sanders to run this campaign, that is incredibly dynamic. Not only is he silencing the critics who say, oh, well, you know, he's saying the same thing that he was saying four years ago, he's actually proposing policies that save people's lives. And even if he's not going to be able to even pass 10% of his agenda if he's elected president, the fact that he's using his name recognition and the enormous platform that he's amassed to elevate these issues that nobody's talking about is incredibly, incredibly important. And I am not under the illusion that Bernie Sanders is going to get everything passed and change the system himself. But what Bernie Sanders can do, what we can hope for essentially with term limits is that he puts us on a new trajectory. He is a revolutionary figure like Ronald Reagan was, but instead of having a corporatization of America where you just essentially do trickle down economics, you have a left-wing revolution where you propose policies that are so popular that they become the new status quo that your political ideology becomes the new status quo and any Republican or corporate Democrat, for that matter, that speaks out and questions it, they are the ones who are marginalized now. But as this primary wage is on, I get more and more hopeful that we actually could see some real systemic change in this country, but as my hope builds, I'm also getting worried because Biden has to fall quicker. Elizabeth Warren is catching up with Bernie Sanders and if you're not really politically savvy, like viewers of this program, you might not necessarily see the difference between Bernie and Warren. So this is incumbent on all of us, not just political commentators, but people, people who are voting for Bernie Sanders to educate your peers about Bernie Sanders and explain why we don't just need to rewrite the rules of the game, we need to blow up the game itself. And Bernie Sanders yet again is demonstrating he's gonna do that. He's the only candidate that wants to change the game. And that's what we need because it's not just about American politics. This is about saving the planet. But I'm not gonna go down that route. All I know is this is a great policy proposal and I absolutely think that Bernie Sanders is crushing it. To say that he is running a better campaign than he did in 2016, if you would have told me that I would be saying this in 2019, I would think that's impossible. He can't really improve that much, but I mean, he has improved substantially. 2019 Bernie is exponentially better than 2015 Bernie. And it's nice to see a candidate improve for the better and not just get exponentially worse with time, which is almost always the case. But Bernie Sanders is a different type of politician. He's incredibly unique and we may never get another Bernie an hour lifetime. So cherish this moment, fight for Bernie Sanders because this might be our only shot to elect someone who is a transformative figure like Bernie Sanders. So Bernie Sanders was one of two presidential candidates that attended this year's ISNACON. And I wanted to share a brief clip from his appearance because he actually spoke out about Narendra Modi's authoritarian crackdown in Kashmir. And this is incredibly important. American leaders should be speaking out if they do in fact care about democracy. Few of them have said anything, but Bernie Sanders did. And I want to share his remarks because this is incredibly, incredibly crucial at this time. I am also deeply concerned about the situation in Kashmir where the Indian government has revoked Kashmiri autonomy, crackdown on dissent and instituted a communications blackout. The crackdown in the name of security is also denying the Kashmiri people access to medical care. Even many respected doctors in India have acknowledged that the Indian government imposed restrictions on travel or threatening the life-saving care that patients need. India's action is unacceptable. The communications blockade must be lifted immediately and the United States government must speak out boldly in support of international humanitarian law and in support of a UN-backed peaceful resolution that respects the will of the Kashmiri people. So that was great. And I really commend Bernie for speaking out because to call out an ally to the United States that isn't going to always be the most politically expedient course of action, especially if you are the president. But what Bernie Sanders tells me is that no matter what, he will remain principled and he will speak out if it means that this could potentially bring light to a particular issue and help people or if it means defending democracy. Now the situation in Kashmir, it doesn't bode well for democracy in India. And at a time when you see all of these pseudo-populist right-wing demagogues popping up in countries across the world, it really is important that American leaders, especially individuals with lots of name recognition with a huge platform like Bernie Sanders, speak up. Because if we don't speak up, it could be too late. When I say that what's happening in India is bad for democracy in India, that's not being hyperbolic because when we see these types of dictatorial leaders pop up and they try to consolidate power, most of the time that ends up leading to a decline in democracy. I mean, look at Turkey. Turkey has been a NATO ally but when Tayyip Erdogan came to power, what happened? He consolidated power. Now he is in a situation where he is essentially a pseudo-dictator of Turkey. It's also happening in Brazil. Donald Trump has not put any pressure on Jair Bolsonaro when it comes to protecting the Amazon rainforest. And now when it comes to India with Narendra Modi, even if Modi came to power before Donald Trump, this is an individual who is a nationalist. He is a right-wing demagogue and the things that he is doing could ultimately facilitate the decline of democracy in India. And if you care about democracy, then you speak out in defense of democracy and that's exactly what Bernie Sanders is doing. Nobody is under this impression that we should invade Kashmir in order to protect the residents of Kashmir from Modi. Nobody's saying that on the American left. But what we are saying is that lawmakers should call out Narendra Modi and draw attention to this issue because international pressure works. Now, the thing is that India is an ally to the United States. So it does make it difficult. If you're president, you never really wanna ruffle too many feathers, although Donald Trump has done that time and again. But I mean, ideally speaking, you wanna allow allies the room, you wanna show them respect because that's part of diplomacy. You want a really big international coalition and you wanna make sure that the United States using our hegemony, it doesn't seem like we're throwing our dick around to put that in the least eloquent way I possibly can. But I mean, the point is we need leaders in America to be bold and Bernie Sanders to his credit is one of the few lawmakers that actually calls out Benjamin Netanyahu's racism because that's exactly what it is. Now, I'm not under the illusion that Bernie Sanders is phenomenal when it comes to Israel-Palestine, but he's still better than most politicians. In fact, almost all of them with the exception of Ilhana Omar and Rashida Tlaib. But Bernie Sanders time and again has stood up for people. He stood up for democracy and he does this by drawing attention to these issues. And now that he has this large platform and he's a large figure internationally, speaking what he says, the words that he uses holds weight. So that is incredibly important. Now, I originally was not going to talk about this. I watched Kyle Kalinsky's segment on this where when he initially talked about Narendra Modi's crackdown on cashmere, he was accused of being Hinduphobic. Now, I tend to not watch other commentators' videos on subjects that I am going to cover myself, but I originally was not going to cover this until Kyle said something that really stood out to me that made me wanna do this video. It's that charge of Hinduphobia because I noticed that when I called this out, I was called Hinduphobic as well. If you criticize Narendra Modi and the government, the BJP party and Hindu nationalist government of India, you are called Hinduphobic. And it is the same exact tactic that individuals who are proponents of Israel use. If you criticize the government of Israel, you are anti-Semitic. And similarly, if you criticize the government of India, then of course you're a Hinduphobic. And this is so laughable because intellectually speaking, this is the laziest argument you can possibly make. Rather than defending the individual actions of Narendra Modi to simply relegate this entire conversation to Hinduphobia is an absolute joke. So I wanna basically speak out as well because I'm not afraid of these false claims of bigotry because this is a neoliberal and neoconservative tactic. Lawmakers like to use this in proponents of certain ideologies. They like to use this because it shields them. Crying bigotry, essentially weaponizing identity politics at the international level, it works really well. It's a great way to stifle criticism, shut down your opponents, but here's the thing. If we care about people, then we have to remain firmly committed to protecting people. And the problem with Narendra Modi is that he benefits from widespread ignorance in the United States. Very few people know that he is a Hindu nationalist that believes in basically a Hindu ethno state to the exclusion of Muslims. And the way that he has basically fired up his base, it's been disgusting. It has led to increased violence against Muslim citizens in the same way that Donald Trump's fear mongering has led to increased violence against Muslims here in the United States, hate crimes, as well as hate crimes against immigrants. But the problem is that people wanna pretend that if you call out Narendra Modi, you're singling out Hindus when his rhetoric has also led to the incitement of violence and hatred against lower caste Hindus and Christians as well. So you have to look at power dynamics. Whenever you have a marginalized minority in a country, the majority oftentimes can weaponize that minority in order to fire up their base for purposes of political expediency. And then it's incumbent on all of us when that happens, when we see that, to speak out. Because if you're a right-wing demagogue, then your ideology doesn't really work if you're a nationalist unless you demonize one particular group. We need to stop allowing people who are disingenuous to cry Hindu phobia or Islamophobia whenever we call out a government. Because when I say that what Narendra Modi is doing is harmful to say the least, I'm not saying all Hindus are like this. When I call out Benjamin Netanyahu, I'm not saying that the Jewish people are guilty of the crimes of the Israeli government. What we are saying is there's a difference between government and people. And individuals who try to muddy the waters in order to shield their preferred government or political figure from criticism is absolutely being disingenuous to say the least. So to everyone who saw Kyle's segment and my segment and cried Hindu phobia and claimed that we're being Hindu phobic, no. We're looking out for people and we're speaking out in order to preserve democracy in India because India is the largest democracy. And if you don't want to see India go the way of Turkey with Erdogan, then I suggest you speak out as well because democracy is something that is absolutely fragile. It's not going to last forever in any given country. Democracies absolutely have shelf lives. So if you don't fight to protect them, they die and that's as simple as it gets. So we care about people in Kashmir and we're speaking out because we care about people and that's that. End of story, we can easily flip this and say, well, you're Islamophobic. If you don't condemn what Modi is doing or you're Islamophobic, if you agree with the actions of the Israeli government, but we actually don't need to make that argument because we can argue on the merits of our position and actually point to real world examples of the harm that these right wing demagogic governments are causing. So it's as simple as that. We have to speak out and I absolutely commend Bernie Sanders for being a leader on this issue and really taking a stand when that's not necessarily the easiest thing to do in this day and age. CNN keeps swinging and missing when it comes to Bernie Sanders and that is in fact a pun. And yes, it will be relevant when you see the segment from CNN that I am about to show you because they took just an insignificant clip of Bernie Sanders punching a speed bag and they did a two minute segment on it where they try to basically extrapolate and share the reaction that the internet had to this clip and then they try to make it seem as if it was substantive when in actuality, this is a multi-billion dollar company talking about something that is completely pointless and you're gonna see why that's the case. Just watch. I don't know what else to say. In this corner, 77 year old Bernie, the cerebral Sanders couldn't resist jabbing the speed bag passed by the other day. Oh! Why don't I come back? He took on the bag, but the bag clobbered him or as one armchair analyst put it, speed bag TKO's Bernie Sanders seconds after fight began quickest technical knockout in boxing history. Note to candidates, if you're clueless about hitting a bag, don't do it unless you wanna become a punching bag. What a doofus. LOL, if he keeps that up, maybe he'll knock some sense into his self. Someone else took a swing at socialism tweeting when capitalism claps back. Even the president's son, Don Jr. weighed in. This wouldn't exactly strike fear in the minds of our adversaries, but Bernie supporters thought it was cute. Float like a butterfly, sting like a Bernie. We've seen the candidate shadow box before reacting to his doctor saying what great health the senator's in. Do I get involved in senior boxing? In addition to shadow boxing, we've seen Donald Trump perform a fake takedown. Look at this! At a WWE event, Billed is the battle of the billionaires. Hey, but at least Bernie's punching a bag and not threatening to punch his opponent. No, I wish you were in high school, I could take him behind the gym. He said I'd like to take him behind the gym. Oh, I dream of that. But our favorite political boxing moment was when retiring Senator Orrin Hatch tried to spar with a piece of bacon. A slice of bacon is great, but don't get any ideas from this guy. Don't even think of pummeling meat, Bernie. Even if it would tenderize it. Geniemo, see ya now. Ask yourself this. Do you feel like you learned anything watching that segment? Like when we tune in to a news show, we're supposed to be educated. We are supposed to have more information that helps us make our decision going into the voting booth. Did you learn anything there? Anything at all? What a pointless way to shit on Bernie Sanders in a roundabout way. And look at the like to dislike ratio on that video. 4,000 dislikes to 900. 38 likes, and yes, I did dislike that as well. But this isn't the only time when CNN has been swinging and missing zing when it comes to Bernie Sanders because they also did an attack on him where they claimed that his criticism of the Washington Post was Trump-like. That got 8,479 dislikes to 600 likes. They also asked if he's still credible to rally against millionaires after he made more than a million on his book. Majority disliked, again, another video with Bernie Sanders where he reacts to him trailing in a Joe Biden poll. And that got majority dislikes as well. So CNN, they really like to shit on Bernie Sanders and it's evident that their audience is not picking up what they're putting down. They're not filling it, but they must be suckers for punishment because they keep doing it. Nobody takes them seriously. Okay, what was the point of sharing Twitter randos and what they had to say about that? And I love how each individual tweet, even if it had like three words, they still highlighted it. That's such a boomer thing to do. But I mean, they had to highlight it because for whatever reason, that helps demonstrate why people are turned off by Bernie Sanders, I guess. So maybe stay home, don't vote for him millennials. You had the CNN anchor, actually film herself punching a bag for this bit. I mean, this is incredibly embarrassing and cringe-worthy. I just, who thought this through and then said, you know what, we're gonna present this as an idea for a segment to a producer and then who was the producer that greenlit this and then after filming it, who agreed, yeah, we should still go through with this. I mean, does it not make you look petty? Is this not the most insignificant thing ever? And for all of the conservative shitting on Bernie Sanders, who cares? I don't care what they have to say. They support Donald Trump. Someone who literally smears orange on his face every morning when he gets out of bed who was almost attacked by a bald eagle who is emblematic of American freedom. I mean, if you're attacked by a bald eagle, isn't that more embarrassing? I mean, I just, I don't get the point. CNN is such garbage that they are scraping the bottom of the barrel to figure out ways to attack Bernie Sanders. And it's just, it's embarrassing. How does this educate people about Bernie Sanders politics? Is this time that you are spending, even if it's two minutes, is this really more important than something else that's going on? And look, I do stupid segments here once in a while, okay? I did a segment where I basically just cried laughing for like five minutes talking about how John Delaney had a campaign event where only 11 people showed up and I'm gonna laugh by thinking about that again. But I mean, it's okay to have fun, right? You can do stupid segments, but I am not purporting to be a serious news agency. This is just a podcast, but CNN, they claim to be a serious news organization. They are a multi-billion dollar company and this is how they're using their resources. I mean, Jesus Christ, they're so blind off of the smell of their own farts. I don't know what else to say about this. It's just such a stupid segment and the fact that they took even the most insignificant thing imaginable and use that as an opportunity to shit on Bernie, it says more about them than it does about Bernie Sanders. Step up, criticize the policies and actually do it based on facts if you wanna criticize Bernie Sanders. Fox News published an op-ed by Daniel Turner who condemns Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez because she is apparently pressuring Democratic presidential candidates to embrace her quote unquote anti-labor policy proposals, namely the Green New Deal. Now, I know what you're thinking. Wait a second, I thought that AOC was pro-labor. Well, you'd be correct, but this individual actually makes the opposite argument and this person claims that he actually is the true pro-labor advocate. Now, of course, this is incorrect. This individual is absolutely loathsome and motivated by money because he is literally a fossil fuel shell, but rather than reading to you that op-ed, we're gonna play a clip of him talking about his op-ed on Fox News and what you will see is propaganda in its purest form. This is disgusting, this is deceitful and I have a lot to say about this. Okay, so what you did was you looked at, they're talking about helping the working man, the blue collar employee, but are their policies really helpful to them? Yeah, exactly. And if you work in the blue collar industry, the people that Joe Biden claims to represent, what do you think of this cabal of people running for the 2020 nomination and the policies they are presenting? If you are a blue collar worker, I work for an organization that advocates for fossil fuel industry. If you're in coal, oil, gas, fracking, every one of these candidates is saying, not only are we going to make your job impossible, a lot of them will become illegal under a green new deal. Well, let's talk a little bit about Joe Biden, former vice president. He has suggested let's ban offshore oil and gas drilling. So how's that gonna help the little guy? Exactly, and these are hundreds of thousands of people. These are not ethereal ideas. These are people who are gonna lose their jobs. Their jobs will become illegal. When someone like Bernie Sanders says, by the year 2030, we will not have fossil fuels, well, more than 10 million people directly and indirectly work in the fossil fuel industry. So what do you think of Senator Sanders saying that to you that your job becomes illegal? And this nonsense of what we promise green jobs in the future, President Obama promised green jobs and they never materialized. How about the fact that the United States is now energy independent thanks to, in large part, fracking. Guess who wants to get rid of that? Elizabeth Warren. Yeah, on day one, she said she will make it illegal on federal lands. Bernie wants an out-out ban on it completely. Why did they say fracking is bad? You know, fracking has this, it's like the boogeyman of people who do not understand how the energy industry works. Does it go back to the, they turned on the faucet and they were able to light it on fire? And a lot of those things were all Hollywood stunts that were done for movies. But think right now in America we have over a million seven fracked wells. Everywhere in this country, a million seven fracked wells. That's a lot of people who are depending upon this industry and a lot of people who live side by side in harmony with this industry because it is safe and it is reliable. We have this terrible hurricane that is barring down on America. We have Iran seizing tankers in the Straits of Hormuz and look at the price of oil right now in America. Look at the price of gasoline in America. It hasn't been this cheap in very long time. And that's because we're energy independent and that's because men and women, these blue collar people, the Democrats claim to wanna represent are working in these blue collar jobs every day and they deserve respect. Okay, so fracking is helping to keep the price down. You get rid of fracking, the price of our gasoline goes up. Exactly and with this promise of we're gonna invent all this green technology that will be the panacea, but it's been proven to not sustain our life the way we currently live it. Daniel famously, I think Bernie Sanders who is co-sponsoring AOC's Green New Deal or one of the supporters, he's since come out with his own with a price tag of close to $16 trillion. Who's that gonna impact? Yeah, exactly. This is just an absolute cash giveaway to really green cronies. If you remember Barack Obama passed this huge green stimulus and he gave Selindra half a million dollars. Half a billion dollars. Didn't create a job, didn't produce anything. So if Bernie's gonna do this on the scale of 16 trillion, maybe we should all just quit our jobs and form a fake Selindra. Shameless, absolutely shameless. Now we're gonna talk about who Daniel Turner is. He kind of alluded to the fact that he is with an organization that represents coal, oil, gas, fracking industry and whatnot. We'll tell you a little bit more about him because this individual is absolutely motivated by money and he's quite literally a shill in the purest, most literal definition. But he essentially says that the Green New Deal is terrible because this will lead to these types of jobs being made illegal. So what happens to all these people in that industry? Now if you follow politics and you know about the Green New Deal, you know that part of the Green New Deal is a just transition. We create new jobs and move people away from those dirty jobs onto clean green jobs. And if you don't think that those people want to do that then you obviously haven't talked to them because think about this with coal miners for example. Long time exposure to coal dust causes a plethora of health issues, black lung, cancer. So I mean, to think that these people wouldn't want to move to a new job that pays just as good, if not better is absolute madness. And not only should we phase out these jobs because it's leading to us killing the planet but it's literally killing people. These are dirty jobs that aren't healthy. So you know, I shouldn't be taken seriously though because he's the true labor activist. You know AOC, people like myself, Bernie Sanders they're not the actual advocates of labor. It's this person who definitely is looking out for the little guy. And Steve Ducey also claims to care about the little guy because they talked about Biden's proposal to ban offshore drilling. And Steve Ducey asked hilariously so, how is that going to help the little guy? So it really is the little guy that they care about. You know, which is why they're absolutely doing this segment at the behest of the fossil fuel industry who last year, mind you, had its most profitable year since 2013 and leads Forbes profit growth list in 2019. You know, by caring about them you're definitely showing how much you care about the little guy as this co-coffiliated fossil fuel lobbyist explains why, you know these pro labor policies that are being proposed by people like AOC, these are actually anti labor. Sure, Dan. I mean, this is gaslighting one-on-one. Like he's peeing on our legs and telling us it's raining. This is bullshit. Now, of course, I talked about the just transition to clean green jobs and he addressed that. You know, he said, why should we believe that after Bernie Sanders eliminates these jobs and makes them illegal that these new clean green jobs will materialize because Obama also promised green jobs and he never delivered. So checkmate. Yeah, well, Obama also opened up the Arctic for drilling and he had a secretary of state that sold fracking around the world. So I wouldn't necessarily consider him the best ally. And furthermore, the thing about the Green New Deal is that as Bernie Sanders phases out these old jobs he simultaneously creates new ones. It's not like he's gonna say, let's ban all of these dirty jobs and then 10 years down the line, you better make these new jobs available or I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna wag my finger at you. No, he's doing all of this at once. The Green New Deal is a package deal. There's all these components to it that both get rid of these fossil fuel jobs. It phases them out, but then it introduces these new types of jobs that we transition these coal workers, fossil fuel workers too. In a very quick period of time because we don't have much time left to act we have to save the planet within 11 years. So the fact that he is just brazenly lying to you you'd think that at some point he'd feel bad but when you're motivated by money when capital is everything to you I guess you don't feel bad. I guess you can sleep even though you are running into freelance for an industry that is literally killing the planet that we live on. He then attacks Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders for wanting to ban fracking which literally threatens our drinking water and it causes earthquakes. It causes literal earthquakes. So to not want to eliminate that is absolutely unacceptable but they just make it seem as if that's common sense. What they want to get rid of fracking that's preposterous. No, the opposite is true. If you don't want to get rid of fracking then you are absolutely wrong here. Do you want someone to frack in your backyard? Would you do that? Would you allow that? Or near your home? I don't think so. See if it affected you then you would have a very different sense but here's what he said that just it almost made my head explode. So first of all, he said this about Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal. He called out the cost which is 16 trillion didn't want to tell you that it pays for itself within 15 years but he said that all Bernie Sanders' Green New Deal is is a giveaway to green cronies. Oh my God, okay. Only a fossil fuel shill would be able to say something like that with a straight face and this individual is a literal fossil fuel shill because Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power the Future which claims to be an advocate for energy workers and pushes back on quote radical green groups and the ideologues who fund them but you see even though they claim to be pro labor this organization doesn't really advocate for worker rights it's dedicated seemingly to increasing the profits of fossil fuel companies. They're not advocating for healthcare for fracking employees and individuals who work for these fossil fuel companies. I mean they don't do any of that so to claim that their pro labor is pretty comical in fact they literally peddle the same misinformation that multinational corporations within the fossil fuel industry spread but yet he is doing all of this under the guise of being pro labor which is just hilarious. Now they promise that they're not against renewable technology per se and also they claim that they're not a lobbying organization and that they're totally funded by private citizens and not the fossil fuel industry but there's just one big problem with all of these claims. That's bullshit because as Desmogh points out the FAQ page of Power the Future claims it is not a lobbying shop but more like a communications group that wants to call out the facts about the energy industry. Power the Future claims not to be funded by corporations but the corporate ties are strong. Turner previously worked for two different Koch groups the Koch Institute and the Youth Targeted Generation Opportunity. There's no mention of this on the website but by targeting environmentalists Turner is still serving Koch interests. Despite declaring that it does not lobby Power the Future's about page says that it's nonprofit designation is a 501C4. This tax designation means a lot. There are two main types of nonprofit organizations 501C3 and 501C4. Organizations with C3 status are charities and are allowed to do minimal lobbying typically less than 10% of its budget. C4's on the other hand can do unlimited lobbying on issues and legislation relevant to their social welfare missions. Despite claiming not to be a lobby group Turner created a front designed to do unlimited lobbying and they're doing this under the guise of being pro labor. Fox News to say that they're pure propaganda I've said this a thousand times it's just you can't not state that enough this is just downright embarrassing and the worst part is that they claim to care about the little guy. How does banning offshore drilling help the little guy? Because we need to have a planet to live on in fact it's not just the little guys who need a planet to live on it's everyone. So unless you plan on using all of that money Daniel Turner and Steve Ducey to build lifeboats for yourselves once climate change basically engulfs portions of the United States and mass migration becomes an issue. I don't know what to say. You're just you're at a time when we have 11 years to act you're still trying to defend the one industry that is causing the planet to become uninhabitable and destroyed. I don't know what else to say you are just an existential threat to humanity at this point and this is destructive it's disgusting and it's immoral I again I don't know how they sleep at night but I mean I guess that the money is more important to them than having a habitable planet to live on I guess they think that we're gonna live on the moon or Mars or something in some fucking bubble not gonna happen we've got one planet we don't take care of it we all die period end of story that's that. Well Fox News is once again creeping on Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's Instagram feed and after she said something that is perfectly reasonable and irrational about climate change they decided to construct a five person panel to explain why everything she said is wrong. Take a look. Allowing sea levels to rise every coastal city to go underwater every mid-western city or large swaths of the middle of the country experiencing drought on a level that we have not seen that's gonna be way more expensive we need to bite the bullet on the cost because the alternative to not spending the money is A death and B spending even more money. Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez claiming on Instagram that her 93 trillion dollar green new deal could actually be cheap in comparison to the ultimate cost of climate change. So is Ocasio Cortez right? David she reminds me of Cotton Mather and some of those old fire and brimstone peaches of old the earth is gonna flood fires or fires are gonna consume us if we don't repent. No she's a full of nonsense you take the Paris Accord you actually analyze it it spends a lot of money with very little result you look at the wind power 900 tons of steel in one of those windmills 45,000 pounds of plastic you can't recycle. But do they give cancer windmills? Do they give cancer? Yes they do. Come on you're a guy that speaks to power. You make the headscarf. Okay I just wanna make sure you at least speaking accurate on some things. Oh wow. You know David she started that she, she let me jump in here she started that pose yeah watch out Steve watch to your right there she started that pose talking about how she wakes up at 3.30 in the morning it's sad she's losing sleep. Worried I get that I wake up at 3.30 in the morning too worried about what cockamamie ideas AOC is gonna come up with in any given day because now it's like okay let me defer the attention from the crazy cost of my Green New Deal to say well if we don't do this it's gonna make the Green New Deal look so cheap and to Steve's point we were supposed to run out of water by now we were supposed to have massive floods by now we're supposed to be out of oil by now none of that's happened because of corporate ingenuity in a venezus that she wants to curtail because she wants to control it not allow the corporations to make things better. I think that's really true. I mean I think it's always depressing that people who are so worked up about climate change and let's agree that for millennials and so forth younger people they really are concerned about this and I don't think it's appropriate or probably the right approach to just mock that concern but I think you have to have a little optimism that some of these challenges are gonna be met and the damage fixed by corporations and by scientists who are now working on these things. I mean honestly the problem with environmental movement is they have raised these alarms in such an over the top fashion for the last 20 years that people basically tune out yes everyone agrees and they vote that this is a big concern but then when it really comes down and wanting spending raising taxes to alleviate a problem or something like that voters don't chime in because we're all sort of immune to this scare mongering. So you know a lot to think about there one I appreciate Liz bringing up how younger people think because that's one of the debates I have all the time I was not for the Green New Deal I'm for a Green New Deal I don't think you put the whole kitchen sink of healthcare and labor part of climate change I'm for the Paris Accord. I do think that young people like AOC and many others this is at the top of her list it's not keeping me up what AOC says like it is Scott you know I don't think about what she's saying every night I actually like her passion but I actually think that I don't think spending 93 trillion is really anything that's ever gonna happen so I think we have to put it in perspective here and it would do far more harm than good it would wreck the economy that's not the way you treat climate change I have watched so many Fox News segments where they dog pile on AOC and that's gotta be one of the dumbest because I think the irony just flew right over their heads and look I already know the first thing that stood out to me is probably gonna be what stood out to you as well when that guy said that she's like one of those old fire and brimstone preachers who say the earth is going to flood fires are going to consume us if we don't repent the Amazon is literally on fire as we speak furthermore he's saying all of this as Fox News literally tracks the progress of Hurricane Dorian on the screen and increased frequency and greater intensity of these hurricanes is in fact largely attributed to climate change but I mean according to this idiot she's chicken little and she's telling everyone that the sky is falling and the earth is flooding and the world is burning as it's doing just that he is the human embodiment of that this is fine meme as the house burns you're sitting there telling yourself that everything is just peachy keen and you don't wanna realize what's actually going on he then says that the Green New Deal spends a lot of money with very little result well what I say to that is citation needed you don't know how effective the Green New Deal will or won't be none of us do we don't know if it's actually going to mitigate climate catastrophe we don't know that we're just hopeful we're crossing our fingers so to say oh it spends too much and doesn't do what it needs to do you don't know that you don't have a crystal ball you don't know what all of us don't know you can't see into the future all that we can do is prepare for the worst hope for the best period now another guy said that you know AOC stated that she wakes up at 3 a.m. worried about climate change but you know he has to wake up at 3 a.m. to worry about what type of cockamamie ideas AOC will come up with next to me that just sounds like she's living in your head rent-free and that's a good thing I hope that some of her ideas will resonate with you I hope that her voice echoes in your head so maybe one of those ideas will actually penetrate that thick skull and you'll think about doing better with your life before you go on Fox News and do anti-climate change propaganda like this hopefully something she says will resonate but I mean if you're on Fox News odds are you're already paid to not let these ideas break through because Fox News is about defending the status quo the status quo being the Republican Party who takes millions of dollars every single year in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry so kindly shut the fuck up I don't care what you have to say I don't care if you think AOC's ideas are crazy if you believe that climate change is not a serious issue it's not AOC who's crazy you're the one with a cockamamie idea you dumb motherfucker now one lady said that you have to have optimism that climate change will be solved by corporations that's like relying on an arsonist to put out fires hate to break it to you but corporations they created this problem just 100 corporations emit 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions if you honestly believe that anything short of government intervention will get them to do better you are horribly mistaken I mean some of these companies their entire business model is based off of destroying the planet so why on earth would they in a system where global capitalism reigns supreme do anything that would stifle their ability to increase short term profits they won't do that and to suggest that it will shows how naive you are there's no lack of optimism the world is dying the planet is becoming uninhabitable before our very eyes I'm sorry if you feel like we're not being optimistic enough but it's difficult to be optimistic when there's idiots like you going on Fox News spreading this misinformation about climate change and so promoting this idea that climate change isn't even real or maybe it's not anthropogenic so I mean forgive us for not being too optimistic right now and the problem is that even the most reasonable person on this panel wasn't great he said you know I'm not really for a Green New Deal I'm more of a Paris Climate Accord type of guy I'm paraphrasing of course but bad news for you bud that's not enough the Paris Climate Accord is not going to stop climate catastrophe it's not going to stop us from warming the planet to two degrees Celsius not gonna happen so if you don't support the Green New Deal or something on the scale of the Green New Deal then you absolutely are not taking this issue seriously enough now what's interesting is that Fox News kept bringing up this $93 trillion statistic that's how much they say the Green New Deal would cost now it's interesting how they say that same number but the Republican Party also says that same number it's almost like Fox News and the Republican Party are in cahoots and they're not even trying to hide that fact anymore now this number is based off of a right wing think tank that said the cost of AOC's Green New Deal if you account for climate specific policies as well as climate adaptation policies like Medicare for All which will be needed to address the new health crises that emerge if climate change is in fact as bad as we are anticipating but the number actually from that study is between 50 and 93 trillion but of course they're going to cite the furthest on that spectrum because as they denounce AOC's quote unquote fear-mongering their fear-mongering themselves instead of it being about the climate their fear-mongering about the debt and the deficit but even if you only opt for the environmental portions of the Green New Deal and forego policies needed to adapt like Medicare for All well Bernie Sanders plan according to his own estimate would cost 16 trillion but here's the best part it pays for itself within 15 years now this hasn't been scored by economic or environmental groups yet so we're just taking Bernie Sanders at his word but the idea behind Bernie's plan at least is to construct a Green New Deal that is bold, it's comprehensive but it also pays for itself because this is an investment we're not just spending money for the sake of spending money we're investing in the economy and we are expecting a return on that investment so why didn't they bring up that statistic? obviously because that doesn't suit the narrative that they're pushing which is we need to worry about the deficit and the debt so fear-mongering is bad except when it comes to the debt and the deficit and immigrants and also terrorists so we should probably invade every other country now of course they didn't say that but that's what Fox News will tell you if you watch any other segment on Fox News so these people are absolutely disingenuous and at this point I think we call Fox News what it is they are dangerous now not just to the country because they are attacking any and everyone that speaks out about climate change and really to be fair this isn't only about climate change to Fox News they just see AOC as one of their biggest political opponents and they should because she is a threat to the Republican Party but with that being said I mean what they say is not intellectual they're not educating their viewers they're just espousing pure stupidity I mean to say that she's like a fire and brimstone preacher who says the world is going to flood and burn and the world is kind of flooding and burning right now I mean maybe she's not like these fire and brimstone preachers because what she's saying is actually coming to fruition whereas with these fire and brimstone preachers there's still not evidence that God exists so I mean Fox News I don't know what to say about them anymore I can come on here every single day and tell you how they're just pure propaganda for the Republican Party they're a joke but the issue is that people take them seriously they are number one in all of cable news and while that still only amounts for a small portion of the country that's still enough to where they can have a tremendous sway over politics they can bolster the Republican Party as they do what is the agenda of the fossil fuel industry which is antithetical to the planet and the survivability of human beings so it's destructive and I think that more so than ever we have to call out this type of rhetoric and whenever somebody shits on an ally who's talking about climate change we have to hit back and hit back hard because this is detrimental right now to all of our species this isn't something that just affects the left climate change affects all of us and these old geezers on the panel may not be around to see the worst of what climate change has to offer but a lot of us will future generations their grandchildren will so it's incumbent on us to call them out and push back against this dangerous rhetoric because these idiots are going to get us all killed all for the short-term profits of the fossil fuel industry at the expense of the long-term health and safety of our planet and species actress Alyssa Milano has become increasingly politically engaged over the course of the last couple of years and she's always been an activist she's always been an advocate for women's rights but she started to recently speak out more when it comes to partisan politics and party politics and it's really difficult to pin down what her core political ideology is because it just seems like she is a team blue rah-rah type of individual in other words she's no different than all of these other pseudo-woke celebrities who rest easy as soon as Democrats take power and then they demobilize politically but the reason why I say that she just seems like another one of these you know team politics celebrities is because I mean look at the 2018 Kavanaugh hearings when we all saw her in attendance visibly disturbed by his testimony and she had a sign that said believe survivors and she's been a longtime proponent of women's rights and the Me Too movement however fast forward to 2019 and when all of a sudden someone on her team Joe Biden is accused of inappropriately touching women like Lucy Flores well she's coming to his defense now I'm not saying the accusations against Joe Biden and Brett Kavanaugh are one of the same but what I am saying is that there's obviously a degree of hypocrisy there and because she is trying to be a figurehead of the left and the Democratic Party this makes everyone on the collective left look bad it makes it look like we're a bunch of hypocrites where we have a double standard that we apply you know to Republicans but we're not willing to hold people on our team accountable now look I understand that out of all the pseudo woke celebrities with a net worth of 10 plus million dollars like Alyssa Milano has there are worse individuals I mean Debra Messing, Kathy Griffin these people are always punching left Chrissy Teigen is another one that you can add to that list they're always punching left not just attacking Bernie Sanders but attacking his supporters specifically which is pretty disgusting pretty egregious this is rich explaining 101 whenever they explain to us that Bernie isn't the candidate who we should be supporting but nonetheless I mean they are destructive but what Alyssa Milano is trying to do I almost called her Melissa is she's actually trying to be constructive she's trying to say look here's some things that we can do to help the Democratic Party win so rather than trying to tear down the left wing movement and progressives she's trying to build up the Democratic Party which you know I think makes her better than someone like Kathy Griffin or Debra Messing with that being said it's evident that as she gets into political commentary she doesn't really know what she's talking about and it's because it's really difficult to gauge what is going to energize the electorate if you don't talk to normal people if you have millions of dollars and you are you know living in your mansion and you always demobilize politically once Democrats take power so let me give you an example of something she wrote for the Hill this is not bad that they published and the title is the key to beating Trump elect all of the Democratic candidates so this is what I mean this is why I say I don't see any core political ideology there you're going to get a bigger sense of that when we get into the article she just wants her team to win so she writes if we want to get rid of Trump and his administration we should not focus on electing one candidate we should elect them all imagine this Vice President Biden is currently leading the field so let's start there with Biden at the top and a Harris Vice Presidency we would speak to the majority of Americans who prefer Biden to any other candidate at the same time we would bring the perspective of a new generation of leaders to the highest offices in the land Attorney General Corey Booker could take on the NRA and the racial injustices he so often faced as mayor of Newark Elizabeth Warren could lead the Department of Education and it would transform our nation for generations Bernie Sanders playing the role as Secretary of Health and Human Services would ensure every person in America could access healthcare we could afford in any administration Julian Castro's experience as a cabinet secretary and congressman would be the perfect antidote to the Trump regime's border policy as the first Latinx homeland security secretary but it needed stop there new voices like Andrew Yang as the head of the Council of Economic Advisers would bring business acumen and the idea of basic income to the president's ear Pete Buttigieg applying his lived experience as an LGBTQ service member and executive expertise as a mayor to bear as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs would be transformative to our nation's heroes better or work as chief of staff to the president would guide the nation's most important decisions with compassion and ease Kirsten Gillibrand as Commerce Secretary Amy Klobuchar as Agriculture Secretary former candidate Jay Inslee bringing environmental issues to the level they deserve as the helm of the Department of Energy strong union supporter Tim Ryan as Secretary of Labor Treasury Secretary Delaney recently withdrawn congressman and veteran Seth Moulton as Secretary of Defense Bullock at FEC Bennett as Interior and how could Michelle Obama say no to the critical role of Secretary of State if this unified group asked her to serve? hahahaha so this is the dumbest thing I possibly have ever heard first of all she has Biden at the top of the ticket based on current polling okay fair enough but then who does she say should be his vice president? the person who's in fourth or fifth place depending on the poll Kamala Harris so what are you doing there? furthermore she brings up Michelle Obama but ignored Tulsi Gabbard entirely why should Michelle Obama be Secretary of State but not Tulsi Gabbard in this idealistic scenario? I mean what is the point of this? so there's two glaring issues that I don't know how she didn't think about right away that come to mind the first is she's literally proposing that we take seven Democrats out of the Senate and put them in the White House seven out of the Senate Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren Kamala Harris, Cory Booker Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand and Michael Bennett you honestly want to take seven Democrats out of the Senate and risk those seats going to Republicans doesn't that seem awful? shouldn't maintaining the Senate be your top priority if you are a team Democrat? so I don't know how she overlooked that but that's huge I mean the scenario where we imagine Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for example at the top of the ticket that in and of itself is an issue because that's two senators being removed so I don't even know what she was thinking here second of all imagine what a clusterfuck this would be imagine all of these ideological opponents in one administration they would not be efficient they would get nothing done because in this administration that she's proposing here you have people all across the ideological spectrum you have moderate Republicans two leftists how do you ever expect them to accomplish anything? now I get that she'd say well you know Bernie would be the the health secretary or whatever the fuck Elizabeth Warren would be the leader of the Department of Education but still if Biden is president the buck stops with him they serve at the pleasure of the president so if you honestly think that all of their views would be implemented one that's unrealistic two voters will be even more confused because the goal is to tell voters what the party stands for currently I have no idea what the party stands for but she actually also proposes that we water down inadvertently she proposes this the Democratic Party's brand even more because she promotes this idea that the Democratic Party is a Big Ten Party and that's great except the problem is that's making them less selectable here's what she says about that the fact of the matter is that these candidates all agree on the what they're generally minor differences are in the howl instead of encouraging the cult of personality surrounding each individual candidate reaping the division this long and damaging primary will so let's get behind them all we truly have an embarrassment of riches in our field we should not be winnowing it we should be uniting it pulling their resources and creating a complete ticket that no American could vote against the Democratic Party is progressive the Democratic Party is moderate and like America the Democratic Party is diverse this slate of candidates represents the breadth of the American experience and the excitement of new ideas and perspectives these are desperate times the heart and soul of our nation is at stake our country cannot afford another four years of Donald Trump desperate times call for thinking outside the box with Democratic measures if we want to be Trump we know whom to elect all of them or we can just keep proceeding with politics as usual and act shocked when he's reelected how is this different than what Howard Schultz was proposing where you have a mixture of Republicans and Democrats in your Cabinet because the ideological differences between Biden and Bernie for example are so vast that they are basically from two different parties right you could have an entire party dedicated to Bernie's ideology and an entire party dedicated to Joe Biden's ideology and you might think as a millionaire that these differences between the candidates is insignificant but that's not actually true the differences are life and death Bernie Sanders Medicare for All proposal stops medical bankruptcies and literal deaths due to a lack of health insurance Biden's does not Biden's climate proposal would not meet the IPCC's 12 year deadline and doesn't go nearly far enough whereas Bernie Sanders does Biden has voted for virtually every war whereas Bernie Sanders has been against basically all of them I mean this big tent idea in part is why Democrats keep losing because they are ideologically incoherent I mean think about this if you tell me that someone is a Republican there's a number of policies that I would assume about them that I think would be fairly accurate first of all they are probably not going to want to do anything about climate change if they even believe it they're not going to want to act when it comes to gun legislation they're going to support repealing the Affordable Care Act restricting access to abortion they'll be socially conservative however when it comes to Democrats that can mean a number of things maybe they're a neoliberal centrist and they support incremental fixes to healthcare and education maybe they're a leftist and they support Medicare for all and free college the point is advocating for a big tent it just waters down their brand even further and really what Democrats need to do is acknowledge that we are in a polarized political climate so trying to pander to the middle isn't going to win you elections embrace the polarization go left excite the base and that's how you win this isn't rocket science you see what Donald Trump does he throws red meat to the base they're energized they're excited and it may be disgusting policies he may be turning off moderates but he has the highest approval rating of his own party than any president in recent history so we need the left-wing equivalent to be accomplished within the Democratic Party but when millionaires like Alyssa Milano say well you know we just need to be welcoming of all political ideologies well that undermines the entire point of a political party voters are supposed to be able to attribute certain ideals and policy prescriptions to any one political party but the fact that you don't really know where any one Democrat stands demonstrates how ideologically incoherent the party has become and this is largely due to the increased corporateization of the Democratic Party but when it comes to someone like Alyssa Milano she doesn't really care about watering down the brand of Democrats to her this is a team sport she cares about her team winning and her interest for American politics probably dissipates once Democrats gain power and then she just goes out to brunch with all of her rich American oligarch friends well look here's the thing if you're going to get involved in political commentary then what you need to do is step outside of your Hollywood bubble come down from your ivory tower and actually talk to normal people and you will see that the left-wing base needs to be mobilized they need to be galvanized and Democrats haven't been doing that but when you see these races where Democrats fire up the base they register new voters that makes them more popular we are in a polarized time so again now is not the time to advocate for this big 10 ideology that doesn't make sense and furthermore saying that we should have an administration with all of the presidential candidates all what 20 of them it's just nonsensical so I mean Jesus Christ I appreciate the fact that she's trying to be constructive as opposed to combative like her peers Kathy Griffin and Deborah Messing but for the love of God at least I mean read something before you write about politics and at least do a little bit of research talk to normal people I mean Jesus Christ to give them this bad advice it can potentially be harmful because you are famous and you have a platform so I don't really know what to say about this this is what happens you know you look like a silly person if you don't really care about policy and you care about your team winning above all else politics is not about team sports that's not about winning and losing it's about the implementation of policy I couldn't care less if Republicans won but then implemented left-wing policy proposals like Medicare for all this is about policy so I don't care there's no cult of personalities around all of these candidates a lot of people may support someone because of their personality but when it comes to Bernie Sanders supporters this is about policy if Bernie Sanders abandoned his core ideals I would not support Bernie Sanders because I put policy above personality and anyone who doesn't do that is communicating to you that they are not to be taken seriously and that they are a joke and that you know politics to them is the same like sports you know you just you pick a team and you stick by that team no matter what well you know you can do that easily if you're a celebrity and you have millions of dollars but for normal Americans we actually have to know about the policy details working class people have to worry about how climate change and healthcare affects them because they can't afford not to literally they cannot afford it to no one's surprise there was another mass shooting in the United States of America this time a deranged lunatic who lost his job went on a killing spree injuring 22 and killing 7 in total now this comes three weeks after we had another mass shooting in El Paso taxes this one occurred outside of Odessa and after El Paso Donald Trump did signal that he would be open to supporting something like universal background checks and on top of that he indicated that even Mitch McConnell who usually blocks anything at all from getting through or being voted on is on board so you think that after this new mass shooting Donald Trump would be even more vocal about the need for universal background checks but here's what he said after El Paso and then I'll tell you what he's saying now I have a great relationship with the NRA I have a lot of respect for the people at the NRA and I have already spoken to them on numerous occasions numerous occasions and frankly we need intelligent background checks okay this isn't a question of NRA Republican or Democrat I will tell you I spoke to Mitch McConnell yesterday he's totally on board he said I've been waiting for your call he is totally on board now we really shouldn't have to give Donald Trump credit for signaling support for something as simple as universal background checks because this really is the bare minimum I mean what is it 90% of Americans support this policy so it's not even controversial and of course it wouldn't do merely enough to you know mitigate this issue but I mean it's better than nothing however Donald Trump couldn't even remain committed to the bare minimum in fact he started to backtrack and as Bianca Quillanton of Politico reports following Saturday shootings in West Texas President Donald Trump on Sunday remained firm that his administration is committed to working with Congress to stop the menace of mass attacks but did not include universal background checks as part of the solution this time Trump largely attributed the shootings to mental health issues and said the mass attacks have been going on for a long time and that he wants to reduce them except now maybe background checks aren't going to be the thing that we do maybe that's not the right course of action now by saying this is a mental health issue okay it's the guns but I mean if you're going to take action to expand access to mental health care facilities and medication I'd be all for it it's not going to solve this issue but it would solve an issue potentially so propose something he's not going to do that now Governor of Texas Greg Abbott actually tweeted that this individual had a criminal history and previously failed a background check for a gun purchase which implies of course that he obtained the gun illegally that he used for the mass shooting thus a background check wouldn't have stopped him nonetheless we're all saying that a background check in and of itself is that enough we need a ban on AR-15s high capacity magazines we need to institute a nationwide gun buyback program in order to reduce the amount of guns in circulation I mean there are actual policy prescriptions to this issue Australia had a mass shooting they did reform gun reform they had a buyback program and they haven't had another mass shooting since so to claim that you know this is something that we have to just put up with you're wrong there's a policy solution to deal with this we just are choosing not to do that and of course you know since Greg Abbott put out this tweet conservatives will undoubtedly use this as evidence that criminals will just find some way to obtain guns so there's really no point in doing a universal background check law or pretty much anything for that matter but I mean to even consider Republicans Mitch McConnell Donald Trump doing anything we're getting ahead of ourselves because there will not be any types of reform until we see a turnover in the White House and in the Senate because they just don't care that blood money that Republicans and Donald Trump took from the NRA it's just too good because the minute Donald Trump gets out of line well what happens the NRA cracks that whip and really it's not just the NRA like there's these dynamics between gun interest groups that is going on that is leading to radicalization on this issue because what we are essentially seeing is a lot of politicians and the NRA effectively advocate for gun anarchy that's exactly what they want there's a Texas lawmaker that was tweeting about how absolutely no course of action should be taken this is my God given right to have access to you know any type of gun now he stopped short of arguing for us to have tanks and nuclear weapons but nonetheless you know they become increasingly radicalized with regard to this issue and it's because of the NRA but the NRA has taken a more hard line stance because of gun owners for America there are a lot more I think insane if you will when it comes to you know the issue of guns and when the NRA almost buckled after Sandy Hook well what did gun owners for America do well they ended up fundraising off of the NRA saying that they're essentially selling out their members and then the NRA backed away from it so you see basically GOA putting pressure on NRA who is in return putting pressure on the Republican Party so we see this human centipede like situation where gun owners of America is shitting into the mouths of the NRA and the NRA is shitting into the mouths of Republican Party lawmakers and until we sever these ties until we get Republicans out of power there will be no action when it comes to this issue this will continue to happen and Republicans will continue to offer thoughts and prayers maybe once in a while signal support for just the most minimal thing imaginable like universal background checks but not even be able to hold true there because they're so corrupt so the fact that Donald Trump flip-flopped that soon he should be embarrassed he flip-flopped literally just weeks after he signaled support for universal background checks it's embarrassing and you would think that these types of individuals would have some type of mechanism in their body that is triggered whenever they're called out for their complicity here especially when people are dying but they don't have that they lack that function that other human beings have they just are completely apathetic or they're hiding how they really feel because they know that policy solutions can be used to effectively address this issue but they don't care the money's too good and their puppets so it's embarrassing but I mean they have no shame Donald Trump has no shame this isn't surprising I expected him to flip on this issue which is why I didn't initially give him credit because Donald Trump can say one thing but if you see that he is moving a little bit too far away for comfort for his donors best believe he will get back in line because he is the establishment's biggest puppet he does any and everything that they say that's how he has governed as president it's why he offered tax cuts as his first major policy achievement that's why you know we shouldn't expect him to change here so last week on the program we talked about the Washington Post's bogus fact check of Bernie Sanders where a long story short they claimed that it was wrong for him to say 500,000 medical bankruptcies occur each year and in this fact check they even reached out to the author of the study that Bernie Sanders cited and asked if Bernie interpreted his study correctly he then said yes yet they still claimed that Bernie Sanders was wrong and the author himself even accused them of misrepresenting his study so if you want to see the full story I will link you to the video I did on that down below but basically the reason why I'm talking about this again is because we have an update the Washington Post after a week has finally issued a correction so they're going to correct the record with regard to one component of this story and then they're going to double down as journalist Andrew Perez points out the Washington Post updated its very wrong fact check to include comment from the researchers they smeared the researchers noted the Post falsely implied their editorial wasn't peer reviewed but the Post says we stand by our three Pinocchio rating it took the Post five days to update its piece and the update is incredibly insufficient the Post fact checking team the fact checking team is trying to he said she said their way past their own glaring factual errors a total disgrace keep in mind they're trying to get around correcting mistakes in a piece that bafflingly accused Sanders of omissions and twists so I mean what else do you say about this this is an embarrassment and really out of all of the yellow journalism that you see from these corporate owned news outlets the one area where we should theoretically trust them where they should be the most objective is when it comes to fact checking because this is a service that they should be providing people as a news agency I mean I disagree with a lot of the opinion pieces published by the Washington Post when it comes to progressive politics and partisan politics but the one area where be really nice if they were objective was when it comes to fact checking but the fact they've essentially weaponized fact checking as a means of criticizing Bernie Sanders and attacking Bernie Sanders it really is a disgrace this isn't just bad for journalism and it doesn't just drive down trust of media but I mean it's just it makes everyone worse off if they're choosing to do this and Jeet here of the nation did a great job breaking down why this is a problem in an article titled democracy dies from bad fact checking the Washington Post is feeding into Trump's agenda by turning fact checking into an ideological weapon and he writes about how they did this not too long ago as well so the Washington Post has fallen into the habit of accusing Bernie Sanders of misleading the public even in cases where the evidence is strongly on the side of the Vermont Senator back in July Post fact checker Glenn Kessler objected to a statement Sanders made in the first debates in the Democratic presidential primaries quote three people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half of America Kessler acknowledged that this snappy talking point is based on numbers that add up but then he added that it's also a question of comparing apples to oranges according to Kessler it makes no sense to compare rich apples like Jeff Bezos who owns real capital with millions of poverty shriken oranges who possess only debt and Kessler's words quote people in the bottom half have essentially no wealth as debts cancel out whatever assets they might have now here then goes on to describe the latest kerfuffle when it comes to the Washington Post and their bogus fact check and he explains why this really is an issue he's talking about the story that I've been talking about with regard to Bernie Sanders claim that 500,000 medical bankruptcies occur per year he adds with these polemics disguised as rebuttals the post is discrediting the entire journalistic genre of fact checking this is dangerous in a way that goes beyond any damage it does to Sanders as a presidential candidate in truth Sanders has little to worry about the fact checks are so ludicrous that they are unlikely to sway any voters what they are more likely to do is feed into a pervasive distrust of the mainstream media which is bad for democracy the mainstream media has already lost the MAGA heads who agree with Trump's crusade against fake news now it might also lose the millions of Americans who recognize that Sanders' presentation of economics is closer to the mark than the post's bizarre exercises in politically motivated nitpicking so what he is describing here is how the Washington Post is willing to tank their own credibility in order to weaponize fact checking against Bernie Sanders because they have a political agenda and that is a damn shame because he's right here here is absolutely correct we may not like corporate media we may not like mainstream media but really there's no other substantial alternative you can talk about the benefits of independent media but most Americans don't get their news from indie news outlets most Americans get their news from a capitalist corporate-owned source so even if they are flawed you know democracy cannot survive unless there is that check from the media the media is often times referred to as the unofficial fourth branch of government because you know in the same way that the Supreme Court is a check on the president and Congress and Congress is a check on the president I mean we need the media to be a check on government as well but if they are choosing to sink their credibility so they can affect elections in a way that benefits them personally that's a problem that calls fact checking from the Washington Post into question where I can't just say well you know what the Washington Post gave Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders X amount of Pinocchios here so I'll take their word you actually have to dive into the details really read it more thoroughly and most people just don't do that see what the Washington Post is banking on here is you know people will see the headline they'll see that Bernie Sanders was wrong and they won't actually read the details where even the Washington Post kind of inadvertently disproves their own fact check and disproves the notion that Bernie is incorrect but since most people read past the headlines they're kind of rolling the dice and expecting people to not really check them but this story in particular has actually got a lot of traction it could hurt them but they don't care they doubled down they have decided that attacking Bernie Sanders is a greater prioritization than doing actual good journalism and producing fact checks that are objective and not riddled with just these types of flaws where they reach out to the author of the study and ask hey is Bernie citing your study correctly and then after that author says yes they still say well Bernie's wrong I mean it's comical it's absolutely comical and if you really want to get nitpicky with Bernie Sanders you can say you know what even though the author says this I think that Bernie Sanders could be more correct and worded in this way but instead they're just saying nope false three Pinocchios it's bad it's absolutely bad and you know it's comical that they have the nerve to call Bernie Sanders conspiratorial when he calls out the bias of the Washington Post because they're owned by Jeff Bezos it's almost like you're kind of showing your cards and you're proving Bernie Sanders right you're proving that you do have an agenda and here speaks to that in this article for the nation which you should absolutely check out and he talks about the institutional bias within the Washington Post that is subtle because you know this is comprised of journalists who are elites who are well off or in that DC bubble but you know they can do what they want but it's hurting their credibility and it's hurting aggregate journalism it's hurting this idea that fact checks are committed to objectivity you know you'd expect this from Fox News or the Daily Caller but you'd expect at least a little bit better from the Washington Post even if they are owned by Jeff Bezos but I guess that you know in a hyper-capitalistic late-stage capitalism environment that's too much to ask for and expect Debra Messing is probably one of the pseudo-woke neo-liberal Hollywood elites that I like the least because you know she's always going out of her way to attack Bernie Sanders individuals who vote third party and it's evident that she supports the status quo and keeping things as it is because she is very wealthy she's comfortable with it so I absolutely do not like her with that being said she made a tweet recently that is causing quite the stir and surprisingly it's not really that controversial to us Bernie Sanders supporters so in response to a tweet from the Hollywood Reporter stating Donald Trump will appear at a fundraiser in Beverly Hills during the week of the Emmys Debra responded saying please print a list of all attendees please the public has a right to know now she's not necessarily saying here I want addresses I want phone numbers I want their personal information to be released all she's saying is I want names I want to know which wealthy Hollywood elites are attending this fundraiser in support of Donald Trump this is all information that will be publicly available when the FAC reports come out so there's really nothing more to this than her saying I would like to see that now so possibly I can choose to not work with these particular individuals it's really it's not controversial at all in fact CNN just recently did a segment where they talked about which 2020 Democratic Party candidates certain liberal celebrities support and they did this after FAC reports came out this spring the Indiana Mayor scooped up donations from a star-studded cast of Hollywood royalty including Gwyneth Paltrow Michael J. Fox and Kevin Bacon in fact in Hollywood these days it's more like six degrees of Mayor Pete another favorite among the celebrity set their home state senator Kamala Harris who scored donations from Sean Penn Don Cheadle and former TV spy Jennifer Garner this is how it's going to be America's sweetheart Tom Hanks wrote a check to former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign so I mean you get the point this is nothing new this really isn't controversial at all and even if I you know I would waste no time jumping into criticized Deborah Messing this is one of those instances where she is completely in the right I think it's perfectly reasonable to want this information to be disclosed so with that being said of course this was still relatively controversial because conservatives predictably cried victim but what's weird is that the ladies at the view decided to criticize Deborah Messing for it and will be Goldberg she has just been on a bad take spree recently and she absolutely decided to rip Deborah Messing for this and she ended up going on this extremely bizarre almost borderline incoherent rant so I'm going to play that clip for you and then I'll tell you my thoughts when we come back but I happen to be against that kind of thing I do believe that you should know if a company gave a lot of money to to Trump in this particular I mean I know some of the this is the names of these companies that are going around on Facebook and you know you can you can say no I'm not going to buy that two by four from that company but when it's individuals I think that then you're in you're you're stalking and you're starting to endanger that person's life so I don't approve of that so what about the fact that those donations are already public record well that's something else if they're out there and they look them up fine but so what are you saying that so Deborah can say I don't want to work with those people it's already out there and I know who they are yeah Deborah looks them up and it's already a matter of public that's her right why aren't you proud of your support if you're proud enough to pay the money and donate I mean I'm not condoning any violence against anyone but if you're proud of what happens donate then then listen last time people did this yeah people ended up killing themselves yeah this is not a good idea okay listen your your idea of who you don't want to work with is your personal business do not encourage people to print out list because the next list that comes out your name will be on and then people will be coming after you no one you sweet nobody we had something called the black list and a lot of really good people were accused of stuff nobody cared whether it was true or not they all they were accused and they lost their right to work you don't have the right in this country people can vote for who they want to that is one of the great rights of this country you don't have to like it but you we don't we don't go after people because we don't like who they voted for we don't go after them that way we can talk about issues and stuff but we don't print out lists and I'm sure you guys misspoke when you said that because you it sounded like a good idea think about it read about it remember what the black list actually meant to people and don't encourage anyone anyone to do it that was insufferable she's acting like Debra Messing is calling for their social security numbers to be leaked publicly that's not what this is about so please for the love of God spare me this sanctimonious bullshit and maybe you know be outraged about something that warrants that level of aggression because what Debra Messing did here it's not an issue now Joy Behar she chimed in and she claimed that you know to release which corporations contribute to politicians that's one thing but to release the information of individual donors that's a bridge too far and she said when you release the list of individuals quote you're starting to endanger that person's life I mean really joy you're honestly saying that these wealthy Trump supporters are in danger if it is disclosed that they contributed to Donald Trump and attended this fundraiser I mean first of all way to legitimize the conservative victimization complex but second of all if their lives were truly in danger because they supported Donald Trump then don't you think that they would probably just out of self-interest stay out of politics and not support Donald Trump because I mean we still have secrecy of the ballot if they choose to vote for Donald Trump that's one thing but to go out of your way to contribute to Donald Trump to attend one of these fundraisers when you know that this will be made public are you honestly saying that to see the list of these donors ahead of time before the FEC reports come out that would endanger these people's lives I mean I guess that is what she's saying because she said it it's preposterous it's absolutely ludicrous and thankfully as usual Sonny Hauston was the only person with a reasonable take on that entire panel and it's frustrating because when you have one voice of reason and four other voices that are relatively reactionary who just need your defend the status quo and the establishment you end up with a show that just makes people misinformed it makes them more stupid and Sonny Hauston rightfully pointed out that you know if they were embarrassed of their donation or afraid for their lives then obviously they wouldn't make that donation but if these Hollywood elites don't want it to be known that they support a warmongering xenophobic racist piece of shit and they can choose to not make those contributions and not attend these fundraisers with Donald Trump it's that simple put your mouth where your money is or don't donate now once Wolfie Goldberg chimed in as you probably noticed she completely steered the entire conversation off of a cliff so she said do not encourage people to print out lists because the next list that comes out your name will be on it and then people will be coming after you now obviously she is likening Deborah Messing's desire to see which individuals attended this Donald Trump fundraiser with the 1940s through 1960 ish blacklist in Hollywood where if anyone who worked in Hollywood was suspected of being a communist sympathizer they couldn't find work in Hollywood she's literally saying here that what Deborah Messing wants is comparable to that I mean I shouldn't have to educate a boomer on the red scare but individuals who were placed on that list were on that list for dubious reasons it was a nonsensical list but all Deborah Messing is saying is show me the list of the assholes who attended this fundraiser with Donald Trump to say that that is similar to the blacklist where Hollywood elites were suspected of being communist sympathizers I mean to say that that is a historical or historically ignorant you know at best is it's an understatement I just for her to say that it's honestly embarrassing but here's where she goes in for the worst part of her argument you don't have the right in this country people can vote for who they want to and that is one of the great rights of this country you don't have to like it but we don't go after people because we don't like who they voted for actually we do we have the right as citizens and we can very much criticize people who do things that we don't like who vote in a way that we disagree with that doesn't necessarily mean that I can co-orse them into voting a certain way but if I believe that someone shouldn't vote for a particular candidate I am allowed legally speaking to vocalize my disagreement so if you're going to cite the particular rights that we do and don't have maybe brush up on those rights before you go espousing this nonsense whoopee because we absolutely can make whatever list that we want as individuals and we can criticize people who are our political opponents I just I don't understand why they're choosing to die on this hill you're making a mountain out of a molehill this is absolutely a non-issue whatever you know Debra Messing said here does not warrant the criticism that Whoopee Goldberg is saying and to say oh well you know we don't have to we don't get to go after people if we don't like who they voted for that's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard and also it's kind of a non-sequitur because we're talking about political contributions and you know money in politics has essentially ruined our democracy so whatever is left for us to salvage in terms of democracy it's transparency knowing who contributed to who and we still have that so we're using you know that's our advantage but Whoopee saying you know what that's a bridge too far if you want to shame and name these Donald Trump supporters in Hollywood I just can't support that okay well then don't support it but I disagree with you and we absolutely have a right to know and that information will be made publicly available so apparently the American government and the legal codes in this country disagree with you and agree with Debra Messing and other individuals who would like to see these donations because we will see these donations we will see who attended this fundraiser with Donald Trump and I'm pretty sure that the individuals who are Hollywood elites who attended this fundraiser knew going into this that this could get out and it could affect their career either positively or negatively but the point is that we have a right to know and for you to suggest otherwise you know it just demonstrates that you are clueless when it comes to politics and yet you know you keep speaking about it and making a fool of yourself Vice President Mike Pence recently took a trip to Ireland and while he was there he stood in Dünbeg now Dünbeg is approximately three hours away from Dublin where the Vice President would be conducting official business on behalf of the US government so the question is why would you stay so far away if you know you're going to need to be in Dublin he literally had to fly from Dünbeg to Dublin of course because it's pretty far so it's more efficient to travel via air so why not just stay in Dublin what's the point of staying that far away while our President Donald Trump recommended that maybe the Vice President stay at one of his resorts and of course Mike Pence did decide to do that and can you guess who paid for this? of course you the taxpayer so understand Donald Trump is personally profiting by having the Vice President stay in one of his resorts in order to conduct official business on behalf of the United States now let's not forget that air travel is an extra cost to the taxpayer and you know it's the Republican Party who claims that they are more fiscally responsible and fiscally conservative so not only is this not the most efficient way to use taxpayer funds but it's also incredibly corrupt it poses a conflict of interest but what's funny is that Mike Pence assures us that there's no conflict of interest here nothing to see you know staying hours away from where he needed to be to instead stay at a location where it would personally benefit the President it was just the more logical choice which is why he chose to stay there and as Quint For yet of Politico reports Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday defended his decision to stay at a Trump resort during his trip to Ireland this week stressing it provides a quote logical accommodation for his visit to his mother's ancestral homeland I understand political attacks by Democrats but if you have a chance to get to Dunebag you'll find it's a fairly small place Pence told reporters and the opportunity to stay at the Trump National in Dunebag to accommodate the unique footprint that comes with our security detail and other personnel made it logical Mark Short, Pence's Chief of Staff told reporters earlier Tuesday the Vice President was invited not instructed by President Donald Trump to stay at his resort and that taxpayers will foot the bill for the lodging I don't think it was a request like a command I think that it was a suggestion Short said it's like when we went through the trip it's like well he's going to Dunebag because that's where the Pence family is from it's like well you should stay at my place Short added of Trump's offer Oh okay so that sounds perfectly reasonable and totally not sketchy and the individual who was rationalizing this and justifying it doesn't seem like they were like like scrambling like to explain like why Mike Pence was like staying here I mean come on but you know the good news is that at least his mom and wife who also came with him didn't stay at Trump's resort on the taxpayers dime he paid for that out of pocket wonderful and I love how he's essentially presenting this to us as he had no choice look there's no room for me to stay with this large security detail anywhere in Dunebag but the Trump resort so don't stay in Dunebag if you want to go and take a trip there and allow your mom or Karen's mom or whoever to come with you and visit their homeland then have them do that at a separate time why do they have to come with you to conduct official business that doesn't really make any sense now does it if it would be more economical for you to stay in Dublin and it makes more sense just from the standpoint of being more efficient and saving time just have them come back on their own time but I mean these are corrupt individuals and I love how he hits Democrats for criticizing him when we all know that Republicans would not waste an opportunity to criticize Barack Obama in the event this shoe were on the other foot so these are absolute hypocrites and this is not the first time that Donald Trump has personally profited by either foreign leaders or you know one of these American leaders staying at one of his hotels or resorts it's unacceptable this is a conflict of interest and the fact that he did not place his businesses in a blind trust makes it even worse because his sons are in control which means that he can revoke control at any given time and he's still racking up the money from these stays by lawmakers both foreign and domestic and that's a problem but yet Republicans will turn a blind eye and pretend like this doesn't exist something something he's going to drain the swamp no he's not going to drain the swamp Donald Trump is the swamp and if you don't see that you're not very bright so as many of you know Fox News has become so obsessed with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that they have resorted to creeping on her Instagram account in order to find content to attack her for now their obsession has officially reached a really pathetic level because now they are propping up the right wing version of AOC and if you didn't know that that was a thing yes I'm here to tell you it is in fact a thing there is a young Latino woman who is running for Congress who claims she is the antithesis of AOC's progressive policies the only problem with the right wing version of AOC is that she kind of sucks and in an interview with Stuart Varney you're going to see how unimpressed even he is and I enjoyed every second of this because you know after months now of lambasting AOC claiming that she's brain dead she's a dunce um the right wing version of AOC has absolutely no substance whatsoever take a look our next guest here she comes she builds herself as the anti AOC she's running for Congress in Illinois she is a Republican and she's only 26 years old if elected she would be the youngest person ever elected to Congress Catalina Laufe is with us on your screens now welcome to the show Catalina good to see you hi Stuart thanks so much for having me you build yourself as the anti AOC candidate so if you're anti AOC what are you in favor of? what do you stand for? you know Stuart I'm not anti anyone I'm pro America and if there's contrast there it's that I'm fiercely driven by a love for my country not everything I'm not driven by a hate for everything that it stands for like somebody like AOC and the rest of her your friends on the other side what kind of policies do you favor? sure so I'm a huge free market conservative I think that we should have a free market principles the socialism rhetoric on the other side is so detrimental and so un-American that we need to get back to a framework where we are respecting where our constitution stands and allowing individual and personal responsibility okay most young people that I know of your age are very much climate people they want a climate plan how do you where do you stand on climate change? sure you know I think we need to talk more on the economy and in a in a broader sense I think climate change should be addressed but the the policies at the other side are trying to implement are completely ludicrous I mean think about the the amount of money that they want to spend on on that and it just doesn't make sense there are other policies that are way more paramount and important and I think that millennials need to recognize that now you are the daughter I believe of a legal immigrant I think that's accurate in saying that okay now where do you stand on this whole immigration issue because if someone like me said look I want something done about the 11 to 15 million illegals living in this country I'm branded as a racist pretty fast how about you where do you stand on this? no the racism talk has got to end you know because we want safe and secure borders and because there should be a process and we should promote legal immigration how is that illogical to ask? my my mother my family came here in a way that was respecting the laws and I think a lot of Hispanic Americans agree who have also respected the laws that was uh that was amazing if you're the anti AOC what do you stand for? you know Stuart I'm not anti anyone I'm pro-america and if there's contrast there it's that I'm fiercely driven by a love for my country I'm not driven by a hate of everything that it stands for so let me remind you he asked her what she stands for and her answer can be reduced down to I'm pro-america okay great you know when we ask where a politician stands you know nine times out of ten we're trying to figure out where they stand with regard to policy but I'm glad that you're pro-america I kind of expect you to be pro-america if you're running for congress but nonetheless Stuart followed up and said okay but what policies do you stand for? she then said I'm a huge free market conservative I think that we should have a free market free market principles the socialism rhetoric on the other side is so detrimental and so un-american and we need to get back to a framework where we are respecting where our constitution stands and allowing individual and personal responsibility I mean I don't know what that means these are conservative buzzwords that she got from a word cloud I mean when you say that you are a free market conservative that doesn't tell me anything about your policy position you are stating your political ideology but if you are a free market conservative what specific policy proposals would you implement that would complement your free market ideas I mean for example do you think that a particular regulation or tax hinders the free market from flourishing in your district what does getting back to a framework where we respect our constitution look like in practice what does that even mean? if you're going to criticize AOC Fox and say that she's dumb then maybe don't prop up someone who's clearly not ready for prime time yet and say hey guys we've got the anti AOC here you should support her but definitely not the real AOC because she's stupid she's dumb now when it comes to climate change Stuart Varni asked what do you think about this issue and she said I think climate change should be addressed but I think the policies the other side are trying to implement are completely ludicrous I mean think about the amount of money they want to spend on that it just doesn't make sense okay great so you seemingly believe in climate change that's better than I would have expected however you're a Republican so first of all if you believe in climate change then one what policy do you want to implement to address climate change and two how are you going to convince your fossil fuel funded colleagues in the Republican Party to implement the policy that you want given it actually is one that is good insufficient what are you going to do I mean if you truly care about climate change and you think that it should be addressed then you're running in the wrong party kind of an important issue don't you think additionally towards the end is Stuart Varni revealed why he brought her on and why he decided to prop up someone who clearly doesn't really know anything about politics he wants a brown girl to shield him from criticism after his network himself and the president continues to fear monger about people moving here after our drug war and military interventions destroyed their country so when he says you know I don't like mass immigration she can shield him from the claim that he is racist and like the useful idiot that she is of course she did exactly what he wanted the only reason why she's there the only reason why Fox News ever brings on members from marginalized communities when the Republican Party absolutely doesn't just not want to represent them but actually doesn't like them clearly as demonstrated by their actions they bring them on because they want you to throw your community under the bus and she did just that and if you truly were only you know against illegal immigration and you were pro-legal immigration what did you have to say when Donald Trump made it more difficult for people to seek asylum at legal ports of entry because that is a legal form of immigration if you get asylum here you could one day be a citizen so why didn't you say anything about that? Do you not have any criticism for Donald Trump? It's a joke and since this segment was so awful at showcasing who this individual is as a politician I decided to take the liberty to look her up so I went to her website and I wasn't expecting much but I was genuinely shocked by the lack of substance there was nothing here she literally doesn't even have an issues page there's basically nothing here just a picture of her with an old dude in a mega hat and that's it so she is quite literally running as the anti AOC and she has no policies to rebut what AOC is proposing here's how you effectively run an anti AOC campaign oh well she supports student loan debt cancellation well I support cancelling 5% she supports Medicare for all well I support and add on to the affordable character I support my own right wing equivalent but she has nothing and when I looked at her campaign video there were a lot of things to mean that seemed pretty familiar she straight up just ripping off AOC's campaign someone like me doesn't fit the mold women like me aren't supposed to run for office my father is a small business owner who worked hard all of his life providing first family my mother is a legal immigrant from Guatemala mother from Puerto Rico dad from the South Bronx I've gone from working at a startup to working for President Donald Trump I'm an educator an organizer a working class New Yorker they forget what makes America great is all of us coming together a New York for the many is possible it's time for all of us to stand up and fight for the future of the American dream yeah uncanny so this is embarrassing her entire campaign is based on her being a copy of AOC but on the right wing to run a campaign where you are copying someone and cloud chasing that isn't a way to actually get elected that's just embarrassing you don't stand for anything you're hollow you're vacuous why are you running you're running just so you can be a young lawmaker who is the answer on the right to AOC I mean put up some fucking policies just pick maybe one policy even if you pick the dumbest policy and you run on the wall it's a policy at least you can say that you're running for some particular reason that you're going to get there and do more than just warm the fucking seat but why are you running and I want to be too hard on her because she's young and you know it's hard to run for Congress right you're under scrutiny and whatnot but I mean if you are going to run for Congress that is a tremendous responsibility if you are in fact elected and to not bring anything to the table is downright embarrassing you should be ashamed of yourself that you think you're qualified to run for Congress when you literally can't name a single policy proposal on Fox News like he was handling you with kid gloves and you still fumbled that interview shameful now that's not to say that she's different than any other Republican they all are vacuous but I mean if you're at least somewhat politically savvy you're going to name one stupid-ass right wing policy she can't even do that she just is thinking that she's going to win by coasting on AOC's name recognition and a clout chasing I mean maybe it'll work because it's the Republican Party but it's still not something that you should be too proud of well another raging homophobe has revealed to everyone that he is in fact gay after founding a gay conversion therapy clinic now as you can see by the look on my face I am completely and utterly shocked by this revelation you know it's surprising that the people who are the most vocally homophobic are actually more insecure about themselves than anything which is why maybe they focus a little bit too heavily on things that don't ostensibly affect them like homosexuality and gender identity looking at you Steven Crowder but this is a story about a man named McCrae Game and he didn't just found one of many gay conversion clinics he founded the most prominent one now I'm still shocked by this because looking at this photograph of him I mean everything about him just screams heterosexuality to me so I'm sure that this is really difficult for many people to believe that he would be gay but he did write in a Facebook post 20 years in ex-gay ministry I was wrong please forgive me now I do want to share a brief clip from his interview with the Post and Courier because it really does show how involved he was with this gay conversion industry in actuality and he was in deep which I'm realizing is probably not the best choice of words but nonetheless this is his story I started truth ministry but I believed the gay community was and the world was lying about homosexuality and this whole subject I just felt like it was a big ruse and there was a lot of deceit and I was trying to you know tell the truth but now I think it's the complete opposite I believe ex-gay ministry is a lie conversion therapy is not just a lie but it's very harmful but when it takes it to the point of you need to change and here's a curriculum here's how you do it and you know you haven't changed yet keep at it it will happen I told my wife I'm like you know my attractions are worse than they ever were I struggled more so trying to deny them then being able to accept my attractions and just say you know I'm a gay man that's just that's just me being honest I was a hot mess for 26 years and I have more peace now than I ever did I never felt like what we were doing was conversion therapy but we were absolutely offering conversion therapy early in my years I used to get a lot of death threats I used to get a lot of hate mail just on a constant continual basis at the time I took a level of satisfaction that I was getting all this hate mail it was kind of like you know proving that I was doing the right thing eventually it started having an effect upon me to you know maybe you need to back off maybe you're going in the wrong direction the words you're going to go to hell if you don't do this or if you keep doing that the words you're going to go to hell stay okay so this really it has me torn but I think that instinctively I'm leaning towards fuck this guy because on one hand you know I can empathize with someone who is struggling personally to accept themselves but to take it a step further and actually create a company an organization where you take that insecurity that you have and you pass it on to others there's something especially egregious about this where you know you have done damage to the community you taught people that their natural feelings their natural attractions wasn't just wrong but they would be punished for it and sure you're a product of that you know religious environment that led you to that as well but to take it that far you know it's just something that is difficult to forgive and forget after you know you caused all this damage so you know ideally to right this wrong he would spend the rest of his life atoning and you know starting LGBTQ youth shelters in his community those do save lives so maybe you can make up for the lives that you ruin in some roundabout way but I mean I'm torn right because how many times do we see these loud homophobes you know get caught with the gay prostitute or come out as gay over the years I'm just sick of it I'm just absolutely sick of it where these types of individuals these religious right-wing figures they're more you know stereotypically gay than someone who's a feminine and you know a flamboyant because nine times out of ten they turn out to be gay themselves like when I see Steven Crowder for example talk about homosexuality all the time it tells me that there's something deep going on there's a war that he is fighting within himself and he doesn't want to you know accept the fact that he probably is either gay bisexual or possibly transgender because I mean if you focus on something again that doesn't technically affect you at an individual level then it tells me that you're thinking a lot about this it tells me there's a battle going on and maybe you're not necessarily trying to convince us so much as you're trying to convince yourself so this is one of the many reasons why I absolutely hate religion because if individuals did not use the bible as a moral guide then you would just expect that most things that are natural that we do as human beings or we don't hurt anyone else um that should be morally acceptable why does it even make sense to say that you know uh being attracted to someone of the same gender is immoral and it's comparable to murder isn't that nonsensical like isn't that something that at face value we can just dismiss and say okay if that holy book says that if that holy book says that thou shall not kill but the god in that same book commits mass murder constantly maybe we shouldn't take that seriously I mean it's just we need to start thinking for ourselves and move away from religion and if it personally makes you happy and you're not using your religion as a weapon to hurt other people especially marginalized communities cool that's fine but still we need to try to be more egalitarian and most of all secular as a society because if we were secular if we were more egalitarian gay rights and trans rights and non-binary rights would not be an issue right now it's only an issue because we are violating norms and societal values that have been instilled on us largely due to religion I mean patriarchy is also part of the problem but that is reinforced by the bible and religious holy books so it's frustrating to see these people now after homosexuality has largely been accepted by most of society come out and say hey guys I was wrong and what I did was wrong because now it's easy what would have really made a difference is if you were brave enough at the time when we were having this battle and you know come out then but the fact that you waited until it's convenient you know that's why I lean towards fuck this guy fuck any homophobe and religious pastor or whatever right-wing figure who thinks that they're going to be welcomed by the LGBTQ community with open arms after they damaged our community so badly so you know now that there isn't social acceptance for transgender people speak up for them speak up for non-binary people speak out for individuals who are currently marginalized right the wrong and it seems like he wants to do that so that's you know that's the best that I can hope for he said he was wrong he apologized but I mean it's just it's tiring right how many of these homophobes former homophobes will come out and say guys I'm gay I was wrong I mean at some point maybe just don't do the wrong thing you know from the beginning maybe be an adult stop believing in dumbass fairy tales and get your moral compass from just having human empathy understand that something is probably immoral if it causes pain if I'm inflicting pain on someone maybe that's immoral and something that the Bible says is immoral shouldn't be the best indicator because the Bible itself is incredibly immoral with a God that is just a mass murderer so that's all I'll say about this I just I'm just I'm just tired of this shit I'm so tired of these people you know right the wrong and stop being fucking homophobes so as you all know CNN had pretty much a climate change marathon they had back to back to back to back town halls between 5pm to midnight I want to say and let me just say this to see a mainstream cable news outlet dedicate that much time to climate change it's commendable now of course they're doing this for ratings because you know if you can bring on presidential candidates this is going to draw eyeballs to the screen but nonetheless I'll take what I can get if you're going to talk about climate change for half of the day that's good the entire country and planet maybe better off because of it so of course you know multiple candidates talked about climate change Bernie Sanders expected Lee killed it but there were some candidates who even though I think overall they did good you'd expect them to maybe do a little bit better and know better more specifically with regard to certain aspects of very popular proposals that are intended to combat climate change for example Andrew Yang thankfully said he likes the Green New Deal in fact he loves the Green New Deal although he claimed that something about the Green New Deal was true when in fact it is not true and this is a lie spread by the right wing media take a look I love the vision of the Green New Deal that the framers of it have done us all a great service by it by energizing so many people around a vision and to me the only issue I have with the Green New Deal is the timing of the timeline I mean they are right that we need to take urgent action but the timeline that they put out there would do away with commercial air travel a lot of other things in a particular timeframe that if we have a little bit more time we can head in the same direction and big Yikes one of the bigger Yikes moments of the night for me but two things I want to say about this first of all we don't have more time to wait we have 11 years to act according to the IPCC's deadline the climate doesn't care about whatever political limitations we may or may not have if we don't act we will be looking at catastrophic levels of climate change second of all the Green New Deal does not ban air travel that is something that is not true it doesn't do that now what he's probably referring to is an FAQ piece put out by AOC's team that jokingly said since we can't ban farting cows and ban air travel we need to do X meaning reduce our carbon footprint in these other areas in other industries in order to get to net zero it doesn't say we should ban air travel that's not feasible obviously now again I expected Andrew Yang to know better but essentially he was duped by the right wing propaganda machine who wants you to believe that AOC's Green New Deal is trying to ban burgers and ban cows and ban air travel and now the new line is that Bernie Sanders plan is super expensive but they don't tell you conveniently that Bernie Sanders plan even if it costs 16 trillion dollars it's an investment so it'll pay for itself within 15 years they don't want to say that so to have Andrew Yang fall for that propaganda is incredibly disappointing but I don't want to be too hard on him because he did make other fantastic points throughout the night and I just wish that his town hall was after Elizabeth Warren's so he could have heard her make the point that she made that I'm about to show you where she says all this misinformation that's spread by right wing outlets it's exactly what the fossil fuel industry wants but understand this is exactly what the fossil fuel industry helps we're all talking about that's what they want us to talk about this is your problem they want to be able to start up a lot of controversy around your light bulbs around your straws and around your cheeseburgers when 70% of the pollution of the carbon that we're throwing into the air comes from three industry so that was a really important point the fossil fuel industry literally has a vested interest in making sure that whatever information that is out there about the Green New Deal you know it sounds bad it seems awful it seems like you have to drastically transform your way of life when that's not actually the case we can actually restructure our economy and invest in clean green renewable technology and save the planet that way but they want you to think that it's terrible so it's really important that leaders political leaders don't get duped by the right wing misinformation and right wing propaganda so kudos to Elizabeth Warren there I think she did a good job with her climate change town hall I will say this though I do wish that she expressed maybe a little bit more openness to the idea of challenging capitalism directly because if you truly want to be strong and be the strongest when taking on these fossil fuel giants you shouldn't take anything off the table but when she was asked the question about potentially nationalizing these fossil fuel companies she absolutely shut that down and didn't even really express any intention of entertaining that idea and it was disappointing Bernie Sanders has endorsed the idea of the public ownership of utilities arguing that we can't adequately solve this crisis without removing the profit motive from the distribution of essential needs like energy as president would you be willing to call out capitalism in this way and advocate for the public ownership of our utilities gosh you know I'm not sure that that's what gets you to the solution I'm perfectly willing to take on giant corporations I think I've been known to do that once or twice but for me I think the way we get there is we just say sorry guys but by 2035 you're done you're not going to be using any more carbon based fuels that that gets us to the right place and if somebody wants to make the profit from building better solar panels and generating better battery storage I'm not opposed to that so that was disappointing and it's one of the reasons why I support Bernie Sanders over Elizabeth Warren because she herself said that she's a capitalist to her core and I don't like that I am not a capitalist and I don't expect someone to say I am a democratic socialist in the sense that I want to abolish capitalism even Bernie doesn't say that but I want you to at least express a level of open mindedness at least when it comes to the issue of climate change so you know that was disappointing although I will say it was helpful in highlighting a key difference between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren which I think is really important because if this comes down to a three way race between Bernie Warren and Biden you know for someone who's not really politically savvy who doesn't engage in politics and follow news as closely as you do or I do it's going to be difficult for us to show them the differences between Bernie and Warren so whatever we can take or find we should take and use however I don't want to be too down on Warren I don't want to be too down on Yang the person why absolutely want to be down on is the person who was utterly exposed as a fraud at this climate change town hall and that is Joe Biden who was asked why we should take what he says seriously why we should trust him if he's in bed with the same executives that are destroying the planet for short term profits watch this question that he was asked and I truly hope that people in mainstream media the pundits specifically pay attention and they ask politicians this question more often because this is exactly what we need. How can we trust you to hold these corporations and executives accountable for their crimes against humanity when we know that tomorrow you are holding high dollar funders are hosted by Andrew Goldman a fossil fuel executive. He's not a fossil fuel executive. And the fact of the matter is that what we talk about is what are we going to do about those corporations what have we done and along everywhere along the way for example I've argued and we've pushed for us suing those executives were engaged in pollution those companies so let me just say to that person that brave individual who challenged a person in power or who's running to be you know a very powerful person kudos to you it's not easy to do that it's not easy to speak truths to power but that's exactly what we need Joe Biden is attending fundraiser after fundraiser under after fundraiser so the fact that this isn't coming up more in mainstream media really shows that the media is failing to do its job now of course Joe Biden had no way to persuasively respond to that so he just denied he said actually Andrew Goldman isn't a fossil fuel executive. No actually you're wrong because according to the Intercepts Akilah Lacy she writes Andrew Goldman is a co-founder of Western LNG a natural gas production company based in Houston Texas and he is co-hosting one of two high dollar fund raisers Biden will attend in New York on Thursday so Biden was lying right there and then when he tried to answer his question you could tell he started going in one direction and then mid sentency switched gears and went in a different direction and then he said well you know I'm proposing that we can sue these executives right but you're not addressing the crux of the question the question is why should we trust that you are going to allow us to do that if you're in bed with these fossil fuel executives he didn't have an answer but thankfully Anderson Cooper surprisingly follow up and fact checked Joe Biden and let him know actually Andrew Goldman is in fact a fossil fuel executive. So what Andrew is saying is if you're going to a fundraiser that's given in part by this guy who has a company that is pulling up natural gas are you the right guy to go after these well I didn't realize he does that I was told if you look at the SEC filings he's not listed as one of those executives that's what we look at the SEC filings who are those executives I've kept that pledge period. So is that are you going to look at that fundraiser tomorrow night I'm gonna look at what you just told me and find out if that's accurate yes okay I think it's pretty accurate that was absolutely cringe worthy Joe Biden. I mean if I had to predict whatever way he would respond to a follow-up that's exactly what I expected would happen I mean he played dumb feigned ignorance okay this is why you're going down in the polls this is why we don't trust you and that fundraiser we'll see by the time you see this video we'll know if he attended that or not now he has that information and he said there you know if it is true it is that Andrew Goldman is linked to the fossil fuel industry I don't want to sell okay we'll see but if I had to guess you're going to that fundraiser now I really hope that you prove me wrong I hope that I can come out here and say I stand corrected but when it comes to Joe Biden I have pretty much been expecting the worst because he's the worst in this field he's not just the worst when it comes to policy but he's the least electable and you know what I was pleased to see was that that wasn't the only instance where Joe Biden's corruption and corporatism was called out because there was another attendee who asked you know the same thing pretty much older generations have continued to fail our generation by repeatedly choosing money and power over our lives and our futures so how can we trust you to put us the future but over the wants of large corporations and wealthy individuals because I've never done it I've never made that choice my whole career simple sure jam whenever I see a corporate Democrat be put on the spot and their corruption and neoliberalism gets called out it just it warms my heart there's something about it that just puts a big goofy smile on my face so this was such a fantastic event you know the DNC didn't have a climate change debate which is disgraceful and shame on them shame on everyone who voted that down they should be fired however I will commend CNN and say good job for doing this again they weren't motivated you know by this concern for climate change they were doing it because they want the ratings by hosting presidential candidates nonetheless it's still important so with that being said I want to leave you on a positive note and I want to share a clip from Bernie Sanders who said something that was incredibly poignant and he put everything into perspective and it just every time I hear him speak he goes up in my book and he demonstrates why he's the real deal and why he's going to fight for us this is what he said about a climate change and this this hit a nerve with me and I hope that it hit a nerve with people who are watching as well nobody in this room just think about it 30 years from now once look your kid or your grand child in the eye and have that child say to you you know grandpa you knew you knew back in 2020 2019 what the scientists were saying you didn't do anything and look what you created look at the world that you gave me that is not anything that I want anybody in this room or in this country to have to face Bernard Sanders appeared on the view for the second time and he was asked to respond to Donald Trump's claim that Bernie should be more outraged in the event the DNC screws him over again and Megan McCain followed up to Bernie's answer by asking you know should you defend Tulsi Gabbard who's saying that she this time is being screwed by the DNC I want to share because I have a little bit to say about this senator can I get a little wonky with you so president Trump in conspiratorial terms he recently tweeted that the DNC has already decided to back Biden he said look what they did the DNC is again working its magic and its quest to destroy crazy Bernie Sanders feel uncomfortable saying that to you for the more traditional but not very bright sleepy Joe Biden I feel uncomfortable with that too here we go again Bernie but this time please show a little more anger and indignation when you get screwed I am he's basically saying that the DNC screwed you over last time for Hillary and is going to screw you over again do you think that's happening and if it does will you have a contested convention make let me respond in two senses and I would never speak I know you I we have our when president Trump refers to somebody else as crazy talk about you know somebody in a glass house so president Trump's projection yes you feel like the DNC is in the tank for candidates look last time around and this time my campaign you know talked about it with whoopee we are taking on the establishment that's no great see but we're taking on Wall Street we're taking on the insurance companies the drug companies we're taking on Trump we're taking on the Republican machine we're also taking on the Democratic establishment the difference though between this time and last time is as you will recall before the first vote was cast in Iowa secretary Clinton had 500 super delegates lined up behind her in other words like it's a hundred-yard race she's on the 30-yard line we ended that we ended that I would go further but right now on the first ballot at the Democratic National Convention no no super delegate will be voting that's a step forward second of all I'm feeling pretty good about our campaign and I very much appreciate a president Trump's wholehearted concern about me I know he is being sincere about this really quick though but Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is saying she's she's been excluded from the DNC stage and she actually resigned as you know as vice chair of the DNC last time because of your treatment number one do you think that she was right again I just don't know if getting rid of super delegates is enough and do you think it's your turn to stand up for her to be on the stage now let me just say this I would go further I would ban super delegates from voting on any ballot we could not achieve that we got them off the first ballot which was a step forward Tulsi is a good friend of mine where the DNC right now had a difficult problem how do you deal with 20 candidates were running do you have 20 people up on the stage together does not make a sensible debate I think not so they came up with their approach I am not a great fan I should tell you Megan as to how we do debates in general my own feeling would be rather than giving people 45 seconds to talk about what we do with the crisis of high cost of prescription drugs we focus on health care we focus on climate change do it issue by issue rather than trying to deal with 50 different issues in a short period of time so let me just say first of all when Bernie Sanders said when President Trump refers to somebody else's crazy talk about somebody in a glass house I thought that that was pretty funny Bernie Sanders he absolutely knows how to turn the charm on and that was one of those moments but essentially let me just say this I don't like to give Donald Trump credit for much but he is right to call out the DNC because the DNC used the institutional advantages that they have to essentially sabotage and ruin Bernie Sanders chances in 2016 now Bernie Sanders likely wasn't vocalizing his frustration as we all wanted him to because I'd assume he knew he would run again but this time we know he's not going to run again so in the event something similar happens they absolutely should be called out by Bernie Sanders 100% but you know the thing about this is Bernie Sanders now has amassed such a large political movement and has made so many inroads within the progressive community that whatever institutional disadvantages he has he may be able to just still overcome them because he's so popular like when it comes to the 2016 election the DNC did so many little things to undermine Bernie Sanders you know they were working behind the scenes to sabotage him they all hated him they scheduled debates during times when nobody would be paying attention before major holidays Hillary Clinton was in control of the DNC with regard to some financial aspects and she even controlled their press releases according to Donna Brazil now I don't necessarily believe that they are doing that this time although I still worry about that second ballot vote when it comes to super delegates but there's really there's no point in worrying right now because we don't know what's going to happen Bernie Sanders ideally could win enough to where you know there's nothing that the DNC can really do I don't want to think about that yet but I do think that you know if Bernie Sanders were to be screwed hypothetically this time it would make more sense to just blast them because you have nothing to lose now you're not going to run for president again but the real reason why I wanted to talk about this is because Megan McCain surprisingly brought up a good point this segment is weird I'm giving Trump a little bit of credit and I'm saying Megan McCain made a good point what kind of world are we living but she said you know Tulsi Gabbard is kind of being screwed right now why isn't Bernie speaking up and I wish Bernie Sanders would come to Tulsi Gabbard's defense he brought up the point that there's a lot of candidates so it's difficult for the DNC to coordinate debates in a way that's fair and I understand that they laid out the criteria before the primary began the issue though and what I would have wanted to see from Bernie here the ideal response would be you know what Tulsi Gabbard is right that the DNC should be more transparent and I'm going to echo her call for greater transparency and I'm going to ask them to release the criteria they use to determine which polls they're going to use because it seems completely arbitrary currently and given the DNC's history they need to prove to us that they aren't cherry picking polls in order to marginalize certain candidates who they don't like because think about this to have Tulsi Gabbard excluded yet Julian Castro and Amy Klobuchar will be attending its madness its absolute madness Tulsi Gabbard has far more support than Amy Klobuchar or Julian Castro so the fact that she's asking for transparency it's only the most reasonable thing imaginable so since Tulsi Gabbard spoke out in Bernie's defense in 2016 I'm disappointed that he didn't speak out in her defense now you know it it feels a little bit frustrating and if you're a Tulsi supporter and you're disappointed I do understand you know this is frustrating I've been in your predicament before I understand how you feel you know this is disappointing and Bernie Sanders answer there wasn't sufficient but if I had to guess it seems like Bernie Sanders is walking on eggshells because he doesn't want to piss off the DNC because again they have a lot of things that they can use institutional tools at their disposal to where they can really fuck him over if they truly wanted to do that now is it the case that the establishment prefers Biden to Bernie or pretty much anyone but Bernie with the exception of maybe Tulsi Gabbard unquestionably unquestionably but the thing is if you become so popular and you now have the name recognition and a million volunteers on the ground they can only do so much to hold you back right so this situation is incredibly frustrating and this is bound to happen the DNC has not earned the trust back of voters so you know for Tulsi Gabbard supporters to say there should be more transparency I totally think that that's fair and I understand their frustration my father my father my father my father your dad in his latest appearance on the view Megan McCain pressed Bernie Sanders on the issue of bipartisanship and whether or not he would be willing to reach across the aisle and work with any Republicans now I find this line of questioning absolutely absurd for a couple of different reasons first of all the onus is always on Democrats for whatever reason to reach across the aisle to Republicans it's never the opposite like Republicans are never expected to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats they can be as obstructionist as they want and that's fine but when it comes to Democrats you better have a plan to work with Republicans out of everyone Bernie Sanders has been probably the most effective at reaching across the aisle the resolution to end US complicity in Saudi's genocide in Yemen that was led by Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna but in the Senate Bernie teamed up with a Republican Mike Lee who is pretty far right he's a Tea Party member so of all people Bernie shouldn't get this question out of all the politicians and second of all maybe ask Republicans this question but I'm already getting too far ahead of myself let's watch the clip and then I'll discuss this a little bit more when we come back I am I'm generally curious about bipartisanship can you Johnny Isaacson of Georgia who's recently retired I was like he's retired Johnny isn't very you're dead with somebody I work with but they're dead and now not it's Johnny is not dead I know but he's not he's leaving he's leaving they're resigned they're retire look even somebody like a George W. Bush who was a very conservative guy in office if you were president that you would work with on the other side Lamar Alexander okay all right Lamar is head of the committee that I'm on the health education labor committee Lamar is a conservative Lamar is not a liar LaRar is not a sexist he's not a racist he's not a homophobe he's a conservative guy it's called American Politics so I you know work with your dad I work with other people on issues where we can come together that's what I think American Politics is supposed to be about but you have a president today and again it gives me no joy to say this he is a pathological liar and when people ask me you know what do you think about what Trump said five minutes ago on a tweet I say I'm not gonna say anything because ten minutes from now he's gonna change his view I can't comment this is not the kind of temperament or personality that we should have in the White House in my view absolutely because I mean again as I stated why is it that Republicans are never expected to reach across the aisle with Mitch McConnell as the Senate majority leader shouldn't we be asking them especially when they're gonna reach across the aisle and for the more let me just say this we are in a highly polarized political environment so forgive me for not giving a damn about bipartisanship we can't work with Republicans they're too extreme so if you want to accomplish anything you just have to beat them that's it you have to beat them where are you going to find common ground with Republicans on the issue of climate change they don't believe in climate change and the ones that claim they believe in climate change deny anthropogenic climate change which is just as bad well the climate's always changing no the climate is changing at a right that's accelerated because of us when it comes to the minimum wage it hasn't been raised since what 2009 they don't want to raise it Democrats do how do you work with them when it comes to healthcare they seemingly want to undo what little progress we've made with the affordable care act Bernie Sanders wants Medicare for all where do you find the middle ground there when it comes to student loans Bernie wants to cancel them Trump wants to cancel a select number of student loans for veterans that are disabled so I mean I guess maybe there's some room for common ground right there but you know Trump is here on this issue and Bernie is way over here so do you understand there isn't very much room in this highly polarized environment because Republicans are off the spectrum they're crazy both parties are right wing but the Republican Party is way out there when Democrats are on the center right and there's just no room and the problem is that when you have two neoliberal parties whenever there is bipartisanship whenever they come together most of the time it's to fuck us over it's to you know deregulate Wall Street bail out the big banks that's when they come together and that's the problem with bipartisanship so you know as a rich celebrity who got that job you have due to nepotism because of your father you see the thing is even though bipartisanship might sound good on paper because it makes you feel good it makes it seem like we're all coming together and holding hands and singing Kumbaya I don't care about the concept of bipartisanship and Bernie Sanders he made a really important point he said I am willing to work with them I'm paraphrasing of course to accomplish things that will help the American people meaning I am not just going to reach across the aisle for the sake of reaching across the aisle in the spirit of bipartisanship if they're going to come to my side and work with me on an issue that actually benefits people I'm all for it but if they're not then no sorry no bipartisanship and I left how Megan McCain was like okay give me some names I want some names who are you going to work with again this is a double standard Republicans can be as obstructionist as pretty much any party at any point in American history and it's still Democrats who are expected to work with them how ludicrous is that so I wanted to just point this out because it irritated me and I think that Bernie Sanders had a good response you know Bernie is the one person who has reached across the aisle but he's done it in ways that doesn't compromise his overall agenda when Democrats like Joe Crowley for example or Tim Ryan reach across the aisle we know it's exactly to benefit our capitalist overlords when Bernie does it it's for the good of the people when you know the Republican Party shockingly chooses to be reasonable that's rare but it does happen and when it has happened Bernie has led the charge another example is his 2017 bill with Amy Klobuchar that would allow us to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada that was the one that Corey Booker infamously voted against Ted Cruz was on board with that so every once in a while if Republicans get on board with our progressive policy proposals that's fine a okay but if you're expecting us to go over to their side to shift to the right to accommodate whatever bipartisan thing you want to happen it's not going to happen so let it go because unless they are going to come to our side there will not be bipartisanship because we are polarized and for a good reason their loons and we live in reality the third Democratic Party primary debate is upon us and I wanted to do a video kind of giving you what I think we should expect my impressions about the candidates and what I hope to see so the individuals who will be participating is Joe Biden Corey Booker Pete Buttigieg Julian Castro Kamala Harris Amy Klobuchar Beto O'Rourke Bernie Sanders Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang and let me just say that Tulsi Gabbard absolutely should be included in this debate the fact that she's not is a disgrace but with this crop of candidates you know we will nonetheless see I think a really interesting debate this is going to be three hours long incredibly long this is going to be a marathon but nonetheless this is interesting because we have everyone on one stage all the front runners and some of these individuals who have been polling consistently at one or two percent if they're lucky so when you have Bernie Warren and Biden as the front runners what can we possibly expect to see because you see you know moderates and progressives towards the top so are we going to see everyone dog pile on Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren or will we see everyone try to take down Joe Biden so my answer to that is I think we're probably going to see a little bit of both I think that they're still going to be a strong emphasis on Biden because he is the front runner still that's changing quickly but nonetheless he is the front runner so I think you're going to see a lot of people potentially people to judge Kamala Harris and Cory Booker kind of focus their attention on Joe Biden and you may see people to judge better or work and possibly Cory Booker focus their attention on Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren because if you are in this race if you're at this debate you know you have an interest in taking down the front runners in hopes that you can take their spot I mean think about this when Kamala Harris destroy Joe Biden she jumped in the polls so you're going to see people want to replicate that success whether they focus their fire on Biden or Bernie and Warren that's going to be the ultimate question I think we're going to see a mixture of both but predominantly Biden will be the main target now here's what I would like to see I want Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to replicate their strategy in that last debate I think they both shined and it was absolutely useful for them to team up to take on the centrists and they absolutely dominated that debate Bernie Sanders I think probably outperformed Warren slightly but she still did a phenomenal job so if we see them replicate that strategy and go in as a united front this could really bode well for them now I understand at one point Bernie and Warren if they remain at the top they're going to have to initially turn the barrels towards one another and that's fine but that can come later there's still too many people in this race and you've got to take out the big dog Joe Biden once he tanks then we can start talking about Bernie and Warren going at each other but for now strategically it makes more sense for them to team up and take on Joe Biden when it comes to Andrew Yang and Beto O'Rourke these two individuals I don't know how confrontational they'll be but I think that Andrew Yang will probably be the least confrontational but there is a chance that he could potentially direct his fire at Bernie Sanders he has been kind of taking a few shots at Bernie Sanders he retweeted an anti Bernie Sanders tweet so it is possible that he does target Bernie Sanders and strategically this actually does make sense for Andrew Yang because at this point you are in that mid tier so if you want to move up it does behoove you to focus your fire on one of the front runners so you can kind of get your name out there that's how you get all the big headlines so this is a possibility although Andrew Yang he does seem to be not confrontational at all at debates although you know that debate performance from the first one to the second one was a drastic improvement so you know I expect him to improve in this one as well so I mean that's why I say it could go either way he could be non confrontational or he could go after Bernie Sanders it's really up in the air I think and Beto O'Rourke will he may call out Bernie or Biden but I'm not necessarily banking on that if I had to guess who would call out Bernie and Elizabeth Warren I would probably say it's gonna be a split between Cory Booker and maybe Pete Buttigieg possibly Julian Castro I really can't visualize a situation where Kamala Harris goes after Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren because she has been trying to convince us that she is in that same camp now that's laughable she's absolutely not progressive she's a neoliberal centrist Democrat who has tried to walk a fine line but failed miserably but I don't see her going after Bernie and Warren but I do see her potentially going after Joe Biden when it comes to Amy Klobuchar aside from Yang I think that she will also not be very confrontational but if she doesn't pick it up and start attacking Joe Biden I don't know why she's even here because she really is trying to be that centrist you know she's competing in that centrist space and she hasn't been confrontational Biden is still dominating she can say look Biden is clearly out of touch Biden is not competent he is clearly deteriorating mentally I'm a woman I'm younger why would you vote for Biden over me? she can make that case and potentially get a jump I mean you and I think the argument you know it comes off as pandering and it's disingenuous but there are plenty enough Democratic Party loyalists who support Biden that might rethink their support you know just based on that but ultimately the goal here is to continue to drive down Biden's support but the thing about that is these other candidates like Cory Booker Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris who seem like they have the most to gain theoretically by Biden going down you see if they attack Joe Biden there's polls that indicate that a lot of Joe Biden supporters have Bernie Sanders as their second choice so it's not going to be a guarantee that they flip to whoever attacks Biden it could go to Bernie so if they take down Biden then they're inadvertently helping Bernie in a sense if that does hold true if that one poll from Harris X I believe was correct so this is going to be certainly an interesting debate to watch I will be watching for Bernie and Warren to form another temporary alliance and take down the centrists and I am expecting Joe Biden to have another poor performance if he doesn't come prepared I don't even know what to say I mean it's evident that he hasn't been performing very well at these debates and he's got to pull something off if he wants to maintain that lead I don't think he's going to do it Kamala Harris she went down substantially after that last debate until she gathered absolutely exposed her horrible criminal justice record so she I am expecting to come prepared she's going to go after Biden possibly maybe Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren I don't really see her again going after Bernie or Warren but it's possible she's got to basically she's got to shine she's got to have some fireworks Pete Buttigieg she really does need to have a standout moment because while I previously thought it was fine if he just maintained if he really wants to move away from you know fourth and fifth and really cracking to the top he's got to make something happen same with Cory Booker but overall this will be interesting and I will give you my analysis after the debate happens obviously I'm going to be rooting for Bernie Sanders and we'll see how it goes hello everyone I am here with Representative Ro Khanna of California's 17th congressional district he's a justice Democrat and he is also the National Campaign Co-Chair for Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign congressman Khanna thank you so much for coming on the program thank you it's my second time and I appreciate you're having me back on well thank you so much for reaching out let me just say something about you unlike pretty much every other politician and human being for that matter when you are criticized your first instinct is not to shut down you always engage with people and you don't just talk to people who have very large platforms on social media and YouTube like you individually engage with people on Twitter who you don't know who may not even be in your district so I truly find that so commendable because most people do not do that and of course what I'm referring to for viewers who don't know is the BDS vote that occurred on July 23rd this is House Resolution 246 so first of all thank you for your willingness to engage with people I appreciate that I know we're going to have a some tough questions and I welcome that but I my view is it's a huge public trust to be a member of congress it's an extraordinary privilege and you should be open to criticism you should be open to people pointing out your weaknesses I don't think any human being has a monopoly on the truth and it makes me better and often makes me think of an issue differently so I actually genuinely welcome criticism as long as it's you know somewhat civil and not someone cursing out for being obnoxious I think it's very healthy absolutely I totally agree and I think that the overall point that's important is that we are all on the same side and our allies and congress they're not going to do you know things that we always agree with 100% of the time but when there are these disagreements I think it's incredibly constructive to really hash them out and basically even if we can't agree at least understand where the individual is coming from so just before we get into the BDS vote I just want to get my audience caught up this is the vote on July 23rd this is House Resolution 246 where the House voted to condemn BDS in that same day the House passed 1837 which is another APAC endorsed resolution which authorizes an additional 1 billion increase to Israel for five years over the next five years that is for the US War Reserve stockpile it gives Donald Trump the ability to essentially unilaterally transfer over additional weapons to Israel there's no stipulations when it comes to human rights so there's that as well as the BDS vote so my audience knows where I stand on this so I just wanted you to be able to kind of give us your take and why you voted to condemn BDS sure I'll answer the direct question on BDS but first let me just put into broader context where I stand on the Israel Palestine relationship I have a call for an end to any new settlement I've been opposed to demolition of any villages and have written a number of letters calling for Israel to stop the demolition villages and I will be leaving another letter soon about that issue and I have been for lifting the blockade in Gaza to allow for a humanitarian aid and economic activity I also have not supported any effort to penalize or criminalize BDS so there are a number of laws and resolutions I think Rubio had one and floating around in the Senate that would actually make it a crime or make it a penalty to do that what I did vote for is a resolution that's and that I disagreed with BDS as a tactic to get peace in the Middle East and the reason I did that is one I think it was it's overbroad to boycott the entire state of Israel I mean you're not even targeting settlements you're targeting the entire state and I just like I actually I'm not for usually sanctions I've been again sanctioning people in Venezuela why would why would we public punish collectively an entire country I also think it's somewhat selective why do Israel and not the oppression of the Uyghurs in China a million people or being oppressed or Saudi Arabia where there is huge oppression and that Yemen war so I I I think there is absolutely suffering and abuses with the Palestinians but I don't think that calls for the boycott of an entire country and finally I think culturally I mean the way you walk under the House floor the first statute you see over overlooking the entire house is that Moses the lawmaker and I just think that culturally recognizing the relationship with Israel and then moving them into a direction a more progressive direction a direction of human rights and direction of peace is a more effective strategy to get to the the goal of a two-state solution and a Palestinian state. So let me ask you this because I don't I don't agree with what you said but I can I can understand your position and I think that some of your points you know in terms of why single out Israel. I think that that is persuasive to a lot of people but this is what I would like to know if not BDS you know this is a Palestinian lead peaceful movement if not BDS what can we do to put pressure on Israel to end this occupation to actually get peace to get them to recognize Palestinian human rights because it seems like BDS is really the one thing that has gotten the attention of us lawmakers of you know the Netanyahu government. So this seems like it can work. So I mean if you're against BDS what do you think we're able to do as US citizens as allies to the Palestinian people to stop the suffering essentially. Well I'm not sure it has worked. I mean I would argue that Netanyahu was committed more abuses and been more destructive to peace than probably any other of his recent predecessors and now partly I think the Trump administration has enabled that but I don't think you can argue that the situation start with the BDS movement has led to a more peaceful outcome. Maybe one day it will but certainly the facts on the ground don't suggest to me right now that it's achieved the the ends. I think what has achieved ends in the past has been when presidents whether it was Dwight Eisenhower going back to the the crisis with it with a side eye peninsula or Ronald Reagan or George Bush senior or Bill Clinton at all different times they said that whether it was conditional loans or certain forms of United States assistance. They said look we we reserve the right to suspend that we reserve the right to to to block that if you don't comply with the framework that the United States has set forward and we if that's not a novel idea that something American presidents have done going back as I said to Eisenhower and so I would say that you need a president who will articulate a clear vision stop the settlement growth get to the peace table lift the blockade and the demolitions and be willing to to leverage our extraordinary role there to get get that done. Well when it comes to the effective effectiveness of BDS I think that you can argue that it has been effective in some ways and it hasn't been effective in others but I think that what really is important about this is the Palestinian people they modeled this after the apartheid boycott you know in South Africa and even though that wasn't necessarily in and of itself the one thing the one catalyst that ended apartheid it was a crucial tool to ending oppression. So I'm just I just feel like you know when we are emphasizing peace peaceful resistance BDS is essentially the one tool that Palestinians have so if we essentially take that away from them and we tell American allies that they also shouldn't participate in that and there may be you know penalties in the United States then I just don't feel like there's much that we're leaving in terms of actually putting pressure on Israel who is the occupier and there's this imbalance of power so it feels as if you know the situation is already hopeless but when you remove BDS when you have US lawmakers voting to condemn it and in some instances criminalize it in multiple states it just it feels like we're in this never-ending hopeless situation where this will always be the status quo now I don't think that you and I will see eye-to-eye when it comes to the issue of BDS but there is one area where I think that we can kind of put our disagreements to rest and it was something that you said with regard to the criminalization so individually you disagree with BDS however you did state that you are against the criminalization of BDS is that correct the criminalization or civil fines I'm against any statutory penalty for engaging in BDS I have no desire nor do I think it's appropriate for the United States government to interfere with what any citizen wants to do in their protest I just think as a lawmaker whose goal ultimately is to try to see a resolution of peace in that area that I may have a different perspective than a citizen in a different sense of where I think will be most effective for the peace process if people may disagree with me but that's my personal opinion but I certainly don't think I have the right as a or we have a right as a state to penalize people for engaging in protest and I refuse last term I never co-sponsored or supported the BDS bills that APEC was supporting that a number of many other of my colleagues if you go look at who all supported those bills there were a lot of people who supported the the penalty or criminalization of BDS I never did and you know that really it does make a difference right we don't have to necessarily agree but so long as you know you are using your power and platform as a lawmaker to not criminalize it that is important so let me ask you this since you are against the criminalization can we count on your support for House resolution 496 this is sponsored by Ilhan Omar and this quote affirms that all Americans have the right to participate in boycotts in pursuit of civil and human rights at home and abroad as protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution this is something that actually after Tulsi Gabbard and Ayanna Presley had voted with you to condemn BDS they signed on to this bill so can we count on you to do the same I have not co-sponsored that bill for the simple reason that I think it self-evident I mean I don't I don't know why we need to affirm the right that's constitutionally protected I support the principle I support and what you can count on me on is that I will never in my public career vote to criminalize or penalize a boycott against any country including our own but I I think that's a violation of the Constitution and I think a law is redundant I told that to Ilhan when she asked me about it and it is like I agree with you it is self-evident and this really is something that we shouldn't have to do we shouldn't have to affirm that US citizens have the right to protest and engage in political activity that the government may or may not deem as inappropriate but unfortunately that's not the reality currently when we have 25 plus states that actually penalized people who don't sign these anti BDS Israeli loyalty pledges I mean there's a Texas school teacher who was fired and she's now suing because she was forced to either sign a loyalty pledge to Israel or lose her job so I feel like at this day and age when lawmakers are voting to condemn BDS it really is important to affirm that support so I'm hoping that you're not entirely you know your mind is made up here. I'll take another look at the initial reason I haven't and because other people have asked me is I just think it's a it's a constitutional principle and I I guess I don't see what unless we're going to pass something what the value it's almost diminishing the constitutional protection what I would be happy to do is sign on to an amicus brief for someone suing in one of these states and if it's going to the Supreme Court to support someone's right to to boycott I'd be happy to support legislation that said that the states need to remove these restrictions but to affirm a federal constitutional right legislatively I think is actually to to diminish that right it'd be like if someone said let's pass a statute to affirm Roe versus Wade I mean we wouldn't do that because it's a constitutional right I mean that's my that was my perspective on it but but in terms of the commitment it's a it's a hundred percent there and you can hold me to it we're being recorded that in the entire course of my public career I will always stand up for people's right to boycott and and the government shouldn't be ever pedalized but on one hand you know you voted to condemn BDS but now it seems contradictory that you won't vote to affirm our right to engage in BDS so do you kind of see why it seems as if there's this double standard and again I think that the fact that you're willing to say I will not support the criminalization is important that goes you know a long way but to take it step further and say not only do I not condone the criminalization but I affirm the right to protest it just it may be symbolic but I think that it would demonstrate to people that you're really committed to stopping any efforts to curtail freedom of speech I hear that the only way to do that I think I can make the constitutional argument for that and there'll be numerous cases like I've made the case and if you talk to constituents in my own district that I said I would vigorously oppose any efforts in California to criminalize BDS and penalties and I can be active in in doing that in other states I'm not I'm open to when I get back after recess to to looking at the bill when I percent committed to affirming the the right to avoid time for broadly well thank you for being open I really I do appreciate the fact that you're being open and unlike all the other lawmakers when you say that you're open I genuinely believe that you are open so thank you and I just really hope that you do consider that bill one more time that is HR 496 sponsored by Ilhan Omar for viewers who don't know I do want to move on because we have a limited amount of time and I want to get to something that you did that I absolutely applaud and really this is historic so after the House passed your resolution to end us complicity in Saudi Arabia's genocide in Yemen this is what you said quote this is the first time in the history of this nation that a war powers resolution has passed the House and Senate and made it to the president's desk and in an interview with San Jose inside when Nicholas Chan asked why Americans should care about something that seemingly doesn't affect them you know this is happening you know halfway around the world your answer was two words human rights so here's what I want to ask you about that because ultimately everyone knows that that was vetoed by Donald Trump but still the fact that you got that past was a tremendous almost legendary feed so what was it that got Republicans on board I'm asking in terms of argument sake was the human rights argument what resonated with them what tactic did you use because I think going forward I want to use this strategy to get Republicans and even more centrist Democrats on board with other proposals that are I think common sense but apparently not everyone agrees on Donald Trump especially but what was it that got them to budge on that because it seemed like there was no hope it's the most consequential thing I have done in Congress and I of course I worked with Senator Bernie Sanders on it and it would never have happened if up for his leadership in the Senate we passed the war powers resolution the first time in the history of this country in 1973 that a war powers resolution has passed and even though Donald Trump vetoed it he voluntarily suspended the refueling of Saudi planes and Mattis the Secretary of Defense at the time called the Saudis and said you better get to the peace table and if you talk to a special envoy Griffiths he'll tell you that that's in part what led to the peace deal in Hodeidah now there's still a long way to go but I'm convinced that the passing of that war powers resolution had a major impact by stopping or refueling and leading the pressure on the Saudis to come to the table now the UAE has withdrawn from the conflict and it's also said a precedent that in the future Congress may act when it comes to asserting our constitutional rights we're not going to allow a situation like Libya to happen again where a president just goes into war without congressional authorization or you know we can name a lot of these instances and now Congress has a much greater authority on war powers I think there's an emerging consensus that even Republicans have about Congress having the constitutional authority to opine matters of war and peace and that that should not be an executive decision there's also an emerging consensus that we've been intervening too much militarily overseas and that has not made us any safer and I think in the case of Yemen the Khashoggi murder really highlighted for a lot of Washington the human rights abuses of the Saudi regime and so there's a greater skepticism of the relationship with Saudi Arabia but I do think there is an opportunity for a left-right coalition in keeping us out of these endless wars and that really is encouraging to hear and you know I think that the way that you and Bernie sold this to the American people it absolutely made all of the difference because one statistic that you cited on the House floor about the number of deaths that are happening in Yemen every single hour that statistic haunted me and it stood with me so it you know thank you for being a leader on this and really I think that this was a huge thing and to see it to see everyone come together for this it honestly was shocked shocking because I think you know as someone who has followed politics very closely I'm incredibly cynical so I wouldn't have expected any Republicans let alone you know Democrats to get on board but the fact that you were a leader here it just it was it was great so thank you so much but I know that you are running short on time so we've got one more issue that I want to get to now this is about Bernie Sanders actually because you are a national campaign co-chair and just an observation that I've made is that Bernie 2019 version is exponentially better than Bernie 2015 I have less criticisms of Bernie Sanders now than I did back then but there's still one area where I'm wondering how easy it would be or difficult it would be for us to get the needle to move and as a national campaign co-chair I'm wondering if you could be I thought you were going to give me all the credit as national co-chair but Bernie's campaign well look hey the speeches you've made have been fantastic so you absolutely get credit and the campaign is doing a fantastic job and look I everyone who watches my podcast knows I absolutely unequivocally endorse Bernie Sanders and he's exactly what we need and I commend you for being courageous and endorsing him like a man in his days after he announced but here's what I want to ask you so this is in relation to foreign policy and human rights and this is about a quote that Bernie Sanders said in 2015 of August in an interview with ABC's this week and it's rubbed me the wrong way and I haven't let it go so let me read you that quote so he said this about drones I think we have to use drones very very selectively and effectively that has not always been the case what you can argue is that there are times where drone attacks have been effective there are times and places where they have been absolutely counter effective and have caused more problems than they have solved when you kill innocent people what the end result is that people in the region become anti-American who otherwise would not have been so on one hand this is better than Trump this is better than Obama you see his concern for human rights however I don't think that this is very realistic because when you look at the statistics it just doesn't seem like there's any effective way to use drones so in March of 2019 the editorial board of the New York Times cited air wars that claims 7600 to 12,000 civilians have been killed due to our drone strikes since 2014 and that number since this article was published has increased it's now 8 to 12,000 90% of people killed according to a 2015 report by the intercept not enemy combatants they were civilians and pentagon documents obtained by the intercept revealed that there are various technological flaws as well as dubious intelligence that is often used that results in human beings dying and that's just what we can quantify I mean there are psychological issues that we are causing kids in Pakistan who have PTSD who are afraid to leave their homes when it's sunny because they know that drones will be patrolling they're gonna hear the buzzing they'll immediately feel fearful so my question is can we get Bernie to actually move and come out and say unequivocally we will not use drones because unfortunately this isn't something that has been effective what do you think just as a national campaign co-chair is that something he's movable on? I certainly will take some of the data I mean if it's the case that 90% of the drone strikes in Afghanistan have killed civilians and I think Bernie Sanders would say based on his quote from 2015 that it's not working there if there are you may not want to take the option completely off the table if there are areas of counterterrorism where it's been effective it hasn't caused civilian massive civilian loss of life but I think it's a very different approach from any of his predecessors where there wasn't a there wasn't there was too much of a willingness to rely on drone strikes without a sufficient understanding of the civilian loss of life so I will talk to him about it my instinct and again you know I don't want to commit Senator Sanders to any position ultimately makes these decisions my instinct is that he would say that we need to evaluate them region by region case by case and if there is evidence that you're citing that in places where they're being used their massive civilian casualties and they aren't attacking or targeting terrorists then he wouldn't use them and thank you thank you for raising this to Bernie Sanders because I think that he is someone who like you responds really well to constructive criticism and feedback and one other thing that I want to add is just the legal issue this does violate you know the territorial integrity and sovereignty of these countries and Pakistani courts have ruled that these drone strikes in their home turf it's illegal so really the way that I picture this is in the events you know in my state of Oregon I saw Russia doing drone strikes I would absolutely unequivocally be appalled I would be rebelling so it's not even just a matter of counter-terrorism tactics I mean I think that we see that this is making people more radicalized in the region because this they see this as a threat to their lives because this this has affected them very personally again if they don't know anyone who was killed or injured by a drone they have that psychological you know fear of drones embedded in their heads for the rest of their lives so the way that I see this is this is warfare this is wars this is an invasion this is occupation but we're just calling it something different you know under the eyes of fighting terrorism and it's not really effective so I will sort of respectfully disagree with you on on the Oregon analogy and that's in Oregon that we're attacking Russia it would probably be a different case and there are you know terrorists in Afghanistan and part of Pakistan but I think the effectiveness argument is a different it is something that's more to me more concerning I mean if it's the case that we're sending drones and they're killing 90% civilians and only 10% terrorists then I think we're just breeding more hate more anger and people are going to grow up without their parents or their brother or their uncles are going to end up growing up hating the United States so to me it's counterproductive if the statistics that you're citing are true which I don't doubt and I think what we need to look at is very objectively are these the strikes working in our goal which is to get terrorists or are they killing civilians and further radicalizing a population because of that I can tell you this Bernie Sanders is going to approach things with a great concern for human rights and with a great concern for constitutionality he is not a pacifist he believes we need to go after the terrorists and if we're hit that we're going to strike terrorists and he believes that that's a very legitimate use of American military force but he also has a deep understanding that that has to be done really respecting the civilians okay that's good to hear and look let me just say this for the record I am not saying that Bernie would be as bad as Donald Trump because it's gotten worse under Donald Trump drone strikes under him have increased by more than 400% according to some estimates and there's also a lack of transparency that the Obama administration had finally put into place towards the end of his administration so I know that Bernie will be better but my concern is better still isn't good enough so just the mere fact that you're willing to bring this to Bernie's attention for now is absolutely good enough for me and Bernie is he's still one of the best when it comes to foreign policy so just a matter of you know making him even measurably better that's great so look Ro before we go is there anything left that you want to say Bernie Sanders if I can I mean I've been I was just in South Carolina for him I've been in New Hampshire I've been in Iowa I'm headed back to New Hampshire he has got incredible energy on the ground there are hundreds of people showing up in rural towns for him there are thousands of people showing up in cities for him he has tremendous momentum despite what some of the media narrative is and he has more grassroots support across this country than anyone else in the Democratic field to beat Donald Trump it's my honest view we're going to need someone who can draw crowds who can get people energized who can get people out to vote and who can connect people in rural communities and small town communities and working families and communities of color and Bernie Sanders I believe is the best person to do that and I do think if he wins it will herald in a new progressive era in this country the type of which really will reverse finally the Reagan legacy so more than anything else I believe electing Bernie Sanders is probably the biggest thing we can do in the country in terms of a lot of the policies we need I could not agree more and watching your stump speeches for Bernie on the campaign drill they're amazing Ro so thank you so much thank you for your advocacy and thank you for your willingness to always engage in dialogue even if you know we may not always agree we always you know we have a respectful conversation and that's just incredibly commendable especially in this day and age I appreciate it you can tell we may not always agree but I will always be honest with you and where we disagree point that out but you'll always get an answer that's how I feel and where I stand well I appreciate that so much thank you so much for coming on the program we're talking to Ro Cona of California's 17th congressional district have a great day Ro hello everyone I am here with a woman who doesn't even need an introduction anymore everyone knows who she is now she ran against Joe Manchin in West Virginia in the 2018 congressional race and now she's back she's running for the senate again this time against Shelly Moore Capito her name is Paula Jean Swaringen Paula thank you so much for coming back hey Mike and that's Shelly Moore Capito actually Capito I've been pronouncing that wrong forever well everybody mispronounces my name too so it's okay same as well figure 8 is not the easiest thing to pronounce there's too many vowels so you know we just we band together these people who have their names mispronounced and we just we correct the record so thank you for coming here everyone at this point we all know who you are we all love you and the minute you got back into the race like you hinted at this when you were on my show when we talked about the knock down the house documentary but now it's official now you've announced and this time I mean I had a good feeling about you last time of course because you're so real you're genuine but this time it feels really different I believe you're the only Democrat running in the primary currently right so you're kind of the front runner so what's different this time now that you're not running against Manchin you're running against Capito well Capito and Joe Manchin are kind of the same people except one's Democrat and one's Republican I just don't think Shelly Moore Capito has got enough scrutiny she she votes straight Republican she votes against our healthcare she's not a really good advocate for West Virginia and they're really good friends but I really believe that if we're going to elect somebody like Bernie Sanders we need support in the Senate we have some good progressive candidates in the House good incumbents in the House and we have some good progressive candidates for the House but we definitely need more support in the Senate that's why I made this decision but also when I came back home after the last campaign coming back home and still seeing the poverty still seeing the addiction epidemic still having to worry if my children are going to get cancer I think that I already knew I was going to do it even though I knew it was so hard but I found out I'm expecting my first grand baby Wow congratulations my fire was already there but that amplified my fire like 3,000 times because I can't stand the thought of my grandchild being born into West Virginia me having to worry about my grandchild now getting cancer so it did just sealed the deal with some wonderful progressive candidates running across the state there's actually a wonderful progressive candidate for governor I want to give a shout out to him his name is Stephen Smith he's doing something that's unconventional in what we've been doing with Brand New Congress it's not like he's running a slated candidate anybody can sign on to the pledge Democrat, Republican Independent, Libertarian but what he's doing is with this pledge candidates are swearing off corporate and corporate pack dollars they have to face the debate no matter what because we had not only Joe Manchin not facing me last time for a debate we had some other congressional candidates and their incumbents wouldn't face them for a debate and you have to meet with your constituents at least 25 times before the primary so people they have to pledge that they're going to get out for people to know them so I think it's a beautiful thing so we've seen the movement grow with the teacher strike the movement grow after you know my run it's not me tootin' my horn because it's all the candidates with Brand New Congress and just it's Democrats and people running across the country we actually had a couple great progressives get elected in the capital last year but it's amazing to see West Virginia step up and we have so many running for office and most of them are signing that pledge they're not taking corporate and corporate pack dollars I hope other states start doing that it doesn't matter if you agree on politics but at least people can get to know you and if you are going to be a public servant at least you're taking that first step to not take that dark money so that means a lot I totally agree with that yeah and I'm glad you brought up the teacher strike because I feel like you know starting with you we really saw at least for me like I'm on the opposite side you know the country West Virginia just rise you know and now this is really such a huge state there's so much progressive activism coming out and you all are incredibly effective and the interesting thing about this race is I have to think that capitol is horrified right now because in 2016 you've brought this up Bernie Sanders won all 55 counties in West Virginia so in the event he still has a ton of support on the ground so in the event you go up against capitol we're looking at a really great shot like you can pull this off so tell me about the response you've gotten on the ground I know you just launched but there's got to be energy given the history of West Virginia how fired up and mobilized everyone is currently is there a lot more optimism now because it's difficult to be optimistic when nationally speaking you know we're all feeling more cynical but what is the sense that you get from people in West Virginia with regard to your new race here so many people are signing up my campaign managers are actually almost panicking because we've got thousands of volunteers already signed up it is a challenge right now with with money because you know grassroots campaigns you know Shelly Moore capitol before even got started she got over two million in her bank account in her campaign accounts and so you know we've done a soft launch within less than 30 days we're on average we're hitting over twenty thousand dollars and you know we've got a lot of progressive candidates Bernie's running now not taking corporate and corporate pack dollars but we do need support behind Bernie we need support in congress and Senate that's one of the determining factors like I said that I decided to do this because we need support in the Senate you know that's my hardest thing to do is to ask for money but in order to go against Shelly Moore capitol there's going to be two things that we need one is money and one we need to get on Shelly Moore capitol to sign that West Virginia can't wait pledge and make sure she she wants to go woman to woman let's go and she needs to get rid of the dark money and face me you kind of were known before you started running for congress as that one activist who was yelling at Joe Manchin you know in these town halls so that's why I say you know capitol's got to be horrified right now because now you're not just you know one of these dozen or so candidates running for congress now you've ran before I believe Bernie Sanders endorsed you um well I've been I've endorsed Bernie you've endorsed Bernie that's we're talking about me being a surrogate for the campaign me and Cory Bush named me Vela you know we're from knock down the house we is the three of us went ahead and endorsed Bernie but yeah we're always going to be behind him I will you know my years of activism you know I just let me tell a story about Bernie for a minute um you know I went through all these all these years fighting for my kids fighting for my state it felt like our incumbents wasn't listening when I first seen Bernie Sanders he was coming up for a rally in Charleston and he stopped at a food bank in McDowell County one of the poorest counties in the state didn't photo op he just showed up it amazed me that he cared that much and then when he gave his speech he talked about our struggles he talked about stuff our incumbents wasn't even talking about and I felt desperate as an activist and he was holding a town hall in McDowell County and um they were taking you know long story short I was supposed to maybe possibly speak on a panel somebody reached out to me and I didn't get to speak on a panel but I thought I'm not leaving here unless I talk to Bernie Sanders so I walked up to him I introduced myself and I asked him for two minutes of his time I followed him all the way from the back of the room to the front of the room him talking to media signing autographs and little Bernie Sanders just threw his hands up and he said wait a minute I told this woman I talked to her that I was sold I sat down and talked to him cried all over Bernie Sanders felt like I was talking to grandpa telling him what my brothers did yesterday he didn't over promise you know his camp his team has reached out to West Virginia for years he keeps showing up he keeps on showing up in food banks he shows up in the front lines when he comes to West Virginia he doesn't just come to photo op speak at a rally he gets right there in the nuts and bolts in West Virginia I always stand behind Bernie Sanders the biggest reason why is because I know he's genuine and I know he cares never in my lifetime out of all my years in activism was I treated with that much respect from incumbent and he's all the way in Vermont and he cared more than our leaders here in West Virginia and if I'm thinking of the correct moment this was on video as well there was no audio it was just you and Bernie sharing that moment and this was I think my first introduction to you where I just thought this is really touching like there's no audio this is clearly not being done for a photo op there actually was audio but him and I didn't even know we were being recorded somebody recorded it and they put it online and ended up going viral which he deserved that recognition but yeah we thought we were just sitting down with a private conversation and you could tell that you guys weren't aware of that because this was just a really a human moment where you were communicating the issues of West Virginia and he was listening which we don't see we need people to listen there's a lot of politicians that love to hear the sound of their own voice and love to talk but the point and I think what a lot of new politicians are doing is they're listening and that's so important because people need to be listened to especially in a state like West Virginia that has had the same leadership for years and they have been largely forgotten and that's kind of one thing I wanted to talk to you about because Donald Trump he basically he came in in 2016 saying we're gonna bring back coal and whatnot and so there's this idea and I know that you know what's wrong and I know what's wrong that oh well how can a liberal or a progressive or a leftist win back West Virginia when Trump is talking about the coal miners and he's gonna bring back coal but how do you respond to that because I know that that's probably going to come up in terms of like how you specifically address the concerns of coal miners well first of all I think the biggest lie that a politician can tell is the market for coal is going to rebound because it's not it's been declining way back since the 70's we have needed to look at a broader economic structure for decades and our coms have not been doing it because all they've thought about is coal coal and lining their pocketbooks gas is coming in but the thing about it is they're not making them be responsible environmentally they're not giving back to our communities like the coal industry did and we don't have visionaries for economic outlook and the possibilities here are endless if we would legalize cannabis, create a model like Colorado we would see economic growth within six to eight months we could have hemp we could have renewables growing hemp on mountaintop removal sites they're not fit for a rattlesnake but that's one thing that's viable on mountaintop removal sites that's something we can do to fix the damage if we have good roads if we have good schools we have expensive broadband we're going to invite other business here we just need people that are visionaries for our future and growth instead of being visionaries in their demise because let's face it that's what we've been dealing with for a long time everybody thinks we're so divided in West Virginia I think we've already showed we're not we're not going to forget our labor struggles and that carried forward with the teachers movements but we're tired we're tired of corrupt politicians we've not had any choices that's why I stood up and you've seen so many people stand up across the country but especially in West Virginia because this is one of the poorest and sickest states in the nation Medicare for all people don't realize the health care provided in this state is Medicare and Medicaid and small businesses are struggling under the ACA because they can't afford to pay their workers a living wage the economy is so bad and they can't afford high premiums for health care Medicare for all would be the best thing to ever happen in West Virginia not only would we see people would be healthier not only does it it doesn't make moral sense but it makes economic sense if you have happy, healthy people they're more productive parts of society and with the addiction epidemic I learned a lot in my last campaign actually about the addiction epidemic here like it right now and what's happening is drug replacement therapy which is vital for some people but that's the only vision that our leaders have to solve the problem and it's not working we have a lot of people in the front lines of our communities working on peer-led long-term recovery systems we should have a long-term recovery center on every corner of this state not only should we quit shipping the pills in here the amounts that we have go against big pharma but we have to make sure that people have a path to recovery and we don't have that right now and the little that we do have they're not funded they're not supported by medical providers social workers it's there but it's not enough and what our leaders should be doing is like I did the last campaign I know what's going on in the cold fields I wanted to know what was going on in the central part of the state the northern panel the eastern panel how can we be good leaders if we're not sitting down with people that are working in the front lines of our communities that are solving our problems because our leaders aren't and learning how to be voices for the people we don't learn and grow and that's what they're not doing that there's again and I say it over and over they're lining their pockets and they're not solving the problems and we're tired of being collateral damage all these problems the poverty the environment the addiction epidemic they're all systemic issues and they all go back to the same thing and it's corruption and I love how when you talk about the issues in West Virginia you address the issues but you also talk about the solutions as well and I just I don't see that and it's not just West Virginia of course because corruption is a national problem but when you think about for example Joe Manchin he's career minded I read the red at AMA and this is now outdated news but Joe Manchin was considering a run for governor in West Virginia after he just fought so hard to keep that seat and you know to kind of paraphrase your response was this is kind of like a slap in the face after he had ran so difficult you know against me and now he's thinking about being governor and he ended up not choosing to run but it's just a matter of like do you care about fixing these issues currently or do you care about your own career and it's evident that people they make political calculations because of their career and overall they're not looking out for the issues like I don't believe someone like Shelley Moore capital or Joe Manchin would put their necks on the line for West Virginia if that meant that they would lose their career over a particular vote and that's really what differentiates you and candidates like you from all of these other entrenched establishment politicians like you're in this for the people and they are not and that's that's one reason why and I always talk about cynicism but it there really is a need to feel optimistic because you know now 2020 is a different game like there was what 50 well maybe not 50 but there was a lot of candidates running in 2018 which was quadruple the amount in 2016 now in 2020 there's it's impossible for me to keep track of all the candidates running so it's so nice that one all these new candidates are popping up but two the candidates who we've kind of grown to love and followed like you are back and I just I find it so inspiring so I wanted to ask you about the the race and the dynamics of your race because we all saw like I think you and I we both know the story of Amy Volela in Nevada's fourth congressional district where she was essentially the de facto front runner after Ruben Kiwin announced that he wasn't going to be running so she it looked like she was going to be the winner but what happened was the establishment had recruited someone to run against her now I wanted to ask you about this because you're the de facto front runner you know you are running in a wide open primary you're the only one so do you foresee a situation where the establishment if they think this candidate maybe is a little bit too radical for us maybe she is speaking out too much against our donors do you foresee them recruiting someone to run against you or do you think that they are just not even going to look at this because they think that capitol is going to win I'm surprised they haven't already and I've heard rumors that they would and if they do you know we'll just do like we always did we made history in my last campaign we got more votes against the sitting incumbent 75 years and I got more votes than any Republican on the ballot so we show how weak the establishment is with the teacher strike and everything that's going on here in West Virginia other candidates running and not taking corporate pack dollars and corporate dollars I think we're going to win or lose though I had to be transparent it's not only about winning last time not only did we change the conversation nationally but internationally and we put shame on dark money all over the world and so win or lose if we keep on running candidates and we keep on using our voices and we keep on holding them accountable then they're going to have to be accountable we've proven that they're not going to get by with what they've been doing anymore so yeah let them send somebody after me win or lose apology ain't going to shut up and I haven't even after I lost and West Virginia is not going to shut up and people across the country is not going to shut up and even if Bernie loses he's not going to shut up their accountability is here it's now they either jump on board or we're taking over that's just the whole narrative and it's not going to change and that's such a great sentiment to have like we are constantly keeping the pressure on them because we all know like the minute we relieve some of that pressure they're going to go back to their same old tricks because we have institutions that have been corrupted by money and that force like it's so corrosive that we can't afford to kind of look away especially now when we all kind of feel as if you know we have 10 years to act when it comes to climate change there's you know a health care crisis in this country where people are going bankrupt and they're dying because they don't have health insurance or maybe they do but they can't afford their deductible so we don't have a choice and I think that that's really the main thing that everyone who's running for congress is saying I stepped up because I have no choice we don't have a choice just like you said you know it's your children you don't want them to get cancer and now you have a grand child on the way so it's a matter of we have to act because sitting by and remaining complicit as everything just goes down the hill it's it's not an option anymore simply but it's not option it's like my slight mate said Alexandria Cortez she said it in order for one of us to win a hundred of us have to try and it's true it's true we you know she's there we're coming behind her you know 100% and you know one thing that really makes me happy because I think about the numbers and I think okay you know we made significant progress there were you know what six or seven justice democrat slash brand new congress members elected and that's not a lot when you look at just it from a numbers perspective although the impact that they're having you know AOC Ilhan Omar is tremendous so I think if we simply added a few more members to the squad if we got another senator like you who's progressive the difference that that would make is huge you know even if from a quantitative standpoint it's not ideal qualitatively it's gonna be all the difference and what will be nice with you running for the senate is we need more people in the senate if Bernie becomes president that's one senator who's very progressive that's taken out so we're left with who Elizabeth Warren Jeff Merkley and then semi progressive people like Sherrod Brown we need loud people to get in there and say we will be unapologetically progressive and look out for the people so let me ask you this hypothetically speaking let's imagine the best case scenario where Bernie's elected president because I want people to try to imagine you know some something that will make them happy because it's difficult Bernie's elected you're elected you're in the senate he's president what do you think in that first year you'll be able to accomplish you know when working with Bernie Sanders in the White House and AOC in the house what could you imagine would be feasible within that first year I hope our number one goal is to pass Medicare for all I think that should be the first thing that we pass but also our goal is to like we said hold people accountable if I'm there in the senate with Joe mentioned he's not going to get by with the stuff he did because I'm not going to let him by with it I'm going to be very vocal if he's going to represent my state he's going to represent my state if he's there with me he needs to run we're going to stand shoulder to shoulder he's not going to get by with voting for Kavanaugh again he's not going to get by with avoiding Medicare for all I'm going to be in his face and I'm going to be in everybody's face in the senate and I'm going to be an actual voice for West Virginia and I'm just sitting here imagining how to have you serve in the senate with Joe mentioned because that would be so uncomfortable for him and I know that you wouldn't care but for him he has someone who is holding him accountable who's from West Virginia because capital is not going to hold him accountable you know they're one and the same as you said you know the difference is they have dinner and get on ziplines together so they're just good old buddies the good old board you know the dynasty needs to go West Virginia is tired of it absolutely dynasty politics has not been good you know when you elect someone who got there because of nepotism or money or privilege we see the way that that turns out it doesn't work well for normal Americans so to have normal people get in there that that would be a game changer and I'm really like I try to be cautiously optimistic but really there is a reason to be positive when you see so many great candidates running so one thing that I wanted to ask you about and we talked a little bit about this when you Corey Bush and Amy Valela came on about the documentary knockdown the house has that helped you at all like in terms of name recognition in terms of more people knowing who you are in West Virginia I think so yeah I think the film helped but the biggest the biggest win of that film is just like what I said we changed not only the national but the international narrative and not only that but it also created more leaders in this movement and more people stepping up to run for office we showed it even without you know millions of dollars in your campaigns accounts or you know we I think in the past we kind of put our representatives on a pedestal oh well you know I'm not polished I don't come from a lot of money I don't have an extensive college degree you know I don't even think that should be the criteria to be a representative anyway you know who need what is the quote the people in front of the pain need to be in charge of the power I don't think I'm quoting it right but you know what I mean I know what it is what it's like to balance a checkbook I know what it's like to bury my family in coal mining I know what it's like to go out every day and struggle I see the addiction epidemic every day I see the poverty here every day I see the water I see everything I see that you know our economic structure here is broken you know I've worked with you know and a lot of people have across this state have been working in the front line and working on our issues because our incumbents have not been serving us so why should we be serving you know serving our states anyway and being representatives anyway well let's be honest our incumbents are corporate serving and lobbyist serving they're never going to serve us and if we want a country that serves us who better to serve us than us you know my campaign slogan and I come up with it investing in ourselves and that's what we do we're tired of a government that doesn't serve us we know it doesn't work we keep they keep on promise and prosperity we keep on waiting for it and people continue to die and that's a realistic that's real for West Virginians people are dying here at alarming rate I was at a funeral with a friend yesterday during my campaign it was addiction cancer suicide we have a high suicide rate in the state because you know it's all systemic problems I buried 20 my family members and friends during my you know during my campaign that you know people shouldn't be dying at an alarming rate and if our incumbents are going to turn a blind eye to that not only shame on them but it's going to bring more leaders out like me that's going to fight them even harder because it's not fair it's not fair that people should live in impoverished conditions comparable to a third world country people shouldn't be falling like you know dropping like flies because of the addiction epidemic nobody in America should have to beg for something so basic as a clean glass of water you know and people are begging for jobs here begging for jobs it's a shame you know our our biggest employer in West Virginia is Walmart we can't even sustain Walmart in Boone County what does that say about our state and with the gas industry you know it they have to be responsible players if they're going to be here we're not going to let repeated patterns like the coal industry they're not going to come in our communities destroy our water destroy our land destroy our health and not give anything back you know they need to be environmentally sound they need to take care of our communities give back to our communities and put the jobs in our communities if they're going to force themselves to be here because most of the time they travel with mobile workers with the pipelines and we don't even see the jobs within our communities and our leaders let them buy with it and like I said they're putting all their eggs back in one basket they're not visionaries for growth in their future and we're tired of it we're tired of them putting all their eggs in their pocketbooks and their you know their big rich baskets and everybody here suffers you know I come from generation after generation generation after coal miners I live in a single wide trailer and I mean I'm proud of it I'm not ashamed but what do I have to show for it except for going to you know going to funerals it's a shame that people here go to more funerals than they do family reunions and that's a reality for western genius yeah and that's so sad and one thing that you mentioned it was so poignant like I think that everyone is so sick of this elitist politics like it's believed that in you know before you can run for the senate you have to be a mayor you have to be educated at an Ivy League school and we're to this point where people are realizing no we need normal working class people who are in the community like you are in your community so the fact that somebody or we previously thought you know that doesn't make you qualify because you didn't follow these rules it's it's absolutely it's a new game now like it's funny how I see you know every once in a while republicans will dog on AOC because she was a bartender and that's supposed to be a bad thing no normal people like that that is a normal thing because you know these policies they don't affect the Ivy League people they're going to be fine these rich elites will be fine it's the normal people at the very bottom who are affected so it only makes sense that they get in and run and I'm just so glad that people are you know in general waking up and seeing that and we're kind of moving away from this elitist mentality in the country and I think it's because you know the number of elites is decreasing because the country is in such bad shape so I think that everyone who is watching this they already know and love you but I just really want to make the pitch for you the website is polygene.com it's currently under construction but there is a donation link and please even if you can't spare much a dollar anything that you can help is absolutely crucial because polygene is going up against a political machine and unfortunately it can't be done without money it doesn't need to be the same amount of money but certainly she's got to have money for staff to get the word out you know the canvas to create campaign materials and what not so please donate and Paula before we go do you want to just make one last pitch because you've already won over like basically 100% of my audience so anything that you can add and want to say well one thing I want to say if people are thinking about running for office and they're always worried about oh my gosh what if this comes out oh you know if that comes out on me you know everybody's worried oh I have a past everybody has a past wear your scars like a badge think about your goals and think about being a true representatives all of our representatives have a past they just have a lot of money to cover up their past you know the media doesn't cover their past don't worry about scrutiny keep your eyes on the prize and wear your scars like a badge and don't worry about all that stuff if you feel like you can represent your community or your state step up and do it because there's a lot of people now we learned a lot of let you know we made a lot of mistakes last time but we learned a lot of lessons we gained a lot of education being grassroots candidates anybody can reach out to brand new congress they can reach out to myself there's there's leaders all over the country that's willing to help somebody that wants to step up and run for office and thank you for saying that and thank you for running that once but twice because the amount of like just personal sacrifice you know and dedication that goes into you doing this again it's tremendous and I don't want to take that for granted and I don't want others to take that for granted so thank you so much because you're fighting for West Virginia but this is something that affects all of us so thank you so much Paula Jean 2020 we're all rooting for you and of course you know we'll be glad to have you back anytime thank you thank you we love you too well that's all that I've got for you guys today thank you so much for tuning in if you've made it this far as usual I want to thank you all for watching the program I just want to send a shout out to all of our iTunes and SoundCloud listeners thank you all so much I'm looking forward to the week off but hopefully too much doesn't happen while I'm away but I will see you all next week or no I will see you all the week after because I'm taking a vacation and as you can tell I kind of need one so I'll see you all in two weeks I'm Mike Figueredo this is the Humanist Report take care everyone