 So, I mean, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but times are tough. And if you haven't personally been affected by COVID-19, either directly or indirectly, this is still really hard for you, right? Because if you haven't lost your job, if you don't know anyone who got COVID-19 or got it yourself, then you still are probably going at least a little bit stir crazy, you know, having to stay in your house, times are not normal, you can't really go to a restaurant, you can't do things that make us feel normal, right? And this is on top of the already horrible political situation that we all find ourselves in at the moment, right? Where we're forced to choose between Donald Trump and incoherent babbling buffoon, who is, I think, legit psychopathic, or Joe Biden, who is another incoherent babbling buffoon who I think is probably sociopathic and largely doesn't care about the needs of Americans. So I mean, all around people are down, like I feel it myself, you know, maybe I'm projecting, but I feel it myself. But I did a little bit of a poll on Twitter. This is unscientific, of course. And I just asked my follower simply, how are you doing? And 16.5% said that they're actually doing well, 47.1% indicated that things aren't necessarily going great, but it could be worse. And 32.1% said they're not doing good. And so, I mean, I don't have anything to compare this to, but there's a lot of people that are suffering right now. They're hurting. If you read the replies to that thread, you know, people talk about losing their jobs, being economically unstable. And it's just, you know, we know that COVID-19 at some point will be over. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the economic situation that we will be in will, you know, get better. My generation, millennials, were barely recovering after the 2008 great recession, right? And the subprime mortgage crisis, like we barely made it out of that. We graduated into that. And now we get slapped in the face again. We finally try to get back up, and we get slapped right back down. So it just, it doesn't seem like things are going to get better. And we're searching for that light at the end of the tunnel. And, you know, having said that, I want to share an interview that Bernie Sanders did with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, because he kind of puts things into perspective. And he explains why things are going so bad or why we're all feeling so down. It's because we really are at one of the lowest points in American history. Take a look. Senator, let me first start by asking you your assessment of the reality we are in at this moment. How do you see things right now? Chris, it is important for us to take a very deep breath and to understand that we are in the worst moment, the worst moment in American history, maybe since the Civil War. You mentioned the official figure of 77,000 people dying of the virus. Their epidemiologists who estimate that that is significantly lower than reality, probably over 100,000. The number of 33,000, 33 million people who have lost their jobs in the last seven weeks probably understates that reality as well, even more people have lost their jobs. So we are in a terrible, terrible moment. You know, I have a large email following and we sent out an email to people and said, tell us what's happening in your lives in the midst of this pandemic. And Chris, what we received from people by the thousands was literally so painful, I couldn't read it. I mean, the stories are, I lost my mother, I lost my job, I have no money, I can't feed my kids. I don't know what to do, you know, mental illness taking place, enormous anxiety. People are hurting in a way we have never, ever seen in our lifetimes. And to top it all, top it all, we have somebody so irresponsible, so not understanding the current reality as president of the United States that it is just incredibly painful. We are in the worst moment in American history, maybe since the Civil War, I'd have to agree. Because I mean, it's really like, I don't know how to process the fact that we're basically having a 9-11 every single day, where 2,000 to 3,000 Americans are dying, like we're almost at 80,000 deaths in America. And as he stated, probably more than 100,000, because that is probably a conservative estimate. That's so hard to process. Even I think down the line, a decade later, it's going to be difficult to really understand just how large the loss was during this time, not just in terms of life, but economically for people. So many individuals are losing everything because of COVID-19. And it's not like we were in a great situation before this pandemic, but this just made it a lot worse. So I guess the point of this is for me to say, you know, I can't tell you that things are going to get better with regard to, you know, economics, because we have a government that isn't really acting. But what I can tell you is that if you're suffering from this economically, materially, or even psychologically, at least maybe there's some level of comfort that you can extract from this, just knowing that we're all kind of dealing with this together. And hopefully this will lead to good. We don't necessarily know it could lead to bad. But hopefully this will lead to good. And you know, I think that it's important to know that this can lead to good. The future hasn't been written yet. We can try to force something good out of this and not just have things get a lot worse as they did after 9-11 where we lost civil rights and civil liberties. We can try to turn this into a positive thing where we all collectively acknowledge the importance of healthcare as a human right, where we acknowledge that Americans are just one crisis away from economic ruin. And maybe we should have a little bit more safety measures in place. So you have that economic cushion where you can lose your job and not worry about losing everything immediately. Now Congress has failed. Like there's no way to sugarcoat it. They failed. They failed. They gave you crumbs. One time $1,200 payment is not enough. But there are some people, a handful, who are fighting for us. Bernie Sanders just proposed, I think, a pretty solid piece of legislation with Kamala Harris and Ed Markey. It's not perfect, but if this were to be implemented, I think this would help a lot. So as Bergus Everett of Politico explains, a trio of Democratic senators are pitching a big idea. Pay most American families thousands of dollars each month until the coronavirus's economic crisis subsides. On Friday, Senators Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Ed Markey will release their monthly Economic Crisis Support Act. It would dramatically expand upon the $1,200 sent to Americans as part of March's gargantuan coronavirus response bill. The legislation would send a monthly $2,000 check to people who make less than $120,000 per year. It would expand to 4,000 to married couples who file taxes jointly and also provide $2,000 for each child up to three. Harris said the bill is a reflection that Congress's efforts so far were not nearly enough to meet the needs of this historic crisis. And Markey called the massive cash infusion the most direct and efficient mechanism for delivering economic relief to the most vulnerable. Congress has a responsibility to make sure that every working-class household in America receives a $2,000 emergency payment a month for each family member Sanders said. The payments would be retroactive to March and last until three months after the Health and Human Services Department has declared the public health emergency over. That's important. The legislation would also bar debt collectors from taking the payments and would deliver them regardless of whether people have a social security number or file taxes last year. So the fact that it's retroactive until March, the fact that it goes to people with or without a social security number, the fact that it lasts three months after this is declared a public health emergency, that is really key to actually making this successful. Now it is by no means perfect. I think that when you means test programs, you just generally make it harder for working-class people to get, right? Because you usually have to fill out some form. You have to show proof that you're at a certain income level. This usually pits working-class Americans against middle-class Americans. But nonetheless, we need economic relief immediately. And this would be great. Now I do have a criticism. I think that Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Ed Markey credit to them for proposing this. They kind of misplayed their hand here because they gave away their leverage. I mean, Republicans and corporate Democrats all got what they wanted with that multi-trillion dollar bailout for special interests. So now that they got what they wanted, they don't really have, you don't have any leverage over them because they already got what they wanted and you haven't gotten what you need and want, right? So if I were Bernie Sanders, I absolutely would not have voted for that last stimulus bill. I would have said, no, you're not going to get my vote unless we actually provide substantial protections for workers and Americans who lost their jobs, substantial. We're not talking about a one-time $1,200 check. We're talking about a temporary UBI throughout the duration of this pandemic. And I think the fact that he already voted for the bailout but didn't get adequate relief for working Americans, it's just going to improve the odds that something like this won't be successful. And look, that's not to say that there aren't other lawmakers who are pushing for legislation that's good that would help provide some relief to Americans. But the problem is that the left and even corporate Democrats like Kamala Harris and Ed Markey who are good on some issues, Ed Markey is great on that neutrality, but they don't know how to play politics is the problem. So we need this. And I want them to be successful in getting this legislation codified into law, but they've already kind of used the leverage that they had and they've squandered it. So I don't know how you get this signed into law by a president, Donald Trump, who is literally during a pandemic floating tax cuts for the rich, floating more cuts to the payroll tax and capital gains tax. That's what he's proposing currently. How do you get him on board when you don't know how to play politics effectively? So it's like on one hand, I want to give Bernie Sanders credit for this and Kamala Harris credit for this to be fair. But on the other hand, I can't help but feel frustrated because I mean, you played your hand too soon in voting for the bailout because now they don't really have an incentive to act. Like corporate Democrats and Republicans, they want to deliver for their donors and they already did that. So you can't hold that above their heads because they got what they want. You haven't gotten what you wanted. And when you see Democrats like Nancy Pelosi literally proposing a bailout for lobbyists, I mean, I just can't help but think this is not gonna get passed. And people are just gonna be forced to weather the storm. But regardless, the fact that they're proposing this in and of itself I think is important because it gets the ball rolling. And if I were them, I would fight to make this just clean. You don't have to include this in any sort of relief package. Pass this as a standalone bill so that way you can shame the people who don't vote for this, like Republicans. But I don't know. I don't know what to say. It's good to hear from leaders like Bernie Sanders at this time, because it does help when he puts things into perspective. And he says how bad the situation is within a historical context. But at the same time, I think that everyone is kind of flailing currently. Not just us normal people, but lawmakers are flailing. They don't know what to do, and most of them don't care. So the ones who do care and want to enact legislation like this, they don't know how to get that done because they don't necessarily know how to play hardball and use the leverage that they definitely have. So I don't know. I think that it's important that we talk about these types of proposals, because I do believe this would genuinely help, even if it's not perfect. But getting it codified into law is difficult. Because how do you get this done? Bernie's normal leverage is rallying the base to take action, right? But what do you do? You can't necessarily get people to rally around the Capitol, if we have to social distance. So we're at this moment in time that's so unique, where lawmakers kind of have to bear the burden for all of us. You have to fight. You've got to play hardball. And I don't think they really know how to do that, because this is a very unique time. And I don't know. I don't know what else to say about this. It's like with every single piece of good news that we get, even if it's good news, and I'll take it, there's always a caveat. That, well, yeah, this is great. This is a phenomenal proposal, but it'll probably never be codified into law. And it's just, it's frustrating. I want to be able to deliver you some news that's good, and there's no caveats. No footnotes. It's just, here's some good news. But I don't have that for you. Situation sucks. It's grim. And I don't have all the right answers. Or I do. I know the policy solution that we need to implement. But even if you have the right answers, there's the question of politically, what strategy do we implement if we have people in Congress who aren't willing to play hardball, even those on our side who voted for the bailout? So I just don't know what to say. This is a great proposal. But getting back to the beginning of this clip with everyone feeling demoralized, this going through this video, talking through the scenarios that could play out after this type of legislation was proposed, is exactly why people feel so demoralized. Why, what was it, 30% of my Twitter followers said don't even ask when I ask them how they're doing. Because things just aren't getting better.