 So the confirmation hearings for Nira Tandon have begun and I tried to go online and wish my good friend Nira Good luck, but unfortunately she still has me blocked. Yeah, I thought that we were past this Nira I thought that we were cool, but apparently She's not ready to squash the beef. This is why I don't like you. It's not because you wanted to steal Libya's oil It's not because you wanted to cut Social Security It's not because you literally physically assaulted a journalist who is technically an employee of yours It's not because you added a victim of sexual harassment on your staff. It's because you blocked me on Twitter I'm kidding obviously But I mean there's a plethora of reasons why everyone not just leftists, but centrists should be against Nira Tandon She is not a progressive even though she ran an organization Badly titled the Center for American Progress. She's a neoliberal. She is a warmonger She is someone who Republicans can point to as an example of the swamp They can say look Joe Biden appointed this individual Who's a bad person who took lots of money from special interests? And this is what we've been talking about like you're giving Republicans immune ammunition to demonize you even if they're guilty of the same thing, but you let them Pretend to be the hero when they are standing up to people like Nira Tandon and you shouldn't do that You shouldn't give them ammunition, but that's exactly what happened. So Democrats just love Nira Tandon. So no Democrat is actually going to challenge her But Republicans are thankfully challenging her now are the Republicans who fight against this nomination hypocrites. Yes Are their politics actually comparable to Nira Tandon's making their opposition to her seemingly nonsensical? Yes, but am I low-key hoping that they'll actually stop her from getting confirmed? Yes Because even if Republicans are bad-faith actors still if the end result amounts to something That's good that is being someone better to direct the OMB then I think that's that's something that uh We should hope for Except the person who shows to stand up to Nira Tandon and ask her the correct questions is Like the worst person imaginable who's very obviously just trying to rehabilitate his own career I'm talking about Josh Holly who questioned her on her corruption And it's ironic that he of all people is choosing to take this stand considering he took Hundreds of thousands of dollars literally from packs So I mean I just find it funny that he's going to be the one that feigns outrage at corruption in DC I mean this is the same guy who literally incited a violent insurrection a month ago who should resign in shame But nonetheless two things can be true at once, you know Simultaneously we can believe that Nira Tandon is not qualified for this position And she should not get this job and also that Josh Holly is an opportunist who's just using this to bolster his own Populist cred now will kind of go over why what he says here and his framing is incredibly disingenuous But nonetheless Nira Tandon needs to be asked the question that Josh Holly asked her and since Democrats won't actually hold Her or anyone in the Biden administration accountable, you know, we need to hear her response to this So we'll watch his question to her and then when we come back I will proceed to shit on both of them for being terrible people This question relates to your broad view. I think of The economy and society. Let me just ask you do you think that Wall Street and big tech companies Have too much influence in our economy and society today Yes, I Also, I'm glad to say that I agree with you and I've talked for years now about these Concentrations of power how they stifle competition hurt small business and ultimately hurt working people I want to ask you about report from the New York Times and other outlets suggesting that you solicited tens of millions of dollars in Donations from Wall Street and Silicon Valley companies as president of the Center for American Progress including Very large contributions from Mark Zuckerberg. I understand that in early 2019 Senator Sanders actually wrote to your organization Suggesting that these corporate interests may be inappropriately influencing your work Can you just give us a sense of how you will if you're confirmed as OMB director how you will advocate for working people Given this history of soliciting tens of millions of dollars from the biggest and most powerful corporations on the planet Senator the role of OMB is to serve the public and I am a hundred percent committed to that role and let me say that Just to be clear. I believe that the Center for American Progress took funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation That's Mark Zuckerberg directly, but I completely take the point about Concerns about funding and I can commit to you that I will always uphold the highest ethical standard I will work with career folks at OMB to make sure I do so But I will also say that no policy or position I have taken has been determined by the financial interests of any single person $665,000 I think from the personal foundation of mr. Zuckerberg Millions of dollars from Wall Street financiers big banks foreign government Silicon Valley a million dollars from the managing partner at Bain Capital Two and a half million dollars from the UAE that was between 2016 and 2018 Given this record How can you ensure us? That you'll work to see that the Silicon Valley and Wall Street firms don't exercise undo influence Frankly influence that they've already got in the making of government policy and the control of our economy I mean what how can you assure us that you're going to be an independent actor when you've been so close to them to have raised So much money over all these years. I really appreciate that question and I would say I and the Center for American Progress aggressively to take some of the positions take on the Role of Facebook and tech companies have called for higher taxes and companies regulations of Wall Street Financial transaction tax and proud of the record of the Center for American Progress and Policies that will limit the power of Wall Street limit the power of tech companies I would welcome the opportunity to talk with you and work with you on those ideas because I do agree with you that that Corporate special interests have too much power in our discourse and so whether it's a financial transaction tax or other proposals Obviously, I take on my role as own be director would be one in which I follow the Follow the tax policy of the president, but it is my orientation that we need to rebalance power in our economy And I hope there are ways you and I could work together in those arenas it's really frustrating to watch that because Joe Biden gave someone like Josh Hawley an opportunity to go in front of cameras and Pretend to be a hero when in actuality this dude is a fucking fraud He's talking about near attendance corruption Meanwhile, he's taken what over a million dollars worth of PAC contributions himself I don't think that he actually is concerned About money in politics if he was he wouldn't be a capitalist if he was actually a populist who cared about the working class He wouldn't be a conservative. He asked her how will you if you're confirmed as OMB director How will you advocate for working people given this history of soliciting tens of millions of dollars from the biggest and most powerful Corporations on the planet. I mean we should be asking you the same question as well He also said concentrations of power hurt working people. Yeah, that's capitalism numb nuts Are you gonna become a socialist? No because you're a fraud There's no such thing as a right-wing populist because to be right-wing. That's inherently against Popular policies that Americans want because by and large even if Americans self-identify as conservatives Regardless of the label that they apply to themselves They agree with progressive policies, so you're not a populist Having said that though near attendance answer to a very good question posed by a very bad person Was horseshit like she couldn't really answer the question She had no persuasive way of Explaining to us that it's really going to be working people that she's looking out for I Mean do you see why it's really bad that Democrats continue to prop up corrupt individuals like Janet Yellen near attendance Anthony Blinken when you do this you give Republicans an Argument against you that's also going to persuade normal people who get duped by these pseudo populists on the right Now Ted Cruz and Josh Holly get to parade around as if they're you know, the champions of working people and Condemned near attendance and call out her corruption meanwhile behind the scenes. They're as corrupt as Near-attending and arguably more nefarious than her more hawkish than her in actuality But the point in showing you this clip is not to rehabilitate Josh Holly's image or character We should not let him get away with the destruction that he caused on January 6th We should not let him pretend to care about corruption while he is swimming in money from special interests as a Self-identified capitalist, but at the same time we have to acknowledge that near-attending is an objectively hawkish pro-corporate individual and the question is why Continue to reward people who make the Democratic Party look bad Why if you actually care about defeating Republicans? It's a question that I want to see someone ask Joe Biden But nobody is going to question near-attending and her motives because you know she is a Democrat Even a lot of progressive Democrats will like vociferously defend near-attending when this individual is Part of the reason why you know politics in America is so corrupted You know, this is the leader of an organization that acted as one of many vehicles To launder the influence of special interests and elites in America So, you know, they shouldn't be rewarded after doing things that are contrary to what the American people want Like this is an individual who advocated for cuts to Social Security and Joe Biden claimed that you know People on the left were wrong to criticize him for previously stating that he wanted to cut Social Security But now he appoints someone who was very openly just a couple of years ago talking about the need to cut Social Security and other entitlements It's just it's a joke. It is an absolute joke How about this? No more near-attendants. No more Josh Hollies. Let's actually put people in positions of power Who care? We don't just say the right things when it's convenient when there are cameras on them when the spotlight's on them But actually do the right things. Can we just agree on that? No What's that? She's probably gonna get confirmed Yeah, yeah, not surprising not surprising at all, but um, nonetheless Still very disappointing You