 So let's talk about Michael Bennett. He is another one of the self-proclaimed moderate Democrats running for president in 2020 because we definitely need like 15 of them, but nonetheless, he's a moderate Democrat and like the rest of the moderate Democrats in this field, he's polling at zero percent with the exception of Joe Biden, of course. But if you twinned into his town hall on CNN, it's going to become clear to you why he's polling at zero percent, why he's failing to pick up any steam whatsoever. It's because he's dull, he isn't offering an insightful point of view. He's not really offering anything inspiring to Americans. And more importantly, a reason why he's failing is because it's clear that he's trying to actively deceive Americans, not even kidding. So at this town hall, he was trying to gaslight people when it comes to the issue of health care. So this is an individual who is a cancer survivor. So he knows personally how important health care is. So he talks about how, you know, he had this journey battling cancer and he got surgery like five months ago. So this is very recent. And he is really thankful that he had the insurance needed to cover the cost of his surgery and do the medical screening screenings that actually led to him finding this cancer. So he talks about how this is a serious issue and he starts out really strong. Although towards the end of this clip, he is going to nosedive because after you diagnose the problem, then that's one thing, right? But you also need to propose a solution to the problem. But he's then going to go on to attack Medicare for all and call out Bernie Sanders by name and attack Bernie and say that he is wrong. So starts out great and it just goes off a cliff. Senator, you were diagnosed with prostate cancer right before you announced your candidacy. How are you feeling? I'm feeling great. Thanks for asking. You know, it's hard to believe it was about five weeks ago that I was on an operating table and maybe two months ago that I was diagnosed and I feel really good. But I got to say, I feel awfully lucky that I had health insurance. This cost $93,000. And if my family hadn't been insured, you know, it would have been a disaster for us. And it would have been a real disaster for most American families. And I think about not only that, but what it would be, what it would mean if you were an American citizen and you didn't have a primary care doctor who could give you a screening that would let you know you had cancer. I had no symptoms. And if I hadn't had that screening, I'd be sitting here tonight and I'd be sick and I'd be, you know, at some point dying of cancer. And that's what's happening to millions of Americans. And it doesn't happen in any other industrialized country of the world. It only happens here. And that's why we need universal health care in this country. Ask you about that because you support a public option for health care. And you call your plan Medicare X. A number of your opponents, as you well know, support Bernie Sanders Medicare for all plan, which essentially eliminates private insurance. Why are they wrong? I think I might have to get up for this one. Go for it. Here. I think you asked the question. Well, Dana, I think they are wrong. I think what we would be much better off doing in order to get to universal health care quickly is to finish the job. We started with the Affordable Care Act and have a true public option. In my case, in the one that I have designed, it would be administered by Medicare and it would give all of you the chance to choose what's right for you or your family. If you want a public option, then you can have it. It basically it's Medicare for all if you want it. But if you want to keep the insurance you have, which many people do, you'd be able to do that as well. I don't know if you guys remember when we were passing the Affordable Care Act, the whole thing about if you like your insurance, you can keep it. Do you remember that? And a few people lost their insurance and all hell broke loose. And now Bernie is proposing that if you like your insurance, we're going to take it away from you from 180 million people who get it from their employer, 80 percent of whom say they like it. Every single labor union in America that's negotiated benefits package for their workers, for their members would have to give it up under Medicare for all. I just don't think they're going to give it up. And that's why I think Bernie is wrong to propose it. I think what we should do is give the. And we get if we give them a choice, it's going to be very hard to argue with the case that we're making. And I think that's essential because people in my state and people in Georgia and people all over this country don't need insurance 10 years from now or 20 years from now. They need insurance now. And we haven't been able to give it to them for the last 10 years. We can't afford to do this for another 10 years in my view. So that was something. I mean, this is one of those videos that are very difficult for me to supplement with commentary, because he threw out so much things that are wrong that I'm not even sure where to begin. So first of all, we'll kind of go through some of the specifics here. But let me just say there's a very specific reason why he's saying the things that he said, but we'll get to that later. So he says that I think people who support Medicare for all are wrong. OK, he's saying this about his 2020 Democratic Party primary opponents. What we'd be able to do in order to get to universal health care more quickly is to finish the job we started with the Affordable Care Act and have a true public option. So what he's saying here is that there are numerous types of health care crises currently, right? I mean, we all know there's 25 million people who are underinsured. There are 30 to 45,000 people dying every single year. There's medical bankruptcies. 65 percent of all bankruptcies are due to medical bills. So he gets that there's a crisis, but he is essentially purporting that if we really want to solve this crisis the quickest way, then the quickest way we get to universal health care is through a public option, except that's not actually true and that doesn't even make sense. The quickest way to get there is with Medicare for all. It's easy and it's quick. You pass it and then four years later, once it's rolled out, we have Medicare for all. Now, certainly Bernie Sanders needs to adjust his plan to match Pramila Jayapal's plan in the House of Representatives, which has a two year rollout. But with that being said, it's easy and it's quick. So why would a public option be the quickest way to get to universal care? If you want true universal care where health care is free at the point of service, the quickest way to do that is to pass the bill that would deliver that policy. So what he's saying doesn't even actually make sense, because the quickest way to achieve something is to just do that directly. Now, he also says that his plan would give people the choice to choose what's right for their family. I don't know if you remember when we were passing the Affordable Care Act, the whole thing about if you like your insurance, you can keep it. Do you remember that? And a few people lost their insurance and all hell broke loose. Well, that's your fault, not ours. And you should have known that if you were designing a right wing health care plan, he was there in 2009. If you were designing a right wing health care plan where people will be mandated to purchase insurance on the private market that the government is subsidizing, you have to understand that if you're going to impose these new regulations, there were a lot of garbage health care plans that didn't actually cover people. They were underinsured and they didn't know it. So they were angry when they lost that, not knowing that actually what they got in return was better health care. That's a failure on your part, Michael Bennett, because Democrats didn't actually communicate this. They allowed Republicans to monopolize discourse here and they didn't fight for what they believed in and they ran away from the Affordable Care Act. And on top of that, he says, you know, now Bernie Sanders is proposing if you like your insurance, we're going to take it away from you from the 180 million people who get it from their employers. So here we're seeing this talking point again. It's almost like there were some news pundits and Democratic Party presidential candidates who all met to say, this is how we're going to frame Medicare for all. It's us taking something away from you. We're more specifically, it's Bernie taking something away from you, but nothing is being taken away from people. And he knows this, but he's gaslighting you. He wants you to think that you're losing something with Medicare for all. But in fact, you're gaining something. You're gaining comprehensive healthcare. That is free at the point of service. The only loss here is on part of the insurance companies because if they get out of the healthcare business, if Medicare for all makes them go extinct, that's a loss for them. It's not a loss for us. It's a huge win for us because they're ripping us off. We have to pay a monthly health insurance premium. And then if we want to see a doctor, well, we've got to pay copays or if we need a particular procedure, we have to pay a deductible. I mean, it's such a ripoff. So you're telling Americans, hey, all of this hassle that you deal with every single year with enrolling in health care. Don't believe your lying eyes. It's actually really great. And I know that you love it. And yes, he cites polls that say people like their insurance, but people like their doctor, that's what they care about. They want to keep their primary care physician if they even have that. But nobody cares about the insurance companies. Nobody's going to cry if Etna files for bankruptcy. Nobody cares. And he knows this. This is a United States senator who is smart enough to know that, but he is actively lying to you and he's trying to scare you into believing that the plan that would expand health care is really something that you're losing. Like that doesn't make sense. He also says that people don't need insurance 10 years from now. They need it now. OK, so pass Medicare for all and then they'll have that. If health emergencies can't wait for us to have some theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass. If people need health care now, which we both agree with that, then wouldn't it make sense to give everyone health care now? Because think about this, even if you have a public option, that would be a step in the right direction. But the problem with the public option is that it doesn't make health care free at the point of service. So people who need it, if they're homeless, if they're broke and they can't afford even a public option, what happens? They don't get it. So the quickest way is not to do a public option. Objectively speaking, the quickest way to get to universal coverage is with Medicare for all universal in the sense that it's free at the point of service, which is the true sense of universal care. And another problem with the public option, even if it's better than the status quo, is that when you live in a capitalist system and these health insurance companies see that they now have to compete with the government run plan, what's going to happen? They're going to bribe lawmakers to water that plan down to punch holes in the public option plan so they can end up doing some type of public option plus plan that they offer. And we know that in the event, something like this would happen. You know, if there's any gaps in the public option that's offered by the government, well, these health insurance companies would lobby them to not close those gaps. So that way you'd essentially be required to get supplemental care. And when you're doing something like if you're rolling out a public option, there's bound to be some hiccups, right? There's going to be some gaps. There's going to be some unforeseen things that will need addressing. But when you leave the for-profit health insurance companies in place, well, they're going to attack that system. So 10 years down the line, we get a public option. You're going to almost certainly need a public option plus supplemental care. Like Medicare is one of the most popular or maybe it's the most, I think, popular public program in America. But people still, many of them on Medicare, buy supplemental care. Now, they talk about that like John Delaney talks about that as if it's a benefit, like, oh, people like this supplemental care. Well, no, wouldn't it make more sense to close the gaps so they don't have to pay for supplemental care? See, this is what happens when you try to do this tap dance and you try to craft a policy deliberately because you want to make sure that you save the health insurance companies. And furthermore, people get their insurance through their employers. And he basically talked about this as if it was a good thing. But that creates instability. You said it yourself, Michael. People can't wait 10 years for help here. They need it now. So what happens if the insurance that's tied to your job? What if you lose that if you become unemployed? What if your job gets shipped overseas and you lose that? What if you are a full time worker, but you get pushed to a part time? You get relegated to a part time job and you lose that benefit. What then? So everything that he claims he wants, he's proposing a policy that doesn't actually deliver that in a way that is as effective as Medicare for all. And the things that he claims he wants while he's railing against the one policy that would solve the problems he claims to care about. But the thing about Michael Bennett is that I don't believe a single thing that he says because he is a liar and he's a shill. Now, let's go back to the beginning of the clip. Remember when he said this about if he didn't have insurance? This costs $93,000 and if my family hadn't been insured, you know, it would have been a disaster for us. So that makes sense. You know, a $93,000 surgery would be a disaster if you don't have health insurance. You might just have to forego it altogether. So he said that would be a disaster if I didn't have insurance. Would it, though? Because Michael Bennett's net worth is over $16 million. He's the 16th richest senator in the country. So even if he didn't have insurance, he would have been fine. So he doesn't have this insecurity that other Americans have. So what he's really communicating to you here is that if you can't afford insurance and you're in a similar position that I was in, too bad. I know that I never have to worry about being vulnerable if I need a particular medical procedure because I am a multimillionaire. But you, well, if you can't afford even a public option, too bad. I don't believe health care should be free of the point of service. And I'm going to attack people like Bernie Sanders and other presidential candidates who are advocating for that. That's essentially what he is communicating to you. Now, why is he doing this? Why is he being so hostile towards Medicare for all? If he knows firsthand the importance of being able to get health care, it's because he's a shill and I'm not using that word as an ad hominem. I'm using it in the literal sense. He sold out. When you look at his 2018 campaign contributors, he took thousands of dollars of PAC money from Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase. And these are all big banks that invest heavily in the health care industry. In fact, one of his donors, Goldman Sachs, actually asked whether or not curing patients is a sustainable business model. And it's not like he's only indirectly taking money from companies that are tied to the health insurance industry because he's taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in PAC money from health professionals, the pharmaceutical industry, insurance companies, hospitals. So he's quite literally a sellout. And yet on national television, he's trying to convince you that Bernie giving everyone health care is you losing something. It's you getting something taken away from you. That's what he is trying to convince you of. He's gaslighting you. He's lying to you. One of his donors literally questioned if curing patients is a sustainable business model and he took their money. I mean, you would think that as someone with personal experience when it comes to the necessity of health care, he'd have a little bit more empathy for humans. But no, he's attacking Bernie Sanders and the one policy that would once and for all put an end to medical bankruptcies and put an end to people dying because they don't have health care. Well, Michael, if you wonder why you're pulling at zero percent, this is why, because we see right through you.