 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 252 of the program. Today is Friday, July 31st and before we get started, as usual, I want to take some time to thank all of our newest Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members who signed up for the first time just this last week to support us or increase the monthly pledge that they were already giving us and that includes Eva Wortman, Gavin Borden, Jack, Joe Frohleb, Joseph Booze, Joe Taylor and Mathias Fritz. So thank you so much to all of these kind individuals, if you'd also like to support the show and join the independent progressive media revolution, you can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support, patreon.com slash humanistreport or by clicking join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. This week, we've got another great show for you. We'll talk about how Bernie delegates are planning to mount a rebellion at the DNC convention over Medicare for All. Also Elon Musk memes a little bit too close to the sun and he gets burned. An unprecedented eviction crisis may be imminent and Republicans can't even agree with each other about what actions should be taken to stop it. Ben Shapiro comes out against empathy and politics bizarrely. Joe Rogan talks about his problem with video games, a panel of current and ex-Trump supporters spar over his handling of COVID-19 and Trump openly wonders why Dr. Fauci's approval rating is higher than his. Also Joe Biden makes a big promise to Wall Street and Democrats prove once again how useless they are. And finally, we close the show by talking to 2020 candidate for the Florida State House Elijah Manley about his campaign. So that's what we've got on the agenda for today's episode. I hope you like what we have in store for you. So let's get right to it. So last week, the left and progressives got a little bit of a pat on the head by the official Democratic Party when in a draft version of their official party platform, they gave a nod to Medicare for All apparently. Now, while the platform itself doesn't explicitly endorse Medicare for All, I think some viewed this as a victory for the left because it's a signal of what's to come. Maybe they don't support Medicare for All right now, but it shows that we're headed towards that path of Medicare for All. I, for one, do not see this as a victory because Medicare for All to me isn't something that I view as a long term goal. It's not, you know, encouraging to see that maybe sometime down the line, Democrats will be willing to give us Medicare for All. It's a necessity right now. This is not something that we are aspiring to in 10 or 20 years. This is something that we need right now as we live through a pandemic. And the fact that the party is giving Medicare for All a nod means nothing to me. I don't want a nod. I don't even want an endorsement of the policy. I want the policy codified into law. I want it right now. And I'm not willing to accept anything less than Medicare for All. And when you consider the fact that their nominee, Joe Biden, has been openly hostile towards Medicare for All and literally ran an ad suggesting that his dead son would be insulted to have Medicare for All. I don't think that we should take this as a victory, even if it's just a moral victory. A victory is getting Medicare for All, period, full stop. And thankfully, a lot of people agree with me. Important people, delegates, for example, who are planning to rebel if the party does not officially endorse Medicare for All in their 2020 platform. And as Holly Otterbeen of Politico reports, a revolt is brewing among Bernie Sanders delegates three weeks from the Democratic National Convention. More than 360 delegates, most of whom back Sanders, have signed onto a pledge to vote against the Democratic Party's platform if it does not include support for Medicare for All, the petition's organizers told Politico. They argue that single-payer health care is an urgent priority amid a worldwide pandemic and the biggest unemployment crisis since the Great Depression. This pandemic has shown us that our private health insurance system does not work for the American people. Millions of people have lost their jobs and their health care at the same time, said Judith Whitmer, a Sanders delegate and chair of the convention's Nevada delegation who helped spearhead the pledge. There's people leaving the hospital right now with millions of dollars in medical bills. What are we going to do about that? The warning is all but certain to set up a clash between Sanders' most dedicated supporters and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden who opposes Medicare for All at a time when the party is seeking to demonstrate unity ahead of its August convention. Though the petition signers have little chance of revising the platform to include Medicare for All support, they do have the numbers to draw attention to their protest and cause. It is also likely to trigger fears among Democratic leaders about a repeat of the 2016 convention when the party's divides were on public display as Sanders supporters booed the mention of Hillary Clinton. The left-wing groups, Progressive Democrats of America and RootsAction.org are announcing Monday that they support the vow to vote against the platform if it doesn't include Medicare for All. The Bernie Delegates Network, a coalition made up of hundreds of Sanders delegates, said it will also publicize the petition. Organizers expect efforts will net hundreds more signatures including from Biden delegates. I'd be shocked there if you got more than a dozen Biden delegates, but nonetheless, there's one more paragraph that I wanna share with you, which I think is crucial because I think you can already anticipate the response. They're gonna say, oh, well, how dare these Bernie delegates do this? I mean, Donald Trump could be reelected. Why would you want to divide the party at a time when we're all supposed to come together? But this is their answer and I think this is really important. Organizers also said they are not being divisive. Rather, it's the party leaders who are overruling the grassroots who are being divisive, they argued. They point to exit polls showing that majorities of Democratic primary voters across states are in favor of Medicare for All. That's exactly it. When most people in the country and the party support Medicare for All, it's not the people who want the policy who are the ones being divisive. It's the rulers, it's leadership who are doing the dividing if they're not getting on board with what everyone else wants and public opinion polls that only bolsters our argument. But if Medicare for All is the one policy that will give 100% of the population healthcare, then I don't even care what the polls say. You do what is right. But I mean the fact that we have to fight them on this during a pandemic is extremely frustrating and they're most likely will be a rebellion because as this article came out, just hours after actually, Bernie delegates officially proposed an amendment to the platform committee to adopt Medicare for All and it was voted down overwhelmingly with 125 no votes to only 36 yes votes. So yeah, this is going to be a rebellion that's in full swing and I unequivocally supported because look, think about this. Let's say that this rebellion was successful and they didn't adopt the platform. That would be important. It would send a really huge message to the establishment but even if the Democratic Party chose to include support for Medicare for All explicitly in their platform, their party platform like party manifestos, these are non-binding documents. So it doesn't actually matter even if they say our official position is Medicare for All. Like that doesn't mean that we're going to get it. So it would be a symbolic victory but they can't even give the left a symbolic victory. It's constantly the middle finger up 100% of the time letting you know that they refuse to support this life-saving policy. They're okay with people dying. If you don't have healthcare or if you get COVID-19 and you have insurance but it doesn't cover everything, then they're fine with you going bankrupt or dying. That's the position that they're taking. And it's morally reprehensible. And what makes matters worse is that Joe Biden is trying to find ways to placate us when it comes to the issue of healthcare because he knows what we want. So what he's doing is he's trying to tell us what we want to hear while not actually giving us the policy we want. So for example, he stole the rhetoric of Medicare for All activists and he's tweeting out things like, oh, I believe healthcare is a right. And on top of that, he had the audacity to praise himself in a discussion with Obama about how wonderful the ACA is as the Republican Party has completely dismantled it and we need something more. Remember when Beau was toward the end? And the only person I told the detail all the time was you because you had a right to know exactly what. And he only had months left to go. And I used to sit there, watch him in the bed in the pain and dying of glioblastoma. And I thought to myself, what would happen if his insurance company was able to come in which they could have done before past Obamacare and said, you've outrun your insurance, you've outlived it. So for the last five months of your life in peace, you're on your own. All the things that it did, that it was so profound an impact on people, it was like it took them a while until they started to take it away to realize what was happening. Well, look, I mean, you and I both know what it's like to have somebody you love get really sick. And in some cases to lose somebody, but that loss is compounded when you see the stress on their faces because they're worried that they're being a burden on their families. They're worried about whether the insurance is gonna cover the treatments that they need. I couldn't be prouder of what we got done. 20 million people have health insurance that didn't have it because of what we did. Imagine promoting that video thinking that you're serious about healthcare, unbelievable. Now to them, the reason why they're padding themselves on the back there is because success to them with regard to healthcare policy is how many people get health insurance, not healthcare itself, right? To them, if you get someone health insurance, good enough, wash your hands, you're done. Now they say, look, we extended health coverage. More than 20 million people got insurance under the Affordable Care Act, except you left 30 million out when you had a super majority and you could have gotten Medicare for all. Second of all, if someone has insurance and they bought it off of the Obamacare exchanges, that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll have full healthcare because they're purchasing expensive insurance plans that are garbage, they're shitty, right? You might have insurance, but still not be able to get everything that you need. All of your healthcare needs are not automatically met if you have insurance. Like I just talked to my niece last week. She has insurance, so theoretically, she should be fine, right? Except she needs her tonsils removed immediately and she has to fight with her insurance company. So just because you have health insurance, that doesn't mean that you have healthcare. It's not a way to measure success. But to them, they know exactly what they did. They know where they went wrong, so they're trying to gaslight you and make you think that what they did was better than it was in actuality. And even what little gains the ACA made, which, I mean, it was better than nothing, sure, but it's all been dismantled by Republicans. It may not have been a giant repeal that happened in one vote, but it's death by a thousand cuts. They've been working to undermine the ACA since forever. And so you have to take it a step further. Now when you have people support Medicare for all passionately, especially during a pandemic, for you to say, I'm still not gonna give that to you, is unforgivable. It shows how they're just, they're not right for this moment. They don't understand what's needed right now. So I am looking forward to the ghouls saying, oh, well, look at these Bernie Democrats. All these delegates here who support Bernie Sanders, they're trying to hurt us. They're trying to help Donald Trump get reelected. Now you are helping Donald Trump get reelected. Anything short of full Medicare for all isn't just a betrayal to your voters, but it shows that you actually don't care about human beings because if you are okay with more and more people losing their health insurance and thus their healthcare, if you're fine with thousands of people dying every single year because they don't have healthcare, you are the one who's being divisive because you're on the wrong side of history and you're cruel, I'm sorry. We're the ones who are right, you're wrong. So if you're not on board and willing to meet us where we are with Medicare for all, you're the ones who are being divisive. So I absolutely applaud them, even if this isn't going to amount to much, it's not going to lead to us getting Medicare for all. What they need to realize is that we're not going to stop fighting for Medicare for all. We're not just going to throw our hands up and say, well, Bernie lost, so I guess there's our chance. No, we will keep fighting you at every single step of the way because this is the right policy. It's not only the popular policy, but it's the right policy, so get on board. So lately, for whatever reason, billionaire Elon Musk is trying to troll the left. He's been going at it with the lefties for quite some time now and he isn't really making anyone genuinely mad, but what he is doing in the process of trying to trigger the left is making himself look like an out-of-touch dumbass and this has led to some genuinely embarrassing moments where if I were him, I would stop. So for example, he tweeted out what a lot of people have received to be a veiled swipe at trans people which led to him being scolded by his own girlfriend. So he tweeted out, pronouns suck and then Grimes responded saying, I love you, but please turn off your phone or give me a call. I cannot support hate, please stop this. I know this isn't your heart. Now she later deleted the tweet, but that's still really embarrassing. Like to be publicly scolded by your significant other, that is deeply, deeply embarrassing. And I actually didn't initially take that as a swipe at trans people because when you say pronouns suck, you can interpret that as some sort of like, I don't know, post-modern version of like, oh well we should all just transcend pronouns and just refer to everyone with gender neutral pronouns. So I didn't view it as transphobic initially, like not knowing where he was coming from, but the person who knows him the best took it as transphobic. So that's telling. Now on top of that, his latest thing is he decided to take a shot at Marks, the trigger lefties, tweeting out a boomer meme he stole from another Twitter user where Marks is apparently quoted saying, give me that for free. And he's called Hungry Santa. Okay. Yes, because we all know that the premise of Marks is on capital was that workers were the ones who were taking something that they didn't rightfully earn. But he's just trolling guys. He's the biggest troll ever. He's so funny. But he himself as many points it out on Twitter has been the recipient of a handout from the government. So if anyone likes free things, it is billionaire Elon Musk. But I mean sometimes he'll troll other times, he'll try to be a little bit more serious, a little bit more deeper, but then he'll go back to trolling. So for example, he got in trouble with one particular tweet that he put out where he says, another government stimulus package is not in the best interests of the people in my opinion. Now in saying this, I think he got a little bit more than he bargained for him because he ended up going full mask off because somebody rightfully pointed out, you know what wasn't in the best interest of the people? The US government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia. So you could obtain the lithium there to which Elon Musk responded saying, we will coup whoever we want, deal with it. Oh, Elon, that big troll, he's so funny. The United States government would never do a regime change in Latin America for the purposes of getting their natural resources. I mean, come on. Now, what's interesting to me is even if, you know, it seems as if he's trying to troll and get a response out of the left, that's one thing, like to joke about regime change. Sure, you're trolling, you're memeing a little bit too close to the sun and you're gonna get burned. But what's a little bit telling is that there is actually a reason to believe that his company specifically did benefit from the coup in Bolivia. Because as Glenn Greenwald points out, when I interviewed Evo Morales in Mexico City last December, the month after he was forced under threats to leave Bolivia, he was very clear that he regarded what happened as what he called a lithium coup. It's good Elon Musk is admitting this. And he explains how Morales labels the military overthrow of Bolivian democracy, a lithium coup, and explains why. Now, listen very carefully to what Evo Morales says. It would be industrial, industrial lithium, for example, lithium hydroxyl, lithium carbonate, potassium chloride, there was a battery plant, the other ones for the consumption and the other ones for their products, their products for the medicine and for the food. And I'm not an expert, but I had to understand debating with the technicians, with ministers, vice ministers, management of the lithium issue. And we started, last year we arrived and we inaugurated a plant, as Evo Morales mentioned earlier, a potassium chloride, we're exporting it. We're exporting the lithium, but the pilot plant, in the next year we're going to inaugurate the plant of the lithium carbonate industry. So I feel that that energy sector is so important that from Bolivia we even had the opportunity to put the lithium price for the whole world. But with participation from Europe, China, Asia, and you're from the United States, that doesn't support it. How does an Indian manage that? And what's the state in addition to that? So if I'm convinced, this is a blow from the state of lithium. Interesting, very interesting. Now, this isn't confirmation that, you know, Elon Musk helped orchestrate this Bolivian coup with the US government. It's not even evidence that he was complicit in said coup. But is there a reason to believe that he is benefiting from this coup? Well, yes. In fact, Glenn followed up saying, for the weird hoards of loyal Musk fans claiming his tweet was only trolling, the right-wing coup government is trying to make their lithium far more available to US interests, including Tesla. Here's a key figure in the coup regime to Bolsonaro. And as you can see, there is a Bolivian official who came to power after Evo Morales was ousted, tweeting to the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, about his plans to meet with Elon Musk in Brazil and to propose another factory for Tesla's lithium batteries. Now, again, to be clear, I'm not accusing Elon Musk of conspiring with the US government or any international entity to overthrow the Bolivian government for purposes of getting their lithium, right? I'm not accusing him of that. But what I am saying is that if we have really good reason to believe that your company specifically will monetarily benefit by the ousting of a democratically elected leader in a country, then maybe you might not wanna troll about that particular subject. Maybe it's a bad look for you and your company to actually joke about that. When we have good reason to believe that you will be benefiting from Evo Morales getting thrown out by a far-right fascist regime. Now, going back to his tweet about the stimulus package, you know that in and of itself, it irritated a lot of people because he's not very clear, but a couple of minutes after making that initial tweet, he did follow up saying, as a reminder, I'm in favor of universal basic income. Goal of government should be to maximize the happiness of the people. Giving each person money allows them to decide what meets their needs rather than the blunt tool of legislation which creates self-serving special interests. Now, on one hand, I see the point that he's trying to make. Like, I understand and I agree that the CARES Act was problematic because even if it gave people a one-time payment of $1,200 that wasn't enough, like I think we should be getting $2,000 per month throughout the duration of this pandemic, but I get that like special interests, they disproportionately benefited from this. So in crafting another stimulus package, sure that could be a Trojan horse to give more welfare away to large multinational corporations. Having said that though, he needs to be a little bit more specific. Are you saying that, you know, rather than doing a stimulus package, we should just do UBI because then if we're gonna steelman him, that would make more sense, right? But that's not necessarily what he's saying and he's missing that a stimulus might not necessarily just mean direct cash payments. It could also mean strengthening our social safety net when it comes to unemployment insurance, food stamps, because people need more than just money right now. They need food, right? The money that they're getting is going to be used for bills and their rent, but they also need food. So I mean, it's more than that, but if he's saying that we have to find a way to deliver the goods to people and maximize happiness as he puts it without letting large corporations make out like bandits, then I would agree with him, which is why I ask him why he is a recipient of corporate welfare himself. If you are against special interests getting money from the government, why do you take money from the government? And Bernie Sanders put it best, what a hypocrite. Elon Musk has received billions in corporate welfare from US taxpayers. Now he wants to stop 30 million Americans who lost jobs from receiving $600 a week in unemployment benefits, while his wealth has gone up by 46.7 billion over the past four months, pathetic. And that's exactly right. And his supposed opposition, his fake opposition to large corporations, multi-billion-dollar companies receiving money from the government, it is incredibly hypocritical, so much so that even Fox Business News, who licks the boots of billionaires like Elon Musk, pointed out the hypocrisy and that his companies has received a ton of money from the government. We're talking billions of dollars from the government. So we dug through the numbers and our brain room came up with Tesla saying that, it looks like Musk's electric car company, Tesla, has received total subsidies of $2.4 billion in federal, state and local grants, as well as nearly half a billion dollars when it comes to federal loans. Now as for SpaceX, which is Musk's private space venture, only $5 million in subsidies, but close to $5 billion when it comes to funding from NASA in contracts and research and development. And there could be even more as SpaceX and Elon Musk's satellite venture Starlink, which provides internet and broadband services for rural areas, is also looking to compete for $16 billion in government broadband subsidies. And we know that Tesla's 300% rally this year, yes, has made Musk a very rich man. In fact, the fifth richest on the planet. So in other words, stimulus from me, but not for thee. It's okay if my company gets money from the government, but the peasants, they don't deserve that money. Now look, let's assume for a moment that he's speaking out in good faith and he genuinely doesn't think a stimulus is going to make Americans better off. He thinks that a UBI, a permanent UBI that stacks on top of our existing social safety net programs, a progressive implementation of UBI that goes along with social security and food stamps and whatnot is his solution. If that's what he's arguing, then that's fine, but he's not very clear. And the problem with people like Elon Musk, billionaire capitalists like Elon Musk, is that he's already showed his cards. He doesn't care about maximizing the happiness of people. He is all about maximizing his own wealth. His company literally defied a lockdown order and sued a county in California. Also he could force his workers back to work at a Tesla factory during a pandemic. So he kind of already revealed what it is that he wants. He wants to take the Trump approach and just pretend like this pandemic isn't actually a thing and let's all just get back to normal send everyone back to work because if we even admit that a stimulus package is needed, then that accepts that a prolonged shutdown is a necessary thing. And that's not good for billionaire capitalists because so long as people need a stimulus, they're just going to be getting enough money to get by, right? They're not going to have extra money to buy the things that capitalists like Elon Musk sell. So for capitalists, pretending like COVID-19 isn't a thing and their minds is exactly what they want. It's all about money, although I shouldn't even say that because that wouldn't make sense because he's doing really well during the pandemic. The point is he doesn't really know what he's talking about. These vague posts about policy where he's half serious then goes back to trolling. I mean, I don't get what he's trying to do but I think what it does prove beyond the shadow of a doubt is that if there's anyone who we don't need the input of when it comes to public policy, it's billionaires. It's capitalist elites like Elon Musk, the fifth richest person in the world because if we listen only to people like him, then well, actually we don't even have to speculate. We know exactly what's going to happen because our government has been captured by a special interest. I mean a 2014 Princeton University study by Dr. Ziegelsen Page found that when you look at policy outcomes, the American people, just normal people like you and I, we have a statistically insignificant impact on policy outcomes, whereas billionaires, special interests, corporations, they have all the say when it comes to policy outcomes. So forgive me, but I don't care what you have to say about policy. Elon Musk continued to troll but what we're actually seeing is him being butt hurt. You see, the left is on to him and the left calls him out for his greed, right? So he doesn't like that. So he's trying to poke the left a little bit up but what he's not realizing is that by quote unquote trolling the left, you're not actually proving a point. You're not convincing any leftists. You're just proving their point for them. And on top of that, you're making yourself look like a dumb ass by tweeting so much that your girlfriend has to tell you to call her and get off of Twitter. I mean, how embarrassing. It certainly proves that wealth doesn't mean that you're automatically going to be intelligent. Just because he's a billionaire doesn't mean he's smart. I think that his Twitter activity is proving that every single day. Congratulations, you played yourself. So that extra $600 that people are currently receiving in federal benefits on top of their unemployment insurance will be running out really soon. And when I say it's running out really soon, it'll be running out on July 31st if I'm not mistaken. So I mean, the logical thing to do obviously is to extend that $600 benefit at a minimum. But really what people should be getting is a monthly universal basic income throughout the duration of this pandemic. Because when we're facing this unprecedented crisis and economic depression, a pandemic, now is not the time to concern Troll about whether or not our social safety net is going to foster dependency on welfare programs. It's not the time to penny pinch. But because our politicians have their heads so far up their own asses, well, that's exactly what they're doing. And I've got to say, they are not equipped to deal with this crisis. Republicans are currently talking about how much additional revenue should be spent, bolstering our unemployment insurance program. And why we need to currently in the middle of a pandemic make some tweaks to it to make sure that nobody's gaming the system. I mean, this is honestly insane and politicians should be terrified right now. And I'm not saying that they should be terrified because if they fail and they don't meet this moment, they're going to lose their reelection, they should be terrified because it's gonna get so bad that people are going to take to the streets, the peasants will revolt with their pitchforks if you don't take action. Because what we see coming, like what's ahead of us is a gigantic iceberg. And we're sailing right towards it and we're not trying to even get onto a new course. Like it's baffling. But Republicans don't want to renew the $600 benefit for a number of reasons, but the number one reason that we've seen cited by the GOP is that it's too much money. So as Jake Johnson of Common Dreams reports, progressives are rejecting out of hand a proposal by Senate Republicans to temporarily slash the weekly federal boost to unemployment benefits from $600 to $200 until state develop the capacity to implement a more complex system that would pay laid off workers 70% of what they earn prior to losing their jobs. Bloomberg reported Monday that the Senate GOP plan, which was approved by the Trump White House will call for a two month transition to the new unemployment system and provide states with an option to apply for a waiver for up to two additional months. Analysts warned that replacing the flat $600 per week payment with an individualized benefit that would overwhelm antiquated state unemployment insurance systems, potentially causing massive relief delays from millions of people on the brink of financial collapse. Now, believe it or not, that additional $200 that they're offering to people on unemployment, that is up from what they were proposing last week, which was, I believe, $100 extra per week. I mean, they just, they don't get it. But I shouldn't say that because I think they do get it because when they propose a new change to the system, a technical fix to the system, if you will, that could potentially overwhelm the system and disrupt benefits, delay benefits, that's the point. Like they want to delay benefits. They don't want to pay out people benefits because they genuinely believe that if people are on unemployment because they lost their jobs, well, if you give them too much money, then they're just gonna become lazy. And don't take my word for it. This is literally what the Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin said on national television. We wanna make sure with the expiring unemployment insurance, we have the technical fix so people don't get paid more to stay home than they do to work. Wow, okay, so let me get this straight. During an unprecedented crisis, an economic depression and a pandemic, a worldwide pandemic that is extremely contagious and deadly, he's worried that people are currently losing everything, are getting too much money. And if we give people too much money, if we don't just give them barely enough to survive so that way they're starving, but they're still alive, then they might get lazy. I don't know what to say, but they do not realize what's coming if they do not take swift action to try to ameliorate this crisis. So back in June, 30% of all American households missed their housing payment. In July, that number rose to 32%. So we are facing an unprecedented eviction crisis unlike anything this country has ever seen. And if they don't take swift action, this is what they're looking at. This graphic should terrify every single politician. Some states have half of their populations or more facing eviction. That is insane. I mean, look at Florida, 51%, West Virginia, 59% facing eviction, Tennessee, 58% facing eviction. And even when you look at like other examples, states that aren't doing as bad, still a third of households in those states are facing eviction. Now, as CNBC's Annie Nova explains, on Friday, the federal moratorium on evictions in properties with federally backed mortgages and for tenants who received government-assisted housing expired, the Urban Institute estimated that provision covered nearly 30% of the country's rental units. White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said on Sunday that he would extend that moratorium, but these tenants are now unprotected from eviction. At the same time, some 25 million Americans will stop receiving the 600 weekly federal unemployment checks by July 31st. And most of the statewide eviction moratoriums are winding down. By one estimate, some 40 million Americans could be evicted during the public health crisis. It's like nothing we've ever seen, said John Pollock, coordinator of the National Coalition for a Civil Rights Council. In 2016, there were 2.3 million evictions, Pollock said. There could be that many evictions in August, he said. Massive unemployment has left more than 40% of renter households at risk of eviction according to a new analysis by global advisory, Stout Resus Ross. People of color are especially vulnerable while almost half of white tenants say they're highly confident they can continue to pay their rent. Just 26% of African-American tenants could say the same. Around half of Hispanic tenants said they have little to no confidence they'll be able to stay in their homes. So for the time being, these people are unprotected. The moratorium on rent has expired. Now they say they're gonna renew it, we'll wait and see. But if they truly allow this to happen and they let 40 million Americans in a single year be evicted, a majority of people in some states, they have no idea what's coming. So rather than literally worrying about people getting too lazy, actually help these people, they're suffering. And if you don't take action, you don't realize, like you're not just gonna lose this election. Like we're talking revolution. We're talking riots in every single city if this happens, because if people lose their livelihoods and they don't have a place to go, they have no choice but to riot to demand that government take care of them. Because you've taken care of large multinational corporations. So it's time that you take care of your own people. And the fact that we have to fight you during a fucking pandemic in the middle of an economic depression, it shows you how out of whack our government is. Like this is honestly insane. Like in a functioning country, this would never happen. We would never be faced with 40 million people getting evicted if our government actually function. But the way that we've responded to this economic crisis and pandemic, it's what we'd expect from a failed state. So the fact that they're just allowing this to happen is march towards an eviction crisis, economic devastation. I mean, they have no idea what's coming. They honestly believe that everything will be perfectly normal if they just let people lose everything. It's not gonna play out that way. People are gonna take you to the streets and we're talking about a revolution if you don't actually take swift action. So if you care about the Republic, then now is the time to make sure that you don't leave millions of people behind. I mean, the fact that we even have to beg them at this point with the crisis this deep to take action and they're still talking about laziness and welfare and how it fosters this sense of dependency, like it's gonna make my head explode. I don't even know what to say about this. It's just, it's genuinely shocking that they're not doing everything in their power to stop this crisis and help people and we have to fight them to do what's normally expected in other countries. So anyone who's played video games, you're probably familiar with the character customization or character creation screens where you kind of select which qualities you want in your character, speed, strength, stamina, magic in some instances, depending on the genre of the game you're playing. But I mean, if we could take that and put a politician in our character creation, like the types of qualities that we want in politicians, ideally it would be intelligence, kindness, but I mean, we really wanna max out that attribute when it comes to empathy, right? Because we want people in power who are making policy who have a lot of empathy for other human beings. But the one quality that Ben Shapiro doesn't wanna see in a politician, empathy. That's the one thing. So I don't have the context for this clip. I don't know why he started talking about empathy, but Ben Shapiro is going to rant in this upcoming clip about why empathy is a really bad trait for politicians to have when I would argue it's basically the best. So we'll watch and then dissect his stupidity when we come back. There's only one problem, okay? Empathy is actually kind of bad for politics. The reason that empathy is bad for politics is because it leads you to empathize with people that you are more likely to like as opposed to people you don't like, okay? So first of all, the pitch for empathy is actually, there have been several books that are written on this, social science books, talking about how empathy is not actually the best thing for politics. It actually almost deactivates the reasoning centers of your brain. Because when you're empathetic, you don't actually create good policy. This doesn't mean that feeling sympathy for people is a bad thing. It means that if empathy is what drives your policymaking, you're probably not acting in a rational fashion. But the real goal here is of course, not to generate empathy. The real goal here is to suggest that if you disagree with the idea that America is systemically and institutionally racist, you're not an empathetic person and therefore you're a bad, cruel and callous person. The idea is that empathy is really about, it's really a moral statement about what kind of good person you are. And you can't watch baseball until you say it along with Morgan Freeman. You can't, you can't just watch a game and be distracted, which is the goal of sports. Okay, so where he's going wrong is he is projecting his own tribalistic mentality onto everyone else. And he's thinking, well, because I'm tribalistic and I can't possibly empathize with someone who is unlike me, like a poor person, for example, nobody else will be able to do the same thing. Now really you could say that's sympathy versus empathy, but I mean, when we talk about empathy in politics, for me at least what I'm talking about is empathy on a human level. Sure, you can say empathy with regard to relatability, right? Like I really relate to someone who experienced the same thing that I did, but really you don't have to look at it only from that social in-group perspective. When we're talking about empathy in politics, ideally we're talking about empathy for the human condition. Like I'm not just empathetic towards socialists, for example, because like me, they're also against capitalism so I can relate. Like I'm also empathetic towards people like Ben Shapiro, who I disagree with on basically everything because as a human being, I can relate to his experience. So because I don't like pain and suffering, I can logically deduce using empathy that Ben Shapiro also doesn't like pain and suffering because we're both similarly situated human beings, right? But to him that's bad. Like if you for some reason can relate to someone that makes you worse at creating public policy, sympathy is fine. He's fine with sympathy, but empathy is where that starts to cloud your judgment. Like he literally says it deactivates the reasoning centers of your brain because when you're empathetic, you don't actually create good policy. That is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard Ben Shapiro say and this is the same guy who says that if climate change leads to the point where your house is flooded, you just sell your house and move. This is one of the stupidest things he said. No, empathy is good because empathy is a form of reason. Empathy isn't a lack of reason. It is an important part of the reasoning process. We want people with empathy. We want people with different experiences because they can craft public policy with that experience and expertise in mind, right? So what he's saying here, it really doesn't make any sense because if you remove empathy from the equation when it comes to public policy making, what's left is a bunch of sociopaths creating public policy, not taking into account the human toll on their policies. So then you get people supporting wars and regime change in other countries for the purposes of economic benefits. I mean, it speaks to your value system because if empathy, like improving the condition for human beings isn't your goal, then you have some other value that you're using to judge good policy. So then it must be the economy, for example, but then you're removing human beings. So I mean, what he's saying here, it's really, it's weird, like it's short-sighted and it doesn't make sense. Now the example that he kind of uses, like what he's moving towards here is race, right? Because he talks about race and baseball and I don't know what conversation he gets into and I don't know anything about baseball. So I don't know whatever controversy people are talking about. But what I will say is that, so according to him, if you apply this to a real-world example, ideally a black lawmaker isn't the best person to create policy about black issues that affects the black community because it's just emotion. Empathy is nothing more than emotion according to Ben Shapiro. So because they relate so much with people who have the same experience as them, a black lawmaker will just create public policy based on emotion when the opposite is true. Someone with that experience is crucial, their input is needed the most because if you know what someone needs based on their experience, then you can speak to those exact needs. Like because I was poor, I can speak to what is needed from poor people, housing insecurity, food insecurity. Like I could speak to that specifically because I empathize with people in poverty, not being able to empathize, simply trying to be sympathetic towards them isn't going to work because we see how that plays out in practice. I mean, look at the oligarchs like Steve Mnuchin, he's the treasury secretary and we are dealing with an unprecedented economic crisis. We are about to see an unprecedented eviction crisis and what is he concerned with right now? Not the fact that poor people are going to be evicted in huge numbers across the country but that if we increase our social safety then and stop these evictions, stop people who are losing their money, losing their jobs and their unemployment insurance as the $600 benefit expires, he's worried that that's going to make them lazy. So you are detached from reality, like sympathy is important, but sympathy is a level of ignorance. If you have empathy, then that's different. It makes your experience more valuable because if Steve Mnuchin ever struggled to make money, ever felt like he couldn't pay his rent in his life, his philosophy on governing would be entirely different. In fact, I guarantee he wouldn't be a Republican. That experience is crucial. It's why descriptive representation is important. Now, if you took this and you applied it to anyone else, it'd be deeply offensive, right? If you say actually, well, black people aren't the best at crafting black policy because of empathy, that would sound pretty racist, right? If you said that I couldn't craft public policy with regard to LGBTQ people because I have that same experience and therefore I can relate so much that emotions would cloud by judgment, that would be bigoted, right? If you say the same thing to Ben Shapiro that based on his identity, if you talk to him about Jewish policy and policy with regard to Israel and how he's not necessarily qualified because of empathy and that's a bad thing, he would find it deeply offensive. He'd call you anti-Semitic and rightfully so, rightfully so because that experience is the key to good public policy. So the point that he's trying to make, like all you have to do is apply it to any real world example and immediately it becomes completely idiotic. Like you see why it doesn't make sense because in practice, empathy is the best thing for public policy because sympathy is a guess, right? You can only sympathize with people based on what you think they're feeling but if you can empathize with them then you know what they're feeling. So I mean, I just, I don't understand why he chose to go off on this weird tangent, I'm assuming based on something somebody said, maybe a caller called in but it was really weird and deeply stupid and nonsensical and I'm sorry but if we are choosing between people who are empathetic and the sociopaths that we have governing us currently, I'm going with people who are empathetic because I think that's the quality that's lacking in government. Not that there's too much of it but that there's not enough empathy. And when we talk about empathy, again, I'm not just talking about empathy for people in your same social group but empathy on a human level, empathy for the pain and suffering of other human beings. Like we empathize with each other because we have the same experience as human beings. We all know pain is bad so we can logically deduce as a society that murder should be outlawed because we wouldn't want to be murdered, right? That's why empathy is important. But Ben Shapiro, I mean, it's such a weird point that he made. I don't think he thought too deeply about this. I think he just went on a random rant and now, yeah, we're making fun of him for it. So I don't know what else to say. This is a deeply stupid point and Ben Shapiro needs to think more deeper about things like this because like, no, that's just everything you're saying is so weird and nonsensical that if anyone takes you seriously about policy and politics, they should stop after seeing this clip. So Joe Rogan will oftentimes say things that are controversial, especially within, you know, lefty circles. And I disagree with a lot that he does. Sometimes, you know, I give him credit where he'll challenge Candice Owens or Ben Shapiro. I mean, to me, I'm not like necessarily a Joe Rogan hater, but I'm also not a fan. Like for me, I don't get the appeal personally speaking, but if that's your cup of tea, then fine. Like I think that, you know, in my mind, he needs to be more responsible with his platform. But, you know, it's really rare when his controversies actually penetrate the mainstream. You know, when he endorsed Bernie Sanders, it was a soft endorsement that made national headlines. And that was controversial. And I defended him in that instance because, you know, if you're gonna use your platform to promote a pro worker candidate, that's a good thing. But he made headlines once again for something that he said that is controversial. And it has to do with video games. And I think that, you know, as people talk about this, there's a lot of gamers who are offended by what he said I consider myself a pretty avid gamer. But I'm actually taking away a different conclusion. And what he's doing is kind of catalyzing an interesting conversation. And I think ultimately he does miss the mark. But the mindset that he kind of displays inadvertently by speaking about it in these terms, to me, says more about our economic system than it does the actual subject itself. Take a look. Video games are a real problem. They're a real problem. You know, why? Because they're in fun. And you don't, yeah. Well, I have a real problem with them. And you do them and they're real exciting, but you don't get anywhere. It's like you could do like martial arts, right? You could learn jiu-jitsu. You get obsessed by jiu-jitsu. And then three years later, you're like an elite jiu-jitsu athlete. You're like, you're entering in competitions. You're a purple belt. You're moving up. Yeah, you're doing well. You're thinking like, I might be able to open my own school one day. You got confidence. Yeah, if I have a hundred students and those hundred students are paying me X amount of dollars per month, I can make a living. Holy shit, I can have a, this would be amazing. And then you see your jiu-jitsu school and your jiu-jitsu instructor has all these students and drives them Mercedes and he's got a nice family and like, that's the future. This way you're doing something exciting and fun and you don't, or you could just be playing video games. Three years later, you could be that same kid just playing video games, waiting for the next VIXX, whatever the game is, you know, next Xbox game to come out and you're gonna waste your time. So I apologize for not playing you the video. Unfortunately, whenever we play Joe Rogan clips, there's copyright issues. So, you know, you get the audio unfortunately, but basically, you know, his fear as an avid video gamer himself is that it's too addictive and by video gaming, then you're not accomplishing anything. Now, to me, what this speaks to, honestly, it's a capitalist mindset because that capitalist mindset is as follows, time is money. So while you sit around wasting your life away, you could be doing things that make you more useful, make you more valuable to society as a whole. And that is that capitalist mindset, right? Every minute that you spend not trying to make money, that's apparently a bad thing. Like we've become so entangled with capitalism and this, you know, mindset where we have to keep going and going and going and be, you know, more and more productive that we don't even realize when we're doing it. First of all, he's wrong to only use video games as an example of something that can be addictive. I mean, you can apply that same logic to his podcast. If you sit around and you listen to your three hour podcasts every single day, then you're not being productive. So what's the takeaway? Should we stop listening to your podcast? What about people who watch movies? Like gaming is just a form of entertainment. And the thing about them is that they're intrinsically valuable if they make you happy. See, what we've done with our capitalist society, our late stage capitalist society is to modify every single aspect of our lives where something isn't actually good inherently unless it yields some sort of value monetarily. Right? So if you're just sitting around and you're enjoying something that makes you genuinely happy, that's not a good thing unless it's going to lead to you being more profitable or, you know, productive. And we have to get out of this mindset. Like it is genuinely good if you play video games and they make you happy. Video games are intrinsically good in and of themselves even if they don't lead to you being more productive or more profitable. They are good if they make you happy and they relieve stress or they even, you know, help you combat depression. I mean, for me, games are therapeutic in the sense that like when I was grieving, you know, with the loss from my father, animal crossing helped distract me. And it really, you know, it genuinely made me happy. And action games, you know, they allow me to kind of have fun that I don't have because of like I'm not a very adventurous person. Like I don't ever leave home. So like being able to experience adventures in a video game or in a movie, you know, these are things that are important. Like they create happiness. And what makes you happy isn't less valuable if it's not making you more productive or more useful as a human being to society as a whole. What human beings have to do is reject this capitalist mindset that we have to be doing something that contributes. We can do things that make us happy without feeling guilty, without feeling like shit. And the fact that Joe Rogan, you know, as a gamer himself feels bad about playing video games. He feels like it's, you know, addictive. Like you've got to get out of that mindset, right? And I don't think this is something that you should promote. Now, having said that, is he like genuinely addicted to video games? I mean, I don't know. Like there are people who have addictive personalities to where when they like something, they really go all in and, you know, they do nothing but that one thing. Like I'm not saying you should indulge yourself and just play like, wow, for 19 hours a day. That's not what I'm saying. But I mean, sure, it can be an issue, but why is it only video games that's the target? Like why aren't we talking about people who are addicted to movies or podcasts? I mean, that's the thing. Happiness is a good thing. Like it's okay to be happy. It's okay to do things that make us feel happy. For some people that's riding a bike or going for a hike for other people, that's watching a movie or playing video games. That's okay. Capitalism has got us all into this mindset to where we literally feel guilty if we're just happy, right? And you could say, well, you're kind of, you know, you're reaching too much. You're trying to make this about capitalism, but in actuality, I mean, when you commodify every single aspect of human life, we don't derive value from being with our family or just being happy. We derive value based on what we're able to produce, you know, what we can do for society. So if I can't, you know, use my hobby to propel me to open a business that contributes to society or whatever, then it's just inherently bad because that's that capitalist mindset, right? When everything is a commodity, then human happiness itself isn't something that's part of the equation when we have to recenter ourselves and acknowledge that we're human beings and we have short lives. We have to be able to at least derive some joy from that. And if that means playing video games for, you know, several hours per day, that's not a bad thing. That doesn't make you an evil person. That doesn't make you, you know, lazy. It doesn't make you a piece of shit. It just means that you want to be happy. And guess what? As a human being, you do deserve happiness. You deserve to derive happiness from whatever, you know, you're able to so long as you're not hurting anyone else. And video games is, you know, a hobby where you're not hurting anyone else by participating in this hobby, like it's fine. Like you're overthinking it. So that's my message to Joe Rogan. He's overthinking it. And what he's showing here is that he really is in this capitalist mindset. And capitalism, it really controls more aspects of our lives than I think a lot of us are willing to admit it. It controls everything, right? Like everything that we do in life essentially is in service to capitalism. So much so that if we step out of bounds even a little bit, we start to question whether or not what we're doing is valuable. But the answer is if you're doing something that genuinely makes you happy and you're not like overdoing it, I mean, you could do or do anything. If you're doing something that makes you happy, there's nothing wrong with that. It's fine. So I mean, I don't think this is the most controversial thing that Joe Rogan ever said, but I wanted to talk about this because I think it does highlight a way that capitalism has kind of warped our view of the world. Like we are allowed as human beings to be happy. And not only are we allowed to be happy, we should be actively encouraging people to be more happy, take more vacations, do things that make us happy because life is short. And there's more than just like doing things to serve capitalism and the economy. Like just being happy in and of itself is a good thing. Remember that. With how poorly Donald Trump and the Republicans have been mishandling this pandemic and ongoing economic crisis, any functioning and competent political party who's supposed to be an opposition party would use this opportunity to not just bludgeon them but also propose an alternative. And given that we are facing an election this year, you'd think that Democrats would just be screaming from the rooftops how much better they are than Republicans. But even like given the scenario, like given how theoretically easy this should be for them to prove that they're just more capable and competent at governing than Republicans, they keep face planting. And it's genuinely baffling. Like I know that some of them don't actually care about winning in November and beating Republicans. But the level of incompetence that we're seeing here is genuinely, it's embarrassing. So take Lori Lightfoot, for example. She is the mayor of Chicago. And when Trump announced that he'd be deploying his secret police to more cities across the country and specifically named Chicago, Mayor Lightfoot was unequivocal and saying, no, that's not gonna happen in my city as the mayor of Chicago. I am not going to allow Trump to send his goons into our city and terrorize our citizens. I've been very clear, not happening in Chicago. We don't need federal troops. We don't need unnamed secret federal agents roaming around the streets of Chicago, taking off our residents without cause and violating their basic constitutional rights. I'm glad to see that the president got the message. Yeah, about that. All it took to get her to change her mind was one phone call with Donald Trump. And then all of a sudden she is apparently okay with him allowing his secret police to come in and terrorize the city that she runs. I mean, imagine being gullible enough to be convinced by someone like Donald Trump but to have it just take one phone call. I mean, that is embarrassing. I mean, I can't even imagine how that conversation went. Mayor Lightfoot, it's gonna be tremendous, terrific. We're gonna be winning in your city. Like what did he say to get you to change your tune? Like you did a 180 like that. How do you flip on something like this, this important? When you see the way that his federal goons are terrorizing peaceful protesters in Portland, it makes no sense to me. But expanding this to the national level because mayors, maybe she felt intimidated because this is the president who she's talking to. I don't know, right? But nationally, we need congressional Democrats to step up right now. If there's ever been a time in their careers to step up, now is that time. And so what needs to be done is in the event Donald Trump does in fact win reelection, you have to make sure that you reign in his powers. And as commander in chief, you can reign in his ability to wage war unilaterally by cutting the military budget. So when Barbara Lee and Mark Pocon in the house and Bernie in the Senate proposed a measly 10% cut to the Pentagon budget, I thought, I mean, Jesus, you couldn't have at least gone for 15%, like anything higher. I figured, okay, this is probably just, you know, some crumbs that they're throwing to us to get us to see that they're actually representing us. Okay, great. Except they couldn't even do that because Democrats sided with Republicans in the Senate overwhelmingly and voted against a 10% cut to the military's 2021 budget. And this is especially puzzling because they've been critical of Donald Trump and his harshness towards protesters. So I mean, after he literally threatened to deploy the military to quash protests violently, you think that they want to reign in his power to do these types of things. You think that they wouldn't want to give someone who they claim is tyrannical the power to do more wars by giving him more money, but they did just that. I mean, Tammy Duckworth, who is someone that Joe Biden was vetting to be VP, she blasts Donald Trump all the time. Like she's a veteran and she says, oh, he's Cadet Bonesburg. She accuses him of being a fake and, you know, a phony and he's not really patriotic, but you just gave this person who you accuse as being tyrannical more money to wage wars. So I mean, what are we doing here? Kamala Harris, she is supposed to be progressive. She voted to give Donald Trump more money or voted against this 10% cut. Sherrod Brown, who's supposed to be progressive, I don't even think he's pretending anymore, also voted against a cut to the military. Yeah, and you're not going to be surprised to find out that the individuals who voted against this and also the same applies to individuals in the house that are democratic, that sided with Republicans are also being bankrolled by the military industrial complex and defense contractors, not shocking. Okay, well, you know, some mayors aren't doing a great job at standing up to Donald Trump, congressional Democrats. I mean, okay, this one issue, maybe it's just a non-starter for them. They're not going to consider cuts to the military, but maybe they can be a little bit more progressive, you know, in other areas where it's not going to hurt them politically. In fact, it'll benefit them if they adopt a policy that's extremely progressive. So maybe they'll give us a legal cannabis. Actually, no, because the DNC's platform committee voted against this overwhelmingly with 106 people voting against an amendment that would endorse the legalization of POT and 50 supporting it. That's it. Okay, well, I mean, that's extremely disappointing, but maybe they'll be progressive in a different area. If they're not going to give us this symbolic victory on the platform that is non-binding that they don't even have to follow, maybe they'll give us Medicare for all. Actually, no, because the DNC platform committee also voted against that in an even larger margin with 125 votes against it and only 36 votes for it. Okay, well, I mean, at the end of the day, the platform doesn't necessarily matter that much. What matters the most is that right now, during a pandemic, when people need economic relief immediately, they are the ones, not Republicans who are fighting for the people. So this $600 federal benefit that people who are currently receiving unemployment insurance are getting, it's going to be the Democrats who are going to fight to renew that. It's not the Republicans who are going to do this. They only want to give us $200 extra, right? Until they reform the system. But Democrats are the ones who are going to hold strong and they're going to fight for this, right? Two hours later. Okay, never mind, they've already caved on that. Yeah, Steny Hoyer made it very clear that they're not willing to stand strong on this one key thing to help people who desperately need money currently. But I mean, hey, when it comes to the eviction crisis that seems imminent, that may be upon us in October as more and more people miss their housing payment, it's Democrats who are the ones who will stand strong on this issue, right? Because in their next stimulus package, what they want is to extend that moratorium on all evictions until March. So there's no indication that they're going to water down the support that they're offering to people who are facing eviction, right? Except maybe not because some Democrats are proposing legal assistance for those facing eviction. Okay, so legal assistance for those facing eviction. So does that mean that this is in addition to the extension of the moratorium on all evictions to March? Like, are you still holding strong on that? Or is this an indication that we should temper our expectations because like the $600 unemployment benefit, you're going to cave on this as well. I mean, what do we expect? With Democrats, if you've been following politics for a while, you know to expect the worst but hope for the best. So the party is lost, you know, they're lost as Republicans just sit idly by apathetically, not really caring about what people are going through, not caring about evictions. Democrats, they show that they care by signaling to us that if at least, you know, you get evicted, they're going to give you a lawyer. So you'll have a lawyer while you're sleeping out on the streets to fight that eviction. I mean, look, this is deeply frustrating. The party is lost. They keep claiming that, you know, this is a big 10 party but a big 10 party means that you have no direction, right? You're ideologically incoherent and there's too many chefs in the kitchen. Like we need a cohesive message. What are you guys going to do? Which is why we need strong leadership. So, I mean, at least the Democratic Party is lost as they may be at the local level and congressional level. At least they have a leader who is really going to guide them in the correct direction. Oh wait, Bernie Sanders lost and Democrats opted for Joe Biden. Someone who is basically a moderate Republican who arguably has dementia, who literally has to be hidden away until November so he turns off as few voters as possible. I mean, the situation is so grim. Oh, and Joe Biden doesn't necessarily disagree with everything that Donald Trump does entirely. In a statement to Bo Erickson of CBS, like Trump, Joe Biden also hates quote unquote, arsonists and anarchists but doesn't think secret police should be used to protect federal property. So it's like gut punch after gut punch after gut punch. Even the alternative to Donald Trump is joining him to demonize anarchists and arsonists. They're the ones causing all of the violence. It's not the police and federal goons that Trump deployed to Portland who are escalating violence when these protests have been going on for weeks and remained mostly peaceful. It's the anarchists. And as Lee Carter pointed out, he's demonizing the same people that Trump demonizes and he's implying that anarchists should be arrested for simply being anarchist because based on what he says about anarchists, we should just automatically assume that they're also going to do violence. I mean, we need Democrats. We need them to step up. We need an opposition party. The Republican Party is going further and further to the right. We now have Donald Trump carrying out what appears to be the first stages of a fascistic government. And Democrats are failing to meet the moment. They are face planting. They are completely lost. And half the time they decide with Republicans and they're absolutely extreme, cruel agenda. It's just deeply frustrating. And look, I don't want to create this false equivalence where I tell you that there's no differences between Democrats and Republicans because there is real meaningful differences between the two parties. But the problem is that Democrats aren't stepping up when we need them the most, right? The differences between them and Republicans is really a matter of degree with which they're extreme and neoliberal and pro free market and just don't actually care about the people and only work to service their donors. It's extremely frustrating. And as we keep going towards this path of more and more late stage capitalism, letting people suffer, not giving them enough relief, things are going to get worse in this country. So I would be a little bit more optimistic if we had at least a semi-competent opposition party. But when you have a fascistic far right government and an opposition party that is just extremely incompetent, you get a situation where you kind of devolve into an illiberal authoritarian regime as we see with Turkey. And Erdogan was able to turn that country, a democracy into an authoritarian regime, functionally speaking, in a little over a decade. So I mean, this is what we will continue to get if we don't actually hold Democrats accountable and fight them and not just support them because they're not Trump or not Republicans. We have to hold them accountable. And because they know that so long as they're just a little bit better than Republicans, you'll continue to give them a pass. They're going to continue to do things like this and disappoint you. I think that there's a substantial portion of the left in the center who know exactly what they're getting with Joe Biden. They're not expecting him to be the next FDR or some type of progressive powerhouse. You know what to expect with Joe Biden because we have an extensive history of the way that he is governed. He's basically a moderate Republican. And for some people, that's good enough, right? Just not being Donald Trump, not being as extreme and openly racist and fascistic as Donald Trump to them is good enough. And sure, that's an improvement, but the problem is that what we're getting with Joe Biden is going to be a really deeply troubling, pro-corporate, neoliberal administration, perhaps more so than previous Democratic administrations. I mean, first and foremost, you have to consider who the Democrats are getting in bed with throughout the course of this election cycle. I mean, we see the rise of the Lincoln Project, which is ex-Bush administration officials, most of which should be in prison for crimes against humanity because of their involvement with the Iraq War. And I mean, as Emma Viglin, I think rightfully pointed out on Twitter, we should worry that this Lincoln Project nonsense is a Trojan horse to get Republicans into Biden's administration because if they help him get elected, then he's going to want to reward them with spots in his administration and therefore they'll be able to influence him. So I mean, what we see is kind of this devolution of the Democratic Party as Republicans move further to the right and become more extreme. The Democrats are kind of trying to take on what more moderate elements the Republican Party is leaving behind. So we're going to see like this weird, unholy alliance between liberal Democrats and Bush-era neo-conservatives. And together, they don't disagree on that much. They may disagree on cultural issues and social issues, but when it comes to free market capitalism and neoliberalism, they're in lockstep. So I'm hoping for the best, but I'm expecting the worst. I mean, here's the thing. If Joe Biden is elected and he does as poorly as Obama did in terms of not really improving the material conditions in this country, after four years or eight years of Joe Biden, what is that going to lead to? I mean, we saw how eight years of Obama led to so much desperation that people became radicalized and they elected a clown like Donald Trump. So what's next? I fear someone more dangerous like Tom Cotton. And I'm not making an accelerationist argument. I don't believe that four more years of Donald Trump is preferable. I disagree with that notion, but what I am saying is that unless we have a president who's going to step up and actually change the conditions in this country, reverse the course, like this trajectory of late stage capitalism that is leading us to our demise as a nation, then things are going to continue to deteriorate in this country. And we have a sign that Joe Biden is in fact going to continue business as usual. And David Serota, former speech writer for Bernie Sanders points this out in a newsletter. He says, two weeks ago, Joe Biden rightly received praise for creating policy task forces that released a package of progressive legislative initiatives. The proposals augmented Biden's previous legislative initiatives to change corporate behavior. The task forces were meant to unify the Democratic Party after the primary and the recommendations were blared all over the world in glowing headlines promising an era of progressive change under a Biden administration. Then this past Monday, Biden told his Wall Street donors that actually he is not proposing any new legislation to rein in corporate power or change corporate behavior. And this was reported exactly nowhere, even as his campaign blasted it out to the national press corps. You don't have to believe me. You can click here to read the full poll report that the Biden campaign distributed the press after his teleconference fundraisers and I'll link that down below. That event was headlined by John Gray, a top executive at the Blackstone Group, which is a private equity behemoth at the center of the climate, healthcare housing and pension crises. Blackstone executives had already donated $130,000 to the Biden campaign and $350,000 to a super PAC supporting him. Here's the relevant section reviewing what Biden said. Second question, again from Mr. Gray, who noted that there are a bunch of business leaders on the line. What do you think is essential to get this economy rolling again? Quote, I come from the corporate state of American. Many of you incorporated here, said Mr. Biden. It used to be that corporate America had a sense of responsibility beyond just CEO salaries and shareholders. Corporate America has to change its ways. It's not going to require legislation. I'm not proposing any. We've got to think about how we deal people back in. There's an obvious contradiction here. Before making these comments, Biden had previously promised to pass legislative initiatives to change corporate behavior on everything from climate change to tax policy. He has an entire section of his website outlining promises to pass corporate accountability legislation. He has received praise for these kind of promises, but now he's telling his donors they can rest assured that legislation to change corporate behavior is not forthcoming. Indeed, read Biden's comment again. It's not going to require legislation. I'm not proposing any. So do you understand the problem here? Like my issue with people who are advocating for Joe Biden is that they're trying to set up this expectation that doesn't mirror reality. Like it's not reflective of Joe Biden's history. Well, Joe Biden, if you look at his website, this is one of the most progressive platforms in American history, except this wasn't written by Joe Biden. It's written by consultants and he doesn't even know what's on his website. Like I'm not even going to accuse him of lying and flip-flopping because there's no way he even knows that there's legislation on his website to rein in the abuse of corporate America. So it's just, this is deeply frustrating because if we are lucky enough to oust Donald Trump in November, then we get Joe Biden and down the line, if we don't actually correct all of the issues that led to Donald Trump in the first place, then we're gonna get someone who's worse, someone who's actually effective at carrying out fascism and who's more authoritarian. Tom Cotton, Matt Gaetz, these are individuals who ideologically, they are aligned with Donald Trump. But Donald Trump, the difference between them and him, like the difference between Tom Cotton and Donald Trump, for example, is that Donald Trump doesn't know what he's doing, whereas Tom Cotton is much more calculative. He knows exactly what he's doing. And that's frustrating. That's scary. Like, this isn't just about getting rid of Donald Trump, and that's what I think that a lot of people miss. This is going to require fundamental changes that go beyond electoral politics, like who we elect. We need to completely transform this country and the institutions if we truly love this country and want it to survive. Because what we're doing is more of the same that has led to people becoming more and more economically depressed, more materially deprived. And as this happens, people become more and more radicalized and extreme. And sometimes radicalization is a good thing. Like if you become more radicalized and you're left leaning and you're committed to Medicare for all, that's good. But oftentimes, people get preyed upon by demagogues like Donald Trump or Tom Cotton, right? And they could be radicalized in the opposite direction. So, I mean, look, the situation in America, even if we defeat Donald Trump on November 3rd, that doesn't mean that the work is done. You know, the threat of a total collapse of this regime isn't just gone. Like this effort is so tremendous. I genuinely don't know if it's too late. Like I don't know if we can salvage this, right? The country might just be too polarized. Both parties might just be too far gone and too sold out to special interests to actually want to make a difference. So I don't know what the implications of that are. I don't know what to expect. But what I do know is that if we don't actually get change in this country, then we will continue down this path and it's not just going to remain equally bad. Like as shitty as it is now, the situation will continue to deteriorate. So I hope that people don't take this as, you know, a message of, well, I should just be depressed. Nothing is ever going to change. This should be a call to action to you. If you hear what I'm saying and it makes you feel discouraged, then use this as the fuel to light the fire that gets you involved and you go beyond electoral politics. You actually take direct action. And I know there's not too much we can do during a pandemic. I get that, but I need you to understand that mobilization on a mass level is what will be required to save this country. It's not going to be waiting and hoping that Democrats do the right thing because they're not. And if they have an instinct to do the right thing, they have a lot of other interests beside you in their ears telling them to do the wrong thing. So we have to understand the scale of what is required and we have to take appropriate action. That means we take to the streets, we have sit-ins and we demand Medicare for all and we don't leave until we get it. We have to do what is necessary to save the country because if we continue down this trajectory of neoliberalism and more late stage capitalism where corporate America dictates our policies, then it's going to be worse than worse. And the next fascist who comes along will be much more worse than Donald Trump because he or she might actually be effective at carrying out their fascistic agenda. So at a recent press conference, Donald Trump openly wondered why if everybody loves Dr. Fauci so much and Dr. Fauci is a part of his administration, then why is it that Dr. Fauci has a high approval rating but Donald Trump does not? I mean, to care about this during a pandemic when 150,000 Americans have died is a little bit ridiculous. Like he is such a narcissist that everything is about him including an unprecedented economic crisis and pandemic but nonetheless, listen to him babble on about how he should also be loved basically. That's the implication just like we all love Dr. Fauci. In tweets that were deleted by Twitter, you said that Dr. Fauci misled the country about hydroxychloroquine, how so? No, not at all. I don't even know what his stance is on it. I was just, you know, he was at the task force meeting a little while ago. I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci. You know, it's sort of interesting. We've listened to Dr. Fauci. I haven't always agreed with him and that's I think pretty standard, that's okay. He did not want us to ban or this put up the ban to China when China was heavily infected, very badly Wuhan. He didn't want to do that and I did and other things and he told me I was right and he told me I saved tens of thousands of lives, which was generous. But it's, you know, I think it's fact that I banned, I did the ban on Europe, but I get along with him very well and I agree with a lot of what he said. So, you know, it's interesting. He's got a very good approval rating and I like that. It's good because remember, he's working for this administration. He's working with us, Jen. We could have gotten other people. We could have gotten somebody else. It didn't have to be Dr. Fauci. He's working with our administration. And for the most part, we've done pretty much what he and others, Dr. Birx and others who are terrific recommended. And he's got this high approval rating. So, why don't I have a high approval rating with respect and the administration with respect to the virus? We should have a very high because what we've done in terms of we're just reading off about the masks and the gowns and the ventilators and numbers that nobody's seen and the testing at 55 million tests. We tested more than anybody in the world. I have a graph that I'd love to show you. Perhaps you've seen it where we're up here and the rest of the world is down at a level. That's just a tiny fraction of what we've done in terms of testing. So, it sort of is curious. A man works for us with us very closely. Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx also highly thought of and yet they're highly thought of, but nobody likes me. It can only be my personality. That's all. Go ahead. You Trump that this isn't about you and nobody cares about you or your feelings or your popularity and that this isn't mean girls and you're not actually Regina George. Nobody cares about you. And it's not like everyone loves Dr. Fauci. Like my opinion of Dr. Fauci is that he is an infectious disease expert and he's fairly successful at trying to give us direction and what we should be doing. Like he's not a political figure. So it's not about loving or hating anyone. He's just trying to do his job whereas you are trying to stop him from doing his job and you and your goons in your administration are trying to undermine him at every single step of the way. So maybe if you're confused as to why people love him but not you maybe if you stopped attacking him and not literally release an oppo dump on him in an attempt to discredit him because he might be saying things that make you look bad maybe not attacking the person that you know Americans love might actually help you become popular. But do you wanna know what would actually make you be more popular? Is if you even tried to do a good job at handling this pandemic the extent to which you have failed cannot be overstated. This is why people approve of him but not you. You're trying to force schools to reopen during a pandemic and you're using this as a scheme to privatize public education and you're not even lying about it. Like you're openly trying to get public education and you're using this pandemic as the catalyst. Like that's why we don't like you. You haven't taken this seriously since the beginning. You won't mandate masks. You've constantly been downplaying the severity of the virus saying that it's not actually that we're seeing a spike in cases. We're just doing more tests. So that's why we're seeing more cases. It's not like it's spreading more rapidly or anything like that. We're just doing more tests. And on top of that after you finally tweet out a picture of you wearing a mask which embarrassingly then your supporters 58% of them started to believe in masks you retweet some weird quack doctor who literally believes in reptilians who's saying actually this really isn't that severe. You don't need to wear masks and hydroxychloroquine is a cure for COVID-19. I mean, this is why we absolutely can't fucking stand you because during a pandemic we can't even get a semblance of competence from you. Nothing on top of that you're withdrawing from the World Health Organization in the middle of a fucking crisis. You're trying to muzzle the CDC because the data that they release may make you look bad. Your Treasury Secretary is more concerned about people getting lazy and receiving too much government benefits while an unprecedented eviction crisis is due within months. Americans are losing their jobs, their healthcare and rather than trying to actually give us more healthcare your administration is trying to take the one shitty healthcare policy that we have currently and you're trying to gut that. We can't even have Obamacare the shittiest thing imaginable right wing neoliberal reform. You're trying to gut that as well. Businesses are closing. People are losing their purchasing power and you have no real plan to stop people from suffering both from a public health standpoint and from the standpoint of economic desperation. And since this pandemic hit there's been 150,000 dead Americans on your watch and what do you care about? Whether or not people perceive that you're doing a good job. Your approval rating, your election, statues that's what you're focusing on. Maybe if you focused on COVID-19 and took it as seriously as you took vandalization of statues maybe you'd have a higher approval rating. Maybe if there was any consistency at all if you just like said something and kept saying it and it was a good thing maybe Americans might like you more, right? If you said masks from the beginning are a good thing and you didn't change your tune on that and waver on it and kind of not support it but you do support it but you won't make it mandatory because freedom and liberty but also you'll retweet some weird quack who believes that people literally have sex with demon spirits in their dreams and witches, I mean, that's why people hate you because Dr. Fauci, he's a serious person. You are not a serious person. You are out of your fucking league. You're a reality television show star and because you wanted to write a book or launch a television network you chose to run for president and Americans are stupid enough to be duped by your idiotic dumb ass campaign because you capitalized on the existing economic desperation and you used xenophobia and racism as a weapon to catapult yourself into a position of power and now we're all dealing with your career aspirations as a result of it. Now you're president and you're not stepping up. We don't get any help from you not even a little bit. We don't get economic support. We don't even get the bare minimum when it comes to guidance and what we're supposed to do. There's mixed messages from your campaign. Your supporters think it's a hoax and you're not doing anything to correct the record there. I mean, it's a complete fucking clusterfuck. There's a reason why our country is worse off than other countries. It's because you're the leader. You specifically are a huge part of the problem. So I mean, that's why. I hope that answers the question for you. If you're asking why you don't have a high approval rating it's because you fucked up. You handle this like a child would handle it. In fact, I can't even say that because I think a child might do better because most people aren't as self-centered and narcissistic as you are, right? I mean, we all care about ourselves and our image and how people perceive us to an extent, of course, but you care about that more than everything else. Like it takes precedence over everything including a pandemic. So rather than worrying about whether or not people approve of the job that you're doing, focus on the fucking job that you were elected to do and stop the goddamn pandemic and maybe people might like you more. But you are not going to do that because you view this as a lost cause and your own staffers reportedly said that they hope people just grow numb to COVID-19 and that's why for a while you were pretending like it's not a thing. So I mean, this is why we absolutely can't fucking stand you because you're a tool, you're a do-tard and you're not cut out for this job or any job. I mean, you could have literally done nothing. You had enough money passed on to you by your daddy to just sit on your ass for the rest of your life but because you crave attention unlike anyone I've ever seen, you chose to get involved in politics and as a result, we're all suffering. So that's why we hate you. All right, folks, so we are going to do a deep dive. It's been a while since we've looked at one of CNN's voter panels with Alison Camarota and usually, if anything, these are entertaining but sometimes they're genuinely insightful. Other times they make me lose faith in humanity but this one it got my interest because it consists of six people, three of them former Trump supporters, the other three current Trump supporters. Now they're not asked generally about why they support Donald Trump. These questions are all about whether or not they support Donald Trump's handling of COVID-19 and even if you're supporting Donald Trump for some policy reason, like you want the wall, if you genuinely think that he's doing a good job handling COVID-19, then I question your sanity. So with that being said, let's go ahead and watch. I haven't seen all of this, I've seen some of it, I've skimmed it and this one is, it's something. So take it away, Alison. Show of hands, how many of you voted for President Trump in 2016? Okay, all of you voted for President Trump. Show of hands, how many of you plan to vote for him again in November? Okay, three hands went up. Got to pause it right there. Okay, after there have been 150,000 Americans who have died because of COVID-19, an eviction crisis coming and this president is focused on statues, like to still support him, you have to be in a cult. Like you've drank in the Kool-Aid and you just believe that he can do no wrong. I mean, there's no other way to rationalize this. But nonetheless, I'm not gonna get too much here into the overanalyzation of this because I think this is gonna get spicy. Daniel, tell us your thoughts. I believe that his handling the pandemic has been horrendous. I think his lack of accountability and an old political term, he waffles on everything. He did say this. He didn't say that and he meant this, but he didn't mean that. He's totally unpredictable. I don't think any. Okay, I'm glad that you have come to your senses, but is that really a new phenomenon with Donald Trump? I mean, wasn't he contradicting himself like every five minutes in 2016 and 2015? Like for you now to have this revelation, I mean, you can argue that it's good that he changed his mind and I can kind of give you a pass if you have evolved politically, but I mean, Donald Trump has always been the same person. He's always been a bumbling buffoon and an imbecile who's narcissistic. So, you know, it's weird that you'd point this out now. Nonetheless, I'm not going to shit on you for abandoning Donald Trump and getting out of the cult. I know leaving a cult might be a little bit scary, but you've done it. You made a huge step and I applaud you for it. Anyone could have handled it any better. Listen to health experts. When Donald Trump says something about ingesting Lysol, don't take it, obviously that's an absurd statement. She just said that nobody else could have handled it any better, but then she says, oh, well, when he talks about injecting Lysol, that's an absurd statement. So wouldn't you argue that if they didn't make that type of idiotic statement about injecting Lysol, that they could have handled it better just by not being stupid? I mean, these people are in a fucking cult. They don't want to believe that Daddy Trump can do anything wrong. It's just ridiculous. He should not be speaking on health matters. Then why do you support him? He's the president. He wasn't taking it as seriously as he should, but the entire government failed. No, no, no, no, no. You just said that it couldn't have been handled any better by anyone else. And then you say he's not taking it seriously. Like there's just no consistency. And she said, let me go back a little bit, that the entire government has failed. Yes, of course. But I mean, leadership is important during this crisis. So if you're admitting that Donald Trump has failed in some areas, then overall, how could you with a straight face say, oh, well, nobody else could have really done a better job than him? I mean, if they just had basic common sense, they probably could have based on your own reasoning. Wasn't taking it as seriously as he should, but the entire government failed us. They were focused on impeachment as COVID was spreading. What? Impeachment was over in January. Was it not? Like am I missing up, messing up the timeline in my head? Like what are you talking about? That's what they were focused on. They were all- That's what they were focused on. She's so smug. Show of hands, have any of you had a friend or loved one or know someone who got very sick with COVID and or died? It's funny how the two people, two of the three people who abandoned Donald Trump, they have people who, or they know people who have COVID-19. Interesting. Okay, so- Oh, okay, nevermind. I guess three of the three people. I don't know why that took her so long. Three of you know people who got sick. Tommy, tell us what you think about President Trump's response to coronavirus. Well, they didn't get extremely sick and died, but I had a nephew and several friends that have tested positive for COVID. I will say this, I am a business owner. My wife and I own a 24-7 fitness center. We had to close our gym for 84 days. We've had the business for seven years. And I just want to point out, again, that this all happened while Donald Trump has been president. Trump has done. Yeah. And I feel like it shouldn't have to take you knowing someone who's been affected to actually take this seriously. It's extremely serious. Like my friend, one of my best friends has had COVID-19 now for like three months. It's extremely fucking serious. It shouldn't get to this point to where you're only taking it seriously if you know someone who's affected. I mean, it's so frustrating. What he can do. Okay, this is exactly what's happening is people are small businesses are losing their businesses at their livelihood because of this pandemic. I have... That was a little bit sus. I think that she caught herself. She was going to say, pandemic probably. She's a Trumpy person, a chudge. So I'm guessing that she's a little bit of conspiratorial. Let's let her carry on. Well, who I do know, who have tested positive for COVID, my in-laws. Okay, one, she had to wear the mask because she's got allergies. I think the breathing of her own breath and having to deal with allergies, I think that got her sick. What? What the fuck? What? Lady, what the fuck are you talking about? You literally just said that someone who tested positive for COVID-19, who you know, you're in law, you think that they got sick from wearing a mask because they breathed in their own germs? Like, are you saying that she gave herself COVID-19 that it like materialized from her own body? What are you talking about? Like, the conspiracy that you're concocting doesn't even make sense on a basic level. Like, what the fuck? You are a psychopath. She started to get a fever. She's over 60 years old. She panics because there's a fear mongering going on. Maybe because it's killing a lot of fucking people and she's right to panic. Oh, you're gonna die. She runs a tested positive. She goes home, had fever for two days. She's fine now. Good. That doesn't mean that it's not serious. You fucking idiot. She's older. I guess I'm confused about your point. I mean, do you think that people are not dying? Call her a jackass, Allison. Do it. Call her a dipshit. What I'm trying to say and make a point to is that 382 million Americans, four million of tested positive and 145,000 have died. Yeah, so you're going to live with those numbers. Those numbers are okay for you. Doing the math? No, no number of death is okay. If you do the math is a 99.9% survival rate. What? If you do the math, it's a 99.9% survival rate. What math are we talking about? Like what numbers are you plugging in? Because that's not what I've seen. Like the rate of death for COVID-19 is like two or 3%. And I'm gonna pull it up because I'm curious because I don't know what she's doing to get this number. 99.9%. Like that would be a different story. Like it'd still be serious. Like you're still sick, you don't want to get it. But that mortality rate, that does not seem accurate. Yeah, so this is from ourworlddata.org. Let me pull it up. It's not accurate. She's pulling that out of her ass. So look at these countries who are affected. So the United States mortality rate right here, just under 4%. And it rose to almost 6% in May. So I don't know where she's getting this number from. Wow, in Italy it was like, it is actually as of July 28th, 14%. That's insane. So no, this isn't something where 99.9% of the people are okay. And even if we assumed that it wasn't as fatal as she's saying it is, there's still long-term health issues that COVID-19 causes. I mean, scar tissue in your lungs that give you lifelong breathing issues, blood clots in younger people. I mean, this person is so stupid. Like she has to be getting her information from like info wars or some weird like quack online who's posting YouTube videos. Like I don't know, but what she's saying is incredibly like troubling and she's confident about it. Like this is done in crew or in action. What are we freaking out about? Okay, I don't understand. Real numbers and facts that we didn't pull out of our anuses. 99% in 2017, 2018, there was 13% more deaths in heart disease than in COVID. You can't spread heart disease, you fucking moron. If I cough on someone and I have like something like heart disease, I'm not going to give them heart disease. This is a contagious virus. What's not to understand? Also three times more deaths of accidents and car accidents, but we didn't shut down the interstates and take people's cars away. Like are car accidents contagious? Like do they spread? I mean, it's contained to an area. Like you could see a pile up, but I mean, like this isn't the same thing. That's a false equivalence. And I love how like she's clearly glancing at her numbers because she's like, she's bringing the facts. She's, she's schooling these libtards, but like lady, you're fucking stupid. Like you're speaking out of your asshole and you don't know what the fuck you're saying and you're pulling out these weird, bizarre statistics that you probably got from fucking info wars. Like what the fuck? I hope they correct her on this. Didn't shut down the freeways because there's car accidents. What we did was we did science and testing and we came to the conclusion that seat belts were necessary to keep us out there motoring along as safely as possible. And as far as heart disease goes, I can't walk into my local supermarket and catch that from the idiot standing next to me. I literally made that point. Okay, okay, good job. I have a breathing problem and therefore, if I don't wear a mask, I'm an idiot. Okay. I have a breathing problem and if I don't wear a mask, I'm an idiot. Yes, you're an idiot and you do not have a breathing problem that will lead to you not being able to wear a mask. You're just a fucking stupid person and you don't want to wear a mask because you think that it's liberty or tyranny or some bullshit like that. Like if you can't wear a mask genuinely, then stay the fuck home because you're clearly like a psychopath. So like these types of people I swear to God, make me lose so much faith in humanity because this person, like I don't know what state she's from but her vote might actually matter more than yours. Like if she's from a swing state, her vote has more power than my vote or your vote possibly. Like this type of stupidity that we're seeing where she literally says, oh, I can't wear a mask because I have a breathing problem. Sure, sure. What breathing problem? Asma, like what are we talking about here? Be specific, cite the specific breathing problem that you are not able to wear a mask. Like she can't, she can't cite that because she's just, she is an idiot. Like there's not really anything I can say. Like this lady is so stupid. Like out of all of these MAGA chuds, namely the top three, this lady is so stupid. Like this is exactly the type of idiocy I'd expect from a Trump supporter. So you'd rather I die because I can't breathe with a mask on and I'm an idiot because I didn't wear the mask. Yes, yes. Put on the mask. It's not gonna kill you, Karen. Do you know how hypocritical I am? If you're gonna come to my grocery store and use that feeble excuse, yes you are. You can breathe fine with a mask. I cannot. I cannot. Oh my God. This fucking lady. I cannot. I cannot. She is making me want to like bang my head against the desk. Okay, then just don't leave your house then. Don't leave your house, I don't know what to tell you. It's a fucking pandemic. You probably, she probably does not believe in it. Like you know at the beginning when she said it's a pandemic, she was going to call it a pandemic. So she thinks it's a hoax. Like this lady is a fucking psychopath. Like it should be scary that people like her vote in this country. Like these are the people who, you know, as much as I want to encourage political participation, like I hope that she stops voting and stops participating in politics because Jesus fuck. So Damani, what's it like to hear the strong reservations of your fellow panelists here? They're dumb. Well, you know, I think that everyone has a right to their own opinion. Both sides are just equally correct. Shut up, you fan-sitter. Take a stance. I also do believe that here in America, we have a lot of serious problems that need to be taken care of that honestly have been allowed to fester for far too long. I don't think there's anything Trump. That was a very like milk toast centrist answer. Sad. That would make his supporters at our dug-in not vote for him. Yeah, because it's a cult. Say it's a cult. In my opinion, if that were the case, then they would be thinking like me right now. I'm hearing a repeat of 2016. The anti-Trumpers, the people who are like, oh, I can't vote for him. It's not fair to call someone like me a never-Trumper because I voted for the man in 2016. Correct. Me too, thank you, Tom. Yeah. Yeah, you all did. I mean, you all did. What I'm saying is a rhetoric. It's a rhetoric of the never-Trump movement. I didn't say you. It's not a rhetoric. It's based on a repeat of 2016. It's a 2016. Okay, I am genuinely worried that this lady is like going to get a show on Fox News or OAN. Like she has all the talking points down. Like she has her numbers from Info Wars. She's got it down. She has her talking point. She knows exactly what to say. Like she could be a star in the Trump movement. So it's like you see her and you think, oh, wow, this lady is scary. Thank God this is just one person. But like these types of people in America right now, given how bad the discourse is, have the potential to like become famous because of their stupidity. And not like because they're being shamed because they get like a show on the Blaze TV or some shit like that. We at least gave him the chance. We gave him the opportunity. We gave him the chance as to what he's done in office, not what he did. You shouldn't have though. That's not a good thing. On his Twitter feed or his personal life or private life prior to becoming president. I think we need someone with the temperament of Donald Trump even though sometimes he is unpredictable. I think we need the temperament of Donald Trump because he is someone who is willing to call out or other people will refuse to call out. And I think that's something that we really need right. What? The temperament of Donald Trump. So the temperament of like a six-year-old who's throwing a tantrum in the grocery store. The temperament of Donald Trump. Like out of all the qualities in Donald Trump you could say, look, I like that he has a big mouth and he tweets all the time. I think it's funny. It triggers the lips. But out of all the qualities, the one thing that you really don't want in Donald Trump, like his worst attribute is his temperament. And he says, oh, we need someone with the temperament of Donald Trump. My dude, that's fucking dumb. I'll say one more thing. I saw an interview with Donald Trump with the guy from Barstool Sports the other night. And something that Donald Trump said hit me pretty ironically. He said, you know, that the preceding years prior to me announcing running for president were the best of my life. I can't remember his exact quote, but he was fabulously wealthy and had this great life. And I would just like to remind him that Barack Obama was president during the best times of his life. So if Donald Trump loses, we will get through it. Not last comment, because it's like, the thing that irritates me is they go from like being a maggot shed to like a full-on like a Democratic Party sycophant. When, you know, Barack Obama's years, that wasn't good for most normal people. Like rich people were doing fine, but Obama was bombing seven different countries. He ramped up the drone war that George W. Bush started. I mean, look, if you're leaving the MAGA cult and you're going, you know, to the Democratic Party sycophancy side, I don't know, whatever, right? But I mean, some of this is just, it's soul crushing like this lady. We have to go back to her. The lady who literally is going to fucking die if you make her wear a mask. I mean, do they not realize how stupid they sound? Like, are they worried about the surgeons who perform these like 12 hour long surgeries? Like, are you worried that they're gonna die? I mean, you're complaining about wearing a mask for like 20 minutes while you go into Walmart to buy fucking ice cream. But people wear masks as part of their job every single day. Why aren't they dropping dead? Why aren't we seeing all of these deaths because of people that have these breathing conditions? Quote, unquote, breathing conditions. Who are wearing masks? Like, I can't, I can't deal with this. This shit, I shouldn't have watched this because every time I watch these fucking videos, it makes me lose faith in humanity. And they're always entertaining, but it's not good for the soul. It's not good for the soul. I swear to God, if I see this lady on like Fox News or OAN or on YouTube, for whatever reason, and she starts to like become famous, I'm gonna lose my shit. Because this is the exact person who would like make it in right wing media, who like the billionaires would fund because she's bombastic and like she's confident. Okay, yeah, we're done here. Nothing left to see, folks. Yeah. I can do it, I can do it. Ooh, we have a special snowflake. Hi, folks, I'm here with another fantastic guest today. I have with me Elijah Manley, who is running to represent House District 94 of the state of Florida. He's just 21 years old and he may pull off a huge upset in his race. Elijah, thank you so much for coming on the program. Thanks for inviting me on. I am really excited to talk to you because when I was 21 years old, I was like starting to get involved in politics, but nowhere near ready to actually like run for any elected office. So what influenced you to run at such a young age? Absolutely, you know, I like nothing more than to, you know, just party, go to the club and enjoy the college experience. But we're being left with a planet that's not going to be habitable for my generation in a few years. We're being left with a healthcare system that is broken. We're being left with a housing crisis that is out of control here in South Florida. And I think right now in these times that we're facing these unparalleled times in our history, we need people who are going to be fighting a right fight, progressives like myself, who are going to go to Tallahassee and get things done for our district. So I'm running because I don't like what I'm seeing. I'm not happy with the representation that we currently have in Tallahassee and I want to change that. And I love your answer. Like to me, it's a really encouraging and inspiring answer. But on the other side of the coin, it's a little bit sad because like when you're 21, like you shouldn't have to be fighting, you know, these existential threats. It's sad, but at the same time, you know, it's nice to see Zoomers get involved in politics to this extent. I really credit, you know, as a millennial, I credit Zoomers because I think that your generation is already much cooler than us. So I'm really excited to see what you guys are bringing to the table. So one thing that I'm assuming kind of catalyzed your interest in politics and your run and your ambitions is something that your kindergarten teacher told you. You have a pinned tweet on your Twitter profile and your kindergarten teacher said that by the age of 21, which you're 21 now, you'd either be dead or in jail. First of all, I hope that that person is no longer teaching. What a terrible thing to say to someone in kindergarten. Like I have a nephew starting kindergarten and at that age, they're very impressionable. But I mean, that's something that you said has kind of stood with you throughout your entire life. Like how did that really, you know, guide you in terms of like what you're choosing to do? Because that to me is, it's just, it's awful. Right. The first thing I'd say is, I mean, that followed me my entire life for, you know, up until high school, I actually believed that. I believe that, you know, before I turned 21, it seemed long ways away that I'd just be another statistic, another statistic of police violence or another statistic in the prison industrial complex that preys on children through the school to prison pipeline. I actually believe that for most of my life. And I just remember those words so vividly, you know, a lot of people were asking me, how do you remember that? Like, how do you remember what was said to you in kindergarten? You'd be surprised how much the children remember from their, you know, their great school years. So that followed me. And I think it really helped me to be a, not just a better person personally, but to really care about other people, including young people who are facing so many issues, especially students of color who are dealing with and grappling with the school to prison pipeline, which is snatching us out of the schools early. But it's part of the reason why, like when I decided to run, I put such an emphasis on education, specifically early childhood education. The science says that the ages zero to three years are the most important years in a child's life, getting that early childhood education, getting that care that they need, whether that's universal childcare for them or having access to excellent kind of teachers. I didn't have that. I'm not sure if she's still working in the education system, but you know, I came out today and I said, I do forgive that teacher. I don't forgive her for what she did or what she said and how many other children she might have influenced in a negative way, but I forgive her because I know that's what's in my heart as a person. Yeah, and that's commendable. I mean, like a lot of people would hear that and be really discouraged, but I mean, it seems like you kind of took it as a challenge. And, you know, for her to see you now, I think that she would be embarrassed in eating her own words because look at what you're doing. So this is basically anyone who's watching who isn't familiar with you. I think that viewers of the Humanist Report, they're going to like your policies. Like you check all of the boxes, you know, you support Medicare for all free education and whatnot, but this is a different race because you're running for to be a state representative, you know, in the state legislature. So the issues are going to be a little bit different. It's a more localized race. So in terms of what you think would be needed, something that you'd push for as a member of the state house of Florida, what would be on your agenda? Let's say you're elected and you get sworn in 2021. You have a lot of things to address. What would be some of the things that you prioritize? Whew, that is a lot. That's a big question. That is a big question. Florida legislators actually, we only get six slots to introduce bills every legislative session. So we can only introduce six bills, every single legislative session. So we have to be really cautious what we introduce and when and what it is we're going to target for that session and also balancing what our district needs. But I say there are two areas I think are the most important or three, actually. The first to me is going to be climate change in the environment. We're in South Florida and we're facing a catastrophe just waiting to happen with sea level rise due to climate change. And it's not getting talked about nearly enough as it should be. We still have oil companies fracking in Florida trying to frack in the Everglades. We still have them trying to poison like utility companies like FPL trying to poison our freshwater aquifers. We have so much going on but we do not have the funding or we're not prioritizing funding to restore the Everglades to deal with hurricanes and to protect the environment at all. So that's definitely something especially living in a coastal community and having a coastal district that I think is most important because we're ground zero for climate change. But outside of climate change one other thing which we all understand and we all know is one of the most important things to people including my constituents is healthcare. I'm a proud supporter of Medicare for All. I think that we shouldn't even be having this discussion anymore about Medicare for All. We should have been at Medicare for All a long time ago instead of spending so much money on wars. On a state level what I've said I will do is I will expand Medicaid. I will expand Medicaid as much as I possibly could. Through a program I call Medicare for Florida which will guarantee healthcare to all people in Florida. Because it's a state level we can actually force people into the program because of of course the federal government. So what we'll be able to do is we'll be able to expand Medicaid because what we have right now is a system where there are income limits. So if you make just a dollar more than that income limit then you're kicked out of the program you don't have access to it anymore. And that's the situation I found myself in now where I don't no longer have healthcare anymore. So I don't have healthcare and I know there are millions of Floridians who are facing this current situation. So I've made several proposals. I said the first thing we need to do is to expand Medicaid. We're one of the only states in a country that doesn't take federal dollars to spend Medicaid. Federal dollars from Obama's time including during the Trump administration Florida just won't take the Medicaid dollars. The second thing I said is we need to have community health clinics and every single zip code. So what this would do is bring down wait times in emergency rooms. A lot of people go and they sit in the ER for four or five, six hours just to get a doctor telling them hey you need to take this medicine or everything's fine and they get the $11,000 hospital bill. If we had nonprofit community health centers in every single zip code this would not only bring down wait times in the ER but it will also do another important thing is it will provide access to basic healthcare to people who live in rural communities in Florida who don't have a hospital within 50 miles of them. And if there's an emergency they have to be airlifted or they have to hope that the for-profit private hospitals that are somewhat nearby would take them in. So healthcare is definitely the biggest one especially with what we're seeing now with the pandemic but that's something I'm definitely looking to tackle if I'm gonna let them. Yeah and the things that you're describing here they're really complex and it took me a while to learn about the differences between like state and federal healthcare because you know what I think people should do is exactly what you're proposing like if you're running for state office. Like you pay fealty to single payer you say this is a goal but at the state level it's really complicated. You can't actually do a single payer system at the state level because you know the federal government is inextricably linked. Like you have people on federal programs so it's really difficult to do that. So what you're doing is incredibly easy like you're expanding Medicaid and you're making it so that way basically 100% of Floridians are covered by doing a number of things and I think it's brilliant. It's a really easy way to ameliorate the suffering just right away full stop and I think that that's really important that you understand that because it's complicated like healthcare policy is so, so tough to like really grasp and I'm still in the process of doing that myself after you know having been a passionate advocate of Medicare for all four years. So it's nice that you really have a solid plan to extend healthcare to literally thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people in Florida. I didn't wanna ask you about because you're in a coastal community what's the sentiment been there? Because for me I'm in the Pacific Northwest so it's a little bit different. Like is there a sense of urgency, more urgency in your opinion because you live in a coastal community? Like is it just among young people or do people really fear that they may lose their land because of climate change? Like can you give me a little bit of a sense of that based on the people who you've spoken to? Right, so it really does depend on who we're talking to. A lot of people who live out near the beach and beach houses and mansions. They should care a little bit more and that's when they don't care because they have the insurance. But the insurance can't pay for every single home which is what I'm talking about here. If you live in a $17 million mansion the insurance companies aren't gonna come in and bail out every single one of those people and make payments. So I've been trying to open up dialogue with those communities. They're not paying attention to this. Every time there's a hurricane and there's another one expected to hit us this weekend hopefully that doesn't happen. But every time a hurricane hits the people who get hurt the most in my district and my community in South Florida are going to be those working class poor people who don't live in mansions, who are renters. So what happens to those people who live in a rented property that gets destroyed? What happened to them? They become homeless. They become refugees, climate refugees in my opinion. So I think there is a lot of urgency especially in the young people is starting to become more urgent among younger people. But I don't think up among older people but I don't think it's happening fast enough given what we're seeing now with sea level rise with the hurricanes every single hurricane season. You know, every single hurricane season the first thing I do is I pray and I pray to God and say I hope it doesn't hit us. Maybe it'll hit another island and that's something that don't ever want to hope on any other island. But we're like maybe it'll turn away. Maybe it'll go away because we haven't had a really big hurricane hit Broward County and Miami-Dade County for a while and the last time it did it leveled a lot of communities. So it's a disaster waiting to happen but there's not a lot of urgency happening. But the one silver lining I'll say is all, you know we have a governor Ron DeSantis who, you know, although he's a Republican he's no environmentalist but he has proposed a lot of environmental policies that I will be exploiting if I'm elected such as he wants to ban fracking he wants to restore the Everglades he wants to end offshore oil drilling. So far the Trump administration is opposed to him on it. So we have a Republican governor finally saying we need to do something about the environment something about fracking and the Democrats in a state house are not doing as much as they should do to make this a priority. There's a lot of bipartisan potential. He's a popular governor, believe it or not. So he can just tell his party, hey I want the fracking ban and we'll need the Democrats to go along and we can get this done. So that's one of the first bills I'll actually introduce is a bill that banned fracking in the state of Florida and I do believe that if it gets to the governor's desk he'll be able to sign that bill. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that because, you know, you would be working with Ron DeSantis. I mean, he would be the governor if you made it to the house. I wanted to ask you just broadly speaking because you mentioned that he's popular which is actually it is surprising to me because I'm not necessarily familiar with the polls there. What do you think he's done wrong in terms of like COVID-19 because Florida is one of the states that's really seeing a spike and there's a healthcare crisis and a new CNBC report shows that there's a looming eviction crisis and in Florida more than 50% of people may face eviction. So I mean, you can attack this from multiple angles. I think that he's failed from the standpoint of like just general public health and delivering on that promise to people of Florida but also economically speaking he hasn't done enough as a governor to make sure that he's stopping people from really suffering economically. What do you, if you had a magic wand and you could do anything right now and political obstacles were in a consideration what do you think Florida needs the most in terms of addressing COVID-19 not just the health issue but the economic issue as well. And this is another loaded question but I know that you have a lot of ideas about this. Definitely. I mean, I'll start by saying well he's gonna start seeing his popularity fall which is starting to because he's doing whatever the Trump administration says when Trump says, Governor Ron do this including holding the RNC in Jacksonville luckily they canceled that he was okay with it. So he's just doing everything the president says and he doesn't really care about the he's not paying attention to the science. And this is a guy who has repeatedly said we don't need to wear masks we don't need to shut everything down we don't need none of this we don't care everything is good everything is great while the cases continue to spike we become the epicenter nearly had over a quarter million cases in Florida we continue to rise we're gonna, we have more cases than several countries in the world. And why? That's because not just Donald Trump but Rhonda sentence deciding that everything was okay and everything was fine and everything was under control and starting to open things up so quickly but what he forgot is we needed to take care of the people the most. And one of the things I said is we need to get people money until we were able to get people money we need to make people's life as easy as possible. One of those things is extending the eviction moratorium and we that is set to aspire at the end of this month and he still has not extended it. So he, I don't know what's going on is he just playing edge with people's lives or whatever's going on within the governor's office but 51% of Floridians according to a study that was done recently cannot afford to pay the rent this month and if there was no eviction moratorium they would be thrown out on the street. So the governor needs to extend it. He has two days to do it before people began to face issues with their landlords but he fell short on a lot of other things. We made national news to our unemployment system a few weeks ago the state of Florida with a system that was designed to fail from the start. This is not something that just was magically broken. It was designed by governors before him including Governor Rick Scott who is now our senator unfortunately to fail. It was designed to ensure that people who would not be able to fill out the application and if they did, they would not hear back from the state for several, several weeks including there are people still months later waiting for their unemployment benefits that they have not received yet. So he has an opportunity still ahead of him to do what's right. I hope he would do that. It looks like he's going down the wrong path but people really need money, they need resources, they need help, they're not getting that. The best way to get those people that money is to, is standing on unemployment benefits, get those people their money and do it the best, that's the best possible way I can see that working out. Yeah, I'm going to kind of ask you to cycle analyze politicians, which you never should do but I'm curious to know like your thoughts on this because I mean, it just seems like we're headed towards catastrophe. Like just looking at your estate, I mean with possibly 51% of people facing eviction with a hurricane, hopefully not hitting but possibly headed towards Florida with COVID-19 spiking, how is there not a sense of urgency? I mean, there's a number of reasons but I mean, like why do the people in power in your estate not feel the urgency that you feel? Like what do you think it is? Like I'm sure that there's a plethora of factors but like in your opinion, what's stopping them from just doing what's common sense to all of us? A lot of things, I'll say that first there's two that come to my mind the first is that they're not connected to regular people. They are not really connected to us. These are people who grew up in our little ivory towers, they have their little mansions that are closed off from their people, half of the Florida legislature, I think 60% of the Florida legislature are millionaires. So you don't really actually never had to deal with poverty in their lives or any of the issues facing poor people. But the other thing is the money in politics, the amount of big money contributions being made from the pharmaceutical industry, from landlords and slumlords who contribute lots of money to campaigns in the state of Florida. These people get to do whatever they want because no one's gonna hold them accountable and their donors tell them what to say. So I don't think that, I mean, there's a sense of urgency on when it comes to when it's working people there's a sense of urgency because we know we're gonna get evicted. We're gonna be facing the storm. Nobody's here to fight for us. But the politicians, there's no sense of urgency for them because they're well connected, they're taken care of and their donors told them what to do. So I think that's really what it is and it's just a corruption. I wish I could say, I'll say the closest I can say if I'm analyzing them is it's just, to me it's just sociopathic in my opinion to not care about people to the point where you're willing to let them die, you're willing to let them suffer because of politics, because of some ideology you have. Yeah, and it's getting to the point where like even if you're sociopathic and you don't care about others you at least expect politicians on some level to have some type of like rational self-interest and making sure that things don't get too bad for their own self-interest. Like, I mean, if we truly see 40 million Americans across the country evicted, I mean, if that actually comes to fruition, I mean, politicians aren't just going to lose their election. I mean, people will be taking to the streets in every single city, it'll be mass civil unrest. So you think that they wouldn't want that, you know? So it honestly is shocking to me the response that we've seen. I mean, the sad part is I wish that a lot of them would lose reelection but so many voters unfortunately are, I don't know what it is. A lot of voters are brainwashed to think that these people have their best interests. Like, they're still Republicans when I'm campaigning. Republicans can vote in my primary because it's essentially an universal primary contest. So it's an open primary. And a lot of them are just saying some of the who's weird and crazy things I've ever heard, like, you know, the mass or this, Melon voting is a scam. And then they go from talking about how governor run and it's doing everything he could and Trump is doing everything he could. And I'm like, these people can't, don't care about you at all. And you see it right in your face and people still are willing to vote for these people. So I hope all hope is not lost. But I do have a lot of hope in our generation of millennials and Zoomers and everything we're trying to accomplish. So I do think in the future, a lot of, we'll start seeing a lot of changes happen. But, you know, I just hope it's not too late. Yeah, I agree with that. Like I think that eventually people don't have a choice. Like they have to wake up. And I think that they're, you know, they love people. Like there's this cult of personality around Donald Trump and, you know, they really, they carry everything that he says. Like whatever he says is gold, it's gospel. And I think that eventually they have to realize that they've been misled. But like you're saying, you know, it's a matter of like when, like will it be too late? I wanted to ask you about the state democratic party because what I often see is when I talk to progressives running for Congress, nationally speaking, they don't get much support from the state democratic party but you're working directly with them, running with them. Have they embraced you? Like has the state democratic party apparatus been welcoming to your campaign? Because we often hear that they want young people to get involved in politics and they're encouraging young people to run. So what has the response from the Floridian democratic party been to your campaign? I'll admit, so overwhelmingly not supporters because I'm running against the incoming House democratic leader in Florida. So I'm running, if I win this election I'll unseat someone who was set to be the most powerful Democrat in the state legislature come 2021. So you can imagine a lot of them are, you know, going a little bit crazy and they're trying to do everything possible not to make sure I don't win, including endorsements. You know, just recently, they were so scared that several members of Congress, including Demi Roger Michele, a statewide Democrat and others, including local politicians all endorse my opponent just a week ago because they're afraid that I might win. So the party itself hasn't been supportive at all but there are a lot of people in the party even some establishment people in the party who really want me to win because, you know, it's like just throw the rag in the bucket. You know, we had enough of this. We're fighting against progress. So there's a lot of people waking up finally including people who I never thought would and there are people who are in a party who are supportive but overall the party's been, you know, everything you expect them to be. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's funny that you say that everyone is kind of coming out including Debbie Wasserman Schultz to endorse your opponent because they just tried that in New York with Jamal Bowman and Jamal Bowman beat Elliott Engel anyway. So that's a really good sign because you know that they're not afraid if they're just ignoring you but once they start bringing out the big guns like the party leaders and people who are known, you know, across the States to endorse your opponent, you're close, you're really close. Yeah, that's why I tell people all the time now to really pay attention to these like local races because the congressional races are important but these state legislatures are so powerful they have so much control over our everyday lives. People can't even believe it. It makes Congress look like the children's table of the stuff they're able to do and how winnable these races are. Like this is a really winnable race, the person I got more votes in my last race than the guy I'm running against and Florida really does need a shift. Wherever Florida goes, the country goes. I really believe that it ends up being true whether that's a presidential election, the recounts are voting scandals every few years to the issues we start talking about. We're not just a swing state. Where we go, the entire country goes. So if we go progressive, the entire country in my opinion will start to see that show too. That's so true, that's so true. And also this race is so important because like imagine the headlines, like I feel like this race would definitely make national headlines. Like a Zoomer defeating a leader in Florida. That would be incredible. And not just any Zoomer, like we're not talking about Madison Cotherham, we're talking about a true left-wing candidate who knows about policy, who knows it like the back of his hand. Like it would be incredible. So anyone who's watching, I think they're going to already be sold on you. What can we do to make this a reality? How can we get you elected? And especially if we live in this district, what's the way that we can make ourselves the most useful to you? The several things that, I mean the first thing is obviously going to be the money side of things, because as much as I wish money didn't have any influence on politics, it does take a lot of money to win a race, to send those millers, to get out the vote, to reach people, to run a really powerful campaign. It does take a lot of money. So I tell people to donate as much as you can so we can knock this guy out. I say if we raise $20,000 before election day, we knock them out. That's how much we need to really win. But outside of that, spreading the message. There are a lot of people in the district. We're accepting people to sign up to volunteer, whether that's phone banking, test banking, anything they can do to help. And if you're in the district to get out the vote, whether you're voting by mail, or you go into the actual polls and voting starting next weekend through early voting to get out that vote. Don't sit on the sidelines, don't wait this election out. Don't say, I'll vote next time, because it really does matter this time. It really will be a game changer in this state. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, we'll be following closely, because I think that if you are able to pull this off, like this is a game changer, not just in Florida, but nationally as you said, because Florida really, it has been steering where America goes. So yeah, we'll be watching, good luck. Absolutely, I appreciate it. Thank you. All right, folks, that's everything. Hopefully you enjoyed the episode. Special thanks to my guest, Elijah Manley. Tune in next week for another great episode before we leave. Of course, thank you so much all of our Patreon, PayPal, and YouTube members for helping the show not just to thrive, but to survive as well. You guys are absolutely integral to the show's existence, so thank you. But yeah, I'm done. Got nothing left to say, so I will see you all next week. Take care, everyone. I'm Mike Figueredo. This has been The Humanist Report.