 Well, folks, we need to have a really serious, long and nuanced conversation about Shahid Butar's campaign because, as some of you may have heard, there have been allegations that have recently surfaced both about the campaign itself and Shahid Butar as a person. And it gives me no pleasure to talk about this, but I can't just pretend as if these claims haven't been made because then I'd be no better than the corporate Democrats who I lambasted for not actually addressing Tara Reid's claims against Joe Biden. Having said that, this is not, you know, a comparable situation to Joe Biden and Tara Reid. So let's just get that out of the way. These allegations are not as serious. Nonetheless, they are still serious. And I think that, you know, I owe it to my viewers and I owe it to Shahid Butar as someone who has promoted and endorsed him to try to vet these claims and try to get to the bottom of this, try to find out where the truth is. Now, I will say that, you know, as someone who supports Shahid Butar, I have to disclose that I do have a pro-Shahid Butar bias. So in the event you think that I'm interpreting these details in a skewed manner, then certainly you have to take into consideration my political preference here. I support him over Nancy Pelosi and I want him to win. So understand my position. But even if I, you know, am a fan of Shahid Butar, that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm not going to try as much as I possibly can to be impartial and exercise objectivity. You know, this is complicated. There's a lot of moving parts to this story and it's still a developing story to a degree. But, you know, with that in mind, I'm going to try to do my best to present you the facts as clearly and truthfully as I possibly can. And then make a judgment on my opinion based on the facts that I presented you with. So there's two separate claims here. The first claim is that he sexually harassed someone who was within his social circle. The second claim is that staffers are alleging that he mistreated them, particularly the women. So since both of these claims separately are huge, we're going to kind of tackle this in two parts. So we're going to first look at the claim of sexual harassment made by Elizabeth Croydon, who made this allegation in a medium post. Now this is someone who is a self-proclaimed left-wing activist and Bernie Sanders supporter. And she's also a comedian and she's known Shahid Butar for years. So let's look at her story, what she alleges and what Shahid Butar says in response, along with people who know Shahid Butar and Elizabeth Croydon. So this is what Elizabeth Croydon writes. I have known Shahid Butar for nearly 20 years. When I met Shahid in 2003, he lived in a communal home in DC, which served as a hub for freelance opportunities in activism and the arts. I'd go there to network and see other artists, despite the fact that Shahid consistently made me feel uncomfortable. Shahid repeatedly pursued me for sex. In our earliest interactions, Shahid would dance up to me at social events, brush up against me in a sexual way and make comments about my body, including weight gain or loss. I directly and clearly rejected his advances. I physically distanced myself from him at parties, turned down invitations, informed a friend I felt uncomfortable, avoided being alone with him, and eventually stopped going to the communal home until he moved out. Shahid let me know he was sexually available to me for years. One specific incident happened at Shahid's communal home. I had gone to the kitchen to get a drink when Shahid sneaked up behind me. He cornered me with his body and got so close and brushed up against my breasts. He blocked me in so I could not move away and gave me a weird smile that unnerved me. This was during the time that he was repeatedly harassing me for sex. Although he didn't say anything to me, this interaction was meant to intimidate me. He eventually let me pass. I made it very clear I was not interested nor would I tolerate further advances and I left the house. Another instance that is intimately embarrassing and traumatic for me to talk about happened about a decade later. After a guerrilla poet insurgency meeting slash performance, a small group of us sat around at a table to catch up, including Shahid. One of my friends asked how long it had been since people had had sex. Others answered, I responded that I had been celibate for some years. Shahid's response shocked and embarrassed me. Oh my god, that is way too long. How can you go without sex that long? That's insane. I couldn't do it you poor thing. It must be so hard. I told him that my celibacy was a voluntary decision because it helped me cope with surviving sexual assaults, batteries and other misconduct. I felt degraded, nauseated and revolted that he would mock me in front of our friends who looked to me as an outspoken voice for women. Later when the group walked back to the communal house where Shahid used to live, he said I can't believe you aren't getting it. Shahid turned to the woman that he was with and said can you believe Liz has been celibate that long honey? Oh my god, what is wrong with you? Don't worry Liz, we'll find someone to fuck you. Someone will do it. Someone has to fuck you Liz. I'd do it but I'm taken. I turned around to see Shahid smiling spitefully as he had done years ago in his kitchen as if to taunt me for rejecting him years before. I repeated that celibacy was my choice and asked him to let it go. Once we got to the house, Shahid again started telling people that I hadn't been fucked in a long time and asked other men if they wanted to have sex with me saying that he had to recruit someone to do it. I reminded him I was a survivor of several sexual assaults and batteries. While ridiculing me was being framed as humorous, it never had a humorous tone. I did my best to hold my composure but the truth is my PTSD had been triggered. The more he taunted me, the more painful and vivid memories of the sexual assaults flooded my mind. I remember crying all night until my eyes were swollen because of the contempt and degradation I was shown in front of other women. Now that is the extent of the allegations that she detailed in that Medium post but she does make more allegations against Shahid Butar but before we get to that, I do want to get to his immediate response that he issued after this Medium post was made. He writes, a former acquaintance recently provided a statement on Twitter regarding sexual harassment. These claims are false. Every survivor must be heard and I hope to be allowed the same opportunity to be heard as well. Sexual harassment is despicable. Those who exploit structural sexism and power imbalances must be exposed. I am committed to putting survivors' interests first before my own. These claims have been amplified by former staff who have conflated our campaign's attempts to manage concerns with their performance with gender-based discrimination. This discussion has moved into local organizations which are looking into the matter. I invite their examination of these claims and our campaign welcomes any scrutiny. Now he touches on the workplace issue that we won't get to until part two of this process but according to the Bay Area reporter she did make additional claims about Shahid Butar. So as Matthew S. Bachko reports, in a July 12 tweet Elizabeth Croydon first accused Butar of sexually harassing her more than a dozen years ago she also wrote that he was friends with a former quote-unquote gangbanger who had thrown her quote into a wall disabling me for years. I think the left should find someone else to run against Pelosi. Now she also made other serious allegations against Shahid earlier this year on Twitter claiming he quote, runs with men that assault women and accused him of lying about the circumstances of a mutual friend's death. Now when it comes to whether or not Elizabeth Croydon has any corroborating witnesses with regard to the allegation she's making against Shahid Butar apparently she does reportedly have one. A person close to Croydon who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being targeted themselves told the Bay Area reporter that Croydon had disclosed to them her encounters with Butar about seven years ago. So judging by the timeline here she seemingly told that person around the time when she accused Shahid Butar of mocking her for being celibate. Now we don't necessarily know what specifically she told that person. Did she tell that person that he mocked her for being celibate you know around that time and just that or did she also bring up the repeated sexual harassment that she's alleging as well. We don't necessarily know the extent to what this corroborating witness knows but having said that Elizabeth Croydon did allegedly tell this person about her issues with Shahid Butar. Now after making this allegation against Shahid Butar you know saying that the sexual jokes he made made her feel you know ridiculed and were hurtful. A video of Croydon's stand up routine was actually uncovered where she herself was making sexual jokes about Monica Lewinsky which were kind of in the same vein that she described the jokes that Shahid Butar was making against her which she found you know particularly hurtful because she was a sexual assault survivor. But here as you're going to see she was making jokes that seem to minimize sexual assault as she brings up you know Harvey Weinstein and how there was that power imbalance between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. You know who's coming out with her own weed is Monica Lewinsky. Oh yeah it's 93% Sativa. It blows your mind. It blows your mind. People don't give Monica Lewinsky her due and she deserves it. She deserves it. Colin Kaepernick took one knee for this country. Monica Lewinsky took two. She took two. Once again proving that women do twice as much work and get none of the credit. None of the credit. It's true. It's true. No sexism runs deep. It runs really deep. It goes back to the Bible. It goes back to plants. Harvey Weinstein he nutted in a fern. He's a fernicator. It's a problem. Now in Elizabeth Corden's defense just because she too was making sexually explicit jokes that doesn't necessarily mean that her being hurt by Shea Hrbutar's jokes wasn't a possibility or that she's lying in that instance. But what it does kind of tell you is that this is the sort of sense of humor that she and Shea Hrbutar and others within their social circle seemingly you know enjoyed right. And this isn't the only instance where she was seemingly minimizing these types of you know sexual acts. And it could also be the case that by the time she did the stand up routine her PTSD had improved. So maybe it was worse when Shea Hrbutar was allegedly mocking her. But really what we're trying to do is gauge the accuracy of her claims by trying to see what their sense of humor was. Now another person alleges that Elizabeth Croydon made sexually explicit gestures toward her mimicking a blow job for example and she also accuses Croydon of terrorizing black and brown communities. Now I haven't spoke to this person. She did make a post publicly on Facebook about this but I don't necessarily know that her name that she would be okay with me using her name here so I'll just leave her anonymous here. But this is kind of what we need to look at. We need to examine whether or not if this is true Shea Hrbutar at least that instance when he was allegedly ridiculing her was acting in bad faith. And so you get the sense that based off of the way that they joked with each other their sense of humor that perhaps we could give Shea Hrbutar a pass if he didn't necessarily believe that he was doing anything wrong in that instance right. And we're going to also look to what other people are saying about Shea Hrbutar and Elizabeth Croydon. Not because we want to tear down the character of Elizabeth Croydon right because what we saw with regard to how Tara Reid was vetted was really disturbing because they were bringing up everything. You know the enemies that she made talking about how she was laid on the rent like we're not trying to establish that this is a bad person here at the behest of Shea Hrbutar. But what we want to know is how accurate are these claims what is relevant about her that we need to know. And based on what other people are saying it seems as if the accusations that she's bringing up bringing up against Shea Hrbutar they're not the first time she's accused someone of wrongdoing. Now others who have known Shea Hrbutar for years have spoken out in his defense. Two women who knew Bataar in the 2000s told the Bay Area reporter there was no credibility to what Croydon alleges occurred. Martin Zundmanis who met Bataar in 2004 while working together on civil rights issues said there was absolutely no merit to Croydon's claims. I think in context of the progress victims and survivors have made as a result of the Me Too movement to have someone as ethical and with so much integrity as she had to be attacked with lies like this is disgusting. She said Dr. Margaret Flowers on Twitter and in a phone interview with the Bay Area reporter said Croydon had falsely accused her partner attorney Kevin Zeese of sexual assault in 2006. Quote, it is really sad she has given any credibility said Flowers. I have known Shea Hr but at least a decade I have a lot of respect for him. Asked about Flowers tweet Croydon said she doesn't recall making such an accusation against Zeese. She said she had sought a temporary restraining order against him after he left a threatening voicemail on her home phone. It stemmed from a dispute she said over Zeese not providing her a tape of an hour long comedy performance she had done for free at a fundraiser during his bid as a Green Party candidate for the United States. Senate seat in Maryland. Now the reason why we're talking about this specifically is because it's relevant to the story here, right? We need to know whether or not any other claims had been made against other people who know Elizabeth Croydon and there seems to be a pattern here with regard to Elizabeth Croydon making really serious allegations against other people. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that since she's accusing a lot of people of very serious things that by definition they're false. It just gives us a better sense of what type of situation we're dealing with here, right? So what we have to consider is that Elizabeth Croydon allegedly also made very serious allegations based on what Margaret Flowers is saying against Kevin Zeese. And now she's making serious allegations against Shahid Batar. Now activists who know Shahid Batar personally have penned an open letter. 17 people to be exact. This includes of course Margaret Flowers, Kevin Zeese, but it also includes Madea Benjamin of Code Pink who I think a lot of people actually trust. I think she's a good judge of character and she is incredibly blunt. So if she believes that Shahid Batar is innocent, then I actually do put a lot of stock into what she says. Now the open letter speaks to not just the accusations made against Shahid Batar. They also provide a character defense, but they also mount some relatively substantial accusations against Elizabeth Croydon as well. Quote, collectively our experiences with Shahid range from the personal to the political in settings including our homes, workplaces and the streets. In each of these places we have witnessed and interacted with the man who embodies the values he espouses, deeply respects women and listens carefully to all those around him. Shahid's empathetic approach to connecting with others and his inherent kindness define who he is and how he comports himself in all parts of his life. We also know him as a committed feminist who fights for women's rights and against patriarchy. Recent allegations have attempted to draw a different picture of Shahid than the one we know to be true. We believe these allegations are false and ill-intentioned. The accuser is well known in the DC social justice community. Unfortunately this troubled individual has a long history of fabricating attacks against innocent people. A review of litigation she has filed in various jurisdictions would likely yield a revealing picture to an enterprising journalist. She has engaged in late night phone harassment campaigns, false allegations and physical threats against numerous individuals over the years. She is not a credible witness against this promising progressive leader. We are discouraged by the speed Shahid was condemned without evidence and urge further investigation into these claims, which come from an individual with a widely known pattern of making false accusations. So this open letter is not just, you know, a testing to who Shahid Bitar is as a person, but on top of that they're also making some really serious claims about Elizabeth Croydon. You know, directly suggesting that her character is not one that should be trusted. Now on that note, another individual who's also a left-wing activist and a blogger who knows Elizabeth Croydon allegedly has come out with a six-part medium series about Elizabeth Croydon, where she actually does speak to some of the things that that open letter was alluding to. Going as far as to call Elizabeth Croydon a predator and recounting how Croydon claimed she's been accused of sexual assault by an alarming amount of men. Now additionally, Jacqueline who wrote these posts says that Croydon spread false rumors about another individual who she says is an unnamed celebrity that they both supposedly knew. And what Elizabeth Croydon allegedly suggested is that this person was HIV positive and knowingly attempting to spread it around to other people. Now Jacqueline also says that Croydon accused her of being a witch through sock puppet accounts, which Croydon did confirm existed. And the accusations that Jacqueline makes against Elizabeth Croydon are numerous and they go on and on and I will link you to that medium post if you do want to read it. Now I will say that I'm not able to speak to the character of Jacqueline. I can't confirm that she does in fact know Elizabeth Croydon and I don't necessarily know that these claims are correct. But the reason why this information is relevant is because there have been numerous people now who have said Elizabeth Croydon has made really serious claims allegations of sorts about other individuals. And that is something to consider. So that doesn't necessarily mean that everything she's saying is a lie but in terms of what we have been able to gather based on the testimony of people who know Elizabeth Croydon and Shea Hidbutar personally, it doesn't seem as if these claims are credible. It seems as if perhaps we have to have more evidence in this instance to believe Elizabeth Croydon if she is able to introduce us to more corroborating witnesses, if she is able to offer more substantial evidence or character witnesses on her behalf and against Shea Hidbutar, then I think that this would be something to consider but as it stands now, I can't say in good faith that these claims are credible. I don't buy it. So in this instance, when it comes to the allegation of repeated sexual harassment, we I think have to ask for more evidence from Elizabeth Croydon because the relevant information that we have based on her alleged previous actions and allegations will lead us to believe that perhaps she might not be as trustworthy as others like Tara Reid or Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and that's not to say that she is alleging that Shea Hidbutar had done something to her as serious as Tara Reid alleged with Joe Biden or Christine Blasey Ford with Brett Kavanaugh but in this instance, we have to have more evidence. Now moving on to the second part of this analysis, we are going to look at the claims of staff mistreatment. Now the question is why am I talking about two separate allegations that are only tangentially related in the same video? Well, simply put, it's because both of these claims, both of these allegations manifested at around the same time. So when it comes to staff mistreatment, Akilah Lacy of the Intercept reports the campaign of Shea Hidbutar, a Democratic socialist challenger to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is stumbling amid allegations of sexism and mistreatment of staff in the workplace. The allegations, which former staffers described to the Intercept, prompted the San Francisco chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America to consider a draft resolution rescinding the organization's endorsement of the candidate. Hidbutar's campaign has faced a period of personnel turmoil since the March 3 Democratic primary with at least 10 staffers and contractors departing. That includes his top three staffers, campaign manager Jasper Wilde, finance director Emily Jones and field director Otto Pippenger. Most staff on Hidbutar's current team started after the primary and he no longer has a campaign manager, a change he attributed to a restructuring toward distributed leadership model. His previous staff, he said, were resistant to empowering volunteers. In an interview with the Intercept, Hidbutar denied the allegations and argued that the former employees were dressing workplace disputes in the language of harassment and discrimination. The allegations that I'm ultimately being accused of with respect to the campaign are not gender-related. It's a staff performance issue, he said. What has been characterized as staff turnover is ultimately staff improvement. Complaints about the campaign's culture came to a head this week when 44 members of the DSA San Francisco chapter including three former Hidbutar campaign staffers, Patrick Cochran, Raya Steer and Sasha Perego signed on to a proposed resolution to rescind their endorsement of him. The resolution cited a sexual harassment accusation from a former acquaintance which was made public Tuesday on Medium and which Hidbutar has denied and a pattern of abuse including but not limited to sexual inappropriate behavior with his staff and volunteers. The Intercept could not independently corroborate the accusation by the former acquaintance or the charge of sexually inappropriate behavior. The proposed resolution goes on to state that Hidbutar mismanaged his campaign by treating his campaign team specifically the women in a belittling, demeaning, hyper-controlling and abusive manner. The Shahid Butar campaign has had massive turnover for months because of Shahid's behavior with many key staff positions still not filled. So this kind of gives us a broad overview of the issues here. So the local San Francisco chapter of DSA, they drew up this resolution to withdraw their endorsement of Shahid Butar based on Elizabeth Croydon's allegation along with the allegations of staff mistreatment, particularly mistreatment of female staffers. So that's kind of like the broad overview, but in terms of specifically how he allegedly mistreated his staff, this is what is being alleged here. In interviews with the Intercept, seven former staffers and contractors on Butar's campaign described a pattern of public berating and insults toward staff regardless of gender but particularly toward women on the campaign. They said Butar was a tough boss, but his treatment of staff crossed the line. On Tuesday, Mission Local reported that a number of former staffers said they had signed non-disparagement agreements and that Butar denied the existence of the NDAs. The Intercept obtained a copy of a campaign contract that included a non-disparagement clause and in a Wednesday interview, Butar acknowledged that some staffers, including his former campaign manager, Wild, had signed such contracts. I can vouch for the culture of misogyny that existed in the campaign, said Raya Steer, a DSA San Francisco member and a former full-time field organizer for Butar's campaign who joined the campaign in May and resigned in June. I have experienced it personally. Steer said they'd seen Butar publicly berate and humiliate multiple women staffers including Wild and Butar's former campaign finance director, Emily Jones. Steer, who came to the US from India, helped start the Me Too movement there by releasing the name of academics accused of sexually harassing students at universities around the country. Following university investigations, at least four professors were fired. These are patterns of abuse that I know very closely, they said. Jones told the intercept that Butar lashed out at his staff and at women staff in particular, both in public and private. She began consulting for the campaign on a freelance basis at the end of December and joined the staff on February 19. By May 15, she submitted her resignation. Jones said her entire team, including an email fundraiser, someone who handles social media ads and the public relations team, quit because Shea had insulted them at some point or another. It is more diabolical when a man in hippie pants is a misogynist. Everybody quit, she said. Imagine people have a $4,000 or $5,000 salary during a pandemic and they quit their job. Imagine that. Now on top of that, Shea Hadbetar's former volunteer coordinator and a member of the San Francisco DSA told the intercept that individuals within the campaign, primarily Jasper Wild and Emily Jones, were quote unquote treated like shit. And he added, as a male staffer, I felt like I was never treated bad by Shahid. He treated Jasper and Emily terribly. Now on top of this, William Fitzgerald, who handled PR for Betar, shared similar memories. It felt to me as a white guy, he listened to me a lot more than the women members of his team said Fitzgerald, a principal at the worker agency, which is the PR firm that stopped working for Shea Hadbetar at around April, I believe. Now at some point just after the March 3rd primary, Shahid acknowledged that there was in fact a problem within between him and his staff. So he called a meeting to him the way that he perceived the issues that the staff had with him were that, you know, these were merely strategic disagreements. He did not believe that they were concerned with his mistreatment of staffers, primarily women. So he chalked this up to, you know, Hey, we have strategic disagreements. And he also says that's why there's such a high turnover rate within his campaign. Now the day after the meeting, here's what happened between him and Emily Jones. The next day, Betar apologized directly to Jones in an email. I've come to understand that my impatience and preoccupation has made you feel disrespected and I owe you an apology for that. I am truly sorry and did not realize how my actions were impacting you. Betar wrote, going on to describing unfortunate dynamics between him and Jones and him and Wilde. If you have the patience left to give me another chance, I would like to do the same with you. Now, another reason why his staffers were reportedly upset with him is because they didn't like that Shahid Butar was paying himself a $100,000 per year salary. Now, they're not alleging that he's breaking the law. They're just alleging that he's paying himself too high of a salary. Now, in Shahid Butar's defense, he says that, you know, this is the salary that he made in his previous job. So he's simply just, you know, paying himself what he was making so he's not losing any income. And I will say that out of all the allegations that his staffers have brought forward, I don't actually find this one particularly persuasive because if it were the case that Shahid Butar was paying his staffers like next to nothing, if they weren't earning a living wage, if he was just giving them minimum wage, then I think that that would definitely be something that is bad, right? But his staffers are saying that the pay was actually good because the comment from, I believe it was Emily Jones, she said, imagine people have a four to $5,000 salary during a pandemic and quit. That's how bad the job was according to them. So if you're getting paid that much money, that is a living wage. So I don't necessarily see this as that big of an issue. But what I do find as an issue is the fact that Shahid Butar doesn't necessarily seem to be addressing the allegations of staff mistreatment head on. He is kind of explaining away the high turnover rate to other factors while not necessarily being introspective and trying to figure out whether or not he himself is at fault. So rather than pointing fingers at other people, what I would like to see here is for Shahid Butar to actually try to improve here because we don't necessarily know we're all human beings. We may have biases that we don't think exist, but we're just subconscious. Now, again, there are people who vouch for Shahid Butar with that open letter, 17 activists who are prominent and trustworthy who say that they believe he respects women. But on another hand, people who have been working directly with Shahid Butar for months have left in protest because they feel as if he was mistreating them and on top of that, they think that he really was treating women more unfairly. So the staff mistreatment is a claim that I actually do find there to be some merit from based on what people said. Perhaps it's the case that the individuals who know Shahid Butar like Margaret Flowers and worked with him, they thought that their relationship was pleasant. But when you're in that workplace environment, that employer-employee relationship actually does lead to an imbalance of power. And so perhaps because of that different dynamic, maybe it is the case that Shahid Butar is mistreating his staffers. Now, this is just an allegation, but what I am saying is that there is a sufficient amount of evidence to suggest that Shahid Butar needs to make some changes and needs to make some changes fast. I would recommend implementing concrete new strategies to make sure that not only his staffers are being treated more fairly, but that they have some way of bringing their concerns to someone that's high up within the campaign if not Shahid himself, right? They need to feel as if they are able to have some sort of accountability and have somebody to talk to if they feel like they're being mistreated. There needs to be something more for them because I feel like these people, they are explaining a lot of them that they believe he mistreated them. And it seems as if there's some merit to that claim. And it's difficult for me to say that. I don't necessarily want to believe that, but until we have other evidence from Shahid himself that kind of debunks what they're saying, then we kind of have to side with the activists here who are saying, you know, as our boss, he wasn't a great boss. Now, again, I think that there's still time for Shahid Butar to turn this around. You know, as human beings, we are constantly improving, right? So he has months left to make a difference to make sure that the people in his campaign are respected and treated fairly. You know, it's not enough to give your employees a living wage. I respect him for doing that because it seems like he's paying them adequately. But you also have to make sure that you're fostering a healthy work environment, right? Because as a boss, sometimes you're not necessarily aware of the way that your actions come off to other people. Like for me, I was a boss before. I'm going to date myself, but I was the manager at Blockbuster. And while there was no complaints about, like, my conduct as a boss, like, nobody complained that I was a bad boss, there were times where I look back, you know, to conversations that I had with my employees, and I regret them. Like, I feel like I was too pretentious, too condescending, and I think I was a prick at time. So I think that as human beings, we're able to change and adapt with new information. And I'm calling on Shahid Bitar responsibly to adapt with this new information. And even if he doesn't necessarily feel like these allegations are correct, work extra hard to make sure that your staffers feel appreciated. Because if there's anything that leftists and Democratic socialists in particular should value, it's work. It's definitely work. Now, I have reached out to Shahid Bitar's campaign to get an on-the-record comment about, you know, this staff misconduct allegations. And I have not heard back. I did just reach out to him like before filming this. But I'm planning to post his response if I get one in the comments, and I'll pin that to the top of this video. So that's basically where we're at. Now, another angle of the story that I want to address is whether or not this is targeted because of who he's challenging. Because I think that we all know that if you're challenging someone in a position of power, you know, you're going to make a lot of enemies, right? So we're going to put on our tinfoil hat for just a second and speculate about whether or not all of this is just, you know, a targeted hit against Shahid Bitar who's challenging the most powerful Democrat in Congress. Now, to that, I say there's no evidence of that. We certainly would be naive to suggest that, you know, Democrats wouldn't plan stories about progressives because we've seen the way that they did this to Bernie Sanders. But with that being said, I don't necessarily think that that's the case because we have to get some sort of indication that Nancy Pelosi is afraid of Shahid Bitar. And an incumbent doesn't really show their cards. We don't really get the sense that they're afraid of their challenger until they agree to a debate. So the first step is they ignore their opposition and then eventually they agree to a debate. That's what happened with Joe Crowley. This is what we see repeatedly. So my argument with regard to whether or not, you know, this is Nancy Pelosi's doing and she has some nefarious conspiracy that she concocted to plant all these allegations. I don't agree with that because Nancy Pelosi at this point in time doesn't necessarily have to do that because I think that Shahid Bitar is the underdog and she can just continue to ignore Shahid Bitar and still be the favorite to win in this instance. Now, am I saying that if the race tightened, Nancy Pelosi wouldn't resort to dirty tactics? No, I'm not saying that because we know that Democrats, the Democratic Party establishment and Democratic Party leadership, they do play dirty. But, you know, something like this requires a lot more effort and what I would expect is for Nancy Pelosi to try to cut off Shahid Bitar's access to NGP van, right? So until we really get a concrete sense that Nancy Pelosi is actually afraid of Shahid Bitar, I think we have to put away our tinfoil hats and accept that there's no evidence that this is a conspiracy by the establishment. You know, these are allegations that manifested organically and what I hope is that going forward, Shahid Bitar will address the concerns of his staffers and I hope that he does right the wrongs. Now, again, these are just allegations but when you have multiple people coming out and saying that their former boss treated them in a way that they deemed as, you know, unfair, especially towards women, I think that Shahid Bitar has to do some introspection, some soul searching and try to definitely take steps to right these wrongs. So this was a really long and exhausting video but with that being said, I think that we owe it to ourselves to be consistent and not be hacks in the way that Democratic Party operatives and Republicans are hacks. We have to hold our own accountable and vet these claims as thoroughly as we possibly can. Now, you know, it's difficult to do this. It's difficult to determine whether or not each of the people who are making these claims are making these claims in good faith, right? But at the same time, all we have are allegations. These aren't necessarily provable in a court of law. It's just what people are saying. But nonetheless, we still do have to take this into account because, you know, this is a national campaign. So having said all of that, this is basically going to come down to whether or not people in that district are going to continue supporting Shahid Bitar. You know, there are some individuals that have indicated they're going to continue to support him, but others like the San Francisco DSA, they're saying, no, we're going to not support him. So what I will say to Shahid Bitar is you do have time to turn this around. I think that the staff mistreatment is something that concerns me. So turn it around, try to do better and try to, you know, take action to make sure that your staff feel appreciated because, you know, they're helping you win and we have to value people who are putting in the time to change the country. So I will leave that there.