 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 humanist report or become a member at Humanist report comm now enjoy the show Welcome to the Humanist Report podcast My name is Mike Figueredo, and this is episode 257 of the program today is Friday, September 4th And before we get started I want to take some time to think all of our newest patreon PayPal and YouTube members all of which either sign up for the very first Time to support us this week or increase the monthly pledge that they were already giving us and that includes Erin Cornell Erin Washington Alan Himes Bruce Column Camille De Palo Cyrus Yerith Dawn Ankhni Ho Ho Mixerist Hugo Florens and Julie Watts 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 humanist report comm slash support Patreon comm slash humanist report or by clicking join underneath any one of our YouTube videos We have an absolutely gigantic Behemoth of an episode for you this week right wingers seem to think that property is more important than human life We'll talk about that and how police are more cozy with the far right than a lot of us previously suspected And we're also diving deeper into the depths of authoritarianism as federal judges have now declared that Journalists in Portland are not protected from police violence Also, Trump is being influenced to pursue herd immunity with regard to COVID-19 and the ghosts of Herman Cain Downplace the severity of COVID-19 after literally dying from it We'll talk about the movement for a people's party Trump's plans for his second term Joe Biden's Pittsburgh speech Along with Obama's move to crush another social movement and MSNBC anchors are shocked that young people aren't excited about Joe Biden we'll talk about that also a right-wing populist comes out against cannabis and Finally, we closed the week by talking to Adam Christiansen of Florida That's what we've got on the agenda for today's episode. So we have so much let's go ahead and waste no time and get this three-hour plus long episode started because Whoo, it's gonna be a lot Since the start of the black lives matter protests this year after the murder of George Floyd Conservatives have been pretty consistent in condemning the rioting and the looting because that to them is Unacceptable because it's violence and we don't condone violent behavior as responsible citizens But what's interesting is that embedded in their condemnation of violence? Ironically is more violence the president of the United States literally tweeted out when the looting starts the shooting starts Rising stars in the Republican Party like Marjorie Taylor Greene Who will be going to Congress in 2021 created an ad with the gun where she said if these protesters come to Georgia I'm going to shoot them and murder them So if you're conservative, then you don't necessarily unequivocally come out against all violence if you're these types of conservatives then Violence is only bad in so far as violence is being done Against property and buildings But if we're looking at violence done against other human beings that to them is acceptable now Correct me if I'm wrong conservatives Maybe I'm misrepresenting your views here, but you have a lot of people on your side that apparently seemed to want to Celebrate the violence that's being done against rioters and looters now Maybe I'm just a little bit of a fool to think this but if you are against rioting and looting isn't it worse to commit an act of murder Isn't killing worse than rioting and looting if you agree with the sentiment then explain why Ann Coulter Someone who was a prominent conservative with millions of loyal followers took to Twitter to praise a 17-year-old Domestic terrorist who murdered two people and injured a third Saying she wants him to be president explained to me why Aubrey Huff a Prominent right-wing pundit and podcast host with a bigger platform than mine called him a national treasure explained to me Why Christians raised over? $250,000 for RIN house on the Christian equivalent of GoFundMe called give send go I mean I'm just gonna take a guess and assume that most of the Christians that donated to this right-wing terrorist called themselves pro life But apparently they're not so pro life if they're donating to a murderer I mean, does the people that he killed have to be fetuses in order for you to give a damn? So I mean what I'm seeing here is right-wingers Move closer and closer towards Violent fascism as they condemn violence. They celebrate violence Simultaneously, but only if that violence is being done against protesters. Well, I mean if there's like a hierarchy of violence I would imagine that killing people is a worse offense than rioting and looting So if you're outraged by rioting and looting then certainly you're gonna be even more outraged by killing But I mean this is what we've come to expect Republicans in America have become so extreme That we're not just talking about them being proto-fascist like they are openly embracing violence and they're celebrating it And they don't even care how that looks to their opponents But I mean we shouldn't be surprised that this is how far to the right Republicans have shifted because look at the way that the media portrays these types of events New York Post took to Twitter to share an article along with pictures showing the terrorist cleaning up graffiti in Kenosha, Wisconsin However when it came to the victim of police violence who was shot in the back 17 times which sparked these protests in the first place Well, they report that he had a knife in his car when he was shot by police So in other words, we're supposed to assume that the white terrorist by definition has good intentions Can't do any wrong, but the black victim he actually Maybe deserved it because he had a knife in his car So if you have one of those like fancy switch blades in your car Well, I guess the police are justified if they pull you over and they feel threatened and they want to kill you Only if you're black if you're white, it's fine though So do you understand like the media is trying to humanize a terrorist while they Dehumanize a victim of state-sanctioned violence now We later learned through a video that surfaced online that the terrorist in question violently assaulted a girl So, I mean, maybe it's just me But we probably shouldn't assume that terrorists people who commit acts of terror in the United States Aren't actually good people because they're white, but that's what everyone seemingly did Oh, well, he's young and he's white. So of course his intentions were pure Jacob Blake However, he had a knife in his car So I don't know what he was gonna do with that Maybe the cop was justified in shooting him in the back seven different times and paralyzing him likely for the rest of his life Like do you understand why people are protesting? This is why because this is how the victims of police brutality are treated Whereas the people who actually commit acts of terror against protesters protesting violence against black Americans are propped up celebrated by some on the right and Given a pass by the media because he was probably a good person. I mean look at him He was cleaning up graffiti. So clearly he had a heart. He wasn't just this monster everyone It's disgusting and Tucker Carlson the host of the number one new show in America Did exactly what we're talking about here tried to justify this 17 year old right-wing militants Active terror take a look. So I really surprised that looting in arson accelerated to murder How shocked are we that 17 year olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would? Now unsurprisingly after someone who was very influential Defended a terrorist justified his actions other people did the same exact thing Because now I'm seeing so many people say well I mean his intentions were pure he just went to Kenosha, Wisconsin with the gun because he wanted to stop violence Because of course, you know, if you want to de-escalate and stop violence Everyone knows you bring a gun and you aim it at protesters and then you shoot them Of course, that's exactly what happened like imagine if Kyle Rittenhouse was black and he was there to Stop violence against protesters. He was aiming his gun at other vigilantes that were threatening the protesters Do you think that that individual would get the same treatment? Even if he didn't kill someone. No, he would be automatically demonized because the image of you know, a white person with a gun Conjures up images of freedom and liberty in America Whereas images of a black person with a gun exercising their second amendment, right? It conjures up images of fear in America Because we are a very racist country I mean, why do you think Philando Castile a licensed gun owner was murdered by the cops and the NRA? The largest gun organization in America said fuck all about that It's because we live in a white supremacist country and there's a double standard here Black people don't even have to be threatening and violence against them is still justified so long as we feel as if they're scary to us Like that's what we're dealing with here Now on top of that this mindset, you know It's not just something that we see on Fox News because on YouTube, you know A right-wing youtuber named Keemstar was talking to another reactionary named Leafy is here and Leafy is here admitted that you know, he didn't even have a license to carry a gun, but he Attended a protest. I don't know if he's talking about Kenosha But he attended a protest and he was looking for someone to give him a reason to shoot them Well, I wasn't okay like I wasn't on the front lines or whatever But I did see a police car on fire like that's the most shit. I saw all right. I mean in truth I don't know if this can even go on story fire But I just want one day in my life for someone to give me an excuse to shoot them Is that an extreme opinion? probably Don't worry everyone he was just joking and I'm sure that if a reporter interviewed him there You know, they believe his lies that he's just there to protect order Disgusting, but I mean like you would expect that from right-wing provocateurs like Keemstar Like Tucker Carlson, but of course our enlightened centrists would do better, right? They would condemn this type of violence against protesters even if they don't like the side of riots, right? Wrong the rioting needs to fucking stop and if that means like white redneck fucking militia dudes out They're mowing down dipshit protesters and think that they could torch buildings at 10 p.m Then at this point they have my fucking blessing because holy shit this fucking shit needs to stop It needed to stop a long time ago. That is a very prominent twitch streamer and youtuber who is a centrist Saying that right-wing rednecks have his blessing if they want to mow down protesters. That's his language I mean even when destiny started to like go off the rails and attack the left attack people Like Michael Brooks and Kyle Kalinsky. I still thought well I mean, maybe there's some good left in him because he is really useful at De-radicalizing some of these right-wing people who like kind of get stuck in that alt-right pipeline on YouTube But now I don't think that's gonna de-radicalize anyone if anything He's helping them. He's making their argument for them So destiny literally thinks that private property is more valuable than the lives of human beings I mean, this is what a capitalist cult looks like. I don't like these riots I don't like the looting it makes me feel uncomfortable. It probably hurts Joe Biden's chances against Donald Trump So I think that if people want to kill them, that's fine because if these protests go away that makes me feel better I mean American culture is sick. It's perverted, but I mean this kind of response to violence against protesters It's nothing new because back in 2017 the Daily Caller a prominent right-wing website spread a video of Cars driving through crowds of people protesters and they thought it was funny like they were literally glorifying it with funny music This is all just a funny game to them and Fox News also shared that same video. They thought it was hilarious, too I'm assuming. I mean, it's interesting because the Daily Caller knew that their right-wing audience Would be more triggered by profanity than the sight of cars driving into crowds of people So they said, you know, if you don't like the profanity then just mute your computer I mean imagine being so twisted to think that profanity is more offensive than Cars driving through crowds of people possibly injuring these individuals now, you know If you think that it's wrong for crowds of protesters to block traffic ask any of these right-wingers How they would respond if pro guaido forces in Venezuela were blocking traffic and a pro Maduro Driver decided to just plow through that crowd of pro guaido protesters. They would be calling for regime change They'd be condemning the violence against protesters But because it suits their narrative because they don't like these protesters They think it's a game to literally run people over that to them. It's funny. It's a it's a joke to them This is how little they value human life, but yet they claim that they are pro life and That it's Democrats who want to kill babies Interesting now what makes matters worse is that this isn't something that you know, the media promotes in a vacuum I mean our leaders do the same thing Donald Trump just tweeted out The only way you will stop the violence in the high crime Democrat run cities is through strength Now in case it wasn't clear to you. He was using strength as a synonym for violence We know exactly what he means Now it's been days and Donald Trump at the time I record this still hasn't condemned Kyle Rinhouse one of his own supporters who is in the front row at a Donald Trump rally in January He said nothing after one of his supporters carried out a terrorist attack in America After he is fear-mongering about these protesters The president is not going to again weigh in on that You can ask him this evening. He may weigh in further, but at the moment I mean he's not way into that It's been days and he won't condemn one of his own supporters who carried out an act of murder Imagine what he'd be saying if somebody carried out murder on behalf of Joe Biden He would call on Joe Biden to condemn that individual, but when it's him Crickets nothing We're looking at all of it that was an interesting situation you saw the same tape as I saw and He was trying to get away from them I guess it looks like and he fell and then they very violently attacked him and It was something that we're looking at right now and it's under investigation, but I Guess he was in very big trouble. He would have been I he probably would have been killed, but it's under it's under investigation The sense that you should be getting if you're a reasonable person is that in our late-stage capitalist society on The hierarchy of things that we care about we definitely care more about property damage than deaths and human suffering Human beings dying getting murdered that is less offensive than people doing riots and looting I mean if you feel like we're in the Twilight Zone and maybe you're going crazy You're not going crazy. Everyone else has gone crazy Everyone else has bought in to this idea that we should dehumanize human beings because property is Much more valuable than human life now I'm sure that the right is at least going to start Pretending at least to care about human life because one of their own was killed in a clash on Saturday in Portland, Oregon As Mike Baker of the New York Times reports a man affiliated with the right-wing group was shot and killed on Saturday as a large Group of supporters of President Trump Traveled in a caravan through downtown Portland, Oregon Which has seen nightly protests for three consecutive months the pro-trump rally drew hundreds of trucks full of supporters into the city At times Trump supporters and counter protesters clashed on the streets with people shooting paintball guns from the beds of pickup trucks and Protesters throwing objects back at them a video that purports the B of the Saturday night shooting in Portland Taken from the far side of the street showed a small group of people in the road outside What appears to be a parking garage gunfire erupts and a man collapses in the street the man who was shot And killed was wearing a hat with insignia of patriot prayer a far-right group based in the Portland area That has clashed with protesters in the past Joey Gibson the head of the group said Sunday He could not share many details But could confirm the man was a good friend and supporter of patriot prayer two weeks ago one right-wing Demonstrator fired two gunshots from his vehicle the authorities have said although it doesn't appear anyone was struck by the bullets The next weekend opposing groups openly fought in the streets and a video showed one right-wing demonstrator Brandishing a gun Patriot prayer a local group that says it promotes Christianity and smaller government has repeatedly clashed with activists in Portland The group has at times operated alongside Militia groups and the Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that some patriot prayer events have drawn white supremacists Last year Mr. Gibson the group's leader was charged along with others with rioting after a brawl in the city So I mean I read this and it feels like we're on the cusp of a literal civil war This is a Horrifying and it doesn't help that we have a president who is constantly fanning the flames here Now this group Patriot prayer is a far right Extremist group that confronts and provokes protesters oftentimes in an attempt to do violence They were caught with guns on a rooftop as this sweet points out and they were likely there trying to do Vigilante justice and one of them got killed Now to me it's easy for me to condemn Killing and death because I'm a humanist, right? I don't celebrate that someone on the opposing team was murdered I didn't want him to get killed. I wanted him to get converted But now I bet that we're gonna see a little bit of a tune change from the right and Suggest that it's really the left and black lives matter protesters who were the ones who are doing violence Even if this individual was with a group that shows up to provoke protesters like it doesn't matter Regardless of the outcome of the situation the protesters the rioters the looters. They're the bad guys Let's not even try to figure out why they're rioting and looting for so long They're just the bad guys and since we've already determined as a society that they're the bad guys no matter What is done to them is justified? So that means if we want to shoot at them and murder them well That's justified because we've accepted as a society that property damage is a worse Than murder that's basically where we're at. I Mean even if you're Against rioting and looting which most people are just like except that there's got to be an underlying reason why people are out in the Street sure there's some people who just show up to start shit Right who are bored and have nothing better to do but a lot of these people feel as if they have no choice But to make a lot of noise Right loot because the government isn't listening Now that doesn't mean that you know anything that they do is justified because the government isn't taking action to protect black lives But what I'm saying is that there's more nuanced to this situation But because in America we've dehumanized people and because we view private property is more important than human life Well, this is what we get or even centrists are okay with these rioters and looters getting Shot and killed. I mean if you're against rioting and looting if politicians are against rioting and looting You can try to do some reform like any reform to address their concerns But I guess that it's easier to just demonize them and Condone violence against them by these right-wing militia groups Will it backfire like one of these right-wing people were killed And it's gonna get worse like the violence is gonna continue to happen and it's depressing but you'd expect at least some level of Respect for human life on the side That claims to be pro-life, but they're celebrating Kyle Rittenhouse He's a hero to them because he murdered two rioters. I don't even know if those people were rioting that he killed But I mean because he was there protecting order. He's a hero. I Don't even know what to say but um America is a very very Disgraceful country and it's really it's sickening like our culture is Corrupted to its core and I don't even know if it's redeemable like for people to openly celebrate Protesters being assaulted and run over and even murdered. I Mean that culture has accepted the fact that violence is permissible and once you have a society that accepts violence as A justifiable thing against a particular group of people guess what society devolves into pure chaos fascism Part of what made the Kyle Rittenhouse story so outrageous Aside from the fact that he literally murdered people is the fact that he was walking alongside police officers This was a 17 year old child with a gun Who showed up to maintain order and police officers gave him water police officers Thanked him and the other vigilantes for being there rather than saying no you don't have the training We're the ones with the training. You shouldn't be carrying a weapon. You can hurt someone They embraced this individual who went on to commit a terrorist attack This is why communities of color don't trust police departments Now there's been other stories of police officers working with the Proud Boys I mean we learned that police in Kenosha notified the vigilantes and let them know that they were pushing protesters Towards them, which is when Kyle Rittenhouse ended up shooting two of them But this phenomenon of police officers getting cozy with the far right It's way more prevalent than people want to admit and there's a report from the Guardian that talks about this And how it's a little bit alarming that nobody's sounding the alarms about this and talking about this in the mainstream media So in an op-ed for the Guardian Mike German writes for decades The Federal Bureau of Investigation has routinely warned its agents that the white supremacist and far-right militant groups and Investigates often have links to law enforcement Yet the Justice Department has no national strategy designated to protect the communities policed by these dangerously compromised law Enforcers as our nation grapples with how to reimagine public safety in the wake of the protests following the police killing of George Floyd It is time to confront and resolve the persistent problem of explicit racism and law enforcement I know about these routine warnings because I received them as a young FBI agent preparing to accept undercover assignment against neo-nazi groups in Los Angeles, California in 1992 But you don't have to take my word for it a redacted version of a 2006 FBI intelligence assessment white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement Alerted agents to both strategic infiltration by organized groups and self-initiated infiltration by law enforcement personnel sympathetic to white supremacist causes a leaked 2015 counterterrorism policy guide made the case more directly warning agents that FBI Domestic terrorism investigations focused on militia extremists white supremacist Extremists and sovereign citizen extremists often have identified active links to law enforcement Officers if the government knew that al-qaeda or ISIS had infiltrated American law enforcement agencies It would undoubtedly initiate a nationwide effort to investigate them and neutralize the threat they posed yet white Supremacists and far-right militants have committed far more attacks and killed more people in the US Over the last 10 years than any foreign terrorist movement the FBI regards them as the most lethal domestic terror threat The need for national action is even more critical in recent years white Supremacists have engaged in deadly rampages in Charleston, South Carolina Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and El Paso, Texas more ominously neo-nazis obtained radiological materials to manufacture dirty bombs in separate cases in Maine in 2009 and Florida in 2017 Which were only avoided through chance But in June 2019 when congressman William Lacey clay asked the FBI counterterrorism chief Michael McGarrett II whether the bureau Remained concerned about white supremacist's infiltration of law enforcement since the publication of its 2006 assessment McGarrett II indicated he had not read it asked more generally about this infiltration McGarrett II said he would be suspect of white supremacist police officers But that their ideology was a first amendment protected right more importantly the FBI's 2015 counterterrorism policy Which McGarrett II was responsible for executing indicates not just that members of law enforcement might hold white supremacist views But that FBI domestic terrorism investigations have often identified quote-unquote Active links between the subjects of these investigations and law enforcement officials so this is disturbing to any sane person of Course we don't want white supremacists infiltrating police forces They already are biased enough They already exist in this culture where they Dehumanized people and feel as if they're always under attack And even if you want to be a good cop and do the right thing and report police misconduct You're dissuaded from doing that you'll be outcasted. You'll lose your job possibly. So, you know, they are Complicit because they are bullied into silence and that's if you have the intent to do good It's a culture that needs to change We need systemic reform and this story proves it because it's such an issue that the FBI is Pointing it out saying hey, are we gonna do anything about this? You have white supremacists with active links to law enforcement. This is not okay But when we see police officers Coordinating with or working with proud boys. We kind of just like chalk that up to being an isolated incident and We, you know, rightfully call it out for being the scandal that it is But the news just moves on when they don't talk about this being a systemic issue that really needs to be looked into further It needs to be investigated with urgency because if there are white supremacists in law enforcement That's not just them like exercising their first amendment, right? In fact, McGearty was wrong to say that because you know to hold the belief isn't exercising your first amendment, right? But you should not have Those beliefs if you're in law enforcement those types of individuals who are white supremacists and aligned with right-wing militant Groups should be rooted out of law enforcement, of course But the fact that we even have to say that even have to talk about this as an issue shows How deep the problem goes? With policing in this country, which is why people are saying we have to defund the police because police can't respond to all of these issues They just can't like throwing more police at the scene isn't going to reduce crime So this is terrifying The issue is more widespread than we thought and the fact that there's no action surrounding this is It's frustrating So I was previously mistakenly under the impression that democracies are supposed to protect Journalists, but apparently that's not what we do in America Because a federal court just ruled that Journalists and legal observers are not exempt from violence by police officers This is a thing that happened in the United States of America quote-unquote democracy Yeah, so as loop bar of ABC News reports a three-judge panel on Thursday Temporarily halted protections for journalists and legal observers covering the unrest in Portland, Oregon Last week federal judge Michael Simon ruled that journalists and legal observers were exempt from federal officers physical force arrest or other treatment if the officers Reasonably know that a person is a journalist or a legal observer But in a two-to-one decision the judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Agreed with the government that judge Simon's initial ruling was too broad given the order's breadth and lack of clarity Particularly and it's non-exclusive Indicia of who qualifies as journalists and legal observers Appellants have also demonstrated that in the absence of a stay the order will cause Irreparable harm to law enforcement efforts and personnel two of the three judges wrote this means that journalists could be subjected to the same Physical force as that of the individuals participating Attorney general William Barr said in a statement that he thought the decision was an important step So there are so many things wrong with this story, but first of all, let's just point out the obvious two out of three judges just ruled that law enforcement efforts will be irreparably harmed and If they're not allowed to do violence against people who they know are journalists No, no, no, we have to do violence against journalists Even if they tell us that they're journalists and they have a camera or they, you know Have some sort of logo from a news agency We have to do violence against them because if we don't then our law enforcement efforts will be harmed irreparably So we we have to Shocking Now what's interesting about all of this is this underlying assumption that it's acceptable to do violence against the protesters like of course we want Journalists and legal observers to be protected because we have to know what's going on We need witnesses there documenting what's happening But there's this underlying assumption that it's acceptable for police to use force and violence against protesters So if someone is out there exercising their first amendment, right We're to the point now in america. We're just we're just okay with police using force against them I mean after the george floyd protests broke out. I covered the content of police officers Using force pepper spraying, you know tear gassing journalists even after they say they're journalists But people who weren't even doing anything wrong They were cornered by police officers and tear gassed like we're using chemical weapons against american citizens weapons that are banned During wars because they're considered a war crime banned by the geneva convention and you know, this is just The norm we've accepted it not only our police well within their right to just do violence against protesters But you know cities can impose curfews now tell people that they can't Exercise their first amendment, right after a certain period of time and now it's acceptable for police officers to use force against journalists because They have to and the justice department William bar attorney general is applauding this. Let me remind you the justice department is our justice department William bar is supposed to be looking out for the american people Our justice is what he should be fighting for not the justice of donald trump in his administration Like he's not supposed to be an advocate for donald trump. He's supposed to be an advocate for the people But you know, he's saying oh, this is this is really an important step Because we have to make sure that law enforcement Can literally assault people and do violence against people who they know our journalists Now sure it's the case that maybe there's some gray areas. Maybe someone Might not look like a journalist Maybe you know Sometimes people You know aren't professionals Maybe they're amateurs and they're there and they're starting shit under the guise Of being a journalist, but how frequently that does that happen like Is this really The route that we want to go Down because sometimes there's gray areas. We just say no police officers don't have to respect The first amendment and journalism This is um This is so depressing and i'm not being hyperbolic to say that we are watching democracy slip away before our very eyes And this should scare everyone, but it feels like we're hopeless and there's nothing we can do about it We're losing the right to protest nobody, you know Questions the imposition of curfews anymore Nobody, uh, you know seems to care that we're using chemical weapons against american citizens with tear gas um police officers are also targeting people who are administering, you know, um medical to protesters I mean, this is like a rogue failed state with a rogue armed militia known as the police just targeting anyone who they want to like There's no checks no balances. It's all just slipping away this is deeply disturbing and The fact that media isn't talking about this It's an indictment on them as well COVID has taken this year just since the outbreak It's taken more than one hundred year. Look here's the lives It's just it's even you think about it More lives this year than any other year for the past hundred years Nailed it Oh my god, joe What are you doing staying in your basement? Don't come out of hiding until november 4th like That was bad Now that was a clip From a speech that joe biden gave in pittsburgh where he responded to the civil unrest the violence and some attacks That donald trump had recently lobbed against him and even though centrists Are really happy with this speech that he gave Me not so much because it really shows that he is uh, he's tone deaf, right? He's not really listening to the protesters. He's not listening to americans And in a way like he walked into numerous traps that donald trump set and by saying the things that he said Like he's playing right into donald trump's hand and after 2016 Like you think that democrats would be more effective at responding to donald trump's attacks or at least know how to brush them off joe biden very clearly demonstrated that he doesn't necessarily know how to respond Capably to attacks from donald trump. So the first thing he did was condemn the violence the rioting and the looting Take a look. I want to make it absolutely clear something very clear about all of this Riding is not protesting Looting is not protesting Setting fires is not protesting None of this is protesting its lawlessness plain and simple And those who do it should be prosecuted Violence will not bring change It'll only bring destruction It's wrong in every way it divides instead of unites Destroys businesses only hurts the working families that serve the community It makes things worse across the board not better No, it's not what uh, dr. King or john lois taught And it must end Fires are burning and we have a president who fanged the flames Rather than fighting the flames But We must not burn We have to build This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country He can't stop the violence because for years he's fomented it You know, he may believe Mouthing the words law and order makes him strong But his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows how weak he is Does anyone believe there'll be less violence in america if donald trump is reelected We need justice in america. We need safety in america We're facing multiple crises Crises and under donald trump have kept multiplying covid economic devastation unwarranted police violence in bold and white nationalists A reckoning on race declining faith in the birth And of the right american future There's no reason why we can't just do so much more than we're doing the common thread The incumbent president who makes things worse not better an incumbent president who sows chaos Rather than providing order an incumbent president who fails in the basic duty of the job Which is to advance the truth that all of us know That we're all born with the right to life live All right, we'll stop right there because I don't need to hear any insufferable platitudes We heard enough at the dnc convention, but basically point blank. He says rioting is not protesting looting is not protesting Setting fires is not protesting now I am not naive enough to think that joe biden would come out and say I am pro rioting Pro looting joe biden like he's not going to say that of course But embedded in that condemnation of looting and rioting that we all expect from him should be at least A small signal that he understands that people are in the streets Because there is real pain that they feel They feel like the system has failed them. So they have no choice. They have nothing left to do So they're just burning this whole system down Riding looting because government isn't listening to them. So what else are they supposed to do? I mean they protest and nobody listens call in capper nick takes a knee and even democrats like Ginsberg condemns him and calls it stupid. Obama says that he hopes he realizes how calling capper nick is hurting people So they protest and that's bad. But if they riot and loot and get people to pay attention Then that's still bad. So it's like They're in this lose lose predicament. Nothing they ever say or do is going to persuade people I mean when they protest they say defund the police joe biden responds by saying actually i'm going to increase funding for the police Well, why do they need more money like for more implicit bias training? Clearly that isn't effective. That's not working So, I mean at the end of the day what we saw from him here was just him being tone deaf and out of touch This is why people aren't enthusiastic for joe biden. He just he doesn't get it He's the wrong person for this moment. But believe it or not. It gets even worse Ask yourself Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really? I want to safe america Safe from coven Safe from crime and looting safe from racially motivated violence safe from bad cops Let me be crystal clear Safe from four more years of donald trump I look at this violence and I see lives and communities And the dreams of small businesses being destroyed and the opportunity for real progress on the issues of race and police reform and justice being put to the test Donald trump looks at this violence and he sees a political lifeline Having failed to protect this nation from the virus That has killed more than 180 000 americans so far Trump posts on all caps tweet screaming law and order To save his campaign One of his closest political advisors in the white house doesn't even bother to speaking code She just comes out and she says it quote the more chaos Violence the better it is for trumps reelection Just think about that This is a sitting president of the united states of america He's supposed to be protecting this country But instead he's rooting for chaos and violence The simple truth is Donald trump failed to protect america So now he's trying to scare america So again, he's not necessarily wrong like I don't hate everything that he said there But it's largely tone deaf because rather than just responding to donald trump calling you a socialist by saying No, I'm not No, uh What you can actually do is try to retake that narrative back right say well You know if caring for americans makes me a socialist then I will happily own that title I don't have to be a socialist to realize that we need fundamental changes in this country If I'm a socialist for the poor Then I guess donald trump is a socialist for the rich But I mean joe biden can't say any of this because he doesn't believe any of this He doesn't believe in any Structural changes that are substantial. He doesn't believe in this so he has No way of meaningfully responding to these attacks, which is why I said during the primaries It actually be nice It might be an asset to democrats if they had someone as the nominee Who identified as a socialist because at least then you can attempt to educate people And explain to them what you mean by saying you're a socialist rather than run away from it because just running away from it saying I'm not a socialist like you're not taking back the narrative effectively But I mean democrats do this all the time. They know exactly what republicans are going to say and they still don't know How to respond to that same playbook that they've used for decades now but joe biden went on to make a point about donald trump's bizarre attack because donald trump Oddly has been saying all of this violence is happening in joe biden's america when you're president So that's illogical. It doesn't make any sense and joe biden responded to that But there's still something missing even if I think that most of what he said here. It's pretty spot on Trump and pence are running on this and I find it fascinating quote You won't be safe in joe biden's america And what's their proof the violence we're seeing in donald trump's america These are not images of some imagined joe biden america in the future These are images of donald trump's america today He keeps telling you if only he was president it wouldn't happen if he was president He keeps telling us that he was president. You'd feel safe. Well, he is president whether he knows it or not And it is happening It's getting worse and you know why Because donald trump adds fuel to every fire So i'm not sure why he hasn't made this exact point like the moment trump started saying that all of this violence is Because of biden's america like that doesn't even make sense you're the president So i'm glad that he's finally saying it. Um on top of that, um He says that violence is getting worse because donald trump is fanning the flames. That's accurate. That's correct So most of what he said here is fine, but there's one missing variable that he still doesn't address Why were there riots and looting in kenosha wisconsin? It was peaceful until a police officer shot jacob blake in the back seven times So you can't just say trump is the reason why things are the way that they are like you have to speak to the specific Pain of these communities. You are the architect of the crime bill and in response to calls for police to be defunded You are defiant You're saying i want to increase funding to police departments like you have to demonstrate that you care And he hasn't done this. He just hasn't been sufficient We get you know more liberal solutions more committees To address the problems more money for the police departments So they can put that towards body cameras and implicit bias training But at the end of the day I mean we see how brazen police officers are where we've had months of protests in cities across the country And a police officer still shoots an unarmed black man seven times in the back So if they're going to do that you're going to need more than implicit bias training So you just have to at least express in some way to people you understand the scope of this issue and how big it is And what we need to do to change it, but you just you're not doing that. You're not meeting this moment But I want to play one more clip for you because this is the worst thing that we've seen here It doesn't have to be this way And president obama and i were in the white house We had to defend federal property We did it We didn't see it. You didn't see us whipping up fears Around the deployment of secret federal troops We just did our job And the federal property was protected When president obama and i were in office We didn't look at cities as democratic or republican run. These are american cities But trump doesn't see him himself as president for all of america Frankly, I believe if I were president today the country would be safer and be seen a lot less violence and here's why I have said we must address the issue of racial injustice I've personally spoken to george floyd's family and the jacob blake's family I know their pain And so do you I know the justice they seek and so do you They've told us none of this violence Respects or honors george or jacob I believe we can bring these these these folks fighting for racial justice to the table I've worked with police in this country for many years I know most cops are good decent people. I know how they risk their lives every time they put that shield on And go out the door And i'm confident I can bring the police to the table as well I'd make sure every mayor and governor had the support they needed from the federal government, but I wouldn't be looking to use the united states military against our own people If I were president my language would be less divisive I'd be looking to lower the temperature in this country not raise it I'd be looking to unite the nation That to me was by far the worst moment from this speech Because the underlying implication of that is that donald trump isn't necessarily wrong for deploying secret police to portland to kidnap people in unmarked vehicles He's just wrong to like scare people after doing it I don't even know what to say about that He says when president obama and I were in the white house. We had to defend federal property We did it. You didn't see us whipping up fears around the deployment of secret federal troops We just did our job and federal property was protected. So in other words, you're telling people in the streets You agree with trump. You just don't agree with the way That he's doing things you'd be less divisive As you try to violently crush protests like that's the message that I get If i'm someone in the streets listening to this like I can't even believe you would say this as the democratic party's nominee This isn't a gotcha to donald trump. This is a gotcha To yourself. It's a self-own Now I do believe that joe biden would in fact be more You know inclusive less divisive than donald trump when it comes to these issues I'm glad that he's in contact with the families of george floyd and jacob blake But again, he doesn't get it like his goal is to bring racial justice advocates and police Together and like let them just talk it out. That's kind of what I got from that And he says, you know, most cops are good except even the quote-unquote good cops are susceptible to a culture Of violence and racism and even if they're a good cop that wants to report police misconduct or racism They're dissuaded from doing that and that's not going to change if you offer a more implicit bias training Like you need to change the system entirely Anything short of systemic change Isn't going to do the trick Also, how is this going to happen if you're promising to bring both sides to the table And one side not just has more power, but it has powerful unions while funded unions to protect them Unions that are institutions that are resistant to change by the way And you know the other side is fighting the entire system with white supremacy embedded in it Like these are not equal in opposite sides There's a power imbalance here that you're not grasping or at least letting us know that you understand How are you going to be different than donald trump? Like how can you assure people that unlike trump you're going to stop the violence When you don't even really communicate to us that you understand why it's taking place in the first place Understand you can dislike the rioting and the looting but understand None of this would be a thing right now if police officers Weren't killing black americans with impunity like you understand that right like you have to communicate to us that you get that All of the rioting all of the looting would not be happening right now if this wasn't an issue That reached a tipping point So i mean i see this speech from joe biden and i just think This is why nobody's excited to support him right and if he wins it will be because there are enough anti trump voters That were motivated to come out and support him But i mean it just feels like at this point like he's playing at the trump's hands and he doesn't know how to respond to Donald trump and as a result he's kind of fumbling it Like the best thing to do would be Hide away until the selection is over otherwise like you're gonna keep putting your foot in your mouth And you're gonna make matters worse like i don't know if there's anything you can say to um Make people you know feel more comfort knowing that you'd be president and you do things different when you just admitted that You kind of agree with donald trump. You just disagree with the way he does things But you agree with the things that he's doing like You can't you can't do that You can't do that so it's best to just say nothing Stay inside until after the selection and Shut up if you're gonna say things like this But i mean apparently You know i'm In the minority i guess because centrist seemed to think that he had a lot of like mic drop moments And there were some good moments there i'm not gonna lie and detract from all of it But you know if you are In the streets right now protesting are you gonna come away from that speech thinking that joe biden is on your side? I don't know probably not but you know if you come away from that Feeling like he's not on your side then does that mean you're gonna vote for him? I don't know so it's just um it feels like you know Democrats are always Snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory and I kind of like got that sense from this speech joe biden Doesn't know what to say. Uh, he just makes matters worse for himself When you know you just kind of give trump enough rope to hang himself And you could just win because he's a big enough dumbass to keep saying stupid things But joe biden comes in and tries to like one up down all trump in some ways and it's just It's sad to watch because Democrats are blowing it and I hope that they don't blow it but I mean when you say things like this It's just you can't help but feel hopeless I always really like to watch when an out-of-touch pundit is shocked with information from you know The pores and the pheasants that they weren't necessarily privy to So someone who was at the protests as a journalist and a professor Let them know how a lot of these young people feel about joe biden And they were absolutely blown away to learn that young people aren't very enthusiastic about joe biden What impact do you foresee their movement having on the election? Yeah, I spend a lot of time at protests, especially with the youth Um, I've I've you know been there from a personal reason but also from an academic reason as well I asked people there, you know, what are you going to do in november? Why are you here? What are you going to do in november and they say I'm not going to show up because bernie is not on the ticket And I think that this highlights a bigger point, you know, which is that even though we had this democratic national convention that was meant to unify a party The dnc did not bring in The youth You know, and I think they need to do a better job of giving folks who have legitimate concerns About the direction of this country and their own interactions with institutions including law enforcement Right to be to be viewed to be seen to be heard and to be included in the club We're going to leave it there. Nazita. Let your body. Thank you. I don't understand Why they don't understand why young people are not excited about joe biden And this is the same individual who said he has no empathy for young people He refuses to support medicare for all during a pandemic and when protesters All in unison say defund the police. What does he say? No, I'm going to increase funding for police stations Like why would you think young people are excited? I like I don't understand How you're failing to see why young people aren't enthusiastic about joe biden like did you think that would change? We knew that joe biden had a problem with young voters during the primaries Did you think that would change because he's the nominee? No, if we've learned anything about young voters and their voting habits is that if they don't like a candidate They don't usually suck it up and vote for that individual. They just don't vote Getting young people to the polls in the first place in and of itself is a challenge Why would that just change all of a sudden? You guys told us joe biden is the most delectable MSNBC pushed this narrative repeatedly all during the primaries So now you're shocked That the person who you pushed forward all of a sudden isn't winning over hearts and minds like what did you expect? I don't get it. How are you confused? I don't understand why you don't understand as I said it just These people are so insufferable. So she said I spent a lot of time at the protests Especially with the youth and a lot of people she asked Had said I'm not going to show up because bernie's not on the ticket Now when she said that one of the anchors actually said wow And um, she also said that the dnc convention was meant to unify the party But the dnc did not bring in the youth This is the sense that I get from like msnbc liberals and centrists They thought that like once Joe biden announced his running mate a young woman a young woman of color and you know Calm the hairs, you know that would ignite the spark and get young people excited about joe biden Except young people care about policy Who is kamala? She is the top cop in california who laughed about the prospect of legal weed And locked up lots of people of color. Do you think that young people of color don't know about this? Now if she had a change of heart great, but I mean she's still terrible She voted against even a 10 cut to the military budget. She moved away from medicare for all as soon as she got any pressure Why would you think that a running mate is going to ignite the spark? They just don't Get it, but I mean look if you don't get it, that's fine. You're in dc. You're in that bubble We're all in our own echo chambers, but there's something that you can do if you genuinely want to understand What's happening? You can bring on more leftist voices. How often do we see msnbc bring on left-wing people? It's rare It's very rare on meet the press with chuck Todd He brings on right-wing panels all the time to talk about issues related to looting and writing and black lives matter Like how is that supposed to solve anything? One of the most popular shows on msnbc is a show hosted by a republican joe scar scarborough I just They don't understand it and they don't want to understand because if they did want to understand it They would bring on different voices Now I just discovered a youtube channel about a month ago called all gas no breaks Where this guy goes around the country and just interviews people and he doesn't necessarily like interject Any commentary himself? He just gives people a microphone and lets them talk and there was a portion of the last video He put out that stood out to me where he asked some portland protesters What they thought of joe biden and how excited they were and you can tell even like by the way he framed this question He already knew what the answer was going to be Now on a scale of one to ten how stoked are you guys about presidential candidate joe biden zero? absolutely Fucking zero. He has um an affinity for uh fucking children. So do you guys plan to vote for trump instead? i'm gonna vote for anarchy That was interesting Now unless those people are you know some sort of psychopathic pizza gate conspiracy theorists either they were joking or referring Most likely to the creepy videos of joe biden touching young girls and women in general That's probably what they were referring to and if you are a normal person You're probably turned off by that or a little disgusted by it because who isn't who isn't now Those people in that video Like I don't believe They are your average representative of people at the protests But what I do think they represent is a common sentiment that you're going to find within people who are protesting because I mean a lot of people who have been Worried about police brutality and who have supported the black lives matter movement who are in the streets constantly Like now that joe biden is the nominee and he's talking about increasing funding for police and he's remaining defiant They probably feel like I have no choice now now. I have to do rioting because I mean joe biden is not going to do any fundamental changes He said nothing will fundamentally change if i'm president So if trump isn't going to change jack shit And he's just going to try to violently stop the protests and if biden is going to get in and sit on his ass and not do anything What choice am I left with? I have to protest. I have to take to the streets So I mean if you ask people there They're probably going to say no, I'm not very excited about joe biden. That's what the msnbc anchor who was interviewed said And you know, you can tell that that's what that interviewer in the all gas no brakes video Expected because he said on a scale from zero to ten How excited are you for for joe biden and he was really sarcastic like you can hear it in his voice And he doesn't usually like inject his own commentary into these videos But you just like you know Young people aren't excited about joe biden But the thing is that there's still a lot of time before the election He can change that he can unequivocally support at least one bold policy medicare for all Legal weed and I've said even before like he doesn't even have to take it that far He doesn't even have to promote a new policy He could take one of his existing policies and just talk about it non-stop like I believe he supports a $15 minimum wage Why haven't we heard you talking about the minimum wage? You adopted some elements of bernie's climate change plan How are you not talking about this? Instead, you know, we hear him reiterating that you know, he definitely doesn't want to ban fracking I mean, it's just How could you be confused at this point? Joe biden had this enthusiasm problem before And the media still pushed him anyway or anyone but bernie. So I mean you made your bed Lying it the only problem is that msnbc's rich pundits They don't have to really worry about the worst of what donald's room has to offer because they're shielded regardless of who's president But you know, their propaganda has led us to this situation and now they're pretending like It's so shocking that young people aren't excited about joe biden. Yeah, no shit Maybe you should have thought about that before you pushed him as the most electable candidate Many people give michael more credit and I think rightfully so because back in 2016 He was one of the few people to predict donald trump's victory Now I watched the show. He was on he was on bill marr's program and he said, uh, you know, I think donald trump is Going to win now when he said that I didn't actually think he was being serious I thought that he was just saying that as a way to try to motivate people to get out and support hillary clinton To make people think that her win wasn't inevitable So, you know, I didn't necessarily believe him and I was one of the individuals who thought I mean, it's hillary clinton, but there's no way she's going to lose To a reality television show star like it's going to be close, but she's probably going to pull it off But he ended up being right He was proving right so he gets that cloud And he is once again sounding the alarm letting people know Trump may pull off another 2016 Joe biden's victory is not a foregone conclusion. And at this point it's looking less and less likely So on facebook michael more shared a poll of biden and donald trump in battleground states Which shows joe biden currently only has a one point lead over donald trump on average Now he followed this up with a facebook post saying Sorry to have to provide the reality check again But when cnn polled registered voters in august in just the swing states biden and trump were in a virtual tie in minnesota It's 47 47 in michigan where biden had a big lead Trump has closed the gap to four points. Are you ready for a trump victory? Are you mentally prepared to be outsmarted by trump again? Do you find comfort in your certainty that there is no way trump can win? Are you content with the trust you've placed in the dnc to pull this off? The biden campaign just announced he'll be visiting a number of states, but not michigan sound familiar I'm warning you almost 10 weeks in advance The enthusiasm level for the 60 million in trumps base is off the charts for joe not so much Don't leave it to the democrats to get rid of trump. You have to get rid of trump We have to wake up every day for the next 67 days and make sure each of us are going to get 100 people out to vote Act now. So with the way that he words this You know, it leads me to believe that my assumption about his prediction in 2016 is correct Like he's saying this to motivate people But do I think that he actually sees the writing on the wall thinks that democrats could blow this? I do so now I see this obviously since it's really explicit as a type of motivator to get people To get active to get on vote, but I also see him As uh trying to sound the alarm and let people know Trump could win Now again, this is still, you know Not a foregone conclusion like I feel as if it's a 50-50 like I don't think Any one conclusion at this point in time is a guarantee I think like maybe the debates are going to have an impact in some way I don't know, but what I do know is that I feel less and less certain about biden's victory As time goes on The more biden speaks The more it seems like his numbers drop But more important than that even is the fact that donald trump Is seemingly getting a hold of the narrative. He's blaming joe biden For the protests and the riots when joe biden doesn't even have power yet The fact that he's able to do that Shows you how effective the right-wing medium machine is at manipulating and brainwashing people like I don't like joe biden But is he responsible for the protests? No, of course not Now on top of that As covet numbers Decrease This is good for donald trump because he gets rewarded for it regardless if he deserves that or not like covet is still a really Really horrible phenomenon that's taking place But so long as the numbers are decreasing even a little bit. Trump is going to brag Trump is going to make sure people know he's responsible. It's because of things that he did He was the one who took action. It's not just happening on its own He did it. It's not the governor's. It's trump. He's really good at bragging So we don't know trump could still get tripped up by hyper focusing on socialism calling joe biden before left I think that the more he does this the more he loses people because nobody believes that joe biden is far left Unless you're a trump supporter, then you're just from that perspective. Maybe you're too far gone anyway But this isn't going to persuade anyone But the key issue here is Voter apathy I think this Will be the ultimate decider like trump can tweak his campaign strategy a little bit But at the end of the day, I think this was always going to come down to enthusiasm Democrats are going to lose unless they get out enough people to vote and that means they have to give people a reason They have to excite people. Have they done that? Not at all. They haven't even tried. You can say, oh, well, you know, he did these task forces with bernie. So I mean, are you not happy? Ask yourself this What has he done to promote the findings of the task forces? Does anyone feel like this was more than just window dressing? I mean, if you honestly think it's going to be conducive to any policy outcomes that You know aren't already like going to be what he promotes. Then I don't I don't know what to tell you Joe Biden isn't doing anything to win over voters Like I've said, he has to pick a single policy and just talk about it endlessly Medicare for all pot legalization But I've even been more kind than that and said if he just takes one of his existing policies Sorry, just hit the microphone if he takes one of his existing policies and he just like boasts about it nonstop 15 dollar minimum wage That's a winning ticket. Like if you tell people vote for me and you're going to get a raise That would be so influential people who aren't excited about Joe Biden might be motivated to come out And vote because a 15 dollar minimum wage that would be a lifesaver a game changer to people So even all of the supposedly Progressive elements of Biden's platform. Why aren't we hearing about them? Like the same thing was said back in 2016 Hillary Clinton has the most progressive platform of any democratic nominee Okay, well people don't believe her but even if that's the case Why isn't she talking about it more? So here's the thing. It's not too late for Joe Biden and democrats to turn this around It's not too late But if you think that enough people Doing grassroots activism on behalf half of Joe Biden is going to be You know the the thing that actually tips this in Biden's favor I'm not that optimistic. It would help sure but I mean Trump is already out canvassing Joe Biden a couple of weeks back I read a politico story where they talk about how in one week Trump's team knocked on a million doors Whereas Biden's team knocked on zero There's already that enthusiasm there which translates to grassroots moments of people are canvassing and actively promoting Donald Trump You're not just going to snap your fingers and get that because people are afraid that Trump is going to win again like Biden has to do something to motivate the people to want to motivate others like he's going to be the spark He's the catalyst here And we have to acknowledge that but I mean again It's not too late to turn it around like it doesn't have to be another 2016 Trump can still be ousted. We all want that to happen But it's not going to happen if Joe Biden sits on his ass like I get that I've said Seemingly contradictory so admittedly that he has to hide in his basement because he keeps making gaves But here's the thing You can have your team put on an ad that just says if you vote for me you get a raise every american gets a raise $15 an hour minimum wage. That's gonna be my first legislative priority I mean the difference that that would make without actually endorsing any new policy would be substantial Like you have to tell people I'm going to give you something if you vote for me a tangible difference will be noticed if I'm president in your life Your wallet will be fatter vote for me. I mean Kamala Harris endorsed a $2,000 per month ubi for the duration of this pandemic like Is he promoting that is she promoting that? I mean they just think that This victory is a given and I see the same hubris that I saw back in 2016 except I bought into the hubris I believed them when they were confident this time not so much. I don't believe that the democrat is gonna win because trump is a clown Now this is about what you're gonna do for people and it doesn't matter how clownish the republican is If people don't feel as if they have a good enough reason to come out and vote for you If they don't know what your policies are they're gonna stay home and if they stay home you lose I'll be the first to admit that I know nothing about sports Um, I don't follow sports anymore like I used to watch basketball as a kid, but I don't anymore I'm more of a video game nerd, but that's that's fine like the people who I know Who are left-wingers who follow sports? They seem to think that this nba strike that was starting to emerge Could have been something that was really substantial However, whatever potential was there for social change. Um, it was crushed by obama he stepped in And stopped that momentum SB nation reports how barack obama helped convince nba players to end their strike and return to play In a call with chris paul and lebron james, barack obama urged nba players to return to the court and resume the playoffs So you don't really have to know much about sports to understand what's happening here nba players were planning on doing a really meaningful protest to speak out against police brutality and obama came in and stopped it As bricky o'Donnell explains a call to barack obama from a small group of players including nba pa president chris paul and Los angeles laker superstar lebron james helped convince nba players To end their strike in the wake of the police shooting of jaco blake and return to the court to finish the playoffs The season was hanging in the balance when james and paul Spoke to obama after a tense meeting between players coaches and union leadership on wednesday night Followed by the milwaukee bucks players decision to refuse to take the court and players From subsequent teams joining them after no games on wednesday thursday and friday The league will return to play on saturday despite a faction of players favoring leaving the bubble and ending the season Bucks players took inspired collective action when they decided to not play as a way to protest the police shooting of blake Blake a black man was shot by police seven times in front of his children in canoesia wisconsin Just 35 miles from the bucks home arena Several nba players had hinted at potentially striking Including milwaukee's george hill who said we shouldn't even have came to this damn place to be honest a day earlier But the move still reportedly came as a surprise to the rest of the league The buck's intention was to forfeit and accept a game five loss in their series against the orlando magic According to chris hains of yahu sports Instead the magic refused to accept the win and players from the four other teams scheduled to play wednesday night The oklahoma city thunder versus houston rockets and the lakers versus portland trailblazers decided to strike in solidarity With the bucks nba players then came together for a heated meeting on wednesday night That also included union boss michelle roberts and coaches There was reportedly some momentum among a certain group of players to walk away from the season As a way to pressure nba owners to take meaningful political action Towards ending police brutality and the disproportionate use of deadly force by cops against black men and women roberts reportedly helped explain how much money could be lost For nba players if they walked away at one point in the meeting james and the lakers reportedly got up and left With an apparent but unofficial vote to end the season the clippers followed them at that point It was unclear if the season was actually over hours later james and paul spoke to obama on the phone with the season apparently hanging in the balance obama helped convince nba players to return to the court obama reportedly advised nba players to play According to sham's sharonia of the athletic So in case you're not keeping track that is two major social movements that obama decided to kill in the year burning 2020 And now the nba strike Thanks, obama Now, um, if you're wondering what he said to them to convince them to um, not strike basically it was lip service like he convinced them that a meaningless thing Is going to suffice in lieu of the strike katie hill a spokeswoman for obama gave the following statement to cnn As an avid basketball fan president obama speaks regularly with players and league officials when asked He was happy to provide advice on wednesday night to a small group of nba players Seeking to leverage their immense platforms for good After their brave and inspiring strike in the wake of jacob lake shooting They discussed establishing a social justice committee to ensure that the players and the league's actions this week led to sustained Meaningful engagement on criminal justice and police reform. Ah, so there it is they get a committee So they can stay engaged about this issue Liberals sure do love their committees and we know why like it's a way to get people to think That they're going to take action without actually accomplishing anything meaningful at all Yeah So, um before I give you my thoughts on this, I think that this tweet put it best obama just hides in one of his mansions until he senses structural change in the air And immediately gets on the phone to make sure it doesn't happen and that is exactly right now i'd be remiss to not share this meme with you because it is uh It's pretty accurate given the circumstances that we are learning about here. So listen, I've said this once i'll say it again obama is the final boss of liberalism and as long as he has credibility the left has No chance of actually accomplishing social change Because look at how easily he got democrats To fall in line behind joe biden you had amy klobuchar Pete with a judge and also beta aurorak All come out to support joe biden after he won south carolina And more importantly they dropped out Had they not dropped out centrists probably would have split the votes bernie would have gotten the most out of super tuesday wouldn't have been in a whole Now I maintain still till this day that you know, it wasn't over for bernie at that point But was it one of the final nails in the coffin of bernie 2020? Yeah, and bernie just didn't act quick enough. So, you know, if you're gonna blame obama for bernie's loss You're not necessarily wrong like I place blame on bernie disproportionately, but still obama Got all the centrists to coalesce Around joe biden something that the republican party establishment couldn't do in 2016 Which led to donald trump winning So obama stopped that massive social movement from happening in march And he just stopped another massive social movement from happening like I don't follow sports. So I don't necessarily Know how substantial this is on like a real Concrete level because all of this, you know is uh It's a little bit hard to follow, but If they didn't play their games Even I can acknowledge that would be huge You get people to acknowledge the severity of this issue and the urgency to address it But obama just told them All we need is a committee and that'll help us to stay engaged. Okay Well, if you stay engaged, but there's no action, then what's the point? Listen every single time obama is trending or gives a speech It is incumbent on us left-wingers to educate people about his terrible legacy He murdered innocent civilians in pakistan yemen and samalia and he gave children PTSD for the rest of their lives We elected him because he was against the iraq war and after having two terms. We're still in the middle east This is a bad person He killed the public option not republicans. He didn't even propose it He is the grim reaper of left-wing change But so long as people worship obama and think that he, you know, had a scandal-free administration and the biggest scandal was him wearing a tan suit We're gonna be in this predicament to where anytime there is structural change in the air as that tweet pointed out He's gonna swoop in and kill it with a phone call Why because he is very persuasive like if you watched his dnc convention speech It was the best speech out of the entire convention like you know exactly why He's able to convince these people to do what he wants because he's extremely charismatic It doesn't matter that we know he's hypocritical most people still fall for his bullshit even michael more who knows better Tweet it out. You've got to love obama Really michael you've got to love obama the guy who easily killed bernie 2020 and Drowned innocent civilians in the middle east of north africa. You got to love that guy. No, you don't and you shouldn't So this is disgusting obama is just another smug rich elite That now is an obstacle to change That we have to fight once again like I Absolutely regret voting for him twice like I was stupid enough to believe that you know Maybe in his second term it'd be better. It was really the republicans who were holding him back now We know who obama is He's another clinton democrat But except maybe worse than clinton at this point because clinton doesn't have much credibility Whereas obama does have legitimacy So if he says something people listen, especially democrats and centrists and the media they love him So, yeah You think that you know in four years or eight years AOC is gonna easily, you know sweep to victory in a democratic primary not if obama has anything to say about it You think if we elect enough justice democrats, we're gonna get medicare for all past Not if obama swoops in and gives him a call He's the enemy to change He's an obstacle to change that we have to fight again final boss of liberalism So unless we work in overtime to discredit obama Nothing is going to change in this country Myself as well as most of my viewers like if joe biden wins I don't think any of us are expecting like structural change or systematic reforms that would actually Meaningfully change this country for the better But at a minimum, I think most of us assume that he's going to handle cobit 19 At least better than donald trump. I mean you can't really do a worse job than donald trump unless you try like donald trump Has fumbled this in a way that's comical like we've handled cobit 19 In a way that a failed state would have handled cobit 19 Like we are doing worse than any other developed country for the most part And it's just it's shocking to me But now as the polls kind of tilt more towards donald trump's favor as joe biden starts to lose ground against trump in key battle states I'm questioning Okay, if trump is reelected worst case scenario What can we expect with regard to cobit if we have the same child handling cobit 19 and we have a new story that tells us We can expect the worst case scenario where we deal with cobit 19 Probably for another four years unless it just like organically goes away because the strategy that donald trump is already looking at It's a disaster. So as yasmin abut alib and josh dasi of the washington post report One of president trump's top medical advisors is urging the white house to embrace a controversial herd immunity strategy to combat the pandemic Which would entail allowing the corona virus to spread through most of the population To quickly build resistance to the virus while taking steps to protect those in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations According to five people familiar with the discussions The administration has already begun to implement some policies along these lines According to current and former officials as well as experts particularly with regard to testing the approaches chief proponent is scott atlas a neuro radiologist from stanford's conservative hoover institution Who joined the white house earlier this month as a pandemic advisor? He has advocated that the united states adopt the model sweden has used to respond to the virus outbreak According to these officials which relies on lifting restrictions So the healthy can build up immunity to the disease rather than limiting social and business interactions to prevent the virus From spreading sweden's handling of the pandemic has been heavily criticized by public health officials and infectious disease experts as reckless The country has among the highest infection and death rates in the world It also hasn't escaped the deep economic problems resulting from the pandemic But sweden's approach has gained support among some conservatives who argue that social distancing restrictions are crushing the economy And infringing on people's liberties that this approach is even being discussed inside the white house Is drawing concern from experts inside and outside the government who note that a herd immunity strategy Could lead to the country suffering hundreds of thousands if not millions of lost lives The administration faces pretty serious hurdles in making this argument One is a lot of people will die Even if you can protect people in nursing homes said paul romer a professor at new york university who won the noble prize In economics in 2018 once it's out in the community. We've seen over and over again. It ends up spreading everywhere So i mean after reading this uh, we can expect Four more years of covet 19 if we get four more years of donald trump because he's going to handle this in the most irresponsible way Possible because he thinks that if we just pretend like this isn't a thing if we opt for the herd immunity strategy Well, then i mean at least the economy will be saved, right? But except if you're gonna copy sweden understand that they still didn't save their economy like that's very obvious, right? You can't just choose between Sacrificing, you know the economy and people like this isn't a real choice. That's a false dichotomy Like you don't get to choose To save the economy by sacrificing people because if you end up sacrificing people that doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna save the economy but i mean It's worth it to take the chance if you're donald trump because that makes you look better And look if we're gonna copy anything from sweden Why aren't we copying their healthcare system like we copied the worst elements about other countries, but never the best elements And from what i've understood herd immunity might not even be a possibility Because people who get infected with the virus are susceptible to readfection if their bodies don't produce A sizable enough antibody response We don't know yet because information is you know, still scarce and we're learning more and more So that might not even be a thing like people might not be able to just build up an immunity like we might actually need a vaccine We might actually need to make sure We social distance and we don't reopen the economy. We stay home as much as possible Until it just goes away But of course it doesn't matter like whatever is the most reckless strategy That's what donald trump is going to pursue So the fact that donald trump at this point when he sees how deadly covet 19 is is even considering herd immunity as a strategy I mean it just goes to show you what to expect if he's reelected this It's gonna stay with us for a long time Because he just wants it to wash over the country like that original thing that he asked his advisors about That's a thing. I guess we're back to People hoping that america just grows numb to the covet 19 deaths in his administration Like that's what they were saying before they were reportedly saying man I really hope that people just grow numb to all of this because it's making us look pretty bad We're back to that mentality. We're back to reopen everything I mean, this is depressing, right I hate joe biden I know that we're not going to get any change that we need that would stop the rise of another demagogue like donald trump But I don't think he would opt for herd immunity Right, so I mean that is something to consider four more years of donald trump means we're dealing with covet 19 for the foreseeable future Until we get an actual vaccine that really works That's effective Or, you know, we learned that herd immunity Is even a possibility that people do have permanent immunity to covet 19 after they get it Then you just need a certain amount of people to reach immunity status to get herd immunity I don't know what the number is in particular because obviously i'm not an epidemiologist or an expert But it's just we're looking at the worst-case scenario if trump is reelected and The fact that he's even considering this the fact that he is not like personally, you know grief stricken by Almost 185,000 americans dying. It shows you he doesn't care about the american people He wants to reopen the economy Because he cares about money and capitalism. That's what this is about It's not some sort of, you know, thought-out strategy to handle covet 19 quickly This is about money because we are in a late-stage capitalist society And what matters more than human life, of course is money and capital and the economy So if we got to sacrifice thousands more people possibly millions of people At the altar of capitalism, that's what they're going to do here So we've talked about how most of the individuals not taking covet 19 seriously Who are spreading misinformation about it and refusing to wear masks are disproportionately Right-wingers prominent right-wing figures are the ones who are downplaying the severity of it Now maybe it's you know, there's some exceptions to the rule here And i'm missing some conservatives and maybe i'm being too broad in my generalization But nonetheless, this is what i've seen. I hope that changes but One example to kind of demonstrate this is that one prominent conservative is Downplaying the severity of covet 19 After it killed him Yeah, i'm talking about herman kane because the official twitter account for herman kane Tweeted out an article with the headline which says cdc now says 94 of covet deaths had underlying condition And adds it looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be Herman kane died from covet 19 And his account is tweeting out this garbage Right-wingers are just ruthless and they are relentless and they stick to a narrative No matter how deadly that narrative is. I mean you'd think that this account of all Wouldn't want to spread this sort of message Downplay the severity of covet 19 But they're still doing it and this is kind of disgusting Is this what herman kane would want like we don't know what he wants We know that he didn't take it seriously and killed him But would he have a change of tune after actually dying from it? Probably So maybe don't tweet this out on his behalf when you don't know what you're talking about Like if the cdc says that 94 of covet deaths had underlying condition That doesn't necessarily mean automatically that it's not as serious as it is in actuality Because you don't know what you're talking about But this account is apparently now the kane gang They've rebranded So they're just taking this platform that herman kane built and they're using it to spread misinformation And downplay the severity of covet 19 to the detriment of america Classy now that headline that they shared is pretty misleading Um, but if you think that that means you should take covet 19 less seriously Please don't because it is serious and that's not the case So rebecca falconer of axios basically put out a fact sheet explaining That statistic so she says a new centers for disease control report shows 94 of people who died from covet 19 In the united states had contributing health conditions Yes, but australian epidemiologist gideon myorewitz cats noted in a blog post on monday That the cdc estimates covet 19 was the underlying cause of 95 of all deaths Related to the virus only in five percent of deaths has it been listed as a contributing cause This report doesn't mean that covet isn't as bad as we thought It's clear from the cdc statistics on excess deaths that more people are dying than usual because of covet The fact that common pre-existing medical conditions often coincide with deadly coronavirus infections Is part of what makes it scary not a reason to write it off Torta removed a post earlier sunday retweeted by president trump for violating its rules with a false Interpretation of the cdc's novel coronavirus data the post incorrectly claimed the cdc had quietly updated its data To admit that only six percent of those listed in the u.s Coronavirus death toll actually died from covet and that the other 94 had two to three other serious illnesses cnn notes The post by a supporter of a baseless conspiracy theory has since been deleted Reality check while the cause of death listed as solely from the coronavirus occurred in six percent of cases in the u.s From february 1st to august 22nd This doesn't mean that the virus was not a contributing factor or indeed the leading cause in the other 94 The u.s virus death toll would be much lower if this were the case It's well established that people with underlying medical conditions are at increased risk of severe illness from covet 19 People can live with obesity diabetes or heart disease for years But get infected with covet 19 and die quickly cnn points out for the record the deaths with conditions or causes as well As covet 19 on average were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death according to the cdc Now this is what the cdc lists as underlying medical conditions that led to coronavirus deaths. They say influenza and pneumonia Respiratory failure hypertensive disease diabetes vascular and unspecified dementia cardiac arrest Heart failure renal failure intentional and unintentional injury poisoning and other adverse effects Now honestly i'm confused at what portion of the data trump is trying to misrepresent Because if covet 19 leads to respiratory failure in someone But respiratory failure itself is ultimately what killed them Should that not count towards the covet 19 death if covet 19 is what caused them to have Respiratory failure. I mean, what are we trying to misrepresent here? All I know is that donald from is trying to make himself look good Now i'm not going to suggest that like all conservatives Are going to believe this misinformation or even spread it But I get that like some of them They're not just trying to spread this at the behest of donald trump if they are in fact doing that Maybe they just want to believe that this isn't as bad because it's really it's scary, right? But all I know is that this is very serious and we have to take it seriously and we are still learning more and more So it's really unhelpful for large accounts people with large followings To spread misinformation about this or downplay the severity of covet 19 We're approaching 185 000 deaths from covet 19 185 000 If you're not taking it seriously, then I don't know what to say You're hurting everyone because if you don't take it seriously and you act carelessly Then you help spread the virus you help make it so that we have to be in this state of lockdown constantly We all want this to be over like Do they honestly believe that like the left is like yearning for an economic lockdown or they're yearning for COVID-19 to still be a thing and kill lots of Americans so it can help like joe biden Like I'm trying to figure out if they honestly believe that the left and even democrat centrists want this to be a thing for political reasons That's not the case I don't believe that anyone is looking at like the political benefits of covet 19 Or how this helps people Politically or hurts donald trump like I don't care if we can get rid of covet 19 like that Even knowing it helped donald trump I would opt for that option because that means that we would save lives less people would die and be sick and suffer Not everyone is as politically calculated as you might want to think but I mean to spread all of this it's either Irresponsible or wishful thinking that this isn't as serious, but I mean it is serious You do need to take it seriously And again, we are still learning more about this virus So, I mean I'll leave that there. It's really disgusting that the people who are running herman kane's account are still downplaying the severity of covet 19 After it killed the person Whose account they run like how disgusting of a person do you have to be to still do something like this after it took his life? I bet if he were here to talk about this, he'd say it's pretty damn serious It's not just the media phenomenon. It's not just sensationalism Sensationalism sure you can say that some elements of it maybe are sensationalistic, but that's not really my main critique My main critique with regard to covet 19 is how donald trump And our american political system have failed us handled this virus like a failed state Not given any economic relief to american citizens Tried to reopen as quickly as possible and pretend like it's not a thing because that's better for the economy That's my critique my critique in this instance isn't necessarily from the media like they kind of get a pass Because they haven't been part of the problem right wing media has been part of the problem Fox news has been part of the problem when you have people like tucker crawlsson promote quacks Who cite skewed data trying to prove that covet 19 isn't that serious like he did this in the beginning Like can we just stop this covet 19 like it or not isn't a partisan issue viruses Don't have political preferences. So let's treat it like the threat to us that it is And try to learn more about it and not spread, you know misinformation Whether that's for political reasons or just due to wishful thinking like let's stop Let's be more responsible when we're talking about covet 19, especially if we're not experts We all just watched the rnc convention not too long ago And if you tuned in you probably realized that there was zero substance no policies offered no solutions proposed Just fear mongering be afraid of socialism be afraid of black lives matter protesters Be afraid of quarry bush be afraid of everything vote for us and we'll protect you from all of these really scary things in the world I mean, this is what you come to expect from the republican party But it's interesting because steve hilton of fox news He gave me the impression that he was expecting something A little bit different because after the dnc's convention He you know, I think rightfully called them out for having not much substance just using platitudes and cliches I agree with that But he was given an exclusive sneak peek at donald trump's second term and some of the policies that donald trump Will be pursuing he says it was bursting with ideas bursting with ideas Never something that I would associate with the republican party Now even his optimism here is misguided because the policies that he's so excited about Aren't that substantive aren't that fresh or innovative? But yet he's excited about this because of course he's a hack and after calling the dnc convention a substance free event You know, I'm now curious to know what he thinks about the rnc convention after watching it thinking that you know There's gonna be these types of policies So we'll look at the preview that trump gave to him Prior to the rnc convention and we'll see if we could keep track How many fresh and exciting ideas are being proposed by donald trump if he gets a second term Our exclusive look at the trump second term agenda. You may remember that a couple of weeks ago I asked of the trump campaign. Where's the energy? Where are the ideas for the future? Well with this new policy plan They've answered those questions and then some after talking to president trump and seeing these plans It seems to me that the president and his team are bursting with ideas to move the country forward concrete plans Not the vague platitudes we heard last week, which themselves were completely overshadowed by the non-stop negativity of the democrats doom and gloom convention Because the democrats and their media allies are so consumed by hate for trump and his supporters They think that all they have to do to win is lie hysterically about trump and scream about systemic this and structural that no People want to know what you're going to do for them specific practical things not just esoteric academic concepts And here's what the trump campaign is promising to do for you and this country in a second term The plan is called fighting for you. The best is yet to come there are 50 commitments in 10 categories Including jobs ending our reliance on china drain the swamp defend our police And illegal immigration and protect our workers and innovate for the future One of the categories is eradicate covid 19 and in fact there was important progress towards that end Just this afternoon with the president's announcement of fda authorization for the use of convalescent plasma as a therapeutic This is a powerful therapy That transfuses very very strong antibodies From the blood of recovered patients to help treat patients battling a current infection It's had an incredible rate of success In the weeks ahead we'll take you through all the key policies in this document and show you the contrast Between this and the biden bernie sanders platform But for now here are a few specific highlights Tax credits for companies that bring manufacturing jobs back from china with a target of a million jobs returning providing school choice to every child in america Exposing washington's money trail and delegating powers back to the people and the states one i particularly love Winning the race for 5g and establishing a national high speed internet network. There is so much more Exactly what we wanted to see. Yeah, I mean, I don't know about you guys But I couldn't even keep track of all of the fresh and exciting ideas that we should have expected from republicans I don't know what you expected. I don't know what you expected now again Keep in mind this was filmed before the rnc convention So um, he thought that maybe some of these policies would be On display at the rnc event, but of course, you know, it was nothing It was non-stop fear mongering, but yet in that same clip. He criticized the democratic party for doom and gloom and non-stop negativity I am really curious to know what you thought of the rnc convention now by the time I filmed this like his reaction is probably up So, uh, we'll have to follow up, but um, even the policies that you're really excited about They're not good. These are mostly amorphous Right wing talking points that don't actually help people because again, republicans don't actually care about helping people Their agenda is very unpopular They are a minority party that gets power because they convince Rubes to vote for them even if they're gonna cut environmental regulations and give tax cuts to the wealthy Because they convince these people that they're gonna protect them from all of the boogie man's now that boogie man Will change depending on the political context. So it might be immigrants. It might be ms 13 It could be antifa protesters But there's always some boogie man and republicans win by convincing enough people that they're gonna stop the big bad boogie man But steve hilton thought that that would be different at the rnc convention and he was excited based on this so Basically, he lays out six categories This is what donald trump gave to him and these are broad categories about what trump will be pursuing in his second term The only one that even remotely touches on normal americans and impacts them in a concrete way Is jobs now, we don't know what trump's plan is in particular more jobs I guess as good theoretically speaking people want that But the question is what do we mean by that if trump is just vaguely promising more jobs Does that mean we also get protections for workers? Do we get an increase in the minimum wage or do we get more shitty jobs where people are working longer hours for lower wages? Like this isn't necessarily a good thing unless you're proposing Things related to jobs like protections for workers increased wages pensions drain the swamp I mean does anyone believe that donald trump is going to quote unquote Drain the swamp after his own family is personally profiting off of his presidency I mean, how can you with a straight face think trump is going to address corruption in a meaningful way when he's one of the most corrupt presidents in american history Certainly the most corrupt since nixon and I mean like the rest of these points here that he brings up These are all just again vague right wing talking points They have no real bearing on the quality of people's lives But then uh not on that list of six categories was uh trump is proposing the complete eradication of covet 19 Oh, well, jeez. Why didn't you just say that earlier? Wow, how innovative trump wants to get rid of covet 19 This is something that only trump is proposing Joe biden isn't proposing the eradication of covet 19 like How are we excited about this or supposed to get excited about this after donald trump completely fucked up covet 19 and his response to it and continues to lie about covet 19 and spread misinformation Like is this honestly something that you think people are going to get excited about when donald trump already proved that he's incapable of handling a pandemic Like what are you what are you doing after nearly 185 thousand americans have died because of trump's incompetence? I mean who thinks trump is going to handle covet 19 like an adult now He does share trump promoting the fda's authorization to use convalescent plasma for treatment But how is that a game changer the fda will exist with or without trump and they'd still use that as a treatment Do we think that that wouldn't be a thing if joe biden was president like how is this a trump specific thing that we should Be excited about like why would we vote for trump because of this? Like you have nothing you're grasping at straws, but he does get into some specifics So he wants to bring back one million manufacturing jobs from china and offer tax credits for companies that bring back jobs from china Okay, this is specific at least i give them credit for that But why do large multinational corporations need even more tax cuts because i thought that the 2017 tax law Already promoted investment in the united states like what happened? Why did they need more tax cuts? Why couldn't trump get this pulled off in his first term? I mean what a joke on top of that provides school choice to every child in america Oh, goody So we'll defund public education and promote charter schools So donald trump's donors and his education secretary can make lots of money. How exciting. What a phenomenal policy I mean, he's right. This is gonna impact people in a concrete way, but not in a good way Destroying public education to promote for-profit schools is not a good thing But at least it's all policy on top of that Expose washington's money trail and delegate powers back to the people and the states I don't even know what this means But you don't get to claim that trump or republicans are in favor of states rights After he literally just threatened to subvert the will of governors and send the national guard and the military to states to Violently crush protests like that isn't a thing you get to say and then also say that you're in favor of states rights It's one or the other pick one and if we're talking about a money trail in washington If that doesn't include donald trump and his own business dealings then i'm not interested Also win the race to 5g and establish a national high-speed wireless internet network Now first of all 5g is a technological advance that is going to happen regardless of whose president So that doesn't matter and if steve hilton is suggesting that trump is going to establish some type of Public option for the internet. I'm gonna have to doubt that. I think probably what this means Is uh, just make sure that people have Access to national high speed But when you say national like when you use that word You imply that there's going to be like a public option for internet So rather than using comcast I can buy like government sponsored internet. Is that a thing? I don't think that's what trump is proposing and If that's not the case like if i'm if i'm correct and trump isn't actually proposing that then what's the promise here? We get 5g which was inevitable anyway and high speed internet I mean These private companies are already Trying to increase infrastructure to get high speed internet to more areas So like what what promise here is related specifically to donald trump? Why would we only get this if trump is president and not joe biden? So do you understand like even the things that you're excited about this is not substantive This is not meaningful. This is not going to help people And here's the thing just having policies That's not good enough. They have to be good policies They have to be policies that actually help people like if you propose a policy like private charter schools That in and of itself because it's a policy isn't just inherently good You need policies that help people objectively help people This is not good public policy So I mean it's funny because he criticized the democrats Because they had no substance just platitudes But I bet I guarantee in fact that he's gonna have a little bit different of a narrative When he talks about the rnc you can mention Like it's not like he's gonna say wow I was really excited for all of these policies and then the rnc let me down like I highly doubt that I'd eat this microphone if that happened But I mean this is a hack this is a propagandist and he knows what he has to do You get on camera every single day and you say exactly what the rnc wants you to say like a good little stooge And you pretend to be excited about it now Maybe he drank the kool-aid, but either way he knows his role and he should be embarrassed because this um Exclusive look at trump's policy priorities for his second term Does anyone think that the republican party is bursting with ideas as he said Well, if you think that you're a rude, but I think that people know what they're getting when they vote republicans They know the environment is going to be destroyed faster than as if a democrat were president. They're gonna cut Uh regulations donald trump deregulated Uh a lot and that led to the uh, what was it the was it samanilla or ecoli outbreak with lettuce? That happened in 2017 like that's so far back now that I can't even remember But this is what happens when you get deregulation like people know about this Like people know republicans don't support medicare for all or anything that helps them They just are hateful And they've been duped to believe that there's a lot of boogie men that trump is gonna protect this from So they know what they're getting don't pretend Like republicans have some fresh innovative perspective that they're bringing the politics Give me a fucking break like you know better than this steve. Come on The republican convention was positive substantive Inclusive real policies helping real people So-called right-wing populist Sagar Anjedi who is a co-host on the hill rising with crystal ball recently had a piping hot take That kind of proves why the left is right to question both the authenticity and existence altogether of this phenomenon supposedly known as Right-wing populism because if you believe what he tweeted he believes Then you're no populist So he states today a riser posted a story of himself smoking weed and watching rising It greatly distressed me so to counteract it I'm asking that other risers post insta stories doing literally anything else while watching the show I will repost them all What Why did Somebody smoking weed distress you It distressed you so much that you're willing to post anything else Instead of them smoking weed So is snorting coke okay? What if they you know take a picture of themself Eating a turd would you um would you share that we don't need to go any further because i'm just going to dive into like really gross analogies But you get the point like are you being serious? I genuinely don't know if he's trolling um if he is then I stand corrected. I'm wrong You know, um you fooled me sir. Good job. Well played, but like Is he being serious though because he is a conservative and conservatives are most likely to not support pot legalization Or the use of marijuana although I will say that even if that's the case even if they're more likely to not support weed Uh still a majority of conservatives support the legalization of marijuana. In fact 67 of americans two-thirds of the country support legal weed and that includes a majority of people in every single demographic And yes, I mean a majority and not a plurality and that even includes Republicans like I alluded to earlier 55 of which say pot should be legal This is very popular. So if you are against something that's popular then by definition, you're not a populist If you're falling for antiquated reefer madness hysteria You're not a populist. You're just a standard conservative or a corporate democrat So I mean part of me thinks that like He's not being serious because it's so absurd to think that someone who's younger would be against pot legalization Regardless if they are a republican or democrat or independent like to be against it Is so inconceivable to me that I have to think that you're trolling But I mean up until this point We don't know if he's being serious or not But I mean the fact that he put this out there you have to assume that he is being serious I mean, he's not known for being a big troll unless I'm missing that but like If you honestly are concerned with pot I mean you're proving Right-wing populism is a farce Like it's already difficult to believe That right-wing populism is a thing because traditionally like I don't really view populism as being attached to the left or the right It's just a politician that supports someone Or supports policies that are popular. I'm not necessarily just a politician But like people so I mean the fact that you attach that right-wing qualifier to it doesn't really make sense Um, but I mean if you are going to be in support of populist policies then How could you be conservative because everything that's popular currently is against conservatism? I mean, do you want to raise the minimum wage? Do you support medicare for all if you do then great? But I mean to be a right-wing populist that seems like an oxymoron So, um, yeah, I genuinely don't know if he's trolling. I don't know the fact that I'm not sure That shows you why conservatives like Are so unpopular why they're not populist because we should know that you support pot legalization And promote the use of pot if you're a populist because it's harmless There's nothing wrong with it. But because I'm talking about this, um, of course, I'm going to share my satirical Propaganda piece that I put out a couple of years ago. It didn't get nearly as much attention as it deserved So whenever I talk about this story, I feel inclined to share it because I think that people need to see this because I worked hard on it And I I think it's it's good. It's objectively good So it's a little bit outdated, but I think it's still relevant, you know, for politicians who are against pot legalization So I will leave you with my, uh truth about marijuana propaganda piece that's supposed to be, you know A parody of all of this hysteria against marijuana Since the dawn of time mankind has been plagued by war poverty And natural disasters But nothing can compare to the most destructive force in the world marijuana Legalization of marijuana for tax purposes And that's the only way people justify because you can't justify it in any way. It's blood money I mean people on pot that shoot each other, that stab each other, strike each other, drive under the influence Kill families, wipe out a whole family Marijuana leads to doing worse things. That's just a fact. I don't care what anybody says what the debate is The only reason you use weed outside of a medical situation is to intoxicate yourself But we also have anecdotal evidence now from colorado Where some of the people who were taking marijuana for those purposes The coroner believes after they died there was drug interactions with other things they were taking Even a single marijuana can be deadly The liberal media hides the truth about marijuana Arguing it's safer than alcohol and cigarettes But even just one marijuana can tear apart families. I'll get straight to the point. I found marijuana in the house lead to death or worse cause homosexuality Those that know the truth are laughed at So what we have here is a case of money over morality and you know right now it's it's really funny folks We're watching the the chuckle heads, you know, we're watching these folks doing what they're doing out there and getting a good laugh about it But when the body count starts rising when people start dying then maybe yeah, it's real funny, isn't it? Real funny real funny to talk about Meanwhile people are dying This man died after taking just one marijuana His friends told him it was safe because they heard it from liberal cucks like tj. Kirk Secular talk and the humanist report We must stop the marijuana epidemic now and you can help Share this video with your friends It could save a life. I don't know about you all but I still feel uh demoralized and a little bit uneasy After watching the you know, cringy really dnc convention and the horror show that was the rnc convention But thankfully on sunday We had a different sort of convention take place the movement for people's party held there people's convention And this Is what I want to see it featured prominent speakers such as the great cornell west Nina turner maryan williamson mike ravell and the list goes on Um, basically the goal of this was to bring people together to create a new people's party an alternative To the two party duopoly that we see that very clearly isn't doing an adequate job at representing us Now 85,000 people actually signed up to support this So it's nice to see a lot of people kind of coalesce around this one big idea of hey The two party system isn't working out. So let's subvert that and create our own thing Now I want to tell you a little bit more about the people's party and then I also Want to tell you about the origins because this is really interesting I'm sure a lot of you already know this but this was originally the draft burning movement But it has morphed into the people's party But before we get to that, um, this was kind of their goal every four years The two major parties have held their conventions with noisy fanfare But without any lasting and meaningful solutions to the severe challenges the american people face And the challenges have become more severe every year We are building a major new party that is genuinely of by and for the american people One that will truly represent us and that aims to build the stronger healthier and more just society we all deserve And that to me sounds Incredible So, um, you know, it's inspiring to see all of these people come together and say We agree. We want the same thing. Um, you know, and I didn't watch all of it I didn't get to watch it live. So I'm like trying to catch up But what I saw was far more substantive than the rnc and dnc conventions combined So kudos to nick brought I actually brought him on my show in like I think 2017 or 2018 when he was doing the draft burning movement But ultimately bernie said no So, you know, the movement had to go somewhere. There's still a need for An alternative to the democratic party and now it is the people's party So i'm gonna share a couple of clips from Some great moments I mean, of course I tuned in because I wanted to see cornell west and neena turner speak And maryon williamson has quickly like risen up on my list of people who I really respect and admire so her as well So i'll kind of give you my highlights my favorite moments, but um, what's interesting is that There was like almost no coverage of this in the mainstream media when you have 85 000 people sign up for this event Like you'd think there'd be some sort of coverage, but there wasn't much But this is what I want. I want this To not just be a thing That is created. I want it to like be viable. I want it to work So I want to kind of extend The message of this people party like and let me just say this was like a diverse group of people like not just Demographically speaking i'm speaking like in terms of their ideology. Some of them are voting for joe biden like cornell west maryon williamson They're gonna vote for joe biden So they're not saying exclusively we only want to go the third party route But to me what this established was the urgent necessity for an alternative to the democratic party And I think that we need this um, but in order for it to be successful I want people to acknowledge that we have to put in the groundwork for this We have to do some very specific things To make this happen because if we just like create a new party And we don't change the institutions Then ultimately nothing will come of it right because we have third parties in this country And currently they're more successful on the right than they are on the left Like the libertarian party takes more from the republicans than you know, the green party takes From democrats so if this were to become a thing and the party was founded And they started to like run people for congress and whatnot Then it would be really really important for you to make sure that this party is viable And the way that you do that is to push for electoral reform and I've said this once I will say it again There was a bill hr 4000 that will make it much easier for all of us to get a third and fourth party Because it moves us away from the first pass the post majoritarian winner-take-all system And it institutes nationwide ranked choice voting Proportional representation so rather than all of us just having One representative we have two or three maybe so it's more proportional And on top of that it ends gerrymandering And if you are not able to convince your lawmaker As I couldn't to support this bill then if you live in a state where you have ballot initiatives What you can do is try to get ranked choice voting on the ballot I mean this happened in main and it was a game changer You see a prominent green party figure running for the u.s. Senate right lisa savage. I brought her on my program So we want this to be accompanied by electoral reform because if you don't get electoral reform Then this party isn't going to be viable It's not going to be viable like best case scenario you get like 10 20 of people In this party But then that's not enough to actually take power 10 to 20 percent in each district even is not enough to actually assume power So we have to make this party viable by getting electoral reform. That's step number one Now what we want is for Not just third and fourth parties to become a thing in america But we want them to be good parties right because once you start to actually get power what happens Capitalism corrupts that institution. So let's say best case scenario We get the people's party in congress and they represent like a third of voters Well, once you start to get power then that attracts special interests who then try to co-opt and corrupt that new power So even if let's say like the green party if they actually started becoming really key players if we got electoral reform um, we would have to protect The viability of third parties in the sense that like they don't just become Extensions of the democratic party or the republican party like we'd want them to still be corporate free and represent the people So you'd have to protect them from capitalism essentially and make sure that we campaign finance reform We decommodify elections. So in order for this to work We have to do a lot of things like one we need electoral reform And two we have to make sure that these parties don't become shitty over time And we have to get money out of politics so that way they can't be co-opted and corrupted right now If we were to get Some sort of you know people's party if this actually worked Which I wanted to but we didn't get electoral reform. What would we be looking at? Well, let's say, you know, it got 10 to 20 percent. Let's go with that figure that I was using earlier of the electorate Well, as I stated, that wouldn't be enough to actually get power in many instances And they would just be splitting votes with democrats, which means that republicans would win So that's why we desperately need electoral reform because it's not enough to just have like a people's party But we need this people's party to be viable like we want Members of the people's party to actually make it to congress, right? That's the ultimate goal of this to get power But we have to make sure we get electoral reform and campaign finance reform Otherwise like we're doing all of this for nothing Now there is a world where it's a possibility that like the people's party just becomes big enough To where they take away a chunk of voters from democrats And then you know that forces democrats to come to the table and try to you know Bring in the people's party But after seeing how stupid the democrats are like in that instance Let's say like the people's party was taking away like 30 of democratic party voters and they were losing every election I still think that democrats wouldn't come to the table. I think they just say You know, this people's party is worse than republicans because they're helping them win yada yada yada Like we've learned that democrats are not going to make any changes like they're gonna vote shame Because that's better to them that works better than actually getting ranked choice voting because if they were To promote ranked choice voting well, then that would stop the spoilage issue that they're so concerned with But that also threatens their power because then third and fourth parties might become viable So, you know, I don't think democrats will ever come to the table with any sort of third party Um, it'd be really unlikely because they're just they're stupid. They're dense They've showed us that they're not going to want to do anything So we have to make sure that we make this party viable And we don't rely on the democratic party to make them come to the table and meet with us and become viable because We're gonna be waiting forever That's never gonna happen democrats are too stupid to do anything. They don't care about winning or losing election So if we eat up like a sizable chunk of their electorate with the people's party, they don't give a fuck They don't care because then they're just gonna try to fundraise more to their corporate donors So we have to make sure that we fight for electoral reform now look I understand people are anxious and they don't want to do this crucial step of getting electoral reform I feel you right duverger's law is a thing, but it's not like a written like codified law. It just suggests that You know in these more majoritarian first pass the post want to take all systems Most of the times you're going to see just two parties and those parties are going to be pre milk toast Pretty centrist in most instances now. This isn't like a universal thing. I mean, uh, South Africa has proportional representation um, their institutions actually are Theoretically conducive to multiple parties, but they have like one prominent party and see that wins every single time Right. Um, and even when you get electoral reform as japan did that still might change one election or two elections But then things kind of just go back to normal. So it's really really tough now back in 2016 I told myself, okay, listen, I think that people are just so frustrated with hillary clinton and donald trump It's possible that so many people vote for the green party that uh, we get five percent And that five percent leads to federal funding right and that makes the green party real players But jillstein got one percent which was baffling to me because still even like With hillary clinton and donald trump going up against each other and you have someone like jill stein Who's bringing ideas to the table like student debt cancellation and a green new deal which are now popular in the democratic party People rejected her because it's not just about like the institutions and majoritarian Winner take all systems like i've learned after 2016 that like this two party duopoly Like it's something that's embedded in our dna like people culturally just won't vote for anything other than the democratic or republican parties They won't like it just they have to pick one or the other and even if we got electoral reform I still don't necessarily know if we can nudge them in the correct direction But what we can do if we got ring choice voting is defaying their arguments right people oftentimes who are theoretically More inclined to support a third party They don't want to vote for a green party person if that means that the democrat who's more likely to win Ends up losing so they want to stop republicans from winning therefore they vote for democrats That's what a lot of people do it's called strategic voting rather than sincere voting But if we had rank choice voting nationwide then we could explain to them how now It doesn't actually hurt you to vote for a green party candidate or a people's party candidate You can vote For a third party and rank your choices. So if you want to vote for howie hawkins is number one That's fine You just choose joe biden as your number two And you make sure that you know you vote your heart and your conscience But the worst person who you don't want to win doesn't win like you're not enabling them by splitting votes like this is This is really important because they're not going to buy it If we just say you know, hey, we have a third party vote for us Like we've learned after 2016 It's going to be one of the two parties the duopoly. They're not even going to try to give the greens 5% right So what I want is for the people's party to be a thing That's viable So if you support this and I don't know who doesn't support this because Who whoever like can't see the need for an alternative To the democratic and republican parties like I don't get that. I don't understand you But I think most people who are watching know that there's a need for this We need a people's party and I'm glad this came together So what we have to do now is put in the groundwork like this is a grassroots movement, right? This is the formation of a people's party. So that means you put in work You push for electoral reform you push to make sure we get campaign finance reform to decommodify election So this new institution that we build if we make it viable doesn't get corrupted in the same way That democrats become corrupted But with that being said like overall like it's nice to watch this and like listen to intelligent people speak Who have more than just platitudes like if you follow follow this like if you tuned into it like It's honestly therapeutic in a way and again I haven't watched all of it yet But like it's therapeutic because you see people saying the same exact thing And it feels like you're not crazy anymore when you watch this, right? Like you see people who actually care about policy and that's that's Refreshing which it shouldn't be because if you're in politics like if you follow politics That should be like what you focus on but I mean not in 2020 america So having said all of that I'm rooting for the people's party. I want to help the people's party We all have to help the people's party to make sure that if this does become a thing I don't know what like what's involved with creating a new party But like we have to get electoral reform to make sure we don't only just have a majoritarian system And we have to make sure that we have electoral reform Or campaign finance reform We have to have those two things to make this actually successful And not just be like some fringe party like we want to push this into the mainstream That's the ultimate goal, of course So electoral reform campaign finance reform but having said all of that I'll shut up now and let the people Who attended this who are brilliant speak? These are my favorite parts from the convention capitalism doesn't separate itself from racism You cannot fix something that was built to be broken We have to shatter the systems that oppress us and rebuild everything for all of us The audacity of both parties in this country to say we cannot avoid universal healthcare when democrats and republicans Both fund our war machine. Well, guess what? It's time for us the people to be audacious I'm sure you've all noticed that the two-party system is not working for everybody In fact, it's only working for corporate america and the wealthy elites They fear the third party more than anything else and guess who knows that from experience You're looking at him. See they think we're stupid They think we're stupid. They think we're afraid How are we ever going to stop the racial injustice crisis when both parties are in the pockets of the for-profit prison industry? How are we ever going to stop the cost of healthcare crisis and the lack of healthcare crisis When both parties are in the pockets of big pharma and the giant insurance companies How are we ever going to stop the economic inequality crisis when both parties are in the pockets of the billionaire class? There have been people in every generation that have taken the wheel had pushed back against the forces That were transgressing against our principles and did what it took to get this country back on track It is simply our turn 57 years and three days ago The greatest public intellectual in the history of the american empire died in gana. His name was w e b Du Bois and that next morning young brother marna luther king told america about a dream that he had Which was not the american dream but a dream rooted in the american dream and has everything to do with the movement for people's party Because what we're talking about here is a people who muster The wherewithal who have not just the courage but the fortitude the fortitude to Fractify and by fructify. I mean to generate the fruits of truth telling to generate the truth of justice seeking to generate the truth of kindness and sweetness and gentleness and how we relate to each other but with a steel spine when it comes to bearing witness in the face of old pressure Hello, somebody see this poem encapsulates this very moment Brother lincoln hughes is talking about this Very moment. I hope you caught what he said He said telling others to get together whites and filipinos Negroes and mexicans all kinds of kids will die Who don't believe in lies and bribes and contentment and a lousy piece That is what the movement for people's party is all about Well democratic party primaries in massachusetts took place today And we've got mixed results like overall I feel disappointed But i'm satisfied because we still got one really crucial victory. So i'm going to start off with the good news Ed marquis in his race against joe kennedy the third Just killed the dynasty So a kennedy has never lost a race in massachusetts This is the very first time a kennedy has lost in this state and he lost by a landslide At the time i record this ed marquis has 54.8 of the vote Whereas joseph kennedy the third has 45.2 of the vote That ladies and gentlemen is what i'd like to call an ass whooping I love this that smug little elitist prick just lost to ed marquis Uh, nancy pelosi came out to endorse joseph kennedy the third Better awork came out to endorse joseph kennedy the third and joseph kennedy the third lost Seems like it's more important to get aoc's endorsement than it is to have nancy pelosi's endorsement Seems like the political wins are starting to change slowly, but surely Now What i like about this race is that it forced ed marquis to really be as progressive as he can possibly be like He unlike most incumbents did not run towards the center. He actually leaned into his progressive record Now he doesn't have the most progressive record ever in fact I have some issues with him like he voted for the iraq war He didn't endorse bernie sanders in 2016 or 2020 But he is a sponsor of the green new deal He has been you know shifting towards supporting medicare for all and i believe him more than i believe Joe kennedy. Joe kennedy doesn't even think that weed should be legal So i love this. Um, what i will say is that it's time for the left officially to stop standing ed marquis because he's not that great He's definitely better than joe kennedy Uh, but i think that a lot of his progressive bonafides that he was boasting about You know, it was a little bit hyperbolic now You know, we're gonna hold him to that and make sure that he actually lives up to all of these progressive promises But let me just say if joe kennedy were able to win and beat ed marquis We would be in a far worse situation. So i am really thankful that ed marquis won And again, i'm just I'm really glad that Nancy Pelosi's preferred candidate did not win now. You see a little bit of salt online Nate silver of 538 posted, you know incumbents win all of the time. So this isn't a victory for the left But it kind of is like without the left and this momentum Ed marquis Would have lost because if you look at early polls from this state Joe kennedy was in the lead But ed marquis not only closed that gap but ended up winning by a landslide in spite of the fact That he was the incumbent ed marquis is the one who was kind of the underdog in this race Even if he was the incumbent because the establishment was aligned behind joe kennedy So i mean it's nice to have this victory and i'm gonna i'm gonna take this victory Now there are two other races that i was paying really close attention to of course the alex morse race going up against Richie neil who's the head of the house ways and means committee and then also isan leke She was actually running for joe kennedy the third's vacant seat because he left this house seat, of course To run for the u.s senate Let's get to those results in the first congressional district of massachusetts Richard neil unfortunately defeated alex morse 60.3 percent to 39.7 percent at the time i record this video Results are still coming in and i'm assuming that there are more millen ballots that are left to be counted However, it's a really big gap and if he closes this i'd be surprised But this shows that you know if he comes back in two years he can actually pull this off as quarry bush did Now when it comes to the fourth congressional district unfortunately The individual who i was rooting for issan leke came in fifth place This is a really really crowded field And you know she Didn't do too bad considering you know she pulled in about 10 of the vote But it looks like jesse mermel is going to be the one Who uh takes on this seat? I mean this is a pretty blue leaning district So this will be the individual who most likely goes to congress disappointing result But not all hope is lost like we got the ed marquis victory with alex morse He's so close that if he came back in two years as i stated earlier I think he can pull this off Issan leke um i want to see more from her because i think she was a really inspiring and phenomenal candidate Like she is an immigrant from morocco. I brought her on the program and it was just blown away like she's she's brilliant So she's someone that i want to see in politics again Um, so when it comes to the alex morse campaign some people are saying the reason why he lost Possibly is because of the uh smear from richie neal like you all know what i'm referring to the homophobic smear that was uh Brought forward by college democrats of massachusetts which the state Democratic party in massachusetts helped, you know to coordinate and cubra I don't necessarily know that that's the case because honestly like from my perspective I wasn't really following this race that closely like i knew of alex morse and supported his campaign But that smear made me pay attention like that race in a way kind of catapulted alex morse Into national prominence now the smear Could have certainly hurt him because i mean he was rising in the polls so you know that was a way to Stop his momentum, but at the same time, you know I don't know if it directly hurt him because when people found out about it that And you know, they felt sympathy for alex morse. They kind of rallied around him At least i did and a lot of other people that i know Who are following this did so you know it backfired in a way to Where i don't know that i can say definitively the smear is what led to him losing But it's just a matter of like when you're running for the first time Really, this is all about building your brand building name recognition And you know if alex morse came back He could pull this off like look at quarry bush She lost by what 20 points in 2018 and came back and defeated lacy clay two years later So if morse is losing by 11 points Then i feel really good about his chances in a couple of years Now that sucks. I want him in congress now because he is a phenomenal candidate very progressive but um You know you win some you lose some but maybe this is just going to be a pretty easy one we can um knock out in 2022 but at least you know edmark he won and we just took out Joe kennedy and you know any I think hope that he'd run for president one day. It's it's kind of Not going to be possible now If you end up losing your house seat to challenge someone and then lose that race like that's a bad look So at least that's one corporate democrat who we kind of knocked out who'd be another You know smug and sufferable centrist like pete buddha judge although I kind of feel like i don't know who's more insufferable between pete buddha judge and Joe kennedy like to me they both irritate me for different reasons Uh, but at least you know, we don't have to deal with one of them for now. So that's good So I mean all around not the result that I had hoped for but still, you know, uh, I'm gonna take this as a Solid night Hello, everyone. I am here with adam christensen running in florida's third congressional district He just won his primary and he is now facing off against a republican in november and he's here to talk about his race So adam welcome to the program Hey, thank you so much for having me. It's nice to have you. So for whatever reason like I missed your race Um, I saw your platform. I loved everything you were endorsed by maryanne. Williamson and andrew yang Um, this was a really important race like you were a candidate that I would have supported But I don't know how you slipped to the cracks and I didn't know about your campaign until after you won your primary But this was a victory that I would have been really excited about and you know excited to celebrate So tell us a little bit about your campaign Yeah, no, absolutely. Honestly Um, it's kind of slipped through the cracks forever. It's north central florida and nobody ever realizes that number one This race is happening here or number two that you should even be paying attention to him At least until about a month ago when ted yoho decided to make himself famous And go after aoc and so that at that moment was when everyone was like, oh Oh, oh north central florida exists like we should care about this And so I in a way it was almost a gift that ted yoho is such a horrible human being But to be honest, I was surprised that nobody knew who he was before that because he had voted against making lynching a federal crime Like he didn't think the civil rights act was constitutional like he went against the e r a like the survivor's bill of rights Like this is who the guy was and so he was one of those tea partiers that got in um, and uh, he's been here ever since Yeah, um the ted yoho situation, uh, that you're referring to was when he, you know, just out of the blue attacks aoc I believe I talked about this on my program as well. Um, but yeah, this is an interesting race here So tell me what's going on because you won the democratic party primary You're going up against the republican and all of my viewers like they know about, you know These races and they bring them to my attention and this is no different So I had a viewer actually reach out to me and say, hey, you've got to get adam christensen on the program Why haven't you done this and I didn't actually know about your race? So I feel really bad and I'm glad that I'm correcting that right now But what was the dynamic in your primary? Like how many people were competing like was it relatively open? Like how did you manage to win because what we're seeing this time in 2020 is that Progressive candidates who are, you know running on medicare for all, uh, you know a living wage all of this They're seeing a lot more success this time around than in 2018 Which was kind of our first run where we had, you know, one big victory with aoc and a couple of other Successes with Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tali, but this time it's completely different. I mean we have Marie Newman, Jamal Bowman You now winning your primary car Eastman. I mean the list goes on So how did you do it and you know, what can you say to other candidates running in primaries in the next cycle? Yes, so ours is a little bit different a little bit special So I am 26 years old So I am the youngest congressional nominee in the country on top of that we started in January We started almost seven months after everybody else and uh, we had no money. We had no name recognition We had basically nothing and we got a bunch of college kids that basically I mean one I went out and I started trying to get petitions and basically said Hey, this is what I want to run on I think this can work and I think people need this And one person joined and then another person joined and within a week We had about 10 and then within a couple months We had about 50 and it was one of those things where it almost started organically But the biggest thing that we did was number one. We ran on principal And we were able to actually connect with people and so for us We knew that we were never going to against our opponents We had two opponents one is a very progressive guy that has run I think this was his third time running for congress in a row The other guy had run previously as an independent And had neither of them had done well in a general previously against Ted Yoho But they had name recognition and they had some money and so for us It was number one. We had to build a field team. We had to actually do the groundwork We had to get in with the activists. We had to do everything that we possibly could Now most of the people on our team were organizers and activists That's most that's what our entire team was made up of and so for us The way that we were able to actually get people to understand the number one we existed and number one They should care that we were running was because we actually integrated ourselves into everything that was going on We had our name out there every single second of the day every single podcast every single news cycle Every single newspaper that we possibly could and it was a lot of hard work But at the end of the day hard work is not what is going to Win you races like this necessarily you're never going to win just based on Ideology or based on what you believe you have to be able to actually Win by coming up with a game plan and a strategy and in capitalizing off of it So for us immediately What we realized is we cannot do this alone and there are house district candidates that are running here That if they do well, we're going to do well And so we partnered with four out of the five house district candidates running for the florida house here in our congressional district immediately One was a 23 year old named rock abu jadi who is running just north of us The other was a 23 year old named synthia delarosa who was running just south of us Then we partnered with uh, the lady who had her name was yvonne haze henson She ran for congress in this seat two years ago and lost but she was running for state house And then we were able to help and find somebody to run in the other district because for us You have to be able to attack every single acre of ground You have to fight for everything in these rural districts And what we also realized was we were never going to win the democratic vote out of elachua county No nominee for this seat has ever not won gamesville university of florida area and gone on to be the nominee We didn't win gamesville We had to win the rural counties and the rural vote in order to win this nomination And that's what we focused on we knew we had to get at least 33 percent And we got 34 percent and we were able to do it and so number one We executed the game plan We came up with a game plan that was going to work and we built the coalitions that we're going to Actually get us across the finish line and that's exactly what it's going to take to win in november as well Yeah, so this is what I think you represent to me so back in 2016 It was exciting to see congressional candidates who were kind of running on the same platform that bernie sanders was running on But my hope then was that by 2018 we'd see more candidates and we did um and now in 2020 There's so many candidates running on the same platform of medicare for all and whatnot I can't keep track of them and my hope for 2022 and 2024 Is that there's so many candidates that are winning that that's what's difficult to keep track of And you kind of represent this to where I didn't even see this you came out of nowhere And it's so exciting like I was really demoralized after the results from florida because all of the candidates that I had followed You know melville pierce in a gen perlman had lost their races So I thought I'm not even gonna make a video and cover this because I don't think there's any victories And then here you come along with one of my viewers saying mike. We just got a victory. What are you doing? So it's it's nice to see this like it's a good problem to have when you're winning and you don't even know it right So let me ask you about your opponent because you're facing off against the republican You kind of alluded to this race a little bit earlier, but talk about your your opponent Who this individual is and how you plan to beat them Yeah, so the first thing is and one of the reasons it was a huge victory is we had a staff the entire staff All 50 people were under the age of 23 Wow And entirely you fled and the youngest nominee for congress on the democratic side may be ever Just won a race in north central florida going for ted yoho's seat. That's awesome So yeah, it was a victory and nobody saw it come. I mean, we knew it was gonna happen We were excited about it We thought it could and we thought we would shock everyone And it it happened and that was what was incredible But at the same time we knew that it was going to be a warm-up Because the real battle in the real fight is the general election ted. Yoho is resign or retiring For reasons that he claims. I don't think those are the reasons But you know what let him have it fine His campaign manager former chief of staff who he demoted to deputy chief of staff and then Basically got rid of because he said quote. She had no moral character That is who is running in his stead with his backers with his donors with everything that that he has built for the last eight years So we are going against the ted yoho machine. It's just not his name on the ballot They had 10 republicans on that side That was their primary the person who won which was her got 24 percent of the vote We thought it was going to be another guy named jutson sap who had the backing of roger stone Matt gates all of these People and uh, he did not she won At the same time which was incredible was the fact that uh, we thought she might get fourth or fifth Now What it's going to take to actually win we basically ran a general election strategy in a primary That almost never works for us. We have to cut the margins in the rural counties We have to win a couple of the rural counties and we have to actually compete there No democrat has ever really tried to compete there We're going to run up the score in gainsville and elacio county in the university of florida area with the democrats for the progressives Just because that's what's going to happen But for us the biggest inroads have to come in the rural counties specifically clay county Their sheriff was just arrested And about a month ago he claimed that he was going to deputize every gun owner and send them after the black lives matter protesters So this is the kind of like place that we have to make inroads in The way that we were able to do that we actually won clay county in the democratic primaries the way that we do that Number one you don't water down policy But what you can do is you can frame it in a way Not just to make it financial but emotional and that's something I feel like Progressives especially here have never been able to do it something republicans do phenomenally well They make everything emotional Where they don't have a good product, but they make people want it despite the fact they don't even have a product And so for us You know, we talk really about almost classical conservative values I'm talking the original progressive republicans. I'm talking like going after Monopolies going after middlemen going after people like the insurance companies who nobody likes insurance companies Nobody likes cable companies. Nobody likes towing companies These people are just they're designed to take our money and that is who we're going to go against is these predatory companies And so we talk a lot like that I I call medicare for all a small business tax cut because small businesses are on the line For healthcare and it's almost $8,000 per employee per year. You get rid of that cost on small businesses Small businesses can now raise wages. They can now compete with the big guys They can now recruit and on top of that you just lowered the amount of cost They have so it's a small business tax cut because you're removing the private taxes That is the shift we have made we have made the connection between there are two types of taxes Government taxes and private taxes and right now you are paying far more to private corporations than you ever would be To the government and most people here they only care about what it's going to cost them and whether or not It's going to be a good investment and you connect those dots You connect it with the original like teddy roosevelt going after billionaires going after scammers going after people that we bailed out But we never got money back from And that's a solid argument to make especially in the conservative counties and you can do that with with left progressive values That actually resonate in fact one of the craziest kind of like coalitions that we've seen is almost the far right John bircher society kind of people Pairing with environmentalists to go after nestly Nobody would think that's possible because nestly is coming in to destroy Basically bottle water out of our springs which would destroy a town called high springs in this area Which would destroy their way of life and so now you're seeing all these conservatives rise up with environmentalists and say No, we don't want that and so you're seeing kind of this crazy almost coalition forming That I don't think would have happened five to ten years ago Yeah, I would agree with that and your strategy makes sense because you're meeting people where they are Which is crucial like what we see from the national democratic party is that they oftentimes times will try to Adjust their message to appeal to republicans But they water down their own policy and you know, they talk about how they are a big tent party But that's not a winning message like people don't want to vote for republican light candidates They want to vote for people who are authentic that are you know addressing their specific needs And so when we see candidates like you and dana. I'm in you know in the 31st congressional district of texas Winning but not watering down your message and actually appealing to people who the democratic party is trying to get right now It's frustrating to me And I like banging my head against the wall because why don't they get this message? Why can't they do what you all are doing like what is your critique of the national democratic party? Because I think that it's so simple when you break it down about the way you appeal to conservative voters Like saying that medicare for all is a small business tax cut. It's brilliant. Why can't they get this? You know through their heads at the national level You know I and and this is one thing that I think has really helped us is you know I grew up a conservative a lot of people on our campaign grew up republicans And what they saw is a shift where the republican party number one didn't care about them But also didn't care about people Where I grew up what I believed and what my family always believed was that neither party cared whether or not We lived or died they just didn't and at the end of the day It was the corporate democrats and the corporate republicans and to most people they're one in the same There is no difference between them because at the end of the day they don't do anything for us and so My opponent cat kamek is is the embodiment of that I mean that is her she worked in washington for eight years But did anything change here? Did anything get better? No She didn't stand up to ted yoho when he voted against making lynching a federal crime. She said nothing He didn't she didn't stand up when he verbally assaulted a woman on the capital steps. She said nothing So if she's not going to stand up to her former boss when he does something outrageous like that Who is she going to stand up for it's definitely not us And so at the end of the day What people care about and what I was always taught to care about is that that that actions always speak louder than words And it doesn't matter what somebody tells you it matters what they're going to do and what they're actually going to put into motion And so that's the biggest thing. I think the democratic party needs to do I am tired of this rama manual I don't I would advise joe biden not to go for medicare for all I advise them not to go for a green new deal No, nobody respects you rom and the reason is you have no morals You have no character and every single independent and republican sees right through it What happens to democrats is when you water down your message and you no longer stand for anything nobody respects you At least people respect other people that have values and are willing to fight for them They may not agree But they can actually find common ground because they respect the fact that you care When you don't care about anything there's no common ground to be found and right now I think the democratic party has struggled with that for 40 years Because when you only care about donations and corporate packs and how much your donors are going to give you And what they care about you don't care about anybody else And at the end of the day the only person you care about is yourself And nobody likes that Yeah, absolutely And I want to like pick your brain a little bit because I think that you really you've nailed how to appeal to voters in rural areas so One thing that I see one thing that we heard during the primary The presidential primary that is is that you know, you can't go too far left and support something like medicare frail Because republicans are going to call you a crazy socialist. Well, joe biden isn't going far left He doesn't support medicare frail and guess what republicans are calling him a crazy socialist So I mean how do you yeah exactly and that's always going to be the playbook So what is your response to that like if you you know, uh come into contact with a voter that says I don't want, you know socialism. That's crazy. Like how do you respond to that because a lot of this is just They are basing their assumptions about people who support policies like medicare frail off of fearmongering But to me like and you can correct me if i'm wrong The way that you get them to get off of that mindset is just by educating them and informing them about these policies So how do you respond to claims of oh, i'm a crazy socialist because i'm sure your opponent is already doing that about you My opponent doesn't have an attack line that she can actually stick to She talks about socialism, but then she's okay with giving the biggest companies in the world corporate welfare Like my opponent says that i'm a socialist, but at the same time she's been okay with for 40 years having corporate socialism Like it makes no sense. They're going to call you whatever they're going to call you and What I don't understand is why people believe that by giving ground in a negotiation you're actually helping your side That's not how that works That is not how negotiations work if you go in With a small business and you're trying to get investment you ask for more than you everything They're going to give you because at the end of the day they might give you what you wanted at the first point The same thing with any negotiation You always go in with things you don't want that you think are pie in the sky that you may will never get But when you give up those things when you actually Compromise some things that you never wanted in the first place But you put in there so you could compromise them you end up where you wanted you start with a national health care system You'll get medicare for all you start with medicare for all you'll get a public option you start with a public option You get the aca you get a right wing republican health care plan And so people like rama manual These people don't know how to negotiate they've never known how to negotiate and they give ground before they're even forced to And what we know is that is the last thing that you should do You always go in farther than you believe you'll ever get and then when you Compromise you end up where you want it rama manual doesn't understand that rama manual is the reason that we don't have progress in this country People like him that's the reason that the people that I grew up with hated the democratic party They don't stand for anything They're not willing to fight for anything at the end of the day They're only caring about themselves and whether or not they're going to keep their position and their money and their donors Nobody likes that Yeah, it's the smug elitism while simultaneously claiming that you have you know the moral high ground which As you stated like people see through that like it's inauthentic. We know that they're being disingenuous Um, so you alluded to this you also referenced this on your website, but you were Someone who grew up as a republican So I think that your perspective kind of gives you that extra insight that's needed like you can appeal to people who you know the uh what do they call it the uh West coast elites or the you know coastal elites. I think that's the phrase i'm blanking on it You know you appeal to the people who those types of democrats aren't able to appeal to so can you walk us through like What was it that was the spark that you know Got you to leave the republican party um and become a leftist like what was it For you because we kind of all have our same story like I reference how I grew up as an evangelical Um, but like what is your story like how did you become a lefty? You know, I think you're in my story is probably probably pretty close Um, I grew up in the church. I mean I was in the church from like the day I was three years old Or whenever my parents could get me out of there out of the hospital Um, I grew up believing You know the people that you're supposed to care about You know morally the the way you're supposed to live your life your character is what matters whether or not people see it or not Um, and the people that taught me that is I was growing up You know, I fully believed it and I believed that uh the way that you know You look at politics the way that you look at anything is supposed to help people Well, what I realized as I was growing up is the people that were telling me this they were not fulfilling the message of the church They were not fulfilling the message the mandate of what we were supposed to do I mean the greatest radicals that I learned about in history books Uh in the church, they were the ones that did not spend time with the elites. They did not spend time with The religious leaders they spent time With the people with the poor with the hungry with the sick And they said that how you treat those people is a reflection on who you are and what society you live in Well, what I saw is The church was not living those values the people that I grew up with and taught me that They didn't care about those people except for when they were at church on sunday reading the bible And so for me when I looked at both parties, I number one realized that the republican party. I could not reform There is nothing I could do there But the democratic party at least Stated or at least they originally stated or at least they used to be for Workers for people for the people that mattered for people like me That's something you can reform. It may not be perfect and no party is going to be perfect And no leadership is going to be perfect, but at least there's a shot there And so for me as I was going through college it was that it was that transition of Well, what kind of life do I want to be? What what do I want people to see from me? What kind of character morals do I want to have? And I believe at the end of the day That left politics that populist politics that the way that I grew up It is better reflected through things like medicare for all and making sure that Parents don't go bankrupt because their kid gets cancer Then it is to just say that well if you get sick you're on your own and hopefully you don't die One of those is moral the other isn't and so for me really the moral argument took over But now even the economic argument is taken over because all these things are cheaper They're better investments if I was a small business owner I would want universal child care because it's a high ROI Like the return on investment of universal child care is 1.25 Which is a great investment every single year education same thing I mean you talk about medicare for all it's cheaper than what we do now You can literally make the republican argument You want to get rid of the scammers the middlemen the bureaucracy the red tape and make sure it's a free market Get rid of the insurance companies make sure that the pharmaceutical industry can't price fix and we can actually negotiate drug prices That's a conservative argument, but apparently i'm a lefty socialist for wanting a free market in the healthcare system. That's fine And you really see like the arguments that you make reflected even in your pitches like if you go To your website where you say I support medicare for all you have a chart that shows the cost and how we're spending more than other countries And this is kind of the same thing that I see with other candidates running in red states or red districts like donna I'm him and kare easeman So it's interesting the way that you guys tweak those arguments and in a way I think that you're selling it better than us because I mean it's really easy And simplistic to make a moral argument and say hey, do you want people to die if they don't have health care? Do you not like it's common sense, but it's not getting through to the people who already You know are susceptible to that to that type of argument So you have to take it a step further and you have to defame all of these counter arguments And the economic argument is the one that we still see Even for the people who buy into the moral argument. So I think that what you're doing It's it's brilliant honestly, and I'm curious to see uh how this pans out I think you're really in a good position to win. This race is important because you state that You know, we're gonna be looking at redistrict redistricting And if florida goes blue, then that will change a lot. So talk about what could happen in the event Florida actually does flip to blue and how that will impact the future of house in terms of like Where the lines are drawn uh, congressionally Yeah, so in case anybody didn't know or Wasn't aware for the last however long florida is very gerrymandered and the Years that you can change that is uh, well this year Whoever owns the florida house controls the boundaries So for us and the florida democratic party, this is something that the florida democratic party has not done And they should have done every single time. This is one of those things that we talked about earlier You cannot play defense anymore We can't do that you never play a man down in any sport whatsoever because at the end of the day You're going to lose more than you win So the florida democratic party for the last 20 30 years has tried to play eight v 11 That is what they've tried to do. They have not run Candidates in districts. They didn't think would be close Now what does that mean that means that the republicans in those districts? They don't have to spend any money. They don't have to spend any time They don't have to campaign. They don't have to worry about it What that also means is they can go double or triple team the person next door Who isn't a contested race and pour all their money into that one? And what also happens is sometimes you have people that drop out of races But if there's no democrat in that race to begin with they don't win So what are we doing here? What are we thinking about the number one way to win the florida house? And it's exactly what virginia did. There was a group called 90 for 90 civil rights and and also voting activists Really famous the the reeds dr. Fergie reed and his father They said we are going to run a candidate everywhere Every single house district and we're going to fight for every single acre of land and we're going to force republicans to spend money time and basically create a war of attrition And they did and they flipped the virginia house now They decided the next one that needs to go is for them right before redistricting and here's how we're going to do it So they as long as well as a group called the Democratic environmental caucus of florida jenelle christensen who is not a relation of mine, but I get that question all the time They decided we are going to find and fund Scientists environmentalists for all of these races find anyone that we can get to get in this race At least get on the ballot and give them support to actually be able to run and organize and basically become field organizers And so they did now our race has five house districts within it within the congressional district Um, there was only going to be three people running in those in those house districts Which means republicans were going to win two of them without even having to try Well that didn't happen and what we've seen now is if we're able to cut the margins and a couple of those house districts We force republicans to spend money there when they don't want to We force the contested races in other house districts to have an easier shot and not have to focus all their time and resources and effort And so what we are seeing now is if north central florida goes blue a couple of our house districts go blue The rest of it will Joe biden wins the presidency We win our congressional seat and the florida house flips right before redistricting Which means democrats have a shot for the next 10 years instead of playing defense And so this is the one year That we have decided number one. We're going to organize we're going to do this better than we've ever done before And we're going to have a new strategy where we actually can win And not just compete Yeah, and I think that's the key like you can't just play defense You have to play offense and I feel like not a lot of people understand that but you do which is why I'm definitely rooting for you So I want you to tell us what we can do to help you get elected I think that anyone who's watched to this point is already sold on your campaign Tell us how close you are to flipping that seat and what we can do to get you across the finish line We got to pull it within three points. We pull it within three points We're going to get all the funding we need in the world to be able to get to that three-point margin We need we need money. We need donations. We need volunteers phone banking text banking all of it We are building a grassroots army full of organizers and activists We've even had progressive campaigns that ended in other states that had giant Organizations that are throwing them behind us because they realized that this is the pivot point in florida And so what we are going to be doing is focusing on independence Democrats turn them out and we are going to be phone banking text banking We are going to do everything possible at a massive scale in order to win when we win things are going to change drastically And so right now we think that this is the pivot point of florida And I think nationally people are starting to realize that it could be the pivot point for florida So you can give donations you can go to our website You can follow us on twitter social media You can amplify anything that we put out at the end of the day anything that you're able to do is going to help us And at the end of the day If the progressive left the progressive the congressional progressive caucus And the left flex their muscle in a deep red state and flip a seat that shows power That moves you from just primarying people to a point where you are on the attack and you are able to show that you are serious And you can move your caucus from 50 members to 100 And that is serious political power And so I think that the progressive left needs to be able to start flipping seats like mine And I think we can be the focal point in the start of it start of something much bigger So that's kind of that's the pitch. I mean right there Especially to people like you is look we can do this We got the plan to do this and I think we're going to I think so too. I think that you have The right strategy and the correct approach that you need to win Um, it's just a matter of you know Do we have enough people jumping on board to help you? So I definitely would encourage all of my viewers to do what they can to help you even if you know You don't live in florida's third congressional district if you live across the country You know just a couple of bucks If that's all you got can really make a difference because I mean if you were to get elected to congress This would be huge as you stated it would give us You know The clouds and show that we are capable of getting real political power and affecting change in a meaningful way So I mean this is really an important race. So I'm so glad that I am you know that you're on my radar and I'm rooting for you now Oh, I really appreciate I really appreciate that it's been kind of great. I met mark hamill the other day Did you really were greatest day of my life? I'm not gonna lie. I was interesting I may have shed some tears or at least our communications director did but yeah, so That was cool. But at the same time like We've got groups all over the country that are realizing this that this red district is Lippable and it's close the last polling was done two and a half years ago Nobody knows what it looks like now. It was a plus nine then now we don't have now It's an open seat which is probably a 2.4 swing. We got felony disenfranchisement which got knocked down in florida That's a little bit that most people aren't thinking about We got the fact that florida right now is leading vote by mail ballots And as we all know if you have an absentee or vote by mail ballot You are more likely to vote than actually going to the polls And so across the country if you can lead in those things right there You've got a chance to actually close the gap. We got to close a gap of about 30,000 35,000 votes There are almost 40 to 45,000 hispanic and latino voters that nobody has ever asked to come vote for them In the last election. We've got conservative and independent women right now They're completely upset with the way that this district has been handled and the fact that people like cat kamek won't even stand up for themselves Let alone other women when they are attacked that right there Not not a good thing like our campaign is run by 76 progressive women They're all terrifying. They could all kill me and they know they could kill me And so I love it and like our team is phenomenal And and and you've probably seen the ticktocks the videos everything like that, but they care And they're willing to do the work and they're not willing to just sit back because for us It has to happen now and we don't have any other choice Because if we don't do something very shortly or does underwater Yeah, yeah, you have to act right now and this campaign what I love about it is like it's it's all run by zoomers Which is awesome like that's where all the energy is coming from and like I am already so much more prouder of zoomers than I am of millennials like I love my generation But like they're just they they had this fire That we didn't have like immediately like growing up. We had that, you know Excitement of obama, you know, I was excited about obama and then for zoomers They're like graduating into the apocalypse. So they don't have that false sense of hope So they're just getting to work immediately, you know So it's awesome to see that fire, but at the same time I feel bad because they shouldn't have to fight for their lives Like this, but I mean, you know the fact that they're they're doing all of this and they're seeing so much success already It does give me hope. So look shout out to your team We're rooting for you. Um, we'll put links to the website down below adam christian christensen running in florida's third congressional district We will be watching this race very closely because I think you're gonna pull this out That is everything. Thank you all so much for tuning in if you've made it this far as usual We're not going to end the show without thanking all of the people who make it possible our Very generous patreon paper and youtube members who help us not just to survive but thrive as well You all are the life blood of this program and I am truly truly grateful for your patronage. Um, so that's all I've got I am off next week, but since this episode is so big, of course I will be gradually posting segments from this episode throughout the course of the week So, you know, we've got to feed that algorithm on youtube So of course they're still going to be content But I am going to take the week off to celebrate my 10th anniversary and third wedding anniversary With my husband and I think that I really I need the mental health break. I need to like take a little bit of time to check out but not entirely I'll still be on twitter. Um, I'll still be following the news But just not making a video about it not having to like analyze it and think about it from this perspective As like a pundit will help me out a little bit like it'll just it'll be nice to have a little bit of a vacation So, um, not do anything staying home, but nonetheless, I think I think it'll still like really Really be uh nice. So, yeah I'll see you all in two weeks. Take care everyone. My name is mike figurado. This has been the humanist report Have a nice week