 So we're about three months out from the Iowa caucus and we are reaching a pivotal point in the 2020 Democratic Party primary This is really the time when candidates are facing a lot of pressure to ramp up their fundraising efforts They need to demonstrate that their campaigns have longevity that they are politically viable So what we're going to see is some of them they may start to crack They may start to waver on the principles that they espouse going into the race now some candidates are Already doing that. That's what we're gonna talk about in this segment But unsurprisingly of course Joe Biden is one of them because going into this he pledged to not have a super pack Although fast forward a few months later and as the supposed frontrunner, you know to be outraised by four other candidates in the third Quarter, this is not a good look This led to panic among the donor class because now they're worried about his longevity whether or not He actually can go the distance and win the primary and the problem with Joe Biden and his fundraising model Is that he raises money? Disproportionately by begging rich people for money He holds these fundraisers in the Hamptons and these rich people they like him so they max out But once you max out once you donate twenty eight hundred dollars to a candidate, that's it I mean if you don't have a super pack, that's the limit So there's a ceiling right and Joe Biden's campaign has in fact reached that ceiling So the donor class knows this Biden's campaign knows this and they are in full-out panic mode, which is why he's now Changing his tune about super packs So creating a super pack will allow these rich people who have already contributed to Joe Biden to now donate unlimited sums of money To his campaign and his deputy campaign manager justified this new move saying this is about beating Donald Trump It's not about losing or winning the Democratic Party primary Yes, because out raising Donald Trump by a two-to-one margin definitely helped Hillary Clinton Look, that's nonsense. Nobody believes that this is about beating the other Democrats This is why he is changing his tune about a super pack Right if you need more money and your rich donors who are already supporting you maxed out you have no other choice I mean you technically do have a choice You can try to raise money through the grassroots But you know that lane is already being occupied by Bernie Sanders and to a lesser extent Elizabeth Warren Biden probably feels as if he has no choice if he wants to win you've got a ramp up fundraising Because we're seeing firsthand what happens when you don't satisfy your donors when they seem to think that you're starting to lose momentum They panic and they start looking for other options as is Demonstrated in that New York Times article So that's why Joe Biden obviously is starting to waver on that principle of not taking a super pack money not having a pack But you know that's not surprising like we all expect an establishment figure like Joe Biden to do that because Joe Biden is Corrupt right, but what you really shouldn't expect theoretically speaking is anti establishment candidates like Andrew Yang to do the same thing We should expect them to be the least susceptible to pressure from special interests But unfortunately, that's not really the case because we actually learned that Andrew Yang like Joe Biden Has a super PAC and as Huff posts Kevin Robelard reports businessman Andrew Yang's presidential campaign has relied on his outsider image and message to turn in a surprisingly strong Performance so far, but he's now the only Democratic presidential primary candidate embracing a favorite tool of political Insiders a super PAC the group backing Yang's Presidential bid math PAC is run by will Haylor a Democratic operative who previously worked as a senior advisor to the Democratic National Committee and as a top staffer for now Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison Haylor told recode the group plan to spend at least one million to back Andrew Yang now for context This article came out a day before we learned that Joe Biden was changing his tune about having a super PAC So now there is two Candidates who have super PACs if Joe Biden does in fact follow through I think he probably well But nonetheless, this is what Andrew Yang said about math PAC when asked about it We all know we have a broken campaign finance system where there's a flood of money and It's overrun our policies our politicians. I know very little about the math PAC genuinely If it's the case that we have the rules that we have and people want to help support my message in my campaign You know given the system we have right now. They're free to do so But I genuinely know very very little about the math PAC. I just hope that they That they are aligned with My vision for the country and they invest accordingly not good enough Now to his credit Andrew Yang has actually spoken pretty eloquently about just how broken our campaign finance system is and He's proposed campaign finance reform that I think is fairly solid But for you to say that about a super PAC that's supporting you Seems pretty contradictory right like if I were Andrew Yang and I found out about a super PAC supporting me What do I do? Well first and foremost most importantly you unequivocally Disavow that super PAC and you say look if this super PAC truly supports me They would know that their existence is antithetical to what my campaign is about We're not in favor of raising money through large sums of untraceable dark money. That's not what we're about We're raising small grassroots Donations I mean Andrew Yang himself has said that his donors are even a little bit cheaper than Bernie's because the average contribution is about 18 or 19 dollars or something like that So I mean for him to just say oh well I just hope that you know this campaign upholds the super PAC rather upholds my campaigns values That's not good enough So why is he doing this? Well, it's because he wants to take money from special interests and don't take my word for it because this is what he said About whether or not he would hold private fundraisers with rich people in the general election in the event He becomes the Democratic Party's nominee if you were to win the nomination Would you swear off hosting large dollar fundraisers in the same way? Senator Elizabeth Warren has I will do whatever it takes to beat Donald Trump in 2020 and to me you have to use everything at your disposal because if you're facing a nominee that has raised Over a hundred million dollars and has many rich donors who come together for big-ticket fundraisers Leaving that off the table for the Democratic nominee strikes me as Not the best way to compete and win most Democrats first and foremost if you ask them what their Criteria are for the nominee it's to win and it doesn't do us any good to lose by tying One of our hands behind our backs We need both hands free to beat Donald Trump. Would you still dismiss corporate PAC money though if you were the nominee? I have no intention of taking corporate PAC money. I don't think we would need that to win So that that's my stance on it Okay, that makes no sense because you can refuse corporate PAC money But by holding those private fundraisers You're still allowing rich people corporate special interests to influence you because if you say look We're running a general election if you want to meet with me $5,000 a plate at this private dinner They're gonna buy access to you They're still going to be able to influence you perhaps even in a more persuasive way than if they just donated to you So that isn't a very persuasive argument and it doesn't reassure me and his justification for that sounds Irrally familiar to something that I heard recently we can't go into this fight against Donald Trump with one hand tied behind our back And it doesn't do us any good to lose by tying one of our hands behind our backs Now let me remind you that Pete Buttigieg is one of the most establishment elitist people in the Democratic Party primary today So for Andrew Yang's rhetoric on private fundraisers to be indistinguishable identical actually from Pete Buttigieg's That just goes to show you that Andrew Yang isn't the real deal contrary to popular belief and you know part of the problem is that when you start to be Successful and you know you raise a lot of money He did a phenomenal job in Q3 Andrew Yang to his credit But here's the thing when you start to get Successful and people see that your campaign is competitive Well, the system itself tries to co-opt you and now all of a sudden Andrew Yang is squandering the anti-establishment Appeal he had left to cozy up with people in the establishment in order to gain power because even if he's doing fairly well in terms of polling Just based on who he is and with his lack of name recognition Well, we're three months away from Iowa, and if you're not on top you probably won't win So to gain power this is what Andrew Yang is saying who on that debate stage is closest to you in terms of your view of the world Who who's closest to you in that sense? You know, it's funny you asked that I mean you'd have to sort of like put this all together in some kind of like Franken candidate No, you must there must be someone in spirit who's perhaps closest to you I will say the only person who's taken me aside and said that we need to really worry about the fourth industrial revolution And because it could potentially tear our country apart is Joe Biden Joe Biden pulled you aside. That's an intriguing. Would you serve on a Biden ticket? You said you were open to anything I'm definitely open to working with Joe. We've actually talked about it Look when you're asked which Democrat is closest to your worldview and your answer is Joe Biden You do not have the people's interest in mind at all and when you couple that With Andrew Yang's rhetoric on Israel Palestine his opposition to the wealth tax his refusal to support Medicare for all Andrew Yang isn't the change candidate. He wants you to believe he is now I already know that Yang's fans will respond by saying but Mike, you know, what about the freedom dividend Don't you think it's important that everyone gets one thousand dollars per month? Well, look, I support UBI and it would be great if he passed that in a way that Supplemented our existing social safety net and passed it alongside additional structural reforms But I mean just giving us one thousand dollars per month without tackling the system without trying to reverse late-stage Capitalism you're only opening the door to exploitation and effectively you're not gonna do very much because employers will just use that $1,000 per month to justify their unwillingness to raise wages and lawmakers will tell you that you know We don't have to worry about the minimum wage because now everyone's getting a thousand dollars per month In fact Andrew Yang himself is against raising the minimum wage I don't even know if he supports the minimum wage on top of that without structural reform You know that one thousand dollars per month isn't going to mean dick if a private insurance company Which Andrew Yang would leave in place chooses to suddenly raise your monthly health insurance premium or your landlord decides to raise your rent All of a sudden so I mean need this to say at this point after initially, you know Supporting Andrew Yang from the standpoint of I want his ideas in this race to kind of influence the discussion I'm just done with Andrew Yang I'm tired of these candidates who are trying to pass as anti-establishment figures doing the same tired shit that Establishment figures that corporate Democrats are doing supporting the same policies or not supporting the same policies That corporate Democrats are supporting But I mean to be fair Andrew Yang isn't the only ostensibly anti-establishment candidate who has shit the bed as of late because Tulsi Gabbard is another one now I've given her credit We're all supportive of the fact that she has gone after Hillary Clinton in a really direct way and called out her Corruption her criticizing Hillary Clinton as the embodiment of corruption I mean this is great to see right if you are a Bernie Sanders supporter and you saw it transpired in 2016 But if you're criticizing Hillary Clinton for her corruption presumably because of her closeness to Wall Street Why on earth would you choose to do this quote Tulsi Gabbard amid Hillary Clinton tussle hits Wall Street fat cat syndicate Now is this a private fundraiser? No, it's a private meeting But it doesn't seem as if it's a fundraiser is she getting money from them She may ask for donations, but it doesn't seem as if they're donating to her yet Is she giving a paid speech to them? No, but nonetheless the fact that you're holding a private meeting with Wall Street executives That's a little bit sketchy to say the least if you are supposed to be on the left if you're a self-identified Progressive, but nonetheless, here's the report from Fox News. This is what they say as all this is going on Fox Business has learned that Gabbard was in New York City last night for a private meeting with Wall Street executives and possible donors This meeting occurred at Anthony Scare Mucci's hunted fish club. It was sponsored by Robert Wolf who as you know is a Fox business contributor, but also a prominent Democratic Party fundraiser Also a guy that's part of the establishment which raised some raise some eyebrows Also, we should point out Bob is himself a Wall Street executive runs both a private advisory firm used to be the CEO of UBS America's but he also has some sort of a Political firm advisory firm that he does on the side with Anthony Scare Mucci. So this all occurred last night It was a private function was attended by about two dozen Wall Street executives. These are potential donors They will likely be hit up for contributions By the by the by the Gabbard campaign at some point. I am told And it did raise a lot of eyebrows now apparently she did not attack Hillary Clinton during this meeting And she really did impress the Wall Street folks. Yeah, that's a big yikes Big yikes. Now because the source is Fox News I'm willing to extend a little bit more deference to Tulsi Gabbard because of that fact Although Tulsi Gabbard's press assistant on Twitter, Colin Tiernan Retweeted Robert Wolf who did in fact confirm that the meeting took place Albeit he did say that the discussion was centered on foreign policy as if that would make it any better but nonetheless, you know, he confirmed that it took place and That's an issue. So I mean if you're on the left and you're keeping track of what Tulsi Gabbard has been doing as of late Well, she recently came out against the federal jobs guarantee at the last debate prior to that She flip-flopped on Medicare for all even though her fans will passionately tell you she still supports it She does not she voted against BDS. She doesn't support a renew deal. She told Dave Rubin It's accurate to say Democrats support open borders She still supports Modi and is now meeting with Wall Street executives privately. I mean, come on Needless to say I'll pass on Tulsi Gabbard. Here's the thing going into this primary I was so optimistic and a little bit naive to be honest because you know I saw all of these anti-establishment candidates Andrew Yang Tulsi Gabbard Marianne Williamson and I thought it's so nice and Refreshing to see you know this many outsiders run Although as time went on they started to back away from the progressive proposals that they started to run on You know one by one Andrew Yang Marianne Williamson Tulsi Gabbard all back to away from Medicare for all But look here's the thing. There's no contest. There's no debate if you're on the left and you want to defeat the establishment There's one candidate who has a shot at beating the establishment who isn't full of shit Who is not warming up and getting cozy with special interests? His name is Bernie Sanders and while everyone else is Warming up to the idea and prospect of possibly getting a little bit cozy with elites This is what Bernie Sanders said when he was asked about the prospect of a super PAC And you know, he was asked to react to Joe Biden getting a super PAC I just see in the news today where Joe Biden Has decided to use a super PAC dropping his opposition to that And I think that's interesting seeing where in the past he has said that he was the one that convinced you Not to take that kind of money. So I would just like to know what your comments are on that, sir Well, Joe Biden didn't have to convince me not to take a not to start a super PAC When I thank you for the question when I talked About the corruption of the American political system What it gets down to is that a very small number of people many millionaires and billionaires are today Especially as a result of Citizens United, which by the way, we are going to overturn But we have a situation today Where billionaires can spend as much money as they want to elect candidates to represent the wealthy and the powerful Now I am Immensely proud of two facts in this campaign. First of all, I am proud that we have more Volunteers here in Iowa and all over this country, including I suspect the number of you who are out making calls and knocking on doors We have more volunteers Than any other campaign and that's why we're going to win this election because at the end of the day TV ads are important. We got TV ads radio ads or what we got radio ads But at the end of the day, what's far more important is people to people conversations But the second thing that I am extremely proud of is that we together have revolutionized Political campaign Financing in America four years ago, not such a long time ago What politics in America was about is that candidates will go out to the homes of wealthy people They have 50 millionaires in a room. They leave that room with hundreds of thousands of dollars and We said that is not what American democracy is about It is an outrage you read it in the papers every day a group of article in New York Times The other day a group of donors said A B and C who the hell cares what a group of rich donors say They no longer control what they are upset about let me tell you what they're upset about They're upset that we have in this campaign over one million Americans who have made contributions to our campaign They are teachers. They are workers at Walmart's their workers at Amazon They are people making 12 13 bucks an hour contributing. I think on average 16 dollars a contribution and I am humbled Honest to God. I am humbled by that support So I don't need a super PAC. I am not going to be controlled by a handful of wealthy people I will be controlled by the working people of this country It's not even a debate if you were on the left without question Bernie is your best bet for fundamental change That's it That's not to say that candidates like Andrew Yang Tulsi Gabbard and Marianne Williamson don't bring Unique perspectives to the table that I appreciate with that being said though if we truly want to defeat the establishment Then there's one candidate Polling in third place who has a shot at defeating the establishment. It's Bernie Sanders So imagine if we all united behind Bernie Sanders, who's the real deal who hasn't wavered on Medicare for all Imagine what that would do for you know polling imagine the message that that would send to the establishment The one candidate who has made it very clear. He's not willing to be co-opted who has made it clear He is enemies with elites and Wall Street executives if he rose Then that would be great for all of us. So let's stop playing around. Let's just admit the obvious. It's Bernie It's always been Bernie He's the truly best candidate for the left and if you want to win if you want all of us to defeat the Establishment and defeat Donald Trump ultimately we opt for Bernie Sanders because not only is he the best Politically speaking from a policy standpoint He has the best shot at winning. So if you want to defeat the establishment, you're not serious about that Unless you're backing Bernie Sanders. I'm sorry we've got one last chance to save the planet and save the country to stop capitalism from totally collapsing in on itself and We don't want to squander that chance. It's Bernie Sanders 30 years from now We will be looking back at this moment and kicking ourselves if we don't elect Bernie Sanders Let's do the right thing because we told all of ourselves hindsight is 2020 We've got a second shot at electing Bernie Sanders. Let's not ruin that Let's elect Bernie because we know he's the real deal and he's the only candidate we can trust to actually fight for us