 For those of you who have been following Betta O'Rourke's 2020 presidential campaign, you've probably noticed that something is conspicuously absent from all of his campaign events. Policy substance. There is just nothing there. He hasn't said anything about what he'd do to improve our lives, which really is kind of the point of running for president in the first place. Instead, all we get are vague platitudes. We get this flowery rhetoric, these really inspirational anecdotes that he's heard from people around the country. And it's all wonderful if you just want to feel good, but if you actually want your life to be improved, then he's got to actually start talking about policy. So I've been frustrated about Betta O'Rourke and I know that I'm not alone because at a recent event at a college, somebody decided to finally ask him what we've all been thinking. When are you going to start talking about policy? Oh, and also, when are you going to release the specific fundraising numbers so we know more about where you got that money, where you got that $6.1 million within the first 24 hours? And what you're going to see here is basically Betta O'Rourke get grilled by someone who was not having any of the bullshit, none of the platitudes whatsoever. And throughout this clip, I spliced together two different angles. So the clip is from ABC News. However, they didn't share the first part of the question where the questioner really sets up this question and explains why she has a problem with Betta using just platitudes and not being transparent about his fundraising totals. So you're going to see that spliced together throughout here. But let me just show you her question and then we'll talk about it and then we'll get to his answer afterwards. So my question has to deal with campaign finance. You recently pulled in $6.1 million if I occur. Come on, give her a round of applause for that. It's not bad. You broke all records, which I guess is pretty good. But my concern is how much of that is coming from a process which is called bundling. For those of you who don't know, bundling is a process in which political activists and people in the private sector and lobbyists go to wealthy multimillionaires and billionaires and basically tell them to give them maximum, which is normally anywhere from $2,700 to $5,600 and basically use it to sort of overinflate a campaigners, you know, their first day totals. For example, just 1,000 people giving the maximum $5,600, that's $5.6 million right off the bat. Your campaign has not released the number of individual donors you have nor has it released the average donation. Now, I'm not accusing you of that, but the fact that your campaign is currently working with notorious mega bundler Louis Sussman gives me a bit of a clue. In addition, when we look on your website, we don't really see anything in terms of a solid platform for policies. It's mostly just platitudes in a merch store. So I guess two prong question. One, are you going to release the number of individual donors and their average donor donation because I know your campaign has that data. If it didn't, it would mean you'd be running a very incompetent campaign and I don't think you are. You seem like you have your stuff together mostly. And two, when are we going to get an actual policy from you instead of just like platitudes and nice stories? Damn. That was absolutely just savage. But if we had pundits in the mainstream media actually treat candidates this way, then I think our country would be in a lot better shape because it's obvious that they don't want to talk about policy if they don't have substance. So what you've got to do is you've got to corner them, hold their feet to the fire and force them to answer very specific questions when it's obvious they're trying to avoid certain things like fundraising figures and policy specifics. So that person who asked that question, that woman is a national treasure. And you know she's awesome because she's actually a humanist report viewer. And she really should be teaching classes to pundits in the mainstream media because I just everything about that was just phenomenal. So let's get to Beto O'Rourke's answer. You're going to see here that he's going to give some policy specifics, but I mean it's still not really going to be that satisfactory. Thanks everybody. So the answer to your first question is yes, in addition to how much we raised the fact that we raised it from all 50 states, the fact that we took not a dime from a single pack or lobbyist. We will release the average and the number of donors. To your second question about policy. I'm going to try to be as specific as I can. I mentioned our criminal justice system. I've called for the end of the prohibition on marijuana and the expungement of the arrest records of everyone who's been arrested for marijuana. I've been doing that for a long time. On the question of health care. We've talked about universal guaranteed high quality health care. You asked the path to get there to extraordinary women with whom I served in Congress. Jan Schakowski of Illinois, Rosa DeLoro of Connecticut have introduced a proposal called Medicare for America that ensures that if you have employer based insurance and you like it, you keep it. Your doctors, your network, what works for you right now? If you don't have insurance or you don't like the insurance you already have, you enroll in Medicare. It costs a lot of money. It will be measured in the trillions of dollars. It is not inexpensive. But as I made the point and I hope the case earlier, it's a far, it's a lot less expensive than taking care of people at end of life who've never been treated in the first place. When it comes to public school education, paying teachers a living wage and starting public education, not in kindergarten at five years old but in pre-K at four years old, universally for every single child in this country. I was asked about the Green New Deal. I answered the question about the Green New Deal. When I talk about rural America, I talk about an opioid crisis which is disproportionately felt in rural America. I talk about those whom we must hold accountable for the crisis and the way in which we must treat those who are enduring the crisis. Not through incarceration but through compassion and treatment and care so that they can get back up on their feet. So in every single policy area, I'm trying to describe not just the goal and the aspiration but the path that we will take to get there. I understand if we disagree or come to different conclusions. That's a genius of our democracy. I appreciate you being here and asking the questions. Thank you. Okay, so the first part of his answer was good. It was straightforward. He said, yes, I will release the fundraising numbers. So just do it. Don't wait. Get it over with. Release it. Now moving on to policy. He did cite some specific policies. He wants to end the prohibition on marijuana and expunge everyone's records. I think that's fantastic. He brings up the Green New Deal but doesn't say whether or not he supports it because he says he already answered that question. But I mean, you can't expect people to do their own research. You've got to come out and say, I answer this question, but let me reiterate my answer. I support it or I don't support it because I mean, you shouldn't be burying the lead and saying, well, I already answered that question. Go look for it if you want to know what I said. No, keep talking about policy. I don't get that. He also says he wants to do something about the opioid epidemic. Didn't say any specifics. He supports paying teachers a living wage and universal pre-K. So I mean, this all sounds fine. But when it gets to healthcare, which is the second part or the second policy he brought up rather, horrible, horrible answer. It's evident that he doesn't support Medicare for all. And that's because he supports Medicare for America. Now, if you're going to talk about healthcare and you don't immediately say Medicare for all, it's evident that that person does not support Medicare for all. And we know that he doesn't because he explicitly backtracked on the day he announced. Now, let me play a clip from TYT where he brought up healthcare. He invoked healthcare and watch how quickly he says the words Medicare for all. Perhaps not the thing you're supposed to talk about running statewide in Texas or that Medicare for all is the best articulation of how you get there. That's what you should do. If you invoke healthcare, you've immediately got to bring up Medicare for all. And he said there very clearly within 10 seconds, Medicare for all is the best articulation for how you get to universal care. But fast forward to today. And as the DSA points out, the floor is Medicare for all. Yeah, it's pretty accurate because he's trying to avoid it like the plague many candidates are. So I'm really glad that Beto was grilled here. And, you know, it shouldn't be college students that actually hold candidates' feet to the fire. They should be grilled to this extent every time they're on the mainstream media. And that goes for everyone, even people I support, Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, Andrew Yang. In fact, Tulsi Gabbard is grilled more so than anyone. So why aren't we holding politicians like Beto or Rourke's feet to the fire? Why are we letting them wiggle away from issues like Medicare for all? Why can't you pin them down and get them to answer? It's incredibly frustrating that it takes a college student with, I'm assuming, no experience in journalism to get a straight answer out of politicians. That shouldn't be the case. But nonetheless, it was the case and kudos to that individual who asked the question. Phenomenal job and I think that this is what we need to do. If politicians aren't going to give us policy substance, we've got to make sure we get it out of them in some way, shape, or form and shaming them in that way that she did. It seemed to work because he did give her a direct answer.