 Well, I think it's safe to say that the 2020 Democratic Party primary is starting the heat-up because the gloves are now officially coming off Because as you all know last week once Joe Biden announced that he's running for president Elizabeth Warren was quick to point out that he sided with the credit card companies and Now Bernie Sanders is also contrasting his record with Joe Biden's and you know There are people who are essentially Begging candidates not to criticize each other. They're begging the base not to criticize the candidates I'm talking about individuals like George Takai and Alyssa Milano But you've got to understand that Primaries are the place where we kind of have the candidates duke it out and they put their records up against Everyone else's because if you don't do that Then you have a candidate that hasn't been properly vetted that hasn't been tested and you're making them weaker going into the general and This idea that you can somehow weaken a candidate by criticizing them during a primary is completely flawed because as we all saw Every single Republican in 2016 was against Donald Trump. The Republican Party establishment was against Donald Trump They had you know, Mitt Romney come out to attack him and he won Back in 2008 the primary between Obama and Hillary Clinton was extremely heated and Obama went on to win So just because Hillary Clinton lost after the primary in 2016 was extremely brutal Doesn't mean that that is going to be the norm because primaries are exactly where the candidates are supposed to duke out so People who are voting go into the voting booth making an educated decision knowing where all of the candidates stand Who's strongest on this area and weakest on that area? This is what it's all about So with that being said Bernie Sanders was asked a very specific question about joe biden and he took this opportunity To contrast his record with joe biden's and essentially he explained in a very polite way How abysmal joe biden's record is former vice president biden at his first campaign event today Was in front of firefighters union obviously Critical organized labor is critical support in a democratic primary. Are you concerned that that Biden can make inroads there that biden has a leg up there Well, look i'm running against i think 19 other people so i'm concerned about everybody But i think when people take a look at my record Versus vice president biden's record. I helped lead the fight against nafta. He voted for nafta I helped lead the fight against pncr with china. He voted for it I Strongly opposed the trans pacific partnership. He supported it. I voted against the war in iraq He voted for it. So I think what I hope Anderson what this campaign is about and I got to tell you I like joe biden joe is a friend of mine But I think what we need to do with all of the candidates have a Issue oriented campaign not personal attacks But talk about what we have done in our political lives What we want to do as president and how we're going to transform our economy So that it works for all of us and not just the 1 percent so I think that the number one thing that really stood out to me was how bernie sanders was choosing his words very carefully Because back in 2016 all he did Was call out hillary clinton's bad record. He didn't even want To talk about the more scandalous aspects about her campaign. He said i'm tired of hearing About your damn emails because he really wanted to have a policy based argument But regardless even if he didn't fully take the gloves off and even though he obviously pulled punches They accused him of essentially maligning her character For pointing out the objectively Antiprogressive aspects of her record So knowing that you can tell how he's watching his words here And he's trying to go out of his way To be charitable to joe biden and say look i'm friends with joe biden, you know We don't need to make this about personal attacks. Let's just look at each other's record And you can tell that he knows he has to be extra cautious because the democratic party establishment Is going to take anything he says That could possibly be construed as an attack And run with it and try to demonize him and try to say oh, well, look, he's spoiling another primary I mean What was it in january when david brock wrote an article for nbc news saying we shouldn't let bernie sanders and his supporters Spoil another democratic primary, you know as if they weren't the ones who were arbitrarily smearing bernie sanders And smearing his supporters as bernie bros and they're still doing it So to me the way that I view this is all of these pleas from people Maybe not necessarily celebrities, but more so from the establishment and pundit class They're pleas for candidates to not attack each other Really is this implicit idea that they're trying to promote that really it's progressives that should Unilaterally disarm because really they're going to continue attacking bernie They're going to continue attacking his support base But if we hit back Then they're going to say see I told you they were being aggressive So i'm not going to fall for that and I don't think the candidates should either and I think that elizabeth warn And bernie sanders should go out of their way to draw comparisons between their records And the records of the other candidates because their records are just objectively better and I actually wish Tulsi gabbard Would do this more as well Like I really would like to see her name drop the other candidates because I feel as if tulsi gabbard She has the credibility that bernie sanders and elizabeth warn has and when you're behind in the polls One way that you kind of boost your name recognition At least nationally is you criticize the other candidates So I think that if she took the gloves off as well like bernie and elizabeth warn She could maybe benefit from that so I really hope that she does that because Tulsi gabbard has an excellent case to be made as for why she's better than almost every single candidate running um So with that being said I do want to share a clip from a different interview with cnn that bernie sanders did Now what's interesting and I what I want you to pay attention to is that in this clip The cnn host is going to prime bernie sanders before he answers the question that she's going to ask him So what she's going to do is she's going to show bernie sanders a poll And then once he's primed to think about the polling results when responding He's then going to be asked whether or not he should be focusing on the candidate's differences Or who's best to be donald trump now the underlying reason why she showed you the poll in the first place Is to get you to think oh well joe biden has a pretty significant lead currently and they're going to Tastantly promote this idea that look biden's the frontrunner. So should we really be comparing records? Should you really be talking about how shitty joe biden's record is if he's probably going to be the one to Go up against donald trump shouldn't we be talking about who can beat donald trump? And essentially what the host here is trying to promote and prime people to think about Even if it's in a very covert insidious way is why bernie maybe he shouldn't Compare his record to joe biden's but bernie's going to reject that premise And he's going to go on to do what he did in the last interview that you just saw with anderson guber But what you're going to see here is that as he starts talking about How his record is just objectively better than joe biden's the cnn host is then going to cut bernie off And forced him to be on the defensive Um and this really is clever because this is Top tier propaganda this host is incredibly talented. So take a look senator Let me turn the page and just ask you about i'm sure you've seen our new scene and pull out today It shows you and former vice president joe biden as the frontrunners in this this current race And my question to you is will your campaign be more about the contrast that you've clearly been drawing with biden? Or will it be more focused on who can best defeat president trump? Well, I think both to be honest with you look in my view Um Donald trump is the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country He's a pathological liar. He's a racist the sexist the homophobe a xenophobe This is somebody who should not be president I will do everything I can if i'm the democratic nominee to defeat him and I will support if I lose Somebody else whether joe whether it's somebody else. We're going to defeat Uh, Donald trump But on the other hand, I think what I want to see in the democratic primary is not You know personal attacks or all any of that stuff What I want to see is an issue oriented campaign and joe and I Have very different pasts in terms of how we have voted and very different vision for the future And that is something that we should be discussing for example, all right I voted against the war in iraq in fact helped lead the opposition to what turned out to be the worst foreign Policy disaster in the modern history of america joe voted for it. I voted against a nafta I voted against permanent normal trade relations with china to trade agreements Which cost us millions of good paying jobs joe supported those agreements I voted against the deregulation of wall street Joe supported that legislation which I think you know many people agree with me some don't led to the wall street collapse Of 2008 senator, let me jump in because I hear you on the on the Contrast and there are a number of them But the one thing that both of you voted for and what what Joe biden helped write is the 1994 crime bill Even former president bill clinton who signed it into law says it went too far, right? It expanded mandatory minimums and boosted the nation's prison population It disproportionately impacted african americans in hispanic So my question to you senator sanders is do you regret that vote? Let me give you my answer go to youtube today and find out what I said Literally, I'm looking at you right now senator. Tell me if you were a second I voted for that bill because it included the violence against women's act and it included a ban on assault weapons And brook you would be asking me today senator. Why did you not vote for a ban on assault weapons? Why did you vote against? I'm asking you today if you regret your vote, but I Sometimes you have legislation which includes very good stuff and very bad stuff that legislation included very bad stuff I had to make the choice whether I voted to ban assault weapons something that I promised the people of vermont. I would And I also had to vote to make sure that we had a violence against women Provision in there if you see what I said on the floor at that time. I talked about mass incarceration I talked about capital punishment So sometimes in the real world in the congress You got big pieces of legislation that are bad stuff and god knows that legislation had bad stuff And right now I'm one of the leaders in the fight for criminal justice Reform so we don't have more people in jail than any other major country on earth So look, I've got to give the cnn host credit there not in a good way But in a bad way She is a very clever and talented propagandist because she saw that bernie sanders Didn't take the bait that she put out for him essentially saying look shouldn't we Focus on beating donald trump and who's most qualified to take on donald trump and Essentially bernie shouldn't you shut up about how bad biden's record is but he chose to just talk about how his record Is better than joe biden's record and what does she do she cuts him off And backs bernie into a corner and forces him to defend himself because what bernie was doing was He was explaining things that joe biden needs to answer for Essentially putting joe biden on the defensive and then what did that host do? She swooped in saved biden cut bernie off and made bernie Explain himself Now you can see that this wasn't extremely brazen because the host also tried to pretend as if she was trying to be fair bernie you voted for the crime bill as did joe biden in fact He wrote the crime bill but you voted for the crime bill this led to mass incarceration explain yourself And then bernie of course had to explain himself and i'm not going to say bernie shouldn't explain himself here But if you do go back to the youtube videos and look at what he was saying back then He was not defending the crime bill in fact bernie sanders was sounding the alarm But the reason why bernie sanders voted for the crime bill as he stated in that video is because It included provisions that banned assault weapons and also included You know protections for violence against women now as bernie pointed out there cleverly So is that if he didn't vote for the crime bill then the host would be asking well, why did you? Vote against this provision that banned violence against women. Why are you so pro gun bernie? so i think that bernie sanders is Understanding what's happening here in real time as she's posing these biased questions But you've got to understand here and really i wish that the hosts here would educate viewers more Sometimes when you have a piece of legislation that isn't necessarily popular or supported by the entirety of your caucus What you need to do is you need to put things in that bill That would lure people who are reluctant to support it in So bernie sanders Did not support the crime bill. It was introduced twice. Remember back in 1991 and 1994 But he sounded the alarms both times. So what did they do to get it passed in 1994? Once it couldn't muster enough support back in 1991 They included provisions that would lure people like bernie sanders in the violence against women provision The clause to ban assault weapons And this is actually a really clever legislative tactic because if you want your legislation to pick up steam And some people are vocalizing concerns Well, if you're not willing to amend that bill to kind of appease their concerns What you can do is take issues that they care about and include it in that bill To kind of get them on board and that's exactly what joe biden cleverly did to his credit And that's why bernie sanders voted for the crime bill now that doesn't excuse bernie's vote Of course, he still needs to explain. There's still room for nuance here But with that being said just take a step back and acknowledge what that cnn host did It was brilliant credits are her for being An amazing propagandist. She disarmed bernie's argument against joe biden's past and made him defend his own past That's just good propaganda. I mean, um, it's it's really disingenuous, but nonetheless you know Bernie sanders really had no choice but to defend his record there So look at the end of the day It's important for candidates to draw these contrasts between each other and I've always maintained That we don't need to lob these ad hominem attacks at the candidates They shouldn't resort to character attacks on each other and it really didn't go that far Back in 2016 in spite of what people will say now people will Accused bernie sanders supporters of maligning hillary clinton's character because we said that that she was corrupt But this was based on the facts There were numerous instances where she took money from a particular special interest and then did their bidding That's corruption. So of course we should avoid personal attacks We shouldn't critique someone for their personality, but in the event there are real differences between the candidates Unquestionably you should call them out So bernie and elizabeth Warren are right here and anyone who says otherwise Are wrong I hope that elizabeth or not elizabeth Warren But tulsi gabber joins them because she also has a great record um for the most part that she can put up against other people and possibly um climb a little bit in the polls if she actually utilized this same strategy because I think that elizabeth warrants people know And political scientists in general know that if you're behind in the polls, what do you do? You attack the frontrunner and since bernie and warren are both kind of behind in the polls You attack the frontrunner or not necessarily attack That's too strong of a word, but you point out differences between their record and your record It's why before biden announced Pete buddha judge was attacking bernie sanders because he was the frontrunner So I hope that candidates who I like namely tulsi gabbert also replicate this strategy because I think it could help her In terms of name recognition and get her numbers up