 So I want to talk about a new scandal with regard to Mayor Pete's campaign that I'm sure will have absolutely zero impact on his electoral chances because currently he is in fact Surging so there's a new CNN poll out of Iowa that puts him in first place and Real clear politics pulling averages also now puts him in first place in Iowa surpassing even Elizabeth Warren now this Surge is happening because this is a candidate whose campaign has been propped up by the mainstream media He is a fabrication of corporate media who already deemed him the golden boy Before he even decided to run for president like back in 2016 the New York Times had already written articles about him being the first gay president and Since he entered the race CNN and MSNBC have given him non-stop praise running segments comparing him to Obama and Effectively making his surge a self-fulfilling prophecy and the reason why I say that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy It's because there's something known as the bandwagon effect, right? The media says something they tell you that one candidate is really great and this candidate is surging and people Want to back the winning horse so they just automatically start gravitating towards that candidate And they jump on the bandwagon So when the media says that a candidate is really phenomenal and it's just like Obama and is surging Well, that can more often than not actually become a reality Which tells you something about Pete Buttigieg that his rise is purely the product of propaganda Full stop. Look if the media wanted to they could push Bernie Sanders the first place within weeks It's entirely up to them. They have that much power, right? They can make a candidate like Donald Trump for example Completely legitimate by propping him up and covering him non-stop and giving him two billion dollars worth of free advertising And then people even if they see that negative coverage realize Oh, well, he must be a legitimate candidate since there's such a big focus on him And the same thing is happening with Pete Buttigieg Now, let me tell you something about this scandal that I'm gonna talk about in the event This were a scandal that plagued Bernie Sanders campaign The media would be calling on him to drop out because remember back in 2015 One of the biggest stories was that Bernie Sanders was not attracting much black voters Now a lot of the issue was that Bernie Sanders didn't have national name recognition And that's part of Pete's problem too And I'll admit that Bernie Sanders should have done more back in 2015 and 2016 to reach out to black voters But now that more people know who he is He actually does have that support and this is an issue that is plaguing newcomers like Pete Buttigieg Who don't really have much national name recognition and will also have a really bad track record in his hometown With black constituents So look if this were a Bernie Sanders scandal Then it would be done, right? The media would be outraged But this scandal that I'm going to tell you about has not really been talked about by the mainstream media So this is a story from Ryan Grimm of The Intercept Who talks about how Pete Buttigieg in an attempt to boost support among black voters in South Carolina Wanted to get black leaders to endorse his Douglas plan And his campaign had announced recently that 400 prominent South Carolinians had endorsed his Douglas plan Now his senior advisor tweeted about this and the campaign also touted the alleged 400 plus endorsements via email And I say alleged endorsements because there's some issues With the endorsements that he put out In other words, they're not really endorsements So as Ryan Grimm explains listed at the top of the press release were three prominent supporters Columbus city councilwoman Tamika divine Rehoboth Baptist pastor and state representative ivory fig pin And johnny cordero chair of the state party's black caucus the blowback came immediately Divine who has not endorsed the candidate yet in the presidential election Told the intercept that she did not intend her support for the plan to be read as an endorsement of her buddha judges candidacy And believes the campaign was intentionally vague about the way it was presented Clearly from the number of calls I received about my endorsement I think the way they put it out there wasn't clear that it wasn't an endorsement of the plan and that may have been intentionally vague I'm political. I know how that works. She said I do think they probably put it out there thinking people Wouldn't read the fine print or wouldn't look at the details or even contact the people and say hey You're endorsing mayor pate fig pen meanwhile has endorsed senator bernie sanders for president And was startled when he learned the campaign had not only attached his name to the plan But also listed him as one of three prominent supporters atop the letter How it was rolled out was not an accurate representation of where I stand fig pen told the intercept I didn't know about its rolling out somebody brought it to my attention And it was alarming to me because even though I had had conversations with the campaign It was clear to me or at least I thought I made it clear to them that I was a strong bernie sanders supporter Actually co-chair of the state and I was not seeking to endorse their candidate or the plan But what I had talked about was potentially giving them a quote of support in continuing the conversation Because I do think it's a very important conversation Johnny cordero is no longer listed publicly as a supporter when the intercept reached him for comment He explained that he had never endorsed the plan nor has he endorsed buddha judge Now the reason why cordero specifically didn't endorse the plan was because he didn't want to get on board with the plan That didn't actually consider input from black leaders Like you can't just construct a plan for black america and say hey Here's my black agenda if you didn't even get input from black leaders And black south carolinians So of course he wouldn't want to endorse that plan now the reason why Pete buddha judges campaign listed people who didn't endorse the plan as endorsements Was because apparently they emailed them and told them via email that if they didn't want their names listed They'd have to opt out Yeah, that's literally their excuse here I mean that doesn't work if you want to list them as endorsements You need their consent like if I played a copyrighted song for example, um Pete buddha judges dumbass high hope song and I just said well look I emailed The publisher of this song And I said I'm just going to take their lack of a response And not opting out of my use of this song as consent to use the song Well, I would still get a copyright strike on this video for including that song in the video So it doesn't work that way But the fact that they're trying to play it off this way shows how disingenuous they are The campaign just wanted to boost their plan as saying look all of these prominent South Carolinians supported So if our black agenda is good and it's endorsed by 400 plus prominent black South Carolinians Then of course it's good Now part of the problem is that if we're going to assume that the 400 plus names on the list actually did endorse people to judge Which we shouldn't by the way Another question is how much of these people who endorse this were actually black Now the campaign didn't explicitly say that these were all black South Carolinians But it was implied now when looking at 297 of the 422 names on the list who had voter files That actually selected what their race was 184 of them Were white meaning that 42 of people to judge's entire 400 plus endorsement list Came from white people that means that 62 of the 297 names looked at Were white now if you're going to construct a plan for black America Then first of all you need to get the input of black leaders Second of all you need to make sure that the people endorsing it Aren't mostly white or disproportionately white. So in other words to simplify it He's trying to reach out to black voters by saying Hey, you should support my plan because all of these white people like my black agenda I mean, I shouldn't have to explain this to a politician A top tier politician nonetheless, but here it goes if you are going to construct a plan for black America You need the input of black leaders. You cannot exclude them from that policymaking process. Their input is absolutely crucial You can't be overly wonkish and just assume that you know what's best for them Because it's not going to work that way and furthermore once you come up with said plan You need to actually get the endorsements Of black leaders not a bunch of white people I mean Again, if Bernie Sanders had done this had been this disingenuous and deceitful quite frankly Uh, the media would be calling on him to drop out But since it's Pete Buttigieg, we're just gonna sweep this under the rug not even talk about it in mainstream media And that's not all because Ryan Grimm tweeted that Pete Buttigieg's campaign used a stock photo of a Kenyan woman For his Douglas plan. Yeah Which Ilhan Omar responded saying this is not okay or necessary with a face palm emoji I mean Pete Buttigieg is an absolute joke and the fact that he has managed to Get back into, you know, the first place, uh, you know one of four candidates who could very well well win the Iowa caucus It just shows you the dismal state of affairs in American politics largely due to propaganda from the mainstream media They absolutely love and adore Pete Buttigieg, they love him. So it doesn't matter what he does They choose what to cover and what not to cover. They're the filter That determines what you Get to see So if they don't think this is a big story, if they don't think this shows how tone-deaf he is in his attempt to reach out to black voters After formally insinuating that they're homophobic for not supporting him in South Carolina Well, they're just gonna not talk about this sweep it under the rug I mean, it's just It's ridiculous Pete Buttigieg is not a serious candidate and he should be polling Near the bottom because he's one of the worst in this race But the fact that he's a top tier candidate again Goes to show you that we need to reform our media apparatus in this country If we truly want real democracy because the options aren't being presented fairly to people They're being duped by corporate propaganda And the reason why they're being duped by corporate propaganda is because people to judge is the candidate for corporate america He has the most billionaire donors He started changing his tune on medicare for all once he started taking a lot of health insurance industry money And got contributions from big pharma and he's made it increasingly clear to corporate america He's their guy and he's going to be just like obama Change on the outside continuity on the inside So Pete Buttigieg is someone who you need to educate people about Because if you know someone who just watches mainstream media and they're in that msnbc bubble They may not know how awful Pete Buttigieg is so we have to do better as progressives at educating fellow liberals in our family and let them know that this person isn't just a bad candidate But he's potentially dangerous because he has a liability in a general against donald trump and not just that He's a terrible candidate who wouldn't change anything in the event. He were elected So i mean the fact that he's not already eliminated because of the police chief controversy in south ben It just goes to show you how powerful the media is if they want someone Who is a failing politician whose campaign was basically on the verge of death to be rehabilitated They could do that if they really wanted to