 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 humanistreport or become a member at humanistreport.com. Now enjoy the show. Welcome to the Humanist Report podcast. My name is Mike Figueredo and this is episode 204 of the program. Today is Friday, August 2nd. And before we get started, I want to take some time to thank all of our newest Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members, all of which either signed up for the very first time to support us this week or increased their monthly pledge. And that includes Anna Valencia, Crow T. Robot, Cynthia Bagley, Daporize, Dick Newell, Freedom Fighter, Genji Lim, Jerry Connor, James Fisher, Joseph Sanders, KSA Spector, Tyler Hobon, Len Norris, Leo 2.0 Kawitski, Michael Schnaffer, Miriam Mitchell, Noah Heninger, Ryan Yalina, Stormy Renner, Sue T., Thomas May and Timothy Knight. So thank you so much to all of these kind individuals. If you'd also like to support the show, you can go to humanistreport.com slash support or patreon.com to sign up to either donate to us one time or become a monthly member. So this week on the Humanist War podcast, Biden and Booker attack Bernie Sanders' policies. Bernie Sanders compares big pharma executives to murderers and Jake Tapper wasn't too happy about that. Bernie Sanders' campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, confronts corporate media about their bias. Kamala Harris proposes her own watered down version of Medicare for All that doesn't get rid of private insurance. Ben Shapiro destroys me with stupidity and nonsense. And of course, we'll get to our coverage of the debates this week. And you'll get my pre and post debate analysis as well as some standout moments that I wanted to highlight. All of this and more will be covered on today's episode. Hopefully you guys will enjoy the show. So Bernie Sanders sat down for an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN and he addressed various criticisms of his policies from the right. So we had Joe Biden call out Medicare for All and criticize Medicare for All. And then we had Corey Booker criticize Bernie Sanders student loan debt cancellation program. Now both critiques are totally disingenuous. However, Bernie Sanders does a pretty good job at shutting them down. And I wanted to address what Bernie Sanders said. And I also want to talk about the areas where there is opportunity for improvement because Bernie Sanders does a good job when it comes to the rhetoric, when it comes to the policy substance. But I do think that he needs to be a little bit more aggressive. Like these are disingenuous bad faith attacks on his progressive policies. And even if he's shutting them down in an adequate way, he needs to go out of his way to kind of explain why people like Joe Biden, people like Corey Booker are after him and why they're taking a stand that is best for their donors, their special interest donors that are funding their campaigns. So these are dishonest actors and Bernie Sanders shut down their criticism. So first is Joe Biden's attack on Medicare for All and Bernie Sanders' response. Your Medicare for All plan will be front and center, no doubt. Senator Kamala Harris says she supports it and she will not raise taxes on middle class Americans to fund it. I want you to take a listen to what former Vice President Joe Biden had to say about that. Well, I find that people will say that for Medicare for All, but they're not going to tax the middle class because you don't need to do that. Come on. Why was this? Is it a fantasy world here? Do you agree with Vice President Biden that Senator Harris is a fantasy world? Well, I think the first thing that we have to understand is that under Medicare for All, similar to what Canada has, people are not going to pay any premiums, they're not going to pay any deductibles, they're not going to pay any copayments. So if you call a premium a tax, we're getting rid of that. But I do believe that in a progressive way, people will have to pay taxes. The wealthy will obviously pay the lion's share of those taxes. But at the end of the day, the vast majority of the American people will pay substantially less for the health care that they now receive. Because we're going to do away with hundreds of billions of dollars of administrative waste, we're going to do away with the incredible profiteering of the insurance companies and the drug companies. So people will be paying, in some cases, more in taxes, but overall because they're not going to pay premiums, deductibles, copayments, they'll be paying less for their health care. So is Vice President Biden correct that anybody who says Medicare for All is going to happen but we're not going to raise taxes on anybody or on the middle class? Is the fantasy world? Well, obviously health care is not free. Right now we pay through it, through premiums and out-of-pocket expenses. In Canada, it's paid through taxes. We'll have to do that. A senior aide to former Vice President Biden is laying out his campaign's debate strategy in a new memo that they issued this weekend. The strategist writes, quote, he's going to draw a contrast where there are policy disagreements in the field, like on health care. Booker, Gillibrand, Harrison Warren, all have signed on to Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All plan, which means higher taxes on the middle class. That's a non-starter for Joe Biden. You're not going to be on the stage with him because of the luck of the law. But you see, that is disingenuous on the part of Joe. Yeah, it's going to mean higher taxes. But if I raise your taxes, say, hypothetically, by $8,000, and I lower the health care costs that you're now paying with premiums and deductibles, which are now $12,000, you're $4,000 for the good. We are the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care to all, or in one format or other, have a national health care program. So we, under a Medicare for All, are going to substantially lower prescription drug costs. We're going to do away with the incredible complexity and bureaucracy and waste in the current system. But at the end of the day, again, you may pay more in taxes. You're not paying premiums. You're not paying copayments. You're not paying deductibles. You will pay less for your health care costs than you're currently paying right now. And you think Vice President Biden knows that? Of course he knows that. Nobody, nobody, every study out there tells us that Medicare for All will save substantial sums of money. Last year, the drug companies made $69 billion in profit, at the same time as one out of five Americans can't afford the medicine that they need. So you're seeing massive profit-tearing on the part of the health care industry. You're seeing just incredible bureaucracy and waste. Anybody who deals with an insurance company understands the kind of bureaucracy that exists. You're seeing now over 80 million Americans who cannot afford the health insurance that they need. They're either uninsured or they are underinsured. This is a dysfunctional system designed to make profits for the people in the health care industry, not to provide quality care to all. We're going to end that. Okay, so there's a lot to say about that. When Kamala Harris says that we don't need to raise taxes in the middle class to pay for Medicare for All, she's lying. She's saying that because that's the politically expedient position to take. Because she doesn't want to admit that she would raise taxes on the middle class to pay for Medicare for All. But that's not a bad thing. Taxes aren't inherently evil and you shouldn't be promoting that idea if you are running to be the Democratic Party nominee. Because that's the way that Medicare for All and single-payer systems work. You pull resources, pull money together, and have one single payer, the government, be the health insurance provider for everyone. That's the way that it works. And everything Bernie Sanders said here is on point. It does raise your taxes, yes, but it gets rid of premiums, co-pays, deductibles. And that means that you're still going to be better off in spite of the tax increase. And Gerald Friedman, who's an expert on this issue, already crunched the numbers for us. And as you can see illustrated here in a beautiful chart by Andrea Witte of connectthe.usa.com, most people will be saving money under Medicare for All in spite of the tax increase. So if you make $30,000 per year, you will save an estimated $300. If you make $40,000 per year, you'd save an estimated $7,000. Now, if you make between $400,000 to $1.5 million per year and above, yes, you will be paying more. But you see the thing is that these people, they make enough money to where they can afford that tax increase. So to fear monger about a tax increase assumes that any and all taxes are inherently bad, but that's an intellectually dishonest way to frame the discussion. And we need to be more nuanced than that because it's a lot more complicated than that. People only have this visceral reaction to taxes because they assume that it affects them negatively. But when we educate them and explain to them that a tax increase with regard to health care will actually be conducive to them having more money and better health care simultaneously, well, obviously, if they see that that's in their best interest, they're going to go for that. So they just need to know what they're getting. But the problem is that it's difficult to educate people when we're fighting a constant misinformation campaign by both the media and health industry shills like Joe Biden. Now, Jake Tapper quoted Joe Biden where he asserted that any tax increase on the middle class, any tax increase is a nonstarter for Joe Biden. And in response to that, Bernie said that is disingenuous on the part of Joe. And he says, of course, Joe Biden knows that. Now, that's true. But take it a step further, Bernie. Explain why Joe Biden would say something that's dishonest about Medicare for all, even if he's educated about the fundamentals of health care and Medicare for all and knows exactly what it would accomplish. Explain that he's corrupt. He's taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from health professionals, HMOs, hospitals, nursing homes, as well as pharmaceutical companies. And he's also taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from big banks that invest in private health insurance companies. See, there's a reason why the health industry is betting on Joe Biden to stop Medicare for all, because they paid him to fight it. So Bernie has got to take the gloves off and he's got to hammer this point away. Because if you just say, no, Joe Biden is wrong, I disagree. Then basically what you're communicating to viewers is that this is just a good faith disagreement between two political opponents. But that's not actually the case. Joe Biden is a bad faith actor who is operating in a way that would help special interests who are funding his campaign. His conclusion about Medicare for all is derivative of the corruption of him being entrenched in the system. One side represents greed and the other side represents the people. Bernie needs to be aggressive here and call out Joe Biden. Call him out for propping up a system where profits are prioritized over people. Call him corrupt explicitly. Call him a shill. Stop tap dancing around it because you're not going to move up in the polls. If you keep playing nice with people who continue to attack you and I get it that Bernie Sanders, he doesn't want to be negative, right? It's against his nature to be overly aggressive, but here's the thing. If they're attacking you first, then you have an excuse to go after them explicitly. Ask people, why do you think Joe Biden is trying to mislead people about Medicare for all? Why do you think that the health insurance industry is banking on Joe Biden's victory to save their asses? Why do you think that is? It's because he's being propped up by this pro-death status quo system. Call him out because here's the thing. This is literally a fight for our lives. So if you're going to be aggressive, then I think you're justified in doing that if you're being aggressive for the purpose of fighting for the American people. Now, speaking of liars, Cory Booker attacked Bernie Sanders' student loan debt cancellation plan. Bernie Sanders then responded to his idiotic attack. And the attack that Cory Booker decided to lob against it is just baffling to me because it's so stupid. You'd think he'd come up with something a little bit more intelligent, but this is what he's got. You recently revealed a plan to forgive all $1.6 trillion of student debt in the U.S., covering 45 million people. Senator Cory Booker had some criticism of that. Again, you're not going to be on the stage with him, so I want to give you a chance to address it. Here's Senator Booker. It's canceling debt for people that are of higher income brackets or going into jobs. You know, whether they're large corporate jobs or Wall Street jobs that are going to give them the ability to pay back their money. Why should the American taxpayer pay the student debt for the child of a millionaire or an entry-level employee at Goldman Sachs? Those are not the people who have the student debt. The overwhelming majority of people are student debt at working-class people who are lower-income people. They are African-Americans. They are Latinos. They are struggling right now. And many of these people write today, unbelievably, and I talk to them every day. They can't afford to get married and have kids. They can't afford to buy a house. They can't afford even to buy a car. There's a tremendous weight of oppression around their shoulders. They were told, go to college, and they did. They took out huge loans. They were told they're going to get good-paying jobs. Well, that did not happen. Now, my view is that if the United States Congress could bail out the crooks on Wall Street who destroyed this economy, if we could give a trillion and a half dollars in tax breaks to the top 1% and large profitable corporations like Amazon, 11 billion dollar profits in last year owned by the wealthiest guy in this country doesn't pay a nickel in federal income taxes. If we can do that, you know what? We can help save a generation, a millennial generation, and cancel those debts. So everything that Bernie Sanders said there with regard to the substance is great. But my only advice, again, is for him to be more aggressive. You've got to actually hit Cory Booker because he's the one who attacked your policy program first. So now you say, if Cory Booker believes that millionaires are taking out student loans, if he's really that out of touch, do you think that he's the best representative of the American people? Really? I mean, there's a reason why we call him Big Pharma Booker. Because he at the behest of his Big Pharma donors voted against a bill that I sponsored with Amy Klobuchar that would allow Americans to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. So he's not looking out for you. He's looking out for his donors and presumably he's doing the same thing here by attacking a program that explicitly would help 45 million Americans. How disgusting is Cory Booker going to come out and apologize for being so out of touch for proving that he hasn't talked to normal Americans who are affected by student loan debt? Look, you've just got to hit them hard. That's my one wish for Bernie. Stop handling these candidates with kid gloves. They've gone after you countless times. Now take the gloves off. Be aggressive. There's more than 20 people still in the race. So it is time to stop just being nice to them and thin the field. Attack them. Nobody has the record as good as Bernie's. Nobody has the credibility, the progressive credibility that Bernie Sanders has boast about how look, Cory Booker is the one who's following my lead, right? He is the one who's cosponsoring my Medicare for all bill. He's the one who had to come around and support a bill that would allow us to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada because he wouldn't support my bill. And then he got called out for it by his own constituents. I mean, Bernie, he's got to go on the offense. Like there needs to be a spark, as I said in a different video, that reignites the energy in his campaign because currently he's stagnating, right? I mean, he's not doing poorly. He's number two. But you've got to make sure that you set yourself apart and you use your record and use their poor records against them. Because again, you're not being overly negative if you just respond to a bad faith attack that they initially lobbed against you. So even if the media paint you as negative, so what? If you're fighting for the American people, you are fully justified to go on the offensive if it's for the American people and take down these shills who are explicitly and brazenly corrupt like Joe Biden and Cory Booker. And that's all I'll say. I love Bernie Sanders. The substance is on point. The rhetoric is on point. He's just got to be more aggressive at calling them out and their motivations because that's what will show the American people why he's different than them. If the American people know that Joe Biden and Cory Booker are motivated by, you know, the interest that their donors have, that sets Bernie apart from them. Bernie's not taking money from special interests when Joe Biden and Cory Booker are. When Cory Booker and Joe Biden are holding these private fundraisers, so Bernie Sanders needs to definitely use that to his advantage and just rip them apart because it's warranted in circumstances like this when they're spreading misinformation about your policy proposals that would literally not just save lives, but change lives for the better. Lift people out of poverty. So I don't think that anyone would be too surprised to know that pharmaceutical companies spend lots of money advertising on cable news networks. We're talking about CNN, MSNBC, Fox News. And when I say that they spend a lot of money, we're talking billions upon billions of dollars. Now, obviously that raises questions about their coverage. This clearly does pose a conflict of interest. So do these advertising dollars in any way sully the coverage of pharmaceutical news stories on these shows? Now, that's not to say that we're never going to see a CNN segment, for example, where they speak badly about a pharmaceutical company doing something wrong, committing fraud, being overly corrupt. However, by and large, are they really going to be as adversarial as they need to be when this conflict of interest persists? A lot of times I think that these advertising dollars, at a minimum, they buy not just ad space, but they buy ambivalence when it comes to these corporate news networks. And in some instances, in some rare instances, these CNN hosts, MSNBC hosts, will actually go out of their way to do damage control on behalf of these pharmaceutical companies who are literally their advertisers. Now, again, that's more rare, but we do have one of these rare examples that happened just recently because Jake Tapper decided to confront Bernie Sanders because he implied that pharmaceutical executives are akin to murderers. At a fundraiser last night here in Detroit, you appear to compare pharmaceutical industry executives who are artificially jacking up prices to murderers. Take a listen. Somebody goes out and shoots somebody. They're called a murderer. We all agree with that. Put them away. But what happens, what happens if somebody runs a pharmaceutical industry and artificially jacks up the price? Pharmaceutical executives, I think first of all, I misspoke. I said disabilities when I meant diabetes, obviously, for insulin. Pharmaceutical executives see themselves as people who help save lives and improve lives. Do you really see them as murderers? This is a philosophical issue that we have to deal with. If in the case of insulin, people are dying right now, because the insulin has soared in recent years, you have three companies who control over 90% of the insulin market. One out of four people, we have 7 million people use insulin. One out of four are rationing that insulin. People are dying. There is strong evidence that there is price fixing, that these companies simultaneously raise the prices at outrageous levels, far, far, far more than the cost of production. Jake, if I ever product, that costs me a few dollars to make, and I jack up that price, and you can't afford it, and you die, what do you call me? So you can call them whatever you want, but I will tell you that it's president of the United States. We're going to take on the pharmaceutical industry. We're going to have an attorney general who is going to deal with the incredible concentration of ownership, and we're going to use antitrust legislation. I'm going right now, in a few minutes, into Canada. The cost of insulin is one tenth of the price. Ten percent of the price. Same products that we're paying here in the United States. So you can call the drug company executives whatever you want, but what they are doing involves corruption, in my view, that's price fixing. It involves unbelievable greed, where they're making, as I mentioned, the top ten companies last year, made 69 billion in profits, top three insulin companies made 14 billion in profits, and people are rationing. One out of four people are rationing their insulin, and people are dying. That is unacceptable in the United States of America, and if I'm elected president, trust me, they're not going to get away with that. That was embarrassing. That was downright embarrassing. Jake Tapper said pharmaceutical executives see themselves as people who help save lives and improve lives. Do you really see them as murderers? I know that Jake Tapper is not that naive. Do you honestly expect us to be stupid enough to believe that these big pharma executives care more about patients than they do profits? Really? You expect us to believe that? I mean, this is really an insult to the intelligence of CNN's viewers to think that we believe that. And the fact that Jake Tapper said that, it makes me question his integrity, because if you're going to be adversarial and basically take a position where you are advocating for the interests of your advertisers, then you actually need to notify your viewers about this conflict of interest, list all of the money that CNN took from pharmaceutical companies that advertise on CNN. I mean, because this is completely unacceptable. This is pseudo-adversarialism. You're challenging Bernie because he claimed or implied that big pharma executives are akin to murderers. Well, let me ask you this. Let's say, hypothetically speaking, somebody was kidnapped and the kidnapper demanded a ransom of a million dollars, but ultimately that ransom could not be paid so the individual who was kidnapped was killed. What do we call that? We call that murder, Jake. So similarly, if somebody needs insulin to survive and pharmaceutical companies all conspire to simultaneously raise the cost of insulin so everyone will be forced to pay the higher price but if they can't pay for it and they need it to survive and they don't get it but they end up dying, what do we call that? We call that murder. Is big pharma not culpable for these deaths where people who need their medicine can't get it because the cost is too high? Or are we just going to wash them of any and all sin because we're trying to be nice to them because they advertise on CNN. Is that really what we're trying to do? See, and this is why you should allow your viewers to make that determination. State the conflict of interest, list the advertisers in big pharma and in the health industry and let your viewers know that these are the influences that CNN has. This right here, this is not good journalism. In his view, challenging a politician is always good and sure, you should challenge people in power but you're challenging him after he has the special interests who are deadly. Now what's funny is that since Bernie Sanders didn't give a direct answer there Fox News then published an article attacking him because of course it's not politically correct to call our capitalist overlords murderers. Even if they prioritize profits over people and often times that ends up leading to people dying well we're not allowed to call that out because that's too politically incorrect. Well tough. The fact that Jake Tapper would go out of his way and attack Bernie for this or challenge Bernie for this, I mean it's shameless. It's absolutely shameless. The only thing that would make it worse was if they had like a little banner that said sponsored by Pfizer or something like that because that's how shameless this was. Shame on CNN, shame on Jake Tapper. This is why people don't trust corporate media because capitalism creates these perverse incentives where you're not worried about news, you're not worried about treating patients, your one goal is profits and that profit incentive is so strong that it ruins basically everything no matter what it is. News, you know, drugs, even democracy. Bernie Sanders campaign manager, Faiz Shakir appeared on CNN and he was asked about Bernie Sanders' claim that corporate media is biased against him and he had a pretty interesting conversation with CNN's Brian Stelter where he brought up some of the points and criticisms of corporate media that I've been talking about on this program for years and this was fascinating. Let's watch. What is the heart of the critique about what Sanders calls the corporate media? What do you want people like me to do differently? Well, Brian, this isn't a personal commentary on you or any other journalist. There's many wonderful talented journalists out there but in about, you know, a minute or so or two minutes or so, you're going to cut to commercial breaks and you're going to see some pharmaceutical ads. You're going to see a lot of ads that are basically paying your bills and the bills of the entire media enterprise and what that ends up doing is incentivizing you and others to make sure that you're asking the questions and driving the conversations in certain areas and not in certain areas right now. What evidence do you have of that? What evidence do you have of that? I don't actually know what ads run during the breaks. I actually don't see the commercials. I don't know what runs. So I reached out to Phil Griffin, the head of MSNBC and happy to talk to Jeff Zucker and others. It isn't about you, Brian, but about how these media structures are set and operated and the biases that I believe are embedded within them about what they decide are segments worthy or what segments worthy of covering and what aren't. So what do you think is not being covered that needs to be covered more? What are those topic areas? Well, I mean, one classic area, of course, is we're going across the border right now to talk about prescription drugs. Do you know why you pay so much more, ten times more in America on prescription drugs than any other country? Does anyone know that or understand why? Do you know what the Trump administration is doing about that? Do you even know who the head of the Health and Human Services Secretary is? Do you know his background that he worked in the pharmaceutical industry? I think Donald Trump turns out these tweets and attempts to distract all of us. And there isn't a basic conversation around the fact that he's betraying the working class by having selected a group of people to run his government who come from industry, who benefit industry. And that story is not told. And why does that story not... Don't you know all that from the press? Don't you know all that from reporting? No, that's not how I know it. I've done my own research. We've done our own research to know it. But reading stories, but reading news stories. There's probably a few segments. Yeah, and I would argue to you, and you know this, well, Brian, the TV is a certain medium that has an influential power. And I'm making more of a critique here of what TV media decides to cover. And it tends to be a game. It tends to be a gotcha. I appreciate that Donald Trump's tweets are important and we'll have a conversation about that. But it also belies a conversation that he doesn't want to have. And I think that that's what I think, you know, me, Bernie Sanders, a lot of us feel gets obfuscated is that the things that affect real Americans' lives. Right, many viewers agree with you. It's not about any objects, it's sensationalism. It's a problem. You know, the question is whether it's, I think, effective for you all to call it out. Maybe it is. Trump has one support from his fans by attacking the media. Maybe that's what you think will work as well. I mean, so we're not playing a game here, right? It is truly based out of conviction and sincerity that we do see biases operating against the campaign, but also against the issues we care deeply about. You rarely see pundits on TV talking about the value of Medicare for all. You see a lot of people criticizing Medicare for all. You don't see the people talking about the value of canceling all student debt. You see people criticizing it. And why is that? Right? Just ask yourself. You're taking on corporate power. You're taking on the establishment across the board. And all we're arguing for is can we have a fair shake? So that was great work to Faiz. He said basically everything that I would have said had I been in that situation. So he first starts by calling out these perverse incentives that are created by advertising dollars going to CNN. Because if you obviously have a large multinational corporation spending millions, potentially billion dollars, billions of dollars advertising on your network, you know, you might not necessarily be as inclined to criticize them as you would other companies. And then to that, Brian Stelter responded by saying what evidence do you have of that? I don't actually see the commercials. First of all, common sense, because obviously if somebody gives you money, you're going to feel more inclined to be nice to them. Are you not? That's just human nature. Second of all, even if you don't see the commercials and you probably don't even know all of CNN's advertisers, Brian Stelter, you were hired specifically because you won't rock the boat. Your bosses know that you're going to read whatever's on the teleprompter and you're not really going to challenge power in a meaningful way. Otherwise you wouldn't have been hired. Because think about it. There's a reason why people like Madea Benjamin, for example, of Code Pink hasn't been hired to be, you know, CNN's foreign policy correspondent. It's because the defense contractors that advertise on CNN probably wouldn't feel too comfortable spending money on a network if there was an explicitly anti-war message being broadcasted relatively frequently. They'd spend their money elsewhere. Now, since this is the case, this creates incentives for CNN to not hire people like Madea Benjamin. It's why MSNBC fired Phil Donahue for being against the Iraq War. It's why, you know, Gerald Friedman and Matt Brunig are never brought on to talk about healthcare. Because if they start bringing on these voices that actually say things that go against the interests of companies that may want to advertise on CNN, well, then that costs them money. Because if you are actually telling the truth about healthcare, for example, about Medicare for All, you don't even have to advocate for Medicare for All, but if you're just laying out the basic details and facts about Medicare for All, since the facts are not going to be beneficial to health insurance industry executives, well, then if CNN does that, for example, CNN will lose out on advertising dollars. They know this. Brian Stelter knows this. He's not dumb. He's not naive. It's just that he is, you know, he's in that bubble to where he truly probably believes that he's doing something great, and he's probably better than most CNN pundits even though the bar is so low. But I mean, the point is that CNN, you know, it's not like they never do good work. It's just that they disproportionately, most of the time, will choose to play it safe. Now, Brian Stelter then actually surprisingly admitted that sensationalism is in fact a problem because sensationalism is what drives ratings, which means that advertisers flock to CNN in the event their ratings are high based on sensationalism because they want their ads placed on the networks with the most eyeballs watching. It's why advertisers continue to flock to Fox News in spite of all of the numerous controversies that you see with, you know, Laura Ingram and Tucker Carlson espousing straight up just white supremacist rhetoric. The advertising dollars go where the eyeballs are. It's as simple as that. But an issue that's inherent with sensationalism is that when you have a sensationalist bias, does that yield you better ratings? Yes. But the issue is obvious. I mean, other more important news topics end up getting ignored for you to cover something that is just more sensationalist. For example, how often do we hear about the war in Yemen, the genocide that's being carried out by Saudi Arabia and they're using our weapons? How often do we hear about the healthcare crisis? Not very frequently because, you know, these aren't necessarily the topics that are sexy, that will yield good ratings for CNN. So they stay focused on the more safer subjects that, you know, will get them the most ratings and in turn get them the most advertising dollars. You know, and the thing that was weird about this exchange was that Brian Stelter questioned whether or not it's effective to call out, you know, the sensationalism issue. In other words, he's asking, you know, is it helpful to your campaign to bring up, you know, some of these problems that are inherent with corporate media? That was kind of a weird question to ask. Basically saying, do you really think it's going to help you if you criticize me, someone in the mainstream media and the aggregate corporate media? That was weird. But Faiz responded saying, you rarely see pundits on TV talking about the value of Medicare for All. You see a lot of people criticizing Medicare for All. And really this is one of the main issues because it's not just that, you know, they're not talking positively about Medicare for All. They don't have to advocate for Medicare for All. They just are expected to lay out the details of Medicare for All, what it does and doesn't do. But they don't do that. Instead, the media, which is supposed to be educating people, is actively spreading misinformation, oftentimes pushing talking points that come directly from the health insurance industry. Why? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they have advertisers in that industry. Now, again, you know, I don't expect Brian Stelter to know the ins and outs about all of the advertising dollars that are flowing to CNN. But I do expect his boss to know. I do expect executives at CNN to know. And certainly, if they need to, they can rein him in if he starts going to rogue and starts actually speaking too much truth to power and towards the end. That's why I think that Faiz really nailed it because he said, look, this is what it's about. These networks, these corporate media news outlets, they don't want to challenge the status quo, which is why you oftentimes don't hear from voices that are really speaking truth to power. I mean, we never hear from Bernie Sanders unless they're taking an adversarial stance against him. We're not hearing from progressives running for Congress like Makayla Wilkes, Anthony Clark, Shea Hidbutar. We're not hearing from them. We're not hearing from people who are actually challenging the status quo. And it's because CNN doesn't want to challenge the status quo because there's this perverse incentive to put profits over educating the people. Like ideally speaking, the news, their job should be to educate people. That's their one job, make people more educated so that way they have as much knowledge as possible when they enter the voting booth. But this just demonstrates how capitalism corrupts everything it touches. It's that corrosive because rather than focusing on the delivery of news, CNN is focused on ratings because they care more about profits. And news and corporate media isn't the only thing that capitalism has corrupted. It's corrupted our entire democratic process. So now money equals free speech. Do you understand the problem here? Now the solution is we need to invest more in indie media as individuals. We need to try to support these shows and like them whenever they post videos. And the good thing about indie media is we're not as susceptible to the forces of capitalism but that's not to say that indie media is perfect because oftentimes these are channels like mine run by one person. So human error can and oftentimes is an issue. Oftentimes these news shows are personality driven. Oftentimes we have our own biases that may solely what we're trying to communicate with regard to information. You know we still there's this sensationalist bias in YouTube as well because we're trying to make sure that we put out video and news that generates clicks. So click bait is a problem. So I mean it's not perfect but certainly indie media is better than corporate media in the sense that we are able to dissect the truth from the bullshit. So we can use a factual basis that's created by real journalists and then use our commentary to give people kind of like a jumping off point and get them to not maybe take what we say but ideally to think for themselves and construct their own opinion and be more informed overall as they enter the voting booth. So overall corporate media is garbage because you know we live in a capitalist system where we all have the desire to make money because our survival is contingent on us making money and you know if you're already rich then you want to make more money because that's just the perverse incentives that capitalism creates and in corporate media it's no different. Their goal is to make money not to deliver the news not to be objective not to educate people and so what Faiz is doing here is calling that out and saying hey do better but it's tough you know how do you do better when their whole model and survivability hinges on them you know not speaking truth to power not rocking the boat it's tough how you get them to actually see the light we need indie media to grow so you know they're forced to compete with us but I mean we're just we're dwarfed in comparison with these corporate news shows we're dwarfed they have billions of dollars we don't have that we can't compete right these are not a million dollar enterprises here these indie news shows are scraping by with Patreon dollars and advertising from YouTube the good news is you know the tie between advertisers and us is severed by using YouTube as kind of a proxy but I mean the same time you know it's not it's not reliable so it's just it's tough right the goal ultimately is to get people to think for themselves based on an educated opinion that they form but you know when there's so many bad faith actors so many capitalistic forces that want them to take the position that would yield you know a profit for them whatever special interest that may be you know people are getting conflicting opinions on things that may not necessarily be in their interest so it's tough we're fighting information warfare here and a gigantic disinformation campaign but we've just got to keep pushing through and you know shining a light on this just so that way maybe the viewers of CNN see oh maybe advertising dollars do create perverse incentives for CNN and maybe I shouldn't take everything they say as gospel if we can just kind of get people to think in that way maybe plant that seed I think overall we'll all be better off Kamala Harris may be a phenomenal debater and fantastic orator overall but that doesn't necessarily mean that she's a good candidate because the amount of times that she's flip-flopped on just one issue throughout the course of her campaign it's baffling like she's giving me whiplash and you all know the issue I'm talking about Medicare for all because she just can't seem to make up her mind whether or not she does or doesn't want to get rid of private insurance companies now if you'll recall at the very first CNN town hall that she did she said yes we should get rid of private insurance companies let's eliminate all of that let's move on and less than 24 hours later she walked back that claim once insurance companies through a tantrum however at the first Democratic Party primary debate when the candidates were asked whether or not they would abolish the private health insurance that millions of Americans currently have she raised her hand indicating again that she wants to get rid of private insurance although less than 24 hours later she once again walked back that claim so once and for all do you believe that private insurance should be eliminated in this country no you don't no I do not but you raised your hand last night but the question was would you give up your private insurance no it wasn't so do you understand flip-flop flip-flop I mean if you want people to take you seriously then you need to stop doing things like this and actually take a stand once and for all and it seems like she's done that but here's a problem with her and why this isn't a good look if you're going to say that you support Medicare for All but simultaneously you're cosponsoring Bernie Sanders bill which does in fact effectively eliminate private insurance then people think that you either A are a bullshitter or two you don't know what's in the bill that you cosponsored because Bernie Sanders bill does just that it's designed to get rid of private insurance and that's a good thing because we don't need them trying to water down our public healthcare system just so they can keep making profits we don't need to carve out a space for them so they can continue to exist for purposes of ripping people off we don't need to water down our own plans so they can exist they need to go we can kill off private insurance because if we don't kill off them they're going to kill off us but see the problem is Kamala Harris cosponsored Bernie's Medicare for All bill but you know you can't really communicate to private insurance companies that you're with them if you're supporting a bill that would essentially be a death sentence for them so she realized that she's flip-flopped too many times and she needs to draw a line in the sand and do something drastic to communicate to them that she's with them she's not with us she's with the private insurance companies so what did she decide to do well she proposed a shittier version of Medicare for All that keeps private insurance companies that's just genuinely sad how embarrassing how embarrassing and one of the key differences is that instead of having a four-year rollout like Bernie Sanders bill does hers would have a ten-year rollout now I need you to understand that the four-year rollout that Bernie Sanders has that in and of itself is problematic like Pramila Jayapals bill actually has a two-year rollout and Medicare for All experts and activists has been saying Bernie you need to make your bill reach parity with Jayapals because a two-year rollout is preferable and look part of the reason I think why Bernie Sanders does have a four-year rollout is because he allowed Kirsten Gillibrand to write that portion so maybe he let her write a shittier version just to get support for it but if he actually becomes president we need to ditch that and actually bring his bill to parity with Jayapals and make it a two-year rollout but I mean that's beyond the point Kamala is proposing a ten-year rollout which gives private insurance companies which she's leaving intact ample time to completely water down her Medicare proposal this is embarrassing and furthermore if Republicans wanted to do this wouldn't kick in until after she's out of office assuming she serves two terms so they can fully repeal this before it even goes into effect before the American people know the benefits of this plan this is just bad policy this is embarrassing it's clear that she doesn't actually care about the people she cares about making sure that she appeases private health insurance companies this is shameful now for more on this plan we go to Dan Diamond and Christopher Catalago of Politico who write Harris' new plan breaks with her rivals who occupy the opposite polls of the debate by effectively proposing Medicare Advantage for all permitting private insurers to continue selling plans akin to the two-decade-old offshoot of Medicare in addition to letting Americans immediately buy into the traditional Medicare program in adding new benefits as a result Americans would be able to choose between the public plan and certified private Medicare plans Harris also said she would immediately enroll newborns and the uninsured an effort to quickly get to universal coverage if elected Harris' 10-year timetable invites uncertainty given that a term-limited Harris would be out of office and a future administration could reverse her plan in her Medium post Harris partially addressed the long-standing funding questions she praised Sanders' financing suggestions for his Medicare for all proposal saying he'd presented good options particularly making the nation's highest earners and corporations pay more through more progressive income, payroll, and estate taxes but she took aim at her rival's potential tax on households making more than $29,000 per year saying it hits the middle class too hard and instead called to exempt households making less than $100,000 as well as some middle-class families in high-cost areas so what she's doing here is she's now lying about the plan that she once supported because this doesn't hit middle-class families too hard I showed you the graph of data from Gerald Friedman that was presented by Andrea Witte of Connect the Dots USA even if we raise taxes just eliminating that monthly health insurance premium co-pays deductibles most Americans will save thousands of dollars per year and furthermore the reason why she can now exempt households making less than $100,000 per year is because she watered down Medicare for all to the point where less people need to pay for it it's essentially being propped up in a way by private insurance companies so this is basically a glorified public option as the article put it this is Medicare Advantage for all and a key to its success as David Soroto points out is it aims to expand Medicare Advantage style plans run by for-profit insurance corporations now some of the issues with these plans is one they're accused of denying claims in order to boost profits and they're also massively overbilling the government to the tune of billions of dollars now the reason why these Medicare Advantage plans exist in the first place is because our current Medicare system even if it's popular it still has its issues there are gaps in our existing Medicare program but a key goal of Medicare for all is to improve Medicare for all before we expand it because it's not currently adequate enough to be expanded to everyone in its current form but what it seems like Kamala Harris is trying to do is expand Medicare to everyone without improving it in order to let private health insurance companies come in and offer these Medicare Advantage programs to fill the gaps I mean this is absurd, she's literally watering down Medicare for all in order to preserve a role for private for-profit health insurance companies whose goal is not to take care of patients, it's to look out for their own profits now as Dan Diamond puts it the fact that her plan relies on Medicare Advantage will in fact open her up to criticism from progressives but simultaneously it's going to insulate her a little bit from criticism from Donald Trump because Trump's administration is also a huge champion of growing Medicare Advantage plans now I don't even agree that this will make her too much from criticism from Donald Trump because Donald Trump will just lie about whatever plan she's saying or she's proposing and saying mine is better now furthermore this is just insulting this is absolutely insulting because she's trying to convince everyone that keeping this for-profit middleman is actually better for everyone that she is taking a plan that is best suited to get us to the University of Healthcare and she's calling it Medicare for all and trying to convince us that it's in our best interest and really this is just the plan that's in the interest of the private insurance companies and she had the nerve to retweet this image from the SCIU where it says people over-profit next to her image no you are literally putting profit over people here because you're going out of your way to create a pseudo Medicare for all bill at the behest of health insurance companies it's disgusting what a liar this is what gaslighting looks like she's saying no actually I'm proposing my own Medicare for all plan even if it's not really Medicare for all it's a heavily watered down version of Medicare for all but you're just expanding Medicare for all with the gaps that it currently has and you're saying alright for-profit companies have at it there's still going to be a role for you this is just embarrassing and disgusting quite frankly because it shows that she is more worried about the profits of private health insurance companies and the scrutiny she may face from them and Donald Trump then she is about just constructing good public policy that would save lives embarrassing the people are saying we want Medicare for all we want it to be free at the point of service and we're perfectly fine if you get rid of our private health insurance if that means we can still keep our doctor in hospitals but because she's too afraid to speak truth to power and challenge the status quo this is what we get some bullshit neoliberal plan is basically a gift to the health insurance industry if everyone is buying these Medicare Advantage plans I mean they're going to make a lot of money these companies that offer Medicare Advantage are going to profit heavily from this so this is not a plan that is in the interest of the people this is not a politician who's looking out for the people she's looking out for the profits of the health insurance companies and maybe it's because she's corrupt maybe it's because she's just too afraid to stand up to them either way it's despicable shame on you Kamala so it is absolutely puzzling to me that so many Americans take Ben Shapiro seriously the New York Times described him as the cool kid's philosopher now he talks fast so a lot of people get the impression that because he talks fast because he's seemingly confident in what he's saying that must mean he's intelligent but if you listen closely to what he's saying he's not very bright like he's genuinely espousing arguments that you'd hear from a 12 or 14 year old who just read a libertarian philosopher like Ayn Rand for the first time as Kal Kolinski would say so he's not bright and an attack on Bernie Sanders that he recently put out on Twitter demonstrates how stupid this guy is in actuality so Bernie Sanders tweeted greed is the religion of the billionaire class and a nation based on greed will not survive morally, economically or politically that is why we fight to take power back from the billionaires and put it in the hands of the people where it belongs Ben Shapiro then quote tweeted that and said greed is literally your religion you want to steal other people's money and distribute it as you see fit now we'll get to the substance but my first question for you is did you catch that? because how is that not an anti-semitic dog whistle like I get that Ben Shapiro is an orthodox Jew but he knows his audience, he knows who he needs to pander to and I don't believe that someone who's Jewish personally hates Jewish people but as pretty bad lefty points out this post basically proves that Ben Shapiro knows that anti-semitism is popular among the significant portion of his fan base because it is coded in a way where it can be read to mean Judaism but he can just say he means socialism which also has the effect of relating the two that's exactly right, it's the same way that Dave Rubin will minimize the homophobia of Steven Crowder by saying what you're doing is great because it's comedy and we need comedy otherwise there'd be a civil war in the country it's okay Ben Shapiro if you won't bake me a cake because you think that I'm inferior to you because I'm gay but you know you're not homophobic you know that's perfectly fine this is basically what I see Ben Shapiro doing here, think about what he said your religion is greed Bernie Sanders is Jewish if anyone else said that I mean they would rightfully be saying that this is anti-semitic but because it's Ben Shapiro then he's gonna get a pass when I actually think what he said here is disgusting, he may be Jewish but he is perpetuating harmful stereotypes about Jewish people I mean how do you not see it this is part of the right wing grift you know you speak out against your own community say all of the fucked up things that you know other people wouldn't say because they would be deemed bigoted and you profit off of it this is exactly what right wing grifters do but knowing how that tweet sounded Ben Shapiro quickly addressed it and said any insane asinine suggestion that my comment has anything to do with Sanders Jewish birth is just that, insane and asinine he's an outspoken atheist I'm an Orthodox Jew and the tweet is a direct response to his own language referring to his worship of socialism okay so first of all the facts over feelings guy who literally sells t-shirts that say facts over feelings is saying Bernie Sanders is an outspoken atheist when have you ever heard Bernie Sanders talk about his atheism you have not because Bernie Sanders does not identify as an atheist now maybe he is atheist he seems like he's not very religious but nonetheless he's never been an outspoken atheist so I would say that's a gross mischaracterization and it's more based on your feelings than the facts Ben Shapiro and as Vic Berger points out how could they possibly think that about Ben Shapiro's tweet and Vic Berger then links to a tweet from Ben Shapiro that says the Jewish people has always been plagued by bad Jews who undermine it from within in America those bad Jews largely vote Democrat now that is a despicable comment to make despicable and if somebody call that anti-Semitic in spite of the fact that Ben Shapiro himself is an orthodox Jew I think that they would largely be right but as progressive voice astutely points out everyone is an anti-Semite except for Ben Shapiro exactly now getting to the substance here not that there was much substance but I want to get to a tweet that Sam Cedar put out in response to Ben Shapiro's initial attack on Bernie Sanders because it got the attention of Ben Shapiro which was great Sam Cedar tweeted area man thinks taxes are illegal Ben then responded to that saying nope I think confiscatory taxes designed for redistribution are immoral now what's the problem with that argument all taxes are confiscatory and redistributive that's the entire point we don't get to opt out of taxes I don't get to volunteer to not pay taxes in protest of all the wars that my taxes are going towards I don't get to do that and all of my taxes are redistributed to different areas of the economy they're distributed to certain sectors healthcare they're distributed to elites in the form of shifting the tax burden this is an intellectual this is who the New York Times called the cool kids philosopher when he is trying to debate the merit of taxes like we've moved past this we're not debating whether or not taxes are good or bad taxes are inevitable if you want to live in civilized society but Ben Shapiro is just playing to you know the crowd he's pandering he's got to know better at the same time I don't know that he does know better now Sam Cedar responded to that saying in that case area man doesn't know what steel means nor the function of taxes pretty much so the question is why do so many people take Ben Shapiro seriously if he has demonstrated time and again that he is incredibly dumb I just don't get it his talking points are the same exact talking points identical to every other conservative before him who was a pundit but the difference is that since he talks fast that gives off the impression falsely so that he must be intelligent because he talks fast look anyone can memorize the same talking points and speak really fast that doesn't make them intelligent what makes them intelligent is making cohesive substantive points about politics but he's attacking taxes I mean I've got news for you conservative or progressive it doesn't matter taxes are a part of the political process they're inextricably linked you're not going to be able to disaggregate taxes from politics it's just a matter of what we spend our taxes on that's the real conversation the debate isn't do we do taxes or not the debate is what do we use our taxes for now for Ben Shapiro it's tax cuts for his billionaire right wing sugar daddies they want to pay less taxes so what they do is lobby the government to shift that burden onto you and onto me Ben Shapiro reading his tweets it made me feel like I was losing IQ points I'm being destroyed by Ben Shapiro by stupidity and nonsense not facts and logic you can say facts and logic if you think that makes you sound smart that doesn't mean that you are smart in actuality because you're not actually using facts or logic you're just a right wing talking point machine who can recite your rehearsed lines really fast that doesn't make you smart that just makes you really good at grifting and really good at being a shill tonight on CNN is the second 2020 Democratic party primary debate and as was the case last time they will also be divided into two different nights so on night one we will see Mary Ann Williamson John Delaney John Hickenlooper Tim Ryan Steve Bullock Amy Klobuchar Beto O'Rourke Pete Buttigieg Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders all face off and I just wanted to do a quick video where I give you my impressions of the lineup as well as what I think we can expect or maybe look out for so the first thing that stands out to me is how many losers we have on the debate stage centrist who are polling at 0% maybe 1% or being extra charitable here I mean do we really need John Delaney John Hickenlooper Tim Ryan and Steve Bullock all on the debate stage I mean half of these people basically are unknown to the broader public and it wouldn't be as big of a deal if individuals like Mike Gravel weren't excluded I mean he qualified by reaching the 65,000 individual donor threshold and he still was excluded but instead we have people like Steve Bullock how many people in the country know who Steve Bullock is do we need that much representation for centrists on the debate stage I mean if you look at all of these individuals and you ask the average American which one of these people is John Hickenlooper how many of them would be able to pinpoint which person is John Hickenlooper I mean do you understand the issue here so since there's so many centrists here this will essentially be a debate between progressives and centrists because you kind of have three different camps right so you have the progressives Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren I would include Marianne Williamson in this camp as well and then you have the anti-socialists you know Steve Bullock, John Hickenlooper John Delaney, Tim Ryan and then you have the centrists Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O'Rourke so really I think what we're going to see is a dog pile on Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren out of all of these people they are the frontrunners of this group so I mean naturally you can expect them to be the targets now here's what I want to see I hope that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren abstain from attacking one another because they absolutely should team up here for purposes of this debate in order to take down these centrists and I expect that they won't attack each other however last time I said that since they were both polling fairly well all they needed to do was maintain the coast through that first debate and let people kind of eliminate themselves this time I'm going to say we really need Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to play offense and maybe not necessarily go out of your way to attack someone but I can assume that Medicare for All will be a subject that comes up don't just sit back and say no that's incorrect you're wrong when you say this is someone like Beto O'Rourke who I predict will go after Medicare for All hit him hard don't sit back and just hope that the American people see that you're correct don't give people the impression that this is a good faith debate between two actors who just want what's best for the American people call him out for the show that he is call Pete Buttigieg out for the show that he is call out John Delaney who's been attacking Medicare for All we need to see some more action and viciousness from Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren because even if they're okay now in the polls they're basically leaving the door open for someone else like Kamala Harris who isn't afraid to go on the offensive to kind of leapfrog them in this race so I do think that they need to get a little bit more aggressive and I want to see that during this debate take the gloves off no more beating around the bush don't handle them with the kit gloves no more politeness if they go after you that's an invitation to hit them hard now here is what I want to say about Mary Ann Williamson so she is someone who I would expect to align with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren even if I think she's probably more centrist like maybe not necessarily centrist but I don't believe she is a progressive in the sense that Bernie Sanders is a progressive because she keeps waffling back on really core issues so she can speak intelligently about race about economic issues but when it comes to like issues like Medicare for All just the other day on Colbert she said that she supports a public option but before she said she supports Medicare for All so I don't really see her as a true progressive even if I like her but I do kind of expect her to align with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for purposes of this debate you can kind of see you know a similar block pop up with Amy Klobuchar, Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg now here's one thing that I don't want to see happen I think that John Delaney and John Hickenlooper more so John Delaney will kind of muscle their way through to the top of this debate just because they are going to go after Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren they're going to be aggressive and if you are aggressive that's how you get more airtime you kind of just shove your way to the front but really if Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren if they play their cards right and even if the centrists like Amy Klobuchar, Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg play their cards right they would kind of drown out the voices like Steve Bullock and John Delaney they're pulling at 0% so I mean it would be in the interest of someone like Pete Buttigieg for example to go after John Delaney as well because he's kind of trying to play in your lane and he's taking up time and he's pulling at 0% so there's really no reason to hear what John Delaney has to say so I want to see viciousness I want to see attacks and I'm not just saying that because I like watching fireworks for purposes of entertainment of course but I want to see real movement here from Bernie and he's got to actually start taking the gloves off same with Elizabeth Warren they shouldn't direct their fire at one another but absolutely I mean if we hear Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Beto O'Rourke talk about how Medicare for all is too ambitious because it eliminates private insurance hit them hard go after them don't let them spread misinformation here because you have a national audience watching you so now is your chance to make the case and if you're Bernie Sanders you have the best record out of everyone so Elizabeth Warren basically what she needs to do is align with Bernie Sanders kind of be his attack dog and you know Bernie Sanders should be the stand out here out of everyone because he is the most progressive so really I want to see Bernie Sanders win and this would be an important victory right because right now he is kind of stagnating so we need that spark we need to ignite a spark and he has an opportunity to do that at this debate but my problem is Bernie is just too nice right it's not in his nature to kind of be negative and go on the offensive but listen if they call you out or they say that your Medicare for all plan is too ambitious or it's pine the sky that is basically an open invitation to rip them apart so this is going to be kind of a weird debate I don't really know what to expect overall because you have so many interests so many non-entities people who really don't need to be at this debate in this debate so that could overall influence the dynamic of this debate but if Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren again play their cards right they could dominate this and I hope that they kind of talked beforehand to formulate a strategy because it's incumbent on them to shine and prove to people that progressivism is the way to go now you know Elizabeth Warren isn't my go-to example for who's the most progressive but certainly for purposes of this debate her and Bernie have got a team up absolutely so we'll see um you know we'll find out in my post debate analysis how that went but I want to see a victory here from Bernie Sanders I'm not saying that you know he's just got to maintain here I want him to win this debate he needs to win this debate well the first night of the second Democratic party primary debate is officially over and basically it lived up to my expectations what I wanted going into this was for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to really team up and take on all of the centrists they did that and I think that you're gonna see they were victorious overall because the centrists they just even though they were all dog piling on Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren which is what I expected them to do since they are the two front runners in this race it was clear who shied it was clear who got the most applause it was Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren so I'm gonna get into some general takeaways from the debate first of all I just want to start with some numbers so we kind of get a sense as to what the public feels about the debaters as well as how much time they had to speak so when it comes to the number of Twitter followers gained Marianne Williamson obtained the most during the debate with 8,000 Elizabeth Warren came in second with almost 6,000 Pete Buttigieg in third with nearly 5,000 Bernie with over 2,000 John Delaney with over 1,000 Bullock with 1,000 Amy Klobuchar with 782 Beto O'Rourke with 718 John Hickenlooper with 407 and Tim Ryan gaining the least amount of Twitter followers with 372 now when it comes to Google searches it looks like Marianne Williamson is the one that was the most searched throughout the country with Steve Bullock coming in second place being the most searched name in his home state of Montana now when it comes to who spoke the most Elizabeth Warren came out on top with 18 minutes Bernie with 17 minutes Pete Buttigieg in third with 14 minutes Bullock Klobuchar and O'Rourke all had 10 minutes 44 seconds spoken exactly which is a little bit weird John Delaney had 10 minutes 24 seconds spoken Tim Ryan 938 Marianne Williamson 853 and John Hickenlooper 8 minutes and 37 seconds so that's some numbers but I want to start to get into a little bit of the general takeaways that I had as well as some specifics and then I'll have some additional videos planned to get into a highlight moments that I thought were just great but first of all for someone like John Delaney it really felt like and I don't know if this is just because I hate him so much he spoke so much like if you're pulling at 1% to have a disproportionate amount of time to speak that's even comparable to someone like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg I think that's an issue and it wasn't just that he was budding in a lot like he did last time because I don't think he did that much but CNN called on him it felt like repeatedly and that's really irritating because again he has no support he was booed by Democrats at the California Democratic Party Convention he isn't very popular but the reason why they were kind of using him as the antagonist against Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren is because he's probably the furthest to the right and spoke out against them the most like he started off the debate by criticizing Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and they kind of base the first question with regard to healthcare around John Delaney's criticism so he's kind of in a way being propped up by CNN simply so that way you know there's this dynamic where it's someone versus the progressives but I think that that's unfair to the other not that I care too much about them but I mean if you're Amy Klobuchar I'm thinking what gives why is he getting more time than me why is he getting called on more than me when I'm pulling ahead of him now she may be pulling at well like 2-3% still I mean the fact that he's getting more airtime I think that's a failure on CNN's part and it was clear you know that CNN did have a bias when you go to this tweet by Vic Berger look at the framing on some of these headlines when they were live tweeting this debate well you can see that you know they frame it as Delaney goes after Sanders and Warren not that oh well you know they try to make it seem as if John Delaney was the winner here and even though centrists on twitter like Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post will say that Delaney was the winner and came out on top he absolutely did not and this debate is not going to help him at all so let's get into the winners and the losers which is probably my favorite part now as I usually do I have four main categories I have the winners I have the people who performed well the good category if you will and then I have the category people who kind of just maintained and then I have the losers I have a lot of losers this time so the biggest loser without question is John Delaney and it's not just that I ideologically disagree with John Delaney the most based on what he was talking about but he obviously was struggling to defend his vision for the party when it came to healthcare he couldn't talk about it without using Republican Party talking points he literally espoused numerous lies about Medicare for all for example he claimed that Medicare for all would cause hospitals to go out of business this is factually incorrect even Politifact rated that statement false so he's coming up with these myths about Medicare for all and you would think that because he's willing to lie that should help him right you're going to come out on top of this debate but even with his lies it was clear that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren dominated so he just was someone who was propped up by CNN so that way you know they can have this dynamic Bernie vs the centrists and he didn't come out on top and he literally took a moment to declare his support for TPP he bragged about that he said I'm the only candidate on this stage who supports the TPP hahahaha John it's 2019 that's part of the reason why Hillary Clinton lost because Trump was against it and she claimed that she was against it but voters didn't believe her particularly voters in the Rust Belt where she lost do you honestly believe that's going to get you any momentum I mean I don't know what he's doing so without question John Delaney biggest loser other individuals I would put in the loser category are definitely the centrists John Hickenlooper Tim Ryan and Steve Bullock you know it's really sad that Mike Ravel was excluded from the debate but instead we got all of these centrists why did we need Steve Bullock and John Hickenlooper and John Delaney all on the debate stage nothing that they said was unique they were just parroting each other centrists and right wing talking points of aggressive policy proposals John Hickenlooper has the charisma of a fucking turtle he talked in a way that made it seem like he had like peanut butter on the roof of his mouth uh a and peanut butter you know under his tongue like maybe his mouth was dry but the guy has no charisma if he goes up against Donald Trump he is getting curb stomped not even going to be close so John Hickenlooper I don't know why he hasn't dropped out like I don't know why he was included in this debate nothing he said was great you know there was an exchange between him and Elizabeth Warren when it came to nuclear you know non-proliferation and he was arguing with Warren about first strike Warren made a case that look we should commit publicly that we will never be a first strike country we will never be the first country to drop a nuclear bomb we'd only consider using them in response to another country using them on us first and she explained this phenomenally and clearly and he just couldn't get it through his thick skull and he even kind of conceded at some point look I kind of see what you're saying but then he wouldn't back down because he was clearly working backwards from his conclusion it wasn't a good look hopefully this will be the last that we see of him Tim Ryan again I mean what was the purpose of Tim Ryan being at this debate he got crushed by Tulsi Gabbard last time and he clearly didn't learn his lesson because when it came to the foreign policy portion he was criticizing Donald Trump and getting into kind of this exchange with Amy Klobuchar because he said we shouldn't speak with you know Kim Jong-un in other words he's saying if I'm president I will be against diplomacy I'm not gonna talk to dictators now you may be philosophically opposed to dictators I am as well but as president you don't have a choice that's your job you are the chief diplomat so what are you expecting to do not pick up the phone if a dictator calls I've got bad news for you there's a lot of dictatorships in the world most countries are not democratic you know for the most part so the fact that he has this view it's not just naive but it's dim-witted I mean we expect you to do diplomacy but he's basically saying I wouldn't talk to anyone and if I need to I would escalate that's really the sense that I got from him and it just it was embarrassing I should have dropped out after Tulsi Gabbard destroyed him last time the fact that he didn't learn his lesson you know it's embarrassing okay so moving on to the meh category you know better award made it into this category it's a step up from last time because I believe last time I placed him in the loser category and it was because everybody was just tag teaming you know just beating up on better this time that wasn't the case but he still did not shine and what was embarrassing was that he kept trying to make the case that look there's a new battleground state in play it's Texas the problem is that you can't make this case because you just lost to Ted Cruz had you defeated Ted Cruz you would be able to make this argument but because you have lost to him the fact that you're making this is a little bit embarrassing now you know he didn't hurt his campaign any further but he didn't do enough I think to have the momentum to propel him further along maybe he'll make it to Iowa but at this point I just don't know how he's going to be able to you know withstand other candidates surging like why go for O'Rourke when Buddha judge is surging and has money why go for him there's other options if you want a milk toast centrist who is you know kind of this Obama light individual it's Buddha judge it's Klobuchar even so I just don't know why he's still in the race either but nonetheless he didn't perform terribly didn't do enough to help himself also in the Mac category I'm gonna put Amy Klobuchar here Amy Klobuchar is in the Mac category because for most of this debate I forgot that she was participating like I know that she's really trying to set herself apart as kind of the pragmatic centrist she's you know she's like John Delaney she's ideologically and philosophically aligned with him but she's less belligerent right she's less willing to attack Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren head on because she at least knows which way the wind is blowing she knows how to read a room so she's a little bit more strategically savvy than someone like John Delaney who just comes across as a belligerent buffoon that being said she still didn't do anything to really move the needle and there's just no they're there like she's not presenting herself as someone who can win and defeat Donald Trump she's just so boring so it's just like what have you proposed that's unique why should we vote for you over any other centrist and the race there's tons of centrists so why should I go for you if I support a centrist you know uh over Joe Biden over Pete Buttigieg why she's not making that point and making that case for herself and if she doesn't really start to get some type of spark that ignites she's gonna have to drop out soon I don't know how she can keep this up let's get to the next category it's the did good category this is candidates who didn't win but I think they did a relatively good job they had a good performance and I'm gonna tell you Mary Ann Williamson barely made it into this category she was almost in the meh category and it was because at the beginning of this debate during the healthcare portion she face planted she sided with the centrists she said usually I'm in the camp of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren but she sided with the centrists and the reason she gave as to why she is against Medicare for all is because something something agent of chaos something something stability Mary Ann that is not persuasive at all and you speak so intelligently and articulately about race issues and economic issues and corruption and corporate greed so why on this one issue are you so bad I don't get it and for everyone in the orb gang it's heartbreaking right because she was steadily rising in my book and at that moment that was that was awful that was a gut punch however towards you know the end of the debate she started to move back up even though I will not forgive her for Medicare for all but you know she started to move up as she usually does she talked beautifully about reparations I don't think her number is high enough nonetheless she still speaks about this you know as a debt that's owed in I think a persuasive manner in terms of talking about corruption and you know treating the causes instead of just talking about the symptoms it's all brilliant she called out the other candidates for the financial contributions that they are taking from special interest so she does a good job and she's picked her lane as someone who is progressive but this you know this healthcare portion it was a bad look so Mary Ann I don't know why you're choosing to be bad on the issue of healthcare but you need to educate yourself as you've done with other issues because to describe you know your unwillingness to support Medicare for all as you not wanting to act as an agent of chaos I find that downright insulting do better here improve if you want the support of grassroots activists most of which who are progressive which you'll need to get into the third debate mind you in September you need to come around to this issue and do better okay so getting to the winners look this was the best case scenario who won hands down Bernie and Elizabeth Warren now one of them edged out it was really close I was conflicted as to whether or not I would declare this a tie but I do think there's a clear winner and that winner is Bernard Sanders Bernie Sanders absolutely brought the heat he did everything I have been begging him to do I told him to take the gloves off he took the gloves off I told him to be more aggressive he was more aggressive not only did he absolutely dominate that discussion on healthcare but he had a lot of great one liners that were definitely weren't intentional you could tell that he didn't rehearse them because he was just responding in an off the cuff way to other candidates we were criticizing him he you know had a lot of funny moments I wrote the damn bill and he also brought the substance Bernie Sanders was phenomenal now with that being said the reason why you know I was questioning who I place as number one if I would place him as number one or just declare it a tie was because he kind of faded into the background towards the second half but he still had a great closing performance but towards the end Elizabeth Warren was phenomenal when it came to trade she did a good job at basically beating Don Delaney into a pulp so at the beginning you know you had Bernie Sanders basically annihilate him when it comes to healthcare and in the second half Elizabeth Warren did the same with regard to trade now Elizabeth Warren she was one of the few Democrats who actually stood up to Barack Obama when he was pushing for the TPP so she has credibility on this issue and you know in response to John Delaney saying that her stance on trade is radical she said what is radical about bringing workers and unions to the table to negotiate these free trade agreements you can't dispute that point you're at a Democratic Party debate you can't dispute that and really this shows that as an educator she does a great job at communicating things in a very elementary way that are easily digestible and this was great Sanders and Elizabeth Warren I said they needed to team up they both teamed up and this was a great night for progressives everything that I saw from them I loved because what they did here was they showed that out of all of these centrists they shined in spite of everyone dog piling on them and they didn't have to lie they didn't have to obfuscate they told the truth in spite of CNN's biased framing like for example Jake Tapper really wanted Elizabeth Warren and Bernie to admit that taxes would increase under their plans but they held their ground they said look overall most people will have more money in their pockets if we pass Medicare for all because we are eliminating premiums copays and deductibles that's going to make a huge difference and speaking to CNN's bias I mean towards the end Jake Tapper on the topic of foreign policy when that came up he basically tried to compare Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump saying well look Donald Trump said he's anti-interventionist and anti-war so you're saying the same thing why should Americans believe you and not Donald Trump okay first of all who is it that's been leading the charge to end the war in Yemen it's been Bernie Sanders who is it that considered bombing Iran and then changed his mind at the last minute Donald Trump so when Bernie Sanders said it's because Trump is a liar it's as simple as that and you know the fact that Jake Tapper framed it this way really is disgusting because to compare Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump really shows that you're not willing to dive into the nuance because these are different positions Donald Trump doesn't have a coherent policy when it comes to you know foreign issues he just doesn't he acts instinctively and basically he will have an opinion that's formed based on who says what on Fox News or what the neocons in his cabinet say compare Bernie and Trump really is egregious but overall Bernie and Liz dominated but Bernie Sanders definitely was a standout here and that is really good because Bernie needed a win you know he was starting to kind of stagnate in the polls and it's not that he was necessarily slipping per se but other candidates were catching up because they were surging Kamala Harris Elizabeth Warren so Bernie needed a victory and I hope that this will give him some more momentum to propel him forward in hopes that Joe Biden gets another lose in the following debate hopefully he'll go down and hopefully we see Bernie go up now getting into some specifics here one thing that stood out to me was the discussion about guns surrounding the NRA and the influence of them on congress you know a lot of the candidates were not afraid to call out money in politics and corruption for example Beto O'Rourke tied that to his unwillingness to act so what irritates me though is that the candidates they can talk intelligently about corruption when it comes to one issue where they're clearly not corrupted because nobody is taking money from the NRA on that debate stage as far as I know but when it comes to healthcare they were just advocating against Medicare for All they were just taking the side of the health insurance industry so none of them have credibility here you can talk a good game all you want but unless you actually put your words into practice and support the policies that the people want and not kowtow to special interests as people like Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg do then you just have no credibility when it came to the issue of electability Elizabeth Warren made a very powerful point when John Delaney and the other centrists were trying to assert that you know if we nominate someone who's a quote unquote far leftist well that just means that Donald Trump is going to win but what Elizabeth Warren said in response to that was look I remember when they said Obama couldn't win I remember when they said that Donald Trump couldn't win we shouldn't be worrying about you know who can and can't get elected and then as a result end up nominating someone who we don't believe in and then Pete Buttigieg actually chimed in with the solid point saying look we shouldn't be worrying about what Republicans say and he also made another point that I thought was great at a different time in the debate I believe where he said look regardless if we nominate someone who's from the center or the center left or the left Republicans are going to call you a socialist no matter what so it doesn't matter just promote the policies that you believe in and that was a great point I just wish that he wasn't a coward and you know stopped promoting all of these neoliberal policies there was a moment when Pete Buttigieg lied about student loan debt cancellation and he said something to the effect of look why would we cancel everyone's student loan debt and then college students who are starting college next year they're going to accumulate debt but what he failed to mention was that any candidate who has proposed student loan debt cancellation they also in conjunction with student debt cancellation are promoting free college so he's being incredibly disingenuous here and he does not support free college nor does he support student loan debt cancellation because Pete Buttigieg is a centrist so you know one thing that is common theme with all these centrists is that since they clearly are less inspirational than Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to a lesser extent you know they have to lie about the policies that they promote in order to make themselves look better but Marianne put it best I think she said I wonder why some of you are running as Democrats exactly there is another point where Elizabeth Warren said why are we using Republican party talking points when it comes to issues like healthcare exactly all these centrists did was lie they gaslighted people they obfuscated they couldn't tell the truth about the policies that are overwhelmingly popular among the Democratic Party base so what they chose to do what their strategy what's collectively assumed was to lie to the Democratic Party base and say these policies that are extremely popular you actually don't want to support them because they're not in your best interest and I'm sorry Democratic Party primary voters they are more savvy than Republican party primary voters so you're not going to be able to lie to them as easily as Trump was able to lie to Republican primary voters just that's just the fact so the fact that they're going out of their way to lie and the fact that they're not disclosing the conflicts of interest the financial contributions that they have taken the fact that John Delaney literally has stake in the healthcare industry I mean it just shows that they can't win by being honest so they have to lie and I think that this came across people knew that they were being dishonest which is why I believe they absolutely lost this debate John Delaney especially last thing I want to talk about Bernie Sanders responding to Pete Buttigieg because it was clear that CNN wanted to go to Pete Buttigieg into attacking Bernie Sanders for being too old Pete Buttigieg then said look I don't care how old you are but I care about the ideas and your vision for the country I think Bernie Sanders had a very persuasive argument he sold people on the vision that he believes in you know student loan debt cancellation Medicare for all and it doesn't matter how old you are and voters certainly don't care how old Bernie Sanders is and that's proven by the fact that so many millennials and Gen Z are support Bernie Sanders and you know Pete Buttigieg I don't know off the top of my head where his support comes from demographically speaking but you know I know he's not going to get anywhere near the support that Bernie Sanders has among millennials so with that being said my general take we're going to get into some specifics in videos that will be published after this one but overall this was really the best case scenario it was a clear victory for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren but especially Bernie Sanders and I think that what they did was effectively wipe out these centrists they wiped them out because they show themselves as the frauds that they are you know they made asses of themselves by basically taking the entire time to shit on progressive policies I mean John Delaney he is indistinguishable from a moderate Republican like John Kasich so why are you on the debate stage if all you're doing is saying we can't do this policy we can't do that policy why are you there what ideas do you have I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for you've talked about vague proposals with regard to healthcare you've talked about policies that aren't popular like the TPP but why are you there and for someone who's pulling at 1% as Ken Klippenstein pointed out on Twitter for you to talk about what is and isn't realistic is a little bit ironic because your campaign is not realistic but what's great is that since Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren they did such a good job I don't think we're going to be hearing much from these centrists and I say that because I don't know that they're going to be able to qualify for the third debate in September because the requirements are a lot more stringent I mean you need 130,000 individual donations I'm not sure what the polling requirements currently are but that's a lot and these guys some of them haven't even reached the 65,000 donor threshold and again it's just extra egregious to me that Mike Ravel met that but still was excluded so I don't know that John Delaney, John Hickenlooper will be included in the September debate but they shouldn't because I mean look it's time to start thinning the field there's more than 20 candidates running and most people on the stage half of them are not serious contenders there's no movement there wasn't movement after the first debate and they utilize the same strategy here and I predict that we're not going to see much movement from them if any and if we do see movement it's going to be backwards so the main takeaways are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren proved why progressivism is stronger why it makes them more electable and centrists you know they were scrambling trying to figure out ways to sell their centrism and they just couldn't do that in a persuasive way hence why they had to lie so look drop out John Delaney drop out John Hickenlooper we don't need to hear from you it's a no the big boys and the big girls to start debating and for all of these losers to just drop out already it's not going to happen I don't know how they have the money to stay in the race because you don't have much grassroots support so you've got to be taken in a lot of money from special interests in order to propel your campaign but I can't even see why if you are a rich person you'd want to donate to these people because they're not going to win they're not going anywhere so I just don't see how they can maintain their campaigns you've got to pay staff you've got to pay for headquarters you've got to pay rent and they're not picking up any steam yet so I mean by now they should drop out and if they don't drop out soon then I don't know what to say they're just fooling themselves at this point but that was my breakdown of the debate Bernie and Liz Shine you know Warren and Bernie Sanders really did a great job at promoting progressivism I think that Pete Buttigieg and Marianne Williamson they also did a good job but there was a lot left to be desired between the two of them and Marianne Williamson she needs to do better on health care because what she's saying not great but overall that was entertaining that was the Bernie that we needed to see in future debates he was on fire he brought it he was aggressive bring that to every single debate and interview and town hall going forward because that's what you need to prove to people that you are the fighter not anyone else when it comes to the health care portion of the debate Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren absolutely dominated I think Bernie Sanders was the clear standout here but Elizabeth Warren she also did a phenomenal job now for whatever reason this entire argument was framed as you know Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders versus John Delaney otherwise known as the human version of Homer Simpson and I don't know why he's still in the race he should have dropped out by now but nonetheless he's still here and he's sparred with Bernie and Liz over health care let's take a look and Senator Sanders let's start with you you support Medicare for all which would eventually take private health insurance away from more than 150 million Americans in exchange for government sponsored health care for everyone Congressman Delaney just referred to it as bad policy and previously called the idea political suicide that will just get President Trump re-elected what do you say to Congressman Delaney you're wrong right now we have a dysfunctional health care system 87 million uninsured or underinsured $500,000 500,000 Americans every year going bankrupt because of medical bills 30,000 people dying while the health care industry makes tens of billions of dollars in profit five minutes away from here John is a country it's called Canada they guarantee health care every man, woman and child as a human right they spend half of what we spend and by the way when you end up in a hospital in Canada you come out with no bill at all health care is a human right not a privilege I believe that I will fight for that is Congressman Delaney well I'm right about this we can create a universal health care system to give everyone basic health care for free and I have a proposal to do it but we don't have to go around and be the party of subtraction and telling half the country who has private health insurance that their health insurance is illegal my dad the union electrician loved the health care he got from the IBW he would never want someone to take that away half of Medicare beneficiaries now have Medicare Advantage they don't have private insurance or supplemental plans it's also bad policy it will underfund the industry many hospitals will close and it's bad policy tens of millions of people lose their health insurance every single year when they change jobs when their employer changes that insurance if you want stability in the health care system if you want a system which gives you freedom of choice with regard to doctor or hospital which is a system if the bank brought you the answer is to get rid of the profiteering of the drug companies and the insurance companies but now he's talking about a different issue what I'm talking about is really simple we should deal with the tragedy beyond insured and give everyone health care is a right but why do we got to be the party of taking something away from people that's what they're running on they're running on telling half the country that your health insurance is illegal it says it right in the bill we don't have to do that we can give everyone health care and allow people to have a choice that's the American way thank you congressman senator warren let's be clear about this we are the democrats we are not about trying to take away health care from anyone that's what the republicans are trying to do and we should stop using republican talking points in order to talk with each other about how to best provide that health care the best line out of that was when bernie sanders said five minutes away from here john is a country it's called canada and they guarantee health care to every man woman and child as a human right they spend half of what we spend how do you refute that point if you're john delaney you can't you just try to move on you try to change the subject to something else related to health care because look it's absolutely absurd to say that it's radical when bernie sanders just went to canada this last week to buy insulin for patients because it's cheaper there so that was a phenomenal line there and let's go to some of these lies from john delaney here he says that hospitals will close if we do medicare for all now this is a verifiable lie and when i say verifiable you know it's not just that it's stupid on its face but politifact even said that this is false no evidence for this claim there are some private run facilities that will actually get more and maybe it's the case that some of them will be paid out less but to say that they're going to close you're being overly hyperbolic because you want to fear monger about medicare for all and at the end of this video we'll see why that's the case when it comes to john delaney he also talked about how so many people have medicare advantage plans do you honestly believe that people like medicare advantage? who likes medicare advantage? for those of you who don't know so once you reach the age of 65 you get medicare the problem is that there are various gaps and holes in medicare so a lot of people are forced to purchase a supplemental plan medicare advantage do you think that they do that because they love medicare advantage and the customer service is so great and you know they love it for the sake of having it because they have to but with medicare for all what we do is we close those gaps so people don't need a supplemental plan and we offer comprehensive coverage but john delaney is trying to gaslight people and suggest that these medicare advantage plans are phenomenal and people just are buying them up like crazy because they love it it's a hot ticket item and it's not a very persuasive argument but he's trying to make this argument in hopes that people are ignorant and don't know what medicare advantage is but seniors know what medicare advantage is and if you told them that they could abandon their medicare advantage plans if we close the loopholes in medicare i bet 10 out of 10 would go for that if you explain it to them now what elizabeth warned it here i loved she called out his use of republican talking points because for some reason all of a sudden we see mainstream media pundits democratic party politicians health industry insiders all saying that medicare for all quote unquote take health insurance away these are talking points that are being disseminated by republicans and the industry and they're all saying it at the same time because they have that connection they're all corrupt they're all in bed with each other elizabeth warn was right to call that out and that's what you do on a debate stage this is fear mongering these are lies they don't have an honest argument to make about medicare for all so they use the bullshit talking points that come straight from the industry that are fed to republicans so what she's saying here is as democrats we should be better than this we shouldn't be using these types of talking points to lie to people and get them to be against something that is clearly in their best interest now another thing that john delaney says is you know medicare for all is bad because it makes private insurance illegal now what he's referring to is section 107 where bans duplicative care why does anybody care about that why do you think people would care that private insurance is illegal if they get comprehensive coverage and they get to keep their doctor and they get to go to the same hospital i mean this is just fear mongering he's throwing out all of these things about medicare for all and he is being intentionally vague because he really wants people to be afraid why well we'll learn why john delaney specifically wants you to be fearful of medicare for all it's because he personally profits off of our current for profit health industry now later on during this health care portion of the debate we heard from steve bullock pete would a judge and better or work about more corporate friendly options all of which maintain very large roles for private insurance companies and basically you know the reason why they say i support medicare for all who want it or medicare for america is because they know that the base of the democratic party wants medicare for all so they're trying to convince them that hey look we can have your cake and eat it too we can have a medicare for all type system but still preserve the roles for private insurance but these are cowards they're not telling you that if we truly want a real robust single pair system we have to get rid of private insurance they're lying they're gaslighting so these are dishonest actors they are intentionally crafting corporate friendly versions of health care proposals that are akin to medicare for all as you know this week but understand that these are bullshitters they don't have your best interest in mind and they're just trying to appease the health industry now let's get to john delaney and where bernie sanders shuts him down and not only that calls out the issue with john delaney and you know this entire health care debate because john delaney isn't telling you something that's really important he's not revealing the conflict of interest that is biasing his opinion about medicare for all on the medicare for all the hospitals will save substantial sums of money because they're not going to be spending a fortune doing billing and the other bureaucratic things that they have to do today second of all maybe you did that and made money off of health care but our job is to run a non-profit health care system that right there was the death blow because john delaney tried to spread his lie about how you know medicare for all will lead to hospitals closing and he's done the math and bernie just said maybe you did that and made money off of health care but our job is to run a non-profit health care system we take the profit incentive out because if you have this perverse incentive to profit off of health care then what do you think will be the goal not the delivery of health care like it should be it will be profits which is why you have to take the profit motive out and get rid of private insurance now what bernie sanders is speaking to here is the fact that john delaney very specifically is against medicare for all because as this article from sludge reports he has 3.2 million dollars invested in the health industry which includes medical device manufacturers pharmaceutical companies and surgical robotics so he literally has a financial stake in health care and that is exactly why he's against medicare for all that's why he's using the talking points that come directly from the industry because if we get rid of these private insurance companies john delaney loses money that's what this is about that's why when he tries to make the case against medicare for all all he has are lies and right wing insurance industry talking points because he's an insider he's a shill he makes more money so he doesn't care that people are dying and going bankrupt he wants to be able to have these companies profit off of sick people and that's disgusting what a disgusting person so john delaney i mean i don't know why he's running to be a democrat he's essentially a moderate republican why not primary donald trump why are you here what are you doing so he needs to drop out but i'm glad that you know before he dropped out and elizabeth born as well and really they exposed him for the fraud that he is he's not looking out for you he's looking out for the companies that he invested in because there's millions of dollars to be made and he cares more about that than you you know it's incredibly strange that tim bryan hasn't already dropped out because tulsi gabbert had so thoroughly annihilated him at the first debate that he actually had to put out a statement the only other candidate who had to put out a statement after having such a poor debate performance that they had to further explain their position was joe biden after kamala eris pounced on him but tim bryan had to do the same thing and his statement didn't make him look any better in fact it only made him look worse because he tried to attack tulsi gabbert so for whatever reason he hasn't dropped out yet even though there's been no movement for his campaign and he's sparred with someone else and unfortunately for him you know the low late for him was the standout moment it was the highlight for a different candidate and this time it was bernie sanders because tim bryan tried to challenge bernie in bernie sanders own turf which is always tricky territory right you want to try to stay in your lane and if you're going to challenge a candidate you've got to make sure that you know what you're talking about tim bryan did not come prepared bernie sanders was talking about the benefits to be provided in medicare for all tim bryan tried to challenge bernie on that and basically insinuate i guess that bernie sanders was lying about medicare for all or didn't know what was in his own bill so this became the moment that everyone talked about when bernie sanders responded to tim bryan's nonsense but can you guarantee those union members that the benefits under medicare for all will be as good as the benefits that their representatives their union reps fought hard to negotiate well two things they will be better because medicare for all is comprehensive it covers all health care needs for senior citizens it will finally include dental care hearing aids and eyeglasses second of all second of all i do know when i wrote the damn bill many of our union brothers and sisters nobody more pro union than me up here are now paying high deductibles and co-payments and when we do medicare for all instead of having the company putting money into health care they can get decent wage increases which we're not getting today jesus christ look if bernie sanders put i wrote the damn bill on t-shirts um he would probably sell millions and i honestly i don't know what tim ryan was thinking he has face planted now at two out of two debates what are you thinking you're saying you don't know what medicare for all will be like when he wrote the bill i mean i don't understand what were you thinking this is baffling to me this is weird this is incredibly weird because if you're tim ryan you know you don't want to try to argue against the specifics of medicare for all and for the most part he spoke you know in vague generalities about it and he used the same right wing health industry talking points that the other centrists used but he tried to step up to bernie about the details of his own bill i mean who does that why would you do that that's a fools game and you know if you play stupid games you win stupid prizes and unfortunately for tim ryan he got embarrassed again i mean his entire career has been an embarrassment first of all a few years ago he tried to challenge pelosi you know and become the new speaker and nobody likes pelosi but guess what he tried to do he tried to challenge her from her right from pelosi's right if you can imagine he then um sparred with tulsi gabard came out badly damaged made matters worse by trying to smear her afterwards as an apologist and now he tried to contend that bernie sanders doesn't know the specifics about his own bill wow what a failure imagine how badly he would perform against donald trump like i get that tulsi and bernie are just better at debating than him but he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about this is embarrassing what are you doing now here's one of the weirdest things about tim ryan he actually cosponsored premilla jaya paul's medicare for all bill and that bill actually goes further than bernie sanders medicare for all bill it has a quicker roll out and now he's talking on the debate stage about how horrible it is this is what he said about medicare for all now in this discussion already tonight we've talked about taking private health insurance away from union members in the industrial midwest we've talked about decriminalizing the border and we've talked about giving free health care to undocumented workers when so many americans are struggling to pay for their health care i quite frankly don't think that that is an agenda that we can move forward on and when we've got to talk about the working class issues the people that take a shower after work who haven't had a raise in 30 years if we focus on them we'll win the election so he was saying that about a bill that he cosponsors so i don't understand him politically speaking he has absolutely no strategy whatsoever he has no idea what he's doing it's like he's going into these debates with a blindfold without doing any research not doing any opposition research you know not formulating arguments that he might use and trying to anticipate how they're going to respond he's just the loser and look at some of the things he said here so he hit burning sanders for wanting to give free health care to undocumented workers when so many americans are struggling to pay for their health care right but burning wants to give everyone health care and you apparently don't or maybe you do because you cosponsor medicare for all but basically what he's saying here is i don't think we should be giving health care to undocumented immigrants okay we'll just admit that you're a bad person because what does that mean well in the event you are an undocumented american and you get in an accident and you're bleeding out do you just say sorry we don't offer health care to you so uh die i mean if you honestly believe that then you've dehumanized people to the extent where i can't help but think you're just like donald trump because that's his thing he dehumanizes human beings so are you going to do that too if i had to guess i would say there's no way he's going to qualify for the september debate you know that's when the qualifications become a lot more stringent and the fact that he was here already when he should have dropped out it shows that this guy is a narcissist dude give it a rest you're not going to become president you've been annihilated at two out of two debates it's time to give up on your dream of becoming president you don't know what you're talking about he pretends to be a guy who's for the working class we're going to talk about these kitchen table issues but which lane are you in are you a centrist or are you in that kitchen table issue lane because that's the lane that bernie and elizabeth warren carved out so he's trying to have you know a foot in each camp he's just he's struggling and it's embarrassing to watch embarrassing so he's got to drop out so john hickenlooper was one of the numerous centrists that we had at the debate and you know his inclusion was absolutely unnecessary because he he is less aggressive than the other centrists and he desperately tried to represent that wing of the party but he just fumbled he babbled and it was really embarrassing and john hickenlooper to me you know he just came off as for lack of a better word a cuck and i will rarely use that word unironically because i think only stupid people use that word but i don't know what else to use to describe john delaney because that's just what i get when i hear him talk he just doesn't make sense half the time he's rambling and you know i don't understand why he thinks he has a chance he was booed by democrats at the kdam's convention he only reached 2% maximum and was just excited about that so maybe he feels like he's getting his second win but it's not going to happen nonetheless let me give you an example here because he attacked bernie sanders and why you know bernie sanders shouldn't be the nominee because he's not as electable as him try to figure out what he's trying to say here what point he's trying to make because all i hear is just nonsense from john hickenlooper are you saying that senator sanders is too extreme to beat president trump? i'm saying the policies of this notion that you're going to take private insurance away from 180 million americans who many of them don't want to give it many do want to get rid of it but some don't or you're going to the green new deal makes sure that every americans guaranteed a government job that they want that is a disaster at the ballot box you might as well fedex the election to donald trump i think we've got to focus on where donald trump is failing you know the word malpractice and this is interesting i always thought it was doctors or lawyers it's you know negligent improper illegal professional activity for doctors lawyers or public officials google it check it out donald trump is malpractice personified we've got to point that out why is it soybean farmers in iowide the ten good years to get back to where they were two years ago where is the small manufacturing jobs that are supposed to come back why are we lurching from one international crisis to another all things that he promised american voters we've got to focus on that and the economy and jobs and training so that we can promise a future for america that everybody wants to invest in so he used the same talking point that everyone else is suddenly using who's either a republican, a media pundit or a health industry insider he says that bernie sanders medicare for all plan would quote unquote take healthcare away from people you're being incredibly dishonest you're a liar and we know exactly what you're doing you have an agenda and we see right through you and you know he's saying uh uh uh uh uh if uh uh there's a far leftist as the nominee we might as well fedex the election to donald trump but then he makes the case as to why he's more electable than someone like bernie sanders or elizabeth warren and he bases his electability argument on a word malpractice google it no really you should google it and he says donald trump is malpractice personified so that is supposedly that is supposedly going to get donald trump look you can talk about how ideologically speaking you believe that a centrist is more equipped to take on donald trump i would disagree with you because we tried that two years ago um or three years ago and it didn't work but nonetheless if you're honestly making the case that you're better equipped to take on donald trump because you're going to use words like malpractice against him you're going to get your ass headed to you john delaney you're going to be destroyed and you've been destroyed at two debates thus far and i don't think your odds would be any better against donald trump who is a belligerent buffoon and even though he doesn't make any coherent points ever he's going to talk over you and make you look like the beta male cuck that you are so him and bernie kind of sparred at one moment and you can just tell bernie was irritated because at this point you know well really at all points throughout the debate john hickenlooper was just babbling he wasn't saying anything meaningful and really i was just waiting on them to cut his mic and shut him up um but watch what happens when bernie sanders started to visibly you know express how irritated he was with john hickenlooper's nonsense i i think if we're going to force americans to make these radical changes they're not going to go along you throw your hands up but you you have an i can do it but you haven't implemented the plans us governors and mayors are the ones that we have to pick up all the pieces when suddenly the government's supposed to take over all these responsibilities and there's no preparation the details aren't worked you can't just spring a plan on the world and expect it to succeed senator sanders john i was a mayor and i helped transform my city i have some practical experience second of all interest me going up today is the anniversary of medicare 54 years ago linda johnson and a democrat of congress they started a new program after one year 19 million elderly people in it please don't tell me that in a four year period we cannot go from 65 out to 55 to 45 to 35 this is not radical this is what virtually every other country on earth thought we are thank you senator i want to bring it out bernie sanders has got no time for john hickenlooper's stupidity and the point that john hickenlooper made to own bernie sanders if you will debunked in a second he says you haven't implemented plans us governors us mayors we're the ones who are doing all of these things we're the ones with executive experience and uh what did bernie sanders say i was a mayor john you are an embarrassment you're a poor debater you would absolutely get crushed i would go on to argue that you'd probably do worse than hillary clinton against donald trump you're that bad you are that bad so i don't know why he's still here and bernie sanders said look this is not radical when it comes to medicare for all this is what every other major country on earth does we are the odd men out and as he you know continues to make this case you know the indefensible position is coming from people who say we shouldn't do medicare for all you've lost this argument progressives have monopolized the discussion when it comes to healthcare and so your position is now untenable and if you are going to attack medicare for all you've got to do better than just regurgitating the same talking points over and over and over you know millions of people will have their private insurance taken away you know the transition period yada yada yada chaos you've got to do better because base wants medicare for all and now a majority of americans want medicare for all so if you think that you can use the same tired rehashed talking points that we've been hearing for years now and do it with the level of charisma that john hickenlooper has i just don't know what you expect to happen i honestly don't know why he hasn't dropped out and i get that i'm getting a little bit repetitive because i've said this about a lot of centrists but it's time for the field to start thinning right there's 20 people running more than 20 people running we don't need these many uh this many candidates you know if you're a centrist you've got a plethora of options pete buddha judge Amy klobuchar joe biden we don't need john hickenlooper and john delaney and tim ryan and steve bullock we don't need you it's time to drop out do everyone a favor drop out and um stop being a narcissist because if you haven't taken the hint yet that you know the democratic party base is just not that into you then i don't know when you're gonna get it we don't like you john drop out and take john delaney with you we don't like him either take all your centrist friends with you so elizabeth warren was absolutely on fire at this democratic party debate she did exactly what i predicted and wanted her and bernie to do for that matter they teamed up and together they took on centrists and it was absolutely a blood bath and i think it's safe to say that bernie and liz came out on top because the centrists at this debate john delaney tim ryan john hickenlooper steve bullock you know they had no way to prove that they had the more persuasive policy positions and they lied and they got exposed for their lies and it was just really not a good look for them it was embarrassing for them i really would hope that many of them would drop out after this but we'll see however without being said i want to talk about what elizabeth warren did during this debate that i loved because she absolutely shined first of all on the subject of bernie and liz i can't not share this really cute moment between the two of them when they basically looked at each other briefly you know in uh disbelief at the stupidity that they were having to put up with you know members of their own party using right wing talking points just absolutely awful and then when jake tapper asked john delaney about elizabeth warren's asset tax the look on her face was amazing so basically john delaney is told this would hit you because john delaney is a multi-millionaire like he is i believe a hundred millionaire plus so elizabeth warren's asset tax would absolutely affect him look at the face she makes as this question is being posed to john delaney how could you not love that that was such a great moment but i want to talk about the moment where elizabeth warren absolutely shined this was probably my favorite moment from her where she single-handedly uh killed john delaney obviously i'm being hyperbolic but she bodied him and this was great i think democrats win when we run on real solutions not impossible promises when we run on things that are workable not fairy tale economics i don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the united states just to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for that was amazing because he had no response he just smiled and what she did was she basically summarized his entire existence his entire performance throughout this debate it's always hey john delaney why is bernie sanders policy bad hey john delaney why is elizabeth warren's policy bad i mean he is the go-to republican candidate and he was only called on so that way the moderators would set up this dynamic where it'd be the progressives versus a centrist and in this case he really was effectively the democrat in this race so it was irritating that he got that much exposure during this debate because it certainly wasn't deserved but elizabeth warren right there that was absolutely phenomenal now another embarrassing moment of this debate for john delaney is when he proudly declared his support for the tpp with a straight face on that stage he said i'm the only candidate who supports the tpp john do you not realize that that's not popular like you're running in a democratic party primary and i don't even think republican party voters would go for that because donald trump won by being against the tpp vocally and passionately so i don't know what you think you're going to accomplish here by doing that but thankfully elizabeth warren she chimed in she was against the tpp as was bernie sanders but this was another moment for her to really shine and i think that she showed why she's serious and why john delaney is a joke because he tried to make it seem as if her opposition towards the tpp you know it really proved why she's so radical but all that she was saying is look maybe we shouldn't allow these large multinational corporations to negotiate these trade deals with politicians in secret maybe we should allow unions and workers to have a seat at the table and you know that exchange between her and delaney was great because it showed that elizabeth warren was on fire so overall what i saw was what i wanted to see i said in my pre-debate analysis that i wanted bernie sanders and elizabeth warren once and for all to take the gloves off you know at the first debate they both didn't really need to do much they just needed to maintain and let everyone else pick each other off but at this debate i did say they've got to rep the progressive wing of the party and i think that they did just that elizabeth warren's performance was absolutely outstanding while i don't think she was the winner overall she was definitely one of the winners i think bernie sanders probably etched her out but if you make the case that elizabeth warren won this debate you know i think that you can make that argument she was absolutely great here and this was elizabeth warren at her best and i want to see more of this from elizabeth warren keep being unapologetically progressive on all issues including medicare for all and you will continue to you know get support of progressives she's winning people over she's winning people back i think who she lost you know in 2016 and 2017 so this is great you know for elizabeth warren she did a great job here alright so we've got one debate down one to go so on night two facing off we will see jay inslee kirsten jillibrand tulsi yabberd michael bennett bill deblazio kory booker andrew yang julian castro kamala harris and joe biden so this in my view even if it excludes bernie sanders and elizabeth warren is probably going to be the one debate that i am looking to see real movement and when i say looking to see real movement i mean we're gonna see everyone dog pile on joe biden and finish him like there should no longer be a joe biden campaign if everyone plays their cards right you have to team up you're all against joe biden this is nine versus one his lead is still large i mean it's diminished slightly but he's not going down fast enough so if you were on this debate stage and your name is not joe biden take him down take him down now the problem is that it's going to be a little bit more difficult this time because joe biden is more prepared to you know i think absorb some of these blows last time i don't think he was very prepared for the debate this time i think he's probably aware of the fact that there are going to be people who will dog pile on him because he's currently still the front runner so i think he's going to be aware of it but if enough people dog pile on joe biden that could bring him down even more which they all have a vested interest in and i don't necessarily know that kamala harris will be the one to stand out in terms of going after biden the most but what i'm kind of expecting is for quarry booker to try to replicate the success that kamala harris had so i expect quarry booker since he just was pushing for criminal justice last year to go after biden because of the crime bill i think if he were to do that and make the case in a way that kamala did where it's just you know it's personal it's passionate he could potentially bring down joe biden even further another thing that i am expecting here is i'm expecting tulsi gabard fully to go after kamala harris because we already know that she attacked kamala i think it was last week maybe the week before and she said that kamala harris wasn't qualified now me personally i wouldn't make the case that another candidate isn't qualified in the age of trump just because i don't necessarily know that that's something that's going to resonate but tulsi if she's not going to go after biden should go after kamala and i think that that's smart because i mean think about it kamala is basically going to be one of the front runners once joe biden is out if that is in fact the case so i think tulsi is smart to kind of turn her attention towards kamala harris my one thing is that i wish she would have saved her criticism for kamala because now kamala is aware of the fact that tulsi is going to be coming after her and now kamala is going to have some type of rehearsed response so i think that it would have been maybe a little bit more effective if kamala was just kind of hit out of the blue by tulsi gabard but nonetheless maybe tulsi knows about that and maybe she kind of put a little bit of part of an attack out there knowing that kamala will respond to that and maybe she already has a response cooked up meaning maybe tulsi gabard is you know thinking three steps ahead and she's playing four dimensional chest either way if tulsi goes after kamala and it's effective it's good you know it's a little bit risky because kamala is a good debater but i think that we saw last time that tulsi gabard is also a good debater when she spoke i mean she basically annihilated tim ryan we need to do some damage to their numbers because you know currently kamala is surging joe biden is dropping but not fast enough so if we see you know the quarries and kamala's and you know even build a blazios of the world go after joe biden and tulsi go after kamala you know this could be a really interesting debate now when it comes to tulsi gabard last time after the first debate she was the most searched candidate on google so she has that much needed confidence boost people know who she is so now i want to see her kind of broaden her platform and really just get in there more i think one thing was that she didn't insert herself into the conversation enough last time and this time i really want her to stand out even more and shine and i think she could do that if she does go forward with the strategy that i expect her to in you know kind of going after uh kamala here so really the main people four main people who i'm watching quarry booker joe biden kamala harris and tulsi gabard another person who could have a pretty strong presence is bill the blazio now here's what i want to say about andrew yang andrew yang has got to stand out this time he already qualified for the third debate so i don't think it would be make or break but last time his performance was so poor even in spite of you know the controversy about msnbc supposedly cutting his mic i mean even when he spoke it wasn't very impressive so he's got to stand out and i don't know how he does that because last time when he talked about universal basic income there were no fireworks like i expected you know there was there wasn't much there so he's got to do something to set himself apart and i get that he's a nice guy so it's probably just unnatural for him to be aggressive but he's got to set himself apart because this is kind of an audition right what american voters are looking at is who's going to be the best to take on donald trump we need someone who's assertive someone who is not going to sit back and just get steamrolled by donald trump who has a big mouth and andrew yang needs to demonstrate to people i am the one to take on donald trump i'm not afraid of him and i'm not afraid to call out the people on this debate stage because i'm fighting for the american people and you know i have the right message i have the winning message now when it comes to hulion cash throw last time his performance was okay he kind of maintained but he just didn't do enough to give himself the boost that he needed to basically have momentum to even get to the third debate and i don't know if he's going to qualify i suspect that he will but he's got to pick it up because last time i think it was great for him to go after beto or orc he went after beto on immigration but now he's got to go after someone like joe biden i mean if you're hulion cash throw and even kirsten jillibrand it would be smart if you tag teamed with tulsi gabard against kamala harris because she has a very bad record as a prosecutor in california so why more people don't use this against her i don't know so i'm expecting tulsi to go after kamala and i think it would be smart if people like kirsten jillibrand hulion cash throw who are kind of in the same lane as kamala join tulsi and trying to take down kamala a little bit because kamala is going to have her hands full this time last time you know she kind of came out of nowhere and just annihilated joe biden and won that debate but now if you are attacking her from both sides if you have joe biden attacking her she's attacking him and other people on stage are attacking her and then she's going to have to fire back you know on one hand you have this conundrum where you could elevate her because everyone is focusing on kamala but at the same time you do need to expose her record because she doesn't have a good record she's a flip flopper she's flip flopped on medicare for all how many times now during this primary so i think it would be who tulsi gabard um kirsten jillibrand even build a bazio all to call kamala out as the flip flopper that she is let her go after biden and you go after her so that's what i want to see and that's kind of what i expect really my eye will be on tulsi kamala and biden uh and book her to a lesser extent i don't know if he's going to be as successful as kamala i think he's definitely going to try to replicate kamala success and if he doesn't even attempt it to call out joe biden's you know crime bill what a missed opportunity right but i mean we'll have to see um hopefully the best case scenario is we bring biden down again and he comes out as the clear loser and it's not even questionable like last time nobody thought that joe biden was the winner everyone saw him universally as the loser to the extent where he had to hold a press conference and apologize for the comments that he made about segregationists we need that to happen again we need him to be so badly damaged that he comes out with a press conference and apologizes that's what we need to see and we don't necessarily need to see that from kamala but her numbers need to at least stop surging that would be best case scenario and if tulsi plays her cards right she can get a big boost but it's going to be tough because kamala is a risky situation because she's a good debater but again tulsi is a good debater too so this is really going to be fascinating this is really the debate that i am looking out for because i think this is where we're going to see the most fireworks this is going to be the biggest you know overall influence i think on the aggregate democratic party primary so i'm certainly looking forward to it and i will be eager to share my thoughts as soon as it is over well the second democratic party primary debate is now officially over all 20 candidates have debated across two nights and let me just say that the first night was much more exciting than the second night and going into these debates my expectations were actually the opposite i thought that the second night which featured Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker Tulsi Gabbard would be more exciting because i just thought that there would be more fireworks but contrary to what i had expected the fireworks really occurred on the first night but without being said there was still a lot at this debate and you know the thing about this debate that kind of sets it apart from last night's debate was that i kind of felt like there was no clear winner like i do have a winner but there was no clear winner like last night i thought without question it was Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren this night you really can make the case that there were multiple winners although i will say that there is a definitive loser so i'm going to give you my general breakdown of the debate talk about some highlights some lowlights but before we do that as i usually do i want to talk about some numbers so when it comes to who talked the most unsurprisingly Joe Biden had the most talk time with 21 minutes Harris comes in second with 17 minutes Booker in third with 13 minutes Gillibrand with 11 minutes Inslee with 10 minutes 48 seconds Gabbard with 10 minutes 47 seconds Castro with 10 minutes 37 seconds Michael Bennett with 10 minutes 25 seconds Bill de Blasio with 9 minutes Andrew Yang with 8 minutes 53 seconds now when it comes to the most search candidates before the debate as you can see Joe Biden was the most searched candidate however when the debate was over once again Tulsi Gabbard was the most searched candidate and looking at the top 10 list Kamala Harris came in second Cory in third, Biden in fourth Andrew Yang at 5 Gillibrand at 6, Inslee at 7 Julian Castro at 9 Michael Bennett at 10 now when it comes to the candidates that earned the most twitter followers throughout the debate Yang came in first with 6,460 Gabbard came in second with nearly 5,000 Booker in third with almost 2,000 Harris with 1,800 Castro with 1,700 Inslee with 1,700 Gillibrand with 1,500 Biden with 1,100 175 and Bill de Blasio with 289 so expectedly the candidates who had the least amount of name recognition they gained the most because as viewers learn about them for the very first time they search, you know they follow them and you know this is what we expect to happen so that's why these debates are absolutely crucial and you know if you support a particular candidate then you definitely want to donate to them to get them at that third September debate because they will need 130,000 individual donors to qualify that means if you support Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, Tulsi Gabbard they're going to need a boost in order to qualify in September so just keep that in mind but before we start to get into the nitty gritty I want to talk about something that was a little bit odd so if you tuned in to CNN before the debate you may have seen DNC chairman Tom Perez singing a barnyard song that's the leader of the DNC so I mean you could make the case honestly that Tom Perez was the biggest loser just based on that because what are you doing Tom? but getting into the winners and the losers starting out with the losers I do think that there were two losers overall and there was a very clear loser so first of all I'm not going to start with the biggest loser we'll start with one of the two losers Michael Bennett Michael Bennett was just a rehash of the centrists that we saw the night before he's indistinguishable from someone like John Hickenlooper John Delaney and Steve Bullock and really he made no solid points whenever he spoke whenever he was called on the momentum just died it was palpable nobody had any interest in what he had to say and it just it fell flat I don't know what he's doing in the race again I said this last night there are so many centrists in this race you know it makes no sense for you to run alongside this many centrists like if you truly care about the centrist cause and if you're a radical centrist then wouldn't it make more sense for you to drop out and endorse one of the bigger centrists like Joe Biden Pete Buttigieg or Amy Klobuchar I just think that most of these people are narcissistic and they don't realize that you know the American people aren't into them and they're not taking that hint so Michael Bennett absolutely fell flat was a non entity for the most part and of course the biggest loser was Joe Biden he came a little bit more prepared maybe but I mean for half the debate he fumbled he stumbled over his own words it was awkward and then there was this moment in his closing statement which just watch what was that I was watching that and I'm sitting there thinking like is this a website is he trying to tell us to text something turns out his campaign tweeted out this is a number that you're supposed to text and you're supposed to text join so he completely and utterly fucked that up and he basically copy and pasted his opening statement into his closing statement Joe Biden was on the defense of the entire time and what was different was that he did kind of play offense a little bit like he actually went out after Kamala Harris he went after Cory Booker he fired some shots without being said though I don't think it was enough I mean every single candidate almost was repeatedly taking shots at Joe Biden the only two candidates that seemed like they were avoiding taking shots at Joe Biden were actually three were Michael Bennett Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard but everyone else took turns dunking on Joe Biden Kamala Harris Kirsten Gillibrand Julian Castro Cory Booker so when you have that many people coming after you it's going to hurt it's going to do some damage and even if I don't think that this was as devastating as his performance in the first debate in June it still wasn't a good look he was the biggest loser and I don't think the attention will be turned away from him until he starts to go down in the polls but he really demonstrated why he shouldn't be the nominee I mean everything he said made you want to fall asleep it was unappealing he wrapped policies like the TPP and he said no I would renegotiate it so we're not getting the faster that Obama was pushing although as Walker Braggman pointed out on Twitter Joe Biden said a lot of really positive things about the TPP so I just don't believe him and as Cory Booker put it he invokes Obama whenever it's convenient although sometimes it's not too convenient so there was a moment when Joe Biden was speaking when he was interrupted by protesters and if I'm correct I think that they were shouting 3 million deportations so if you're going to rep Obama's record you have to basically accept the totality of it you have to take the good and the bad but when he was challenged by Bill de Blasio for Obama's poor record on immigration and deportations he tried to run away from and it said look I wasn't the president so you invoke Obama when it's convenient and you run away from Obama when it's also convenient I mean you've got to pick a lane and Joe Biden has nothing it's just I'm friends with Obama maybe I'm not when it comes to the bad things it's just not a good look this was bad for him this was bad for him there was a moment when Cory Booker challenged him on criminal justice he did not come out looking good at that he tried to push back at Cory Booker and he got some good shots at Cory Booker but overall he was badly wounded even further okay moving on so as you all know I have four categories I have the loser category I have the meh category you know candidates who didn't necessarily lose but they just kind of maintained I have the good category and then I have the winners so moving on I'm gonna get to the meh category and in this category surprisingly I am putting Kamala Harris here because Kamala Harris did not do as good as she did you know in the first debate and I was expecting her to perform well I was expecting her to come prepared because Tulsi Gabbard had kind of signaled that she would be going after Kamala Harris Kamala did not take that threat seriously and you see what happened did not bode too well for her Tulsi hit her really hard and that hurt her Joe Biden and the centrists were taking shots at Kamala Harris with regard to healthcare and here's the thing that really makes Kamala a failure so there's all these criticisms that are that's being lobbed against Medicare for all by centrists right well we want to get rid of private insurance and that's a good thing but they try to sell it as a bad thing so Kamala what does she do she constructs this insurance friendly version of Medicare for all which is really you know a glorified public option or Medicare Advantage for all and she does this hoping that this will shield her from some of the criticism that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have been taking but what happened well the centrists pretended as if she was the true standard bearer for Medicare for all when she in fact was not and she had to defend the same criticisms that she thought she was insulating herself from so that was a fail and on top of it it was a double failure knowing that she pissed off progressives and that opened the door for individuals like Kirsten Gillibrand to take shots at Kamala Harris by saying look these are for-profit companies Tulsi Gabbard came in with a great line that I think exposed Kamala the most during the healthcare debate and said look you're talking about Catherine Sibelius being excited about your plan well your plan relies heavily on for-profit Medicare Advantage companies guess who's in that industry Sibelius and I don't know if it's Kathleen Sibelius or Catherine Sibelius I don't know why I'm randomly blanking on that but you get the point Sibelius is an insider so for you to tout her support of your bill that's not helping you that's hurting you so Kamala was not great and there was a portion towards the mid-section of this debate where she just kind of faded into obscurity we didn't hear a word from her so this was not great not great from Kamala Harris so she's definitely the standard bearer of the MAC category definitely not of Medicare for all also in the MAC category I'm going to reluctantly put Kirsten Gillibrand here and I kind of wavered back and forth is she in the good category is she in the MAC category and I'm landing on MAC simply because there were a couple of moments where she was cold on she just seemed like she wasn't prepared but she did get in some good one-liners she challenged Joe Biden which helped bring her up so if you disagree with me here and you think Mike you've got to move her out of the MAC category I actually do think that there's an argument for that but just because there were so many moments where she was cold on and looked shocked I think that really hurt you you've got to be prepared you can't doze off you can't daydream you've got to come prepared and there were some moments where it didn't seem like she was you know that engaged and I can see if you want to make the case as to why she's in the good category I get that now let's get to the good category because there's a lot of candidates here and when it comes to my good category and my winners category all of this is very debatable I think you know there's a clear winner here or winners here but nobody was as big of a winner as Bernie Sanders was last and I think overall he was the big winner out of these two debates last time I thought that Kamala was the biggest winner this time I think it's Bernie Sanders definitely but in this debate it was really difficult for me to grasp who won this debate because there were a lot of people that had pretty good moments they had their standout moments they had their moments where there was a good one liner that yielded applause so you really could make the case that you know any of these candidates that I'm going to bring up was the winner maybe the winner but this is just my take this is incredibly subjective and I honestly I think I probably need more time to sleep on it think about this but here's where I'm at right now and you know I'm sure that my opinion on this will evolve in the good category Julian Castro Andrew Yang Bill de Blasio and Jay Inslee who I am pretty committed to keeping in the good category is Julian Castro overall he didn't have as good of a night as he did last time but he still got in there took some shots he was part of the conversation he didn't tune out and I think he performed well there was a great moment where he looked Biden in the eyes and he said look one of us learned the lessons of history that was a phenomenal moment and he's always just brilliant when it comes to the issue of immigration he's a leader here so you know he did good but when it comes to Andrew Yang Bill de Blasio and Jay Inslee you can very plausibly make the case that they're also in the winner category now here's why I put Yang in the good category instead of placing him in the winner category he started out strong he ended strong and what he did which I think was brilliant was he tied universal basic income to a plethora of other issues that are seemingly unrelated he did a great job at repping his number one policy proposal what he did here was kind of what I was expecting from him at the very first debate my only problem though and why I kind of wavered on whether or not I would characterize him as a winner is because it got to the point where he started to sound like a one-trick pony where he wouldn't move away from UBI and you have to be able to disaggregate that policy the economics from issues related to social justice foreign policy and he tied everything to UBI and even though I think that that's going to play really well with you know his group of supporters by and large the average person might be a little bit turned off by that I think towards the you know third half of the debate or the third quarter in the second half I kind of was getting turned off because it was like okay is he going to talk about you know UBI when it comes to this unrelated foreign policy issue like you've got to be able to talk intelligently about other issues in order to let the American people know that you're serious like there are candidates who have one main issue that they have that they talk about that they rep but they also were able to talk about other issues so I think that yang he's kind of still finding his voice you know he's got to do better but at the same time his performance this time leagues better than his first performance I think he did a really good job he brought the energy he was prepared overall you know if you say Mike you're wrong I think that Andrew yang is a winner I do believe that you can make that case maybe I'm being a little bit too nitpicky and saying he over relied on UBI but I do think that he needs to kind of diversify his platform when you're talking about healthcare you know I don't need to hear about UBI when you're talking about foreign policy I don't need to hear about UBI when you're talking about the Rust about economic issues please engage with us about UBI there are some you know criticisms that I have with his UBI program with that being said I think that he you know he is kind of the person who is the standard bearer for this one issue so I get that he's going to rely on it and rely on it heavily he just needs to tune it down a little bit that's my criticism okay Bill de Blasio another person who I've wavered back and forth in the winner category although this time he took some damage he was called out rightfully so for his handling of the Eric Garner situation and there was a chant early on during the debate and I couldn't really make out what they were saying but it seems like people are saying that they were chanting for him to fire the police officer involved with the death of Eric Garner and he mishandled this he botched it and it's embarrassing he was called out for it that was good that he was called out for it that being said if you put that aside there were some great moments where he called out Joe Biden held Joe Biden's feet to the fire he started by taking shots at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and he really is a progressive attack dog I don't think that anyone in the progressive community thinks that he's actually the real deal like we all know that he's full of shit we all know that he's saying one thing and will unquestionably do another but we do need that progressive voice on the screen as Ben Dixon pointed out on Twitter you know he's shifting the Overton window at these debates and that is really really important when it comes to Jay Inslee he had a really solid performance and you can also make the case that he's a winner you know I kind of seem like I'm a fan sitter here but this was tough he did a great job at politely challenging Joe Biden when it comes to the issue of climate change and showing why you know Joe Biden's middle of the road policy it's not going to suffice you know he has to keep up with the science we've got a decade to act that's it you know no milk toast middle of the road policies will suffice Booker also kind of stole a little bit of the spotlight away from Inslee when he said that you know you shouldn't and I'm paraphrasing he said you don't deserve credit by saying you're going to rejoin the Paris climate accord because that's kindergarten you know that that's the easiest thing that you could do as president that's not bold at all so Jay Inslee was great I think that a reason why I'm feeling a little bit more inclined to place him in the good category as opposed to the winner category is because when he had his good moments there wasn't you know the fireworks like when people like Tulsi went after Kamala when Booker went after Biden you saw the fireworks you saw how the crowd reacted when Kamala went after Biden you know the energy was palpable and I just didn't get that from Inslee and part of it is I think that that's just his personality he just seems like a genuinely nice and relatively quiet person so maybe that's not in his nature with that being said though for the debate you've got to try to go out of your comfort zone and turn up the heat and you know he did that he did better I think he improved you know in comparison with his performance last time and it's why I put him in the good category but if you say Mike he should be in the winner category I think that's certainly it's arguable right you can make that case it's highly subjective I'm not incredibly confident with my rankings this time with the exception of me placing Joe Biden and Michael Bennett in the loser category and Kamala Harris in the meh category you know Biden and Harris I think that they lost the most in this debate although Biden had more to lose than Kamala to be fair okay getting to the winners this was tricky this was tricky for me and I have two winners obviously since there's two candidates left they are Cory Booker and Tulsi Gabbard now the overall standout winner I think is Tulsi Gabbard now going into this debate I was rooting for Tulsi Gabbard she was basically the only candidate that I was rooting for so I'm trying to disaggregate my personal support for Tulsi from her performance because I don't know if I'm just biased right and this is subjective and I was rooting for her and the person who I was rooting for just so happened to win but with that being said trying to put aside my bias and step outside of my own personal opinions and policy agreements with Tulsi I do believe that she had the most big you know exciting moments she went after Kamala Harris and these were great moments although I will say this even though I think that Tulsi was the winner there were some really high highs and then there were some moments where I think she fell a little bit flat for example when it came to foreign policy and you know Biden was in the discussion and we were talking about his vote for the Iraq war for whatever reason Tulsi Gabbard didn't take that opportunity to attack him and I was waiting I was waiting for her to pounce right but it seemed like she was holding her fire and I wanted her to unleash because she is the foreign policy candidate she served in the war that Joe Biden sent her to fight so I was waiting for that and we didn't get it that being said you know Tulsi Gabbard still in those moments where she went after Kamala that absolutely hurt Kamala it left Kamala fumbling and Kamala did not know how to respond to any of Tulsi's criticisms and I'll be doing a separate video about that because I think that those moments were so powerful Tulsi's moments where she went after Kamala and just laid out her entire criminal justice record that was just absolutely brutal and what's awkward is whenever we start talking about Kamala's criminal justice background and her record as a prosecutor she doesn't really know what to say we got a little glimpse of this at the first CNN Town Hall that she did when someone in the audience asked her about her criminal justice record and it was really awkward she just kind of left it off so right here you have one of your opponents on the debate stage laying it out and it just wasn't great but you know what Kamala loses Tulsi gains and I think that because that was such a powerful moment I believe Tulsi was the overall standout although there were several missed opportunities that I think she needed to utilize right on immigration I think she probably could have done better when it came to the issue of free college if she would have taken that opportunity to endorse student loan debt cancellation the crowd would have went wild so there's still I think more to be desired however I don't want to be too down on Tulsi because when you compare this to her last debate performance she improved dramatically and what I said at the last debate performance was that for the first half she kind of just wasn't that big of an entity but towards the end when she bodied Tim Ryan that single-handedly gave her the boost that she needed so she improved but I think that I hope that she washes this back and she realizes next time on the areas that were presented to her where she could have also taken some really strong and powerful shots at Joe Biden okay getting to Cory Booker the reason why I believe he's a winner and why maybe you can even make the case that he is the winner is because he had a lot of great moments but the reason why in my view he wasn't stronger than Tulsi was because there were so many moments and things that he said that came off as overly rehearsed he was too fake during the healthcare debate he tried to chime in with this I'm above the fray line saying look all this debating centrists versus progressives when it comes to healthcare Donald Trump is watching this and loving this that's just corny dude you're in a debate so I don't get that I don't think it is persuasive however when it comes to him taking on Joe Biden when it comes to criminal justice that was brutal Cory Booker beat him down and that was good the Kool-Aid line so good so good now again I think that Biden did take a couple of shots at Cory Booker's own record there's a lot to be desired when it comes to Cory Booker's record you know his promotion of charter schools when he was the mayor of Newark New Jersey but Cory Booker let it roll off his back and he knew what he had to do and I kind of predicted if he was going to Joe Biden for anything it was his record on criminal justice and damn that was strong and that single-handedly may have you know been enough I think to kind of propel Cory Booker because he's he's stagnating he's not doing too great he's being outshined by other people in the race but I think that this kind of was the moment I predicted that you know if he was going to try any type of strategy tactically speaking he would try to replicate the success that Kamala had by calling out Joe Biden in an area where he feels he is personally stronger and he did that and it paid off for him so basically that's my winners that's my losers I don't want to get into too many topics so I'm going to basically just talk about healthcare because the healthcare portion this time was awful it was just awful and I kind of alluded to this but you know it made it seem like Kamala Harris was the one who was really in favor of Medicare for All but the people who came out on top in that exchange were Kirsten Gillibrand Bill de Blasio, Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard you know Joe Biden I think that he was right to pin Kamala Harris as a flip flopper with regard to Medicare for All but she also kind of got some good shots at him saying look your plan will leave 10 million people uninsured so they were taking shots at each other and there was this assumption that you know who's right is it Joe Biden or Kamala Harris they're both wrong and when Julian Castro chimed in you know he backtracked from Medicare for All seemingly Kamala Harris is now talking about Americans want access to healthcare no we want healthcare eliminate the word access we want healthcare and you know Kamala Harris was struggling to defend her watered down version of Medicare for All but it was great to see Bill de Blasio call out everyone who was fearmongering about Medicare for All I think that Yang did a pretty good job here even if I don't necessarily trust him when it comes to Medicare for All since he's kind of gone back and forth between Medicare for All and a public option so you know comparing tonight's healthcare debate to last night's healthcare debate I mean the difference is night and day Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren did a much better job at you know representing the position of Medicare for All than Kamala Harris did and it was frustrating that she was the one who was supposedly defending Medicare for All because she's not defending Medicare for All she has now officially moved away from Medicare for All because she is proposing a Medicare for All plan that isn't actually Medicare for All it keeps private health insurance companies which defeats the entire purpose because if you opt for single payer the goal is to get that for profit motive out of our healthcare system but Kamala is explicitly now saying no I want to keep the profit motive in so you know when you compare Bernie and Elizabeth Warren taking on John Delaney and Kamala taking on Biden it was just it was awful it was a shit show but you know overall that's my take away Joe Biden is a gigantic loser Kamala Harris definitely I think is coming away damaged do I think that this is going to have an effect on her in the polls I don't know did Tulsi do enough damage to affect her polling numbers it's really difficult to say but if people who are watching are so engaged politically and they do a Google search and look into all of the things that Tulsi said about Kamala's record this could really damage Kamala Harris so we'll see what happens I do think that Joe Biden should take another hit but you know it could just be a temporary hit he may regain recover a little bit like we kind of saw last time although it wasn't you know a full recovery according to most polls some polls did say temporary but you know this is difficult it's hard to assess it's hard to see into the future but when it's all said and done I think that when you compare both nights the clear stand out here was Bernie Sanders and just stepping back it seems like the centrists did not do too well the progressives dominated right Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren dominated the first debate and I think that Tulsi Gabbard won the second debate now this is all fairly subjective especially with regard to night number two but you know when you look at Joe Biden, John Delaney, John Hickenlooper, Michael Bennett centrists aren't doing too well in this race which is great you know it shows that we are as progressives shifting the Overton window to the left and that's great news for us so this was incredibly entertaining and exciting this debate was good definitely nowhere near as exciting as night one so if you've been following the Democratic Party primary from the very beginning and you've been paying attention to the criticism that progressives have been loving against Kamala Harris you would know that she has a very poor record as a prosecutor her record on criminal justice is absolutely atrocious everything from supporting cash bail to civil asset forfeiture to intervening to stop a trans inmate from getting gender discrimination surgery her record is atrocious now at this debate stage Tulsi Gabber took the gloves off Senator Harris says she's proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she'll be a prosecutor president but I'm deeply concerned about this record there are too many examples to cite but she put over 1500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana she blocked evidence she blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so she kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as chief labor for the state of California and she fought to keep cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way thank you congresswoman Senator Harris your response as the elected attorney general of California I did the work of significantly reforming the criminal justice system of a state of 40 million people which became a national model for the work that needs to be done and I am proud of that work and I am proud of making a decision to not just give fancy speeches or be in a legislative body and give speeches on the floor but actually doing the work of being in the position to use the power that I had to reform a system that is badly in need of reform that is why we created initiatives that were about reentering former offenders and getting them counseling it is why and because I know that criminal justice system is so broken that I am an advocate for what we need to do to not only decriminalize but legalize marijuana in the United States I want to bring congresswoman Gabbard back in your response the bottom line is Senator Harris when you were in a position to make a difference and an impact in these people's lives you did not and worse yet in the case of those who were on death row innocent people you actually blocked evidence from being revealed to them until you were forced to do so there is no excuse for that and the people who suffered under your reign as prosecutor you owe them an apology Senator Harris my entire career I have been personally opposed to the death penalty and that has never changed and I dare anybody who is in a position to make that decision to face the people I have faced to say I will not seek the death penalty that is my background that is my work I am proud of it I think you can judge people by when they are under fire and it's not about some fancy opinion on a stage but when they are in the position to actually make a decision what do they do when I was in the position of having to decide whether or not to seek a death penalty on cases I prosecuted I made a very difficult decision that was not popular to not seek the death penalty history shows that and I am proud of those decisions Senator Harris thank you very much wow now Kamala Harris did not know how to respond she was completely cut off guard by Tulsi Gabbard and hours after the debate was over she still clearly did not know how to respond to Tulsi Gabbard because rather than addressing her criticism directly she just tried to smear Tulsi Gabbard as an Assad apologist which is just downright embarrassing I mean if that's all you got rather than answering for your own record then you're not in good shape you're not in good shape and we've seen the way that she reacts to whenever somebody talks about her criminal justice record before because at the first scene in town hall I believe somebody brought up her criminal justice record and it was incredibly awkward you know she tried to change the subject and she went to her go-to list of talking points of all the good things that she's done now sure you can take credit for all of the good things that you've done but there's some really horrific things in your record that people are expecting you to explain and whenever it's brought up there's just no explanation whatsoever and it's awkward, it's weird you know for you to withhold evidence that would exonerate people for you to utilize you know prison labor these are all things that are permanent blemishes on your record and I think that if the American people see that and they start googling Kamala Harris' record this could badly damage Kamala Harris this has the potential to drive down her numbers now whether or not that will happen I'm not sure because she is currently surging so I don't know if this will be enough to offset that surge but certainly you know maybe Tulsi capped it at a minimum that's kind of what I'm expecting right and at least to have been capped because that was a devastating blow Tulsi Gabbard went in with a flamethrower when it comes to Kamala and the weirdest part is that how prepared Kamala was at the last debate seemed like every single line was rehearsed everything from the you know hey guys the American people don't want a food fight they want to know how we're going to put food on the table to her taking on Joe Biden you know she had t-shirts made beforehand saying I was that little girl you know waiting for that moment I don't know how she didn't anticipate this criticism from Tulsi Gabbard now I didn't expect Tulsi to go after her criminal justice record she made it very clear that she was going to go on the offensive against Kamala Harris the fact that Kamala did not take that threat seriously is really weird to me because last week Tulsi was criticizing Kamala Harris she was name dropping her and saying I don't think that she is qualified to be president and here's examples X, Y and Z so Kamala should have been prepared for that but she absolutely was not ready and Tulsi seized on that opportunity and I think Tulsi may get a little bit of a boost for this certainly if Tulsi doesn't get a boost then Kamala should get a little bit of a decrease I don't know what's going to happen it's too early to predict but not a good look for Kamala not a good look at all good work on Tulsi because this is something that needs to be called out the media has not done their job at educating people about Kamala Harris's record because she's kind of the media darling right because we want a candidate who is ostensibly progressive but you know overall won't upset the status quo so they've kind of given her a pass but you know you've got to call out these things because if you want to be president it's better that this comes out now than in a general debate against Donald Trump where it could be devastating because even though Donald Trump obviously has a horrible record we know he's going to tout his criminal justice bill that he signed into law last year over and over and he's going to call out Kamala Harris and we could be seeing another situation where he tries to outflank Kamala from the left so these things need to be called out and I would have expected Kamala to have some type of response because her record is very poor the fact that we saw nothing shows that maybe she's not as prepared as we initially thought after that first debate Kudos to Tulsi this was great work here so one of my main issues with night 2 of the Democratic Party debate was that Kamala Harris was essentially being framed as the standard bearer for Medicare for all but that's actually inaccurate because she no longer supports true Medicare for all she explicitly moved away from it by proposing a bill that is a pseudo Medicare for all a bill that maintains a really large role for private insurance companies which defeats the purpose of single payer because the goal of moving towards a Medicare for all type system is to eliminate that for profit motive that leads to patients not getting the care that they need because profit is prioritized but one of the ways that Kamala Harris tries to legitimize her policy is she says look the former HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius says that my plan is great now what is Kamala not telling you so part of her pseudo Medicare for all bill relies heavily on Medicare Advantage now Kathleen Sebelius for those of you who don't know works for the Medicare Advantage industry now if you don't know what Medicare Advantage is basically when you turn 65 you get Medicare but there are still gaps in your coverage that require you to purchase supplemental care so you buy Medicare Advantage this isn't something that seniors probably like doing it's just a necessity but the goal with Medicare for all is we close those gaps and prove Medicare and then we expand it to everyone but the impression that I get from Kamala is that she doesn't want to close those gaps but she still wants to expand Medicare to everyone and then just have Medicare Advantage companies fill in the holes which is unacceptable and you know leaving in the profit motive is really the worst part and repping someone using them to legitimize your bill whose part of the industry is even more egregious and I was hoping somebody on the debate stage would call her out for this Tulsi Gapper did and she explained exactly why the profit motive must be removed. The reality is right now we don't have a health care system we have a sick care system and there are far too many people in this country who are sick and unable to get the care that they need because they cannot afford it so the core of this problem is the fact that big insurance companies and big pharmaceutical companies who've been profiting off the backs of sick people have had to see the table writing this legislation now Kamala Harris just talked about Kathleen Sebelius who helped write her bill this just pointed to the fatal flaw in her proposal. Sebelius works for Medicare Advantage private insurance company who will stand to profit under her plan if we're seeking to really reform our health care system we've got to shut out big insurance and big pharma out of the drafting process so they cannot continue to profit off the backs of the sick people in this country who are searching and in desperate need of care so when Tulsi Gapper made that point I literally like clapped it was that great because Kamala couldn't really respond to that she had no idea how to respond to that criticism because she probably didn't anticipate that someone would call her out for that and she said well look you know Sebelius didn't write my bill right but she's praising it and you apparently talked to her about it when you were drafting it so maybe she didn't directly write it but you're touting a bill that an industry insider likes so she is such a disingenuous bad faith actor she wants to have her cake and eat it too she wants to shield herself from criticism of Medicare for All that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren received at last night's debate because you know there's always this criticism oh well you want to take away private insurance which is a bullshit criticism and what you should do if you truly support Medicare for All is push back against that and say no we are not taking away anything we are offering more than what these for profit companies are offering but what did Kamala do she thought that she'd have it both ways and be smart and say you know here's my plan that addresses all of your criticisms it accommodates the people who want to keep their private insurance but unfortunately for her that didn't work out too well on the debate stage because Santris just pretended like she still supported real care for all but then all she did by proposing this water downveraged on Medicare for All was piss off progressives she got attacked by Kirsten Gillibrand right she got attacked by Bill de Blasio I believe indirectly and then Tulsi Gabbard just exposed the most gigantic flaw she called it a fatal flaw with her bill so not a good look this was not a great day for Kamala Harris I think that she was hoping you know lightning would strike twice and she'd have a phenomenal performance but it didn't happen and it was largely due to moments like this where Tulsi Gabbard you know did a great job at exposing Kamala Harris so in my pre-debate analysis if you watch that you know the one thing that I said if I had any expectations it was that I would probably expect to see Cory Booker replicate the success that Kamala Harris had last time at the first debate by going after Joe Biden's poor record and with Cory Booker he worked on this criminal justice reform bill that was recently passed you know it's not comprehensive but certainly a step in the right direction and it was actually signed into law by Donald Trump so I would expect him to go after Joe Biden and he did and Joe Biden tried to get in some shots and you know there were some good shots right but overall Cory Booker came and was ready to fight and he absolutely won this fight take a look at this country because we have treated issues of race and poverty mental health and addiction with locking people up and not lifting them up and Mr. Vice President has said that since the 1970s every major crime bill, every crime bill major and minor has had his name on it and so those are your words not mine and this is one of those instances where the house was set on fire and you claimed responsibility for those laws and you can't just now come out with a plan to put out that fire we have got to have far more bold action on criminal justice reform like having true marijuana justice which means that we legalize it on a federal level and reinvest the profits in communities that have been disproportionately targeted by marijuana enforcement and we want to be able to respond the fact is that the bills that the president excuse me, the future president here that the senator is talking about are bills that were passed years ago and they were passed overwhelmingly since 2007 I for example tried to get the crack powder cocaine totally disparity, totally eliminated in 2007 you became mayor and you had a police department that was you went out and you hired to stop and frisk you had 75% of those stops reviewed as illegal you found yourself in the situation three times as many african-american kids were caught in that chain and caught up the justice department came after you for saying you were engaging in behavior that was inappropriate and then in fact nothing happened the entire time you were mayor thank you senator booker you want to respond well first of all I'm grateful that he that I inherited a criminal police department with massive problems and decades long challenges but the head of the ACLU has already said, the head of the New Jersey ACLU that I put forth national standard setting accountability Mr. Vice President I didn't interrupt you, please show me how to respect sir we have a system right now that's broken and if you want to compare records and frankly I'm shocked that you do I am happy to do that because all of the problems that he is talking about that he created I actually led the bill that got passed into law that reverses the damage that your bills that you were frankly to correct you Mr. Vice President you are bragging calling it the Biden crime bill up to 2015 Vice President Biden number one the bill he talks about is a bill that in my administration we passed we passed that bill that you added on to that's the bill in fact you passed the fact of the matter is secondly there was nothing done for the entire eight years he was mayor there was nothing done to deal with the police department that was corrupt why did you announce in the first day a zero tolerance policy of stop and frisk and hire Rudy Giuliani's guy in 2007 when I was trying to get rid of the crack Mr. Vice President there's a saying in my community you're dependent to Kool-Aid and you don't even know the flavor you need to come to the city of North and see the reforms that we put in place the New Jersey head of the ACLU has said that I embraced reforms not just in action but indeed sir you are trying to shift the view from what you created there are people right now in prison for life for drug offenses because you stood up and use that tough on crime phony rhetoric that got a lot of people elected but destroyed communities like mine this isn't about the pastor this is about the present right now I'm happy you evolved but you offered no redemption to the people in prison right now so that was absolutely brutal good on Cory Booker for going after Joe Biden here because there just isn't any amount of words that can really describe how much damage Joe Biden has done his record on criminal justice and good on Cory Booker for calling out that phony rhetoric because as he put it it got a lot of people elected but it ruined lives and when Cory Booker said look if you want to compare records and I'm surprised that you'd want to do that let's do that and then he just went through all of the things that Joe Biden did that was great that's exactly how you take down a front-reader you call them out for their poor record and that's your moment to shine a little bit of credibility here because he just got one of his criminal justice bills passed signed into law by Donald Trump of all people and he pushed for this bill it's not comprehensive but nonetheless it's a step in the right direction so Cory Booker I think did a good job here at shining a light on the damage that Joe Biden caused and Biden tried to get in a couple of shots at Cory Booker but overall I mean to say that Cory Booker came out on top of this exchange is an understatement oh beautiful absolutely love that I absolutely enjoyed watching Joe Biden fumble and then refer to Cory Booker as the president I mean you're basically saying I'm not gonna be the future president he's gonna be the future president like what was that that wasn't the only moment at the debate where Joe Biden was just weird I mean there was the Joe 3030 moment and whatnot but these types of moments are absolutely important because when you have someone with the record that Joe Biden has that is incredibly poor you have to call it out and later on in the debate you know Joe Biden talked about how Kirsten Gillibrand possibly changed her position on him because she called him out over a statement that he made about women's rights issues but Joe Biden called him out or excuse me Cory Booker called out Joe Biden because he said look you were calling it the Joe Biden crime bill up until what 2015-2016 that's incredibly troubling to think that you in this age in 2019 can be the standard bearer for the Democratic Party when you won't even atone for the horrible things that you've done I mean have you apologized to Anita Hill yet seems like he tried to apologize but she didn't accept it I wouldn't if I was her he only apologized for praising segregationists weeks after that event between him and Kamala Harris at the last debate and it was after he started to take a noticeable hit in the polls so Joe Biden is a fraud and for the candidates who aren't going after him this is a missed opportunity you can take shots of the frontrunner everyone else is doing it you're not going to come off as overly aggressive if you're each taking turns to dog pile on Joe Biden this has to be done his lead is huge so if anyone in this race is serious about actually winning if we want to reshuffle the deck a little bit it needs to drop out you need to damage him because that's a lot of support that's a huge chunk of voters that will then be distributed across the other candidates I don't know where they're going to go but certainly if you want to move up then you all have a vested interest as candidates on that stage to go directly after Joe Biden hit him hard and hit him repeatedly and that's what we saw during this debate and this was probably my favorite moment in terms of people going after Joe Biden because Cory Booker just did such a phenomenal job you could tell he was prepared and look, throughout the debate there were times where Cory Booker got on my nerves he seemed a little bit phony but I think that this moment in part is largely the reason why he was a standout here you can make the case that Cory Booker was one of the winners if not the winner, namely because of this moment it was that good so that was brutal, great takedown by Cory Booker of Joe Biden it was definitely warranted let's see if we see more movement in the polls when it comes to Joe Biden I certainly hope so well, that's all that I've got for you guys today thank you so much for tuning in if you've made it this far in the show as usual, I want to thank all of our Patreon, PayPal and YouTube members for helping us not just to survive but thrive as well if you can't chip in a couple of bucks you can always help the show by sharing our videos by liking them, that really does go a long way in helping us with the YouTube algorithm because really what helps us to get a boost is engagement and by liking all of our videos that does go a long way so I'm going to leave that there my name is Mike Figueredo, this is the Humanist Report I will see you all next week take care