This is the Humanist Report with Mike Figueroaido. 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 Figueroaido and this is episode 240 of the program. Today is Friday, May 8th 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 the show this week or increased the monthly pledge that they were already giving to us. And that includes Bethany Cook, Eric Dolendel Vachio, Gato Love, Inas El Saban, Ivan Leonskivic, Joshua Landeros, Juan Sandoval, Kathy Lee, Keith Inholz II, Kevin Chavez, Manchevel, Nurse Hemp, Radio Ardia, Renee Kaver, The Midwest Princess, Theodore Pulver, Wanda Meadows, William Bruntz and Vanna Gonzalez. So thank you so much to all of these kind individuals. If you'd also like to support the show and join the Independent Progressive Media Revolution, you can do so by going to humanistreport.com slash support, patreon.com slash humanistreport or by clicking join underneath any one of our YouTube videos. You've got a jam packed episode for you this week. We'll talk about MSNBC finally asking Joe Biden about the tar read allegations followed by the response from centrists and spinning from other propagandists like Joy Reid will address the anti quarantine protests that took place. How Alex Jones is already wanting to resort to cannibalism. I'll remind you about who George W. Bush is and will close the show by talking to Savage Joy. And also I will talk to 2020 Green Party presidential contender Howie Hawkins about his campaign. So that's what we've got on the agenda for today's show. Plus some additional segments. Hopefully you will enjoy it. Let's go ahead and waste no time. Get right to it. After more than a month of media silence, Joe Biden was finally asked about tar reads allegations in an interview on national television. As you all know, Mika Brzezinski asked him about this on MSNBC. And I think that, you know, judging by the response to this interview and the response of the general population now knowing about these allegations now that they have more details and facts, it's evident that nothing is going to come of this because the Democratic Party's base. They don't really seem to care. Now, I didn't necessarily expect anything to come of this. But I mean, there will be no political consequences for Joe Biden at this time at all. Certainly, I think that Republicans are going to try to weaponize this against him in November. But in terms of the Democrats and their base seeking accountability for Joe Biden. They just don't seem to really care. They don't actually believe survivors, contrary to what they said as little as two years ago when they wanted all of us to believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and the allegations that she brought forward against Brett Kavanaugh. I believed her and I believe Tara Reid, but not as many people are that consistent. Now, predictably, Joe Biden denied these allegations. And I will say that I do think Mika Brzezinski did an admirable job. But I'm not going to give her too much credit because when you wait more than a month to even mention it, there is an issue there. There's a media bias problem that we have to address as a society going forward. But with that being said, here's what he had to say about this allegation. But Mr. Vice President, as it pertained to Dr. Ford, everyone wanted on high level Democrats said she should be believed that they believed it happened.  No, I know what I said. It has to be real for Dr. Ford, but not for Tara Reid. They're because the facts are that look, she I'm not suggesting she had no right to come forward. And I never and I'm not saying any woman, they should come forward. They should be heard. And then it should be investigated. It should be investigated. And if there's anything that makes it that is consistent with what's being said and she makes the case or the case is made, then it should be believed. But ultimately, the truth matters. The truth matters. It's period. I thought my entire life to change, to change the whole notion of the law and the cultural sexual around the cultural sexual assault when I fought to strengthen and protect the process for survivors. I believe they come a long way and we have a long way to go in this system before we, in fact, are in a position that there's a fair and unbiased view. But at the end of the day, it has to be looked at. These claims are not true. There's no co-op.  Are you absolutely positive? There is no record of any complaint by Tara Reid against you. I am absolutely positive that no one that I'm aware of ever has been made aware of any complaint, a formal complaint made by or complaint by Tara Reid against me at the time this allegedly happened. Twenty seven years ago or until they I announced for print. Well, I guess it was in April or May of this year. I know of no one who's aware that any complaint was made. So predictably, he unequivocally denied this accusation. And if I were Joe Biden, if I'm innocent and I know that this didn't happen, I would unseal the document that would lead to her complaint because if there's a complaint that's there and she doesn't allege that she was sexually assaulted and only sexually harassed, that she says the complaint says you can kind of use that as evidence in your own favor to at least at a minimum downplay these allegations.  They disclose a little bit of information and then they reveal more as time goes on, as they become more comfortable talking about this. But regardless, if you want people to know these details, if you want a proper investigation to be conducted, you unseal these documents and you just allow a very narrow investigation into these records so people can see the complaint that she had filed. Right, because she said she did file one. It's going to be there. So the question is, why wouldn't he do this? Why won't he unseal this document so we can see it? And the answer is, well, he doesn't have an answer. And I'm just talking about her name, not anybody else in those records a search for that. Nothing classified with the president or anybody else. I'm just asking, why not do a search for Tara Reade's name in the University of Delaware records? Well, Mika, because I'm trying to pretend like she doesn't exist and that I never knew her and I want to move on from this as quickly as possible. Yeah, see, he was speechless there because he doesn't have a good answer. There's no good answer for this. If you're innocent, you want the most thorough investigation imaginable to be conducted because you know that more information is going to be better for you. It's going to strengthen the case. But he's not doing that. He's not doing that. Now, prior to him actually talking about this directly in an interview with Mika Brzezinski, Chris Hayes actually covered this in a really brief segment and the backlash to him even mentioning Tara Reade's allegations was huge. But before we talk about, you know, the aftermath, this is the segment that he put out just a day or two before Joe Biden actually addressed these allegations head on. There have been moments, I think for many of us, all of us when we have heard about accusations against someone that we find ourselves desperately wanting not to believe, whether that is because we have some personal admiration for the individual or their work or political admiration, someone on our quote unquote side. The part of the difficult lesson of the Mitu era is not that every accusation is true and everything should be believed on its face, but that you do have to fight yourself when you feel that impulse. You have to do that in order to take seriously what is being alleged and what the evidence is and to evaluate it. And that is the case with the accusation by a woman named Tara Reade against Joe Biden. Now, at first, when I saw Chris Hayes do this segment, I was genuinely surprised. I was taken aback. I didn't expect this. And I thought, wow, credit words do. He's being responsible. He's trying to be objective and he's doing his job. But then I reminded myself, you know, how low the bar has gotten and that we shouldn't applaud a journalist for finally doing his job after more than a month of silence. I mean, if you go back the first time when we talked about this on the Humanist Report, it was at the end of March. So, you know, I can't give him too much credit for being this late on an issue and basically tap dancing around these allegations and adding a hundred different caveats about how he doesn't really want to believe this because he supports Joe Biden and what have you. But still, even though he covered it a month too late, immediately after that segment aired, hashtag Fire Chris Hayes immediately started trending on Twitter.  Just the fact that anyone believes that a pundit should be fired for doing what should be their job. It really tells you a lot about the state of American politics and American political discourse.  And now the minute they try to hold someone on their own team accountable, you see the backlash from their audience, which consists mostly of Democratic party loyalists, and you're seeing that this is basically a cult. This is a group of people who are not interested in ideology or policy. This is a team sport to them and so long as they can get their team across the finish line, that is all that they care about. Now, the backlash to this became so overwhelming that Chris Hayes actually had to address this in the following segment in the next episode that he did. And I think that he he gets a little bit of credit for, you know, remaining courageous enough to not back down. But you can see here, he's kind of doing a little bit more lopsided coverage in this segment because he brings up the inconsistencies with Tau Reed's claim, but he doesn't actually talk about how we have new evidence that corroborates what she says, which is why we're all talking about it now, which is why, you know, the media is all of a sudden covering this because you can't not given the new information that we have like the Larry King clip, right, her neighbor's account. So this is the follow up segment that he did. We covered this story earlier this week. A few days ago, Joe Biden had not addressed these allegations today. As you saw, he did. It was his first time directly responding to them on the record. A lot of people were unhappy with the fact that we even covered the story, which is why you may have seen the hashtag fire Chris Hayes trending on Twitter most of the day yesterday. You know, let's say I received a lot of feedback about the segment we did, which basically fell into three categories. The first category for people who basically said, I don't believe Tau Reed, Tau Reed, I believe Joe Biden, based on their assessment of the actual verifiable facts of the story, such that we have them. And they pointed out, as we did when we covered this the other day, that her story has changed quite considerably. A year ago, she told a California newspaper that in 1993, Joe Biden touched her several times, making her feel uncomfortable. And then back in March, she made a much more serious allegation claiming that in 1993, then Senator Biden sexually assaulted her, penetrating her with his fingers under her skirt. Biden denies that accusation, as you saw, specifically responded today. Tau Reed also claims that she complained to three other people who worked in Biden's Senate office at the time when she was there about harassment, not assault. And then all three Biden staffers who've been contact by reporters, they all say no such complaint was made. Biden's then executive assistant was vehement in her denial, quote, and everyone's witnessed or heard of or received any reports of inappropriate conduct, period, not from his read, not from anyone. I have absolutely no knowledge or memory of Ms. Reed's accounting of events, which would have left a searing impression on me as a woman professional and as a manager. The people that fall into category one say that the weight of those three people, those three staffers, plus Joe Biden, long record of public life, against what Tau Reed says about what happened the time, leads them to conclude that she is not telling the truth. Now, the second set of responses I got was from people who fall into the I don't care category. Some of that even used the phrase, we're in the midst of a national nightmare, the worst disaster in generations, and we just need to get rid of Donald Trump. Now, that is not the way that I think about analyzing this particular story, but it's an honest expression of how some people view the trade-offs and the stakes here. And then the third category, which I got a lot of, was the one that was the most disquieting to me, which is a whole lot of people pointing to various aspects of Reed's character or her writings or her politics as a kind of proof that she's not credible, that she's making it up. Oh, she didn't report this sooner, or she said nice things about Joe Biden, her former boss at one point. So how could he have assaulted her? Or she supported candidate Bernie Sanders, so clearly this was just a political hit job, where she said things that people find strange on social media and on and on, much of it adding up to, you just can't trust this woman. Now, these are the kinds of things that have been used forever against women making these types of allegations. To me, the lesson of the Me Too movement is not that you believe every single allegation, of course not. No, the lesson is to take accusations seriously, to swiftly investigate the facts surrounding them as best as one can, while leaving aside the worst age-old instincts to drag the women who make those claims through the mud. So good on him. I have no problem with him bringing up the inconsistencies in the story with regards to Tara Reed, but you do have to be fair. If you truly are trying to be objective and get to the bottom of this, you mentioned the Larry King clip, right? You bring up her neighbor's accounts and how she was told about this in the 1990s. And she believes Tara Reed, even if she supports Joe Biden, this is all relevant. It's important. And I think it's also important to acknowledge how experts say it is very common for sexual assault survivors to change their story, because, again, it makes sense. Like, you're not going to share everything right away if you're not comfortable. This is why a lot of sexual assault survivors, they don't even speak out, because this is not just painful to relive. It's embarrassing. Like, you don't want to disclose these details, right? Who wants to do that? You don't want to bring this onto yourself. But, you know, I will give credit to Mika Brzezinski, because she did actually do a really comprehensive segment. And I thought that she did a phenomenal job just laying out all of the detail. She gets into Tara's inconsistencies, but she also goes over how, you know, Tara's story is credible. And, you know, her claims have been corroborated by numerous individuals. The point is that everyone who's watching should have all of the details laid out. They should know everything that there is to know about this story. And ultimately, they can use that information and do what they want with it, right? If you want to demand that Joe Biden step down, I think that would be a smart move. I don't think that an alleged rapist should be the nominee, because I believe Tara Reid. But I mean, the point is that they need the information. But what we're learning is that the information doesn't matter after all. Like MSNBC's audience didn't just need to know about this. They don't care. They know now.  They just don't care. Their minds have been made up from the get-go, right? This is a cold. They don't care about objective facts. They just want their team across the finish line, as I stated.   You know, I'm not being hyperbolic when I describe their reaction.  And look, even if this were true, it doesn't mean that she wasn't sexually assaulted. This does nothing to invalidate her claim. She also then thanked Lindsey Graham, who never believes women, but because he stood up for Joe Biden. Well, you know, she is thanking him here. You have Richard Comey, who wrote one of the dumbest tweets I have ever read in my entire life saying, judging by the position of the female vagina, it will not be easy for anyone to just put their finger into the vagina unless there is some cooperation from the female herself. Did you catch that? I mean, this is some next level stupidity. Next level stupidity.  You know, then Biden supporters moved on to attacking journalists, which is something that they say you should never do because it's bad when Trump does it.  You have Biden or Buster, Lindsey Lee tweet out, now the Tower Read story has completely imploded. It hasn't. I hope the FBI investigates Nathan J. Robinson, Katie Halper and Ryan Grimm for their role in this fraud. Tara, or whatever your actual name is, you have gravely harmed real Me Too survivors. Chris Jackson tweeted, who thinks Ryan Grimm should release any correspondence he has had with Read considering she telegraphed her hit job to him in a tweet a month ago?  Don't you see that you have already tried and convicted an innocent man over something that, as he put so well, never happened? Can't you see when you're being conned? I don't know where you came from, but the time should get rid of you and allow you to slink back into that hole. So in case you lost track, they first smeared Tau Reed or attempted to. After that, they went after journalists who helped to publicize this story. And then they called on some of them to be fired, called on any journalist who dared to ask for some accountability to be fired, send them nasty letters, and predictably all of this has culminated in Tau Reed receiving threats. And nonstop harassment. The same exact thing happened with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The same people who said that what happened to her was disgusting are now doing the same thing, albeit for a different victim. Zero consistency whatsoever, because they didn't care about the details. They don't care about believing survivors. This is about their team winning, and that's it. That's what this is about. They don't care about ideology. They don't care about policy. These people are not principled. They don't care. That's what's been made incredibly clear over the course of the last week. They're literally doing exactly what defenders of Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh did. They're smearing the victim and attacking journalists. Because how dare anyone believe that a man who literally sniffs women's hair on camera and touches them inappropriately and invades their personal space, openly flirts with women. I mean, how could anyone think that this person would possibly take things a little bit further when the cameras weren't on, considering how far he goes when he knows that they're filming him?  So, I mean, all that stuff about believing women? There's a huge caveat. Only believe women when they accuse Republicans. And the same is probably true for Republicans. I mean, we've seen the hypocrisy. Trump Jr. is tweeting out, you know, stories about Tareed when his father has been accused of sexual assault when he defended Brett Kavanaugh.  It's always, you know, we'll use these allegations if they're politically convenient. And that's the only time we're gonna purport to care. And the person who had, I think, the most profound response to this is Jamie Peck, who, you know, on Majority Report in a recent episode, I think she said everything that we needed to hear right now and what we're all feeling. Take a look. I guess I should back up and say first that I believe her. There was a lot of concurrent reporting, which we're seeing come out.  It's very normal for survivors to change their stories based on cues they're getting about how they're gonna be received if they don't feel safe. Of course they're not gonna tell you the whole thing. I said like six months ago on this show that I wouldn't be surprised if Biden had a Me Too coming. And people thought that sounded a little farfetched, but this stuff exists on a continuum. And seeing the way that he touches women in public, it's not that surprising to me that he'd also do it in a worse way in private. If you listen to him on Morning Joe today, he wouldn't even say that he remembers her, which makes me sick, but is also probably true because like he said, she was nothing to him.  So I believe that he probably doesn't remember it and he's just used to having people cover up for his... I mean, this is like another side point about how maybe people shouldn't be in positions of immense power for that long because it tends to both attract people who like having power over others and also it can corrupt people, right? So going forward, like the Democrats have bet on the fact that nobody's gonna care about this and on a societal level, they're probably right. But we saw this during the Kavanaugh hearing, right?  And at the time, a lot of Democrats were saying the right things. They were right about this. That guy should not be on the Supreme Court.  And I know that I've argued for the Me Too movement in the past because although it itself is not a radical phenomenon that has a limited analysis, but it can point in radical directions, right?  But I think Me Too itself has been largely corrupted and co-opted by the establishment. We see this with Anita Dunn's relationship with Time's Up. This person should not be in charge of this kind of thing. And it's entanglements with the NGO Industrial Complex which basically exists to launder the reputations of wealthy liberals and their children. They do some good work, but it is essentially a bourgeois institution in that it upholds the existing power structures. So maybe we need a different kind of Me Too that has a more radical analysis, a more independent existence independently of these bourgeois institutions. I don't know. It's just, it's really depressing to me and it's depressing to see the Democratic Party going the same route that they went with Bill Clinton, right? Like, we have two alleged rapists running for president and I really think a socialist feminist analysis is the only thing that can explain it right now. That was great. That was great. And I'll link you to the full video because she does say more, so I'll put that in the description box. But what she says here is profound. Look, it is really depressing. Like, I never was under the assumption that Democrats believed in anything, but I at least thought that the Democratic Party's base was a little bit more ideological or principled than, you know, leadership of the party, but they genuinely don't care. And there's something inherently heartbreaking about that, right? This election is full mask off for liberals and centrists. Full mask off. Nobody cares. They don't care. I don't know what else to say. This has revealed that. So it's certainly frustrating. You know, I felt hopeful that survivors of sexual assault were actually going to see a new culture in America because of the Me Too movement and all of the strides that we've made, but as you can see, you can only push so far until, you know, you accuse the wrong person. And then the movement's over. It's just, it's genuinely heartbreaking and there's nothing left to say. Centrists just don't care. You can give them all of the details. You could probably show them a video of Joe Biden committing a crime and they are not going to abandon their support for him. It's like Donald Trump, you know, his supporters will never leave him. And the same is true for Democrats. They're going to support Democrats no matter what because, you know, that cult mentality, that team sport mentality, it's just too strong for us to break through. It doesn't matter how much facts and objectivity, you know, we try to bring to this conversation. They just don't care. They're not like you and I. They have no principles. They have no morals or they do only up to a certain point. Look, love or a hater, you've got to hand it to Joy Reid. She is a very talented propagandist.  She took the Joe Biden Tower Reid story and somehow twisted this into an anti Bernie Sanders story about the notorious Bernie Bros. who have a plot to overthrow Joe Biden and install Bernie Sanders as the Democratic Party's nominee. Yes, she put this out there.  So we're going to get to that. But also I want to talk about how she managed to assassinate the character of Tower Reid or at least attempt to, but I think this will land with her audience, by preying on the conspiratorial instincts of the average MSNBC viewer. And she's trying to smear Tower Reid by using Russian hysteria and McCarthyism. And what she does here should definitely be written about by scholars of media and media bias for decades to come. This clip should be featured in the sequel to manufacturing consent. If there ever is one, take a look. Most weirdly, back in 2018, Reid wrote a series of blog posts extravagantly praising Russian President Vladimir Putin, who intelligence agencies say wage cyber warfare against the United States in order to get Donald Trump elected president. And one such blog post, which she published on Medium and has since been deleted, entitled Why a Liberal Democrat Supports Vladimir Putin, she wrote, quote, President Putin has an alluring combination of strength with gentleness. His sensuous image projects his love for life, the embodiment of grace while facing adversity. Ms. Reid now says that her praise of Putin was misguided. So that is what I like to call a good old fashioned smear. Because the subtext of that clip was that, you know, since she loves Vladimir Putin so much and since Vladimir Putin loves Donald Trump, well, if you connect the dots, maybe, I'm not gonna say, but maybe, Vladimir Putin put Tara Reid up to this. Maybe he convinced her to fabricate these sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden and help Donald Trump win. She didn't say it, but that's what she was priming you to believe. She didn't have to say it to get you to think about that. But I have a counterpoint. Maybe it's the case that not everything is a conspiracy. Maybe Tara Reid just has a bad opinion, a wrong opinion about Russia, Russian politics and Vladimir Putin, but that she also simultaneously was, in fact, sexually assaulted by Joe Biden. I mean, two things can be true at the same time. She could be wrong about Russia, but be telling the truth about Joe Biden. Now, Joy Reid would never point this out because that wouldn't serve her political agenda. But nonetheless, MSNBC viewers aren't going to question this because they trust Joy Reid. They think that what she's doing is, you know, espousing information that they need to know. She thinks that you need to know that these pro Vladimir Putin blog posts by Tara Reid discredit everything that she's saying. And to make matters worse, we bring in the Bernie broke conspiracy theory about how this is all just the plot for us to basically push Joe Biden out and get what we want it all along, Bernie Sanders as the nominee. And she's the only pundit who's brave enough to call this out. Except that's not really what anyone is saying. Do I want Bernie Sanders to be the nominee? Yes. Do I believe if we were successful at getting Joe Biden to step down that all of a sudden the DNC would just bring out Bernie Sanders and be like, all right, kids, you did it. Congratulations. No, that's not what anyone's asking for. Basically what we're calling for is just generalizing here. Joe Biden, step aside. Let the rest of the nominating process play out. Let people vote. We don't have to go with him. He hasn't clenched the nomination officially. He hasn't reached that magic number of 1991. So why can't we just let the remaining people who were in the race unsuspend their campaigns come back and compete for the nomination aggressively?  That's what she wants you to think that we want to do. So she tweeted out, for Sanders diehards, it at least seems to be about letting the media needle Biden into resigning and somehow replacing him on the ticket with Sanders. Although in the unlikely event Biden did that, why wouldn't he just seed his delegates to, say, a woman?  But nonetheless, she continues here. If Sanders was the nominee or was on his way to gaining the nomination, would his supporters be pushing this case or helping misread in the same way? Is she what they care most about? Or is it getting that nomination by any means necessary, having not gotten it via votes? So what we're kind of seeing here is a little bit of projection. Since she is nothing more than a political hack, since she believes in nothing, she assumes that we all don't believe in nothing also, like her, right? Except I do believe in Tareed. I do believe that we should do everything in our power to make women feel comfortable to come out and share their stories, right? Now, certainly, I'll admit that I think that this would be less relevant for sure if Joe Biden wasn't seeking the highest office in the land. But I mean, you could flip this and ask the same question about her advocacy for Christine Blasey Ford. Did you only care about her because Brett Kavanaugh was needing to be stopped? Or would you care if he wasn't going to be on the Supreme Court? I mean, you can ask the same questions about everything you and your colleagues were saying about Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. You can care about the woman in this story, but also acknowledge that it is especially relevant if they are seeking a position of power where they will be dictating policy ultimately that is going to impact women, every woman in the country. Don't you think that that is more relevant? I think she knows she's just, you know, being intentionally obtuse here, but there's more. She tweeted out, and has any journalist who's been covering Biden for a long time or anyone from the 08 campaign done any writing on why these complaints, if they were written and to supervisors, didn't come up in the Obama vetting process or during the general, or did they? I genuinely don't know. Maybe it's because Obama isn't infallible.  If you think murder is bad, killing innocent civilians in, you know, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, if you think that's bad, then Obama isn't a God. Maybe we shouldn't just think any and everything that he does is good. Or, you know, maybe they would have, you know, not selected Biden if they knew about this, but they didn't. Maybe they just messed up. Or maybe Tareed didn't want to share her allegation. The point is that what you're using here is a tactic straight from the Republican playbook. Remember what they were saying about Dr. Christine Blasey Ford? Well, why is this coming up all of a sudden? Now that he is nominated to be on the Supreme Court, why didn't she bring this up sooner? It's the same question that we were asking, that Republicans were asking back then, and now Democrats are asking this, albeit about Tareed. It's political hackery that is so, so transparent that it's embarrassing. You'd think they'd be embarrassed anyways, but they're not. They're not. And she said more about this on her program. And it's just, you know, honestly, you would think that there would be some mechanism in Joy Reid's brain that would trigger some level of shame, right? That would make her think, maybe this makes me look like a hack. I probably shouldn't talk about this too much because it's embarrassing. It's not a good look. And this comes after she lied about time-traveling hackers writing homophobic blog posts for her. But I mean, nonetheless, she talks about how this is definitely a plot from the Bernie rose to install Bernie and rig the nomination. We also have to talk about the timing of all of this. Ms. Reid made her allegations public in late March when the primary was down to just Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. And days before Sanders announced he was suspending his campaign. Some Biden supporters have questioned Ms. Reid's motives because of that timing. Ms. Reid voted for Sanders in the California primary. And that of course doesn't mean that she's not believable. But some Sanders supporters have used the allegations to call for Biden to be replaced on the Democratic ticket because of these claims with the implication that Sanders should replace him. Okay, so this is why her conspiracy theory doesn't make sense. If Tar Reid decided hypothetically to fabricate these allegations, why would she choose to time it after Joe Biden had already basically locked up the nomination? Wouldn't you, if you're trying to have the biggest impact, target that time after Bernie Sanders won Nevada and before Joe Biden won South Carolina because it seemed like he had momentum as we inched closer towards South Carolina. He picked up Jim Clyburn's endorsement. So wouldn't she choose to then drop these allegations if targeting Joe Biden and hurting Joe Biden was her only goal if she wanted to help Bernie Sanders? I mean, you'd think, right? But instead she chose to come out with these allegations when Bernie was already losing. If anything, you can argue maybe she didn't want to hurt Joe Biden, which is why she came out with this after he already had the nomination basically locked up, after he sweeped on Super Tuesdays two and three. But Joy Reid is just trying to get the audience to think, you know, maybe this is a made up allegation. Maybe she isn't doing this because she actually was assaulted by Joe Biden. I couldn't believe that someone who sniffs women's hair on television would ever do this. But I mean, maybe she just wanted to hurt Joe Biden and maybe this is a plot to have Bernie Sanders installed. And there's a little bit more on this that I want to talk about. Take a look. A couple of the challenges that I think people are having with the whole way this is playing out is that on the one hand, there's concern for Tara Reid for her to have closure, you know, her accusations to be looked into properly. And then there's the sense that the people who are pushing this the hardest don't primarily care about her. There is this subtext of this being some kind of an opportunity to maybe ultimately get for Senator Sanders a nomination that he didn't win the old fashioned way, right? So you had Claire Sandberg, who is Senator Sanders 2020 National Organizing Director, tweet, now is the time to deal with the ramifications of Tara Reid's accusations. Sorry, this is not cut nine for my producers. Not this fall. There is simply no moral justification for Biden to continue as the presumptive nominee out of respect for survivors and for the good of the country. He should withdraw from the race. That kind of thing is what's unnerving. I think a lot of people about how this is going. So this is just more projection from Joy Reid because she's a hack. She thinks everyone is as equally hacky as she is. But believe it or not, we do believe in the Me Too movement. We believe in these types of political causes, right? Not everyone is always acting for purposes of political gain. Believe it or not. But she's a pundit. She only thinks about these things in terms of what the payoff will be and whether or not she's going to take a stand will hinge on if there will be a political payoff of some sort. Now she also shared Claire Sandberg's tweet to supposedly, you know, prove that this is all nothing more than a plot to bring back Bernie Sanders. But in that tweet, Claire Sandberg didn't even mention Bernie Sanders. And she's basically making a strawman that we want to just Me Too Biden out of the race so Bernie can win rather than having him win the old-fashioned way. That's what she said. Yes, because let's pretend that MSNBC cares about winning the old-fashioned way after when Bernie Sanders was leading when it looked like he was going to get a plurality, your colleagues were defending the prospect of super-delegate stealing the nomination away from Bernie Sanders in order to give it to someone like Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden. So don't pretend like you're principled and you care about winning votes because you were one of the loudest cheerleaders defending the DNC's rigging of the 2016 primary. You insufferable hack.  But look, let me just put it all out there. So she can hear it from one of the highest-ranking members, I think, of the brotherhood of the Bernard. Would I like for Bernie Sanders to be the nominee? Yes, I think that that is obvious. But what do I want to come of all of this? I want Joe Biden to step down and I want the rest of the states to vote, right? Maybe he doesn't even step down. Maybe voters just have this information and everyone else unsuspends their campaigns and if he wins, he wins. I just want there to feel like there's some ramifications for this. Some accountability, any accountability is really what I'm looking for. But should Joe Biden be replaced by Bernie Sanders? Sure, if he can win. If you don't want Joe Biden to be replaced by Bernie Sanders, then you're admitting that you don't care about this rape allegation. It's not even about Bernie Sanders. Substitute Bernie Sanders for anyone else. Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren. I would prefer Bernie Sanders, but the principle is we shouldn't have a rapist, an alleged rapist be the nominee. And maybe my opinion is invalid here because I actually do believe Tareed because I don't think it's surprising that someone who sniffs women's hair and had other women come forward and say that he made them feel uncomfortable. I don't think that this is too unbelievable here, but the point is we can do better than Joe Biden. And it doesn't matter if you think, oh, this is a plot to bring back Bernie Sanders. We're saying let the competition play out. It's halfway over. Primaries were postponed because of COVID-19. Just bring all the candidates back. Let's have a vote. We don't have to go forward with the rapist. This doesn't have to be about Bernie Sanders. If the competition were to happen again, if everyone unsuspended their campaigns in a perfect world, I would absolutely aggressively and relentlessly advocate for Bernie Sanders, but I'm not delusional enough to think that he would be guaranteed a victory. I'm not delusional enough to think that the DNC or Democratic Party leaders would install Bernie Sanders. If anything, what would happen is Joe Biden would probably step down and Obama behind the scenes, as he usually does, would get everyone to coalesce around some other Democrat, not named Bernie Sanders. Anyone but Bernie Sanders. The point is, why are you just okay with a rapist, an alleged rapist being the nominee? I mean, it's just you have to have some standards. And I get that you don't like purity tests, but how could you not be just disgusted by the fact that your choice will be between the lesser of two rapists? Like, how does that not just make you feel queasy about the state of American politics thinking about that? Well, it doesn't matter, because Joy Reid is doing exactly as she's paid to do. Toe the party line. And the DNC has already made it very clear they're not going to look into Joe Biden. They believe Joe Biden. Tom Perez is, you know, a team player. He came from the Obama Biden administration. So chances are nothing will come of this, but, you know, at least centrists, they went full mask off and they showed their true colors if you didn't already see them for what they were before all of this. But it truly is disgusting, but I will hand it to Joy Reid. That is a really, really, I think, effective propaganda. I think the only person who is even close to her in terms of pushing propaganda when she's at her best is Tucker Carlson. But this is truly just, I mean, this stuff, I think it works, right?  I mean, just by tweeting about Tower Reid, I'm reminded what it's like to be called a Russian stooge or asset or tool because I was called a Russian tool. Everyone is a Russian working for Vladimir Putin or a Russian bot if they don't, you know, denounce Tower Reid immediately and believe that Joe Biden is innocent and the man who sniffs women's hair is, you know, not even remotely capable of doing something like this. I mean, we live in idiocracy, the movie. The fact that people believe effective propagandists like, you know, Joy Reid, it doesn't matter how effective and persuasive you are, people should have common sense and know better, right? But the fact that they're not shows that we're really worse off than I think we even thought we were in America because centrists, they may be too far gone.  So as time goes on, as the lockdown continues, we're seeing more and more of these anti-quarantine protests pop up and they are emerging in various states almost every single week in California, Michigan, and even in my home state of Oregon over the weekend, we saw a reopen Oregon rally take place after Governor Kate Brown announced that the lockdown was extended until July 6th. And some of the images that I saw from this rally, it killed my soul because this is all, you know, a contingent of the population that is, for lack of a better word, batshit crazy.  These are largely, you know, a pro-Trump megachuds doing this. And, you know, I'm sympathetic to the economic issues that are going to pop up with these types of extended lockdowns. And, you know, largely, we have to blame government because if they actually address the economic concerns of people who can't go to work adequately, there would be less rebellion. There would be less need to, you know, have this urgent reopening of the economy in whatever capacity that may be. But I want to highlight a couple of these anti-quarantine protests that kind of went off the rails. There was one in California where they, a crowd of people, largely, I'm assuming, pro-Trump individuals based on, you know, what they were wearing, were screaming in the faces of police officers. And if you can, try to pay attention to some of the signs that they brought to this rally. So, almost no one was wearing a mask. As you can see, obviously, they weren't standing six feet apart. And in case you missed it, that first sign at the beginning said, vaccines known to cause seizures.  But these dipshits don't realize that they're making it worse. If we don't hunker down longer, then there will be more cases of COVID-19, which will lead to, you know, a need for longer lockdowns.  And guess what happened immediately?  We're going to open up the state again.  If you truly want the lockdown to be over, this is not helping. This is making it worse. Now, again, 100% sympathetic to the economic concerns, use that energy to call up your representative. Use that energy to demand universal basic income, rent cancellation, because that's the true solution, not for you to go back to work and risk your life for capitalism. The solution is an economic fix so we can withstand a prolonged lockdown, but that's not happening. So yes, government has failed, but this also isn't helping. This also isn't helping.   Take a look. God hates dipshits.           Thank you.   God hates dipshits.   Can you explain me a little more that way? Yeah. I love it.   They are not. They are. Yeah. I expect to know these people. I believe in science. I do believe in science. You're so foolish. I do believe in science. You're so foolish. Okay. Yep. Science is wrong. Yep.  No, science is wrong.  Science is right. Have you looked at the models Yep. I have looked at the models. And what do they look like? Bad. They go from 2.5 million dead to under 50,000.    Oh, it's just the flu. I know. It's just the flu. It's a virus.    Yes, post me.  God hates Trump. God hates dipshits.  Thank you.   Selfish prick.  Yeah, look at your cheap Walmart shoes. Yeah. These are actually Reeboks. Crossfit. They're pretty expensive. Yeah, get a real job.  Get an essential job.  Get an essential job. Your mom's giving blowcaps.  Your mom's giving blowcaps. Oh, good one.      Oh, the wreck, yeah.       Nice daddy issues.    Get an essential job. Get an essential job. Get an essential job. Get an essential job. Go to work. God hates dipshits. God hates dipshits.   Swearing around little kids like that? You're putting your kids at risk from a virus that is very deadly.   I'm sorry I fell. I'm not under 30.   Please stay six feet away, sir.       I can't wait to be on Breitbart. Shut down all the hospitals and no one's getting care right now. Oh, okay. No one's getting care.   Keep filming.   There you go. Yes, thank you.      Nice. Good one.         I'm trying to stay six feet away if you don't mind. This is what liberalism is. What am I doing? Progesting you dipshit.       I love that. And I salute you for your service, Patriot. That was great. And I can't help but think that that was, you know, Matt Christman from Chapa Trap House because the guy sounded exactly like Matt Christman. But I mean, that was really, really great because these people are endangering their lives. And what's astonishing to me is that they're more concerned with the language that he was using in front of children than the fact that they brought their children to this rally and potentially expose them to a deadly virus that's highly, highly contagious.  All out of whack. Like it reminds me of when I worked at Blockbuster, not to go off on a tangent, but I worked at Blockbuster.  And my response was, and I don't remember the movie. No, it doesn't have a lot of sex scenes, but there's like a really graphic scene where somebody's head was chopped off. And the response was, oh, I don't care about that. As long as there's no sex. Okay.  But if they see a boob, that is crossing the line. I mean, the logic makes no sense. One is, I think, clearly worse than the other because one is natural. One is not natural.  So I just didn't make sense to me. But nonetheless, you know, this is their priorities. And I just love that.   I mean, this man is so brave, so brave because if I've learned anything over the course of the last few years, it's that right wingers are completely insane and unpredictable and I don't trust them. And yeah, I'm scared of them.   And I'm not going to taunt them. I'm not going to do that, but he did.    So this was really satisfying to watch, but I will say, you know, it's difficult for me to just condemn these individuals even though they are loony, right? The Trump supporters queuing on people, they're insane. However, we have to acknowledge that there are economic concerns that are very legitimate. And I think that, you know, not all of these people are coming out to protest, you know, because they're hurting economically. Some of these people are just conspiratorial dipshits and, you know, they're anti-vaxxers, but putting those people aside, there is a portion of people who want us to get back to business as usual as quickly as possible because they are hurting economically.  They lost their job and as a result lost their healthcare. So I get that sense. I feel the urgency. I know people who have been affected. So, you know, a large portion of this can be blamed on the ineffectual response or lack thereof from government, mostly the federal government because state governments don't have the resources to do what the federal government is able to. So, you know, you've got to blame government, but at the same time, if you're going to voice your concerns, literally putting your life in danger and exposing everyone else and basically prolonging the lockdown because you're facilitating even more spreading of COVID-19, it's not the right way to go about this.  I mean, we're not the only country that has seen these types of anti-quarantine protests. Other countries have had these types of, you know, events pop up, but we're certainly one where it's happening the most frequently. And that's really terrifying. It's scary. So, um, yeah, I really commend the person who trolled them, and I'll just advise them don't do that again because these people are crazy and I don't trust them. I think they would probably, at least some of them will be inclined to assault you, getting your face, coughing your face. I don't trust these people. They're crazy. And I don't trust most people, not just MAGA chuds and, you know, QAnon dipshits, but I mean, yeah, very, very entertaining, albeit I was worried for him. It's day 60 something of the lockdown. Society hasn't necessarily crumbled yet. Stores are still open. Food is still widely available in spite of a couple of shortages that pop up here and there, but for the most part, we can still survive. Nonetheless, Alex Jones of Infowars is already talking about the necessity of maybe possibly resorting to cannibalism in the near future. Take a look. Gay!   I'm just going to be honest. My superpower is being honest. I've extrapolated this out and I won't have to for a few years since I got food and stuff, but I'm literally looking at my neighbors now and going, I'm ready to hang them up and gut them and skin them and chop them up. You know what? I'm ready. My daughters aren't starving to death. I'll eat my neighbors. See, my superpower is being honest.  I will. I'm combat model, optimal self-sufficiency, probably the leader. The point is, is have you thought about that yet? Because I'm somebody that thought I could fix this and I'm starting to think about having to eat my neighbors.   I'll do it. My children aren't going hungry.   Wow. Wow. I don't know what to say about that.  Alex Jones, 2020. Like there's no conclusion other than he wants to eat his neighbor. Like if anyone's going to be better off, it's going to be someone like him with a lot of money. And according to him, he already has food rationed. So I mean he's put food aside. He's going to be okay. But yet his neighbor is looking kind of tasty.   I mean, imagine the look on his neighbor's face. He's watching Alex Jones go on this deranged rant about eating him. I'll eat my neighbors. I mean, I genuinely feel bad for anyone who lives near Alex Jones. Like that's got to be like horrifying.  So you probably hear him yelling. And the fact that now he's talking about like literally eating his neighbors. Look, I expected this to happen, right? But I was thinking, we're going to start talking about cannibalism maybe on year like three or four of the lockdown in the apocalypse, not like two months in when we still can get food, when stores are still open and you could just go to the store and purchase food. You shouldn't go very frequently, but nonetheless, I mean, it's there. If you need it, don't have to eat your neighbors. Now, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about a tweet from Caitlin Bennett, otherwise known as Gun Girl, who shared a picture of herself with Alex Jones and included the hashtag Alex Jones eats ass.  Once you close out this video, check on your right-wing neighbor or friend or family member. They're not doing okay. They're not doing okay. Check on them to make sure that they still have all of their faculties in order and they're not going crazy because you know, if you thought that the far right was crazy, this lockdown is showing that there is no, you know, there's no level that they won't stoop to. There's no level of crazy that they're not willing to go to. They are absolutely insane. So much so that I think that the movie Idiocracy, like sometimes I'll jokingly say that we're living in that movie and that it wasn't supposed to be a documentary. I think that some right-wingers like Alex Jones surpassed the level of stupid that we saw in the movie Idiocracy. That's how bad I think it's gotten. I mean, when you have people like the President of the United States literally asking whether or not injecting disinfectants into our bodies would be a solution that could fight COVID-19. I mean, there's just...  It... I don't know what to say. Certain things leave me speechless, but it doesn't happen very often. But when it does, it's got to be something crazy. And this is one of those things. But at the back of my mind, I will admit I think that I believe Alex Jones' attorneys when he says that he was an actor, basically an entertainer, because I mean, is he genuine about this? Do I think that he actually wants to eat his neighbor? I don't believe so. I think that he knows what he's doing.  The only reason why he has a show is to huck his, you know, dumbass... I don't know. What is he even still selling? Brain pills, just weird vitality stuff. Like, the man is a fraud. He's just trying to make money and being over the top and entertaining is part of his shtick. So in a way, you know, I'm part of the problem by participating in this and shedding light on his stupidity. But when you see something like this, I mean, how do you not respond? I... I cannot talk about this.  I mean, I just can't remain silent as this happens, so hopefully you'll forgive me. I will try to do better and talk about things that actually matter in the future, because Alex Jones is not someone who needs any more attention. I don't know who needs to hear this right now, but George W. Bush is a war criminal. He is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not more than a million Iraqi citizens. This man tortured people. He should be in prison right now, but he's not.  So for those of you who forgot, this is a bad person. So we recently talked about how the New York State Board of Elections was trying to purge everyone but Joe Biden's name from the ballot in their upcoming primary and how that was being challenged in a court of law by individuals like Andrew Yang and delegates to Andrew Yang. And guess what? I'm sure you already have heard by now, but a judge ruled in Andrew Yang's favor and overturned the decision of the New York State Board of Elections. So in other words, the primaries back on, Andrew Yang single-handedly saved democracy in New York. Credit words do. So as Matt Stevens and Nick Cora Siniti of the New York Times explains, a federal judge on Tuesday ordered election officials in New York State to hold its Democratic primary election in June and reinstate all qualifying candidates on the ballot. The ruling came after the presidential primary was canceled late last month over concerns about the coronavirus. The order filed by Judge Annalisa Torres of the United States District Court came in response to a lawsuit filed last week by the former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. He sought to undo the New York State Board of Elections decision in late April to cancel the June 23rd contest, a move it attributed to health and safety worries and the fact that the results would not change the primaries' outcomes. On Tuesday night, Douglas A. Kellner, chair of the New York Board of Elections, said the board was reviewing the decision and preparing an appeal. And speaking on CNN, Governor Andrew Cuomo said the presidential primary would proceed per the court's ruling, at least for the time being, but he noted the potential for an appeal. Okay, so let me just say that this doesn't just put Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang's names back on the ballot. This puts all of the presidential contenders back on the ballot. This isn't just a win for Bernie Sanders supporters. It's a win who is supporting someone other than Joe Biden, which is most Democratic Party primary voters, although Andrew Yang is the one who catalyzed this move. And I absolutely applaud him. You've got to give him credit for this. He did this. Bernie Sanders just wrote a strongly worded letter. Andrew Yang took action in the form of filing a lawsuit, and that's what you want to do if you actually want to effect change. So, my hat goes up to Andrew Yang. He made the correct choice to do this, and we all benefit from his courage. I absolutely have to give Andrew Yang credit. And let me just say for Andrew Cuomo, the fact that him and the New York State Board of Elections are saying they're going to appeal this really shows you the contempt that they have for the Democratic Party's base. It shows you they don't care about democracy, right? And it's not like the DNC is the only institution within the broader party apparatus that's corrupt.  They are all working at the behest of the establishment because, you know, they're going to go where the power is flowing, you know, because that's how they are able to have a bigger influence. So if you side with Joe Biden, he's going to pay you back when he's in power, you know, and I don't know what that looks like. Maybe a position within his administration. Maybe he favors your state in some way. I don't know what that looks like, but I know that power is always what people are going to gravitate to at least if you're corrupt and career minded. Now, Andrew Yang responded with a statement via Twitter saying, quote, I hope that a federal judge agreed that depriving millions of New Yorkers of the right to vote was wrong. I hope that the New York Board of Elections takes from this ruling a newfound appreciation of their role in safeguarding our democracy. And I couldn't agree more. And look, let me just say this. The fact that we even have to challenge the Democratic Party in the court of law in and of itself is just it shouldn't happen. They're the party that frequently speaks out about the tactics and disenfranchisement that happens to their base when the Republicans do it. But here they are doing it to their own base, but not necessarily, you know, the base who they want. The people who aren't going to fall in line. They just kind of want them brushed aside. And even if Joe Biden is a huge favorite to still win the Democratic primary, they still couldn't help themselves. They had to deprive voters of the choice because, you know, it's that's what they do. There's really no rhyme or reason to it.  But when the left fights back, sometimes you can win. Sometimes you can win. It's just a matter of playing hardball and acknowledging that you can't lie down and take it. And I want this to be a lesson for leftists going forward, right? I thought that Bernie Sanders, you know, speaking out against this was important, but he just sent a letter about what they did. He should have been one of the first people to file a lawsuit. And I'm not trying to dog on Bernie Sanders.  It just shows you that one of the main things he could have done to possibly win was be stronger. Actually take on the establishment. And if you want to win, that's what you have to do. It's not an option. You have to do it. And Andrew Yang is clearly playing to win. He put out a tweet saying that he absolutely is taking note of the people who aren't supporting direct cash payments during this pandemic. And rightfully so. I mean, he's the UBI guy. But now is a time where even if you didn't support universal basic income, generally speaking, you should at least support it throughout the duration of this primary. And if you're in the Democratic Party, I mean, it shouldn't even be debatable. So, you know, I applaud Andrew Yang. This was a courageous move and it paid off. And let me just say this. One thing that was risky, like Andrew Yang most likely will be running for president again in 2024, assuming Joe Biden isn't able to beat Trump or assuming he wins and then steps down or something. But he's going to be back. That's the point, right? He's running for president again. And if you want to run for president and you want to be successful in the Democratic Party, one thing that has been abundantly clear is that you have to find a way to win over the establishment and never question them. That's what we saw in Elizabeth Warren. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to win. It just means that you'll receive less pushback from the establishment.  And as a result, Democratic Party officials weren't freaking out about her. And they were freaking out about Bernie Sanders. So, I mean, these are the people theoretically you'd want to win over if you're going to run for president again. But the fact that Andrew Yang is still challenging them, it shows that you know, he has a good strategy. He knows you have to take on the establishment head on. Otherwise, they're going to steamroll you. Never ever just, you know, acquiesce. Never just let them get a victory over on you. Always fight even if it seems like it's a lost cause. Fight, fight, fight. Never stop fighting. That should be the mentality that we have going forward as a left collectively. Otherwise, we're never going to win. So, just keep that in mind. Whenever you think that fighting might not be the good option against the Democratic Party establishment or any institution in the United States, fight that instinct. Fight the system. You have to. Otherwise, you will lose every single time. Joe Biden's campaign put out a new promo and I don't know why they did this. There's no reason for this.  I don't think that I've ever seen anything this cringe-worthy. Like, if you thought I'm just chilling at Cedar Rapids or Pokemon Go to the polls was bad, take a look at this gem that Joe Biden's team thought that they should curse us with. No, I don't. Do you have any knives? Yeah. I always start with dessert. Is the name Maurice funnier than Martin? I like Maurice. One R. Yeah, don't try too hard. We're going on a speech that I'm going to need you to deliver. We've tried to find a place for the word loquacious. 41 down. Comedy duo Key and Blank. How many E's in peel? Three. Three E's in peel. Three. That's 13. We're going into 20. Keegan, I do everything 40-60s days. That's 20. 230, Keegan, 30. 10 more. 30. Pretty good, man. Pretty good. I'm still working on my sunglasses. Joe, I got to get going. Where are you going? You're quarantined. You can't go anywhere. We're in quarantine. Keegan, do you have any threes? I do, Joe. Yes, I do. What was the point of that? What was the point of that video? There was no purpose whatsoever. And when you look at the like to dislike ratio, you'll see that people were a little bit turned off by it because it's patronizing. This is pandering. I don't care about celebrities that support your campaign. I don't. If you get a celebrity endorsement and, you know, I'm supporting you, cool. But at the end of the day, give us policies. That's it. You don't have to pander. You don't have to seem cool.  Just give us policies. It could be the most boring, plain video imaginable.  That is better than this. This is irritating. I'm not seeing this. It makes me dislike you and Keegan-Michael Key. Yeah, Keegan-Michael Key, is that his name?  It's brainless. There wasn't much planning involved. And I feel like maybe I'm being a little bit petty here. But when I saw this, like, it just made me hate politics even more than I already do. And I talk about politics for a living, right? So I should love all of this. I should eat this up.  And like, going to some of the lines, they don't even make sense. This is what Keegan-Michael Key said. Is the name Maurice funnier than Martin? What does that even mean? I don't know what that means. Neither of them are funny names. They're just names. What does that mean? What are you implying? There's no point. They didn't even think this through. Like, I feel like they were just kind of going off script or just decided to turn on the camera and whatever happened happened. They didn't, you know, watch it back and edit it. It was just stupidity. You had Joe Biden say, I'm working on a speech that I need you to deliver. Okay? I mean, what is the point? See, this irritates me because there's so many issues that he could be talking about. And I'm not saying that he needs to, you know, release an ad talking about Medicare for All because I'm not delusional enough to think that he would ever adopt any of the policies that the Left wants him to adopt. But let's say that he tailored a policy-specific video to, you know, the crowd of people who he wants to appeal to, center and center-right. Let's say, you know, he just put out an ad saying that he's more competent when it comes to COVID-19 than Trump. Hell, he could put out an ad just saying, vote for me if you want me to name the next replacement on the Supreme Court. And that would be a thousand times more effective than this. And I'm not saying that he doesn't put out those types of more policy-specific ads, but he thinks that these types of ads, these types of videos that he puts out, are going to help cultivate, you know, more of a personality around him that he's not just this doddering fool who is an alleged rapist. He actually, you know, he has friends in the comedy world and he's funny.  But it's not going to help him with any of that. Like, what are they thinking? And because I am a prick, I'm going to read a couple of comments from the Joe Biden subreddit, because I can't believe these are real. Like, the top comment says Joe Mentum. That's it. The next comment says, oh man, that was a pretty funny video. It deserves more likes. I made sure to like it. And then somebody replied to that saying, I do everything in 46 these days, had me laughing out loud. Really? It had you laughing out loud? Seriously? I just don't understand liberals. I don't understand them. I don't get them. They speak a language that I do not understand at all. I mean, think about this. Do you ever see the Republican Party putting out ads very frequently like this?  Like, they're putting out hard-hitting ads. Trump's team released an ad hitting Nancy Pelosi for being out of touch and talking about all the expensive ice cream that she eats with her multi-thousand dollar refrigerators, you know, that are fully stocked. I mean, they're putting out ads and they're telling us that they want to win an election. Their ghouls, they're disgusting. They are morally reprehensible. Their ideology is antiquated and hypothetical to what human beings should stand for. Like, we should stand for each other and, you know, helping one another, lifting each other up.  But one thing that I'm sure about with the Republican Party is that they want to win this election.  And, you know, it's not like Joe Biden is the only one who does this. We saw it in 2016 with Hillary Clinton when she was doing all of these pseudo campaign rallies, if you can even call them that, where she just brought on, you know, Jay-Z and Beyoncé or Katy Perry or Lena Dunham to sing or speak or whatever they do. It's just, this is not going to help you win elections. You have a large swath of voters in your base who care about policy, who care about winning. And even if you just ran a single this entire election cycle saying vote for me and I will replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That alone will be so much more persuasive than whatever that was. It was cringe worthy, it was awful and I wish I could unsee it and I'm sure that you wish you could unsee it, but I'm sorry if I saw that you're going to suffer with me viewer. I'm sorry, but that's the way it's got to be. That was awful. So I want to talk about some people, a select portion of the Democratic Party's base who think that they're doing something to help out the left, but in actuality they're not really helping out the left. There's a number of people who are aggressively lobbying Joe Biden to choose Elizabeth Warren as his running mate because in their view that would be a concession to the left. And let me just put all doubts aside Elizabeth Warren is no concession to the left at all. In fact, if Joe Biden shows her as his running mate I can't speak for everyone, but for me that would mean nothing to the left because she's proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. She stands for absolutely nothing. So I'm not delusional enough to believe that she would try to nudge Joe Biden in the right direction. No, she would just go along with whatever he wanted because Elizabeth Warren is a team player, party above people. She's proven that time and again, and if you haven't learned that about her nature by now then I don't know what to tell you. She's too far gone. She's irredeemable and in 2024 I think that the left should if there's someone available, attempt to primary her. It most likely won't be successful but it still is something that we should try to do because I think we deserve better. We deserve to have someone that represents the left unequivocally not conditionally based on whether or not it's convenient, right? So one of the people who has been pushing for Elizabeth Warren to be VP is the insufferable Mehdi Hassan who penned an open letter to Joe Biden saying that he should definitely pick her as a running mate because that would appease the left and he also tweeted this all the polling makes it pretty clear if Joe Biden is genuine about reaching out to the left to progressives and to, yes Bernie Sanders voters, he should make Elizabeth Warren his running mate. If he doesn't, we know he's not serious. Now, apparently he needs some type of sign that will tell us whether or not Joe Biden is serious or not. He's not serious. But I mean I don't understand this. What do you expect Elizabeth Warren to do in terms of like helping the left? Nothing. Nothing. And this is one thing that's really bothering me. If you're going to vote for Joe Biden strategically in a swing state because you desperately want to oust Donald Trump, I can rationalize your choice to vote strategically. But don't lie about what we're going to get because the left isn't going to get a victory with Joe Biden. The one benefit is if we defeat Donald Trump Donald Trump is defeated and in turn Joe Biden will most likely be the one who replaces Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But that's it. I mean any other benefit like not going to war with Iran while we just wait four to eight years until a more competent Republican comes along and actually does what Trump wants to do. Undoing all of Trump's discussing executive orders. That'd be great temporarily, but we just know that the next Republican is going to come along and undo all the progress that you've made. And then the next Democrat after that subsequently won't undo the harm caused by the Republican party. For example, Donald Trump moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And Joe Biden says I don't agree with this, although I wouldn't move it back.  We keep lurching further and further to the right and until we get a true revolutionary who's going to undo some of the institutional mechanisms in some way that is leading us to our ruin, both economically and when it comes to the environment, then we're not going to get real change. So we have to be real about ourselves. If you're voting for Joe Biden I respect that. If you want to defeat Donald Trump, that's that's fine. I want Donald Trump to be gone because I don't want another four years of Donald Trump but I'm not under this delusional idea in my mind that we're going to be able to put pressure on him. Of course that's not going to happen. He's not going to listen to us when he's in office because if he was going to listen to us, don't you think he'd be listening to us right now when he needs our votes? So just keep that in mind. Like we have to be realistic and temper our expectations. Defeating Trump is important but let's not delude ourselves into thinking that we'll have any sway over Joe Biden whatsoever because he's not going to listen to the left. He's going to listen to his donors in the same way that Obama and Clinton and any other corporate democrat listens to their donors right? And that's that. And you know as Matt Leck put it, if Warren is the pick it'll be for services rendered not because it's a real concession to the left. Exactly. It's not a real concession to the left and I don't think that Joe Biden would pick Elizabeth Warren. I just don't. Wall Street doesn't want him to pick Elizabeth Warren and he'll likely listen to Wall Street. Now I'd be happy to be proven wrong but it doesn't matter like even Wall Street doesn't like someone as you know a milk toast as Elizabeth Warren because you know they know that she'll scold them during a public hearing at best, at maximum that's as far as she'll go but they don't even want that. They want a corporate democrat like Gretchen Whitmer you know so that's who I'm sure he'll gravitate towards if not her then that type of democrat but the problem with this line of thinking that Elizabeth Warren should be the VP is that people are outraged that others don't think the same way. So for example there's an article that came out about how Bernie Sanders isn't necessarily advising Joe Biden about who should be his running mate. He's kind of just ignoring that discussion all together and people are not happy with him because of this. So as tell Axel Rod of the Hill reports Senator Bernie Sanders has thus far not encouraged former Vice President Joe Biden's team to consider Senator Elizabeth Warren as his running mate despite his long-standing ideological alliance with the Massachusetts senator. There is no ideological alliance by the way. Three people familiar with Sanders conversations with Biden whom the Vermont lawmaker has endorsed told the Washington Post that Sanders has declined to back some liberals efforts to convince the former Vice President to select Warren as his number two. A top spokesperson for the Sanders campaign told the Hill that the senator and his team are not advising the Biden campaign's vice presidential selection process in any way shape or form. So basically people are viewing this as Bernie Sanders snubbing Elizabeth Warren because he's not actively campaigning for her to be Joe Biden's running mate and as the Washington Post's Matt Visor put it, Bernie Sanders the liberal figure, best position to push for concessions from Biden so far has declined to support Elizabeth Warren as VP despite their ideological alliance according to three people familiar with his conversations with Biden.  If there was an ideological alliance maybe Elizabeth Warren wouldn't have tried to sink him before Iowa maybe she would have endorsed him on Super Tuesday. Now I'm not saying that if she had endorsed him then that would have led to him being successful but at least it would have showed that she's principled for once in her life. But there is no ideological alliance. Elizabeth Warren is a reformer. She wants to make tweaks around the edges whereas Bernie Sanders is more of a revolutionary. He wants to change the system fundamentally from top to bottom and while I don't agree with him on everything I just acknowledge that there is a real substantive difference between him and Elizabeth Warren I mean Elizabeth Warren didn't even get elected and she already backtracked on Medicare for all. She acquiesced and supported a public option. That's unacceptable. So you're not a revolutionary you're not an ideological ally to us if you're caving before you even get into the White House No. So it just it irritates me that people are trying to I don't know create some type of momentum for Elizabeth Warren as if that make a difference it doesn't make a difference. Look I don't care who Joe Biden picks as his running mate I genuinely don't unless it's someone like Nina Turner or Bernie Sanders like an actual Sanders ally and I know that that's not going to happen but the reason why I don't care is because I don't necessarily think they're going to have an influence on him. Joe Biden's running mate matters in so far as that will likely be the next liberal that we're going to have to deal with in 4 to 8 years someone who we will inevitably have to fight wherever he picks it's probably going to be someone who's shitty and it just it doesn't matter to me right so let's not pretend like there's anything we can do if you consider yourself to be left leaning to influence Joe Biden again I want Donald Trump to lose. I'm not going to vote for Joe Biden but just make the argument that is the relevant argument the only benefit to Joe Biden assuming power and ousting Trump at least temporarily is to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg like in terms of getting any robust agenda passed into law whatever he passes will mostly be done via executive order and undone by the next republican administration so I mean like we have to be realistic because if we lie to people if we gaslight people and you know we give them a skewed perception of the power that they actually have they're not going to use it properly like people need to know what they have what tools they can use at their disposal to actually effect change and getting Joe Biden to bend to the will of the left that's just not going to happen like he'd do it hell you'd already offer you concessions when he needs your vote but if you think he's going to be more inclined to listen to you when he's in power when he doesn't need your vote I mean that's just naivete and I get that people want something to hang on to because the future looks really bleak right now but we've got to be honest with ourselves if we truly want to change the country and trying to you know place our hope in a Joe Biden administration I think is misguided if he wins and beats Trump then hopefully he can replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg but that's really the best that we can get out of Joe Biden's administration that's it period so you know this idea that Elizabeth Warren as VP would somehow fundamentally change what Joe Biden would bring us politically it's delusional and it's not going to happen so if you are one of the individuals pushing for Elizabeth Warren to be VP fine whatever like that's fine but don't try to you know basically scold others as Matt Pfizer to Bernie Sanders and get them to agree with your delusional idea that that's going to make a difference Elizabeth Warren as VP will absolutely do nothing for the left because she is not operating on behalf of the left she's loyal to party leadership and she's proven that time and again I don't know what else she needs to do does she need to put it in writing for you that she's not fighting for you she doesn't care about the left like what more do you want from her actions matter and her actions throughout the course of not just the 2020 primary but the 2016 primary show you beyond a shadow of a doubt that she has no spine so it doesn't matter if she's the running mate Joe Biden will still be Joe Biden the pro-corporate neoliberal war monger we've always known him as and Elizabeth Warren as his running mate definitely is not going to change that stop fooling yourselves so I'm going to blow your minds right now because a lot of people don't know that previously I was a Democratic Party loyalist I was one of the Kool-Aid drinkers like in 2014 I was part of that nerdy draft warren campaign and I've said this before but a lot of people don't know that but you know I believed that not everyone I was still critical of the Democratic Party and largely dissatisfied with Obama but I did believe that overall most Democrats wanted to do good and to them it wasn't just necessarily about getting power and protecting the status quo like I thought that people within the Democratic Party like Elizabeth Warren actually wanted to effect change and that's why I wanted her to be president over Hillary Clinton because even when I was a Democratic Party Kool-Aid drinker I at least acknowledged that the party was to right leaning and I thought that people like Elizabeth Warren had the courage to take the party in a new direction but looking at the 2020 Democratic Party primary it's just almost unfathomable how different my perception is now because this election really was mask off for Democrats because they're proving that almost none of them believe in anything I mean you have a couple people who I think are actually left leaning and want to effect change in the country but overall most Democrats are proving that they really don't stand for anything it's party above people they're gonna be with their team it doesn't matter how foolish and hypocritical they look it's the Democratic Party and if you don't love them and worship them then um fuck you I don't know what else to say so let me just use Elizabeth Warren as an example because she was someone who I respected so much so back in 2018 when I was trying to put aside my feelings of disappointment in her after she refused to endorse Bernie Sanders in 2016 you know she said this and when she said this at the time I genuinely was foolish enough to believe her yesterday was an extraordinary day when a woman came forward to make heartfelt claims about something terrible that had happened to her the man in question could stand up as if he is entitled to this position and launch a political attack and simply declare that no it's not true we have to acknowledge what's going on in our country is wrong and it does not represent our values what we should be celebrating is the fact that we are willing to fight back we are willing to raise our voices we are willing to say we will be heard in this country so I loved what she said there you know Brett Kavanaugh seemed entitled to the position I noticed that as well women will be heard in this country of course that's something that is absolutely necessary and she went a little bit further in a tweet saying I still believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford should be impeached so think about how strong her condemnation of Brett Kavanaugh is the allegations brought forward by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford are so serious that she literally believes a sitting supreme court justice should be impeached that is a very strong statement and it's part of the reason why even after I kind of saw Elizabeth Warren didn't have as solid of a spine as I had previously thought she still is willing to go a little bit further than other Democrats at least rhetorically but contrast that with what she's saying today when it comes to arguably more serious allegations brought forward against Joe Biden by Tara Reid with even more corroborating support than Dr. Christine Blasey Ford well she's no longer saying that all that sentiment about believing women has gone out the window because as Alexander Bolton of The Hill writes Senator Elizabeth Warren told reporters late Monday that she found presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's denial of sexual assault allegations by a former Senate aide credible and convincing I believe that everyone has a right to tell her a story to be listened to and treated with respect Warren told reporters after she walked into the Capitol late afternoon vote I saw the reports of what Ms. Reid said I saw the interview with Vice President Biden I appreciate that the Vice President took a lot of questions, tough questions and that he answered them directly and respectfully the Progressive Senator also said the Vice President's answers were credible and convincing later asked if she thinks an independent investigation into Reid's claims something a couple other Democratic Senators have endorsed is needed Warren said I think what the Vice President has said is convincing and I support him so do you understand how troubling this is in 2019 she was willing to go further than most Democrats in calling for Brett Kavanaugh to be impeached and now she won't even go as far as other Democrats who have signed on to an independent investigation into Tara Reid's claims which if he's innocent is harmless she stands for absolutely nothing maybe when she was first elected she actually was idealistic she actually did want to make a difference but now it's really clear what Elizabeth Warren is all about Elizabeth Warren she wants power by any means necessary and when asked whether or not she would be Joe Biden's running mate for the first time ever she answered the question directly without meandering and bringing in her family history she just simply said yes we have seen the importance of having a leader that we can count on in a crisis it's not Donald Trump it is Joe Biden if he asked you to be his running mate would you say yes yes she cares about power Elizabeth Warren cares about power she can throw away everything she previously stood for if that's going to get her closer to the power that she so desperately craves you know what they say absolute power corrupts absolutely and you don't necessarily even have to get power to let it corrupt you just being in the vicinity of power that's enough to corrupt you and turn you into the same type of ghoul she used to fight against or at least I think she used to fight against maybe that was all political theater who knows at this point Elizabeth Warren is an absolute clown and nobody should take her seriously nobody should take her seriously after this election cycle and look you don't even have to go back that far you don't have to go back to 2019 there are examples in 2020 of her saying that basically we have no reason not to believe women look at what she said about Mike Bloomberg when she was asked about whether or not you know she believes the women who Mike Bloomberg is refusing to release from non-disclosure agreements this is what she said she was very clear so much Brian do you believe that the former mayor of New York said that to a pregnant employee well pregnant employee sure said that he did why shouldn't I believe her you know I'm just really tired of this world this one is personal for me it really is pregnancy discrimination person who did that look pregnancy discrimination is real and these we have gone on and on and on where people say oh I can't really believe the woman really why not so you say that you believe Joe Biden and you don't believe Tara Reid my question to you now Liz is really why not why can't you believe Tara Reid have you not seen the countless photos and videos of Joe Biden touching women sniffing their hair invading their personal space have you not heard from Lucy Flores as well as the other women who said that he made them feel uncomfortable is it really that difficult to believe Tara Reid I think that I would respect her more if she just said look I believe Tara Reid and I think Joe Biden probably did what what she says he did that's hard for me to say as a very loyal Democrat but I believe women so I believe Tara Reid however I'm still going to support Joe Biden and yes I would still be his VP because it would at least show some level of you know consistency because you're not going to get the VP anyway like you made a fool of yourself in 2016 when Hillary Clinton dragged you along because she made you think you'd get the VP position and you didn't so you're doing that again and you didn't learn so I mean one of two things if not both things are true about Elizabeth Warren either she has the worst political instincts ever or she has no spine I think it's probably both but I mean this is just how could you not see this and let me just say everyone is human nobody is perfectly consistent I try my very best to be consistent in the Humanist Report Catalog you could see some inconsistencies with what I've said now in spite of the fact that I try very hard to be consistent but I'll admit you know we're not perfect beings we're flawed human beings are inherently flawed and often times you know our ideologies and opinions change with life experience so you know maybe that leads to greater inconsistency but this is brazen she's going back on things she said last year how are you not embarrassed how can you with the straight face defend Joe Biden after all of the things you just said all of the powerful statements you said about believing women just recently they have no shame and they think that they can pretend like everything is okay and that voters are going to forget about this but they're not going to forget this is precisely why so many people don't vote they just check out of electoral politics because it's all a fucking show nobody stands for anything nobody means what they say everyone in DC is just jockeying for a better position of power that's it nobody gives a flying fuck about getting any policies implemented that's why so many fucking people check out that's why so many people who I know who were excited to come out and vote have just kind of thrown their hands up and said fuck it what's the point nobody believes in anything now I'm not saying that I'm not saying that I believe that everyone should vote I believe we have to use the tools that we have to make our voices heard loud and clear so we should vote come out and vote but you have to at least understand why people are so demoralized it's because of things like this people who previously used to inspire voters make them think that the system was working because people like Elizabeth Warren could get into the senate now they're leading to it being delegitimized and they're not trying to do anything to redeem it they're not even paying lip service to the fact that we're so disappointed like we're all just supposed to put aside all the negative things that Elizabeth Warren and Beto O'Rourke and Kamala Harris and Corey Booker said about Joe Biden and now we're supposed to believe that they believe that he's the best person ever and they love the fact that he's the nominee you're so fake and I hate this this is why people tune out of politics because of shit like this Elizabeth Warren is no help so I mean I used to think that she was one of the better ones but now she's absolutely part of the problem this brazen lack of consistency and just open hypocrisy I don't know how they're not ashamed to put themselves in the mirrors how does Elizabeth Warren live with herself and she said that Bernie's base was built on a foundation of hate yeah your base is built on a foundation of bullshit and it stinks so bad I could smell it across the country you may be in DC but we know you stand for nothing you're a phony Elizabeth Warren you're a hack, you put party above people and you should really just stop because you're embarrassing yourself hello everyone I am back with Joy Marie, otherwise known as Savage Joy, she's an activist she hosts her own podcast on Real Progressives and she is here to kind of reflect what we all just went through and what we're going through currently Joy, welcome back to the program you're having me these discussions are basically incredibly therapeutic to me and based on what the audience says they always love these because I think that it's okay if we admit that we don't always know the right words to say during tough times we don't always have the answers sometimes we don't have direction but if we just talk I think that that kind of goes a long way and we just need a good conversation right now so I want to just tease a little something Joy has a pretty big announcement about a project that she's working on we're not going to reveal that until the very end so you have to watch the entire video no fast forwarding, okay so watch that and and I'm not Preggers just as a heads up I am not Preggers she may be as pregnant I'm too old, I'll be four be one in two weeks well happy birthday in advance um so I wanted to get your opinion because out of all the people I know who supports Bernie Sanders nobody was more dedicated and invested than you you literally like sacrificed five weeks of your life to go to Iowa and knock on doors for Bernie Sanders and this is tough like you just mentioned before we went on that you got your ballot I know my ballot is sitting in my mailbox I haven't even checked yet because I don't know so let's just check in how are you doing? I'm still you know I would say it's 2016 all over again but it's not it's worse because it's like the second time so there's kind of this PTSD of sorts with this the death of democracy again yeah so I went to Iowa family and I knew one person in the entire state I had never been there and I went for five weeks and you know knocked on hundreds of doors and ice and snow and like negative four degrees and you know just made thousands of phone calls and I and you know I was there caucus night and everything helping and I was so envious of everyone getting to vote caucus but to vote and I was like I can't wait to get back to Pennsylvania and start being active there for our primary and I came back they made me victory captain and so I was going to be training people things like that on how to do phone banking and such unfortunately a connection I have in the campaign let me know the Sunday before that he was going to be dropping and it was devastating because I still had scheduled trainings the next three days and I am extremely dedicated and they were like why can't you do it you know and I was like I'm just not feeling like I can convince people to vote for him right now and stuff like that and you know I still haven't watched the video where Bernie dropped I can I don't want to see it all I know is he dropped that's all I care about I don't need to see him you know because I know it was hard for him I know but as someone who has given you know so much to this campaign emotionally and physically and monetarily and things like that I absolutely feel a sense of betrayal did I expect him to take it to convention again you're damn right I did you know COVID fucked everything I mean let's keep it real and maybe he'd still be in the race if it wasn't for COVID but he dropped too early now all the states are mail in ballot so it's not like that's you know putting people at risk necessarily because we can all vote by mail so he just dropped way too prematurely and and it's hurtful and today I got my ballot which I've been waiting for over a year finally got it and I had like a full on ugly cry when I need to check that box because I'm like here's you know it's all coming to fruition here it is it's a culmination of everything I gave my life for but it's not the same because he's not gonna be president now there's no hope of that it's done he's 78 he's not running again he's gone where the hell do we go from here I don't know you know I'm like a lot of people I don't know I genuinely don't know I feel like a lot of anger I feel in some ways energized but also you know demoralized and I don't know where to take the energy the anger and place it next like all of this can't just dissipate just to go somewhere we have to channel it but right now I don't think anybody really has a clear cut solution because movements you know I don't necessarily think that they hinge entirely on a leader but it really helps to have a leader to have a face I mean part of the reason why I truly believe Occupy wasn't successful is because it was a leaderless movement there was no hierarchy and there are benefits to that but at the same time you know if you don't have someone kind of guiding and steering the movement in a way is difficult to maintain so my number one goal is just to make sure that the whole crew stays together like this energy for Medicare for all and you know all these things that Bernie Sanders brought to the forefront it's not going to just go away so we have to make sure that the team stays together to continue fighting but in terms of how we continue that fight I genuinely don't know and I agree with you I was really really I was saddened when he dropped out he did drop out too early and in a way I don't necessarily know this is just because you know I still feel admittedly emotional because of all of this I kind of resent Bernie in a way like I don't hate Bernie but I feel angry because it feels like we all poured so much into this our hearts and souls time energy resources and I just feel like he didn't fight hard enough and you know I from the beginning have been saying you've got to be tough or you've got to hit Joe Biden and he never did but at the same time I can rationalize his decision to not hit Joe Biden because his strategy was working he was leading in the polls right so it wasn't necessarily something that I thought was sinking his campaign until after Super Tuesday that was a different race and at that point in time Bernie needed to really look in the mirror and ask himself if he truly wants to win and I never thought that he did that he changed nothing and he just ran the same campaign which we all knew wasn't going to be successful so to me I feel hurt because it seems like he just kind of surrendered like he put up the white flag and like I get it right like I can't expect someone who's 78 years old to sacrifice their time and energy if he doesn't really feel like it's going nowhere but at the same time you know I still like we all kind of we put everything into that campaign our hopes and dreams and this isn't like here's the thing and like there's a lot of people who love that the Bernie Bros are all demoralized but this isn't like a sports team losing to us like to me this was so important that I felt like if Bernie wasn't elected humanity doesn't have a chance and what I mean by that is if Bernie got elected he was the only person who I believed would actually fight to get action when it comes to climate change and leave the world and I wasn't even you know under this illusion that he would be successful I just felt like he would give us a chance right he wasn't a savior he's a human being who was very influential but not perfect and now that he's gone I just I don't know what to what to think of this right like who's next what can we do um there and the answer is there's there's no one no one's ready to step up nobody has the credibility or name recognition to step up nobody is as bold as Bernie Sanders and it's not like Bernie was this god who was infallible he was very flawed as a candidate he made a lot of mistakes that I feel frustrated by but in terms of like anyone who's near his level there's no one so I kind of feel like you know we're all just flailing we don't know what to do we don't know where to go we don't know how to make what has been created a sustained movement and it's a little bit disheartening and in a way I feel like maybe after COVID-19 is you know when we could put that behind us maybe things will become a little bit more clear because I kind of feel like myself and others just have tunnel vision we just want to get through this right now um but it's tough and I think that the lack of direction it is it's hard um I wanted to get your opinion on some of the revelations that we have that kind of added to my anger with Bernie Sanders I shouldn't say like I don't know if I'm angry at him I just like I'm giving him the cold shoulder you know if I was speaking to him currently um we learned can I or are separated right now we're not divorced we're separated we need couples therapy like 100% um well we learned about Jeff Weaver starting a super pack and how everyone within the campaign they knew about Jeff Weaver now I was an outsider I didn't know about Jeff Weaver and you know some of the signs that we saw back in 2016 or 2017 with the revolt of the our revolution staffers what do you make of this because to me I thought Bernie knew better than to surround himself with people like Jeff Weaver can you just kind of share your thoughts because this really it pissed me off yeah I mean the thing is you know being so connected to the campaign I will be totally transparent I did know that Weaver, Baz and um Chuck Rocha were very not well liked to put it that way um I and I actually interviewed him um a year ago um or 18 it was um and he's quite charming um he was very nice and personable and um encouraging and and it came across very very genuine um now the thing about Bernie which I've heard from his own family members is he is loyal to a fault your friends with him you're nice to him my friend Joe you know that is Bernie when he puts his hand on Liz Warren's back I want to grab his shoulders and shake him but to him she he's still loyal to her even though she's garbage to him and that's how he was with Jeff Weaver they Jeff has worked for him for 32 years so that at that point it becomes like a family member you know and and you know I mean that's the only uh job Jeff has known has been working for Bernie and I think Bernie had that sense of obligation in a way um but since you know Fazz took Jeff's place a lot of us were like okay good someone who's getting in there and then we started learning how the campaign staff was calling him spaz um as his nickname and uh Chuck Rocha I was told was you know very shady but he seems so nice and intelligent and for the movement and you know the thing is I wanted to say you know a number of things I you know was told by higher ups on the campaign but it would hurt Bernie so you know someone from Wapo sees my show and says race campaign you know manager is like conspiring against him and next thing you know I fucking screw Bernie you know out of votes so I didn't want to go there but I was apprehensive and it was um a frustration by a lot of people on the campaign um yeah so it's difficult I am not surprised in the least that they created this pack nobody is no one that's so interesting and you know like you said he's loyal to a fault and I think that that's admirable but it's not admirable when it reaches a point where it's literally harmful you know it goes back to the Joe Biden is my friend thing you can't say that like this is not a good person this is someone who has voted for a war that has killed hundreds of thousands if not more than a million Iraqis this isn't a good person and that's not to say that Bernie is perfect or would be a perfect president but you know to me it's just a blind spot and I kind of viewed it as naivete on Bernie's part because you can see the good in people I think that that's great you know I love optimism at my core I think I'm a pretty optimistic person but at some point you know that instinct that mechanism that you know tells you kind of be skeptical it's got to kick in and I feel like it never kicked in for Bernie Sanders and we you know we just saw what was it last week he did a live stream with Elizabeth Warren I mean how can you she just right she just said that your campaign was built on a foundation of hate I'm paraphrasing but like attacking all of Bernie Sanders supporters like to me that is unforgivable like you know what this movement is about I don't like I personally Bernie's just I want policies give me policies and I'll shut up and go away give me Medicare for all and the wars these are like very simple things that we want so to say that that's motivated by a foundation of hate he should have called her out publicly for this some things are just beyond the pale and what she did to try to sink him that's not what friends do that's not what friends do you know if you're genuinely a friend like the way that Joe Biden treated him Joe Biden's characters are finding out about the sexual assault allegations at some point you've got to reevaluate who your friends with and realize if they're kind of bringing you down and I just feel like Bernie never did that and I don't want people to think I'm against Bernie and I'm just dogging on Bernie but I do think that if we want to be successful at anything going forward we have to be introspective and we have to ask these tough questions because Bernie is not a cult leader and I think that the mainstream media surprised how you know we are able to criticize him so easily after they called us a cult for two years or four years but I mean I want to be successful and I want the policies that I advocate for to be codified into law one day so we have to kind of look ourselves in the mirror and ask where did we go wrong and this is kind of what I wanted to pick your brain about because I think that there's a lot of things that Bernie could have done better but at the same time I think that there are also things that are kind of outside of our control I don't think there's anything that he could have done to reign in the media bias he could have maybe called it out more I don't know that that would have helped but just within the realm of things that we can control what do you think if you were advising Bernie you would have told him to do and just in your opinion this is loaded you might not have an answer what do you think is the number one thing that led to his demise I kind of have a theory but I want to hear what you have to say so we can compare notes two things I think which led to us losing votes are A Joe Biden's my friend and B yes I believe he can win against Trump never say that about your opponent first of all it's not true he can't win against Trump we all know this Biden's gonna lose if they don't you know if they keep him in there he will lose we will have Trump again that's a fact so the fact that Bernie was like yes I can you know and he kept saying it no Bernie shut up say I believe I'm the only one who can win because then he would say um you know I don't think status quo can win against Trump I don't think big money can win against Trump yeah I believe Joe can beat him no dude he can't so I think you know when people are watching this and they're undecided yeah even Bernie said Joe can beat Trump no he can't so I think he played it way too soft I mean in 2016 we were like go harder on Hillary she's garbage you know but he went harder on her than he did on Joe yeah I mean the one um uh debate when he was like I'm gonna ask you a third time did you say you cut social security I was like yes finally let's go Bernie yes yes yes and then it was one night only he stopped it was like no I finally thought you were gonna like go hard like it was I don't know you know what was said or what was done I don't know all I know is I keep thinking back to um in 2018 when I um interview um Jeff Weaver and he had just come out with this book and he was telling me about how and I do believe him on this I really do um because we had a lengthy discussion about how psychologically and mentally it affected Bernie so much when Trump won because he did partially feel responsible I mean he was in a place nobody else in the world was in and he's in a place he's in that place again he's being held to make all of his bros fall in line we're not going to but he's being held to that expectation um and we cannot truly fathom what that's like for him and that's not to rationalize or make excuses that is just literally um the case he does feel a very big sense of responsibility to get Trump out of office um because he knows he's being blamed for him being in it in the first phase and when countless people say that it kind of fucks with your head and you're like maybe I did kind of help we all knew he didn't um but I get it he has that that sense of responsibility that none of us can comprehend um as far as you know complaining about the media and stuff that to me is kind of hopeless just because when Trump does it people flip out oh like a Nazi you're saying the media is awful and um and Bernie came out with an article that said he thinks the media is one of the reasons he lost and it just was not good um so I think really just the main things were well and also you know he he took on Iowa for the inconsistencies what about Massachusetts what about Texas what about you winning California and not getting delegates for over a month why aren't you saying these things like us as volunteers worked for these votes we worked for these delegates we deserve them so the fact that you're not saying you know as a campaign we have every right to say you know what our exit polls show not only did we win we won by far and now we're coming in like third you know what I mean it just it wasn't making sense um so yes we could have taken taken on um individual states more as well I feel like after Iowa he wouldn't have been unreasonable to request an audit of every single primary after that I mean that's something that was unprecedented I've never seen anything like that and I don't necessarily know that there's anything there with the exit polls I know that they over sample younger people but at the same time when we saw what happened with Iowa like I was already calling for you know some type of international organization to oversee our elections because you like you can't here's the thing regardless of the outcome you can't have people lose faith in the process and one thing that's become abundantly democracy if people don't trust the process because then you know they don't actually feel like their votes mean anything and when people check out of democracy democracy dies and I'm not saying that to be hyperbolic I'm saying like comparatively speaking in these types of countries mostly younger democracies when people check out and stop voting they end up dying or they slide into illiberalism or authoritarianism so I mean the people who claim to care about democracy they're not taking this seriously even just the fact that we have 100 million people that don't vote that is a huge huge red flag it doesn't bode well for you know the long-term strength of our democracy and nobody's taking it seriously so yeah you know one thing to me and I'm not a hundred percent sure that this is like the smoking gun the one thing that led to Bernie losing and I think that he could have made some adjustments afterwards but I think that after South Carolina Obama getting everyone to kind of coalesce around Joe Biden that really did have a substantial effect and I can't remember who conducted the study but they showed like the differences between the left and centrist is that they really respect party figures Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama like these people they say something and it's like gospel whereas the left obviously isn't like that you know we're like fuck the authority so when Obama got everyone to coalesce like when everyone kind of dropped out behind the scenes we all knew it was Obama and endorsed you know Biden that was huge it changed the entire dynamic of the race and I think that largely that is one of the biggest things that led to Bernie's loss I can't say like it's too soon to say that's definitely what did it but it was one of the factors unquestionably yeah if those all those people stayed in vote would have kept being split I mean that is absolutely the number one reason mathematically 100% it's as soon as they dropped out that's when okay you have two candidates that's it you know before you had six well they go different ways well now you have two and unfortunately Biden voters their second choice was Bernie I never believed that until I was at a caucus site in Iowa and Joe Biden was not viable in my location and the majority of them came to me in my section which was insane I'm like they're so different yeah they're both like old white dudes but like they couldn't be more different yeah it was crazy so being given you know people have Obama nostalgia that's what it comes down to they want Obama number three oh we miss him so much oh my god handsome well spoken and they ignore you know all the horrible things he's done and Joe is just kind of like an extension of going back to normal which anyone with a brain knows that for people of color and you know women and LGBTQ like going back to normal is not good so you know it's a lot of it is privilege a lot of it like I don't care about you know policy Joe Biden has no policy what does he stand for I don't fucking know I have no phone bankers what are you going to do call someone and then they're like what do you say about how does he feel about healthcare he doesn't like Medicare for all like what is he support and also how do you phone bank and answer like what about Tara read what about Iraq or like how there's like nobody I want them to call me so bad like so bad I'm like please call me because I would probably make them cry but it would kind of be worth it it would I think we're we're pretty fogged to be honest but not that I support them just doing a switcheroo and putting in like an idiot like Cuomo who hasn't done a single event or gotten a single delegate because that is also the epitome of undemocratic but Joey himself even said the VP I pick needs to be ready to step up immediately why it's like he knows they're going to pull the 25th amendment on him and he's sending out for him things like that it's I think he knows I really do I think he knows like he cannot you know cognitively deal with anything yeah I mean to me my feelings are kind of all over the place on that because it's like to my core I have to be consistent and if Joe Biden got more votes alright you know no matter how he got those votes he gets to be the nominee that's just fair is fair right I mean I was I was very angry when we were talking and there was all this talk of Bernie Sanders having it stolen away from him at the convention with super delegates Liz Warren even said that she would be open to this right so I think that if you get the most votes that's fine that being said I'm not going to shed a tear for Joe Biden if there is a switcheroo that happens at the convention I don't think that will happen I'm not going to shed a tear for him because he was advocating the same thing I mean I keep pointing to an article on my show about how Joe Biden says that if somebody gets a plurality Sanders but not a majority he will aggressively compete for the nomination at the convention which means he was willing to resort to a contested convention so I mean you're the one who asked for this you said that you know contested convention is a okay if it's to stop Bernie so now you reap what you sow you're kind of a horrible candidate you know and there's the tar read allegation sorry I believe her anyone who doesn't is I think fooling themselves and it's just like you said we're fucked I don't think that you can put it more simply and it's it's so so frustrating and it's gotta be like a slap in the face to activists especially yourself how Joe Biden one states he didn't set foot in when Bernie supporters were relentless phone banking every fucking minute that they had to spare and this asshole won by doing nothing by standing for nothing like I'm reminded of this video I think it was after Iowa where some of his volunteers took turns sharing like 50 things that they liked about Joe Biden are 30 things and none of them had policies I saw like two policies maybe and it was like oh he's nice he's committed it's like none of this means anything Joe Biden says there's nothing that we can't accomplish together but then he says we can never have Medicare for all like this man he doesn't stand for anything it's so irritating to me so it feels like you know we're just going to keep doing the same thing like I know Democrats like to pretend Trump is uniquely terrible and sure maybe he is with regard to tone but you know Democrats their reign broke during the Bush years as well and rightfully so that was a much more destructive presidency but Donald Trump like in 10 years they're going to normalize him when we get President Tom Cotton or someone who's even worse and I think that this fear mongering has not been good for the left it hasn't been good for the center because here's the thing like Joe Biden is I think better than Donald Trump albeit marginally but if we are able to defeat Donald Trump all of the bad policies that come along with Trumpism aren't just going to vanish into thin air sure we don't have war with Iran if Joe Biden is president most likely but that doesn't mean it's done forever we postpone it four to eight years until a Republican gets involved maybe the best case scenario you know Joe Biden gets to appoint someone to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg I'm not convinced she stepped down if a Democrat was able to win the presidency so it's like we're we're seeing the line between Democrats and Republicans become blurred and this terror-read situation makes matters worse because the one kind of like pull that Democrats had was that they were just better on social issues women's issues LGBTQ plus issues you know racial justice and now they're proving that they literally stand for absolutely nothing so what are we supposed to do like we don't have real choices in this country and I don't like the talk of just getting a third party like we need fundamental for reform we need five to six parties like we have a lot of ideological diversity in this country even if I'll say voters aren't the most ideological but we need to be able to have like an honest discussion policy wise about what we need to do to fix our country and we're not going to get that with the same two-party duopoly that's been taking place so it you know if for me I'm just kind of like reassessing what is going to work and I think that one of the conclusions that I've come to that electoral politics is kind of a dead end I'm not saying that we check out of electoral politics I think local and state politics is really important electorally speaking and we should absolutely support candidates running for congress but in terms of just like only eyeing the presidency I don't think that that's going to make us successful in the long run I mean it was nice because we're this close we're this close to getting the most powerful office in the land but it didn't work and nobody else is going to be able to fill that void that Bernie Sanders is leaving so I think the biggest question is what's next and there's no answer to that I totally agree and you know not to be a downer to the viewers or anything but this one dude he's the one that planted the seed for everything so no and he is far from a deity and he is far from a god or infallible but the fact of the matter is he did plant the seed that brought things like free college Medicare for all Green New Deal to the main stage nobody this you know election year would be talking about any of that shit had Bernie not run in 2016 he also mobilized over a million volunteers you know the what he has inspired in a movement to at least create that groundwork if we can't do it I don't fucking know who can I don't fucking know unless someone comes out that none of us have ever heard of I don't know who else has a 40 year history of activism I don't know who else has you know been fighting for the people that long I feel like if we can't do it with him on the ballot I just kind of don't have hope in that regard at all it's so hard to have hope right and I mean I kind of like I'll go back and forth like sometimes I'll feel genuinely hopeful and optimistic but then other times I'll feel like that was stupid that optimism was pointless nothing is going to amount to anything but I mean at the end of the day one thing that we have going for us and I use the word going for us you know loosely because it's not a good thing is that all of the material conditions that existed that you know are plaguing the working class they existed before we really knew about Bernie Sanders as a country and they're going to continue to be an issue going forward so so long as these issues are there there is going to be a type of I don't know there's going to be an opportunity and it's just a matter of how a movement or a person seizes on that opportunity and the problem is that it's not necessarily like good actors that can use that opportunity we see you know rising fascism around the world it's not just in the United States what's Donald Trump you know he seized on that he seized on the material conditions in the United States so it's just a matter of like who's going to get to it first and it's a question that I don't know like it's we don't know the end of the story not that this story really has an end but we don't necessarily know what's going to happen is it going to get better or just progressively worse and we become acclimated to the shit situation and I think that all of this uncertainty is what's driving a lot of like the depression and the demoralization because it is tough like you want some sense of what the future is going to be and you can have a loose sense right none of us know what's in store for us things can change on a dime like that but you know if you can kind of anticipate alright well there's a general way that the wind is blowing you know we have Bernie Sanders and you know we're inching towards progressivism you know the younger generation you know anyone who's under 45 basically is very progressive so that's what we have in store for us I think that that's something to hang on to possibly but then I also tell myself conditions can change um you know I don't think it's as easy as some people are saying that we just wait for the boomers to die not that you know we love boomers there's a lot of great boomers on the burning movement but it's not so easy as waiting for the next generation to die off because people's opinions change over time and someone who supports Bernie today 10 years from now could be you know duped by some different ideology you know people aren't as consistent and principled as we as I would have liked to thought to have thought they were and this election is definitely showing that with the Tara Reid stuff I mean I believe Democrats when they came out against Brett Kavanaugh swinging you know with because I believe Christine Bozzie Ford and I thought well you know it's great that we at least have allies in power who are looking out for women at least you know rhetorically at least when it comes to you know these issues and now it's mask off for everyone nobody cares everyone just wants power and I don't know how to process that and I think a lot of people don't know how to process that and I don't know what to do with that information I don't know how to work within the confines of that very disgusting system and I don't know yeah absolutely I think one of the things that I'm looking forward to is you know I protested at Occupy DNC at the convention in 2016 six days marching like eight miles a day and over a hundred degrees I mean it was insane but I couldn't have gone through that week were it not for my brothers and sisters with me so I will be doing that again I already have my place booked in Milwaukee so I'll be flying out from Pennsylvania but it is according to Tom Perez not that I trust him but he said in his squeaky annoying voice that it's still going on and he said that a few days ago so if it's still going on I am there I am in the streets I'll be filming if it does go become virtual and it's canceled I am organizing with one other person a protest in DC at the DNC headquarters either way they're going to fucking hear me either way I will be there and I will have other comrades who ever wants to come they're going to listen period what will it do I don't know but it fucking felt good when I did it before at least selfishly I don't know but at least it felt good it felt like I'm saying fuck you and look at the exit numbers you did this yourself yeah they're hemorrhaging support and that will continue and maybe Joe Biden can squeak by and win but that's not going to change the underlying issues with the Democratic Party and I will say one good thing that we can take away from this election and just Bernie Sanders that phenomenon in general even if it's over I think one of the greatest gifts that he gave us was each other we've made so many great friends throughout this process there's so many people that I know personally like my mom who was awakened politically for the first time and this is so special there's real value in that so it's not like all of this was done for nothing I don't want people to take that away all of the effort that we did make to get Bernie elected we don't know how that's going to pay off but even if in your life you just convinced one extra person that it's huge that is huge because it takes all of us at an individual level to have an effect on the macro level so that's what I will say is there anything before we get to your special announcement that you wanted to talk about because we could basically talk for days and not run out of things to say but is there anything that you kind of had that you wanted to bring up on cam? I don't think so I mean I have a lot of great shows coming up so I don't think so I think we talked on much of it when I post these things about Bernie some people get very defensive and I have to clarify a lot look I love him I will always love him but he's pissing me off like it's that simple and I took the Bernie poster down that I've had every show for three years because I just maybe it will go back up one day I don't know but my audience was kind of upset that I did and I'm like look I'm going through grieving period here when I look at that I see pain right now I don't need to look at it so I think a lot of people are grieving a different way I'm glad I got to vote today but it's still kind of sore but I think we're all dealing with that despair and depression and hopelessness in our own way and I'm just looking forward to being an activist again because you can't be one right now unfortunately like armchair activism is not my thing I want to get back out on the capital steps and stuff like that so the forced agoraphobia I'm looking forward to getting back out there I totally get that and as someone with actual agoraphobia I literally have agoraphobia this is even too much for me I didn't know that I have agoraphobia I've made some progress over the course of the last couple of years but I mean with anything you kind of backslide but this is even a bit much to me because there is a greater sense of being confined and even though that's comforting to me in a way it's still really uneasy because if I want to go get a bean and cheese burrito from Taco Bell I don't want to have to get on the mask, get hand sanitizer it's just a lot it's a lot and that's totally a first world problem I could be way worse off but it is a scary time in general my best friend she has COVID she's a healthcare worker my niece is in healthcare and I'm terribly worried about her so I just want everyone to be able to move past COVID and I think that once we do get past this and we will get past this I think then we can kind of figure out what to do next and I will say to people who are feeling depressed because it's certainly not just us you know there's nothing that we can say that is going to make you feel better but hopefully it's comforting to know that you're not experiencing this alone because there are a lot of people online who need people to talk to who will text with you and call with you and even if that doesn't necessarily seem like it's something you want trust me it does really help just talking to someone about things it's important like see one of the things that irritates me is whenever these types of issues pop up and we discuss mental health nationally as a country so we have to make do with what we what we've got talking to people with the same types of issues who are going through the same thing a lot of us are experiencing this right now it really does help so I will leave people with that we don't want anyone to come away feeling like there's no hope it feels like that now but there have been times where we felt like this before and we felt hopeful again like the world keeps turning the sun will rise again but right now it's all darkness and it sucks it seems like there's no light at the