This is the Humanist Report with Mike Figueredo. The Humanist Report podcast is funded by viewers like you, through Patreon and PayPal. To support the show, visit patreon.com forward slash Humanist Report or become a member at humanistreport.com. Now enjoy the show. Welcome to the Humanist Report podcast. My name is Mike Figueredo, and this is the 187th edition of the program. Today is Friday, April 5th, and before we start the show, I want to take a moment to thank all of our newest Patreon, PayPal, and YouTube members, all of which either signed up just this last week to support us for the very first time, or increased their monthly pledge. And that includes Andrea Witte, Augustina Sotza, Catherine Marie, Christian Lissalle, Christina Hull, Marilyn Chinne, Roberto, and Tawson Ajik too. So thank you so much to all of these kind individuals, and we'd also like to support the show. You can do so by visiting humanistreport.com slash support, or by checking out patreon.com forward slash Humanist Report. So this week on the Humanist Report, we talked about Lucy Flores' allegations that Joe Biden gave for an unwanted kiss and made her feel uncomfortable. Progressives hammer the DCCC for its anti-primary-challenger policy, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sets the record straight about the Green New Deal. And additionally, this week, we revisited the Joe Biden story after his team decided to accuse Bernie Sanders of somehow planting the story about Lucy Flores. We'll also talk about Bernie Sanders' first quarter of fundraising, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's advocacy for Chelsea Manning. Matt Gaetz's bizarre excuse when it comes to why he feels reluctant about supporting the Equality Act. The Washington Post's hit piece on Bernie Sanders, where they deemed him Trump of the left. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being slammed by Fox News over a random tweet she made about croissants. And additionally, we'll talk about Pramila Jayapal's confrontation with the corrupt Nancy Pelosi aide about his collusion with health insurance companies. And finally, we closed out the week by wrapping up our coverage of Joe Biden. So we'll look at his video response and how many women so far have come forward. We'll talk about why the new DCCC head, Sherry Bustos, is officially the Debbie Wasserman Schultz of 2020 and all reflect on the talk I had about responsible platforming with Kyle Kalinsky in a segment about Bernie Sanders agreeing to do a town hall with Fox News. So that's what we've got on the agenda for today. I hope you guys enjoyed the program. So it seems like Joe Biden's long history of inappropriately kissing and touching women has now caught up with him. And I'm honestly surprised that we're all only talking about this now. I think that a lot of people disregarded this story and really his behavior because he kind of chocks it up to look, I'm just an affectionate guy. So you can't fault me for being too touchy feely. This is just the way that people in my generation are. But I think that you've got to understand that every person is different. Some people don't mind being touched. Others do. Others are very adamant that you respect their personal space. I'm one of those people. So when I see these photographs of Joe Biden, I can tell that they are uncomfortable in most instances. Now, this conversation, it all kind of came to a head. And we all really started talking about this because the cut published an explosive piece by Lucy Flores on Friday. Now, Lucy Flores is a former Democratic Party nominee for Lieutenant Governor in the state of Nevada. Now, she wrote an article titled An Awkward Kiss Changed How I Saw Joe Biden. Now, she explains that when Joe Biden came out to give a stump speech for her, when they were both backstage waiting to speak, she writes, I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, I didn't wash my hair today. And the vice president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice president of the United States smelling my hair?  My brain couldn't process what was happening. And I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused. Now, she also explained a little bit more about how she was feeling in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN. Very unexpectedly and out of nowhere, I feel Joe Biden put his hands on my shoulders, get up very close to me from behind, lean in, smell my hair and then plant a slow kiss on the top of my head. And that in and of itself might not sound like it's a very serious thing. That in and of itself might sound like it was innocent and well-intentioned. But in the context of it, as a person that had absolutely no relationship with him afterwards, as a candidate who was preparing to make my case for why I should be elected the second in command of that state, to have the vice president of the United States do that to me so unexpectedly and just kind of out of nowhere. It was just shocking. It was shocking because you don't expect that kind of intimate behavior. You don't expect that kind of intimacy from someone so powerful and someone who you just have no relationship whatsoever to touch you and to feel you and to be so close to you in that way. So I frankly just didn't even know how to react. I was just shocked. I felt powerless. I felt like I couldn't move. I just didn't even know how to process it. So after she released this op-ed and kind of talked about her feelings there, Joe Biden's comms director Bill Russo put out a statement from Joe Biden where he essentially says, look, this was not my intentions and I pledge to listen. He states, in my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort. And not once, never did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully, but it was never my intention. So this essentially catalyzed the conversation about intentions. Even if it's the case that Joe Biden didn't intend to make these women feel uncomfortable, does it still matter that he did this? Should we still be looking at his actions and blaming him? Is he culpable? And I would argue, of course, it doesn't matter that your intentions were pure. You have to understand that every single person is different. Some people are absolutely adamant about the fact that you respect their boundaries.  They may be subtle, but they're there that you have to be able to read. And with the career as long as Joe Biden's, the fact that he hasn't been able to pick up on some of these more subtle social cues that he's making people feel uncomfortable, it's odd to me. And as a person in a position of power, it's clear that people may be felt uncomfortable, but they just didn't want to say anything because I mean, this is Joe Biden, he's been in public office for decades. So why would you want to confront someone with power who's making you feel uncomfortable when that might ruffle feathers? I mean, that's kind of what happened with Lucy Flores. She's now being attacked by Democratic Party loyalists who are accusing her of just doing this and coming out now specifically to help Bernie Sanders because she was once a Sanders surrogate. But now, since Joe Biden is contemplating another presidential run, they're saying, you know, you're only doing this at the behest of Bernie, which I think is just nonsense. Now, people on the left who are defending Lucy Flores are pointing out rightfully so that Joe Biden has a long history of inappropriately touching women. For example, there's this now infamous photograph of him with Defense Secretary Ash Carter's wife where he has his hands on her shoulders, he's whispering in her ear. And a lot of people kind of point to this as the main example that he doesn't realize he's often crossing the line or maybe he does realize it and he doesn't care. However, Ash Carter's wife, Stephanie Carter, actually decided to come to his defense now that we're all talking about this. And she published an article in Medium where she says the photograph was misleadingly extracted from what was a longer moment between close friends and that she didn't feel that his behavior was inappropriate. So essentially, she's telling everyone, look, stop sharing that photo. Stop trying to be a white knight for me. Back off, I don't think that he did anything wrong there. But then what happened next was a second woman came forward, who was an aide to Congressman Jim Himes and says that she was also inappropriately touched by Joe Biden, quote, it wasn't sexual, but he did grab me by the head. He put his hand around my neck and pulled me in to rub noses with me. When he was pulling me in, I thought he was going to kiss me on the mouth. Sometimes he clearly crosses the line. But other times, I guess that he's not crossing the line because they're saying that they're not uncomfortable. But the point is that what he needs to do is understand how his actions will be perceived and he needs to take responsibility. However, centrists are saying, well, look, he's clearly not harming them and his intentions are pure.  And in fact, that's kind of what one Biden spokesperson said. He forcefully condemned all of this conversation that's taking place right now.  And here's what I say to that. It doesn't matter that Joe Biden is an overly affectionate, touchy feely person. What matters is that you have to be an adult and acknowledge that your actions may make people feel uncomfortable. And even if they don't explicitly say, Joe, you're making me uncomfortable, you have to be able to recognize and be cognizant of the fact that maybe they're telling you, albeit not verbally. So my argument, and I think a lot of people on the left are arguing just mad up and admit that you were wrong and try to learn, try to listen to them. And he said that he did want to listen. But it seems like his team is starting to kind of retreat. And it seems like a lot on the center left are just dog piling on Lucy Flores. But I mean, I think that's absurd. Because again, creepy Joe Biden is a meme not because of a malicious smear campaign. There's been a history of this. It's been a problem for Joe Biden since before we even talked about him running for president again. There is this now infamous video of him with Senator Chris Coons' daughter where he is whispering in her ear.   And again, people will respond by saying, but he's not doing that with malicious intent. He's not doing it to be a perv. Now that's debatable. And sure, it's true that maybe his intentions are pure. But what I'm contending is that that does not matter. Your intentions can be pure, but you can still make people feel very uncomfortable. And as someone who does not like anyone invading my personal space, as someone who does not like to be touched physically by other people, I can tell you I would feel uncomfortable if I were in their situation. Now, I want to share a clip from the view where they talked about this because I think it kind of encapsulates everything that's wrong with the discussion we're all having about this particular issue. But it would have been nice if she had turned him and said, you know what, Jay? I don't really like this. Please don't do this or not. Mr. Vice President, I'm not really comfortable with it. Something because he's standing right there. Oh, it's hard to say to somebody who's sitting here. No, it's not.  But it wasn't. That's the point. And you know, we all know Joe Biden. He's been here. I remember when I met him in Florida before he was Vice President and he was so friendly, he's the close talker. Yes. He comes right up into your face and you're thinking, I hope my breath is good, you know, and more important, I hope his is. Yeah. And, you know, so he talks close. He touches you. That's what he's like. And I feel it would be really unfortunate if we got rid of everybody who was just an affectionate kind of person.  He's also been in public office for about 50 years. Of his life. Yeah. I do wonder if she could have sent him a letter. Well, that's right. Like, send him a personal note to say, hey, this happened a few years ago. Now I feel confident in telling you about it. I don't want to make this public. I always wonder when these things come out. What is the motive for this person? Is it is it simply to let people know I was uncomfortable, which you could have done in private? Or is it because you maybe want someone else to win and you want him to have doubts about actually announcing for presidency? I've had concerns about the meeting movement from the beginning about getting to this place where you can't have normal interactions with each other. That is to say, like, this one was uncomfortable and that's her place. But are we going to get to a place we can't shake hands? We can't hug each other because that, to me, was uncomfortable. I worry about that. So I think that that conversation right there demonstrated exactly why Lucy Flores was right to write an article about this and not just send him a personal letter as one of them suggested because people are ignorant and people need to be educated that we've got to understand that our actions have consequences, even unintended consequences. You might not feel like you're doing anything wrong, but that's not how it's perceived to some people. So the best thing that you can do is understand how your actions affect others and learn what may or may not be appropriate. Try to read the subtle social cues that he's obviously ignoring. So here's what I didn't like about that conversation. First of all, Whoopi Goldberg, she essentially shifted the responsibility away from Joe Biden and on to Lucy Flores. Well, it's your own fault. Why didn't you say, Joe, stop doing this? I don't like that you're doing this, except that's not her job. Joe Biden is an adult. He's the one who should acknowledge that if you're going to kiss someone on the head, yeah, they may take offense to that. They may feel uncomfortable and then Joy Behar tried to brush it off as, you know, someone who is just naturally he he's affection and he's touchy feeling. And he always talks close. OK, that may be how he genuinely is as a person. I've known many people like this, but that doesn't make it OK.  And then the worst came from Abby Huntsman. Her comment was just absurd to me. She says, are we going to get to a place where we can't shake hands? We can't hug each other because that to me was uncomfortable. I worry about that. Look, he doesn't know these women. He's meeting them for the first time. So presumably boundaries have never been established.  And if he doesn't ask, which he should. But if he doesn't, he needs to pay attention to the social cues and think about whether or not his actions will make women feel uncomfortable. Now, clearly, it's the case that with Stephanie Carter, they knew each other. So she knew that that was in his nature and she was OK with it. But with Lucy Flores, he didn't know her. He didn't know how she would react when he kissed her. And let's flip it. Let's say he did this to a man. He kissed a man on the head. Would that not be absurd? Nobody is trying to say that anyone who hugs another human being or shakes their hand is an inherently bad person. Nobody's saying that. And they always try to build this straw man argument to make their opponents look irrational. But all we're saying is that Joe Biden needs to acknowledge that he is making people feel uncomfortable. As someone who does not like to be touched, I can see how uncomfortable they are feeling. And I can't speak for them. Maybe that's not the case, but I know I would be uncomfortable. And people are just different. Every person is different. Some people would probably love that Joe Biden is touchy, feely and affectionate, but not everyone is the same.  If you feel affectionate, if you love hugs, great, not all of us are the same way. So what we're asking is for people to acknowledge that your actions may be perceived a different way than you think they're being perceived. Joe Biden hugging and kissing on women is perceived by a lot of people, rightfully so, as completely inappropriate. And I don't know how you can look at this video, for example, of him playing with a girl's hair and not think that that's inappropriate, not think that that crosses the line. So it's honestly baffling to me that there are people on the left who are trying to attack Lucy Flores.  Joe Biden isn't creepy. Well, yeah, it is creepy. You may not think it's creepy, but it comes off as creepy, rightfully so, to a lot of people. So all that we're asking for is accountability. All that we're asking for in the midst of this conversation is for people to acknowledge that their actions have consequences and they may make people feel uncomfortable. But I mean, I just, again, I'm shocked that it took this long for us to have this conversation. And I knew that it was going to be a matter of time before it caught up with Joe Biden. And unfortunately for him, it's happening now. But I mean, sorry, but if you've been in public office this long, that's not going to help your case. As Abby Huntsman said, he's been in public office for more than 50 years. Well, then he should have learned by now that people don't like to be touched that way oftentimes. He should have learned by now when you're interacting with this many people. Not all of them are going to welcome a hug with open arms. Other people will be creeped out by that. So, you know, this is a really important story. And I hope that he genuinely is introspective and tries to learn and think deeply about the way he made women feel because it's unacceptable. This behavior is inappropriate.  You don't have the right to kiss anyone because you think you're being friendly. Give people their personal space.  We're going to call you out for it. D triple C had Sherry Bustos recently announced a new policy that I told you all about on the show last week where the D triple C would be blacklisting any consultant or consulting firm that chooses to work with a Democrat who's challenging and incumbent. So it's something that is brazenly undemocratic. It's antithetical to small D Democratic values.   But what this new rule would do is stifle that. But yet they're still doing it because they're that adamant about protecting the status quo.  So leaders of the congressional progressive caucus clashed Wednesday with the head of Democratic campaign arm over a new policy that they say hurts primary challengers nationwide, but which campaign officials have no plans to drop. A meeting between Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Sherry Bustos and progressive members became heated as Bustos liberal colleagues pressed her to reverse course on a just announced rule barring Democratic consultants from working with primary challengers if they want to have business with the national campaign arm. Progressive caucus co-chairs Mark Pokan and Pramila Jayapal and caucus member Representative Rokana requested the meeting with Bustos to explain why the new policy issued to consultants last week created a monopoly of D triple C sanctioned vendors and would blackball too many talented vendors and consultants. But Bustos made clear that she would not change the policy, which she argues is crucial to protecting Democratic incumbents after last fall's huge gains in the House. Progressives erupted this week after the D triple C announced the policy change aimed at deterring primary challengers. Critics see it as an attempt to suppress groups like Justice Democrats, which helped elect Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Diana Presley, both of whom knocked out long time Democratic incumbents. Pramila Jayapal, Mark Pokan and I met with Sherry Bustos to make it clear that we strongly oppose her new policy that stifles competition and blackballs any consultant who works for a challenger, Kana told Politico. Many progressives in Congress will fight until this rule is changed, Kana added. Ocasio-Cortez told reporters this week that the policy should be reversed, arguing that it puts underfunded upstart candidates at a disadvantage, people like herself last year. Primaries are often the only way that underrepresented and working class people are able to have a shot at pursuing elected office. Ocasio-Cortez told reporters Wednesday, she added that several long time New York City members like representatives Elliot Angle and Nydia Velazquez got their start as primary challengers. Now, in addition to that, on Twitter, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also urged people to hit the DCCC where it hurts. She writes, the DCCC's new rule to blacklist and boycott anyone who does business with primary challengers is extremely divisive and harmful to the party. My recommendation, if you're a small dollar donor, pause your donations to the DCCC and give directly to swing candidates instead. And I second that if you're still someone who's giving to the DCCC, what are you doing? You've got to pause those donations, stop them all together, stop contributing to the DNC and the D trip and give directly to candidates. There's a number of phenomenal candidates who are running for office in 2020. So I don't get why you are giving that money to the DCCC. If in fact you still are, I doubt many of my viewers are still giving money to the DCCC, but understand that all you're doing is adding adding to the leverage that they have against progressives. Because if they want to play dirty, it's time that we play dirty too. And that's what they're doing. They're confronting her and they're saying, OK, if you want to blacklist our consultants and consulting firms that work with primary challengers, well, grassroots donors, we're going to blacklist you. How do you like that? And I love it. You know, it's it's refreshing to see progressives in elected office actually stand up for themselves, not just be pushovers and allow the establishment to do what they want to shut out primary challengers.  It's absolutely absurd. So this is what they always tell us when Tom Perez purged progressives from high ranking positions on the DNC, he told us that he did it for purposes of increasing diversity.  I can't remember her last name, Cypressine, maybe she's basically a long serving DNC member who is a trans American. She got rid of he got rid of James Zogby, who's an Arab American. So he claimed that he did that in the name of diversity when in actuality, he was just hiding behind the facade of diversity when in reality, he wanted to protect the status quo. But since the Democratic Party has long maintained now that they care so much about diversity, then when you look at the makeup of elected officials in Congress, they're primarily white males. So why can't we flip it now on them and say, well, you're protecting the white male establishment?  If they can't even live up to their own principles in trying to increase diversity, then I think that we need to call them out, call them out for that because this is absolutely unacceptable. But look, broader point is that the fact that they're fighting and Ro Khanna is pledging to keep fighting until this rule is reversed is incredibly refreshing to me.  That's what she at least maintains. She's saying, I refuse to budge. So it just goes to show you that she was put there in that position because she's willing to do things like this. She's willing to protect the status quo. And the DCCC is an organization that has one goal, supposedly it's to get Democrats elected. It's not supposed to be to protect incumbent Democrats. You're supposed to get Democrats elected. So if we can primary a corporate Democrat and get someone in there that's more electable, isn't that good for your overall goal? Theoretically speaking, look, they're never going to change. And if we can get this rule to be undone, there's going to be another rule that pops up. It's just par for the course. This is what the establishment does. They use the institutional advantages that they have against us so that way they can protect themselves.  So this may not necessarily be a very good analogy, but they're holding the door. But sooner or later, we're going to burst through and we're going to eat them. So it's going to happen sooner or later. We will take over, but it's just a matter of having to try to subvert and circumvent all of these idiotic tactics. Well, they're not idiotic. They're they're unethical. That's, I think, the better word, because they're actually smart if you think about it to give them credit. It's smart that they use all of these bullshit techniques, but understand that we see through them. You're not going to gaslight us in the thinking that this is to protect us and to bolster your goal of getting more diverse candidates elected. It's not. So we're going to stay on them, but understand that if we get this rule done like whack-a-mole, a new rule will pop up that we're going to have to fight. This is what we're going to have to do because, you know, old habits die hard and being in power is something that you don't want to let go of because you have it and you love it and you like all of the admiration that you get. So, of course, they're going to try to protect that and protect themselves. It's self-interest, but it doesn't matter because at the end of the day, I truly believe that we will win and I'm more optimistic now because there are people like AOC and Ro Khanna and Pramila Jayapal who are choosing to push back and not just lie down and die like Democrats tend to do, including progressive ones. That's all changing now and it's great to see. So there's a town hall that took place last week with a very prominent politician that I didn't talk about yet. And I know who you all think I'm talking about. You think I'm going to say Cory Booker. You think we're going to talk about CNN's Town Hall with Cory Booker. And yes, he did, in fact, have his own CNN Town Hall. However, I have absolutely zero interest in talking about the sellout who supposedly texts back and forth with the president of APEC. No thanks. Cory Booker has canceled. I have no interest in covering that. However, the prominent politician who had a town hall that I do want to talk about is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez because she had a town hall with other progressives such as Ro Khanna with Chris Hayes on MSNBC and they talked about the Green New Deal. And what she does here is really important because she sets the record straight once and for all about the Green New Deal. One, she tells you what the Green New Deal is in actuality and she tells you how we're going to get it passed in the absence of nobody having the political courage to act on it. You know, we wave a magic wand and we pass the Green New Deal Resolution tomorrow. What happens? Nothing. Right. Because it's a resolution. Yeah. Right. What the what our resolution that we introduced means is that it passes the House and it passes and it passes the Senate separately. It just means that we make it a national priority. And it says that the scope of the solution must be on the scale of the problem. And so it outlines the ways that we can pursue that scope. But in order for us to actually pursue this agenda, we don't have to do it all at once. Right. But it outlines the ways and the hows of doing it. This is not about appealing to my colleagues. It's about appealing to you and appealing to the entirety of the American people because we like to think that the wheeling and the dealing and the closing and the deals behind closed doors are what is going to lead us to the future. But it is the actual, you know, rubber to the road, political pressure and popular organizing by everyday Americans coming together to create the political pressure to say, we need a plan by 2020. And when you start voting on your presidential candidates based on that and when you start voting period when we weren't voting before, you know, it completely changes the entire dynamic of the country. And so that's where I think that that political pressure to keep our promises comes from, because as a party, we got to show up. And I understand why we don't. There is this false idea that people don't vote because they're uneducated or because we're apathetic or what have you. But not voting is a choice. We choose not to do it because we have become so cynical about the system that has not been working for us. And so it creates a chicken and egg situation. But right now we all need to just mobilize and voting isn't everything. I'll be the first person to tell you that is that if all you do is cast to vote every few years, we're not going to get out of this mess. But we need to start there. We need to start there and we need to at least cast our vote so we can have the political power that we deserve. And that that's how we actually get represented here as a country. I think that that clarification was really important. And it's not like she hasn't been clear all along. But from the very beginning, what has the right wing propaganda machine been trying to do? They've been lying and obfuscating about what the Green New Deal is. If you don't really know about the Green New Deal and you're just kind of a casual political observer, then maybe you hear something about something, something she wants to ban farting cows and ban air travel. But in reality, that's not what this is about. However, since the right wing media machine and the propaganda arm of the Republican Party is so disciplined and since they all loudly say the same thing at once, it's easy for their narrative to catch on and drown out the actual substance. It happens all the time. And that's what happened with the Green New Deal. So I'm very glad that she took the time to clarify. It's just a resolution. It's a resolution that outlines the scope of the solution that must be the scale of the problem. That's all it is. And it's important that the scope of the solution matches the scale of the problem, because if it doesn't, then we're not going to be able to avoid catastrophic levels of climate change. Just last year, the IPCC gave us a 12 year deadline. They said, if we don't act and take substantial action, then we will not be able to stop a two degree Celsius increase, which will be catastrophic. So what she's doing is she's trying to set out a resolution that outlines goals. It's essentially a wish list that says these are the things that we need to do in order to meet the IPCC's deadline. She's acknowledging we may not get everything that we want on our wish list, but so long as we make an effort and acknowledge that we've got to match the IPCC's 12 year deadline, then that's important. She then makes a really important point about the lack of political will to act, because if you just sit back and you hope that Congress takes action, I mean, good luck. We'll all be skeletons. The entire planet will be engulfed in catastrophic levels of climate change. If we just wait on people to act, the point that she says that she makes here is really important. She says, look, it's not just that you have to vote for a president and members of Congress that believe in climate change and genuinely want to take action. You have to mobilize yourself. The onus is also on you, not just on members of Congress, because if you just expect them to take action, you're going to be waiting forever because they're not going to act without mass mobilization. And this is a point that I think Bernie Sanders makes that really sets himself apart. He talks about policy issues like Medicare for all and says, look, it's not just going to be the normal legislative process where we introduce a bill, Congress votes on it and debates it. You have to take action. Every city must mobilize. There needs to be mass protests nationwide because without that pressure, Congress is not going to act because they have special interests in their ear, telling them not to act. So what she's saying here is super important. You can't just expect them to take action. They're not going to do it unless you force them to. And now I want to move on to the second clip that I want to show you where Rokana talks about the Green New Deal and really its feasibility, because a lot of people, Howard Schultz, even is talking about how unfeasible this would be to convert existing buildings into renewable buildings and what not. What Rokana outlines here is not just the feasibility of the Green New Deal and not just that it's doable, but he cites very specific examples of what we can do. The limited amount of money it would take to actually make a really huge difference and be competitive on the global economy when it comes to renewable technology. We could be a world leader, but we're getting beat now by the likes of China. And the points he makes here are phenomenal. There's some very pragmatic things we could do instead of the president yelling at the GM CEO on Twitter to create jobs. You could actually expand the electric vehicle tax credit, link it to domestic manufacturing, and open up a lot of those GM plants to make electric SUVs. You know, the Green New Deal is also the green energy race. China is making 50 percent of the electric vehicles. If you care about having that industry in the United States, why aren't we incentivizing that? Why aren't we building solar plants and wind plants? We could and this $93 trillion number is crazy. It would for 300 billion more dollars. You can look at the math. We would match China's spending and we could get to 50 percent solar and wind energy by 2025. California is already doing it. We're going to get to 60 percent by 2030. Well, California is a leader, but so are states like Iowa and Texas. And I want to say that because this is something that states across the country can do. California has set a standard 60 percent renewable energy by 2030, every new home built in 2020 should have solar panels on it. There is real investment in creating solar farms and wind farms. This is something so eminently doable in our country. And the idea that the economics don't make sense is a myth. The Republicans, I mean, just in candor, if they were to come back and say, OK, we want to spend $500 billion, we don't want to do this. We can start a discussion. But they're engaged in nonsense. That is exactly it. They are engaged in nonsense.  He still just flat out maintains that climate change is a hoax. But what you see is some Republicans moving the goalpost. They are now saying, well, look, maybe climate change is happening, but there's no way it's anthropogenic. There's no way that humans are causing it. It's something that's just the natural phenomenon. But some of them are now saying, OK, reluctantly so. I'll accept that climate change is happening. And yes, it's manmade.   OK, well, if you don't like the Green New Deal, why haven't you cosponsored Tulsi Gabbard's off act? She introduced this back in 2017. And it's not as ambitious as the Green New Deal. But if we pass that, would we be better off unquestionably? So there are numerous bills that have been proposed, but you're still not choosing to act. So their denialism is taking shape in the form of them just shitting on any solution while claiming that they agree with us and that they believe that climate change is happening and that we should take action. And what Roe kind of talks about here is that we don't really have to do very much to have a gigantic impact. China is now producing 50 percent of electric vehicles. So we are losing this green energy race that is taking place internationally now. We could be a world leader, but we're choosing to not be world leaders. We're not talking about reckless spending. We're talking about investing and embedded in the word investment. Is this implicit acknowledgment that when you invest, you one day get that money back, but more money. Nobody invests if they think they're just going to invest in something and then get the same amount of money back. You invest if you think it's going to be a profitable venture for you. That's what the Green New Deal is. That's what investing in renewable clean technology like hydro, wind and solar will do. We invest because we expect to get that money back, but they don't get it. And Ro Khanna speaks to that. He says the idea that the economics don't make sense is a myth. Exactly. Because if you are investing, then not only are you stimulating the economy in a really important long term way, you are creating jobs. And that's what people don't get. There's been so much misinformation and obfuscation that people just assume, oh, well, we're just going to go on a spending spree. If we pass the Green New Deal, that is nonsense. It's nonsense. And anyone who says this is being disingenuous because we're not just spending, we're investing, which means we get that money back. The government investing in the economy is one of the most important things they can do for long term growth. But people don't get that because there's a lot of shills for the oil and gas industry that want to make sure that we don't invest because that would hurt the profits of oil and gas companies who would you look at that contribute to their campaigns? So what we have to do is have an honest discussion. But unfortunately, there's a lot of bad faith actors that don't want that discussion to take place. So I'm glad that this happened. I'm glad that MSNBC, at least some hosts once in a while, will talk about climate change in a really meaningful way. And I do think that it's important that we push back against this false narrative that's being spread by the GOP because it's just completely nonsensical. And what we're doing here is trying to save the planet. But idiots are just looking out for the short term profits of large multinational corporations who donate to their campaigns and don't really care about the hellscape that we're going to have to live in if we don't take action when we're older and when their grandchildren is older. So it's just it's disgusting. And I'm glad that the left is pushing back once and for all and not just allowing the right to monopolize this discussion like they did back in the ACA days with death panels and whatnot.  But then they end up winning because nobody pushes back. But I think that we need to take their bad faith argument seriously and we need to be absolutely forceful in acknowledging that these are lies and nothing more than lies by bad faith actors. Period. So I understand that just from an individual psychological standpoint, when you are faced with a very serious accusations, your first instinct is to recoil and get defensive and maybe even lash out. But given that Joe Biden has years of videos available on the Internet for everyone to see of him inappropriately kissing and touching women and girls without their consent, presumably, you would think that he would at least not have as much room to try to deflect. You think that he'd at least try to publicly seem like he's being introspective and he's trying to listen and be respectful, but his response to the allegations made by Lucy Flores that he gave her an unwanted kiss and was smelling her hair and made her feel uncomfortable. I mean, his response has been just downright embarrassing because he's handling this in the worst way imaginable because I think that his first statement that he released was acceptable. You know, was it ideal? I don't know. It's hard to formulate a statement that touches on the concerns of the person who's accusing you of this because you don't know what's in their head. But I think that him pledging to listen was important. However, we're now getting reports that he's angry. He's stewing over it and now he's lashing out at that phase now. And this is what his campaign is doing. They're blaming Bernie Sanders. So as Joe Perticone of Business Insider reports, former Vice President Joe Biden's inner circle is reportedly stewing over the surge of accusations that the prospective 2020 presidential candidate inappropriately touched multiple women and think Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders team could be behind the renewed focus. Axios reported on Tuesday that several individuals close to Biden are suspicious that the Sanders camp is at least partly behind the anti Biden campaign. In addition, one of Biden's top backers believes he is still moving forward with an upcoming campaign announcement and is ready to kill Bernie when he jumps in the race, according to Axios. So this is downright shameful to me because this is the same level of conspiracy mongering that we see from Republicans whenever a Republican is accused when Roy Moore was accused when Brett Kavanaugh was accused there was this attack on the accuser's political motivations. And if they were doing it simply for purposes of political expediency to get someone in politics that they don't like. And here we see a Democrat engaging in that same type of behavior. Unbelievable. And he's accusing Bernie while not acknowledging the fact that he's been acting inappropriately out in the open for all of us to see for years, Bernie Sanders didn't make you kiss women on the head without asking Joe Biden, you did that yourself. You're the one who chose to act inappropriately. And maybe that wasn't your intent to make women feel uncomfortable, but it doesn't matter. You still were touchy feely and didn't think about how we perceive that.  Pretty close. And I love how there's this underlying implication that Bernie Sanders has to cook up some type of fabricated Me Too conspiracy against Joe Biden in order to beat him. Bernie doesn't have to beat you this way.   He could do that just based on the policy substance. But because Joe Biden can argue based on the policy substance, really against any of his Democratic primary opponents, he has to avoid talking about policy substance. So he's projecting and thinking that his opponents like Bernie Sanders also have to avoid the substance when the opposite is true.   You can't just take responsibility for your own actions. Just as one time when we have you on video. I mean, even back in 2015, when Bernie Sanders hadn't even announced that he was running for president, John Stewart did a segment on The Daily Show and he brought the receipts where he showed all the times that you acted inappropriately on camera for all of us to see. Now, I'm not saying that what Joe Biden is being accused of is anywhere near the level of accusations that were lobbed against someone like Brett Kavanaugh. But what we are saying is that to deny and accuse your political opponent of concocting a conspiracy when you've been acting like this inappropriately for years is borderline delusional. Now, Bernie Sanders campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, hit back with what I think was a really powerful response. So as Sam Stein, Jackie Kucinich and Gideon Resnick of The Daily Beast explain, Sanders campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, strongly denied any suggestion that the senator's team or its allies were behind the flora story, saying accusations of such made his blood boil. Neither the Bernie Sanders campaign or anyone involved in it planted, planned, persuaded, cajoled or otherwise urged Lucy Flores or anyone else to tell their story, full stop period end of sentence. I don't want to hear it. We didn't play a role, Shakir told The Daily Beast, but this is why my blood boils, he added. We've heard through innuendo and rumors that somehow this campaign was involved in Lucy Flores telling her story and it is deeply disrespectful and shameful that any time a woman comes forward to tell her story, there has to be some kind of intimation or suggestion that that person is doing so out of some political agenda or that the person may be lying. It is shameful. We went through the Donald Trump campaign in which a number of women came forward to tell their stories and they were dismissed and criticized and ripped by the president of the United States on the highest stage of the land. We saw it with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford that she must be a Diane Feinstein plan. It is dismissive and disrespectful that whenever a woman comes forward, the first suggestion is that there has to be a political agenda driving them. And that, I think, was the perfect response. You can say that he got heated, but that moral outrage was justified. Because how dare he deflect in this instance? There were people, Chapel Trap House was one of them. I was one of them who speculated that Joe Biden's inappropriate behavior would be an issue. We didn't predict that it would be Lucy Flores who would come forward because we didn't know that this happened. But just seeing his behavior with women, with Stephanie Carter, Ash Carter's wife, even if she says that she didn't feel uncomfortable, but seeing it with Chris Coon's daughter, I would have thought this would have been an issue because the media would have routed up once he announced or something like that. So we were all expecting this to be an issue, even before we knew about the Lucy Flores story. So for him to just try to use Bernie Sanders as a scapegoat rather than actually being introspective and trying to improve as a human being, I think it's just downright despicable. His response to this is the exact opposite of what you should do. Take responsibility and communicate to us, Joe, that you're willing to grow because we don't need to fabricate some type of Me Too story to get you disqualified. Your own career has disqualified you. Your vote for the Iraq war has disqualified you. You pushing for the TPP has disqualified you. So I don't think it's reasonable to assume Bernie needs to even fabricate anything because that wouldn't help him. Because if it got out that he did do this, that would hurt him when he doesn't need to do this. He could just challenge you head to head on the policy substance. But again, Joe Biden has no policy substance.  So like I said, he's projecting and he thinks that everyone else is going to do the same. Well, not everyone in this race is like you and Beto or Rourke. They have more than platitudes, Joe. They actually have policy and you don't have that. So you can be an adult and grapple with this in a healthy and constructive way where women don't feel uncomfortable talking about instances where men touched them inappropriately and made them feel really embarrassed and shocked. Or you can do what the Republicans have been doing and try to discredit them and smear anyone who may or may not be involved with supposedly political motivations. That seems to be what he's doing. So I think it's safe to say that Bernie Sanders has been having a really good couple of weeks because we learned recently that according to a Harvard University Institute of Politics poll, he has a double digit lead among everyone else in the field when it comes to young voters. And additionally, we got a glimpse at his first quarter fundraising totals. And I think it's safe to say that he's doing OK. So as Max Greenwood of the Hill reports, Senator Bernie Sanders presidential campaign raised 18.2 million in the first quarter of 2019. His adviser said Tuesday, a massive sum that is likely to put the progressive firebrand among the top fundraisers of the early 2020 Democratic primary season. Sanders campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, said the senators first quarter fundraising total was powered by roughly 900,000 individual donations with an average contribution size of $20, a number that Sanders is likely to highlight given an increasing focus on grassroots giving in Democratic politics. Shakir said 525,000 individuals across all US states and territories gave to the campaign. The average age for Sanders donors was under 39 years old, he said. Supporters have shown up big time for this campaign. Huge, you could say, Shakir told reporters, the fundraising numbers put Sanders total whole for the quarter at 32 million, including 14 million that the senator had in other accounts to start with. Shakir said that the campaign finished the first quarter of 2019 with 28 million cash on hand. The first quarter hall sets up Sanders campaign to expand its operations in key early voting states, said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to Sanders. He said that the campaign would add more staffers to its operation in Iowa and would begin staffing up in California in the coming weeks as well. So this is absolutely. It's insane to me. I'm curious to see how others have been doing such as better or work, because we do know that Beto outraced him in the first day. However, Beto announced about a month or so after Bernie. So it's unlikely he's actually going to be able to surpass Bernie. But still, I'm curious to see just for comparison's sake. But I mean, this is really good. This is phenomenal news for Bernie Sanders. This goes to show you that there is a people powered movement that is absolutely enthusiastic to get someone in the White House that actually cares about them and not the large multinational corporations. And when you just go to the specifics here, the average donation now being $20, $7 lower than what he always talks about, the $27, that means that more people with less money are chipping in.  I think this demonstrates that they don't have their finger on the pulse of American politics, because we very much are still in this anti-establishment era, and we want someone who's not going to get in and do the same thing that every other president has been doing. We want someone who's going to drastically change the system in a fundamental way. And Bernie Sanders, he's pledging to do that. And it shows how the people are responding to that because he's being incredibly successful. So this is getting even mainstream media pundits to pay attention to him, because even MSNBC's Casey Hunt is taking notice. She tweeted out if we used the metrics of any other year and applied them to Bernie, he would be called a front runner. He came in second last time, almost one Iowa, one New Hampshire, near top of early polls, huge fundraising numbers, proven appeal to base of party. And yet he gets ignored. It's absurd. And she adds literally no other candidate with the possible exception of Biden has anywhere near as strong a list of front runner attributes. And I would argue Bernie is a head of Biden in several areas. So if she sees it, there's no excuse for everyone else in mainstream media. It's clear that they have the blinders on and they don't want to admit that there's something really special happening right in front of them, that they either don't see or they don't want to see. Maybe they see it, but they have cognitive dissonance. But pay attention because this is a historic moment. An entirely grassroots funded campaign is surging and it is powered by hundreds of thousands of people who are demanding a change to the status quo. And this isn't faux populism like Donald Trump was championing. This is true grassroots populist appeal. And it's really nice to see. I had no doubt that Bernie Sanders would be successful and even more successful the second time around, because now he's coming in with the advantage of having name recognition the first time nobody knew who Bernie Sanders was. But now people know who he is and they know what he stands for. And even though the field is certainly more crowded this time around, everyone knows that Bernie Sanders is perhaps the one politician who's been saying the same thing for decades. So I find this incredibly encouraging. But again, I want to emphasize because whenever I do these segments about how successful Bernie Sanders campaign has been, I don't want to convey to you this message that this means we're going to have an easy ride. We've got to work our asses off if we want him to get the nomination and win. And really the real work that we're going to have to put in will start once he is elected, once he's sitting in the Oval Office. So this by no means should communicate to you that we're going to have it easy. We're going to have to put in time. We're going to have to phone bank canvass for Bernie. You can text bank. We have to put in work. So don't take away from this that we we've got this in the bag and I don't have to do anything. The opposite is true because he's doing so well. I think that that means that you really have to work harder because this means that the establishment and his opponents will be working that much harder because if someone really is perceived as the front runner, guess what that makes them? That makes them a target for a tax, not just from Democrats, but the right wing. So we're going to have to work hard and it's not going to be easy. However, just take a moment and celebrate what you helped Bernie Sanders to accomplish in the first quarter. This is absolutely astonishing and anyone who tries to downplay this in mainstream media, they're just either not being real with themselves or they're intentionally trying to mislead people because this is absolutely an amazing run for the first quarter. Chelsea Manning is an American hero who revealed the war crimes that our own government was committing abroad. Now, because she chose to leak this classified information to the public, she was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Now, thankfully, she only served seven years before President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017. However, till this very day, she still remains principled. She remains adamant about the right for us to know what our government is doing. And now she's refusing to testify and throw Julien Assange under a bus because she thinks that protecting the First Amendment is more important than her own individual freedom. So I don't know that I would have the courage to do what she's doing, but I do know that what she's doing is incredibly commendable. And it's really important and it shows how brave she is. So more on this as Zach Boodbrick of the Hill reports, Manning served seven years in prison for providing classified documents before President Obama commuted her sentence in 2017, but was yelled for contempt in March after refusing a grand jury subpoena to testify against WikiLeaks and founder Julien Assange. Manning's support committee said that her conditions qualify as solitary confinement and that Manning is kept in her cell 22 hours a day. She has not been outside for 16 days. She is permitted to make phone calls and move about outside her cell between one and three a.m. The committee said in a March 23 statement. So the condition is absolutely horrible because she refused to testify. This is what she is subjected to solitary confinement. Now, the sheriff in that county has come out and said she's not in solitary confinement. You guys are lying. In fact, the jail that she's staying at doesn't even have a solitary confinement cell. But what people close to Chelsea are saying is that it doesn't matter because functionally, she's serving in solitary confinement. She's not allowed to leave her cell. She is not able to socialize with general population there. And it's essentially solitary confinement. But the argument is that when we have to isolate her and keep her away, keep her locked away from everyone else for her own protection, but this is the same excuse they always use when they lock people in solitary confinement. It's inhumane. It's torture.  And because she essentially won't throw him under the bus, she's being locked in what is tantamount to solitary confinement. I mean, it's absurd. Now, recently, Alexandria Ocasio-Gortez talked about the importance of protecting whistleblowers, and I wanted to share what she had to say. This was a video that was tweeted out by public citizen because she said something that is really important with regard to what we need to do to protect them. So the reason why we have to conduct and have these accommodations is because we are a committee that is committed to protecting whistleblowers, and I do have to commend the ranking member and to see the coordination between the ranking member and the chair in a commitment to whistleblowers, not just in respecting them, but in protecting them, is really admirable and important, and I wanted to note that because this is what protecting whistleblowers looks like when they need a certain accommodation because they are a fear retaliation. We have to make accommodations. This committee in particular, as the oversight committee in the house of representatives, we have a unique responsibility to protect those that have the courage to come out and say when something is wrong, regardless of the administration, even in prior administrations. It doesn't matter the party when something is going wrong in government, when there is overreach, when there is an abuse or a misconduct of process, we have an obligation to see and investigate it out. So for someone who is a member of the house of representatives to say that is incredibly important because time after time, it doesn't matter the party affiliation, whoever is in the White House aggressively prosecutes whistleblowers. Obama was perhaps one of the most aggressive, if not the most aggressive in American history at prosecuting whistleblowers. We saw the treatment of Chelsea Manning under his watch before he decided to ultimately commute her sentence. We saw his reaction and response to Edward Snowden. It's just completely unacceptable. So for AOC to take a stand here, this is really important because she is going against the grain. Now, when public citizen tweeted out this video, she responded and quote, tweeted the video saying related Chelsea Manning has been trapped in solitary confinement for refusing to answer questions before a grand jury. Solitary confinement is torture. Chelsea is being tortured for whistleblowing. She should be released on bail and we should ban extended solitary in the United States. And to that I say thank you for speaking out on this AOC because we're locking these people, these human beings in cages and they're kept in solitary confinement under the guise of wanting to protect their physical well-being. But you can protect their physical well-being by not treating them worse than animals in a zoo. You can do that. So I don't buy this excuse. You don't have to treat them inhumanely to protect them. You can actually treat them like human beings and not deny them the dignity that they deserve as human beings. And I'm glad that she said this. Solitary confinement is torture. The psychological stress that that causes.  And this is something that Chelsea Manning was struggling with the last time when she was kept in solitary confinement. So I worry about her safety. I worry about her mental health and her well-being. And I'm more worried about, you know, the consequences of her being kept in solitary confinement than I am about her physical safety because there are guards there to protect her. So all around this is just it's so frustrating to see time and again, the United States take this stance towards whistleblowers that is comparable to the stance that third world authoritarian regimes take. It's disgusting. And I'm glad that there are finally people brave enough in Congress that are willing to speak out on the behalf of whistleblowers. I just hope that the next president of the United States will take the same approach. So I would urge people to press presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard, Elizabeth Warren, even the others to actually protect whistleblowers, not just Chelsea Manning, but Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, who's a journalist, because even if you don't like these individuals personally, this has broader implications for the First Amendment. The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the merits of the Equality Act. And for those of you who don't know, this is a really important piece of legislation that would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include protections for members of the LGBTQ community.  So really, if you don't think that people should be discriminated against, if they're part of the LGBTQ community, this piece of legislation is an absolute no-brainer. However, there are some people who are a little bit reluctant to support this. And here's the excuse that at least one person has come up with to justify not wanting to support this legislation. I strongly support the rights of transgender individuals. I will not denigrate or deny their existence or their struggles. What I am concerned about the potential of bad actors who would exploit the provisions of this law for their own gain. Consider this possibility of President Trump going to say, I am not the first female president. Who would celebrate that with those who support the legislation? Think that's a good thing or will they be dismayed? Really? That's your argument. Who finds this persuasive? Does anyone find this argument persuasive? I totally support trans rights, guys. I just am reluctant to codify protections for them into law because something, something Trump might declare that he's the first female president. What are you even saying? Do you hear the words coming out of your mouth? That makes no sense. So for those of you who are unfamiliar with him, first of all, I envy you. But this is Matt Gaetz. He's someone who is essentially a Trump sickle fan. And I really don't trust him at all. I think that, you know, I want to believe him when he says that he genuinely wants to protect transgender Americans, but to come up with this type of bullshit irrational argument as a reason as to why we shouldn't codify the equality act into law, it's laughable. Just a couple of years ago, less than a decade ago, the same types of arguments were made against gay marriage.  But if we allow them to get married, then people are going to want to marry their dogs. Then people are going to want to have five wives. It wasn't a persuasive argument then. And this isn't a persuasive argument now, because these bad faith actors that you keep talking about, even if there's one or two bad apples, that doesn't mean that the totality of the transgender community and LGBTQ Americans at large should not have protections because a couple of people might try to take advantage of said protections. I shouldn't have to explain this, but Trump obviously would not be a beneficiary of this law because Donald Trump is not transgender. He can't invoke some sort of transgender defense in order to stop a business owner from kicking him out because that's not the way that this works.  And I think that it's safe to say that cisgender Americans and just straight people in general aren't going to be able to exploit these protections for LGBTQ Americans for nefarious purposes. And if they are able to exploit it, then they're not going to be able to do it easily without getting caught.   I mean, there were literally movies about this. I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry. Is that what it's called? Where Adam Sandler and who is it? Kevin James, they got a domestic partnership to take advantage of the system to game a system that was intended to protect LGBTQ Americans. So this fear is completely irrational and it's unfounded. But now it's just being used to give people an excuse as to why they may not support the Equality Act, which is absolutely essential at protecting transgender Americans, gay Americans, lesbian Americans, bisexual Americans. It's crucial because in dozens of states, we can be fired just because we're gay. Business owners are allowed to kick us out of their stores just because they don't like that we're gay. It's completely inconceivable. If you want to live in an egalitarian society, then you have to codify these types of protections into law. Now, again, I want to believe Matt Gaetz when he says that he genuinely and sincerely supports trans rights, but for you to come up with this type of bogus argument, I'm sorry, it calls that into question. It makes you look ignorant. It makes it seem like you're just looking for any reason to give yourself an out so you don't get criticized if you ultimately vote against it. Well, I'm sorry. You have no rational and legitimate reason to vote against this. And if you vote against it, we're going to hammer you for it because there's no reason why in 2019, LGBTQ Americans can be openly discriminated against. No reason for that to be tolerated by a just and fair society. No reason whatsoever. So if you don't support it, then we are going to criticize you regardless of whatever bogus excuse you try to fabricate. Because what you're saying about Trump declaring himself transgender, let's say, hypothetically speaking, Donald Trump does do that. Let's say that this law is passed. The Equality Act is signed into law by Donald Trump of all people. And he then declares, I am the first woman president. What would happen then? Would the sky fall on us? Everybody would just look at him and say, no, you're obviously not transgender. You're not living as a woman.   That would be the response. This isn't some type of apocalyptic scenario, even in the worst case scenario that you came up with, Matt. So I mean, you have no reason to vote against this. Now, again, I'd be more than happy to stand corrected if you end up supporting this ultimately, but for you to come up with that type of bogus excuse that was just used against gays and lesbians and bisexuals like less than a decade ago, it calls into question whether or not you sincerely believe that LGBTQ Americans should be protected by law against discrimination. So we'll see. But, you know, I don't have much hope to see him come up with that type of argument. It's honestly laughable.  I mean, I can't help but think that you're just looking for a way to not be criticized if you vote against this. So I mean, we'll see, but you got to educate yourself, man, because regardless of how you feel, you are a member of the United States House of Representatives. Regardless of how you feel about LGBTQ Americans, sincerely, you represent them. It's your job to protect Americans, including LGBTQ Americans, like it or not. That's your job. So, you know, I couldn't not talk about this because there's so much vitriol and hatred spewed against trans Americans that we need to more forcefully condemn it when we see it, because that's what being a good ally to a marginalized group entails.  So as allies, I really think we need to be better about sticking up for the disadvantaged and calling out instances like this where somebody is trying to convince people that we shouldn't stand up for trans Americans because something something Trump for a female president.   I can't take it seriously. The Washington Post published an article by Dana Millbank, whose wife works for John Hickenlooper, by the way. And in this article, he's going to argue that Bernie Sanders is the Trump of the left. I mean, you could have really anticipated that this would be their new line of attack because now that Bernie Sanders has the name recognition, now that his policies are overwhelmingly popular, now they have to find some other way to bring him down and discredit him. So what this journalist is trying to do is compare him to Donald Trump and say that his tactics are not only similar to Donald Trump. He's still hateful, albeit in different ways. He still scapegoats, albeit in different ways. But also just like Donald Trump, anything that we say about Bernie, whatever criticisms we lob against him like Teflon Don, he's able to deflect. So while I'm reading you this article, just try to pay attention to all the subtleties here because it's evident to me that disdain and contempt for Bernie Sanders just oozes out of every single sentence, and I don't think you can characterize this as anything, but a hit piece. So we're going to take this paragraph by paragraph here, and I'll tell you why I take issue with what this author is saying. So he writes on paper, the independent from Vermont doesn't make sense.  They are a majority female and he's a man. They represent the emerging multicultural America and he is white. Statistically, he is the worst option against Trump. An NBC News poll this week found that there are more voters with concerns about Sanders, 58 percent, then there are for former Vice President Joe Biden at 48 percent, Senator Elizabeth Warren at 53 percent, Senator Kamala Harris or former Representative Beto O'Rourke at 41 percent each. Now, sure, it is the case that descriptively speaking, Bernie Sanders does not look like the average modern Democrat. However, the reason why individuals who are young from all demographics overwhelmingly support Bernie Sanders is because he represents us substantively, which is why as one Vox article puts it, his base is diverse and very young because what people don't acknowledge is that there's a real difference between descriptive representation and substantive representation, descriptive representation just means that we have people in power that look like us, that are the same colors and ethnicities and gender identities as us. But substantive representation means that they're actually passing policies that protect us, that improve the lives of marginalized communities. Now, political science research does show that more often than not, descriptive representation oftentimes does directly translate into substantive representation. But the reason why young people and people who wouldn't traditionally like an old white male like him is because he represents us in a meaningful way. He's in tune to what we want. He understands the struggle of millennials more so than any other politician and understand that young voters will determine who wins this election, either by voting or staying home. So what we need to do is have someone as the Democratic Party nominee who's going to be able to energize the base, who more often than not actually can determine the election. In 2008, it was young people who got Barack Obama elected. If we stayed home, he wouldn't have been able to win. So you've got to have a candidate who's appealing to young voters. And Bernie Sanders is that candidate. So it doesn't matter that descriptively speaking, he doesn't look like us. And he's old. What matters is that he represents us and has real plans to improve our lives. And they don't see it because they don't really care about the policy substance, but normal people do. Now, he also says here that statistically, Bernie Sanders is the worst option to go against Donald Trump. And what is his evidence for this? One poll. He cites one poll.  If you're a journalist, then you need to know. And really, I think he probably does know that citing one poll isn't really that persuasive in terms of evidence or arguments, because polling data itself, if you just look at one poll, that's not very reliable. But if you look at aggregate polling data, it is more reliable. And if you look at aggregate polling data, when it comes to head to head matchups between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, it does not show that he's the worst option. It shows that he's one of the best. Now, to be honest, it doesn't show that he is the best option because currently Joe Biden has the overall largest lead in head to head matchups with Donald Trump. He's 8.7 points ahead and Bernie Sanders is 4.3 points ahead. Now, of course, that's not as good as I had hoped it wasn't as good as it was in 2016, but it's still incredibly early. And at this point in time, Bernie Sanders still fares better than pretty much everyone else. He fares better than O'Rourke and Harris. But I mean, what we've got to understand here is that what happened in 2016 is likely going to happen again. The more that Bernie Sanders, Sanders that I call him, Sanders, the more that Bernie Sanders stays in the spotlight, the more that his likeability goes up. He's now the most popular politician in America. And I think the opposite will probably happen with Joe Biden. I think that the more that he talks, the more that his likeability will decrease. Now, also as the field shrinks and Bernie Sanders gets more of the spotlight, I think that that number will increase. But nonetheless, getting back to the overall assertion here that statistically is the worst option, it's factually incorrect. And this author should acknowledge that by making that argument, by citing one poll to make his point, you look like a hack. You look like you're trying to cite the numbers that prove your argument while disregarding the other numbers that disprove your argument. Like for me, I have been arguing for years now on this podcast that Bernie would have won, he would have defeated Donald Trump. But I am at least honest enough to acknowledge that currently when you look at aggregate polling data, Joe Biden is polling better than Bernie against Donald Trump. That's just the fact. I can't change it. Do I hope it changes? Yes, do I think it will change? Yes, but I'm still being honest about the factual and statistical realities currently. This journalist is being dishonest. Now, he also argues yet Sanders has both money and movement. His campaign on Tuesday announced a haul of 18.2 million in the first quarter from 525,000 individual contributors. The other major populist, early favorite, Warren has floundered in both money and popularity and undeclared front runner, Biden now looks vulnerable to accusations he inappropriately touched women, kicked off by a prominent Sanders 2016 backer who served on the board of Sanders political group. Now, let me just pause there because remember how I told you before I read any of this that disdain for Bernie Sanders just oozes? That's part of it. It's subtle, but he's trying to prime you to think that, you know, maybe this was encouraged or maybe even spearheaded by someone close to Bernie Sanders, maybe Lucy Flores didn't come out because she was just genuinely feeling uncomfortable by Joe Biden and thinks that the American people should know about her experience. It must have been catalyzed by Bernie Sanders. So back to his argument here. He says, meanwhile, Sanders himself remains untouchable in a Trumpian way. Claims of mistreatment by male staffers from women who worked on his 2016 campaign, yawn, his resistance to releasing his tax returns, whatever, the idea that Democrats need a unifying figure to lure disaffected Trump voters in key states. Never mind. OK, let me ask you this. How is Bernie not a unifying figure? The overwhelming majority of the Democratic Party's base supports Bernie Sanders. Sure, there's Donut, Twitter and the 8% of the party who dislikes Bernie Sanders, but by and large, he is overwhelmingly popular with the Democratic Party's base. And on top of that, when you talk about these states that we have to win back, such as the Rust Belt, well, if you look at the policy substance, Medicare for all, one of the many policies that Bernie Sanders is championing, doesn't just have support among the overwhelming majority of the American people, but a majority of Republicans now support it. Republican voters support Bernie's health care policy over Donald Trump's health care policy. And maybe that's due to Donald Trump not actually articulating a health care policy of his own, but nonetheless, the things he's talking about are overwhelmingly popular. So how can you contend that what he's saying is not a unifying message when he has a populist message? It just seems like this journalist is being intentionally obtuse and is just just trying to see the world in the skewed way that DC consultants and elites see the world. But normal Americans, if you just talk to one of us, we don't see the world that way. We don't agree with you. He does have a unifying message. He has a message of inclusivity and a message that will bring out the working class because we've been largely ignored by both political parties. There's nothing more unifying than that. He continues, Sanders isn't Trump in the race baiting, lender-cheating, fact-avoiding, porn actress, paying Putin loving sense. But their styles are similar, shouting and unsmiling, anti-establishment and anti-media, absolutely unconvinced of their own correctness, attacking boogeymen, the 1 percent and CEOs in Sanders' case, instead of immigrants and minorities, offering impractical promises with vague details, lacking nuance and nostalgic for the past. Note the subtle jab there at Sanders' policies. It's less hateful, perhaps, to blame billionaires than immigrants or certain globalists for America's troubles. But the scapegoating is similar. A similar crowd could likewise prevent Democrats from presenting a clear alternative to Sanders tempting, if Trump be in message, that an nefarious elite is to blame for America's problems. Universal health care, higher education and child care are within reach. Sanders said to cheers, if only we stand up and tell this 1 percent, that we will no longer tolerate their greed in real life. It's not so simple, but in our new politics, maybe it is. So this may be a quintessential example of a false equivalence because he's comparing Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders' policies and saying they may be different, they may exist on different ends of a political spectrum, but they're still both equally impractical. Donald Trump supposedly saying that Mexico will pay for a wall on our southern border is as equally impractical as us getting the same health care system that every other country in the developed world has. That's the argument he's making.  But nonetheless, it's still scapegoating wrong, except the problem with your use of the word scapegoat in this context is that a scapegoat assumes that you're really only trying to blame that individual or entity for expedient purposes. You're doing it because it's convenient to do so. But when Bernie Sanders blames the one percent for all of our political issues and economic woes, he's not scapegoating. He's being factually correct about what's taking place. And if you care about statistics like you claim you do, let's look at some of these numbers, the richer getting richer and President Donald Trump just passed a tax law that gave rich people the biggest benefit. CEOs are paid 361 times that of the average worker, while 40 percent of Americans can't cover the cost of a four hundred dollar expense, nearly half of workers make less than $30,000 per year. And the federal minimum wage hasn't been increased since 2009. The world made more billionaires than ever in 2017, and those billionaires became 20 percent richer. Meanwhile, homelessness has been on the rise in the United States now for two years in a row. And on top of that fact, it's not just that elites have all the money. They also have all of the political power in what's supposed to be a democracy because studies have shown that Americans have a statistically insignificant impact on policy outcomes, whereas elites have a disproportionate say on what policies actually get passed. So for Bernie Sanders to point that out, he's not being hateful. He's being truthful and he's showing that he has courage that his opponents lack. Because even though people in the Democratic primary who are running against them are smart enough to acknowledge that it's the elites who are ruining not just the economy, but our democracy, they're too afraid to say it because they're trying to court donations from them. They know that these elites can help them get elected so they don't want to demonize them too hard.  And you say that he's demagoguing in a way that Donald Trump demagogues and uses anti-immigrant rhetoric. That's your argument. Bernie tells the truth and you compare him to Trump's demagoguery.  You're literally pretending that his quote unquote hatred for the rich is comparable to Trump's anti-immigrant hatred and demagoguery. I don't even know how anyone can take this article seriously.  You're making a moral equivalence where there is no equivalence between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. They both may be angry, but one is angry for unjust reasons and the other is angry for just reasons. So when Bernie Sanders calls out the billionaire and the oligarchs, he's doing it because their greed is ruining the economy and it's contributing to income and wealth inequality that ultimately is hurting Americans. When Donald Trump calls out immigrants and says that they're invading the country, what he's doing is trying to use fear mongering in order to get you to think that he's going to save you from this big bad immigrant boogeyman. That scapegoating what Bernie Sanders is doing is truth telling, objectively speaking, because we know that immigrants are not the problem. If you look at statistics, they're not the problem. But conversely, if you look at the impact that the greed of oligarchs is having, they are the problem by and large.  And it's clear that the author is a little bit butthurt that he's getting a lot of backlash for it. But if you're going to write something this hacky, I think that you've got to expect and anticipate criticism because that's absolute nonsense, and it's obvious it's just a smear because the left largely does not like Donald Trump. So if you can tie Bernie to Trump, then that helps to demonize Bernie Sanders. It gets everyone primed to believe that if you want more instability, then vote for Bernie because he's just the opposite version of Donald Trump.   So recently, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted something. So, of course, that meant that Fox News had to do an entire five plus minute segment on it, because that's what they do.  And here she is farting, contributing to the warming of the planet. Of course, I'm being hyperbolic, but that's essentially what has become of Fox News since she was elected. She's this big, bad socialist boogeyman and she's great for their ratings.  The supposedly serious news organization is going to cover a tweet that really, I doubt she put much thought into. It's seemingly benign, but nonetheless, here's the tweet in question that was so controversial, according to Fox News. Croissants at LaGuardia are going for seven dollars a piece, yet some people think getting a whole hour of personal, dedicated human labor for fifteen dollars is too expensive. I can't believe she'd say this, AOC.  Fox News is killing me. They're killing me, man. This is so insignificant. The fact that they'd cover this is mind boggling to me. And really, I think that she's making a good point. I mean, if we're going to be charging seven dollars for a croissant, if prices are going to go up, then I think it's reasonable for us to assert that the people in this country deserve to have a living wage, deserve to make a living wage. So that way they're able to keep up with the rising costs. But nonetheless, this is the way that they decided to spend this to make her look like the devil. Alexandre Ocasio-Cortez is annoyed at having to pay seven dollars for a croissant at LaGuardia Airport. All right, here's the tweet. I'll give it to you. Oh, no, we don't have it. She's saying, look, why do I have to pay seven dollars an hour for seven dollars for a croissant at LaGuardia? Right. Why can't you pay 15 dollars an hour minimum wage? All right, fair question. I want to bring in Justin Haskins, he's executive director editor at the Heartland Institute. What does the price of croissant have to do with the 15 dollar an hour minimum wage? I don't see the point. Well, the point is, I guess, to show that if a croissant can cost seven dollars and seven dollars and I guess we should be able to pay people 15 dollars an hour and that that somehow is going to be a better living wage for those people. It's totally ridiculous. The reality is this, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and other democratic socialists, they have no idea how markets work or they know how they work and they just don't care. The truth is, is that in capitalism, capitalism is all just about freedom. That's all it's about, right? I have property rights, you have property rights, and we can freely exchange property between us. And money is just a medium for doing that. If you're against capitalism, then you're just against freedom. And that's really what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants, is to get rid of freedom in the economy so that she and people like her can decide what croissants cost, what labor is worth to people. She wants legislative wages. She wants legislative wages so she can say you got to pay this, this and this all over the place. Now, Justin, I want to get your opinion on what Bernie Sanders said in an NPR interview. I'm going to quote now. What I mean by democratic socialism is that I want a vibrant democracy. Seems to me that those two may be opposite ideas. What say you? Yeah, absolutely. Bernie Sanders is trying to reposition what socialism means, because he knows that according to a Fox News poll in February, only 25 percent of Americans have a favorable view of socialism. Older people, the people who are most likely to vote, they don't have a favorable view of socialism. So he's trying to redefine socialism to mean a $15 minimum wage and single pair health care and that's it. But that's not what Bernie Sanders really wants. I mean, those things are bad ideas and of themselves, but that's not really what Bernie Sanders is after. He is after completely fundamentally transforming the economy so that it's more like the Soviet Union of the 1970s and 80s and closer to Venezuela. Not what we have in the United States. That's going too far.  He's a democratic socialist and Europe is his model. I mean, you could say that Sweden, Denmark, Norway, they are essentially socialist countries and they have conferred prosperity on the vast majority of their people. You could say that is democratic socialism and it works. Yeah, that's the argument that Bernie Sanders makes all the time, but it's actually not true. If you look at the analyses that have been done by the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, they show that in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, etc., their economies are actually freer than ours in many areas and other areas. They're not as free and the people are not really better off there. The point is, is that they have market based, capitalistic economies, they have some aspects of their economies that are socialized that don't work particularly well, like single payer health care. And we're seeing that now in Finland, for instance, where the system is just collapsing, but these are not socialist utopias. They have they have a broad based tax system. They tax even the poorest people in society, pay a huge part of the tax burden. They have very few business regulations compared to some parts of the United States. These are not socialist utopias. They have balanced budgets. I mean, is Bernie Sanders calling for balanced budgets? Of course not. That's not what Bernie Sanders wants. He wants to control the entire economy. That's the goal is that Bernie Sanders and Alexander Christ is the Democratic Party in your view now a socialist party. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.  Just without pause, he responds. Yeah, absolutely. To the question as to whether or not the Democratic Party, a center right neoliberal party, a pro markets party is socialist. Really? Do you not know anything about politics, dude? You're going to say the Democrats, by and large, are socialist. When there's like what, two, maybe three tops that identify as Democratic socialists, when in actuality, they're not even true Democratic socialists. They're more comparable to social Democrats and more comparable to party members in social Democrat parties that we see in Europe.  And look, I know you're all thinking it, so I'm just going to say it. Why does the guy that Stuart Varney was interviewing look like a 14 year old with a come over? I mean, what's going on here? Am I am I allowed to say that?  But I mean, come on, we were all thinking it. But OK, getting to the substance of what they were talking about, not that there was much there, but let's assume that they're making a serious argument. So they're implying that AOC should not have made this tweet and made this comparison about the cost of the croissant and the cost of labor, because really a croissant has nothing to do with the minimum wage. But I personally don't think that they are the ones who should be determining what is and isn't irrelevant, seeing that they were talking about the minimum wage. And at the bottom lower third, you can see this subheader that reads socialism on the rise, but what is anything that she had to say about the minimum wage and a croissant have to do with socialism? She's talking about labor and a just compensation for labor within the confines of our capitalist system. There's nothing inherently socialistic about that. But because they have deemed her the great socialist boogeyman, then they make sure that they go out of their way to deem any and everything that she does as socialist, again, going back to the fart analogy. If she farts, she didn't just make a fart. She made a socialist fart. That's essentially the level of just insanity that we're seeing. Anything she does is socialist because they want to communicate to you that socialism is bad and prime you to believe that whatever view she has that you may or may not disagree with, it is catalyzed by her dim-witted socialistic brain. That's what they're trying to convey to you, the Fox News viewer. Now, this is what the 14 year old Comover guy said. Capitalism is all just about freedom. I have property rights, you have property rights and we can freely exchange property between us and money is just the medium for doing that. If you're against capitalism, then you're against freedom.  I could say if you're against socialism, you're against freedom because you're opting for a different form of enslavement. So rather than having the government lord over you, what you're in favor of, what you're opting for is large multinational corporations to exploit our labor and pay us barely enough to survive. So that may be pro-freedom for these large multinational corporations, but it certainly doesn't make us more free. So you're not inherently pro-freedom if you're pro-capitalist. And he also says that Alexandria Ocasio-Gortez wants to, quote, get rid of freedom in the economy so her and people like her can decide what croissants cost and what labor is worth to people. Now, I need you to understand what he's saying here, because by talking about getting rid of freedom in the economy, what he's really talking about here is deregulation. He wants to deregulate these large multinational corporations and imbue them with the power to do whatever they want. He wants to increase freedom for them or maximize freedom for them. But what he's not telling you or what he's not realizing is that when you maximize freedom for large multinational corporations, you inevitably decrease freedom for everyone else. Because if you, let's say, give farmers more freedom to not test the water that they use to clean the lettuce that they sell to us and that leads to a nationwide E. Coli outbreak, then obviously that impeded the freedom of people who got sick. If you give Wall Street the freedom to be irresponsible and crash the economy, if corporations are free to exploit workers, you're giving them the freedom to harm us, which in turn stifles our freedom. So you're not being pro-freedom just at large by saying we need to give the economy as much freedom as possible and allow the markets to do their work and self-regulate. What you're saying is really one type of freedom is more virtuous than the other. Freedom for large multinational corporations is better and more valuable intrinsically than the freedom that we get by being protected by their freedom. And there's a reason why we all don't have unlimited freedom. There's a reason why my right to swing my fist stops at my neighbor's nose. Because if I if I exercise absolute freedom, then that harms others and in turn diminishes their freedom. If I decided to steal that nerd's glasses and shave off that bird's nest that he has on his head, I would assume he'd take issue with that. But then I could say, well, you're just impeding on my freedom to do that to you. But then obviously he'd argue, well, you don't have the freedom to do that to me. I have the freedom to resist that. So he's not telling you he's being intellectually dishonest and quite frankly disingenuous by assuming that by increasing freedom, everyone's freedom will rise equally and be maximized when that's not true. By increasing the freedom that large multinational corporations have, you are by definition decreasing our freedom. And you may disagree with that, but you're just opting for one type of freedom over the other. Because if you think that telling a corporation that they're not allowed to include a harmful chemical or whatever in the food that they sell to me, if you think that that's limiting their freedom, then I'm sorry, you've got a few screws loose. But really the reason why this 14 year old with the Comilover's argument is incredibly dishonest and disingenuous is because if we extrapolated that argument, that freedom argument that he uses to defend freedom for large multinational corporations, then I should be able to use my quote unquote freedom to steal from him. But of course he wouldn't support that. So there's limits to freedom. He's just saying we shouldn't limit the freedom of large multinational corporations. So understand that freedom is a very loaded term. It's not as simplistic as a lot of people like to make it out to be. It's not as just virtuous in and of itself without explaining it. Because yes, freedom by and large, it's good. It's a good thing. We want to increase freedom of everyone, but we have to draw the line at increasing someone's freedom if they're going to have the ability and the freedom to hurt other people, therefore impeding on their freedom and stifling freedom for everyone else overall. Now they move on to Bernie Sanders, of course. And the guy who has the Comilover, who looks like he's 14 years old, he dropped an intellectually soundproof argument that nobody can rebut. He dropped Venezuela on us. Venezuela, just look at Venezuela. What country is this? Venezuela? They're going to be the left of Venezuela. Venezuela, Venezuela, Venezuela, Venezuela, Venezuela, Venezuela, Venezuela.  It's a straw man because you argue that we want the United States to look more like Venezuela and then you argue that we shouldn't look more like Venezuela when in actuality, that's not our argument. What we're opting for is a Scandinavian type social democracy. So Stewart Varney then tries to reign in his guest, and then he tries to argue that even if we look at Scandinavia, that's not ideal because if you look to these right wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, who are totally unbiased, they're going to show you that these Scandinavian countries aren't actually socialists after all, they like us have market-based economies, although some areas have been socialized. But the problem is that where they have socialized when it comes to health care, for example, it's just not working out for them. He says with regard to Finland, quote, their system is just collapsing. That's your argument. You're going to argue that Finland's health care system is collapsing. When just last year, a global burden of disease study found that they have the best health care system in the world, better than ours, and that they're improving the most, they have improved the most in recent years. And they also beat us when it comes to infant mortality. The United States has one of the worst infant mortality rates in the developed world when Finland is number one. So you're honestly with a straight face going to say that in the areas where these Scandinavian countries have socialized such as health care, it's not just bad, but the system is collapsing. I mean, that is fundamentally untrue, and it's not just factually incorrect. The opposite of what he stated is actually true. They're not collapsing. They're doing phenomenally well. If you want to look at a system that's currently collapsing with regard to health care, you can look at the American system because health care costs are going up and the uninsured and underinsured rate is rising. And we have some of the most expensive prices. So the fact that this dweeb would make such a bold and untrue claim with a straight face, it boggles my mind. And let's kind of try to step back and look at this entire segment and take it all into perspective. They're originally basing all of this off of a tweet that AOC put out about croissants started is started out talking about croissants. And it escalated to Finland's health care system is collapsing. I don't know if they recall, but just a couple of weeks ago, former UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, attacked Finland's health care system and told people to talk to Finns about just how much they love their health care system, expecting them to say our system is terrible and we want to be more like American system. And she got embarrassed. But yet he's trying to do that again. Unbelievable.  If I had to construct a parody segment on the Humanist Report where I make fun of Fox News, that's essentially what it would look like. But of course, you know, there's no room for nuance. They don't want to tell you what freedom really means. They don't want to actually highlight what we believe. And if they do, then they're just going to lie and say, well, you know, Scandinavia, it's not all peachy keen. Look, the fact of the matter is the one kernel of truth that we can extrapolate from that segment, specifically from the 14 year old with the come over, is that by and large, a lot of these Scandinavian countries, they do have market based economies because they're social democracies. They have mixed economies. Parts of their economy has been nationalized such as health care, where you want to remove that profit motive so that way doctors and health care companies are more concerned with the delivery of health care and not profits. But they also allow for a free market when it comes to just goods that are not basic necessities such as clothing. But I mean, you can't expect nuance or an honest conversation about anything in Fox News because it's Fox News. And by definition, their one goal is to do propaganda on behalf of the Republican Party and currently they really like talking about whatever Alexandria Ocasio Cortez does. So I'm excited to see what they cover next.  Either way, it's going to get even more ridiculous. And every time I say that the attacks against AOC and Bernie Sanders by Fox News hosts are getting more dumb, I think they're probably taking what I'm saying as a challenge to outstupid their own segments. It's like they're in competition with themselves. The hosts are trying to be the dumbest and most disingenuous when it comes to socialism and it's just it's absurd. If you watch Fox News unironically, please stop doing this to yourself because it's making you misinformed. And this is why a study showed that people who watch Fox News, it's not just that they are not informed about issues, but they have less knowledge than people who watch no news because that's how bad Fox News is. Back in February, the Intercept published a really insightful piece by Ryan Grimm, which I'm sure you all have read by now, where he talks about how the top aid to Nancy Pelosi, a gentleman named Wendell Primus, assured health industry executives from Blue Cross Blue Shield behind closed doors that they have nothing to worry about when it comes to Medicare for all, because presumably they're going to stop that momentum before it really starts to take hold. And there's already a lot of momentum, but just the fact that they would be presumably conspiring to crush this movement behind closed doors, the fact that the highest ranking Democrats top aid would be in cahoots with health industry executives. It was completely outrageous. And people were mad about this and rightfully so. But thankfully someone who's a true advocate for Medicare for all is on our side and decided to confront Wendell about him assuring Blue Cross Blue Shield executives that they don't have to worry about Medicare for all. Because in reality, they do the momentum that you see for this.  I don't think for Medicare for all. So if we stop now, we would be morons. So we're not going to do that. And I think Primalajayapal knows that now for those of you who don't know, Primalajayapal is the new co-sponsor or the new sponsor rather of the House's Medicare for all act. And it is absolutely phenomenal. I had my doubts at first because it seemed like she was being relatively standoffish and she was drafting it behind closed doors. She didn't want to allow advocates a lot of input, but that all changed. She listened to people and it's a really phenomenal bill. It's incredibly strong. And what I like is that Bernie Sanders has, I believe, pledged to reintroduce his version in the Senate that matches her bill. So I love her bill. I love that she's an advocate. She really did prove herself. And now she's proving herself yet again because she reportedly confronted Wendell Premis and basically told him, why would you tell health industry executives that they don't have to worry about Medicare for all? What's your goal here? Are you trying to undermine this movement? So as Adam Cancran of Politico reports, Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Primalajayapal on Tuesday confronted a top aide to Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressing frustration over his private dismissals of Medicare for all legislation. Jayapal, a lead author of the plan, H.R. 1384, told Wendell Premis, who serves as Pelosi's senior health policy advisor, that she did not appreciate what she perceived as his efforts to undermine lawmakers' bills. Jayapal pressed him to explain reports that he made disdainful remarks about the proposal in separate meetings with health policy researchers and insurance executives. I made it clear that I was not happy, Jayapal said, following a previously scheduled caucus meeting with Premis. I think it's really inappropriate for staff representing the speaker's office to be undercutting members of our caucus during the meeting. Premis told progressive members that his remarks were mischaracterized and that Medicare for all was just a small part of his November discussion with health policy groups, according to Jayapal. He did not apologize. Multiple Congressional Progressive Caucus members told Politico, though no apology was explicitly sought. I would say it was pretty unapologetic. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said of Premis's response during the closed door session. I think it's concerning. Premis was pressed on other topics, including drug pricing during the meeting. But Jayapal specifically challenged Premis over Medicare for All, pointing to copies of slides that he presented to Blue Cross Blue Shield executives, laying out concerns with single payer health care. I wasn't particularly convinced by his answers. Jayapal said, we took some things out of the slides and said, these are some of the things you said. It's not a matter of perception. So not only is this brave, but I think what she's doing is savvy because she's using his own words against him. Because, of course, if you were going to confront him, he just squirmed and tried to deflect because this was a meeting that took place behind closed doors. We only heard about secondhand accounts. So nobody was there who took issue with this, right? But what she did was she took out the slides that he presented and used his own words against him. And that is absolutely brilliant. So do I believe him? Absolutely not. And it seems like members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus don't believe him as well. He's unapologetic and clearly he's trying to undermine our efforts. I'm glad that they confronted him about this. But the problem is Nancy Pelosi has got to get rid of this guy. You can't have this guy as your top aide, either demote him or fire him. Because someone who is in cahoots, colluding with health industry executives to undermine our fight for Medicare for all, that is corruption, that obviously poses a conflict of interest. It's overtly corrupt. There may be no quid pro quo, but obviously what you're doing here poses a conflict of interest. And I can't see how this is on a national scandal. Now, the one thing that kind of bothered me about this is that Pramila Jayapal, she made it clear that her argument isn't necessarily about Nancy Pelosi and her criticism of Nancy Pelosi's aide, William Primus, in no way should determine how she feels about Nancy Pelosi. I'm paraphrasing, but for the most part, that was the sentiment. And look, you've got to hammer Nancy Pelosi. She is a conservative. She's conservative on this issue. If you are going to be to the right of the UK's Prime Minister, who's in the conservative party on the issue of health care, you're no progressive. You're just flat out conservative. Now, if you want to say she's a progressive in other areas that she was great when it comes to LGBTQ rights a hundred years ago, great. But on this issue, she's conservative and she's part of the problem, too. Hate to break it to you, but she is. So I'm glad that Pramila Jayapal and really other members of Congressional Progressive Caucus, they have the courage to confront Nancy Pelosi's top aide, because you've got to understand that this could lead to unintended consequences. He could complain to Nancy Pelosi about the progressives getting too rowdy and then she could choose to penalize them in some way. Now, would she go as far as to strip them of their committee assignments? I don't think she'd go that far, but there are other ways that she could marginalize them and really undermine their agenda and she could basically stop this Medicare for all debate in its tracks. I mean, we're finally getting hearings for Medicare for all. And that was one of her concessions as if that's such a big concession. But I mean, nevertheless, she can still do things to make their lives miserable. So it is really brave that they're kind of putting their necks on the line here and saying, look, the fact that you did this, the fact that you assured Blue Cross Blue Shield executives that you're going to stop Medicare for all, maybe not in those exact words, but you're kind of giving them the wink and the nod that that's what you will do. It's downright morally reprehensible because these are companies that profit off of ripping off people. They don't care about delivery of health care. They care about delivery of profits to their pockets. They care about their wallets. So that's why we need Medicare for all. Because if health care is free at the point of service, then we're more concerned with health care itself as a goal, not profits. And this is what these health insurance companies do. So for any candidate who is hedging on whether or not we should get rid of these health insurance companies, understand something. They're not serious about Medicare for all. That's why Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who is serious about Medicare for all, no other candidate in the 2020 race is as serious about it as Bernie Sanders. You can say that I'm being unfair, but facts are facts. And until other candidates start unequivocally calling for these health insurance companies to go away, I'm not going to take them seriously, because if you want Medicare for all, then obviously the goal is to get these health insurance companies to go out of business. That's the goal. You're not going to explicitly ban them via legislation. You're not going to codify a law that says health companies are illegal, but you are going to make our own single payer Medicare for all type systems so good that you don't need them, that they go out of business. And sure, you can still have supplemental care if somebody wants a cosmetic procedure. If you want to get like a nose job or something that doesn't actually have anything to do with your personal health and well being, you can have health care companies for instances like that. But by and large, if your goal is not to do away with the health insurance companies, you're just not serious about Medicare for all. Bernie's the one candidate. So if you support Medicare for all, if this is your number one issue, Bernie's got to be your guy. Now, I don't want to flip this about Bernie when it's supposed to be about Pramila Jayapal, because by and large, what she did here was courageous. What AOC did here was also courageous, but she kind of led the charge here. But this does get to the point of if we truly do want Medicare for all, we've got to get people in the leadership who support it. Bernie Sanders obviously would be the person who would fight for it. Nancy Pelosi would not and has not been fighting for it. So, you know, if you want to get the policies, you've got to change people in the positions of power who just start trying to fight to the nail for these policies, because quite frankly, they're corrupt. They're corporate pawns, as Nancy Pelosi would say herself. When my district, they call me a corporate pawn because my district is so progressive. Dude hasn't even announced that he's running for president yet, but I am already sick and tired of Joe Biden. I'm sick and tired of him because not only is he politically not the best bet, in fact, he's one of the worst bets because he's essentially a moderate Republican, his support of the Iraq war, his support of the 1994 crime bill, his vote for the Patriot Act. These are all disqualifying factors. He doesn't support Medicare for all. He presumably does not support the Green New Deal. I don't think he'd support a federal jobs guarantee.  But with that being said, we're all now talking about what was obvious to pretty much everyone with the brain who saw through whatever cognitive dissonance was stopping them from seeing him as the creep that he is. And we're talking about the way he's just overly handsy to put it lightly with women, including young women. Now, there were two women that decided to come out and share their stories about how Joe Biden touched them in an inappropriate way. And he gave them an unwanted kiss. Lucy Flores says that he kissed the top of her head. And this made them feel uncomfortable. Now, since I talked about their stories, I think it's only fair that I give you Joe Biden's kind of apology video. There was no explicit apology, but he shares his side of the story. And so far, I've been completely disgusted with the response. People close to him suspect that Bernie Sanders was involved in basically planting the story. And I just think that that's a really grotesque accusation. But nonetheless, this is what he had to say for himself. And I'll tell you my thoughts on that. And then we'll talk about what transpired after he released this video. So the coming month, I expect to be talking about a whole lot of issues. And I always need to record you. But today I want to talk about just as a support and encouragement that I've made to women and some men that made them uncomfortable. And I always tried to be in my career. I've always tried to make a human connection. That's my responsibility, I think. I shake hands, I hug people. I grab men and one by the shoulders and say, you can do this. And whether they're women, men, young, old, it's the way I've always been. It's the way I've tried to show I care about them and I'm listening. And over the years, knowing what I've been through, the things that I've faced, I found that scores, if not hundreds of people have come up to me and reached out for solace and comfort, something, something, anything that may help them get through the tragedy they're going through. And so it's just who I am. And I've never thought of politics as cold and antiseptic. I've always thought about connecting with people, as I said, shaking hands, hands on the shoulder, a hug, encouragement. And now it's all about taking selfies together. Social norms have begun to change. They've shifted and the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset and I get it, I get it. I hear what they're saying, I understand it and I'll be much more mindful. That's my responsibility, my responsibility and I'll meet it. But I always believe governing, quite frankly, life for that matter is about connecting, about connecting with people. That won't change, but I will be more mindful and respectful of people's personal space. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing. I've worked my whole life to empower women. I've worked my whole life to have run abuse. I've written up and so the idea that I can adjust to the fact that personal space is important, more important than it's ever been, is it's just not thinkable, I will, I will. Now, almost immediately after he released this video, three more women came forward. And then shortly after that, two more women came forward, bringing the total number of women speaking out to seven at the time I record this video, because it may actually increase. So this is certainly troubling. Is it disqualifying? I don't know. I don't even think it's important to discuss that question, because even if this may be an unrealistic expectation, I think that we can examine or at least try to examine these allegations in a vacuum, because I think that this conversation ultimately is important. It's something that we need to talk about. We need to talk about how it's vital that we respect personal boundaries. We respect personal space and we acknowledge that our actions, even if our intent is pure, may come off in a way that makes people feel uncomfortable. So I think it's an important discussion to have. And when I listen to the video, I don't like what he says. I don't like what he says. I don't like that he didn't issue an apology. I don't like that he essentially says that social norms are changing because for you to put your hands on someone, play with their hair, give them kisses on the head, I don't think that's ever been appropriate. Now, to be clear, none of these women are alleging that he sexually assaulted them. I don't think it rises to that level. But what they are saying is essentially along the same lines. He kind of made them feel uncomfortable by hugging them and holding on too long. He put his forehead against theirs and it was awkward and made them feel uncomfortable. So I mean, they're all kind of saying the same thing. This behavior that he's exhibited throughout the years on camera for everyone to see has been super creepy and it's about time that we talk about it. So the good thing is that his accusation that Bernie Sanders was all behind this kind of fell apart after more women came forward. But it's it's a little depressing to me that this is only viewed through the lens of politics. And I get it, he's going to announce that he's running for president soon.  But I think we should at least try because during the Me Too era, we need to make sure that women feel comfortable sharing their stories. And no, these are not stories that are on par with what Harvey Weinstein did. I don't think I've seen anyone allege that. But it is important that we all become more aware of our actions and become aware of how we can respectfully engage with people in a way that communicates love, that he tries to convey to people, but without doing so creepily. But unfortunately, this really is kind of becoming politicized because now Donald Trump decided to weaponize this issue and pounce on it. And he posted this video about Joe Biden. But basically of all people, Donald Trump is the last who should be talking about this, 23 women accused him of doing worse. He endorsed Roy Moore, a pedophile. He painted Brett Kavanaugh as the victim amid rape allegations.  He bragged about sexually assaulting women on tape. He says that he grabs women by the genitals. He doesn't even wait. So of all people, Donald Trump is the least person that I want to hear from. But it's why it's very difficult to disaggregate the politics from the conversation that we all need to be having that I think would otherwise be constructive, which is why it's unfortunate that this really is devolving into a conversation about whether or not this is a political hit against Joe Biden. Now, this Michael Tracy tweet kind of also alludes to that. He says, if the goal is to defeat Joe Biden, it should be done politically with substantive arguments about policy and logic and reason and stuff, not me to medium posts and making a big scandal out of his hugging practices. Just my two cents. Now, I'm not picking on Michael Tracy, but I think that what he shared here and why I'm talking about his tweet is because it's one example of many bad takes that I've seen to describe what Joe Biden has been doing for many years as hugging practices is an oversimplification to put it lightly. But I don't think Michael Tracy is the best judge since he literally thought that an old lady pushed him. And furthermore, we don't need to meet to him out of the race. We can beat Joe Biden on the policy substance because he's a conservative. He's a Republican running in a Democratic Party primary. So him versus Bernie, I think we can easily make the case. And yes, he may be polling ahead of Bernie right now, but I think that's going to change when he announces because just by and large, he's a really unlikeable guy. But with that being said, should we still be talking about Joe Biden? Absolutely. This is an important conversation that has to be taking place.  I don't know how this is going to affect Joe Biden's political chances. Does this disqualify him? I haven't really touched on that yet. I don't know. I don't really agree that this is disqualifying. But at the same time, I do think that it's extremely disturbing. Like it's it's really downright disgusting. And we need to be talking about this because people in power, they've got to be held accountable for their actions. If Joe Biden was just a Walmart employee and he didn't have any power and he walked up to a female co-worker and started playing with her hair and grabbing her face and kissing her on the head. If she complained to HR at a minimum that Walmart employee would be written up, possibly terminated. So the fact that everyone is rushing to defend someone with power, it really speaks to a broader issue in American discourse that people in power are held to a completely different standard than people with no power. We shouldn't allow Joe Biden to skirt any culpability or not take responsibility or not have to take responsibility just because he's Joe Biden, just because he's a former vice president. I think we need to hold him as a human being and a man to the same exact standard that we would hold anyone else to. So the fact that so many supposedly left leaning individuals, mainly people in mainstream media like Anna Navarro, are rushing to defend him and shut down this really important conversation that we're having, I find it incredibly disgusting. This is something we need to talk about. This is something as a country we need to talk about and grapple with. And yes, this doesn't rise to the level of sexual assault, but nonetheless, it still is something that is related to the Me Too movement. Even if you think it's only tangentially related, but I think that we're in this era where we need to talk about how women have been silenced, have been told to shut up. Whenever they express their discomfort with the actions of men, I think that that's not acceptable. So we need to, on the left, facilitate an environment where women don't feel like they're going to be attacked, like Lucy Flores was attacked for speaking out. We need to make sure that people can express their concerns without assuming that there's some type of political agenda that is causing them to want to speak out. We can't do what Republicans do and not hold people on the left or, in this case, the center right to the same standard that we hold Republicans to. And I think that a lot of people on the left in mainstream media, namely, are proving that they are not just hypocrites, but political hacks. Because if your team does it, it's OK. But if the other team does it, you're going to pounce on them. That is a horrible way to win over anybody on the right or in the center. It's an easy way to discredit yourself and make it seem like you don't care about the actual issues you just care about the personalities.  Let's talk about this and let's grapple with this really important conversation that we should be having related to this type of behavior, not just Joe Biden, but this type of behavior in general. Bernie Sanders recently ruffled a few feathers within the Democratic Party establishment and also among some Democratic party voters by agreeing to do a town hall on Fox News. Now, if you are a reasonable human being, it's obvious that Fox News isn't a real news organization. They have no credibility whatsoever. So the contention here is why would Bernie Sanders subject himself to a town hall on an illegitimate news network, especially after the DNC made it very clear that they're unwilling to allow Fox News to host any of the Democratic primary debates. And this actually touches on something that I talked about with Kyle Kalinsky on the Progressive Voices channel, where we talked about responsible platforming and whether or not the left should go on illegitimate news sources in order to get the word across. So I want to read to you an article from Newsweek that kind of describes the conflict and the tensions that this kind of spawned pretty well. So the headline reads, Democrats ridicule Bernie Sanders over Fox News town hall plans, conservatives and moderates offer rare praise. So Benjamin Firnau of Newsweek reports, Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders angered many establishment Democrats and drew rare praise from conservatives over his plans to appear at a Fox News 2020 presidential campaign town hall later this month. Sanders was widely ridiculed by Democrats and supporters of 2020 rivals, including Beto O'Rourke, Kamala Harris and even former Vice President Joe Biden's unannounced campaign backers who used the announcement as evidence. The independent senator is not loyal to the Democratic Party. While voices such as the intercepts Glenn Greenwald applauded Sanders for his open-minded outreach, mainline Democrats accused Sanders of courting conservative voters, promoting the cable news networks, hateful Trump rhetoric and turning his back on the DNC. That's kind of funny. The Democratic National Committee announced last month it would exclude Fox News from hosting any debates in the 2020 election cycle. The infighting among 2020 Democratic candidates dredged up arguments over former DNC interim chairman Donna Brazile's collusion with Hillary Clinton's campaign to give her questions prior to March 2016, CNN Town Halls. Many supporters of Sanders' decision to appear on Fox News on April 15th in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, noted both Clinton and former president Barack Obama also appeared on Fox News several times in the previous years. Fox News host Howard Kurtz challenged other 2020 Democratic candidates and pondered if other Dems will realize ignoring a large audience makes no sense. So before I even address the substance of this article, I just got a laugh at this line here that Bernie Sanders is being accused of turning his back on the DNC. They just rigged an entire primary against him a couple of years ago. I don't think anyone is questioning whether or not the DNC is owed any respect by Bernie whatsoever. Also, there's this question, well, maybe he's not loyal to the Democratic Party since he's bucking party orthodoxy or at least DNC orthodoxy with regard to this policy of not going on Fox News. But I think that that last line, unfortunately, by a conservative, kind of convinced me it was Howard Kurtz that said it. There's a large audience, so obviously it makes sense. Now, I've been up until this point kind of waffling back and forth here. I've been torn about this question of whether or not the DNC is logical in choosing to not allow Fox News to host the debate, because on one hand, I totally understand that. Why would you legitimize a news organization that isn't really even a news organization? They're just the propaganda arm of the Republican Party. So I get that. And that argument actually does make sense to me. But at the same time, a point that Kyle Kulinski made in the talk that we did on Progressive Voices Channel, it completely resonated with me, regardless if Fox News is objectively legitimate or not, millions of people view them as legitimate. They're number one in all of cable news. So like it or not, if we choose to not go on Fox News, we're just choosing to contain the progressive message that otherwise would resonate. Now, I've been very clear from the beginning that I don't think that Democratic Party presidential candidates need to be courting Republican voters. I think the goal ultimately is to get out the base, get people who don't usually vote to come out and vote for you. But with that being said, why would you willingly choose to deny people who would be maybe receptive to your message? That opportunity, it it makes more sense, I think, for the DNC to allow for Fox News to host debates, even if they're going to be biased, even if, as David Pakman kind of talked about, they're going to turn up the heat to make the candidates feel more uncomfortable and look sweaty. We know what to expect from Fox News. But I think that basically this is where I've arrived and this is all kind of crystallizing in my head. I've come to this conclusion that I am pro going on Fox News, even if they are illegitimate, if you meet two requirements.  And in fact, I'd encourage you to go on. And second of all, if you go on Fox News and you never imply either tacitly or overtly that Fox News has more credibility than they deserve, then I'm also OK with that as well. So there was a lot of controversy over Glenn Greenwald's decision to go on Tucker Carlson's show to talk about Russiagate. Now, I also felt uneasy about that. I didn't necessarily think that would be constructive because you're kind of implying that Fox News has more credibility overall than MSNBC. And even if MSNBC and CNN were objectively wrong on the issue of Russiagate and Fox News happened to get it right for hacky reasons. Well, you still should communicate to the Fox News audience that CNN and MSNBC getting it wrong on this particular issue doesn't suggest that Fox News is just objective and they have the truth on their side. This highlights an issue that all mainstream media news outlets have when it comes to the sensationalization of news stories, they all do what they need to do, cover what they think will be popular in order to drive ratings. And from there, you need to cite how Fox News did this with Ben Gazi and some hosts on Fox News like Sean Kennedy did this when it came to this disgusting Seth Rich conspiracy theory that he was spreading. So I think that if you go on Fox News and you one, don't sacrifice your principles and two, try not to make it seem as if Fox News is above the cr