Lovett or Leave It - What a Weekday: Closing Arguments (with Senator Bernie Sanders)

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Puerto Rican voters roast Trump’s racist MSG rally. AOC and Tim Walz tackle Tony Hinchcliffe while streaming Madden. Trump and Mike Johnson hint at their little secret, and we hope to God it's that they’re in LOVE. And Lovett is joined by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to talk about their favorite fall soups. Just kidding! They talk about the election. For the foreseeable future, we’re all going to be talking about the election. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

2020, we were all stuck at home. And so it's, in 2016, just, I think we were, we all had a kind of psychological shell of protection around us that what we didn't want to happen could not be. And then it was what happened. And so now we know that shell's gone. And so we're just sort of exposed to the,

to the like, like, there's no protective layer of psychological atmosphere to protect us from the radiation of this election that's just hitting us and breaking up the DNA in our fucking bodies. Anyway, I'm doing great. Welcome back to What a Weekday. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm here with Kendra, Halle and Lazarus. Hi. Hello.

I'm seeing so many Nazi rally clips. Yeah. We got a lot to get through. It is the home stretch. Yes. this is, I would say this is it. This is the exhausted, dispirited, broken fucking final home stretch before we get to the end.

But we have to just feel those feelings. That's how I'm feeling, just like they're real. And then power the fuck through, I guess. Do you wanna share how you feel about the election? I really, you know, I am, I like, I feel hopeful. I do, I don't think it's a false sense of hope, but I also don't think it's a hope that would be shocked by the fact that

we lost either. It's a feeling like we are doing everything we are supposed to be doing. I guess what the feeling is, is if we do not win, there will be recriminations and finger pointing and blame and all of the awful consequences politically of losing and what it means and how we learn from it. But where I'm at right now is we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. Kamala Harris is doing what she's supposed to be doing. She is running an excellent campaign. She is on message.

She has great surrogates. They have a great organization. Is it perfect? Of course not, but no campaign is on message. She has great surrogates. They have a great organization. Is it perfect? Of course not, but no campaign is ever perfect. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is running a terrible meandering, chaotic, off-message operation, blundering in the home stretch. So if we lose and Donald Trump wins, it won't be because we didn't understand the threat, it wouldn't be because we didn't do everything we could, it wouldn't be because we didn't try to put in place a candidate that would give us the best chance of victory, it'll be something deeper and something darker. And we'll

have to confront that and we'll have to deal with that. But I just want to make sure I'm saying that in this final period of time because we don't know what's going to happen, but I don't want us to pretend after the fact that we should do all this kind of lashing and blaming. We have to convince this country not to choose Donald Trump, but that choice is laid bare now. That choice is before us.

And if we do, that's a terrible, terrible thing. And by the way, it's a terrible thing even if we win the popular vote, but still lose in the electoral college, because someone like Trump should have never gotten this close. But I think, like, regardless, right now, we have seven days. I actually think at this point it's less up to Kamala Harris and all the Senate candidates and all the House candidates, actually up to us as individuals and how we Senate candidates and all the House candidates actually up to

us as individuals and how we use the next seven days and that's it. That's how I feel about it. A lot to cover. It was a weekend with a ton of news, but also this week I sat down with Senator Bernie Sanders to talk about this election, the stakes, and what he is doing in the home stretch to try to bring as many people out to support Kamal Harris, especially young people and progressive people who need to understand the stakes here. But first, let's get into it. What a weekday.

At his rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, the Trump campaign delivered its closing message. There's a lot going on. Like, I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yeah. I think it's called Puerto Rico.

Okay. All right. Okay. We're getting there. I really think it speaks to the laziness of this, that the intro into the joke is, there's a lot going on. And then when everyone groans, he says, we're getting there.

It's like, that is the, like, that's the laziest club. Like, there's nothing. There's no segues, there's no thought behind any of this. A lot of attention has been obviously paid to how the joke is offensive and racist. The structure of the joke really bothers me. In part because islands don't float. That's I think a misconception from childhood.

I remember when I was a kid, I thought continents were land, but that islands floated, that that's what an island was. It was a floating piece of land. I didn't understand that it all connected. Like an ice cube. And that's fair for a five-year-old. Right, yeah.

I get that. The mind of a child. There's a floating island of garbage. He's talking about the Pacific Gar... He's misdirected, right? There's the Pacific garbage patch. It's a floating island of garbage in the ocean. That's true, it's the Pacific garbage patch.

Oh no, he's talking about Puerto Rico. But Puerto Rico isn't a floating island. David, it's not a floating island. I didn't know that. Thank you. It's just an island. So it's not a floating island. I didn't know that. Thank you. It's just an island. So it's frustrating. I think that probably some edits, you could have edited it and fixed it.

I mean, it still would be a racist and offensive joke. And then it would be a perfect joke. Yeah, that would be a perfect fucking joke. A person inside the Trump campaign told reporters that Tony Hinchcliffe, the comedian who issued that comment, had also originally had a joke calling Kamala Harris a cunt until a staffer asked him to kill it, which suggests that the campaign saw and approved his other jokes about Puerto Rico, black people, Jews, and Palestinians. The Trump campaign would like you to know that it does have a line and that it is simply

invisible to the naked eye. But don't worry, after Hinchcliffe, all of the Madison Square Garden speakers were perfectly normal. Here's Grant Cardone. She's a fake, a fraud. She's a pretender. Her and her pimp handlers will destroy our country. This election has to be more than a victory.

It needs to be a landslide. We need to slaughter this other people. Yikes. Hey, let's bring that comedian back out here. By the way, we're watching this in the studio and David is watching it real time. When this guy got to pimp handlers, he record, whoa, you just pimp handlers. This is, whoa. You're just a pimp handler. This is by the way, this is why Kamala Harris in the debate says go watch his rallies. This is why at the Kamala Harris rallies,

she's showing clips of Donald Trump. People are not seeing this shit. And the great news is that this rally was so fucked up that it's actually breaking through. Because when people see this, they recoil from it. I think it's... We went back at one point for you to say Tony Hinchcliffe's full name,

and I think one of the things that I do, I worry about even after we are successful next week, all of these people who I have never heard of before, Elle Magazine did a profile yesterday of Jessica Krause, this MAGA mommy blogger who apparently just has millions and millions of followers. Never heard of her. Never heard of Tony Hinchcliffe. Never heard of this guy who's speaking.

And it's like, we have these whack-a-moles that we're going to have to deal with who have audiences that I just don't... I... that I just didn't realize are listening to these people. Yes. I think that's actually a really, a very, very good point, which is there's, we'll talk about it, but there's this debate of like, should Kamala Harris go on Rogan? By the way, we learned today that Kamala Harris offered to go on Rogan. She offered him an hour and

that he would have to go to her, which is a completely fucking reasonable thing. We think that's what she did. Right, that's basically what she did with, I can't call her daddy. Call her daddy. I'm sorry, I'm really at the end here mentally. But that's like any journalist, by the way, would kill to have an hour with Kamala Harris and would go anywhere to get the opportunity.

But Rogan is like, oh, I think it would be much better to have it be three hours and in my house. Yeah, man, totally. But if you want the conversation, the conversation is there to be had. Have one hour. Maybe in the future, you'd have another. It's a completely like reasonable position for the Kamala Harris campaign. By the way, after days of reports that she doesn't want to do it, she's refusing to do it. And it's like they again, they are doing what they're supposed to be doing.

That is such a completely fair request and compromise. Yeah, I just wanna hear a joke I just thought of. Yeah. Yeah, Kamala Harris is a cunt. She'll see you next Tuesday at the polls. Oh! Wait, wait, high five me. Yeah!

If you thought of it earlier, I could have done that joke. Sorry. Dude. You would have changed the wording and fucked it up. And then people would think it was me. Yeah, if you thought of it earlier I could have done that joke You would change the word Yeah, I would have changed out fuck yeah, come on come on we know you all right anyway after that speaker all the remaining speakers Were perfectly normal. I don't know. I'm not gonna do conspiracy and I'm not not gonna do conspiracy But it's kind of funny that they tried everything else and now they're trying to kill him conspiracy and I'm not not gonna do conspiracy. But it's kind of funny that they tried everything else and now they're trying to kill him. All right, everybody, we got to give Rudy a break here.

He had to give his apartment to those poll workers and ever since he's been sleeping at the car, Lyle. I'm sorry, he's been sleeping in Lyle's car. Well, speaker after speaker repeated this language that they tried to kill Donald Trump. It's interesting to note that now even Republicans are referring to themselves using they, them pronouns. America's mayor also added this. There's no place in America.

The president shouldn't be able to come. No thank you said Melania We are yesterday in Paz America we use this because there's that moment there's that that clip of Kamala Harris saying do not come Do not come and then there's Trump saying I'm gonna come and we added this it's uh, it's getting broke. I like it We also heard at this rally from this guy in In fact, she is the devil, whoever screamed that out. She is the antichrist. So weird. Usually when you hear somebody in Midtown screaming that Kamala Harris is the antichrist, they're on the C train.

Even Stephen Miller slithered out to join the fun. America is for Americans and Americans only. Stephen Miller knows something about this. His ancestors came over on the Mayflower with all the other Jews. Tucker Carlson laid the groundwork for another big lie if and when Trump loses the election. It's gonna be pretty hard to look at us and say, you know what, Kamala Harris, she's just, she got 85 million votes because she's just so impressive as the first Samoan Malaysian, low IQ, former California prosecutor

ever to be elected president. It was just a groundswell of popular support and anyone who thinks otherwise just a freak or a criminal. Buddy, you could have stopped after it's's gonna be pretty hard to look at us. It's already hard to look at you, and it's gonna continue to be. When did he stop wearing a bow tie? He stopped at some point when he switched to prime time in Fox or when he switched over to Fox. He's been off the bow tie train for a while.

It makes me think about how after he was elected the first time they kept accusing us of being in a bubble. And it seems this is like, I don't want our bubbles to touch. Our bubbles so good, please. Like I don't want this bubble infecting everyone else's bubble. Billy Joel wrapped up his residency before this happened. He's not going back.

I mean, this is the, but like, this man's in a bubble. This is a terrible bubble. Yeah, this is a horrific bubble. This is a horrible, like, like, Kendra was like Samoa. Smells crazy in there. What'd you say? Smells crazy in that bubble.

Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah, the bubble smells, yeah, it's a lot of cigar and old spice and spray tan. It's just meat farts. And medical. I've never heard Samoa. Yeah, it's, at some point in the speech, he makes some point about how, like,

Donald Trump has given Tucker his freedom because it's his freedom to tell the truth, and I guess this is his truth, right? The truth being that don't we all know that, uh, that Kamala is fundamentally unimpressive and everyone's pretending otherwise because she's a woman of color? We all know that.

That's obvious to us and it's obvious to everyone. And so because of that, if Kamala Harris wins, it will only be fraudulent. Several speakers later, at long last, it was time for the maniac of the hour. And when I say the enemy from within, the other side goes crazy, becomes a sound the whole. How can he say? No, they've done very bad things to this country. They are indeed the enemy from within.

Man, I wish the other side would go crazy when he said that. I feel like we mostly go to the kitchen and stress eat a piece of jerky. Trump's speech also had this ominous moment about a little secret he shares with House Speaker Mike Johnson. And I think with our little secret, we're going to do really well with the House, right?

Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a secret. We'll tell you what it is when the race is over. I hope it's that they're fucking. Anything else is terrifying. It's been a week of sort of ominous signs, right? That's ominous, right? We don't know exactly what they're talking about. Maybe they're talking about how they have a secret polling showing that they're going to win the House. Who knows? They're going to drop money on some races. But it could be that they are talking about the fact that Mike Johnson could still be speaker on January 6th and that he could, with other Republicans, stand in the way of

certifying a legitimate election. I don't know if that's what Mike Johnson means and Donald Trump means. We just don't know. But let's never find out. And the way we never find out is by making sure we win the House. Because if we win the House, and I hope people know this, if we win the House, the new House takes office on January 3rd, which means if we can take the house back, then Mike Johnson is not the speaker on January 6th.

Hakeem Jeffries is the speaker on January 6th. So if you saw this and that gave you a little terrible feeling in the pit of your stomach, right? And I might like, and we should be listening to our bodies. Then everyone should be doing everything they can to win the house. Over the weekend, John Tommy and I went to kick off some canvases for Dave Min, Derek Tran, and Will Rollins. Around Los Angeles, there are three very close house races that could

determine control of the house. There are a couple districts in New York that can determine control of the house. If you are listening to this, whether you're in New York, California, really anywhere in the country, you are probably within a short drive to one of these swing House races. So obviously we need people in the seven swing states for the presidential. We need people to help win these close Senate races, but you can also help in these House races where you will absolutely make a difference. Some of these House races could be determined by dozens or hundreds of votes. So if you can jump in this weekend to knock on doors,

if we win the House, we never need to find out Mike Johnson's other secret besides the fact that he was in a masturbation app with his son. Wow, let's forget about that. Yeah. Yeah, really brings us back. Some of the other terrible things that happened. Alexander Ocasio-Cortez and Tim Walz,

who joined forces for a Twitch livestream on Sunday, were able to respond to the event at Madison Square Gotham Platz in real time. Walz and AOC were there to play Madden and hopefully win over young progressive voters. Walz even partook in a little John Madden cosplay. Oh, I'm sorry. That's just how he looks. Things got off to a rocky start when AOC had her entire defensive line kneel during the national anthem.

That's our girl. She also showed off her stardew farm. during the national anthem. That's our girl. She also showed off her stardew farm. It was really cool. Nice. Yeah. It hurts. During the stream, the pair actually watched

Hinchcliffe's racist tight five and had the same question we all did. Who is that jackwad? I hate to think of Tim Walz having to find out who Tony Hinchcliffe is. He should be using those neurons to remember how to weatherproof a shed or what different kinds of pigs are called. I hate to think of Tim Walz having to find out who Tony Hinchcliffe is. He should be using those neurons to remember how to weatherproof a shed or what different kinds of pigs are called.

Louisville Winkers, Des Moines Fatback, Lincolnshire Curlycoat. That last one's real. Is that AOC? When you have some a-hole calling Puerto Rico floating garbage. Know that that's what they think about you. That is like, that's just what they think about you. It's what they think about anyone who makes less money than them.

It's what they think about the people who serve them food in a restaurant. There are hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans across in battleground states that need to send them a message on this. I want them to like roll that. I want everyone in Philadelphia to see that clip. Now, how do we get that clip to the top

of every lamppost in that city? Hinchcliffe responded, he said, these people have no sense of humor and I love Puerto Rico and vacation there. I make fun of everyone. I'm a comedian. Might be time, Tim, to change your tampon. Hinchcliffe saying, I vacation there

is a world-class defense. I can't be racist. Some of my best cabana boys are Puerto Rican. AOC responded to Hinchcliffe, because we're in a real colloquy here, saying, you don't love Puerto Rico. You like drinking pina coladas, there's a difference. Which we loved.

We liked that part of the response. Got him. Following the rally, Puerto Rican artists, including Bad Bunny and Jennifer Lopez, posted Harris's Puerto Rico pledge to their social media, publicly throwing their support behind Kamala on the day that Kamala coincidentally outlined her plan for Puerto Rico.

It couldn't have been more perfectly timed. And as Republicans denounced the comments and JD Vance was forced to respond and reports of these comments making a difference for voters in the home stretch, I realized a comedian's bad joke could save this country. And it wasn't going to be mine. We're sorry. Well, it's nice not to put the pressure on yourself. Our jokes are too good.

While the Trump campaign was driving one message, the Harris campaign was driving a different one in Texas. Harris was joined on stage by a group of Texas OBGYNs and medical professionals horrified that Donald Trump continues to boast about overturning Roe. So let me be clear about one thing. There is no place for Donald Trump in my exam room. But what if I stay in the corner and promise to be really quiet? Ah, I won't be quiet. I'll interrupt your sonogram to talk about how a doctor once told me I had the most beautiful ear canals he'd ever seen. He's not gonna stay quiet in the corner during your sonogram. He's gonna talk to you. He's gonna have opinions. But of course, the draw at that event was Beyoncé herself. I'm not here as a celebrity. I'm not here as a politician. I'm here as a mother.

It's a great line, but people were less excited when she announced that instead of performing a song, she would be taking the stage to cut grapes into tiny pieces. Choking, Helen. As soon as the real fans saw the Honey Blonde, we knew she was there for business. It is amazing the difference in terms of what these two campaigns were doing over the weekend because you have Trump with a long kind of meandering conversation with Joe Rogan, you have this awful event at Madison Square Garden, and then on the other side you have Beyonce, you have these events about reproductive freedom,

you have Michelle Obama giving one of the best campaign speeches I've ever seen. That I hope people, if you haven't seen the Michelle Obama speech, you should watch it and then you should take clips from it and send it to people in your life, because I do think it is so persuasive. And one reason I do feel hopeful, and we don't know what's gonna happen, is I really do believe in this last period of time,

this Puerto Rico comment is an example, but I think that there are others, which is, I think that the millions of people who understand the stakes in this election are going to take one last shot at the people in their life they care about, and they're going to say to those people, if you care about me, this is what I need you to do. And I just have this hope that that will work.

And the Joe Rogan conversation was a good form for Donald Trump. He seemed charming and affable. And if you're a person who's not paying attention to politics, I do think for Donald Trump. He seemed charming and affable. And if you're a person who's not paying attention to politics, I do think seeing Donald Trump for three hours shooting this shit with Joe Rogan does make it harder to convince that person that Donald Trump is the menace we know him to be. And I do think rhetoric like, oh, he's a fascist is probably less effective at helping people understand in detail what Donald Trump is going to do. But if you put Michelle Obama's argument, heartfelt, policy-driven argument about the stakes

and the emotions that people are feeling and why this election matters to her and to women, and you put that up against three hours of shooting the shit with Joe Rogan, I think Michelle Obama wins that argument. And that's my hope. Speaking of laying out the choice, late last week, the Washington Post announced it would not endorse a candidate for president in the election.

And then the paper reported that the Post's owner, Jeff Bezos, personally blocked the paper's planned endorsement of Harris, which was already drafted. Bob Woodward must be rolling in that grave, that grave being of Vana's, to find out what's going on in there. Doing an investigation. After the story broke, the Post audience, already hanging on to sanity by their fingertips after another week of Trump saying things like,

folks, I will kill Mu Dang beautifully, and the polls remaining locked at 48, 47, in every swing state, absolutely lost it. As of Monday, 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscription to the paper, 8% of the post-readership. Said a representative of the New York Times, we stand by our editorial standards,

and excuse me, this isn't about us. Are you sure? This sort of thing is usually about us. In response to the fracas, Bezos published an op-ed in the paper he owns denying reports that he made a deal with the Trump campaign, explaining that he believes editorial endorsements

only reinforce an impression of bias that he admitted the timing was not ideal. This all led to a debate about preemptive compliance to fascism. In other words, are we seeing wealthy elites like Bezos and Jamie Dimon and others refusing to criticize Trump or endorse Kamala because of fear of retribution in the event Trump wins? Which I think is an actually like completely legitimate concern and it's more than a concern. It's a fact, that is happening. It is undeniable. Republican officials have told us that they fear not just criticism, but the threat of violence if they speak out against Trump.

We have seen it over and over again. It's one of the reasons Liz Cheney and Mark Cuban seem so lonely out there. But the answer to that concern is focusing in these last few days on defeating Trump. And a debate about an endorsement, which as Bezos actually correctly points out, probably won't swing any votes, is a sideshow. Because all canceling the post does at this point is punish the post reporters who are not responsible for this decision. Reporters who do excellent work, including excellent work, reporting on the threat posed by Donald Trump.

We all feel dispirited. We all feel exhausted. We need to point those feelings to productive ends in these last seven days. Like getting into fights with our partners over whether Parmesan has lactose and eating all the Halloween candy before the trick-or-treaters arrive. Home stretch, everybody. This is it.

We have seven days left. I know we all feel kind of powerless, but we have a lot of power. There is a swing district near you where you can make calls and knock on doors. You can do it from your couch. You can go to canvas. We were canvassing over the weekend.

It is so rewarding to feel like you are part of actually trying to win, not just sitting at home and hoping to win. You can also reach out to friends and loved ones in swing states through our last call program. Seven days, do something. VoteSaveAmerica.com. If you haven't signed up, do one thing before this election.

You have to do one thing. I am telling you, you will feel better. A few hours feeling like you're out there making a difference will leave you feeling better than a few hours of just sitting around hoping everything works out. And I had a great conversation with Senator Bernie Sanders about not only the stakes in this election,

but about the best arguments and messages we need in this home stretch. So everybody stick around for my conversation with Senator Bernie Sanders after the break. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. Joining us today, he's the longest serving independent member of Congress. He is making the case for Kamala Harris to everyone who will listen from Maria Bartiromo to virtual YouTubers.

You met your first virtual YouTuber this week. Senator Bernie Sanders, welcome. Good to be with you. All right. We're a week away from election day. You've been campaigning for Harris in Michigan and Wisconsin. What's it like on the ground? How's the momentum? How are the vibes? I think it's going to be a very close election. I think Kamala has an excellent chance to win. I think she has a chance to lose. So in the remaining 10 days or so, we have all

got to do everything that we can to make sure that our friends families Come out and vote and do everything that we can to drive up the voter turnout Sanders enters does it keep you up at night knowing that Donald Trump has a messenger as effective and charismatic as Elon Musk on his side Yeah, I do Look, I think what we are looking at in this country and we don't talk about it enough, is the growth in America of oligarchy. And I think ordinary people do understand that there's something very wrong when we have three people on top owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society. And of course, at the top of the list is Elon Musk.

And what we're seeing now is not just the big money interest and the impact they have over the economy. We're now seeing it in a way we have never seen it before as a result of Citizens United, their ownership of the political process as well. So it's Elon Musk putting in zillions of dollars and working very hard for Trump. I think he's got three Republicans putting in over $200 million. And of course, Democratic billionaires are also playing a very important role in the Harris campaign. So people are sitting back and they're saying, well, I thought democracy was one person,

one vote. And I'm seeing Elon Musk, richest guy in the world, working day and night for Trump. What's going on? So does it concern me? Of course it concerns me. But what also concerns me is I have very little discussion about the need to end this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move to public funding of elections. Now I may be missing it, but have you heard much discussion on that?

No, nobody's talking about it. It is a difficult situation, right? Because you have billionaires who have a vested financial interest in Donald Trump winning. These are people who are basically trying to, they're openly corrupt. Donald Trump is making promises to them on video about how much he'll do for them

because they're supporting his campaign. And then at the same time, like we can't have Kamala Harris disarming unilaterally. No, you're absolutely right. But I think the point should be made. You said, yeah, we need money to take on Trump, and I'm going to take the money. I understand that most people would. But we also have to highlight the undemocratic, oligarchic nature of the current political system and say, look, yeah, I'm going to take their money.

But if we are elected, you know what we're going to do? We're going to get big money out of politics. And I don't hear that type of discussion. I wish I did. All right. Bottom line is, John, where we are right now is in a very difficult moment in American history. Progressives are in coalition with establishment Democrats

do everything we can to defeat Donald Trump, who I believe and I think many Americans understand is an extremely dangerous political figure who moves us toward an authoritarian society. But the concern that I have in this campaign is that we are losing not only white working class people, we're losing black working class people, we're losing Latino working class people

because the democratic establishment has not been strong enough in saying, you know what? We are gonna stand with the working class of this country against big money interests and we're gonna create an economy that works for ordinary people, not just wealthy campaign contributors. And I think that's the message of what I need to be hearing in the next 10 days.

Yeah, that was going to I was going to ask you about this. So you know, you have Donald Trump. He is standing in front of signs that say no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime. He's throwing on an apron and he's going to McDonald's. There's a fundamentally fraudulent campaign that he's running, but he's counting on the fact that he can chip away at just some of these disengaged voters, just get a little bit on the margins, enough to deliver him the White House.

Now look, we're 10 days out. I'm sure there's a lot of policies you'd like to see Democrats embrace. There's a lot of promises I'm sure you'd like Democrats to make, but we're in a messaging fight now. And so just what is the simplest, clearest message you would like to see from Democrats from the top all the way down to those disengaged, disaffected people, don't think politics is

for them, Trump is trying to win them over? What's the message? The message is that if elected, Democrats are going gonna stand up with a struggling working class and take on an oligarchy now whose greed is destroying this country, all right? That's the message I would like to see and that's a message I think that would resonate with ordinary Americans.

They know that there's something wrong when 60% of our people live in paycheck to paycheck. They know there's something wrong when we're the only major country on earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right. We don't have paid family and medical leave, massive income and wealth inequality. They know it.

We gotta talk about it, and then we have to have the courage to say, you know what, we all are gonna act and do something about it. I wanted to ask you about healthcare. So obviously you wanna move towards Medicare for all, common was talking about strengthening the Affordable Care Act. You were in the fight for Obamacare.

You were there. We're at the very, very end. A bunch of people killed the public option. A bunch of Democrats killed the public option. But it was one who killed the Medicare buy-in for people 55 plus. That was Joe Lieberman. What is the one policy that you would like to see, the most important one, short of Medicare for All, that you would like to see Kamala Harris implement if she wins this race?

What's the best policy to help people right off the bat? I think there has to be the recognition that the Affordable Care Act provides subsidies that helps people afford health care. That's a good thing. Trump wanted to kill it. That's obviously bad. You can campaign on it. But you have got to acknowledge the reality that the current health care system is broken and dysfunctional. And its major function is to make the drug companies and the insurance companies incredibly wealthy. So you may not be able to move toward Medicare for all tomorrow. All right. She did come out and this is really good. Kamala came out and said, we're going to expand Medicare

to cover home health care. That's a huge issue, man. A lot of people, older people, people with disabilities want to stay at home, can't afford to do that. They're forced to go into a nursing home. That's a big deal. She wants to cover up vision and hearing. Big deal. I would cover dental as well, but that's a step forward. But in terms of healthcare, what you can say is, look, we can't move to Medicare for all. If you said today we're gonna reduce the eligibility age for Medicare while we expand it from 65 to 55, what do you think? 80, 90 percent of the people who think that's a good idea? Yeah, something like that.

Sounds about right. Yeah, the insurance companies wouldn't, the drug companies wouldn't, but we gotta be prepared to take them on. So on the other side of that, you have Trump making this completely rhetorical argument to working people. He's asked when he's at McDonald's

about raising minimum wage, he just praises the people that work there. But he is saying, you know, he is trying to say, he's trying to appeal to people in Nevada in the culinary workers, you know, tip worker servers. He's trying to say, I'm going to help you too. How do you make sure people that are thinking about this understand how much worse he would be for working people? All right, here is the fact.

And that's a very good question, and it's an important question. When Trump spent 15 minutes at McDonald's, he was asked by a reporter, you're gonna raise the minimum wage, and he ducked the question completely. The federal minimum wage now is seven and a quarter an hour. That's a starvation wage. Turns out there are 20 million Americans

earning less than $15 an hour in the richest country on earth. Kamala has come out recently to raise the minimum wage to at least $15 an hour, but she's gotta be stronger on that. She's gotta contrast that with Trump. You're a low wage worker making 12, 13 bucks an hour, that's what Trump doesn't wanna raise.

She does, all right? Donald Trump boasted, you may recall, I mean, you gotta give the guy credit. He gives it a rally. He says, you know, I gotta be honestasted you may recall. I mean you got to give the guy credit He gets it a rally. He says, you know, I got to be honest with you bugs. I hate overtime pay You remember saying that? Yeah He said, you know when I was in the private sector man, I would hire more people So I didn't have to pay overtime pay millions and millions of workers Depend upon overtime pay he rescinded Obama's rule that would have helped people

with overtime pay. Make that clear. Right now we're seeing workers all over America want to join unions. All right, he is vehemently opposed to the PRO Act, which would prevent large corporations from acting illegally and bus union organizing efforts. Kamala supports that.

But bottom line is she has to start campaigning on those issues. The preservation of democracy obviously is enormously important. But it cannot be the only thing we talk about. Abortion, enormously, abortion rights, enormously important. You've got to start talking to the needs of the working class of this country. Contrast your position with Trump's. Prescription drugs, fact of the matter is that Biden-Harris administration

has a very strong record to run on. All right, Kamala's gotta get up there and say we're gonna continue that effort. At the end of four years, we're not gonna be paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. What's so hard about doing that? Millions of people say, yeah, that's right, I'm tired of getting ripped off by the drug companies. So those are some of the things I think we've got to do it. So that's one group of people we're trying to reach. Another are these moderates, some

identify as Republican or independent. And Kamala Harris had done several events with Liz Cheney, other Republican surrogates trying to make the case for them to vote for Kamala. Is it strange at all for you being on the same side as Liz Cheney? No, as I mentioned earlier, we're in coalition politics. You know, if we were in Europe, we'd probably be in different political parties Working in this case for a common goal of the beating an extreme right-wing Candidate for president of the United States. I respect people like Liz Cheney. I disagree with Liz Cheney on everything I respect Mike Pence. Mike Pence is an honest conservative who worked at the side of Donald Trump for four years

He stopped voting for Trump. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican candidate for president, not voting for Donald Trump because they understand that Trump is a liar, he does not believe in democracy and in the rule of law, and I respect those Republicans who have the courage, and it takes a lot of courage to do that. So I have no problem with working with Liz Cheney to make that case to conservative moderate

Republicans. But at the same time, it's not either or. You could say conservative Republicans, look, we disagree on policy, but thank you. You and we respect the rule of law in American democracy. We work together on that. But speak to the working class of this country and say, you know what, I'm not a conservative Republican. I do understand you are living under enormous stress,

paycheck to paycheck, and we're gonna fight with you, and this is how we're gonna do it. So it's not either or. You can work with list training, but you can also speak out against the powerful special interests in this country and defend working class Americans. Yeah, it's a great testament to Liz Cheney that she's gone out there when so many others have refused to do so. And it's not as if Kamala Harris gave her some kind of compromise to get Liz Cheney to come on board. There was no deal. Liz Cheney is embracing gave her some kind of compromise to get Liz Cheney to come on board. There was no deal. Liz Cheney is embracing Democrats, including, up to including kind of with some surprising

comments about Roe. But there are, I think, more progressive young people, especially very online young people in a race that is going to be on the margins, right? We need every one of these people. The fact that Liz Cheney is out there campaigning is a proof point on a story we're seeing that it's not worth it voting for Kamala, that you can't bring yourself to vote for Kamala. It's wrong to vote for Kamala because of what we're seeing in Gaza. I know you're trying to reach young people who have very strong... and Arab Americans in Michigan who have very strong... they're horrified by what's unfolding in Gaza.

Now I know you've talked about the argument you are making to those voters, but I was hoping that you could just talk a little bit about what the hinge you hope takes place if Kamala Harris becomes president on this issue. Look, let us be very clear. I happen to think that President Biden has been on domestic issues, the most progressive president since FDO. He said he wanted to be, and I think he's kept his promise on that in many areas. Walk the picket line, prescription drugs, et cetera.

But in terms of what's going on in Israel and Gaza right now, the Biden administration is wrong. I don't have to tell anybody who is listening that Israel had the right to defend itself against Hamas' horrific attack on October 7th, but they do not have the right to go to war, all-out war against the Palestinian people and kill 42,000 folks, wound, injure 100,000, two-thirds of whom are women, children, and the elderly, and destroyed the infrastructure, the healthcare system, bomb every university. That is not what American taxpayers should be funding. And that's why, you know, come November, I'll be having a resolution on the floor of the

Senate withholding, trying to stop U.S US weapons from going to do Netanyahu's right-wing extremist government. I think the argument to be made to people who share my point of view, and by the way they are, I believe a strong majority of Democrats is to say, look, even on this issue, Trump is far worse. We can't even get Republican support for humanitarian aid to help feed starving children in Gaza. So you don't want to vote for Harris because of this issue. You're going to let Trump win. He is even worse.

His people are very close to Netanyahu. So our goal is to elect Kamala and then to do everything that we can to make sure that US military aid and offensive weapons are not going to this right-wing extremist Netanyahu government that is doing horrific and unprecedented destruction of the Palestinian people. So I've appreciated, I am Jewish, I am somebody that is horrified by what's unfolding in Gaza. That horror can begin and end at the suffering of the Palestinian people. You need not go further than that to be horrified by that.

But I also find it to be so awful because of the long term impact it has on Israel's security, on security in the region. And I was just hoping you could talk a little bit about why it is so important in a new administration to have a different policy from a democratic administration, not just in the interest of the Palestinians, but in terms of the long-term interest of Israel and the region? Well, that's a very important question, John. I am worried that the people in Israel, and I, when I was a young man, I spent a couple of months in Israel, a very different country than it is today. I am not sure that they are aware to what degree they are becoming a Pariah nation,

almost resembling what South Africa was under apartheid. That country after country all over the world is saying, what the hell is a Jewish nation which has experienced so much pain in its own history. The Holocaust, six million dead. What in God's name are they doing right now to the Palestinian people? Why is that so? And when you kill 42,000 people in a nation,

in an area of 2.2 million people, that's what Gaza is, and destroy the infrastructure and you starve children, you are creating a climate that is a hatred that is going to stay there for decades. If you were an 18-year-old kid and you saw your sister killed and your parents killed and your housing destroyed and you were treated displaced and you're going hungry. You think you're going to forget about that?

I don't think you will. And it's going to take enormous amount of reunification work to try to bring people together in the region. So I think long term what Israel is doing is alienating itself from the people in the region and countries all over the world and after Netanyahu is out of office there's going to have to be an enormous amount of rebuilding and rethinking policy. I'm going to switch gears. My grandfather was a Bernie Sanders Democrat. Loved you. Loved. And for him, politics was very simple.

Republicans are for the rich, Democrats are for the middle class. In this home stretch and beyond, how do we get back to making sure we are making that simple case to people, a story that was the backbone of democratic politics since Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Well, you're right.

It has been the backbone of Democratic politics since FDR. And the struggle that progressives are now having with the Democratic establishment is to once again make the Democratic party, the party of the American working class. What your grandfather said is absolutely true. That's what it was under FDR, under Truman, even under John F. Kennedy as far back as that.

And that is the struggle that we're having right now. And that gets back the money in politics and the Democrats are about to say, thank you billionaires for your help, but you know what? We're going to represent the working class of this country. Now, I don't know what you're going to do about that in the next 10 days, but clearly that is the struggle that has to take place within the Democratic Party, and that's the division between the establishment and progressives. Progressives want us to be the party of the working class. We believe that healthcare is the human right. We believe that billionaire class

has got to start paying their fair share of taxes. We believe we've got to get rid of Citizens United and have public funding of elections. So it's we all support. I mean where there is common ground with the establishment, all of us support women's right to control the wrong bodies. All of us are fighting for civil rights, for gay rights. But on economic issues, we've got to turn the Democratic Party back once again to be the party of the working class. And would you agree that that Joe Biden in his administration, in his shift to the left, how much of a victory do you see in Joe Biden? And what would you hope to see that continue to look like under Kamala Harris? Look, as I mentioned, Joe Biden on domestic issues has

been the most progressive president since FDR. I was just at an event with the president a few days ago in Concord, New Hampshire, and he is there speaking out and in fact acting to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, one of the most powerful political forces in this country and we have had success for the first time in the history of america medicare is now negotiating prescription drug prices the huge step forward we blow the cost of insulin we blow the cost of asthma inhalers making progress in other areas so he was the first president in american history to walk on a picket line with the UAW and played a role in making sure that they won a good and fair contract.

We are putting more money into rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. We passed the American Rescue Plan, one of the more progressive pieces of legislation ever passed in the midst of the pandemic and the economic downturn. It was a working class bill. Put money into working class people's pockets, help small businesses, lower child poverty by 40% in one bill, extended unemployment benefits, okay? So, you know, Biden has kept his word, and we did that on the enormous opposition.

So I am proud to have worked with the president on a number of these issues and we have got to continue and grow on those points under a Kamala Harris administration. Yankees versus Dodgers, where's your head at? Nowhere. Worried about this campaign. Okay. All right. No baseball?, no baseball. All right. I Guess once the Dodgers left Brooklyn you were out. That was it for you But if you take me a little while to recover Senator Bernie Sanders, thanks so much for your time. Good to see you. Thank you Thank you so much to Senator Bernie Sanders before we we go, election week is next week. And so at Crooked, we're going to be adjusting our schedules.

We're going to bring you a lot of daily analysis of every race, every vote count, every legal challenge, whatever comes our way. Start your mornings with What A Day for a 20-minute recap of the biggest headlines from host Jane Costin. Then we will have episodes daily of Pod Save America. The host from Strict Scrutiny will be putting out content, will be joining other shows to keep us apprised of whatever is happening on the legal front. And you can find all of this on your favorite podcast platform and on YouTube.

And that's our show. Thank you to Hallie, Sarah and Kendra. Seven days left. VoteSaveAmerica.com. Do something right now. Do something this weekend. And we'll see you sluts on Saturday. Bye. Love it or leave it, it's love it or leave it Respect it or possess

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who's fault it will be. If it is. Yeah, yeah, we should. We should. Let's find somebody who... Set up a hat, doesn't have to be someone on the campaign. Maybe we just throw the three judges on the Masked Singer into a hat and... Yeah, I'll pick somebody. We can do that after.

Not Ken Jeong, I'm not picking him. Who? It could be his fault. Ken Jeong is one of the judges on America. What is it? The Masked Singer. My home might be his fault. I don't buy it.