Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein dissect the Democratic presidential debate, exposing Elizabeth Warren's evasiveness on funding Medicare for All versus Bernie Sanders' honesty about tax hikes. They critique Joe Biden's $30 trillion cost estimate and alleged lies regarding Syria, while analyzing the opioid epidemic as a community failure rather than a pharmaceutical plot. The hosts argue that establishment Democrats are indistinguishable from Republicans, noting how gun control has shifted from conspiracy to policy, ultimately suggesting the political theater masks deeper societal fractures. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Sponsor Shoutout And Campaign Strategy00:14:58
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We need to roll back the state.
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Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
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Dear your host, James Smith.
What is up?
What is up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
Most consistent motherfucker you know over here, Dave Smith, joined as always by Robbie the Fire Bernstein, the king of the caulks.
What's up, brother?
I'm ready to caught King away.
Ready to caught King?
Here we go.
Well, there was a debate last night, and as has become tradition.
Tradition.
Tradition.
As has become tradition.
Man, we're a couple of Jews.
It shines through every now and then.
As we do, as is our tradition, we like to recap these debate performances.
I don't know why there's some sick part of me that loves these things.
I love politics and I hate politics, but I love politics.
I'm obsessed with it.
I find it also so entertaining.
You know, it's the state is the mafia pretending to be a human rights organization, and politics is the theater by which they convince you that they're the humanitarian organization and not, in fact, the mafia.
And that's what the whole show is.
It's like how they can pull this off.
It's the ultimate, you know, do not look behind, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Just focus on the show.
Look at the front end.
And I just find the whole process.
These are their casting auditions.
Yeah.
And it's like they say, it's show business for ugly people.
I mean, it's really just ugly, gross, the most uncharismatic human beings you could imagine.
And that's the whole thing.
Oh, I should let you guys know that we got these fucking new shirts.
These new shirts.
Brian, can we actually pull?
Do you have an image of the new shirts that we have?
I thought they were going to give me one to model.
They said, Rob, you have to do it.
By the next episode, you'll have one.
Go over to podcastmerch.com.
Grab yourselves one of these new shirts that we have.
The theme is the state as the mafia.
You got the puppet hands, the puppet strings controlling the state.
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We're selling them at podcastmerch.com.
Help out the show.
Also, I have decided, okay, I'm going to give 10% of the profits to the Mises Institute.
Nice.
Just throw it over there.
So you're supporting the Mises Institute.
You're supporting part of the problem, and you're getting a kick-ass shirt.
So go over to podcastmerch.com to buy one of those.
It's limited time only.
So, this is going to be a limited run of these shirts.
After we're done selling them, we're never going to sell them again.
So, there's going to be a couple weeks where you can go buy these things.
But, yeah, they look awesome, and it's a great way to support the show and the Mises Institute, all in one, podcastmerch.com.
Okay, let's break down last night's debate.
So, why don't we start before we even get into the specifics of last night's debate?
Because it's hard to not just start with this whole structure, which I know we've talked about before, and lots of people have broken this down, but it's hard to talk about these things without like getting into how ridiculous the whole thing is.
And I think it seems in 2019 seems more ridiculous than it ever did before.
So, there's 12 people on this debate stage.
They each get like 40 seconds to answer a question.
And it's just like, I almost feel like there's, there's got to be a certain point where there's like an IQ cutoff.
Like, if you have an IQ of like 110 or over, I feel like there's no way to actually take these things in seriously.
I mean, we live in this age now where if you want to go, you know, in the podcast age, if you want to go get, you know, information about something political, there's, I mean, you know, this show is whatever it is.
I hope we make it a good, informative, and entertaining show.
And we have a great, you know, base of people who listen to it.
But there's like countless shows out there that are dealing with politics, dealing with issues and philosophy of how we organize society and all these different things.
And you listen to people speak in depth.
They have to make a case.
I mean, even just think about a SOHO forum event or a podcast one-on-one where you have two competing views.
You have to sit for hours and really make your case and answer difficult questions and expand on your ideas and smart people criticizing you.
And then for the most important position of all, for the commander-in-chief of the biggest military that's ever existed in human history, we have this dumbass show where you're answering very difficult, complex questions in 40 seconds.
It's just absurd.
This is a ridiculous way.
It's an insult to the term debate that they call these things debates.
And don't forget, you need to spend at least 10 of the seconds talking about how you're a mother, father, you got kids, and then at least 10 seconds about, well, the real issue is just how bad Trump is.
And then another 10 seconds on, hey, listen, that might have been an important question, but the real issue, well, it's this other thing.
Well, doesn't it seem like, see, I feel this way sometimes you see like really shitty commercials and you'll be like, that commercial sucks so much.
Why is it on?
But then you're like, I guess they know.
I mean, they're spending millions of dollars on this.
So I guess they know that this actually works on some level.
And I guess some of the stuff that we're talking about actually works.
But I would be so thrilled if we would just make a rule that's like no more telling your fucking heartstring story.
Like no one cares.
They're like, you know, I was from a family with a single mom and she would sit around the kitchen table and she only had one leg and six jobs and blah, blah, blah.
And you're like, I don't, but first off, I don't believe any of this.
And what does it have to do with anything?
Who cares?
Let's get a referee out there with the yellow flag.
Just throwing flags left and right.
And you know, no one's story is ever like, so I came from a family, it's middle class, pretty standard, pretty normal family.
And thanks to something, you know.
And by the way, they're like 80% of them are fucking rich kids.
Yeah.
But they've all got some terrible story.
Thanks to being level-headed and my incredible upbringing of a balanced lifestyle where I was able to go to school and study hard.
Yeah.
I think I'm actually the most well-knowledge and versed in these issues.
I was never really worried about, you know, how the lights were going to get turned on as a kid.
Pretty much just played outside, liked football.
So I'm even tempered.
Anyway, so here's my plan.
Yeah.
There's none of that.
And then the other thing is when, oh, God, it drives me crazy.
When they call out the person they've met some sob story about, you know, I was speaking with a mother of one of these wounded soldiers the other day, and she's just wondering where her money for insulin is going to come from.
Like, just give us your plan, you fucking dumbass.
Anyway, so all of that I could easily just do without.
But this is what we got.
This is the system that this is how you have to judge people.
And it's an interesting, you know, backdrop to this debate is that this is the first debate since impeachment has been an issue.
The day of the debate, Hunter Biden put out an interview that he did.
It comes out hours before the debate.
By the way, I watched them on MSNBC cover this.
And they go, so, you know, Hunter Biden, he's his own man, and he decided he wanted to speak up about this issue.
This wasn't something that the campaign told him to do.
This wasn't something in coordination with the campaign.
Hunter Biden decided to tell you, you know, how he feels about it.
And you're like, yeah, no, I'm sure this isn't coordinated with the campaign at all.
That four hours before the debate, there's this interview footage coming out of Hunter Biden.
You're right.
This is completely like, it's amazing where they won't see collusion, you know, like as opposed to where they do.
Obviously, this was in concert with the campaign.
This was their plan.
And anyway, so there was all that stuff going on.
It was interesting to see how people were going to deal with Joe Biden, if anyone would go at him for the Hunter Biden thing, if anyone would try to take a shot at him.
So I wasn't sure how this was going to play out.
From what I saw, they didn't, right?
Nope.
No.
Not at all.
T-sports.
No.
What happened, in fact, was the target of the debate was Elizabeth Warren, which in some way, you know, really seems to indicate that most people, it seems like most people within these campaigns of the other Democratic contenders, they seem to agree with our assessment that this Joe Biden campaign is going nowhere and that he's not going to get out of there with the nominee, with the nomination, excuse me.
Because they all just attacked Elizabeth Warren.
Like it was like, Elizabeth Warren, we're going at you.
Oh, yeah, whatever, crazy Uncle Joe.
Like, you're not even relevant.
So just let him, you know, wither away.
And Joe Biden had a, you know, a pretty weak performance as Joe Biden.
At this point, I think I just kind of go, this is what Joe Biden has to bring to the table.
He was never particularly impressive.
He flubs things up.
He says he's kind of awkward and strange.
And he's like older than ever.
He's pushing 80 now.
And he kind of looks like an 80-year-old man.
I mean, that's what I think every one of these debates.
If I'm just running down the list, let's start with just good performance, bad performance, what I thought, okay performance.
So Joe Biden, I'd say overall bad performance, basically what I just told you.
Elizabeth Warren, I thought very bad, very bad performance.
She got hit hard.
We're going to play that clip in a second.
Hit hard over her Medicare for all.
And to me, I thought just came off evasive, was battling and not really responding to the fights.
But I've been stunning this issue my entire life.
Right.
And I find this unbelievably unappealing.
I mean, it's really something if she's the one.
My whole life I've been working on this.
I will say for her, as long as the age thing comes up, because they're talking about how, you know, all these people are pretty old.
I mean, Elizabeth Warren is like 70 or something like that.
Biden's like 78.
Bernie's like or 77.
Bernie's like 78.
Biden, I mean, Warren, rather, Elizabeth Warren is the one out of them where age doesn't seem to be like a factor.
Like, you know, she's a little old for the job, but she seems young and energetic and like doesn't look like an old person.
Whereas Biden looks like an 80-year-old.
Of course, Bernie Sanders looks like your grandpa.
Say Bernie Sanders thought Bernie Sanders had a good night.
And I do have to say, as much as I am no fan of Bernie Sanders, holy shit, I was fucking impressed just that this guy was the guy's like a 78, 79-year-old who had a heart attack a couple weeks ago.
Yeah, but there's rich people out there and they have money and we gotta get it done.
I mean, this guy get you out of bed in the morning.
This guy is motivated to redistribute your wealth.
I mean, he was like ready.
I thought he would take this debate off.
And if he came, I was not worried, but I thought he would probably not look great.
At least you would think anyone who just had a heart attack a few weeks ago would be a step off.
But someone who's pushing 80, having a heart attack a couple weeks ago, you'd be like, there's no way you're going to be at this debate.
And he was himself, he might have looked better than he normally does.
Look like he lost a few pounds and he was right there.
Like, okay, I'm Bernie Sanders.
Dude, he's pro-abortion.
They probably gave him the good stem cell stuff.
That's what they do.
Plus, all filled up with pudding.
You spend a week at home eating pudding.
You'll see.
You got some good energy.
You know what?
It's not a bad point.
Robbie the Fire breaks it down perfectly.
So I thought he had a decent night.
Other than that, see, the other candidates I'd go through.
Corey Booker had a decent night.
He didn't seem to talk all that much.
No, he didn't talk that much.
Bernie is still the one that does not get, it seems to me, like his fair shot at when, even if you listen to any of the post analysis, nobody ever seems to talk about Bernie as a legitimate force.
And he's been in either second or third place the entire time, this debate.
Think about how much talk there is about Biden and Warren compared to Bernie.
It's like, and he's still the one who has the most solid support.
The problem is what I said before is that it just never seems like, look, I said from the very beginning of this, and I never, for the record, I didn't say, I don't think Bernie Sanders is actually trying to be president.
What I said was it's a debatable question.
And he's doing all these things that seem like you're not really trying to win this.
That may not be that Bernie Sanders doesn't want to win it.
It may just be that he's not built that way.
He's a little bit weird, a little autistic, doesn't quite get how to do this, and also doesn't have that killer in him.
Like he doesn't have the Trumpian thing of like, I'm going to go for the jugular right now.
Because it just seems so obvious to me that from the very beginning, if you really wanted to win this, if you were Bernie Sanders and you wanted to lead a political revolution the way he claims he wants to, that's what he says all the time.
Okay, you would have come out in this.
And I know I'm a little bit, you know, like not everyone's going to have my exact style, but you have to come out in the beginning and go, this is my election.
The people are with me.
They've come over to me.
We're leading a political revolution last time.
I got cheated out of this last time.
And look what happened.
You guys went and let Donald Trump get elected because you wouldn't let us have an honest primary and let the people's voice be heard.
The people are with me.
We're doing Medicare for all.
We're raising the minimum wage.
All these things, like this is happening.
Now I'm taking on Donald Trump.
All the polls say I'll beat him.
This is my, like, something like that.
And he just refuses to do it.
Biden's Political Revolution Claims00:05:46
You know, he'll add a little bit of attack.
He had one little attack on Joe Biden in there, but it's just not.
He doesn't have the thing.
So I think in some ways they're right to ignore him because he's not going to be the nominee.
Okay.
Corey Booker was okay.
Mayor Pete Buttigig, I thought, he does decent at these things.
Like he doesn't make any points, but he looks presidentially.
And that's that.
Beto O'Rourke was terrible.
Just always terrible.
He's awful at these things.
Just very, very bad.
He tried to challenge Elizabeth Warren at one point, and he's just not built for the firefight.
I thought Castro did okay.
I thought Tulsi did okay.
You know, obviously Tulsi is the person who I have the most interest in and who I like.
We're going to play some of her stuff in a little bit.
I thought she had, look, you got to understand if you're Tulsi Gabbard that you're going to have limited time in this debate.
There's 12 people and you're in the bottom of the polls and you have to, you know, you have to find your own way to do it.
I'm not saying you have to be like me or do exactly what I would want to do, but you have to find your own way to come out swinging.
And I didn't, I didn't think she did that effectively enough.
She's way too understated, way too calm.
I mean, I understand she's trying to come off calm and competent.
And maybe that's just who she is, but it doesn't grab people.
And clearly she hasn't.
And I did think coming off of that, I kind of felt like that was, you know, that was kind of it for any real chance of Tulsi having some big moment.
It doesn't look good for her qualifying for the next debate.
She's, you know, it's just not what I was hoping for, especially in a field like this where it's so wide open and it's almost like everybody who's in the frontrunner status has a reason why they can't possibly be the frontrunner, you know?
And so it's like, oh, maybe this one person can come in and kind of do something here.
And unfortunately, it just doesn't look like that's going to happen to me.
But, you know, I'd still rather her stick around.
She's still, at least somebody was mentioning the anti-war thing and called out the media, called out Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris was terrible.
Thought she had a terrible night.
She's just not good at these things.
She's, you know, that everybody tried to spin her attacking Joe Biden into this big victory at the first one.
It was, that was a cringe fest to begin with.
She's not good at these.
Who else am I leaving out?
That new billionaire guy was terrible.
He did nothing.
Anybody?
There's probably one or two other people.
When I see them in the clips, we'll.
All right.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
Andrew Yang.
Andrew Yang had a good night.
Thought he had a good night.
I mean, I think his policies are pretty dumbass, but I thought he comes off as quirky and different and at least not a politician.
And I thought he had a decent night.
Did not bad for himself.
It seemed like when him and Elizabeth Warren sparred over the tech issue, it was just somebody who doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about and Elizabeth Warren talking to somebody who has some idea what he's talking about.
And so, okay.
So the debate opened with a question about impeachment.
They went down the line and let everybody say what they wanted to on impeachment.
It was a goddamn snooze fest.
Not a single one of them separated themselves from the other one.
Maybe with some exception to Tulsi.
Tulsi was the only one who just added, she was like, you know, this could kind of tear the country apart and the Senate's probably not going to vote to remove him anyway.
So just throwing that out there.
But of course, she said the inquiry should go on.
Everybody else just agreed he should be impeached.
He should be impeached immediately.
You heard the phrase, the most corrupt president in our history, like four or five times.
I know Biden said it.
Bernie Sanders said it.
Beta O'Rourke said it.
Like a whole bunch of, I couldn't believe by like the fourth, fifth one who said it.
You're like, just bail on that line because we've heard it four times.
Guys, like you have to separate yourself from each other in some way.
So everybody thinks Donald Trump should be impeached and that this Ukraine call is just the worst thing that's ever happened.
After that, Joe Biden was asked about Hunter Biden.
None of the other Democrats chose to jump on him.
He had an absolutely nothing answer to it.
I'm proud of my son.
I'm proud of my son.
Nothing was wrong.
Nothing was wrong.
Trump's the one who's corrupt.
That was more or less.
Yeah, they wanted to, everyone was on board for just pivoting it back to Trump.
And of course, these two things are not mutually exclusive.
And, you know, there's, you know, there's an interesting thing where, of course, the media didn't push him on this.
I mean, they asked the question, so at least give them that credit.
But, you know, Joe Biden came out.
It's a very tricky situation if you're Joe Biden or the media to try to pretend.
It's like such a tightrope to walk.
Almost have to tip your hat to them that they can even try this.
But to go, it's outrageous that Donald Trump asked the Ukrainians to investigate.
Like, okay, fine.
Is it outrageous that Joe Biden did the same thing, pressuring with military aid for them to fire the prosecutor?
No, that's okay.
Oh, Donald Trump's kids are getting rich because they were just handed these jobs.
Well, how about Joe Biden's kids?
Are they getting rich?
And they have to say one is wrong and nothing to see here on the other.
And it's a somewhat challenging position to be in.
And it leads to these kind of hilarious contradictions.
So Joe Biden came out and said to try to kill the story, he said that if he's elected president, his child won't serve on any foreign companies.
You're like, okay, but when you were vice president, they did.
So isn't that in some way an admission of something?
Like, why would you even need a policy to say as president, I won't do this, but as vice president, I did do this.
Kids Wealth And Medicare For All00:16:59
So clearly then you're saying you think this policy is good.
So you think it's not so good if your kids were to do that.
But it's okay when you're vice president.
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Let's get back into the show.
Anyway, that moment seemed weird.
After that, Elizabeth Warren started taking incoming.
As I alluded to before, people really went at her.
The more moderates of the Democrats, if you can even use that word without laughing, they hammered her for her Medicare for all plan.
And she was, I thought, you know, I don't know.
Actually, we can break it down.
Let's play a little bit of the clip.
This is a little bit of an extended clip from the debate.
The Klobucha, the one that starts with her.
You've proposed some sweeping plans, free public college, free universal child care, eliminating most Americans' college debt.
And you've said how you're going to pay for those plans, but you have not specified how you're going to pay for the most expensive plan, Medicare for all.
Will you raise taxes on the middle class to pay for it?
Yes or no?
So I have made clear what my principles are here.
And that is costs will go up for the wealthy and for big corporations and for hardworking middle-class families.
Costs will go down.
You know, the way I see this is I have been out all around this country.
I've done 140 town halls now, been to 27 states in Puerto Rico, should have done 70,000 selfies, which must be the new measure of democracy.
And this gives people a chance to come up and talk to me directly.
So I've talked with the family, the mom and dad whose daughter's been diagnosed with cancer.
I have talked to the young woman whose mother has just been diagnosed with diabetes.
I've talked to the young people who has MS. So I don't know.
It's funny.
Like, I don't know how anyone...
Hey, if we go have those three conversations, we can be as qualified as she is to talk to you.
Yeah, I guess so.
But how does any like adult person, I guess it's just a different world.
People who listen to podcasts like this, and I don't even mean just this and people who agree with us politically, but even someone who listens to anyone who listens to Rogan or listens to like any of these like kind of more long in-depth podcasts where people discuss these things, I just don't see how you don't see through this.
It's like, hey, so you haven't addressed how you're going to pay for this plan.
Well, you know, I talk to the mother whose daughter is, you know, worried about her, you know, flu shot and all these things.
Like, wait, what?
Isn't this just obviously being evasive?
And it just, and this is what she says.
Costs for rich people will go up.
Costs for not rich people will go down.
Leads to so many questions.
We'll get into some of them.
One of the big ones that's really unbelievable, and this is, it's weird, like just hanging out at, say, the Soho Forum debate, right?
There's a debate series that the great Gene Epstein runs here in New York.
You know, we've got, I don't know what it is, like a few hundred people who come into each debate.
And it's a great like little event that Gene runs.
And this is for the commander in chief, you know, the biggest thing ever.
And if anyone ever started going down the line that she goes in, she says this over and over.
No moderator, no other candidate on there asks what would be, I think, a follow-up question that there's no way you'd get out of a Soho forum without being asked.
And you go, the rich are going to pay more.
The not rich are going to pay less.
Well, what's a pretty obvious follow-up question to that?
What's rich?
It's rich.
It's just something that sounds nice.
What do you mean, rich?
What's rich?
Is making $100,000 a year rich?
How about making $200,000?
$500,000?
A million?
$10 million?
$100 million?
Where do you draw the line of what rich is?
So it's, because by the way, and this is something that, you know, anybody who's never been in that, any of those brackets doesn't understand.
But there is really like, you know, the difference between someone who makes $200,000 a year and someone who makes $1 million a year.
It's a very big difference.
It's a very big difference.
It'd be the same as looking at someone who makes, you know, $20,000 a year and someone who makes $50,000 a year and being like, oh, you know, all the same.
That's a big difference, man.
A very big different thing.
So Joe, just curious, if you're going to say only rich will provide for, where is that?
And show me exactly how the numbers work out on this.
This, you know, of course doesn't happen.
But anyway, so that was her answer.
The rich will pay more.
Everybody else will pay less.
Here's these three people I talked to.
Let's continue with Elizabeth Warren.
Here's the thing about all of them.
They all had great health insurance right at the beginning.
But then they found out when they really needed it, when the costs went up, that the insurance company pulled the rug out from underneath them and they were left with nothing.
Look, the way I see this, it is hard enough to get a diagnosis that your child has cancer, to think about the changes in your family if your mom's got diabetes or what it means for your life going forward if you've been diagnosed with MS. But what you shouldn't have to worry about is how you're going to pay for your health care after that.
Senator Warren should be clear center.
Is that true?
And if that is true, then you guys should probably stop forcing us to get health care because apparently when you need it, it doesn't actually cover you.
Yeah, I guess Obamacare really wasn't that great if these are the programs that are offered.
Is that a thing that happens to people?
I mean, I think it's greatly exaggerated.
I'm not saying there's not cases where insurance does some shady things, but usually, I mean, well, yeah, it's like there are certainly deductibles and premiums with insurance and you get all of that information up front and what you're covered for.
And sorry, you got to look into it.
Look, man, this is pure propaganda.
And it's propaganda.
This is what I hate about left-wing domestic politics in general, is that it's always this kind of like, you know, it's the same complaint I had last show when we were talking about the CNN anchors who's like, words are important.
You're like, who the fuck do you think you're talking to?
You're talking to a child right now?
No, words are important.
Give me the news.
I don't need your fucking kindergarten lecture about how feelings matter.
I'm an adult.
And, you know, it's like you say these things that emotionally are soft and they kind of appeal to the child in you.
Like, you know, you already found out someone's sick.
You shouldn't have to worry about how to pay for it.
Well, why?
I mean, things have to get paid for.
Things have costs.
Okay.
Now, by the way, even if you're going to tax people and then the government is going to pay for things, you still have to worry about how you're going to pay your taxes.
Costs don't go away.
Hospitals have to be built.
Hospital machinery has to be built.
Doctors have to be paid.
Nurses have to be paid.
The lights got to stay on.
Okay.
There's a lot of things that go into, you know, medical care that are costs.
These things, like, forget the money.
Forget the currency.
Take that out of it.
It takes time and effort.
That doctor had to go to school for years and years and train.
These nurses have to leave their family.
They have to go to school and train in many cases.
Like they, you know, like, it's like things cost money.
Somebody built that hospital, you know, like hard manual labor.
This cost things.
Okay.
Now, you could certainly argue that the costs in medical care are out of control.
And you don't want somebody to be sick and have to worry about anything else.
You don't want somebody to be sick and have to, you know, it's a nice idea that people shouldn't have to worry.
And certainly you don't want people to be bankrupted over things and the costs to be dramatically inflated.
And then we could talk about what actually reduces costs and what the problem is here.
Quick answer to some market.
But it's like saying like, well, I just had a kid.
I'm dealing with having a child, bringing a child into this world.
I shouldn't have to worry about how to pay for her shoes.
It's like, well, it kind of sounds nice in some childish way, but actually, yeah, I should.
It's exactly what, because otherwise someone else has to worry about it.
Someone's got to pay the fucking cost.
It's no shoe fairy.
No shoe fairy.
No Rhodes Fairy.
No medical insurance fairy.
The other thing that really annoyed me in this insurance conversation, it comes up a little bit later.
And they start talking about all the profits of the healthcare industry.
And they go, how is it that they're so profitable?
Well, it's a lot of licensing laws.
A lot of that is since Obama.
It's since you've taken Cernan insurance and positions out of the market.
Well, the profits went up after Obamacare.
So, I mean, there is that.
Like, you know, I mean, it's like, yeah, there's a lot of reasons why they profit, but it's also, it's just wrong to even conceit the idea that profit is a problem.
Oh, why would people profit off of medical care?
Well, as in any voluntary interaction, just because somebody profits doesn't mean it's somebody's loss.
This is like fixed pie fallacy 101.
Just because somebody profits doesn't mean that anybody else loses.
That's like, you know, anytime you buy anything, the person who you buy it from profits.
I mean, unless they're selling it to you at a loss, but let's just say the majority of the time people who are in business or staying in business are not selling it all off.
They're at a loss.
They're making a profit.
But that doesn't mean every time you buy something, you lose.
You're making a voluntary decision to buy it.
So obviously you're at least expecting to win.
It's not like, you know, if I go buy beer at the store, they profit off that beer, but I'm not just like, oh my God, I just lost.
I wanted beer.
I got what I wanted.
We both won.
That's what voluntary exchanges tend to lead to.
So it's very misleading.
But anyway, Elizabeth Warren asked, you know, back to the point, which was that, you know, no one should have to worry about costs, but rich people will, and they'll pay more costs.
Everybody else will pay less.
Let's keep going.
Senator Sanders acknowledges he's going to raise taxes on the middle class to pay for Medicare for all.
You've endorsed his plan.
Should you acknowledge it too?
So the way I see this, it is about what kinds of costs middle-class families are going to face.
So let me be clear on this.
Costs will go up for the wealthy.
They will go up for big corporations.
And for middle-class families, they will go down.
I will not sign a bill into law that does not lower costs for middle-class families.
Mayor Buttigej, you say Senator Warren has been, quote, evasive.
I mean, she gets answered a very, very direct, asked a very, very direct question.
She repeats her line for the wealthy.
Now, again, what do we define that as?
Who the hell knows?
Costs will go up.
For the big corporations, costs will go up.
For middle-class people, costs will go down.
It's also that appeal to authority of me being me.
Of course, I'm not going to do that bad thing.
This is me we're talking about.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
I sat down.
I've been reading about this for years.
I'm here to help you.
And I'm here.
And this is me.
Well, what's your plan for how to do it?
The good way.
Because it's a good idea.
The way where everyone's helped.
So she repeats the point again when point blank asked.
The question was directly, Bernie Sanders, you're endorsing Bernie Sanders' plan.
And he's saying middle-class taxes will go up, but that the costs will be offset.
Will you acknowledge that that cost will go up?
So now here's Pete Buttigieg gets brought into this.
Pete Buttigej had put out a thing criticizing her, an ad criticizing her that day.
So I think they probably expected this and saw this coming.
But here's Mayor Pete Butt's stuff.
About how she's going to pay for Medicare for all.
What's your response?
Well, we heard it tonight.
A yes or no question that didn't get a yes or no answer.
Look, this is why people here in the Midwest are so frustrated with Washington in general and Capitol Hill in particular.
Your signature, Senator, is to have a plan for everything, except this.
No plan has been laid out to explain how a multi-trillion dollar hole in this Medicare for All plan that Senator Warren is putting forward is supposed to get filled in.
And the thing is, we really can deliver health care for every American and move forward with the boldest, biggest transformation since the inception of Medicare itself.
But the way to do it without a giant multi-trillion dollar hole and without having to avoid a yes or no question is Medicare for all who want it.
We take a version of Medicare, we let you access it if you want to.
And if you prefer to stay on your private plan, you can do that too.
That is what most Americans want.
Medicare for all who want it, trusting you to make the right decision for your health care and for your family.
And it can be delivered without an increase in.
Senator, you're responsible.
So let's be clear.
Whenever someone hears the term Medicare for all who want it, understand what that really means.
It's Medicare for all who can afford it.
And that's the problem we've got.
Medicare for all is the gold standard.
It is the way we get health care coverage for every single American, including the family whose child's been diagnosed with cancer, including the person who's just gotten an MS diagnosis.
That's how we make sure that everyone gets health care.
We can pay for this.
I've laid out the basic principles.
Costs are going to go up for the wealthy.
They're going to go up for big corporations.
They will not go up for middle-class families.
And I will not sign a bill into law that raises their costs because costs are what people care about.
I've been studying this, you know, for the biggest part of my life.
Thank you, Senator Torre.
Can people go up?
And the mayor, Mayor, respond.
Sure.
I don't think the American people are wrong when they say that what they want is a choice and the choice of Medicare for all who want it, which is affordable for everyone because we make sure that the subsidy...
So firstly, what people want is a choice, but it's got to be a government choice.
Right.
Like we need, it's made of a lot of people.
They don't have a choice whether they have to pay the Medicare taxes or not.
How about that choice?
Yeah.
Why don't we poll them on that?
Why doesn't that poll ever come out?
Hey, do you want to pay your taxes?
Well, let's get a real poll on that.
In fact, we don't even need a poll.
Just make taxes voluntary and we'll find out.
We'll know for sure exactly what percentage of people want to pay this.
But yes, it's always force presented as choice.
Yeah, and then I also just love the concept.
Well, I laid out the basic principles.
That doesn't sound like you got a whole plan.
Your basic principles are the wealthy will pay more and everyone else will pay less.
And then our question is, wait a second, I don't think that math is going to work out.
And she goes, no, but this is me.
And I read the basic principles.
We can get a little bit more into the math in a second, but let's keep playing.
These are in place.
Allows you to get that healthcare.
It's just better than Medicare for all, whether you want it or not.
And I don't understand why you believe the only way to deliver affordable coverage to everybody is to obliterate private plans, kicking 150 million Americans off of their insurance in four short years when we could achieve that same big, bold goal.
And once again, we got to be president.
We're competing to be president for the day after Trump.
Our country will be horrifyingly polarized, even more than now.
After everything we've been through, after everything we are about to go through, this country will be even more divided.
Why unnecessarily divide this country over healthcare when there's a better way to deliver coverage for all?
Senator Sanders.
Well, as somebody who wrote the damn bill, let's just be clear.
Pause it for a second.
Almost 80 heart attack, zero change.
He's just Bernie Sanders.
I got to say, I'm impressed.
I know I've knocked Bernie Sanders on the program a lot before.
I am impressed with Bernie Sanders and this.
I will say right here, Bernie Sanders does a much better job, in my opinion, of selling Medicare for all than Elizabeth Warren.
He wrote the damn bill.
He wrote the damn bill.
All right, here, let's go.
On the Medicare for All bill that I wrote, premiums are gone.
Copayments are gone.
Deductibles are gone.
All out-of-pocket expenses are gone.
Can he pause?
We're going to do better.
That sounds like a horrible way to control costs.
Well, exactly.
Rationing Healthcare Costs Debate00:10:04
But I still think it's a better way to sell it.
He's like, look, taxes are going to go up, but all these costs are gone.
But of course, yes, if you're just, again, if you're just in the world of feels and is nice, it's like, oh, great.
I'll be.
Well, Bernie Sanders just, this is, this is the religion of government, right?
That it's just kind of like this magic thing.
Like, you have this institution, right?
Just the nature of what it is.
There's no, this isn't anything that's an opinion, okay?
It's a parasitical nature, a parasitical organization by nature.
It makes its money by extracting its money from you, right?
We get the money from taxes.
And then they just present things like, we're going to make this gone.
We're going to make this from you.
They can't make anything.
They have to take it from you in order to give it back to you.
So it's all when it's just kind of like, well, this will be gone.
It's gone.
Look, again, just think, try to stay with me here, right?
Even if they say, this is the thing that like left, left-leaning people never understand about economics.
Even if they say, we're going to tax the rich and, you know, give you money, right?
So that's how we'll make it free is we take it from people who have more and give it to you.
Understand that in the best case scenario, all you could be doing is taking a scoop of water out of the deep end of the pool and pouring it into the shallow end of the pool.
You're not adding any more water.
There's nothing.
Now you could say, but the billionaires, they don't need this money, right?
But really rich people, think about that really rich guy.
What does he need?
Another yacht?
It's like, okay, right.
But what happens if he buys another yacht?
I mean, somebody builds that yacht.
Somebody works at the dock where that yacht is.
I don't know enough about boats to continue with the jobs that are created.
But there's other things that are created, right?
There's somebody's like making the wood or the steel.
What are you yachts made out of?
I don't know anything about boats.
But my point is that there's a whole other area of the economy that you're taking that money from to give it over here.
Nothing is free.
There was a yacht ban.
I think, wait, was it in Connecticut?
Where they put a yacht tax, like this crazy high yacht tax.
And this was like this liberal thing.
Like, yeah, we'll just tax yachts.
Who could argue with that, right?
You know what it did?
It put all the yacht makers out of business.
And then fucking, what do the rich people do?
They're like, oh, I was going to get a yacht, but now there's this high tax, so I won't get a yacht.
I guess I just won't have any fun.
They rent like a penthouse or something.
You know what I mean?
It goes somewhere else.
It's not like all of this stuff is like, it's just such a misunderstanding of how economics works.
Like you, none of this is making anything, but it's nice, but it's a nice way to sell it when you go, hey, copays are gone.
This is gone.
This is gone.
It's like, whoo, what else is gone?
Worries are gone.
I just, come on.
Here's the magic.
It's all gone.
And you get great care.
You meant, like, if they said, listen, from now on, you walk into like a restaurant, there's no bill.
That's including your tax.
There's no bill.
I mean, you know, whose mind doesn't go to, well, that sounds like they're going to run out of food.
You think for one second?
Like, there wouldn't be any problems.
Right.
Like, so it's a good example.
It's going to ration or it's going to go out of like so now.
So you go to a health care.
You go to a grocery store, right?
Hey, costs are gone.
No more paying.
Just take what you want and leave.
Does that sound good?
No.
Like, I know that the idea of not paying sounds nice, but do you think this grocery store is going to be open for a while?
Like, how many people are buying hot dogs?
I'm getting steak every time.
You know what I mean?
I'm pretty much filling up on things I don't even need.
I'm going to take all the toilet paper, and that way when everyone's got to trade their shit, oh my God.
You have nothing.
Your whole cart is just people are like, what the fuck are you doing?
There's like free scotch over there.
And you're like, you'll see.
Get out of here.
I like when it just doesn't like work out for a while and you're at Rob's house and you're just like, dude, you have any mustard?
And he goes, I have toilet paper.
I have more toilet paper.
Can I get you more toilet paper?
It's pretty much all I have.
If you want to run down the street, see if anyone will trade you some mustard for toilet paper.
You're like, I'm telling you, there's got to be somebody who needs to take a shit.
He's got mustard.
But anyway, so this is Bernie.
But anyway, so let's go back.
Bernie Sale, in my opinion, selling it at least a little better than Elizabeth Warren.
Better than the Canadians do.
And that is what they have managed to do.
At the end of the day, the overwhelming majority of people will save money on their health care bills.
But I do think it is appropriate to acknowledge that taxes will go up.
They're going to go up significantly for the wealthy.
And for virtually everybody, the tax increase they pay will be substantially less, substantially less than what they were paying for premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.
Senator Warren, will you acknowledge what the senator just said about taxes going up?
So my view on this and what I have committed to is costs will go down for hardworking middle-class families.
I will not embrace a plan like Medicare for all who can afford it that will leave behind millions of people who cannot.
And I will not embrace a plan that says people have great insurance right up until you get the diagnosis and the insurance company says, sorry, we're not covering your expensive cancer treatment.
Pause it there.
I'll say there's at least something about Elizabeth Warren where at least she's honest about that.
I mean, she's saying, no, if you like your insurance and you like your doctor, no.
No.
You're losing it.
But Mayor Pete Buttstuff, that's the other thing about he's coming across as the reasonable one here.
But it does take a lot of nerve for a Democrat to actually run on, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.
Like, you know, give me a break.
No, I was more saying that she's bold-faced lying when she goes, well, I committed to it's not going to affect the middle class.
No, you're lying.
That's the same as what O'Brien said.
I agree.
And I want to break that down after the clip because you're absolutely right and there's a lot to comment on there.
But it does, it occurred to me.
I felt like this was a very bad sequence for Elizabeth Warren.
And I think that her team in the back must have been fucking putting their head in their palms when she threw that out for the fourth time.
They're like, for the fourth time when you're asked a direct question.
And look, I said this before.
Actually, not to take any shots at him because I do.
He's a nice enough guy.
But when Ben Burgess was here and me and him had that first debate, I said to him, I go, look, whatever, part of the reason why so many people who watched that disproportionately were like, oh, like that this was a bad performance on your end is because if you're asked a direct question three or four times and you won't give a direct answer to it, at a certain point, it just smells like bullshit to people.
When you're being evasive and you just want, it's a very straightforward, direct question.
I don't understand why she, look, Bernie Sanders, feel however you feel about his policy.
He answers it directly.
Your taxes are going to go up, but it's going to be offset by other costs.
Okay, fair enough.
We can get into that in a second and whether or not that's reasonable to expect.
But Elizabeth Warren is asked four times, a direct question and four times won't answer it and just says costs are going to go down.
At a certain point, it just comes off bad.
And I have to, I believe, even to people like Democrats watching even that just comes off like, you're not telling me the truth about your plan.
All right, let's keep playing.
Treatments.
We're not covering your expensive treatment.
Thank you, Senator MS. Senator Klobuchar.
What you need.
At least Bernie's being honest here and saying how he's going to pay for this and that taxes are going to go up.
And I'm sorry, Elizabeth, but you have not said that.
And I think we owe it to the American people to tell them where we're going to send the invoice.
I believe the best and boldest idea here is to not trash Obamacare, but to do exactly what Barack Obama wanted to do from the beginning, and that's have a public option that would bring down the cost of the premium and expand the number of people covered and take on the pharmaceutical companies.
That is what we should be doing instead of kicking 149 million people off their insurance in four years.
And I'm tired of hearing, whenever I say these things, oh, it's Republican talking points.
You are making Republican talking points right now in this room by coming out for a plan that's going to...
Let me just also say, because I think she's one of the ones I forgot, Amy Klobuchar had a terrible night.
Is it just me or does she sound like she's about to start crying?
Every time she sounds like a shaky, wimpy person.
Listen, she hasn't qualified for the next debate, and I think she knows she had to go for the fences.
There is just, let me try to be kind here.
I really thought they'd like me.
I just.
There's nothing appealing about Amy Klobuchar.
She has not one redeeming quality.
Just not one.
There's just not one lady that looks like Mother Goose.
Even then, even if you like a lady who looks like Mother Goose, you'd be like, show me something else in a Mother Goose.
Like it's just not.
She's not.
By the way, at the end of the debate, this is how little human appeal she has.
At the end of the debate, they named they were the last question, which is a fucking terrible question.
It's the thing about Ellen.
And they go, name one friend you've had who people would be surprised you had a friend.
And she was like, John McCain.
It's like, of course.
Of course you were friends with John McCain.
Perfect.
By the way, what a shocker.
What a shocker that an establishment Democrat would be on good terms with John McCain.
Do you think America's not on to you by now?
Do you think we don't know that the establishment Republicans and establishment Democrats are the same fucking people?
Like, look, there might be some differences between AOC and Donald Trump.
All right.
But there is no fucking difference between Hillary Clinton and Lindsey Graham.
There is no fucking difference between John McCain and John Kerry.
You're the same goddamn person.
The exact same person.
You just talk about different shit.
Your policies are indistinguishable.
Of course, you're friends.
All right, anyway, let's go back to the debate.
Gonna do that.
I think there is a better way that is bold that will cover more people, and it's the one we should get behind.
Senator Warren.
I didn't spend most of my time in Washington.
I spent most of my time studying one basic question.
Long Term Care Agency Issues00:02:27
And that is why I didn't spend most of my time in Washington.
I spend most of my time scalping white people on a reservation drinking at a casino.
I know these stereotypes don't overlap in time at all.
She's a fake Indian, everybody.
All right, let's go back.
Hardworking people go broke.
And one of the principal reasons for that is the cost of health care.
And back when I was studying it, two out of every three families that ended up in bankruptcy after a serious medical problem had health insurance.
The problem we've got right now is the overall cost of health care.
And look, you can try to spin this any way you want.
I've spent my entire life on working on how America's middle class has been hollowed out and how we fight back.
I've put out nearly 50 plans on how we can fight back and how we can rebuild an America that works.
And a part of that is we need to stop Americans from going bankrupt over health care.
Senator Klobuchard, do you want to respond?
Yes, I do.
And I appreciate Elizabeth's work.
But again, the difference between a plan and a pipe dream is something that you can actually get done.
And we can get this public option done and we can take on the pharmaceutical companies and bring down the prices.
But what really bothers me about this discussion, which we've had so many times, is that we don't talk about the things that I'm hearing about from regular Americans.
That is long-term care.
We are seeing, I once called it a silver tsunami, the aging, and then someone told me that was too negative, so I call it the silver surge.
The aging of the population.
We need to make it easier to get long-term care insurance and strengthen Medicaid.
In this state, the state of Ohio, that has been hit by the opioid epidemic, we need to take on those pharma companies and make them pay for the addictions that they have caused and the people that they have killed.
Thank you, Senator.
Thank you, Senator.
When I'm in vice, I'd like to be.
So first, just going back to Elizabeth Warren, it was the, but this is me and I've studied it arguments, which is not an argument.
No.
Then that transition is just so fucking annoying.
Listen, I get that old people getting old in long-term care, probably a huge issue.
I forgot what the other, oh, the pharmaco, huge issue.
Right now we're talking about health care.
That's not a bigger issue than health care.
So why don't we just stay on the health care topic?
Just transition as something.
And it's just kind of like this nonsense nothing.
Pain Medication And Drug Crisis00:05:24
Yeah.
The pharmaceutical companies should be held responsible for opioid epidemic.
And it's like, well, I mean, maybe.
I don't know.
It's like, I always hate this kind of like idea that you look, it's like people either have agency or they don't.
But when you start saying some people have agency, but other people's, other people don't have agency, you always kind of lose me with these arguments.
It's like the pharmaceutical companies are responsible for making opioids.
It's like, look, man, in many ways, yes, the government is in bed with the pharmaceutical companies, and that's fucking terrible.
But the actual product of painkillers is, you know, I don't know.
Anybody here ever had major surgery before?
Ever had a major injury before?
It's a very excellent product.
There are things that are like, there is like tremendous pain in a lot of, all right, I'll go off on this like very quickly, just on a brief tangent.
But this is what pissed me off.
Tangent away.
The conversation with drugs and the war on drugs and drug abuse and all this.
So, you know, there was this study, this study a long time ago.
Fuck, this is all off the top of my head.
So, forgive me if I can't remember names and dates and stuff like that.
But there was this big study that became like the gold standard study in people understanding drug abuse.
And the study was basically that they took rats and they would put them in a cage and give them two water bottles.
And one was laced with cocaine and the other was just water.
And 10 out of 10 times, the rat would go drink the water with cocaine, would keep drinking the cocaine and would drink it until it killed itself.
10 out of 10 times.
Every time the rats did this.
And so they drew this conclusion.
They're like, oh my God, drugs are addictive.
This is how the 1980s narrative on drug use was built.
Drugs are addictive.
You get addicted.
You're done.
You know, this is like the thing you always used to hear as a little kid.
You try it your third time, you're hooked, and then you're a fucking addict.
And by the way, for anybody who's actually grown up or maybe grown up around some people who have done drugs, you see, this is all complete bullshit.
This is not how drugs work at all.
So there was this guy who came along at a certain point and he revisited the scientists and he revisited the study and he said, well, wait a minute here.
We've had these rats in a cage with nothing but two water bottles.
This rat is isolated, has no contact with other rats, has no, you know, has no like, no normal rat life, has no purpose, no community, nothing.
And he's choosing the drugs and killing himself on the drugs.
But what if we were to try this same study, but there were a bunch of rats that were all together, they put in like all these rat games.
They do put on the weekends.
Well, they put in food, they put in all this, but dude, not far off.
Not far off.
They basically made it rat paradise with everything a rat could want.
More rats to play with, games to play, all the food.
You can have all of these things.
And all of the rats did try the cocaine.
None of them went to it regularly and none of them died.
It went from 10 out of 10 kill themselves to 10 out of 10 don't kill themselves with it.
So there's higher and that other rat wants to fuck.
Yeah, well, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, the rat wants to fuck you want to go, you know.
Well, actually, I wouldn't advise cocaine if you want to go a few extra rounds.
But the point is the point is that it makes you re take another look at that whole situation of people killing themselves with drugs.
And this is something that I think probably rings true to most people who know anybody who's had a drug problem or know anything just about existence as like an adult human being.
It's not as simple as the drug itself is the problem and the person who sold you the drugs has ruined your life.
It's a lot more like if people don't have meaning in their life, they don't have purpose, they don't have community, they don't have bonds, then yeah, you end up seeing large degrees of like drug addiction.
But if people do have all of those things, even if there are drugs out in the world, as there have always been, you're not going to see a large epidemic of people killing themselves with these drugs.
The pharmaceutical companies, listen, I mean, there are people who have fucking back surgery, neck surgery, have fucking, you know, like all these crazy different operations where these drugs are a lifesaver.
I mean, they make you not have to wallow in pain for weeks after your operation, like unbearable pain.
So anyway, the idea that we should just jail people who provided this product, I just, I don't agree with that.
I think it's completely, it's a, you're not solving the problem at all.
The problem is like how we've lost communities, lost families, lost people, people have lost meaning and purpose in their life.
That's the issue.
Not the idea that we've come up with better pain medicine.
Because by the way, they really, really work as pain medicine.
I just don't, I don't believe in, if you, if you provide something like, you know, that works as what it's supposed to be, but a lot of people are abusing it.
Why do you get blamed for that?
But they don't get blamed for abusing it.
Now, I know it's a little bit more complicated than that.
There certainly are people who are over-prescribed pain medication.
There were certainly stories, I know stories where doctors were way too loose.
I mean, there's one kid particularly who I knew in high school is dead now.
And he died of a heroin overdose, and he was prescribed a bunch of OxyContin after a back injury when he was already a kid who was very prone to drug use.
Trillion Dollar Cost Reality Check00:09:42
And I do look back and go, those doctors were fucking crazy for doing that.
I'm not saying there aren't stories like that.
By the way, that's kind of on the doctors, not the pharmaceutical company.
No fan of the pharmaceutical companies, but let's place the blame where it belongs.
It wasn't on the fact that OxyContin existed.
It was the fact that a doctor gave it to this fucking kid.
Like, you know, a kid, he was 19, but young enough and was not, if you knew him at all, not the kid that you'd want to see prescribe this stuff.
Anyway, there's my tangent, tangent over.
Let's get back to the debate.
Let me bring you in here, Vice President, for your response.
Are senators Warren and Sanders being realistic about the difficulty of enacting their plan?
And we missed the good Elizabeth Warren.
What did you say?
Huh?
My grandkids are coming right after this.
Let's make it quick.
No, we haven't missed anything.
We haven't skipped over it.
So let's keep going because this is Joe Biden's thing, which was that Joe Biden actually says something, you know, fairly interesting and not bad.
First of all, the plan we're hearing discuss is the Biden plan, the one I put forward.
Build on Obamacare, add a public option.
We can go into that.
I can talk about that if you like.
But here's the deal.
On the single most important thing, facing the American public, I think it's awfully important to be straightforward with them.
The plan is going to cost at least $30 trillion over 10 years.
That is more on a yearly basis than the entire federal budget.
And we talk about how we're going to pay for it.
No, but close.
Like, okay, he's actually wrong.
$3 trillion a year is not more than the entire federal budget.
But he's making a point that let's at least acknowledge what this is going to cost.
Holy shit.
I mean, holy shit.
It takes Joe Biden to bring some sanity to this discussion.
You go, Elizabeth Warren, you talk about how you're going to pay for everything else except the thing that costs $30 trillion.
Oh, gee, I wonder why that's the one that you don't talk about how you're going to pay for.
Okay.
Well, look, and as I said before, there's a whole bunch of just problems with the equations when you go, oh, we'll tax you this to pay for this because it destroys other parts of the economy, thus shrinking the tax base in that part of the economy.
There's lots of issues with it.
But $30 trillion.
Understand this.
These are just facts.
America right now spends more than any other government in the history of the world spends every single year.
You're talking about nearly doubling that.
You're talking about adding on to the biggest government that's ever existed, the biggest government that's ever existed.
That's the reality of the situation.
And your answer to pay for it is the rich.
That's not quite good enough.
All right, let's keep playing this video.
A study recently came out showing that, in fact, it will reduce cost.
But for people making between $50,000 and $75,000 a year, their taxes are going to go up about $5,000 because the fact is they'll pay more in new taxes, 7.4% plus or 5%, plus a 4% income tax.
If a fireman and a school teacher are making $100,000 a year, their taxes are going to go up about $10,000.
That is more than we will possibly save on this healthcare plan.
We have a plan put forward that will work.
Senator Sanders, do you want to respond to that?
I'm going to get a little bit tired, I must say.
A people defending a system which is dysfunctional, which is cruel.
87 million uninsured, 30,000 people dying every single year, 500,000 people going bankrupt for what reason?
They came down with cancer.
I will tell you what the issue is here.
The issue is whether the Democratic Party has the guts to stand up to the healthcare industry, which made $100 billion in profit, whether we have the guts to stand up.
I mean, again, it's really hard for me to not lead with this over and over again.
It's really impressive.
The guy just had a heart attack.
He's nearly 80.
It's just fucking impressive.
That being said, this is pure demagoguery, pure demagoguery.
The issue that's put forward is this is going to cost $30 trillion.
Where does this $30 trillion come from?
How do we raise this?
And so, let me tell you what's wrong.
People not being covered for healthcare.
Someone gets cancer and now they have to pay for it.
It's like, dude, come on, man.
Come on.
Are we grown-ups here or children?
What's your response to how we raise this money?
And this is a simple math question.
If you're talking about $30 trillion over 10 years, that's just over 10 years.
$3 trillion a year.
The rich ain't going to get you there, bro.
The rich ain't going to get you there.
And by the way, if you want to actually look at real life situations, since all the democratic socialists, all they can say these days, right, is like, oh, it's such bullshit to talk about Venezuela or the USSR or China or Cuba or any of these other areas where socialism has destroyed their country.
That's bullshit.
We're talking Scandinavia.
That's what we're talking.
That's our socialism that we're looking for.
Okay.
Well, in Scandinavia, even though they don't want to be associated with you fucking freaks, in Scandinavia, there is, I mean, what is it?
There's like most of their countries, they have a VAT tax.
It's about a 25% tax.
And if you make $60,000 a year, you're paying about 60% income tax.
So 60% income tax on $60,000 a year after a 25% VAT tax.
Now, you do get your healthcare for that.
Okay.
I'm not saying certainly with the current model, there's not lots of problems with the healthcare, but let's not make this idea that you're going to give this program, you're going to, you're going to, you have one new program that on its own would be the biggest government in the history of the world, not for our government, okay?
You're almost, you're adding the biggest government ever with one new program, but the middle class aren't going to pay for it.
The only way to make this work is the middle class is going to pay for it.
Now, there's been different studies.
Some of them have suggested that overall, this will cost the middle class less than the costs of healthcare right now.
I think there's a whole lot of reasons for the costs for healthcare right now, and market solutions could lower those costs drastically.
But even if you think that's true, which, you know, really going to trust what the government tells you something is going to cost?
Just go look at any of their projections of what things are going to cost in the past as opposed to what they actually cost.
Okay.
The war in Iraq was supposed to be, it was supposed to be paid for in oil.
A couple trillion dollars later.
It's like, oh, yeah.
Because the problem is once you start one of these programs, whether it's a war or an entitlement program, you have to pay for it at that point.
So at that point, it's going to be put on the credit card or whatever.
But don't act like taxes aren't going to go up for middle class people.
There is simply, mathematically, no other way to get there.
No other way to get there.
And to just pivot into this, I knew a woman who fucking lost a foot after she was sad.
Like, this is just bullshit.
This has nothing to do with anything.
And to pivot to any of these other conversations about, you know, what's really wrong is that there's anybody who's not insured.
Like, oh, okay, okay.
Also, if his core argument is what we really need to do is challenge the healthcare industries that are making all this profit, well, that doesn't mean that you have to do that within a Medicare for all model.
Of course.
So the only way to figure out why they're making so much money and people aren't able to get care is because those two things are not necessarily in conjunction.
Yeah.
No, well, that's absolutely right.
Okay, let's play the rest of the clip.
I think we're just about done with this one.
To the corrupt price-fixing pharmaceutical industry which is charging us the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
And if we don't have the guts to do that, if all we can do is take their money like easy easy buddy easy, all right.
That's the end of the.
I thought there was a moment after what's her name?
Says that thing about pipe dreams, where Elizabeth Warren responds and says, well, it's better to have dreams like there was some.
No, I don't know, we might have talked over it, i'm not sure.
Um, or it came after this, I don't.
I can't remember every single uh moment, but Joe Biden did make uh uh the, the point at one point where he said, um, he said if you threw out the entire budget of the Pentagon, that would only get you a few months of medicare for all.
And you know that.
I thought that was a fairly good point.
Of course, the overall in the debate.
I thought Biden stumbled and had some bad moments, but he, he was at least some degree the voice of sanity there.
That's part of the reason why he will not be the nominee um, but it's just really like to propose.
It's such a funny thing right, that you've proposed, as I said before, just keep this in perspective.
You've proposed a plan.
Let's say the United States Of America didn't exist.
This Medicare for all plan is the biggest government in the history of the world, just on its own, in terms of spending.
No one else.
There's no other government in the world that spends three trillion dollars a year uh, except ours um, so you've proposed that and that's just one of the new plans that you've proposed.
I mean talk about just like magical voodoo, fucking pipe dreams.
It's like there's no even sense and you don't even feel the need to explain how this is going to be paid for.
And if you're telling me that you're going to take three trillion dollars a year just out of the rich, you know you're going to find a way to just take this money out of them or whatever, make it cost effective or some way that that the middle class isn't paying more of this stuff.
It's okay.
But just go back to my taking out of the deep end, putting into the shallow end money you're not just taking like just a few yacht makers out of business, you're going to destroy industry all over the place, all over the place, left and right.
Regime Change And Foreign Policy00:15:26
All right um, so it takes them a bit over an hour before they finally get to foreign policy.
By the way, climate change was not discussed basically at all in this debate.
Um, for the issue that's about to kill us all in a few years.
You'd think that would come up.
Um, a few of the candidates mentioned it, but there was no like in-depth conversation of it.
It's just saying that's.
Yeah, you would think that would be the transition every time is listen, it's not about Obama's, I mean, it's not about Trump's impeachment.
It's that we deal with global warming.
Forget the healthcare.
We're not going to be alive in 20 years if we don't get to the not so worried about insulin when all of human life is about to be extinct, but evidently they are.
You would think that would be the pivot if it was really important yeah, yeah.
So, after a while of talking about impeachment and health care and a couple other things, they finally did get uh to foreign policy, and the only real reason that they they got to it when they did was to bring up the fact that uh um, you know, Donald Trump uh betrayed the Kurds, and this was pretty much agreed on by everybody.
Um, and here and this is where Tulsi Gabbard had uh uh, her moment to really get in um and, and so let's play her clip and then we can kind of go over that a little Bit.
The slaughter of the Kurds being done by Turkey is yet another negative consequence of the regime change war that we've been waging in Syria.
Donald Trump has the blood of the Kurds on his hand, but so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have supported this ongoing regime change war in Syria that started in 2011.
New York Times and CNN have also smeared veterans like myself for calling for an end to this regime change war.
Just two days ago, the New York Times put out an article saying that I'm a Russian asset and an Assad apologist and all these different smears.
This morning, a CNN commentator said on national television that I'm an asset of Russia.
Completely despicable.
And I would make sure that we stop supporting terrorists like al-Qaeda in Syria, who've been the ground force in this ongoing regime change war.
I'd like to ask Senator Warren if she would join me in calling for an end to this regime change war in Syria, finally.
All right, let's pause it there.
So you could see briefly if you were watching there that Elizabeth Warren was a little bit surprised.
I was a little bit surprised too that she went, that she brought Elizabeth Warren into that.
Okay, overall, not bad.
Not a bad response.
I would have liked to punch it up a little bit.
You know, I just think there's just such an opportunity for Tulsi to hit these big punches.
And again, I know she's not going to debate the way I would.
And that's good because I'd probably turn a lot of people off.
I tend to scream and curse and get very passionate and a little bit belligerent.
Okay, fine.
But I just think, like, don't you have like a good somebody who's kind of like a speechwriter, somebody to help you to just punch up?
It's like, how about this?
How about Donald Trump does in many ways have the blood of the Kurds on his hands, but blood on the hands of a president is nothing new.
Barack Obama has the bloods of the Libyans, the Syrians, the Iraqis, the Afghanistan people on his hands.
George W. Bush has so much blood on his hands, you can't even see skin.
You know, like, so I, okay, I'm just saying maybe that's not exactly right, but let's just put things in context.
And then, you know, it was a here.
Okay, the other thing is that, and this I do think is a legitimate flaw.
You have to, you can't throw out arming al-Qaeda like we're talking about the weather.
Like, this is just one more little detail in your spiel.
It's like, did I catch a treason in there in that list of things that you just said?
Okay, you don't have to scream and curse, but you have to at least accentuate that, that this is what happened.
Does everyone understand that?
This is what happened.
We armed Al-Qaeda.
We helped to create ISIS.
That's why this whole situation is a mess.
So anyway, here's the problem: tactically, what she did.
I thought it was great that she called at CNN and the New York Times.
This is, if you didn't realize, a CNN New York Times debate.
So the people who are putting on the debate, she called them both out for their despicable hit pieces that they've been running against her over the last few days.
And she's absolutely right about that.
I mean, it's really, it's a, you know, for all the people at CNN and the New York Times and the kind of media establishment who all kind of agree that McCarthyism was such a terrible dark age in America.
The idea that you'll just smear a veteran as a fucking Russian spy or a Russian asset or complicit with Russia is really, you know, outrageous.
And, you know, it does beg the question.
And this is something that I wish Tulsi Gabbard would just put in a little bit more of a powerful way.
Because if you are Tulsi Gabbard, you have to realize your goal here is to kind of wake people up.
You're trying to shake people up one way or the other.
You got to make people realize, oh, yeah, this is somebody.
You got to, you know, Tulsi Gabbard is good enough that she should be at like 10, 15%.
At least do something, you know, get in the, get in the conversation here.
The real huge question that you want to get to, right, is not just, hey, CNN and the New York Times smeared me.
Okay.
Why?
Why are they smearing her?
But she's some random candidate who's at 2%, who's all the way over here.
You know, like she's not one of the major players so far in this race.
So why is it that the New York Times and CNN are smearing her?
And there's only one reason why, and we all know what the answer to that is.
It's because she's opposing the military-industrial complex.
She's the one candidate out there who's anti-war and leading with it.
So they're smearing her.
Now, what does that tell you about the okay?
I don't know exactly how to put this.
I'm not the person who's going to be president.
But if you're trying to be that person, there's got to be a way that you at least insert that in there.
And I will tell you, if you're at a CNN, New York Times debate and you call out CNN and the New York Times bluntly and forcefully, you don't then insert Elizabeth Warren, just tactically, you don't insert Elizabeth Warren into the end of that and then turn the focus over to her and then let her go give some bullshit fucking answer where she's like, well, yeah, you know, we do need to get out of the wars, but, you know, we have to do it in the way that I want it.
That's like the new thing.
Everybody goes, yeah, I don't want to fight forever wars either.
It's like, okay, well, where can we leave from?
No, you know, nowhere.
But I have not, I don't want to fight forever wars, but we just got to leave Afghanistan responsibly.
We've been there forever.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's the longest war in our history.
If you're not for forever wars, can we end that one?
The one that's literally forever?
Oh, no.
Okay, so that you are.
So at least admit you are.
But anyway, so Elizabeth Warren then goes and gives some bullshit answer.
But my point is just that if she hadn't invoked Elizabeth Warren, she almost certainly would have gotten the follow-up question in some way, or they would have just not responded and looked very weak.
But instead of it going back to her, it went to Elizabeth Warren and then they moved on.
So I thought that was her big shot.
It wasn't great.
She had an exchange with Mayor Buttstuff after that.
Didn't go great either.
It was okay.
You know, what she said wasn't terrible.
But I also don't think this is a problem with Rand Paul, too.
I just don't get why harping on the term regime change is the best way to describe this.
I mean, I certainly don't like the regime change aspect of these wars.
But the problem is that they're aggressive wars.
They're wars of choice.
They're wars that were not fought for the legitimate reasons that they were stated.
They don't follow the just war theory of Christianity.
They don't follow our constitutional philosophy of how you start a war.
And they don't follow any decent person, any decent moral person's view of what a right war would be.
It'd be like, people are being slaughtered.
All of these people are dying for wars we shouldn't have fought in.
We've made all of these countries far worse places for their people.
Our people are dying too.
Like it's costing us money.
There's all these issues, but just regime change, it smells to me like a statist euphemism.
You know what I mean?
Like, why are we, it's like calling, you know, dead civilians collateral damage.
Like regime change just sounds kind of surgical and not that it doesn't really evoke any emotion.
Anyway, she did stick with regime change and say that that's what she's for.
And now let's move over to the next video, Brian.
And this was something that I actually thought to me was like the, it was my biggest takeaway from the debate.
Of course, it will be no one else's biggest takeaway from the debate.
But this was the moment that won't get discussed at all.
But a couple people after that Tulsi Gabbard comment, it came to Joe Biden.
And what he said was really quite something.
And if you, you know, if you actually care about what's going on in Syria, you care about these Kurds, your precious Kurds or whatever, you think this is an important issue.
Like you think war and peace are somewhat relevant in these conversations.
This was quite something that Joe Biden just slipped in there.
So let's play that next clip, the CNN video.
Integrity abroad.
Thank you, Senator Vice President.
I think I maybe, it doesn't make me any bitter or worse, but maybe the only person who spent extensive time alone with Putin as well as with Erdogan.
And Erdogan understands that, you talk about should he stay in or out of NATO.
He understands that he's out of NATO.
He's in real trouble.
But the fact of the matter is we have been one willing in this administration because we have an erratic, crazy president who knows not a damn thing about foreign policy and operates out of fear for his own reelection.
Think what's happened.
The fact of the matter is you have Russia influencing and trying to break up NATO.
What does the president do?
He says, I believe Vladimir Putin.
I believe Vladimir Putin.
I don't believe our intelligence.
I'm speaking about Vladimir Putin.
I'm not.
No, no, no, I'm not.
But it's a weird tactic.
Here's the deal.
Think what that did.
He turns around and he questions whether or not he'll keep the sacred commitment of Article 5 for the NATO members.
If he is re-elected, I promise you, there will be no NATO.
Our security will be vastly underrated.
All right, so pause it already.
We will be in real trouble.
So, first off, there's that word again, sacred, our sacred commitment to NATO, isn't it?
You almost want to sacrifice a goat to our commitment to NATO.
But that's a statement that's a pretty bold, completely unsubstantiated statement that if Donald Trump is re-elected, there will be no more America in NATO.
Now, why are we still in NATO right now, even though he's been in there for three years?
He needs a fifth.
But right around year five, we won't be in NATO anymore.
By the way, I wish that was true.
It might get me to vote for Donald Trump if I saw any evidence that that was actually true.
But so this is where Joe Biden starts.
A really wild claim.
Pretty big deal.
Also, this weird debate tactic where he leans over and calls Bernie Sanders Vladimir Putin and then Bernie Sanders.
Good line by Bernie Sanders.
Sharp as a tack, that guy.
Heart attack a couple weeks ago.
I'm genuinely blown away.
Anyway, but let's keep playing because it gets even goofier.
Trouble.
And with regard to regime change in Syria, that has not been the policy we change the regime.
It has been to make sure that the regime did not wipe out hundreds and thousands of innocent people between there and the Iraqi border.
And lastly, and I apologize for going up, but lastly, what is happening in Iraq is going to be, I mean, excuse me, in Afghanistan, as well as all the way over to Syria.
We have ISIS.
It's going to come here.
They are going to, in fact, damage the United States of America.
That's why we got involved in the first place and not ceded the whole area to Assad and to the Russians.
Thank you, Mr. Vice President.
So I actually thought that was the, that was like the moment of the debate to me that I thought, wow, what wild, just baseless accusations and flat out lies by Joe Biden.
So, okay, look, we started intervening.
The CIA, the Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, all started intervening in Syria before Assad started killing any people.
So the idea that we're there for, you know, because he's killing his own people is just bullshit.
But for Joe Biden, because this gets right at the heart of it, right?
Like what the whole issue is with what's going on in Syria.
He says this was not about regime change.
He says flat out that was not the policy.
And it is really something, it just shows you the state of how derelict in their duty the media is, the state of all the other candidates that you could get away with saying something like, the policy was not regime change in Syria.
And nobody, no moderator, nobody gives you any pushback on that.
No pushback on that.
Just to be clear, let's hear, because I have the other video that we have set out.
Let's just hear it straight from the horse's mouth, Obama on his policy in Syria.
My policy from the beginning has been that President Assad had lost credibility, that he attacked his own people, has killed his own people, unleashed a military against innocent civilians, and that the only way to bring stability and peace to Syria is going to be for Assad to step down and to move forward on a political transition.
Okay, so just, and by the way, that's not the only clip.
You can hear Obama saying this over and over and over again.
Everybody in the administration acknowledged this.
He said, point blank, my policy from the beginning has been that Assad needs to step down, that he's got to go, and then we can move forward with a new government in Syria.
So to say the policy was not about regime change is just, I mean, that's a flat out lie.
That's a flat out lie to say that's not what this was about.
That is exactly what this was about.
That's all that this was about.
And you guys admitted that.
It's not just that secretly that's what this was about.
It was all about that.
Obama said from the beginning, this was in 2015.
He said this.
And he said from the beginning, so going back to 2011, 2012, his policy was that Assad's got to go.
That was his policy.
Now, the fucking Republicans, the neocons, the fucking Warhawk Republicans, their criticism of Obama was that he never came through.
He goes, then he crossed your red line and you still didn't remove him.
That was it.
But the idea that, oh, this was never about regime change.
This was never, that was never even part of this.
Of course it was.
It's the whole reason we're there.
Don't believe for a goddamn second that this has anything to do with ISIS or the Kurds or fucking any of this.
This was about overthrowing Bashar al-Assad.
So anyway, I just thought that, I thought in any like just world, that would be the moment that was the biggest takeaway.
Gun Control And Police Showdowns00:04:29
Okay, so after that, they ended up talking about guns for a while.
There seemed to be some competition between who wanted to just ban semi-automatic weapons and who wanted to actually forcefully confiscate the ones that are out there.
Beta Warcraft was basically like all in on we're going to take your guns.
It was interesting.
There were a couple things that I thought were kind of interesting that it's, again, it's very easy to get lost in the 24-hour news cycle and a little bit harder to take a step back and go like, oh, this is a big moment or this is a big trend.
But two things that were brought up at the Democratic debate that it's really funny that they were just a couple of years ago considered right-wing conspiracy theories.
No one's actually for this.
Only Sean Hannity would claim or Rush Limbaugh would claim anyone's for this and are now just asked as legitimate debate questions.
One was packing the Supreme Court and the other was forcefully confiscating guns.
These used to be things that you're like, well, no one's taught.
And now they're just completely respectable debate questions like, do you think we should pack the Supreme Court?
Do you think we should forcefully round up people's guns?
Some of you agree, some of you disagree.
Okay, fair enough.
It's like, ooh, that's a bit of a creep from this is just a conspiracy theory to let's have a conversation about whether this is what we believe or not.
I will say I was kind of impressed that Julian Castro was the first Democrat I've ever heard make the point that we have often brought up on this show, the glaring contradiction in democratic policy, where he said, you know, I'm not going to be for a forced buyback because, you know,
there's this thing with all these cops shooting people who are unarmed and going in and doing all these things.
And I don't really want to give the cops an excuse to go door to door because I kind of wonder what doors they're going to end up going to.
You know, it's a funny thing from the from your own democratic left-leaning worldview.
You got to think, okay, so you're going to ban weapons.
All right.
So not everybody turns in their weapons.
Now you're going to go get the ones from the people who didn't turn them in.
Well, where would you start?
Does it stand to reason that it would be in the low crime areas?
Or maybe would you start in the high crime areas where people have a lot of illegal guns?
Okay.
Well, where are the high crime areas where people have a lot of illegal guns?
I tend to kind of disproportionately be of a certain demographic.
So what are you really setting up here?
What are you really setting up?
Are you kind of setting up a showdown between, you know, the fucking hood in Chicago and the cops?
We're going to now start going around trying, just saying what you're going to have inevitably is a big fucking round.
By the way, all those guns are already illegal.
Sounds like a good movie.
Can we get The Rock as the cop who's going to take all of those guns, clean up the rock?
I'll be honest, The Rock could be the cop or the gangster.
Put The Rock in there.
It's going to be a great movie.
Ooh, two characters both played by The Rock.
Separated twins.
One's the cop, one's the guy who's trying to keep the guns.
Why aren't we writing movies?
Why are we wasting our time with this nonsense?
Anyway, it was interesting to see them talk about this whole guns issue and so many things.
You know, it's like the dishonesty in just talking about how it's so funny because it's like they talk about, you know, I mean, whatever.
We've talked about guns so many times on the podcast, but they spend this time talking about, you know, as Beto O'Rourke will say, no one needs an AR-15 or an AK-47.
And it's like, okay, but really, those are responsible for such a small percentage of the gun violence in America.
So if you're really talking about rounding up guns to stop gun violence, where is this going?
I mean, it's literally what Beto O'Rourke's plan is one baby step away from just saying we need to round up all the fucking guns.
It's the logical conclusion of it.
And I thought it was interesting that Julian Castro actually, I mean, it's like, hey, don't we kind of think the cops are racist killers?
If they are, maybe we shouldn't be sending them door to door.
Because if they're racist killers, aren't they going to probably kill a lot of the races they don't like?
Might be something to think about.
Might be something Democrats have to wrap their head around.
Recap Of The Entire Debate00:00:58
Anyway, I don't think, I think more or less that's my recap on this debate.
Is there anyone who I missed who I didn't talk about?
I think I fucking hit on just about all of them.
If I missed somebody, you really don't matter.
You really, really don't matter if I didn't talk about you at all.
We just didn't comment much on Yang UBI, but we've discussed it before and our audience knows that it's super stupid.
I sure hope they do.
I sure hope they do.
I know some people, I know we did like a segment on this at one point, and so I've had some people ask me to break it down, but I just don't really have time to get into it right now.
But we could break that down more.
Very, very bad idea.
Definitely a very bad idea.
Okay.
All right.
That's our Ohio debate recap.
What's the next one?
How many more of these are they doing?
When are we going to thin the herd?
You know, I think it thins organically, but uh I don't know.