Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - Super Tuesday Recap
Aired: 2020-03-05
Duration: 01:17:42


=== Super Tuesday Surprise (14:27) ===

[00:00:00]  Fill her up.
[00:00:02]  You are listening to the Gash Digital Network.
[00:00:07]  We need to roll back the state.
[00:00:09]  We spy on all of our own citizens.
[00:00:11]  Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
[00:00:15]  If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
[00:00:20]  Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
[00:00:34]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:35]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:00:40]  Of course, I'm Dave Smith.
[00:00:42]  I am in Solo this week.
[00:00:44]  No Robbie the Fire Bernstein, no guest.
[00:00:47]  I wanted to do a recap of Super Tuesday.
[00:00:52]  And there is, whew, just a lot, a lot to talk about.
[00:00:56]  Robbie the Fire Bernstein is out.
[00:00:58]  It's not the AIDS or the coronavirus.
[00:01:01]  He just didn't feel like it this week.
[00:01:05]  Feeling fine.
[00:01:06]  Tip-top health just didn't want a podcast.
[00:01:10]  So, you know, what can you say?
[00:01:12]  I don't know.
[00:01:13]  I'm not going to hold it against him, but if you guys want to, I would encourage that.
[00:01:17]  All right.
[00:01:18]  So yesterday was Super Tuesday.
[00:01:23]  That is the day where there's the most primaries in one day.
[00:01:29]  The way the primary season works is you have these kind of few, this trickle of the first few primaries.
[00:01:36]  And then all of a sudden, on the first Tuesday in March, there's like all of these contests.
[00:01:43]  And so it goes from, you know, all of a sudden there's just like a few delegates and now all of a sudden we're really like into the race.
[00:01:51]  And, well, look, there's no, there's no, there's no real way to spin this.
[00:01:58]  I was wrong.
[00:02:00]  I really got this one wrong.
[00:02:02]  And I'll be upfront and honest with you good people about that.
[00:02:06]  I got this one wrong.
[00:02:07]  And so mark it down in your calendars.
[00:02:09]  It happens every three, four years.
[00:02:11]  I got something wrong.
[00:02:13]  And not feeling great about it.
[00:02:16]  But, you know, the polls were also wrong.
[00:02:18]  And pretty much the entire media got this thing wrong.
[00:02:22]  There's no, you know, I've heard the obviously the corporate press is pretty in the tank for Joe Biden.
[00:02:30]  And so you'll see a lot of stories talking about what a stunning, you know, comeback this was.
[00:02:37]  What an incredible day for Joe Biden it was.
[00:02:41]  And as much as I love to call out the corporate press when their narrative is full of shit, they're right.
[00:02:47]  They're right about this one.
[00:02:48]  This was an unbelievable day for Joe Biden, pretty close to a disaster for Bernie Sanders.
[00:02:58]  And probably the most, I would say probably the most incredible comeback that I've seen in a presidential election since I've been following him, definitely in the last 14 years or so.
[00:03:14]  This was unbelievable.
[00:03:16]  Joe Biden, before South Carolina, he, I mean, maybe he wasn't technically done.
[00:03:24]  I mean, clearly now he wasn't done, but he had two legs and one arm in the grave.
[00:03:30]  I mean, he was as close to being out as you could imagine.
[00:03:33]  This wasn't, you know, like Bill Clinton was dubbed the comeback kid with like a second place in New Hampshire.
[00:03:41]  This was way more incredible than that.
[00:03:44]  Joe Biden was tanking.
[00:03:46]  He did terribly in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada.
[00:03:50]  He was struggling to fundraise, going into South Carolina.
[00:03:54]  Anything short of first place there would have put that last arm in the grave.
[00:03:58]  He would have been done.
[00:04:00]  And he came back out with a huge victory in South Carolina and then just did incredibly well on Super Tuesday.
[00:04:08]  He outperformed the polls in several key states.
[00:04:12]  Bernie Sanders underperformed in equally as many key states.
[00:04:19]  And the whole race has been shooken up from where it was just the day before yesterday when we last podcasted.
[00:04:30]  It's pretty stunning, pretty incredible.
[00:04:32]  It seems like from looking at the exit poll results and this information that's been put out, there were two keys that really led to Joe Biden's success.
[00:04:46]  Number one, the young vote did not show up for Bernie Sanders.
[00:04:54]  The young voters did not show up for Bernie Sanders in several really important states where he needed them.
[00:05:00]  I pull up some numbers here, but exit polls for several states that Biden won, including Massachusetts, Texas, and a number of southern states, were lower than they were in 2016.
[00:05:18]  That's a really, really bad sign.
[00:05:19]  This is according to USA Today.
[00:05:21]  This is a very, very bad sign for Bernie Sanders.
[00:05:24]  So much of his campaign has revolved around exciting young people and expanding the electorate.
[00:05:33]  And he did neither on Super Tuesday.
[00:05:37]  And it's surprising to me.
[00:05:40]  It's surprising that he would have these young people showing up at lower levels than in 2016.
[00:05:48]  This is a year when he was going into Super Tuesday.
[00:05:51]  He was the frontrunner.
[00:05:53]  And that's, you know, that's a very bad sign for Bernie Sanders.
[00:05:59]  Exit polls for Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia all seem to indicate that young voters aren't showing up to the polls as much as 2016.
[00:06:11]  So there's a kiss of death for Bernie Sanders.
[00:06:15]  Very, very bad, very, very bad sign for Bernie Sanders.
[00:06:20]  The other major factor seems to be the African-American vote overwhelmingly went for Joe Biden.
[00:06:30]  They split.
[00:06:31]  Joe Biden was always polling pretty good with black voters, but he performed substantially higher than he was polling with them.
[00:06:39]  So they all split for Joe Biden.
[00:06:41]  And I must say, I don't exactly get it.
[00:06:47]  I don't get why.
[00:06:49]  I suppose to me, the easiest explanation, and maybe this is it, is just that, you know, at the end of the day, Joe Biden was the man next to Barack Obama for eight years.
[00:07:04]  And say what you want to, but Barack Obama was the first black president ever.
[00:07:09]  He had unbelievably high levels of support in the black community.
[00:07:14]  And Joe Biden was his guy.
[00:07:17]  And maybe that at the end just kind of pushed him, you know, to such high levels of African-American support.
[00:07:25]  I don't know.
[00:07:25]  Maybe I'm wrong about that.
[00:07:26]  Maybe there's something that I'm missing.
[00:07:28]  I also don't exactly get what it is about Bernie Sanders that, you know, that he has so much trouble getting black support.
[00:07:37]  I mean, I don't really think it's the Democratic socialism stuff.
[00:07:42]  And I don't, I mean, he actually, you know, was like, I think arrested at a civil rights sit-in and stuff.
[00:07:49]  He's been pretty on team, you know, pro-black people for a while.
[00:07:56]  I don't know.
[00:07:57]  I don't completely understand it.
[00:07:58]  And I'm, you know, I'm open to explanations.
[00:08:02]  But one way or the other, this race drastically changed, drastically changed on Tuesday.
[00:08:10]  And Joe Biden is once again the frontrunner in the Democratic field.
[00:08:16]  I'm just stunned, just stunned by this.
[00:08:19]  I couldn't believe it went this way.
[00:08:20]  It seemed to me like Joe Biden was going to have a very, very bad Super Tuesday, but what can you say?
[00:08:28]  I was wrong.
[00:08:29]  I was wrong.
[00:08:32]  The entire establishment, of course, is consolidating around Joe Biden.
[00:08:37]  This was happening going into Super Tuesday, and now it's even more explicit.
[00:08:42]  Bloomberg dropped out of the race.
[00:08:45]  He dropped out of the race after Super Tuesday and immediately endorsed Joe Biden.
[00:08:53]  So he's Joe Biden, you know, he got a bump from Klobuchar and Mayor Pete dropping out and endorsing him.
[00:09:01]  Now he's going to get, I think, a substantially bigger bump from Bloomberg dropping out and endorsing him.
[00:09:07]  And the big endorsement still hasn't come.
[00:09:11]  But at this point, I do think that Barack Obama is going to come out at some point and endorse Joe Biden.
[00:09:16]  That would be my guess.
[00:09:18]  So things have changed.
[00:09:21]  Things have changed indeed.
[00:09:26]  Biden was struggling to raise money going into Super Tuesday.
[00:09:33]  He's been for months.
[00:09:34]  He's been really struggling with raising money.
[00:09:37]  Don't get it twisted.
[00:09:39]  That is over.
[00:09:40]  That is over.
[00:09:42]  Joe Biden is going to be raising big time bucks going forward.
[00:09:47]  Big, big, big time money.
[00:09:49]  He's going to pour a lot of money into this campaign.
[00:09:52]  And that's going to be a factor for sure.
[00:09:59]  I got to say at this point, I think Joe Biden's going to be the nominee.
[00:10:05]  I'm surprised.
[00:10:07]  As I said before, I did not see Super Tuesday going this way.
[00:10:11]  But, you know, this is life and you got to adjust to the facts on the ground.
[00:10:17]  And if you have an assessment of something and it's proven to be wrong, you got to kind of try to figure out what you got wrong and deal with the information in front of you.
[00:10:26]  And as I look at things now, I go, ooh, yeah, I don't think Bernie has a path anymore to getting a majority of the delegates, I think, is almost, you can kiss that goodbye, and a plurality of the delegates seems to be unlikely.
[00:10:43]  And unlike Bernie, Biden isn't going to have the entire establishment working against him.
[00:10:49]  So if Biden goes into the convention leading in delegates and Bernie decides to fight all the way to the convention, well, the super delegates are going to break for Joe Biden and they'll give him the nominee.
[00:11:00]  He doesn't need to get a majority.
[00:11:03]  Like he doesn't need to win the thing outright the way Bernie Sanders would have had to.
[00:11:11]  This is shaping up to, you know, I've been talking about for the last couple weeks so many of the similarities between the 2016 Republican primary race and the 2020 Democratic primary race.
[00:11:25]  But it looks like there's some real differences as well.
[00:11:28]  I mean, all those similarities do exist, but it also seems like there's some real differences that I may have underestimated that are apparent now.
[00:11:39]  Number one, maybe the Democratic base is not quite as furious at the establishment as the Republican base was in 2016.
[00:11:56]  The it seems that beating Donald Trump still seems to be their number one issue.
[00:12:06]  And I don't think that was true exactly in the same way in 2016 for the Republicans.
[00:12:13]  I mean, Barack Obama wasn't on the ballot anymore, so it wasn't like beating Obama was a concern.
[00:12:17]  People wanted to beat Hillary Clinton for sure, but it seemed like, like, I remember, I remember talking about this on the podcast when it happened, but there was a, it was a oh, my apologies.
[00:12:34]  Uh, there was a Marco Rubio.
[00:12:36]  I just went to adjust the microphone and pulled the cord out.
[00:12:38]  Sorry about that.
[00:12:39]  I'm a little thrown off by Super Tuesday.
[00:12:41]  So there was a Marco Rubio event.
[00:12:43]  Now, keep in mind, this wasn't a Donald Trump event.
[00:12:46]  This wasn't even a Ted Cruz event or a Rand Paul event.
[00:12:49]  This was a Marco Rubio campaign event.
[00:12:52]  And he announced at the event that John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House, had resigned.
[00:13:00]  And there was just thunderous applause.
[00:13:04]  They broke out into an uproar.
[00:13:05]  They were thrilled that Boehner had resigned because they just saw him as an establishment hack who had done nothing to stop the Obama agenda, all this stuff.
[00:13:19]  Now, so I remember seeing that and being like, holy shit, wow, there is really palpable energy anger in the Republican base.
[00:13:31]  I mean, they're this angry.
[00:13:34]  They hate the Republican Speaker of the House.
[00:13:38]  That's, you know, that's serious.
[00:13:40]  And I don't think that exactly exists on the other side.
[00:13:45]  Like, I don't think at a Joe Biden event, if they told you that Nancy Pelosi was stepping down, that there would be like cheers for that.
[00:13:55]  If anything, I think they'd kind of be sad about it.
[00:13:57]  So I guess if you look at it, there's not quite the anger against their own establishment that there was in 2016 on the Republican side.
[00:14:06]  That's not to say that there isn't anger, but maybe it's just not as intense.
[00:14:12]  The establishment of the Democrats, they were able to rally around their guy.
[00:14:21]  The Republicans didn't have a guy like that.
[00:14:23]  Jeb Bush was kind of their guy, and he just ended up collapsing.

=== Crypto Trading Assets (03:41) ===

[00:14:28]  And that didn't happen to Biden.
[00:14:30]  So, yeah, I mean, it's a different situation.
[00:14:34]  Now, I got to say, I thought, obviously, that Bernie would do better.
[00:14:41]  So I'm kind of like Monday morning quarterbacking this whole situation.
[00:14:45]  But if you're going to look back at it, it would only make sense to ask yourself, like, what did Bernie Sanders do wrong here?
[00:14:53]  Like, how did he allow this opportunity to get away from him?
[00:14:56]  And I don't want to be like, you know, I don't want to overstate the fact.
[00:15:02]  Technically speaking, it's pretty close still.
[00:15:05]  I mean, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are neck and neck.
[00:15:08]  Once the California delegates all get assigned, you know, it'll be pretty close.
[00:15:13]  Joe Biden looks like he's going to be up by a little bit.
[00:15:17]  So it's not as if it's technically impossible for Bernie Sanders to get the nomination.
[00:15:24]  It seems very unlikely compared to where things were just 24 hours ago.
[00:15:31]  Truthfully, Joe Biden is still Joe Biden, and he's still got months to, you know, say the wrong thing, sniff the wrong kid.
[00:15:44]  There's things that Joe Biden could do to still fall to pieces.
[00:15:49]  Like, that is possible.
[00:15:52]  But at this point, this was a huge game changer that happened yesterday.
[00:15:57]  And Bernie Sanders now would need another huge game changer in order to take this thing.
[00:16:03]  And that is just, it's a much worse position to be in than where he was again 24 hours ago today.
[00:16:11]  So it's been, you know, I don't think anyone can spin this in another way.
[00:16:14]  This was a disaster for Bernie Sanders.
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=== Market Shift Analysis (15:33) ===

[00:18:09]  You have to understand what Bernie Sanders is trying to do here.
[00:18:12]  This isn't any small task.
[00:18:15]  He's trying to take over a political party.
[00:18:22]  Bernie Sanders is trying to defeat the Democratic establishment, the corporate press, the deep state.
[00:18:31]  I mean, like, there's a lot of quite powerful interests that don't have an interest in Bernie Sanders being the nominee.
[00:18:40]  Now, if you have a great opportunity to take them out and you blow it, that's a big deal.
[00:18:46]  That's a big deal.
[00:18:47]  And you can think, well, there is a possibility that he could get another opportunity.
[00:18:51]  But, you know, it's like if you're boxing Mike Tyson in his prime and he puts his hands behind his back and sticks his chin out and you got a shot and you swing and miss, I mean, technically, you could still, you know, win the fight, but if you didn't take advantage of that opportunity, things are not looking good.
[00:19:11]  And he had a huge opportunity.
[00:19:13]  And, you know, I got to say, I think that a lot of it is that Bernie Sanders just isn't, he's not built for this.
[00:19:24]  And that is something I've been saying for a year, basically now.
[00:19:29]  He's not built to fight this fight the way he needs to.
[00:19:36]  Now, I thought it seemed like with Joe Biden's implosion, Michael Bloomberg's just disastrous debate performances, it seemed like despite his best efforts, Bernie Sanders was going to run away with this thing.
[00:19:49]  You know, I've said for months now that this is Bernie Sanders' race to win or to lose.
[00:19:55]  It's his.
[00:19:57]  On the issues, the voters are with him.
[00:20:00]  And it makes sense in a lot of ways, in a lot of ways.
[00:20:04]  I mean, any one of these issues, I don't think anyone can really beat Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side.
[00:20:12]  You know, you think about these things like healthcare.
[00:20:15]  Now, if Bernie Sanders is arguing his Medicare for all, you know, plan, there is a reasonable and I believe correct counter argument to that from like the free market point of view.
[00:20:33]  I mean, not to get too derailed into a conversation on healthcare.
[00:20:36]  We've done this many times.
[00:20:38]  But if you're arguing, if somebody else was arguing that the government should, you know, take over the entire healthcare industry, make private insurance illegal, you know, make, you know, all of entitlement into a new, all of healthcare into a new government entitlement program or something like that.
[00:20:56]  There's lots of arguments that a free market guy like myself could make.
[00:21:01]  You know, like you could talk about all the tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities in Medicare already, and that's just for people 65 and over.
[00:21:10]  Just, you know, imagine how much it's going to cost.
[00:21:12]  And you could talk about how really, when it comes down to it, healthcare is a service.
[00:21:19]  I mean, that's what it is.
[00:21:21]  And goods and services, if there's a better mechanism for delivering them at higher quality, at lower cost, it doesn't matter how important that good or service is.
[00:21:32]  You know, again, there's like all of these things that are left to the free market end up being supplied to poor people in a much more effective way than when the government supplies them, whether you're talking about flat screen TVs or clothes or whatever, you know?
[00:21:49]  And as I've said before, the example that I love to use is shoes because, you know, it's like it's just something that we don't even think about that you really need.
[00:21:59]  But like, you know, like couldn't, if like, you know, if people didn't have shoes, you could easily see some democratic socialist standing up and saying, I believe that shoes are a human right.
[00:22:10]  I mean, by the way, if health insurance should be a human right, then shoes should really be a human right.
[00:22:14]  Try existing in the modern world without health insurance and then try existing in the modern world without shoes.
[00:22:20]  You're going to get a lot further with the shoes and without health insurance.
[00:22:23]  I've gone years without having health insurance, never gone years without shoes.
[00:22:27]  That's really, really important.
[00:22:29]  And you could see them saying, well, the government needs to take this over.
[00:22:32]  But the fact is we leave it to the market and poor people all have shoes.
[00:22:36]  Like there's no problem with this.
[00:22:37]  And even though it seems like very different things, I mean, goods and services are goods and services.
[00:22:42]  And that's what healthcare is.
[00:22:43]  So anyway, we go into a whole thing.
[00:22:46]  We will do more about that in the future.
[00:22:48]  We've done a lot about it in the past.
[00:22:49]  But just saying there is a free market argument for why costs will be lower and the quality of the service will be better if you leave it to the free market for poor people, not just for rich people.
[00:23:02]  That being said, none of the Democrats make that argument.
[00:23:05]  Joe Biden's argument is basically supporting Obamacare.
[00:23:08]  He's basically saying, well, if the government gets involved, we can provide it to more people and keep costs down.
[00:23:15]  That was the central argument of Obamacare.
[00:23:17]  So then Bernie Sanders can come along and say, okay, well, under your Obamacare model, we pay twice as much as some of these other countries that have universal health care.
[00:23:26]  And there's still some people here who don't have it.
[00:23:28]  So why don't we just go universal health care?
[00:23:31]  It just seems like from the Democratic point of view, it's impossible to win this argument.
[00:23:35]  It's very hard.
[00:23:35]  Joe Biden can't defend his vote for the war in Iraq.
[00:23:38]  He can't defend any of these trade deals from the Democratic point of view.
[00:23:42]  These are all, they're all losing issues.
[00:23:44]  This is Bernie Sanders' fight to win, but he's got to be willing to fight.
[00:23:51]  And it seems like he just didn't do that.
[00:23:55]  He just counted on the fact, look, even at the last two debates, who was everybody going after?
[00:24:03]  Well, they were all going after Michael Bloomberg.
[00:24:05]  So they knocked him out.
[00:24:06]  They destroyed him.
[00:24:07]  I mean, particularly Elizabeth Warren, but Bernie Sanders did too.
[00:24:11]  They beat the crap out of Mike Bloomberg.
[00:24:13]  I mean, just raked him over the coals in back-to-back debates.
[00:24:18]  And they destroyed him.
[00:24:20]  They did.
[00:24:21]  Now, as I said at the time, and maybe I underestimated how much of a mistake this was.
[00:24:26]  Now in hindsight, it seems more clear.
[00:24:28]  But at the time, I said, you know, I didn't think this was a great night for Joe Biden either because they were basically just ignoring him.
[00:24:34]  It's like they were all so convinced that Joe Biden was dead that they were just like, whatever, silly Uncle Joe.
[00:24:41]  We're focusing on Mike Bloomberg.
[00:24:42]  We're going to take him out.
[00:24:44]  And no one was ever really taking the fight to Michael Bloomberg.
[00:24:52]  I mean, excuse me, to Joe Biden.
[00:24:54]  So that seems like, yeah, you know, this is going to be, you know, this, this might have been the fatal mistake for Bernie Sanders to not actually fight the guy who actually turns out to be your competition.
[00:25:08]  It was not Bloomberg.
[00:25:09]  It was not Bloomberg.
[00:25:10]  It was Joe Biden.
[00:25:11]  Again, I was, I'm, you know, I missed this too, but in hindsight, it sure does seem like they really, they really made a mistake with that one.
[00:25:24]  And Bernie Sanders, you know, he just, he needed to, he needed to go on the attack at some point in this campaign.
[00:25:35]  At some point, he needed to go on the attack.
[00:25:38]  And he never did.
[00:25:42]  He never did in the way that he needed to.
[00:25:45]  So, you know, we'll see what ends up happening here.
[00:25:49]  But it's going to be a real uphill battle, if you ask me at this point for Bernie Sanders.
[00:25:59]  I don't think, if I had to guess at this point, I don't think he's going to be able to do it.
[00:26:04]  I just don't think he's going to be able to, you know, like the same thing with Donald Trump in 2016.
[00:26:11]  It's not just that he needed to win.
[00:26:17]  He needed to dominate in order to create a situation where they couldn't take it away from him.
[00:26:24]  They couldn't.
[00:26:26]  He was just like, well, who are you going to give it to?
[00:26:28]  The guy who he's lapping three times in votes?
[00:26:31]  You know, you can't have it neck and neck and then think you're going to be able to take the party away from the party that easily.
[00:26:40]  So I think this is, oof, man, is this a rough situation for Bernie to be in?
[00:26:45]  I don't think I've ever, I'm trying to think back to this.
[00:26:47]  I don't think I've ever seen a presidential campaign where in 24 hours there was this drastic of a change where it seemed like this was yours.
[00:26:59]  And now it's like, I don't know how you get this.
[00:27:01]  I don't know how you get this.
[00:27:03]  And like I've been saying for months, what Bernie Sanders needed to do, he could, look, if Bernie Sanders had played this the right way, I think he right now is already the nominee.
[00:27:13]  I mean, already.
[00:27:14]  But, you know, Bernie Sanders would have had to come out at the beginning of the campaign.
[00:27:19]  And this is the stuff that it takes time.
[00:27:21]  You can't just turn it on now.
[00:27:23]  It's going to be too late to now.
[00:27:25]  But you have to, at the very beginning of the campaign, be like, look, I was cheated in 2016.
[00:27:32]  I was cheated.
[00:27:33]  This was our race.
[00:27:35]  I had the young people.
[00:27:36]  I had the support.
[00:27:37]  You guys rigged the system to give it to Hillary Clinton.
[00:27:39]  And look what you did.
[00:27:41]  You went and lost to Donald Trump.
[00:27:44]  Everything that's happened for the last three years is all the DNC's fault because they wanted to rig this system from me.
[00:27:51]  Well, I'm back now and I'm taking what's rightfully mine and we're the only ones who can go and beat Donald Trump.
[00:27:57]  So get out of here.
[00:27:58]  Are you kidding me, Joe Biden?
[00:28:00]  Donald Trump will destroy you.
[00:28:02]  You haven't been able to win a debate here in friendly waters.
[00:28:05]  You think you're going to go win a debate against Donald Trump?
[00:28:08]  I'm the only one who can speak to the voters that Donald Trump spoke to.
[00:28:11]  I mean, he had to make this case in an impassioned way.
[00:28:15]  And he never did.
[00:28:16]  He never did.
[00:28:17]  He never took the gloves off with Joe Biden the same way he would never take the gloves off with Hillary Clinton.
[00:28:22]  You know, it's like, oh, I don't want to talk about her emails.
[00:28:26]  That was his thing with Hillary Clinton.
[00:28:27]  I don't want enough about the damn emails.
[00:28:29]  It's like, I don't know, Hillary Clinton got a federal indictment and she's scrubbing her servers.
[00:28:36]  Why do you think that is?
[00:28:37]  Because there was nothing incriminating on there?
[00:28:39]  Or was it maybe, turn on your conspiracy theorist hat for a second?
[00:28:42]  Because there was something incriminating there.
[00:28:45]  So you're just going to take that issue off the table?
[00:28:48]  Like, you got to fight, man.
[00:28:49]  Now, I'm just saying, contrast this to what Donald Trump did with the Republicans in 2016.
[00:28:55]  He was ready to fight everybody, everybody, on every issue.
[00:29:00]  Every single issue.
[00:29:02]  He would hit them all.
[00:29:03]  You know, Jeb Bush is bought and paid for.
[00:29:05]  His brother lied us into war in Iraq.
[00:29:08]  You know, he would hit Marco Rubio for the gang of eight stuff all day long.
[00:29:14]  This is open borders, Marco Rubio over here.
[00:29:17]  Then it was like Lion Ted and everybody, everybody was going to get it.
[00:29:22]  The media, the establishment, Hollywood, everybody.
[00:29:26]  He was fighting because he knew what he was up against.
[00:29:28]  And this is, I don't know if you can do this being friends with everyone.
[00:29:33]  By the way, I just sent you a video, Brian.
[00:29:35]  I wanted to play this at one point.
[00:29:38]  I should have sent it to you earlier.
[00:29:39]  I just sent it to you from my phone.
[00:29:40]  But if you just scroll through it, Bernie Sanders gave a statement today.
[00:29:44]  So if you just scroll through it till the point where Bernie Sanders starts talking, because there's like, I think there's like quite a bit of dead air on the video.
[00:29:52]  But Bernie Sanders addressed Super Tuesday.
[00:29:55]  And I thought he in his statement, there was a lot that we could take away that'll kind of give us a little bit of an insight into what the rest of this race is going to be like.
[00:30:09]  And it doesn't make me feel very confident for the Bernie bros out there.
[00:30:15]  This is going to be a bitter pill for them to swallow.
[00:30:18]  And maybe there's some positives in all of that.
[00:30:23]  But Bernie Sanders, it's hard not to, you know, in hindsight, again, Monday morning quarterbacking, hindsight being 2020.
[00:30:33]  He really needed to step this up.
[00:30:37]  Do we have the video up?
[00:30:38]  So let's go to this.
[00:30:39]  Here's Bernie Sanders.
[00:30:42]  These are his thoughts today.
[00:30:43]  He gave a speech around 2 p.m. today on Super Tuesday.
[00:30:49]  People all across the country who yesterday supported our historic campaign.
[00:30:56]  We were obviously especially gratified to win in Utah, win in Colorado, win in California, the largest state in the country where there are more delegates.
[00:31:10]  And I am always grateful for the support that I receive here in the state of Vermont.
[00:31:14]  Now, I haven't seen the latest delegate count, but my guess is that after California is thrown into the hopper, it's going to be pretty close.
[00:31:25]  We may be up by a few.
[00:31:26]  Biden may be up by a few.
[00:31:28]  But I think we go forward basically neck and neck.
[00:31:34]  And I very much look forward and be on a plane tomorrow going out west and campaigning and doing everything we can to win in Michigan, Washington, Mississippi, North Dakota, Idaho, and Missouri.
[00:31:52]  What this campaign, I think, is increasingly about is which side are you on?
[00:32:01]  Our campaign is unprecedented because there has never been a campaign in recent history that has taken on the entire corporate establishment.
[00:32:16]  And I'm talking about Wall Street and I'm talking about the insurance companies and the drug companies and the fossil fuel industry.
[00:32:27]  There has been never a campaign in recent history which has taken on the entire political establishment.
[00:32:37]  And that is an establishment which is working frantically to try to defeat us.
[00:32:44]  And there's not been a campaign, I think, that has been having to deal with the kind of venom we're seeing from some in the corporate media.
[00:32:52]  This campaign has been compared to the coronavirus on television.
[00:32:59]  We have been described as the Nazi army marching across France, etc., etc.
[00:33:10]  As we come into the last several months of this campaign, see, the problem with this already, excuse me, he's not wrong.
[00:33:26]  I mean, he's wrong in the sense that obviously Donald Trump's campaign would be the other one in recent memory where the whole media establishment was against you.
[00:33:37]  And to try to convince yourself that you're the only one in recent memory, you know, that's a little wacky.

=== Biden's War Record (07:22) ===

[00:33:42]  But he's not wrong for his complaints, right?
[00:33:45]  We've been talking about this for quite a while on the podcast now being compared to Nazis, the coronavirus one I must have missed.
[00:33:51]  But the problem is that he's just, he's sounding kind of sad and defeated, which he is because he's come off a really terrible day.
[00:34:01]  And he's complaining about how it's unfair.
[00:34:05]  But you have to be a warrior if you want to win this thing.
[00:34:08]  You have to be ready to fight.
[00:34:10]  And that's not what he's exuding right now.
[00:34:13]  And anyway, let's keep playing.
[00:34:16]  Very much is that what we can focus on is an issue-oriented campaign which deals with the concerns of the American people.
[00:34:29]  As some of you may recall, the last debate that took place really was, I think, insulting to the American people.
[00:34:35]  It was a food fight.
[00:34:36]  It was about who could yell the loudest.
[00:34:38]  That's not what the American people want.
[00:34:40]  They want a serious debate on serious issues.
[00:34:42]  Joe Biden is somebody I have known for many years.
[00:34:46]  I like Joe.
[00:34:47]  I think he's a very decent human being.
[00:34:50]  Joe and I have a very different voting record.
[00:34:54]  Joe and I have a very different vision for the future of this country.
[00:34:59]  And Joe and I are running very different campaigns.
[00:35:03]  And my hope is that in the coming months, we will be able to debate and discuss the very significant differences that we have.
[00:35:14]  Joe is running a campaign which is obviously heavily supported by the corporate establishment.
[00:35:22]  At Last Count, he has received funding from at least 60 billionaires.
[00:35:28]  60 billionaires.
[00:35:30]  Our campaign has received more campaign contributions from more Americans averaging $18.50 than any campaign in the history of our country at this point in time.
[00:35:43]  So what does it mean when you have a campaign which is funded very significantly by the wealthy and the powerful?
[00:35:52]  Does anyone seriously believe that a president backed by the corporate world is going to bring about the changes in this country that working families and the middle class and lower-income people desperately need?
[00:36:10]  We are going to the Midwest.
[00:36:12]  I'll be in Michigan shortly.
[00:36:15]  And as I think everybody knows, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Midwest in general, Minnesota, have been very hard hit by disastrous trade agreements.
[00:36:27]  And Joe is going to have to explain to the people, the union workers in the Midwest, why he supported disastrous trade agreements like NAFTA and PMTR with China, which have cost this country millions of good-paying jobs and, in fact, have resulted in a race to the bottom.
[00:36:45]  People are now earning low wages.
[00:36:48]  Millions of people today lost good-paying jobs in manufacturing and are now earning substantially less than they used to.
[00:36:56]  Joe is going to have to explain to the American people why he voted for a Wall Street bailout, something that I vigorously opposed.
[00:37:07]  Joe is going to have to explain to the American people who are so tired of endless wars which have cost us too many lives, destabilized many regions around the world, have cost us trillions of dollars, why he was a leader in getting us involved in the war in Iraq.
[00:37:29]  At a time when half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to make ends meet, Joe is going to have to explain to the American people why he voted for a disastrous bankruptcy bill, which benefited the credit card companies.
[00:37:46]  Joe is going to have to explain to people all over this country why he was on the floor of the Senate time and time again talking about the need not only to cut Social Security, but Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans programs.
[00:38:01]  How does that happen?
[00:38:02]  Why would a Democrat talk about cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans programs?
[00:38:11]  Joe and I have a very different opinion with regarding healthcare.
[00:38:18]  Joe essentially wants to maintain what I consider to be a dysfunctional and cruel health care system in which we are spending twice as much per person on health care as are the people of any other country.
[00:38:34]  And yet we have 87 million Americans who are uninsured, underinsured, 30,000 people who are dying, and 500,000 people who go bankrupt every single year because of medically related bills.
[00:38:47]  And on top of that, we pay by far, not even close, highest prices in the world for prescription drugs from an industry which is involved in collusion and price fixing.
[00:39:00]  So the American people have got to understand that this is a conflict about ideas, about a record, about a vision for where we go forward.
[00:39:14]  And I like Joe.
[00:39:15]  Joe is a decent guy, and I do not want this campaign to degenerate into a Trump-type effort where we're attacking each other, where it's personal attacks.
[00:39:23]  That is the last thing this country wants.
[00:39:26]  Joe has his ideas, his record, his vision for the future.
[00:39:30]  I have mine.
[00:39:31]  And I look forward to a serious debate on the serious issues facing this country.
[00:39:38]  And I would hope that the media will help us do that.
[00:39:42]  Allow that kind of debate to take place.
[00:39:45]  And by the way, I would offer Joe, because I know the issue of healthcare, among many other issues, is such an enormously important issue.
[00:39:52]  I would hope that instead of having... a debate where we have to spend 28 seconds trying to respond to a complicated issue, maybe we could spend an hour talking about why the United States is the only major country on earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people through something like a Medicare for all single payer program.
[00:40:12]  So that's Bernie Sanders' statement.
[00:40:15]  And I wanted to play the whole thing.
[00:40:16]  He answers some questions from reporters, but I just hope people, I wanted to just play that whole thing so you get to like kind of take it in and understand that what Bernie Sanders just showed you was his weakness.
[00:40:31]  This was his weakness.
[00:40:33]  And I got to say, at this point, after the disastrous Super Tuesday results, I just don't think that's enough.
[00:40:40]  So Bernie Sanders does go on to say in response to one of the reporters' questions, you know, that the difference between his campaign and Joe Biden's campaign is that he wants to lead a political revolution in this country.
[00:40:53]  But here's the thing.
[00:40:55]  You don't lead a revolution by saying, I think Joe Biden is my friend.
[00:41:01]  I've known him a long time and I would never question his decency.

=== Revolution vs Decency (02:43) ===

[00:41:05]  And I don't want to get into personal attacks.
[00:41:08]  I just want to have a conversation about the issues.
[00:41:11]  Now, I get that Bernie Sanders thinks he can win the conversation about the issues.
[00:41:16]  I'll even maybe grant that Bernie Sanders cares about these issues, even though I don't think he's right about a lot of them.
[00:41:24]  But okay.
[00:41:25]  But here's the problem, right?
[00:41:27]  Well, you just started off by saying that the media is calling you a fucking Nazi.
[00:41:33]  They're calling you a Nazi.
[00:41:34]  They're comparing you to a virus, as they call you a Nazi, ironically.
[00:41:40]  As they call a Jew a virus, they're calling you a Nazi also.
[00:41:44]  You know, anyway, irony aside, if you realize that that's the game you're in, then guess what?
[00:41:51]  You're not going to get this pleasant conversation about the issues.
[00:41:56]  You might actually have to level some insults.
[00:41:59]  You're certainly going to have to take some.
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=== Getting Nasty Fast (09:35) ===

[00:43:48]  This is the weird thing that Bernie Sanders does.
[00:43:50]  And dude, you can't have it both ways.
[00:43:53]  You cannot have this both ways.
[00:43:55]  You can't say, Joe Biden is my friend.
[00:43:57]  He's a great guy.
[00:43:59]  I would never question his decency.
[00:44:01]  But look, he's taking money from these billionaires.
[00:44:04]  So obviously, once he gets in there, he's going to write all of these laws that favor billionaires.
[00:44:10]  Like, what?
[00:44:12]  That's corruption is what you're describing.
[00:44:15]  What you're describing is somebody evil.
[00:44:18]  I'm sorry.
[00:44:18]  Just because you take, like, if you believe in government, right?
[00:44:21]  The whole thing is fucking ridiculous.
[00:44:23]  But if you do believe in the system in some sense, democracy and government and all this nonsense, if you believe in that, why is it, right?
[00:44:33]  And somebody's a decent person.
[00:44:35]  So let's say my campaign is funded by, you know, people who, you know, just like, give me $27 each and millions of people donate to me and I raise money that way.
[00:44:47]  And somebody else is funded by like one person who just cuts them a check for billions of dollars.
[00:44:52]  Well, then that's over.
[00:44:53]  The campaign's over.
[00:44:55]  You win the campaign and now you go to do your job as president.
[00:44:59]  Okay.
[00:44:59]  Why does that have to affect how you do the job?
[00:45:03]  I mean, if you're a decent person, you could go, well, thanks for the check.
[00:45:07]  I appreciate you getting me in.
[00:45:09]  But now my job is to represent the people or whatever the myth of democracy is.
[00:45:13]  You know, like I work for the people now, and so I'm going to do what's right for the people, not what's right for you, Mr. Billionaire, because you're already doing really good.
[00:45:21]  So I don't need to help you out.
[00:45:22]  I can help the people out.
[00:45:25]  I mean, what is it?
[00:45:25]  Do you just have some moral sense of obligation?
[00:45:27]  Well, this guy did help me get in.
[00:45:29]  So now I have to write laws that screw over regular people and help the billionaire.
[00:45:33]  That is describing a horribly corrupt, evil person.
[00:45:38]  But you're going to say, no, he's my friend.
[00:45:40]  I like him.
[00:45:40]  He's decent, but he's a horribly evil, corrupt person because of this.
[00:45:44]  Like, make up your fucking mind.
[00:45:46]  You can't have it both ways.
[00:45:48]  It's like he would do the same thing with Hillary Clinton.
[00:45:51]  You know, I'm the only person on stage who hasn't taken money from the pharmaceutical companies.
[00:45:56]  And you're like, there's only two people on stage.
[00:45:59]  Just turn over to her and say, she's taking money from people.
[00:46:01]  And if you're saying she's taking money, so she's now going to do their bidding, then what you're saying is she's corrupt.
[00:46:07]  So either have the balls to come out and say she's corrupt.
[00:46:10]  But if you don't have the balls to call somebody corrupt, how the fuck are you going to lead a revolution?
[00:46:17]  And now we're right.
[00:46:18]  Look, I thought if you had asked me yesterday, I would have said, well, even despite all that, I think Bernie Sanders is positioned to walk into this thing.
[00:46:29]  But now he's not.
[00:46:31]  And now it's going to, now it's a real problem again.
[00:46:33]  It's a real problem that he doesn't have the balls to take this head on.
[00:46:39]  Bernie Sanders, you're not going to lead a revolution if you're afraid of insults.
[00:46:45]  And you're not going to get this, you know, you're not going to get this like, well, now let's focus on the issues campaign that you want.
[00:46:55]  That's like, how long do you have to be around?
[00:46:59]  How many hundreds of years old do you have to be before you realize that that's not the way the system works?
[00:47:05]  You don't get a real honest conversation, a real airing of the ideological differences between you and your opponent.
[00:47:10]  That's not going to happen.
[00:47:13]  And now Bernie Sanders has put himself in a real tough position in many different ways, in many different ways.
[00:47:20]  Losing Texas was the big one.
[00:47:22]  He really couldn't afford to lose Texas.
[00:47:23]  That was, oof, that was a disaster for him.
[00:47:26]  And I don't think he's going to win Florida because, you know, unfortunately, Bernie Sanders couldn't help himself from heaping more praise on Fidel Castro last week.
[00:47:36]  And let me tell you something.
[00:47:37]  He's been counting on the Latino vote, you know, all throughout the country.
[00:47:42]  And the Latinos in Florida are a slightly different breed of Latinos.
[00:47:49]  They're the Cubans.
[00:47:51]  And they're the Cubans who escaped Fidel Castro.
[00:47:54]  And they are not going to take too kindly to praising Fidel Castro's fucking government propaganda literacy campaign as some great success when the literacy campaign was teaching people to read that they should fucking chase these people out of their country, take all their fucking shit, and they have to fucking jump on a raft and come over to Florida.
[00:48:16]  When they get there, they're like, yeah, I don't know if I like this guy who's praising the literacy program of Fidel Castro.
[00:48:23]  So he's just, he's going to be in for a tough, a tough ride now, unfortunately, for Bernie Sanders.
[00:48:32]  But, you know, you're not going to, that's just not enough.
[00:48:36]  Now, by the way, I mean, I do acknowledge that he does have some strong within the Democratic base, he's got strong positions there.
[00:48:49]  Obviously, I like some of them more than others.
[00:48:52]  But I mean, like the war stuff, I think he's absolutely right on.
[00:48:56]  But I just don't, I don't know, man.
[00:49:00]  I don't see this being enough.
[00:49:02]  I mean, what, you know, the advantages, like what Bernie has in his, in his, you know, favor is that, okay, there's going to be a lot less people on the debate stage.
[00:49:14]  You're going to have to talk for a lot longer.
[00:49:17]  And speaking is not Joe Biden's strength.
[00:49:21]  So, okay, he might blow it.
[00:49:24]  He might blow it really badly.
[00:49:27]  And Joe Biden is capable of like really creating some disastrous moment for himself.
[00:49:33]  But now you're in the position of sitting there and hoping that there's some crazy new moment.
[00:49:42]  I mean, like, as crazy as what just happened yesterday was, now you have to hope for some new crazy thing where there's like a reshuffling of the whole campaign situation.
[00:49:51]  And to be honest, it's pretty rare that that happens on the level that it happened yesterday.
[00:49:56]  Like, I don't think I've ever seen it before like that in one day.
[00:49:59]  And it's pretty rare that that happens.
[00:50:01]  And now you have to count on it happening again after it just happened, not in your favor.
[00:50:07]  But don't get it twisted.
[00:50:08]  The media techs are not going to slow up.
[00:50:11]  And now all of these other things are not in Bernie Sanders' favor.
[00:50:17]  Now they're all not.
[00:50:18]  Because now it's not just Klobuchar and Mayor Pete have thrown their support behind Biden.
[00:50:23]  Now he's got Bloomberg and he's probably going to get some of that Bloomberg money.
[00:50:27]  And now he's going to get big money from all other types of special interests.
[00:50:31]  It's going to pour it.
[00:50:32]  The media is going to all now just come down on Bernie Sanders and get behind Joe Biden.
[00:50:38]  They're going to, you know, rewrite the narrative in Biden's favor as much as possible.
[00:50:44]  Biden also now has the momentum, which is a big thing.
[00:50:47]  All the momentum is behind Joe Biden now.
[00:50:50]  Joe Biden is, he's, now he's got a story.
[00:50:53]  Like there was no story before.
[00:50:55]  Now there's the story that, you know, he had one foot in the grave.
[00:50:58]  And like I said before, more like one foot and two arms in the grave or two feet and one arm, whatever I said before.
[00:51:04]  But, you know, now he's got this story.
[00:51:06]  He's the fucking comeback kid or grandpa, comeback senile grandpa, but whatever.
[00:51:13]  He's got a narrative.
[00:51:14]  He's got momentum.
[00:51:15]  He's got money.
[00:51:16]  He's got the establishment.
[00:51:18]  Oof.
[00:51:19]  All of a sudden, all the sudden, Bernie's in a tough, tough situation if you're talking about winning the nomination.
[00:51:27]  But isn't it obvious, right?
[00:51:28]  Like the thing I said earlier, isn't it obvious if you were Bernie Sanders and you want to lead a political revolution and you know, I mean, or you believe, as is obvious by what he's saying, I mean, he won't just say it, but it's implied in everything he's saying and not like very far under the surface.
[00:51:45]  It's right there.
[00:51:47]  It's like, this whole system is corrupt.
[00:51:49]  Everybody's corrupt.
[00:51:51]  I'm the only one who's not corrupt.
[00:51:53]  We need a fucking, you know, a revolution in this country.
[00:51:57]  Well, isn't it obvious then that you would start by saying something like what I said earlier about being cheated out of it, about you giving it to a corrupt establishment Democrat, and then look what they did.
[00:52:08]  They went and lost to Donald Trump.
[00:52:10]  Well, likewise, if you actually think, right, like if you really believe, like this is a, like you believe what Bernie Sanders is saying.
[00:52:17]  Let's just say you are you're a Bernie bro and you believe this.
[00:52:20]  Well, take it to its logical conclusion, right?
[00:52:22]  So what are you saying here?
[00:52:24]  You're saying there's all these corrupt politicians and because of them, people are dying in the streets.
[00:52:29]  People are dying.
[00:52:31]  100,000 people are going bankrupt because of medical expenses.
[00:52:35]  Then tens of thousands are dying who don't have to die, who don't have to go bankrupt.
[00:52:39]  There's all kids are drowning in student loan debt.
[00:52:43]  You know, wars that people don't want to fight in, which, you know, he's right about that one.
[00:52:49]  Whatever, good jobs being shipped overseas.
[00:52:52]  All of this is happening because of these corrupt politicians.
[00:52:56]  Okay.
[00:52:57]  Well, if that's what you believe, then don't you need to beat them by any means necessary?
[00:53:02]  Right?
[00:53:03]  If those are what the stakes are here, then don't you need a win?
[00:53:07]  We need a revolution so people don't die.
[00:53:10]  So people's lives aren't ruined.
[00:53:11]  Okay.
[00:53:12]  Well, then you got to win by any means necessary.
[00:53:14]  Now, if you're going up against Joe Biden and you need a win by any means necessary, what do you think you might say?
[00:53:23]  What?

=== Heshy Socks Review (02:43) ===

[00:53:24]  You're just going to be nice and not bring up the fact that he's fucking senile?
[00:53:27]  Just no, my friend, he's good.
[00:53:29]  Like, he's a corrupt, senile liar.
[00:53:33]  I'm sorry.
[00:53:34]  That's just reality.
[00:53:35]  That's what he is.
[00:53:37]  But you won't say that because why?
[00:53:40]  I guess you're just not like, you're not built like that.
[00:53:43]  It's like that would seem nasty.
[00:53:44]  Well, you're saying you need a revolution.
[00:53:46]  You got to get a little bit nasty in a revolution.
[00:53:51]  Or you're not going to win.
[00:53:54]  I mean, the guy is fucking senile.
[00:53:56]  He sniffs kids.
[00:53:58]  He's weird.
[00:53:59]  He can't put a sentence together.
[00:54:01]  But you, okay, fine.
[00:54:02]  So you don't have to go after the sniffing kid thing.
[00:54:04]  Okay, maybe that's just me going a little bit, you know, further than you need to.
[00:54:08]  But you sure as fuck can hit him on him being fucking, you know, like not equipped for the job.
[00:54:15]  Like, okay, I'm sorry if you don't know what state you're in.
[00:54:18]  I don't think you can be president of the United States of America.
[00:54:21]  Like, you, I mean, look, anyway, and anything like that, it's like, you just have to, you have to, if you want to actually do this thing, be willing to go for the jugular.
[00:54:31]  And that's the difference between him and Trump.
[00:54:35]  And I was talking about this months ago, but after Super Tuesday, now I'm realizing this is the problem, why someone like him probably can't get back to his frontrunner status.
[00:54:46]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is, of course, Heshy Socks.
[00:54:52]  I love Heshy Socks.
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[00:55:35]  So at the end of a long day, your feet are feeling good, they're smelling good.
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[00:56:04]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:56:06]  Do you remember?

=== Populist Message Weakness (15:43) ===

[00:56:07]  I've talked about this on the show quite a bit, but I talked about it mostly because of the Rand Paul angle, but there was a lot to it.
[00:56:14]  But Joe Biden, excuse me, Donald Trump, at the first debate in 2016, the first Republican debate, and Trump was like the new phenomenon.
[00:56:27]  He was number one in the polls after coming down the escalator and giving his Mexican, what's known as the Mexican rapist speech, where he was like, Mexico's not sending their best.
[00:56:37]  They're sending bad people.
[00:56:38]  They're criminals.
[00:56:39]  They're rapists.
[00:56:39]  And some, I'm sure, are fine people, that whole thing.
[00:56:43]  And he shot up in the polls, and then they had a debate.
[00:56:46]  And the first question of the debate was, they asked it to everybody, but it was really a question for Donald Trump.
[00:56:54]  But they go, Will all of you pledge right now to support whoever the nominee is of the Republican Party?
[00:57:02]  Now, they ask all of them, and they're like, raise your hands if you will pledge to support the nominee.
[00:57:08]  And anyway, this is where Rand Paul's campaign fell apart because Rand Paul interrupted and just tried to bash Donald Trump for not pledging to support the nominee.
[00:57:19]  It was a terrible moment for Rand Paul.
[00:57:21]  But anyway, but so they were really asking Donald Trump.
[00:57:26]  They were like, well, look, when we take this from you, will you promise right now to support Jeb Bush because he's our pick, not you?
[00:57:34]  And so when he gets this, will you promise to support him?
[00:57:36]  And everyone on stage rose their hand to promise that they would support the nominee except Donald Trump.
[00:57:44]  And Donald Trump said, I'll have to see if the process is fair.
[00:57:48]  So in other words, Donald Trump was like, no, if you steal this from me, I will not support the nominee.
[00:57:55]  Like, no.
[00:57:56]  You don't get my people.
[00:57:57]  You don't get my support.
[00:57:58]  You don't get the people who support me.
[00:58:01]  If you steal this from me, if it's not fair, then no.
[00:58:05]  Why would I support the nomination of whoever?
[00:58:09]  Bernie Sanders has already gone on record saying he'll support whoever the nominee is.
[00:58:14]  See, this is like the death blow if you actually want to lead a revolution.
[00:58:18]  You can't just say you'll support them.
[00:58:20]  It's like, no.
[00:58:22]  This is me.
[00:58:24]  This is my nomination to win.
[00:58:29]  So, you know, I don't know.
[00:58:33]  I mean, we'll see what happens here.
[00:58:35]  This thing did not go the way I thought it would over the last 24 hours, but this is things, there has been a real reshuffling of the order.
[00:58:43]  It is now unquestionably a two-man race.
[00:58:47]  It's between Biden and Bernie, and Biden's got to be the favorite at this point.
[00:58:51]  And I wonder, I haven't looked at any of those sites, but all those betting odds on who the nominee is going to be, oh, they probably just drastically changed.
[00:59:00]  Drastically changed.
[00:59:02]  All right, there's a couple other elements to all of this that are interesting and worth discussing.
[00:59:07]  So the other campaigns that are involved.
[00:59:11]  So obviously there's Michael Bloomberg, which really there is something that I think like a real lesson that can be learned from the Michael Bloomberg campaign.
[00:59:22]  And one of them is it looks like you really can't buy the White House.
[00:59:28]  You know, something that a lot of left-wing people have been bitching about for so long, like the money in politics and we need campaign finance reform and all this.
[00:59:37]  Turns out that really doesn't do that much.
[00:59:40]  I mean, Michael Bloomberg spent a shit ton of money.
[00:59:43]  And even after his disastrous debate performance, there were those in the pundit class who were saying, well, you know, he's still going to have all this money to spend on ads.
[00:59:54]  And a lot of people see the ads and who didn't watch the debate.
[00:59:58]  So blah, blah, blah.
[00:59:59]  Nope.
[01:00:00]  Nope.
[01:00:01]  Can't have that disastrous of a debate performance.
[01:00:04]  That shit gets clipped up and shared around on social media.
[01:00:08]  There's, you know, people, you know, millions of people watch the actual debate.
[01:00:12]  Others hear about it.
[01:00:14]  Nope.
[01:00:15]  Can't buy it.
[01:00:16]  It had nothing.
[01:00:17]  Michael Bloomberg did nothing with all of that money.
[01:00:22]  He got absolutely nothing for it.
[01:00:24]  And he, I mean, he got into the debate for it.
[01:00:28]  But if once you get into the debate, you just shit a brick and have nothing to actually offer people, then it's not going to do anything for you.
[01:00:37]  And there's something about that that is, it's kind of nice, I guess, in a way.
[01:00:42]  Like, yeah, you can't just buy this shit.
[01:00:44]  But it also kind of proves wrong so many of the people who have been bitching about money in politics.
[01:00:48]  The problem isn't the money in politics.
[01:00:51]  The problem isn't the way people raise money to campaign.
[01:00:54]  The problem is that the money in government, like that's the fucking problem.
[01:01:00]  But yeah, you know, you look at what Hillary Clinton spent compared to what Donald Trump spent.
[01:01:05]  She spent twice as much, maybe three times as much as him.
[01:01:08]  Didn't matter.
[01:01:09]  Donald Trump still won the presidency.
[01:01:14]  Look at Bernie Sanders.
[01:01:15]  Like even he's saying he's able to, he's able to raise tons of money just from small donors.
[01:01:21]  So it's really not that big of a problem.
[01:01:23]  There's a billionaire.
[01:01:23]  Also Steyer, right?
[01:01:24]  I mean, that guy spent, I think, hundreds of millions of dollars on his campaign, another billionaire.
[01:01:29]  Didn't matter.
[01:01:29]  It had like no effect.
[01:01:31]  It turns out it's actually not that easy to just buy votes.
[01:01:37]  It's, you know, maybe if you're offering them, you know, bribes in the form of, you know, government, you know, payouts or something like that, but not just from spending money on your campaign.
[01:01:47]  That's not going to do it.
[01:01:49]  So there's something to that, to the whole lesson of that.
[01:01:54]  And of course, he's, you know, he's out now and he's supporting Biden.
[01:01:59]  So now there might be some, he'll probably get, you know, a lot more for his money by giving Joe Biden money than he did by just spending it on himself because that might actually have an effect.
[01:02:11]  The other interesting campaign, you know, that's going on is Elizabeth Warren.
[01:02:19]  And one of the things that I've seen is there has been a real, if it was already like if the relationship between the Bernie Sanders supporters and Elizabeth Warren was under stress before yesterday, it has been shattered.
[01:02:42]  It has now been shattered.
[01:02:44]  I mean, these the Bernie people are furious about Elizabeth Warren.
[01:02:50]  And, you know, to some degree, rightfully so.
[01:02:53]  To some degree, rightfully so.
[01:02:55]  I mean, we talked about it on the last episode.
[01:02:57]  No question that with Mayor Pete and Klobuchar getting out and supporting Biden and Elizabeth Warren staying in and ripping Bernie, that hurt him.
[01:03:07]  And he could have used her support.
[01:03:10]  And I actually think at this point, Bernie's probably desperate for Elizabeth Warren to get out and to throw her support behind him because that, you know, now he's in a real uphill battle and he needs everything he can get.
[01:03:23]  And that's a big one.
[01:03:25]  Elizabeth Warren, so Bernie Sanders said today that they did reach out to the Elizabeth Warren campaign and that Elizabeth Warren is considering her options right now.
[01:03:38]  We could see, you know, before this show is over, there could be a news story about Elizabeth Warren getting out.
[01:03:44]  I find it very unlikely that Elizabeth Warren will get out and support Bernie Sanders.
[01:03:50]  I would actually find it more likely that she'll stick around for a while or she'll get out and not endorse anyone and then ultimately endorse Biden later on.
[01:03:59]  I also would be surprised if she just got out and endorsed Biden right now because if she does that, her progressive credentials are gone for the rest of her career.
[01:04:08]  She'll never have any like progressive credentials again if she gets out and supports Biden.
[01:04:14]  I mean, don't get it twisted.
[01:04:15]  The Democratic Party is still bitterly divided.
[01:04:18]  I mean, it's more or less a neck-and-neck race, maybe a slight edge for Joe Biden right now.
[01:04:24]  But this is a very, very close race in terms of like who the voters actually like.
[01:04:29]  Very, very close.
[01:04:30]  And Elizabeth Warren, her value to the establishment is that she can pull in some of those progressive voters.
[01:04:39]  And I think it would be very damaging to her brand to immediately endorse Biden.
[01:04:45]  So I'd probably see her waiting for him to get a little bit more of a lead or something like that.
[01:04:49]  But my guess is that's where she'll side with.
[01:04:51]  I don't think she's going to side with Bernie Sanders.
[01:04:54]  Perhaps Bernie Sanders can make her a deal.
[01:04:56]  I mean, I'm sure that's what, you know, the campaign said they called her.
[01:05:00]  I mean, I'm sure they offer her VP slot or something big like that if she were to endorse him.
[01:05:07]  And maybe they can bribe her into it.
[01:05:12]  But I understand why Bernie Sanders supporters would be upset with Elizabeth Warren.
[01:05:16]  Truthfully speaking, though, I don't know that it's, you know, like it's fair to be upset with her.
[01:05:23]  I don't know if her support would have made the difference.
[01:05:25]  It certainly would have helped.
[01:05:27]  I don't know if her dropping out would have made the difference.
[01:05:29]  It definitely would have helped.
[01:05:31]  But I just think for the Bernie Sanders supporters, you got to look at all the stuff I was just saying about Bernie's refusal to call out politicians for being corrupt, even though he's basically spelling out for you that they are corrupt.
[01:05:46]  But they're a great guy, really decent guy, my friend.
[01:05:51]  She can't sit here and say, I want to fight a political revolution.
[01:05:53]  Oh, who are you revolting against?
[01:05:55]  Oh, my friends.
[01:05:56]  My friends.
[01:05:57]  You guys want to start a revolution against my friends?
[01:06:00]  Said no revolutionary ever.
[01:06:02]  Certainly no successful one.
[01:06:05]  But Elizabeth Warren, it'll be interesting to see how she comes out of this.
[01:06:11]  Like, there were a lot of people in the Republican Party who before Donald Trump were like really considered conservatives or anti-establishment or somewhat authentic.
[01:06:26]  And after him, you like almost never looked at them the same way.
[01:06:30]  I probably didn't look at them the same way.
[01:06:32]  I probably didn't ever look at them that way.
[01:06:34]  But to normie conservatives, they were like, oh, no, that guy is, he's not real.
[01:06:39]  He's a fucking rhino.
[01:06:41]  And that might be happening with Elizabeth Warren, too.
[01:06:46]  I think a lot of progressives might look at her now and realize like she's not really a progressive.
[01:06:52]  And she is in fact of the establishment.
[01:06:57]  So that's, you know, that's another dynamic.
[01:07:02]  We'll see what Elizabeth Warren ends up doing.
[01:07:04]  I almost want to check the news as I'm here just because I, You know, they said earlier today that she was thinking over her options, and that seemed like it's possible that she's going to drop out fairly soon.
[01:07:19]  You know, everybody else has dropped out, and they were all a lot of the people who dropped out were doing better than she was.
[01:07:27]  But who knows?
[01:07:29]  Yeah, still, still nothing, still nothing up on that.
[01:07:35]  And I guess they're still not at CNN.com.
[01:07:38]  They're still not counting the California delegates.
[01:07:40]  So they're just leaving it up there with making Joe Biden look like he's in a bigger lead than he is.
[01:07:46]  But, you know, expect a lot more trickery like that going forward.
[01:07:52]  That's what this race is going to turn into.
[01:07:57]  So the other, I guess, winners of Super Tuesday, aside from Joe Biden, obviously, you know, it was a very good day for Joe Biden.
[01:08:09]  It was a very good day for the Democratic establishment, all the people who were against Bernie Sanders.
[01:08:15]  It's a good day for them.
[01:08:18]  But I got to say, it was also a really good day for Donald Trump.
[01:08:21]  Well, like, what an excellent day for him because you really have to imagine that he, I mean, this couldn't have worked out any better for him.
[01:08:30]  You know, I've been saying for a long time that Bernie Sanders was Donald Trump's toughest competitor.
[01:08:37]  I mean, of all the people in the Democratic field, even from the very beginning, all of them, Bernie Sanders was the one who could really give Trump a run for his money.
[01:08:46]  Bernie Sanders can get down there and give a populist message, you know, to combat Trump's populist message.
[01:08:55]  You know, Bernie Sanders, honestly, I thought his biggest weakness was stuff that he had agreed to in this campaign that he probably didn't even really believe.
[01:09:05]  But Bernie Sanders, you know, because he's trying to be a Democrat now, he did like say things like that health care should be provided for illegal immigrants and, you know, things like that that I think would be very unpopular in a general election.
[01:09:21]  But still, I just feel like he's the toughest challenge to Donald Trump.
[01:09:25]  I think Joe Biden is going to be much easier for Donald Trump to defeat.
[01:09:31]  I mean, I just think, and especially a Joe Biden who, if he does come out of this, is either going to, I mean, he's going to come out as a weak nominee.
[01:09:40]  Hillary Clinton was weakened by all the stuff with Bernie Sanders, but Joe Biden is going to win by a much smaller margin than Hillary Clinton does if he wins at all.
[01:09:51]  It might go to a contested convention and they give it to him.
[01:09:54]  But Joe Biden is going to limp out of this process.
[01:09:58]  And then, I mean, if you think the scrutiny of a primary season where there's like 20 people at one point competing for the Democratic nomination, once it gets down to a one-on-one and it is just Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, Joe Biden's going to be under intense media scrutiny.
[01:10:18]  There's going to be a clip a day of Joe Biden doing some insane Joe Biden thing, forgetting the Declaration of Independence, calling his wife his sister, sniffing a baby.
[01:10:32]  There's going to be a lot.
[01:10:32]  There was just a new sniffing a baby video out the other day.
[01:10:35]  The guy can't stop sniffing kids.
[01:10:37]  It's weird.
[01:10:39]  And there's going to be more and more and more of this.
[01:10:42]  And his basic message is going to be return to the old order.
[01:10:45]  I think it's going to be, this is going to be the best path for a Donald Trump reelection.
[01:10:53]  Unless this recession stuff really happens.
[01:10:57]  But the Fed just lowered interest rates again.
[01:11:01]  I'm starting to think this is not going to happen before November.
[01:11:04]  I suppose it's possible that I'm wrong about that.
[01:11:07]  But, you know, that big correction that the Austrians have been predicting has got to happen sometime.
[01:11:15]  So it's, you know, it might happen.
[01:11:18]  But short of that, I think this was a great day for Donald Trump.
[01:11:25]  I also think that this might have been a really good day for the Libertarian Party.
[01:11:30]  I think for third parties in general, this was a good day for you.
[01:11:38]  You know, if Bernie Sanders does end up losing this thing, which I think is becoming a lot more likely, certainly a lot more likely than it was 24 hours ago.

=== Third Party Opportunity (05:51) ===

[01:11:51]  So if Bernie Sanders ends up not getting the nomination, there is, and you see it already, like I said, with people blaming Elizabeth Warren, there's going to be a lot of blame to go around.
[01:12:05]  Now, I do think it's a little bit like the Bernie Sanders supporters, they got to look at their own candidate a little bit.
[01:12:13]  But it's certainly fair to throw blame all around.
[01:12:17]  And if Bernie Sanders doesn't get this nomination, which, again, it looks like is a strong, distinct possibility, you can say, look, this guy was the frontrunner.
[01:12:30]  He was ambushed by the media.
[01:12:32]  He was called Nazis.
[01:12:35]  His supporters were called Nazis.
[01:12:37]  He was compared to the coronavirus, evidently.
[01:12:40]  He was attacked by Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren and all of these factors, not to mention all the stuff that's going to happen between now and the end.
[01:12:49]  And believe me, it ain't going to slow down.
[01:12:51]  He's still seen as a threat, and they're going to continue to attack him.
[01:12:56]  And it's going to be very easy, or maybe not very easy, but there's a strong sale to these Bernie supporters to say, look, you got to bail on this whole Democratic Party.
[01:13:10]  I mean, look at these guys.
[01:13:11]  Look at the way they treated Bernie Sanders in 2016.
[01:13:14]  Look at the way they treated him in 2020.
[01:13:15]  Look at the way they treated Tulsi Gabbard.
[01:13:17]  She's called a Russian asset because she doesn't want to fight wars.
[01:13:21]  I mean, this is, you know, this is insane.
[01:13:24]  And there'll be a strong argument to say, you got to bail on this whole thing.
[01:13:29]  This party is beyond repair.
[01:13:33]  This is just not a viable option.
[01:13:36]  And I think for the Libertarian Party, for the Green Party, this could be a big recruiting tool for them.
[01:13:45]  Assuming Jacob Hornberger gets the nomination, which everything's going really good in that direction, I'm very hopeful that he will.
[01:13:51]  I think we may even be able to pitch him to some Bernie Sanders supporters.
[01:13:56]  I mean, not to say we're going to get most of them or something, but there is a strong pitch to go, hey, you come over here.
[01:14:01]  We at least stand for a few things and you're going to, you know, you can send a message by voting this way.
[01:14:08]  I think it's a good day for third parties if Bernie Sanders doesn't get the nomination.
[01:14:17]  So I'm just trying to take the positives out of this.
[01:14:19]  If Joe Biden does end up going on to get the nomination, well, there are positives in terms of the entertainment value.
[01:14:27]  Joe Biden is going to say hilarious, goofy, retarded shit.
[01:14:31]  There's no question about that.
[01:14:33]  The media is going to have to pretend that there's nothing weird here at all.
[01:14:37]  I don't know what you're talking about.
[01:14:38]  It's going to be just like, you know, with Hillary Clinton, and she's like having coughing fits and fainting spells.
[01:14:45]  And the whole corporate press has to pretend that, what are you even talking about?
[01:14:49]  It's fine.
[01:14:50]  He goes, she literally just passed out and got dragged off.
[01:14:53]  And they're like, it's 72 degrees outside.
[01:14:55]  Of course, everyone.
[01:14:57]  Who can go outside when it's 72 and not pass out?
[01:15:00]  I mean, come on, you know, things like that.
[01:15:02]  So there'll be a whole lot of that with Joe Biden.
[01:15:04]  That'll be hilarious.
[01:15:05]  Trump versus Joe Biden debates.
[01:15:07]  Those will be hilarious.
[01:15:09]  They'll be glorious to watch.
[01:15:12]  But there's also some value in the fact that a whole bunch of these passionate Bernie Sanders supporters might get a little disillusioned about the whole system and really see how this whole thing works.
[01:15:24]  It's not so glorious, this whole democracy that you guys are in love with.
[01:15:29]  Don't get me wrong.
[01:15:30]  I'm not, you know, I have I'm cautiously optimistic.
[01:15:35]  I know that a lot of them will not see the light, but there's, you know, just saying there might be some value in Bernie getting trampled in this process.
[01:15:48]  I do think that it's going to be very hard for him.
[01:15:51]  It's going to be very hard for him going forward.
[01:15:54]  There's no question, like, I'm not saying Bernie Sanders is done.
[01:15:59]  I wouldn't say that.
[01:16:00]  I thought Joe Biden was done, and I was wrong.
[01:16:03]  But I won't say Bernie Sanders is done.
[01:16:05]  I mean, he's still in this fight, and in a fight like this, things can happen, and he could, you know, something could, he could get a lucky bounce that goes his way, and then he could, you know, take that and run with it.
[01:16:19]  But he had a golden opportunity, a golden opportunity, and he lost it.
[01:16:26]  And that's, you know, if you're a Bernie Sanders supporter, you're going to have to be, you have to feel devastated over that.
[01:16:35]  I mean, this was, you know, if you are a Democratic socialist or a progressive or you believe in the stuff Bernie Sanders is talking about, well, you just had the best shot in my lifetime of getting your guy in there.
[01:16:49]  Like, the absolute best shot, and it didn't go your way.
[01:16:53]  And that's a bitter pill to swallow.
[01:16:55]  So, you know, that's politics, bitch.
[01:16:59]  As they say in Always Sunny, right?
[01:17:01]  That's politics, bitch.
[01:17:02]  I've had my heart broken a time or two in this game.
[01:17:05]  Don't worry about it.
[01:17:06]  You'll get used to it.
[01:17:07]  If you're anything like me, you'll recover, eventually start a successful podcast, get married and have a kid.
[01:17:13]  Everything will be fine.
[01:17:14]  Don't worry about it.
[01:17:15]  I'm here for you, Bernie Bros.
[01:17:17]  All right, that's the episode for today.
[01:17:19]  That's the Super Tuesday recap of, oof, this election season has been nothing short of entertaining and it's been fun to talk about.
[01:17:31]  This one threw me for a loop, but I appreciate you guys tuning in, as always.
[01:17:35]  We'll be back on Friday.
[01:17:37]  Rob Bernstein back in the building.
[01:17:40]  And yeah, I'll see you guys then.