Bernie Sanders Staff Demand $15 Minimum Wage, Some Quit Over Low Wages
Bernie Sanders Campaign Staff Demand $15 Minimum, Some Quit Over Low Wages. House Democrats recently passed a $15 minimum wage bill nationally and conflicting reports say that we could lose up to 1.3 Million jobs or not lose any jobs at all. One of the biggest proponents of a federal $15 minimum is Bernie Sanders who is now caught in a conundrum over his own staffs pay. Some staffers are reportedly quitting over not receiving a "living wage" many are saying that the long hours result in only getting 11-13$ an hour.With the passing of the federal bill moderate and even far left democrats agree on increasing the minimum, the question that arises is why isn't Bernie putting his money where his mouth is?Minimum wage increases are not even socialist or far left policy wise, it is a general left wing position to increase base pay to require employers to pay more. They argue without government mandate they won't and perhaps there is no better example than Bernie Sanders who apparently doesn't even pay his own staff $15Republicans on the other hand disagree so I doubt we will see anything other than conservatives calling out the hypocrisy of the Sanders camp, though I think Bernie and his campaign will likely rectify the situation quickly. The reality is that this story reveals how complicated it is to negotiate wages. Staff will always want more and Employers will always want to pay less.
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I now want you to imagine that fire truck bursting into flames.
And that's what I think of when I see this story.
The Bernie Sanders campaign is being accused of not paying a living wage to its staffers.
They're saying that they're getting the equivalent of $13 an hour.
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is campaigning federally for a $15 base rate.
You'd think that Bernie would put his money where his mouth is and actually pay that rate to his own staffers.
Now, the issue arises because staffers say they have to work 60 hours a week, which means even after they receive $36,000 a year, they're getting only around $13 an hour.
I actually think it's closer to $11, so no, they're not getting $15 an hour.
You could argue that Bernie is providing the equivalent But then you can see what his campaign manager says.
His campaign manager wants them to work six days a week.
Once again, another issue of a firetruck being on fire.
It's pure irony.
Aren't these the people that claim to have championed the 40-hour workweek and to champion the weekend days off?
Why then would Bernie have his staffers working six days a week?
Just hire more staffers, right?
Pay them the same, hire more people.
This is the classic example of the employer versus the employee argument, and it shows why arguing for a $15 base rate nationally, it's not that easy.
It's rather complicated.
And I find it strange that we often have stories about these Democratic Socialist types not upholding their own values.
What I want to go through today is I want to take a look at this story about the Bernie campaign and the call for a $15 equivalent.
I want to see why they're not willing to offer that they should.
But I also have another story about this woman, Salazar, Julia Salazar, who apparently dipped into a $10 million trust fund, which is strange because she claims to be, you know, coming from humble means, and she's a democratic socialist.
It's another example of These progressive activist types who claim to represent the working class, when in reality, they represent a privileged elite.
Now look, I was a big fan of Bernie in 2016, and he's let me down quite a bit.
And while Bernie certainly isn't the wealthiest person in the world, as of today, he is a millionaire.
I still don't think that's bad.
By all means, congratulations on your success.
But he still does come from a privileged political class.
Though he's had a history of fighting for people's rights and standing up for what he believes in—he's an independent, I can absolutely respect that—I have to question why he won't pay his staffers what they want.
But let's break this story down.
Let's not keep ranting.
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From Newsweek, a bit of a synopsis on a Washington Post story, but let's read.
Campaign workers for Bernie Sanders have taken aim at one of the senator's key policies in his 2020 presidential run, raising the federal minimum wage.
According to the Washington Post, some members of Sanders' campaign team have been lobbying to raise their wages so that they make the $15 hourly rate that the Vermont senator has frequently called for both on the campaign trail and in Washington, D.C.
The Post obtained a draft of a letter the campaign's union planned to send to Sanders' campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, which read in part that workers, quote, "...cannot be expected to build the largest grassroots organizing program in American history while making poverty wages.
Given our campaign's commitment to fighting for a living wage of at least $15 an hour, we believe it is only fair the campaign would carry through this commitment to its own field team."
The letter states that field organizers are working at least 60 hours a week, which lowers the average pay per hour to $13 an hour, saying, Many field staffers are barely managing to survive financially, which is severely impacting our team's productivity and morale.
Some field organizers have already left the campaign as a result, the letter says.
I kid you not.
Let's stop here.
Campaign staffers for Bernie Sanders have left because they were underpaid.
I also want to stress something else.
Okay, listen.
I love the idea of the 40-hour work week.
100%.
Personally, I work every single day.
I'm working a ridiculous amount of hours.
That's my choice.
But I do respect the right to individuals to have their weekend and have their days off.
I also think it's fair to point out Well, Bernie does pay around $36,000 a year to staffers by having them be salary and telling them they should work 60 hours a week or six days a week.
You're effectively bypassing this base pay.
You're saying, oh, look, we're going to give you more.
Here's what people do.
They'll say, well, what's 36 divided by 52 weeks divided by 40?
Ah, you're getting $17 an hour.
Sounds great, right?
Then you put them on salary, then they don't get overtime, and then you can make them work more hours without paying them.
It's common.
Regardless of whether or not you want to fault Bernie for this, Bernie is falling into the common trap.
But I will tell you this, the most interesting thing about this whole story, whether or not you want to side with Bernie or otherwise, is that Shakir has said they're paying a competitive rate.
Let me read this for you.
The Sanders campaign late Thursday issued a statement lauding its union contract,
quote, We know our campaign offers wages and benefits competitive with other campaigns,
as is shown by the latest fundraising report, Sukir said.
Every member of the campaign, from the candidate on down, joined this movement in order to defeat
Donald Trump and transform America. Bernie Sanders is the most pro-worker
and pro-labor candidate running for president.
We have tremendous staff who are working hard.
Bernie and I both strongly believe in the sanctity of the collective bargaining process, and we will not deviate from our commitment to it.
It was unclear when or whether Sanders had been made aware of the situation.
Let me stress this point.
I want you to really think about this.
We know our campaign offers wages and benefits competitive with other campaigns.
I ask you.
Why should I care what other campaigns are paying?
You're essentially saying that the laborer, the people who work for your campaign, who are building this grassroots effort, who are saying, I'm not getting a living wage, should be happy because neither is any other campaign.
Like, okay, hold on.
Imagine this.
Someone comes to you and says, I'm not being paid a living wage.
You say, hey, you should be happy.
No one else is getting a living wage either.
That's not an effective response.
Additionally, I find it interesting that they're saying they're offering competitive wages.
Since when did avowed democratic socialists worry about competing in the marketplace?
Think about it.
What they're saying is, hey, everyone pays this.
It's okay.
No, the issue of raising base pay nationally is because, as they've said themselves, employers don't want to pay more than they have to.
And that's the problem.
Without the government saying you have to, people won't.
I then ask you, Bernie, because maybe Bernie doesn't know, maybe it's his campaign manager, but then this reflects very poorly on your campaign manager.
I ask, then, Put your money where your mouth is.
If you think people deserve a living wage, get them off salary, have them track their hours, and pay them hourly $15 an hour.
Because if they're working six days a week, I mean, already, that's like, that's a lot to ask of somebody to work.
Let's go back to the Newsweek story and read some of the statements from Bernie Staffers.
They read, The story says, So again, I want to make sure I'm not being overly hyperbolic.
the issues regarding wages extend back to May.
Though talks between the campaign union and Shakir appear to be ongoing, it is unknown
if Sanders is aware of the requests from campaign workers.
So again, I want to make sure I'm not being overly hyperbolic.
It's not necessarily on Bernie right now.
But this is, I think it's fair to point out, this should be a wake-up call for Bernie and
anybody working for his campaign about the complexities of wage negotiation.
It's not as simple to just say, we will give you X. Okay, you've got market forces to consider, fine.
But in that case, if Bernie's principles are, you know, providing a living wage, you should not be looking at any other company.
You also have to consider salary, hourly, and what the campaign can afford.
We're not talking about a business here.
Bernie is selling an idea.
And in order for that idea to be funded, people have to choose to give money to him, in exchange for nothing tangible.
In which case, we're not even basing the wages off of something productive.
Bernie then has to decide, if I have a million bucks, how am I going to spend it?
Ad campaigns?
Paying for flights and trips to go campaign?
Or paying people more money?
Therein lies the huge problem.
If other campaigns are paying the same as Bernie, and they're under no obligation to pay more, they will have an advantage.
They can spend more money on campaigning, which will give them the ability to win.
You know, more marketing, more votes.
If Bernie is dragged down with high labor costs, he will have less money to campaign on.
Thus, it is a massive disadvantage.
It's unfortunate.
Look, if Bernie's ideas are good, then Bernie's ideas should win.
And it's unfortunate that he faces his own disadvantage.
Perhaps the only thing he can really do is prove you care by providing a living wage to your staff.
Let's read.
They say, Sanders' campaign became the first to unionize, a move which was publicized in March 2019, just weeks after the senator announced his 2020 presidential run.
Since then, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro have both unionized their campaign workers.
According to the agreement made between Sanders' campaign and the union, which began on May 2nd, field workers were to be paid $36,000 annually rather than by hours worked.
However, On May 17th, the Post states that Shakir recommended that field organizers pay be raised to $42,000 during a staff meeting.
In the same meeting, he also suggested that the work week be extended to six days a week, the union letter said.
According to the Post, the union rejected Shakir's plan in part because of the healthcare costs that would fall to the campaign workers to pay.
They say this month, workers used slack to express distress at not being paid a, quote, living wage.
Now, I want to stop here.
If the campaign believes $42,000 a year at 6 days a week is a living wage, that's fine if I think it's fair.
I think it's not necessarily that bad of a wage, but if your own staffers are saying you don't pay a living wage, well then we have to weigh Their opinion on the matter, in my opinion, more highly than Bernie's.
If we're talking about the rights of labor and what labor wants, well then we're going to listen to what they have to say.
And they're saying they're not being paid a living wage.
Listen to this quote.
I am struggling financially to do my job, and in my state we've already had four people
quit in the past four weeks because of financial struggles, one worker told Shakir via the
service according to the Post.
It is deplorable in my opinion that someone should have to quit their job because they're
not being paid enough to live.
Okay?
It's complicated.
It's complex.
It's not an easy problem to solve.
I fully recognize that.
I understand that they're trying to do better.
They have a unionized staff.
But you also need to consider the market.
The economy.
Now, I think it's fair to point out Bernie might actually use this as an argument for socialism by saying people shouldn't have to, you know, the prices shouldn't be too high and healthcare is too expensive.
The complaint from my staff is their healthcare.
I'm not doing a very good impression, by the way.
I could do better.
The point is, you could easily make the argument that they're complaining about healthcare if only healthcare was nationalized, right?
In the end, I defer to Bernie's staffers because that's Bernie's position.
And Bernie is the employer.
Bernie should give them exactly what they need to live.
Period.
Otherwise, it's all hypocrisy.
Bernie campaigns on this idea that people should be able to live comfortably doing whatever job they do.
Well, if they're telling you they're not comfortable, then you're doing something wrong, Bernie, and you've got to put your money where your mouth is.
Again, I want to stress, I don't think this is that bad for Bernie Sanders.
I think this is actually a really interesting story because it's an example of the complexities of wage negotiations and the free market.
And we're in a mixed economy, mind you.
We pay around, I think, in total, 45% of all income we have in various taxes.
So we are not a laissez-faire or socialist system.
We're actually close to the middle.
Let's read on.
Another said he needed a raise, because I need to be able to feed myself.
Shakir later responded to the messages the post said, telling workers they were owed an explanation about where things stood between the campaign and the union.
He also expressed disappointment in the union, voting against raising wages, saying,
I have no idea what debates and conversations were had, but candidly, it was a disappointing
vote from my perspective. But the campaign leadership respected the union process
and the will of the membership.
According to the Post, the union plans to send a new proposal to the Sanders campaign that includes a $46,800 salary for field organizers and $62,000 for regional field directors.
$46,800 salary for field organizers and $62,000 for regional field directors.
Regional directors currently make $48,000 a year.
The proposal also asks for the campaign to pay 100% of healthcare costs for workers who
make less than $36,000 a year and pay 85% for those who make over $36,000.
The news over the negotiations come after the House of Representatives passed a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Following the vote, Sanders posted on Twitter to praise the House for passing the bill.
So look, that's basically it.
They go on to say that, you know, Bernie Sanders has criticized Mitch McConnell because McConnell... Mitch McConnell... Okay, Bernie Sanders is trying to get Mitch to vote on this in the Senate, criticizing him, saying if you think $7.25 minimum is acceptable, that's his prerogative.
Here's the thing.
The issue is, at its heart, not how much his people are being paid or their opinions.
Let's get pragmatic for a second.
The real issue is that Bernie Sanders is offering salaries.
This can all be solved very simply by Bernie no longer paying a base salary and just paying hourly $15 an hour.
Period.
If Bernie Sanders is campaigning for $15 an hour nationwide, he should put his money where his mouth is.
Now here's the thing.
What's interesting, well, I guess we already kind of went over this, so I don't need to necessarily rehash it, but Common Dream says, after House passes $15 minimum wage, Bernie demands McConnell let Senate vote.
I find it all rather hypocritical, and while I'm trying not to be overly critical of Bernie, I do want to stress, he is the stop.
He is where the buck stops with Bernie.
If Bernie's staff are upset because they're not getting paid a living wage, their own words, if they can't feed themselves, their own words, and if four staffers have already quit in one office because they're not being paid enough, Bernie needs to know about this.
It's his responsibility, and he dropped the ball, period.
I think, you know, Bernie can solve this, and I'd give him the chance to.
If Bernie comes out and says it was a mistake, we'll solve the problem, then I respect that.
But we cannot have someone championing this wage increase while his own staff is calling him out.
I also want to stress, Vox references, in reference to the $15 wage increase, or the increase to $15 an hour, potentially 1.3 million jobs could be lost by this.
We have to pay attention to automation.
This is why I'm with Andrew Yang on this issue.
Yang opposes the increase to $15 because he doesn't believe it will solve the problem.
And in fact, I don't want to put words in his mouth, I could be getting this wrong, but my understanding is he's recognizing the increase in automation as a threat.
McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, low-level jobs are going to automate out these positions.
So when you increase that wage, it will just expedite these jobs being taken away.
While progressives have noted, these companies are going to get rid of those jobs anyway, okay?
So you might as well increase their wages, I will stress.
The important thing to consider is...
If you have to pay someone $36,000 a year, let's say you pay him $25,000.
You're now told you have to pay him $36,000.
A kiosk costs $30,000.
You might as well say, hey, we make the investment for $30,000 up front.
We save money.
But here's the thing.
At $25,000 you say, we're going to save $5,000 this year by not upgrading.
We might as well put it off.
That's why automation is going to cost people their jobs.
Now, it goes beyond just low-level jobs.
Truckers, manufacturing, they're going to be automated too.
So, I think Yang is right to be talking about this issue.
And it was really interesting.
I urge you to go check out the Andrew Yang, Ben Shapiro podcast because they actually agreed on some important issues while they disagreed on many.
They brought up some really interesting points about the VAT tax being a good idea, though
they disagree on how far it should go.
And even Ben Shapiro says, once we get to the point where automation is taking over,
we should have the universal basic income conversation.
Yang's position is we should have the conversation now before we get to that point.
So it's all very interesting.
I don't want to make this video super long, but I do want to just highlight this weird
story about Democratic Socialist Julia Salazar.
Daily Mail reports that she dipped into her $10 million trust fund to help launch her
New York State Senate campaign, despite claiming she had a poverty-stricken childhood.
Apparently, she went on to say there was an error and the trust fund actually holds $400,000.
I don't care if it's 400,000.
I don't care if it's 10 million.
The point I want to make is, too often, I, someone from humble means, South Side of Chicago, high school dropout, these socialist types are not working class.
Okay?
Bernie Sanders is an activist.
He's not one of these wealthy, you know, corporate Democrats, but he is wealthy today.
That's fine.
I'm not criticizing him for this, but he is still part of the elite political class.
My understanding is the only job he's ever had has been a politician.
We can then see Julia Salazar.
Okay, let's say you got a $400,000 trust fund.
You're a trust fund, kid!
You're still... Why is it that we have wealthy white progressives criticizing white people and criticizing the working class while claiming to represent them?
The biggest concern I have with everything being done by these progressives is that they're actually doing damage to upward mobility in this country.
And it makes me wonder.
Do these elites really care about upward mobility or are they trying to damage it?
When you increase taxes, when they say we want to increase taxes on the top 1%, without actually creating a new tax bracket, all that really does is make it harder for people to move up from making $250k a year to, say, $5 million per year.
Because increasing taxes on everybody who makes more than 250k a year doesn't actually damage the people who are worth tens of millions of dollars and more because they're already well beyond that.
Sure, they'll pay more taxes, but they have more disposable income.
So I think the big challenge for me with a lot of their policies is it's not thought out completely.
And they need to understand the complexities of how these things get negotiated.
So to Bernie Sanders, I will stress, you are learning an important lesson.
Okay, you're paying salaries.
Well, they're not living wages.
You are at a severe disadvantage if you pay more because other campaigns won't.
And that means we'll have more money to campaign on.
It's a double-edged sword.
You know, if you don't do it, you look like a hypocrite.
If you do, you lose out.
I don't know what the solution is.
I don't.
I certainly think people should be paid a living wage.
But what is a living wage?
I honestly don't know.
We can look at some studies in the past that say, in order to be a happy median, you need $77,000 per year.
It's gone up.
In fact, in Manhattan, it's ridiculous!
It's like $130,000 per year if you want to just be median.
Most people don't make that.
And Bernie Sanders certainly couldn't afford that.
So how do we solve that problem?
I don't know.
The issue isn't how much people are being paid per hour.
The issue is the value of an hour, period.
When we're talking about what to pay someone, the money is rather meaningless.
You need to think about all of the different aspects of the economy.
The way I explained it in one video is put it this way.
If you train for years to become a baker, and now you make $15 an hour, that $15 an hour entitles you to, like, five apples per hour.
Like, seriously, you need to consider what you're buying with that money.
Apples.
The reason apples cost $5... The reason apples you can get $5 or $15 is because the cost of the person to produce and pick the apple, right?
So the apple company, they've automated to a decent extent, but they still have staff members who are making, let's say, $10 an hour.
The baker makes $5 more, meaning the baker's time per hour is worth more than the apple picker.
When you increase the apple picker's wage to $15 an hour, the cost of the apple goes up.
Now the baker is saying to himself, I used to be able to buy five apples, now I can only buy three.
I need a raise!
Goes to his boss and says, look man, I can't afford apples anymore.
I'm using apple as just like a widget, as a representation, but think about gasoline.
Think about computer products.
The real issue is, do we value the hour of an individual?
And the answer is, for the most part, we don't value it enough.
Changing the minimum wage will not change the value of an hour.
So I don't know what the solution is, but that's why I'm a big fan of Yang, because at least he's talking about the problems of automation.
Because think about this.
If we automate that apple picker's job, the cost of an apple could actually go down a lot.
And the baker is now excited because his hour is worth more.
He's getting paid 15 bucks an hour.
He can buy 10 apples now because the price went down.
But that leaves us with another person who can no longer buy any apples.
He lost his job.
And therein lies the problem of automation.
I think we're facing a serious problem with automation that Yang talks about in that there will come a time where someone will lose their job through no fault of their own.
What do we do?
I don't know.
Just because technology will displace someone from their job, it's not fair.
And in fact, when the market displaces someone from their job, it's not fair either.
But you know what?
The world isn't fair.
How can we make sure that people aren't put out and homeless simply because of market whims and because of technological advancement?
I don't know.
What I can say is, this problem is extremely complicated and Bernie Sanders just learned a very important lesson.
I mean no ill will towards Bernie.
I still like the guy.
And I don't think it's necessarily his fault.
I think he's learning an important lesson here though.
So I'll leave it there.
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
Next segment will be at youtube.com slash timcastnews at 6 p.m.
The podcast is inverted, so stick around and I will see you all in the next segment.
Thanks for hanging out.
Every so often we hear a story about some young naive individual traveling off to some extremely dangerous location and then having their lives ended.
There was a story about a couple who went bike riding through Tajikistan, which is just north of ISIS territory, and they were rammed And men came out with knives and forcefully ended their lives.
These stories are really sad, and they're often highlighted to point out the naivety of these young people who think that the world is beautiful and they can show how great humanity is, not realizing that the world is actually very, very dangerous.
We have another story kind of like this today, from Pluralist.
Journalist goes to Ilhan Omar's homeland to prove how great it is, gets killed by terrorists.
We also have the story from Summit News, which is Paul Joseph Watson's.
Journalist travels to Ilhan Omar's homeland to prove Somalia is beautiful, gets killed by terrorists.
And here's the original source material from the Washington Post.
A Somali-Canadian journalist returned to Somalia to tell uplifting stories, then terrorists killed her.
Well, the first two stories I showed you aren't untrue.
I kind of take issue with framing.
I feel like there's an opportunity to try and frame this as a young, naive individual going to, you know, these dangerous places and getting killed, when in reality, first, there's absolutely no need to say Ilhan Omar's homeland.
That's just trying to grab at keywords that are popular right now, at least in my opinion.
We can just say she went to Somalia.
And we know Somalia is dangerous.
The other important issue is that it's not some journalist just going there.
It's a woman from Somalia who was raised in Canada who wanted to go back specifically because most of the news you get out of the country is war, conflict, crisis.
And she wanted to show people that there is beauty there.
So, technically, I believe it's fair to say that Paul is correct when he says she wanted to prove Somalia is beautiful, but it's fair to say Somalia does have beauty in it.
So, how do we want to frame this story?
A young, naive individual who, you know, gallivants off to Somalia and then dies?
Or a woman who knew the risks, was from there, and said, I'm gonna go back and do a good job of showing that there are good people here.
That, I find completely respectable.
I do not view this as a story of a young, naive individual taking a ridiculous risk.
It's someone who knows the risk, a journalist, someone who is well-known, and was from the place, you know, who went back.
So let's read.
We'll start with, actually, let's read Washington Post's version.
Before we get started, head over to TimCast.com slash donate if you'd like to support my work.
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But of course, share this video.
I guarantee this video is going to be deranked.
They derank all of my videos now.
And this one's particularly controversial.
So I will start by saying I absolutely detest the Washington Post.
Um, because they've written overt fake news.
The worst I can say about Pluralist and Summit News is that they take a biased framing.
So, you have to be very careful when it comes to left-wing sources, like, say, Vox and Buzzfeed, or, um, I don't necessarily want to say right-wing sources, but anti-SJW or, like, you know, left-critical sources, like, uh, Summit or, or Pluralist, because framing is important.
You can absolutely tell the truth, but frame it in a certain way.
And I've fallen victim to this before.
One of the first stories I did covering young naive couples was framed poorly by Pluralist, and I had to issue a correction, so I take that very seriously.
But I want to add, I know the Washington Post to have actually published completely fabricated information.
Like, they totally made stuff up.
So, it is what it is.
Maybe I shouldn't start by reading the Washington Post, but we're gonna anyway, and we'll jump over to Pluralist and kind of contrast how they frame this.
They say, Hoden Nelaya spent the last days of her life doing what she loved most, sharing a side of Somalia rarely depicted in the West.
On Twitter, she posted photos of young boys grinning on the island of Elisi, fresh fish and lobsters pulled straight from the Indian Ocean, and a colorful sunset from the port city of Kismayo.
It was an incredible day to witness Somalia's beauty, the Somali-Canadian journalist wrote.
Then on Friday, al-Shabaab militants stormed the Asasi Hotel in Kismayo, killing at least 26 people, including Nalaya, 43, and her husband, Farid Jama Suleiman.
An additional 56 people were wounded.
It took around 14 hours for Somali security forces to regain control of the hotel, where several tribal elders and another journalist, Mohamed Salar Omar, were also killed.
At least one American was among the dead, the State Department confirmed.
The important thing here is that I want to stress, there are a lot of people who see an opportunity to be like, aha, here's another story about someone doing something wrong.
I don't think she was doing something wrong, I think she knew exactly what she was doing, she was taking a risk, and they even confirm this.
So let's read on.
They say her presence in Somalia sparked hope among those in the diaspora, looking for proof that they too could one day return to their ancestral homeland, said Mukhtar Ibrahim, Executive Director of the Sahan Journal, a non-profit news organization
covering immigrant communities in Minnesota where there is a large Somali population.
So I want to add, unfortunately she's proven the opposite.
She did not prove you can return, and that's bad for everybody.
I mean, look, if you're critical of Somali migrants in the U.S., fine.
But you have to recognize, until Somalia is presented, like, is safe, secure, and you have journalists willing to go back and able to safely show the beauty of the country, we're not gonna be able to give the refugees an opportunity to return to their homeland.
I'm not saying refugees should have to go to their homeland.
Of course, the left is gonna be like, aha, we got you, Tim.
No, what I'm saying is, If it were me personally, and of the refugees I've spoke to, they do hope to one day return to their homes.
Nobody wants to be forced out of their homes because of war and conflict.
And I'm sure that's true for many people in Somalia, as well as Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.
I've spoken to Syrian refugees who, and they cried when, you know, one of them cried when he saw treats like cookies and candies from that are sold in Syria because they've lost their home.
So I certainly can respect that.
We do need journalists who are willing to take that risk.
Unfortunately, it's just not true that Somalia is safe.
And I think if there's anything that this woman did that is positive.
It's that she's unfortunately shown the true dangers of Somalia.
While I can certainly respect she took the risk to try and show the beauty, what she ended up doing is giving her life to show that Somalia is in fact dangerous and perhaps the refugees can't return for some time until things like this can be, you know, gotten under control.
But let's read this quote.
She left her comfortable life in Canada to go to Somalia, and that's a big risk for a lot of people in the diaspora, Ibrahim said.
That's the saddest part, that a lot of people cannot wrap their heads around.
She was doing her best.
She wasn't taking sides.
She wasn't into politics.
She wasn't critical of the groups that were fighting.
She was just trying to do good storytelling about her community.
Asad Hussain, a Somali writer and student at Princeton University, said Nalaya strayed from narratives that portrayed Somalis only as victims trapped in various circles of conflict.
She understood, as every good storyteller does, that the little moments in life matter just as much as the big ones.
Hodan noticed the people bathing in the ocean, the orchards in the courtyards, and the radiance of the setting sun, and she knew those were stories too.
In a recent YouTube video from Kismayo, the city where she was later killed, she sits grinning and drinking tea with young women in a marketplace.
You're watching the best of Somalia as we show you around this beautiful town.
The 14-minute video pans to show views of the seaside and a soccer pitch that then features her laughing with a female shopkeeper and visiting a seafood processing plant.
I'm always hopeful that our great industries can be revived and rebuilt across the nation, and more importantly in Kismayo, she said, gesturing to the coastline, because this place is beautiful.
So she did want to, in a sense, prove that Somalia was beautiful.
I think the pluralist framing that she was trying to prove how great it was is a bit I mean, maybe you can look at some of her videos and she says things like that, but at least that's not how the Washington Post has framed it.
It sounds like it's a woman who is just trying to show that there is beauty in these places.
It's true.
And I want to stress this too.
I've been to many dangerous places and one thing I often tell people is you will find the average person is not crazy.
This is true.
You can go to, you know, very dangerous places and for the most part you will be okay, but When places are war-torn, with active conflict, people don't need to be crazy to be scared.
And a scared person, a passionate, driven person, who is refusing to back down, is a dangerous person.
So while you can go to certain areas where there's urban and civil conflict and be okay, you can also go to a place like Somalia where they say, by any means necessary, and then you will get caught up in it.
Let's read a little bit about what Pluralist says.
They say, according to Washington Post report published Saturday, the Somali-Canadian journalist had returned to the country of her birth to tell uplifting stories of how people lived there.
However, her homecoming ended in tragedy.
I'm more interested in how they frame her motivations.
They say, one Somali writer praised Nalaya to the Post for offering alternative depictions of Somalis as victims trapped in a vicious circle of conflicts.
It seems very similar to the Washington Post.
Perhaps the only difference is the title.
Um, they bring up the same quotes, but let's come down here to the end.
I guess they just go on to then talk about Trump.
Okay, here we go.
Hoddan Nalaya and the latest Trump tweet controversy.
I don't know if this has anything to do with it.
They say, like Nalaya, Omar was born in Somalia and moved to the North as a young girl.
The United States granted asylum to her and her family.
However, the Minnesota Democrat's life recently took a very different path.
Omar this year became one of two first Muslim women to serve in Congress, where she, along with three other female freshman Democrats, annoyed the president enough to make them targets.
And there we go, and you lost me.
So let me just be overtly critical.
For one, I see absolutely no reason to link this journalist going to Somalia with Ilhan Omar.
I get it.
Trump said your countries, you know, the countries you come from are bad.
Go fix them.
I disagree.
I think if you come to America and you're a legal immigrant and you're here legally, you have every right to be.
You're an American citizen!
End of story.
And let's take a look at how Paul frames it.
Once again, he says Ilhan Omar's homeland, which I believe is completely irrelevant.
I get it.
You know, I don't really see why you want to put Ilhan Omar's name in there.
He says, the journalist became well known for her relentlessly positive tweets about Somalia just one week ago.
She lauded the beauty of the place.
And we can see these posts.
Interestingly, it looks like the photos she's posted are saturated, which means, you know, often when people take photos, they will increase the color density, the saturation.
And this has a positive...
My understanding is that it's somewhat related to when you're younger you see colors more vividly, so having the colors be saturated makes it feel more like positive and uplifting.
One respondent praised her for countering the doom narrative propagated by many about Somalia, and I can respect that.
Another Somali writer praised her portraying an image of the country radically different from the stereotype.
During a video tour, which we talked about, on Friday last week she was killed in that very same town when al-Shabaab militants stormed the hotel.
While Nelaya's death would seem to underline the harshness of Trump's remarks, it was also a visceral argument for what many understood to be a central point—that perhaps immigrants should be especially grateful to live in the United States.
I can certainly respect that sentiment.
And I will say this.
You absolutely should be grateful.
I am absolutely grateful.
I don't mean refugees or migrants to be grateful.
I mean, like, literally everybody.
I am absolutely grateful to be here.
Because I've been to countries.
I've been to Morocco.
Scary.
Egypt.
During a revolution.
Kind of scary.
I've been in many countries.
Like, I was in Venezuela.
That was really scary.
I had to flee the country, actually.
So here's my criticism of the general idea.
One of the reasons I want to talk about this is I actually respect this journalist who went to Somalia to try and do this.
I don't think she was naive.
I think she understood the risks and unfortunately she paid the ultimate price.
With her life, she has shown us that things are still bad, and I can completely respect that.
That's what a journalist, you know, at least she was able to show us this.
Whether it was her intention or not, that's what we take away from it.
I do think it's clickbaity to try and put Ilhan Omar's name in this.
And frame it as a journalist traveling there, because I'm sure a lot of people are going to, you know, click the story and be like, oh, it was just a journalist assuming it was this naive young woman, when in reality she's middle-aged, she was from Somalia, and she wanted to show, like, the good things about Somalia, and that was very brave of her.
Absolutely, you know, and a tremendous respect to those willing to take risks to show that there's, it's not always how the media portrays it.
But you know what?
In the culture war, you're going to have framing devices, you're going to have people trying to, you know, generate revenue, clickbait, etc.
And it is what it is.
I get accused of it all the time, so what can I say?
Anyway, I don't know.
I kind of wanted to talk about this because when I saw the stories, it's not just these two.
I'm not trying to single out Pluralist and Paul.
But I've seen a bunch of people kind of frame it in the same way, trying to put Ilhan Omar's name in there, and I'm like, come on, come on, come on.
You know?
It's a woman from Somalia who went back to try and tell stories.
It's just travel documentary journalism.
Unfortunately, she lost her life.
She knew the risks.
She left the country on purpose.
She gave up a very comfortable life to do something dangerous.
I find that respectable.
Anyway, thanks for hanging out.
Stick around.
Next segment will be at 1 p.m.
on this channel, and I will see you all then.
Ted Cruz and Bill Cassidy file resolution to designate Antifa as a domestic terror organization, a terrorist organization.
Now, this is really complicated and very difficult to do.
And I gotta say, I understand the sentiment.
The DHS and the FBI, according to The Independent, have already labeled them as such, or at least their actions.
And the challenging thing here is, If they do label Antifa a terror organization, all Antifa has to do is stop using that logo and call themselves something else.
So how you really solve the problem, I don't know.
We're just facing an increasingly violent and polarized country.
But I will say, one of the things actually fueling the extremism is the media.
Because when something crazy happens with fringe, far-right, whatever you want to call them people, everyone condemns it.
When something happens with the left, they say, oh, it's nothing, or they say, a man.
Like a lot of the stories talking about the ICE guy, the guy who came with the firebombs, they said, a man was shot and killed, a man.
How about a fringe, far-left extremist was firebombing vehicles, and might I add, if he succeeded in firebombing the facility, would have killed a bunch of migrants, But that doesn't make the news.
It doesn't.
One of the things I find very fascinating about this whole debate is, you know, you get people like Sean King with a million followers.
So I do want to read this story, but let me just say one thing.
Alex Jones.
They say he's the purveyor of fake news, and he calls for violence, so they ban him.
Okay, fine.
Sure.
I hear your arguments.
I disagree with banning people based on, you know, their opinions.
They claim that he was inciting people, and yes, there have been some metaphorical calls that even Jones recently has stopped himself from saying, because he used to do this very hyperbolic thing, where he's like, I'm gonna do, and then he stops, and that's a more recent thing, so perhaps, But look, I gotta admit, I don't watch Alex Jones.
I don't.
I know it's controversial.
But whether or not I watch Alex Jones is besides the point.
Here you have a man, Jones, they accuse of making fake news and calling people to violence.
Okay, so they banned him.
Sure.
Then you have Sean King.
He falsely accused a cop of… impropriate of raping a woman.
He's falsely accused the Proud Boys of going to some bar in some ridiculously annoying video he made on YouTube where he's laying down in his bed.
It was just so cringy.
And it was a totally fake story.
So Sean King is different from Jones, for sure.
But he does put out fake news.
And he praised a terrorist.
And he still has a post calling for terrorism.
Is he banned?
No, I ask you, where are the standards?
Okay, we'll come back to this.
Let me read the news.
I don't want to bury the lead.
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The Washington Examiner writes Republican Senators Bill Cassidy and Ted Cruz filed a resolution on Thursday to categorize Antifa, a militant left-wing group known to assault political opponents and journalists as a domestic terrorist organization.
Quote, Antifa is a terrorist organization composed of hateful, intolerant radicals who pursue their extreme agenda through aggressive violence.
Time and time again, their actions have demonstrated that their central purpose is to inflict harm on those who oppose their views, Cruz tweeted.
Like any terrorist organization, they choose to pursue their political ends through violence, fear, and intimidation.
They must be stopped.
I'm proud to introduce this resolution with Senator Bill Cassidy to properly identify what Antifa are, domestic terrorists.
They go on to say, another quote I believe from Cassidy, Antifa are terrorists, violent masked bullies who fight fascism with actual fascism.
Protected by liberal privilege, Bill Cassidy tweeted two weeks before filing the resolution.
Bullies get their way until someone says no.
Elected officials must have courage, not cowardice, to prevent terror.
The resolution says the group diametrically opposes First Amendment values of peaceful assembly and free speech.
It also cites the physical assault of journalist Andy Ngo in Portland in late June.
And the threats Antifa members have issued towards employees of U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The document ends by calling on the federal government to deploy all available and appropriate tools to combat the spread and growth of domestic terrorism in the U.S., grouping Antifa with white supremacist terrorism.
So the bill actually condemns white supremacy too.
I think that was absolutely correct of them to do.
Spot on.
Because we're not playing a game of he said, she said, who, what, where, left, right, whatever.
The point is, if one thing is bad and something else is bad, let's nip in the bud.
We're done.
We know it.
It's bad.
If fringe-whack-a-loon, you know, left-wingers are gonna do something, it's bad.
If fringe-whack-a-loon right-wingers are gonna do something, it's bad.
Extremism is bad.
I am not saying they're equivalent.
And that's the silly and ridiculous game we end up seeing.
Because here's the story.
From the Washington Free Beacon.
It's from a couple days ago.
I've talked about it already.
Sean King.
I made a video about this, okay?
He's got a tweet pinned on his Twitter where he says it's time to take action to liberate these camps.
By any means necessary.
That's an overt call for violence.
I'm not kidding.
In the article he posts, he says something like, people ask me if I'm saying we should be violent.
I'm just saying, aren't we supposed to liberate them?
What do you think he's trying to say?
He's dancing around the rhetoric.
So fine.
Is it a legal issue?
Maybe not.
Maybe he should be allowed to say this.
But why would Twitter allow this?
It's far more egregious than anything Alex Jones has ever done.
Now here's—oh man, boy, do I love the response I get when I bring this up.
Invariably, I get people on Twitter saying, I don't know, Tim, what's the death count for left-wing violence?
And I'm like, are you seriously arguing that your defense of the terrorists in Washington is that we haven't killed that many people?
Have you lost your mind?
Listen.
It's so insane for me to be, like, I view myself as, like, a regular American moderate.
You know the biggest voting block is moderate.
Granted, you have strong liberals, passive liberals, moderate, passive conservative, strong conservative.
And together, the liberal and conservative side are bigger, around 34-35% each.
And then you have 27%, which is moderate.
But the biggest individual group, because the passionate liberals and the passionate conservatives are outnumbered by moderates.
That's what I'm trying to say.
I talk to regular people every day.
Nobody likes violence.
So I'll tell you this.
When some crazy dude gets a gun and goes into a church or a mosque or a synagogue, of course that's psychotic and insane.
And that's what we need law enforcement for and intelligence agencies to stop these people before they do it.
That's great, good, thank you law enforcement, please stop it.
And they have.
They've prevented many attacks and things like this, and they're not always successful.
But then you get the left simultaneously decrying law enforcement because we do have accountability problems in some law enforcement agencies.
We do have spying problems, sure, but can we differentiate the problems from what the job is supposed to be?
I can absolutely criticize, you know, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, local law enforcement, when they do bad things and those things get called out, and then praise them when they stop the evil Nazi bad men.
Like, please, do your job.
We need that job done.
So what happens then?
When you talk about something like Shaun King, they say, what's the death count for the left?
And my response is like, just because Antifa isn't killing people doesn't mean they're not bad.
And why can't people separate themselves from like, look, listen, violence is violence.
I don't care who's perpetrating it, and I don't care how extreme they get.
If they're extreme and they're attacking people unprovoked, stop them.
It's not an equivalence.
We can certainly point to some ideologies and say, these are terrifying and evil ideologies.
We can point to others and say, these are misdirected and ill-informed ideologies.
But in the end, what is the result?
Here's the way I describe it.
Antifa is like a blunt object.
They go around beating people, but they're not finishing people off.
But there's a lot of it.
We see a ton of people getting attacked in the streets, over 800 incidents in the past year, or a couple years, I'm sorry, of harassment.
Somebody wants to put on a rally where they wave American flags, they get berated in the media, they get insulted, accused of all the worst things in the book.
I, as someone who believes in left-leaning policy, criticize the far left, and they call me right-wing.
You can see how the game is played.
So, outside of criticism, You have Antiva going around bashing people over the head, okay?
You've got them now escalating to bring a rifle to a federal facility, beating the crap out of Andy Ngo.
So no, they're not killing people, but they're damn close.
And that's bad.
And then you look over at the crazy fringe right-wingers.
And they are killing people.
And that's really bad!
And so, yes, all of it is bad.
Congratulations, you've figured it out.
One doesn't excuse the other in no way.
And you know what I always see?
Whenever something crazy happens, conservatives without a doubt denounce it, call it out, and say no.
Sean King.
And this is the most frustrating thing to me, trying to explain this to people on the left, who are actually willing to engage in a debate, and I'm like, listen man, the Covington kid, standing on a staircase, becomes a viral hit for every left-wing activist, for every major media outlet, and the dude who literally shows up with firebombs and torches a car and nearly burns down a facility full of migrants, nowhere to be seen!
So yeah, there's a media bias.
It's, it's, it's, look, we've seen the charts, we've seen the data, we heard it from Jack Dorsey himself.
Left-wing journalists all follow each other and they don't realize they're oblivious.
They are completely oblivious.
BuzzFeed wrote an article about Andy Ngo, and I laugh, it's like, my favorite analogy is a firetruck on fire.
Like, they don't realize they're describing themselves in the story.
Now the story BuzzFeed did about Andy Ngo, it's not bad, okay?
They talk about how It's not, you know, the violence doesn't come from a vacuum, like Andy has been covering this for a long time, but they go on to say that it's like culture war, battle for attention, and all this stuff, and I'm like, BuzzFeed, do you not have a mirror in your building?
Can you not look in the mirror and see yourselves?
You're literally doing the same thing.
Pot meet kettle.
The story from the same author, Joe Bernstein, I believe his name is, about Soph, the 14-year-old on YouTube, and he says YouTube has only themselves to blame.
Congratulations, you're piling on to clickbait outrage.
Now, don't get me wrong, I do think BuzzFeed News is better than a lot of outlets, and case in point, they published a story on Carpe Donctum, the meme smith that Trump loves, and they didn't reveal his name.
Good for you.
There's no reason.
I don't see what the point of the story is to reveal his name.
They can absolutely talk about the issues without publishing someone's name.
And minimizing harm is important.
I will say, there even is newsworthy grounds to have published Carpe Donctum's name to show the context of who he is and why he's a Trump supporter and why he makes memes.
And they chose not to do it because they wanted to minimize harm.
Absolutely respect that.
Good job, BuzzFeed.
Of course, the Daily Beast finds some dude who posted a video one time and doxxes him.
So BuzzFeed gets credit where credit is due.
But please, stop being oblivious.
You're a part of this game as much as anyone else.
And here's how I always differentiate between what I do and what they do.
First of all, I am deserving of no excuses.
I completely understand.
I make videos talking about things that I care about and express my opinions.
And this absolutely does fuel conflict in the culture war.
And I honestly don't know what to do about it.
I don't, because the way I view myself is probably the way everyone else does.
I fully recognize that.
I talk about what I care about.
I try and call out the BS.
I say, look, left and right are not equal, but they're both bad in terms of extremism.
We can call that out, right?
So I think I'm doing the right thing.
They, of course, think they do too.
But here's the difference.
When it comes to an organization like BuzzFeed, they have formulas for what gets traffic and what works.
They have a bottom line.
They have a boss saying, we need articles that generate traffic to make money.
I don't.
I can make a video yesterday criticizing Trump over the send them back.
And it doesn't do that well, because I talk about what I care about.
And typically, what you see me tweeting is what I make videos about.
As an individual, I talk about my opinions, and that's normal.
As an organization, these big media companies are chasing bucks to back up their bottom line, and we've seen the exposés.
You know, it was something about Mike.com, I believe.
Where they had a formula.
X person does Y, X happens, or something like that.
Where they told people, like, here's how you make rage bait.
So BuzzFeed, as an organization, has to generate money.
They have to make sure they're saying certain things.
And so they go after certain people because they are very much a part of the culture war, if not one of the primary belligerents in it.
To then make a story about Andy Ngo as if he's doing this to, like, you know, as part of an attention economy thing, as though it's unique to him, is so hilarious.
But anyway, this video is a little bit long.
The ultimate point I want to make.
Here's the news.
Because, you know, I always try to open videos with, like, here's, like, important news, and then let's talk about some issues.
I don't think you can stop Antifa.
I really don't.
They'll just call themselves Fa'anti.
You know what I mean?
Oh, it's a different organization.
So what do you do?
Do you make, like, a nebulous catch-all anybody-who-dresses-up-in-all-black?
No, you can't do that.
You can't.
The goal and tactics of Antifa are explicitly to exploit the law to get away with committing crimes.
That's literally it.
Like, in D.C., they all wear black on purpose so that when someone commits a crime, you can't charge everybody.
They're taking advantage of liberal democratic institutions.
No, I don't mean liberal as in left.
I think this needs to be clarified for a lot of people to understand.
Liberal democracy just refers to freedom base, okay?
You can be a liberal on the right in the academic sense, like classical liberal, John Locke, etc., center-right position, freedom, liberty, libertarian.
Liberal democracy just refers to the fact that we respect individuals, we have democratic institutions.
Unfortunately, the left for the longest time has co-opted the term liberal, so now people don't seem to understand.
Liberal is a great thing.
It means you lean towards freedom.
Now libertarians lean really towards freedom, but liberal is like You're on the libertarian spectrum.
You believe in more freedom for the individual, but you recognize there does need to be some governmental institutions, and that's why there's, like, center-left liberal and there's center-right liberal.
But anyway, I don't wanna get into a whole argument about liberal.
The point is...
Antifa, you can call them whatever you want, okay?
And you're not gonna be able to do anything about it.
So I will say I'm glad that we're now seeing people try and take action against them, because yes, white supremacist terror is extremely bad, and we should do everything we can to prevent it and to stop it.
And I would dare say, I shouldn't even have to dare say, we absolutely need to allocate more funding towards stopping these fringe loner weirdos who go out with guns and shoot people.
But in the end, I don't care what their ideology is.
I care if they're violent.
Antifa is low-tier but widespread.
The fringe, wack-a-loon rights are few and far between, but extremely lethal.
Both are bad.
They're not equal.
But both are bad.
Can we please agree on that?
No.
Because the media ignores it, and then you get someone like Sean King who can praise it all day and night.
He's fine.
He's still on Twitter.
His article, calling for terrorism, still on Twitter.
Great.
This is the world we live in.
And final thought.
When I point out, hey guys, terrorism is bad, and we should prevent violence, they say, what's the death count of the left, Tim?
Like, dude, are you seriously gonna argue that because the left hasn't killed enough people, we shouldn't do anything about it?
No, we should stop the violence before it gets bad.
Period.
That's not gonna happen, though, because a smirk warrants a beating, apparently.
Like, Reza Aslan tweeted something about wanting to punch a kid in the face because he was standing on the stairs.
But where is anybody else complaining about a dude throwing firebombs at a facility?
Yeah, nowhere to be seen.
Yeah, well, welcome to America.
This is how the world works.
This is how our country works, I guess.
But so long as there are people like, surprisingly, Ted Cruz and Bill Cassidy, and other people like me and those who are willing to call out the violence, you know, we're not completely lost.
But the moment when we lose all pushback for the extremists is when bad things happen.
Because if we don't push back on Antifa on the far left, they will keep encroaching.
And you see what happens.
You see how we get to the escalation.
The point we're at now is rather terrifying, where a guy shows up to an ICE facility with firebombs, and Sean King's praising it, and no one's doing anything about it.
We need to push back on this and say, you have crossed the line, and you are outside the Overton window.
You're a lunatic!
Otherwise, other people will be emboldened and it will get worse.
Unfortunately, I think it will get worse.
But I'll leave it there.
Stick around.
Next segment coming up at 4 p.m.
YouTube.com slash Timcast.
That's the main channel for those on the podcast.
Obviously, the order is inverted, but stick around and I will see you all in the next segment.
Controversy has erupted over Miss Michigan being stripped of her title due to racist tweets.
It's a complicated issue, but it's something we could probably expect.
And it's more complicated than just saying she was fired or stripped because of racist tweets.
I think at its core, the story has to do with general PR and how the left dominates marketing.
So I want to stress, there was a study I went over a while ago that shows marketing campaigns exist in the same sphere online as the resistance.
When you realize that and see that data, you know then.
It doesn't matter what your politics are, it matters if they think you're bad.
And if marketing companies and PR firms are in the same bracket as the resistance, they look at you as fringe and out of touch.
So, to understand what's actually going on, let's read the story, and I want to break this down because I want to push back on some of the false narratives from both sides.
Well, mostly, you know, you've got a lot of victimhood happening right now over this firing, but let's break it down.
Before we get started, head over to TimCast.com slash donate if you'd like to support my work.
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Let's read on.
Donald Trump's supporting model, Cathy Xu, stripped of Miss Michigan title over racist tweets.
A Donald Trump supporting model and activist has been stripped of her title for posting racist tweets and refusing to try on a hijab.
Now I think the hijab thing might be hyperbole, but we'll read the story and we'll talk about it anyway.
A Donald Trump-supporting model – how many times are they going to say that?
Don't you hate it when news stories do that?
From news.com.au, let's skip the nonsense.
Kathy Xu, 20, a University of Michigan student who has more than 70,000 followers across Instagram and Twitter, where she goes by the handle PoliticalKathy, is a prominent online conservative and is the vice chair of her campus Republican student group.
Zhu, who was born in China and immigrated to the US when she was 5, first gained internet fame during the 2016 election campaign.
In 2018, she sparked controversy after posting about a quote, try a hijab, what is this?
Let's open this.
Try a hijab event at the University of Central Florida, and later that year announced she was transferring to Michigan.
So we have a tweet here from July says my message while as Miss Michigan is to advocate for speaking your truth especially in today's political climate.
We are quick to attack each other based on perceptions and stereotypes.
It's time we take a step back and realize that our diversity of thought is what makes America strong.
Earlier this week, she was named as 2019 National Finalist by Miss Indiana and Miss Michigan World America, the first phase of the competition before the Miss and Teen World America Preliminary and Finals in Las Vegas in October.
In a Twitter post on Thursday, Zoo said she had been stripped of her Miss Michigan title, quote, due to my refusal to try on a hijab in 2018, my tweet about black-on-black gun violence, and insensitive statistical tweets.
One of her earlier tweets in question asked if she was asking people if they knew the majority of black deaths are caused by other blacks.
She said, fix the problem with your own community first before blaming others.
I want to point this out real quick too.
The post itself is not racist.
It's statistically true.
I also want to point out Black Lives Matter activists have absolutely highlighted this.
I've interviewed them in Chicago.
And I think it's important to point out, depending on what you look at in the news, you might think it is or isn't being talked about.
And that's one of the big challenges.
I'd imagine that Kathy Xu is looking at activists like Sean King, who is a provocateur, you know, a terrorist, empathizer, encourager.
He's a terrible, terrible person.
And it's unfortunate that the squeaky wheels get the grease.
People like Sean King are not the barometer of what Black Lives Matter should or shouldn't be doing.
Unfortunately, the media props him up.
It's unfortunate that they prop up grifters like him who then advocate for terror.
Because I've interviewed the actual people in Chicago who absolutely have black-on-black violence as their number one priority.
But just because that problem exists doesn't mean other problems don't exist.
And I think that's important to point out.
I will also stress, it is absolutely within Cathy Xu's right to point this out too.
And I'm sure her criticism is specifically targeting people like Sean King.
But let's read on.
So she posted these two emails.
Let me, I believe I have her tweets opened up.
We'll jump over to them in a second.
Xu shared a screenshot from an email from Miss World America, Michigan, State Director Lori DeJack stating she had accused me of being racist, Islamophobic, and insensitive.
Miss DeJack wrote in the email, It has been brought to the attention of Miss World America that your social media accounts contain offensive, insensitive, and inappropriate content, and in violation of WMA's rules and conditions, specifically, the contestant requirement of being of good character and whose background is not likely to bring into disrepute Miss World America or any person associated with the organization.
That's the point that needs to be brought up.
I do not believe the issue—hold on, let me say this.
It's complicated, right?
It's not that the people running the show are politically biased and that they don't like conservatives.
It's that marketing itself is, and they're going to default to where they think marketing is.
So it's very obvious when you look at all of the corporate pride logos, right?
We had Pride Month, right?
All of a sudden, every logo for every company is a rainbow.
When I see that, I just assume you're full of it, you don't actually care about anyone's rights, and you're trying to make money.
So please, corporations, don't do that.
But whatever, fine, if people like it, I don't know, I just think they're lying.
And I would actually agree with Lauren Duca on this one, who is a progressive, that it's, I believe they call it rainbow washing or pink washing or corporate, what do they call it, rainbow corporatism or something like that.
They don't actually care about these issues.
They just want to make money.
But the important point is, that's where marketing is.
Right?
So there was this graph I looked at that mapped out Twitter, and you can see like Democrat, Republican, then you had the resistance, which is like on the far left of the Democrats, and brand marketing was in that same spectrum.
So what that says to me is, Two things.
Either the people who run marketing campaigns, who would believe that saying these things would bring disrepute to Miss America, are either aligned with or believe that mainstream America holds these views.
Right?
So if you look at cable, if you look at late night television, I don't believe these networks are holding these views, like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel.
I don't think they say things about Trump because they think that they personally hold similar views.
They certainly do, to an extent.
I think, for the most part, they assume everybody must hate the president.
Because they live in a bubble.
So these brand marketing people live in New York.
They're in a bubble.
They then assume everybody likes these things.
They don't.
They then put, like, look what happened with Gillette.
Gillette does that, well, commercial backlash!
Surprise!
And then, you know, people want to argue it did or didn't help.
It doesn't matter if it helped or not.
It was a massive backlash.
Nike did the thing with Kaepernick.
And then immediately everyone goes, oh, look, the stock's up.
Like, yeah, the stock's going to go up no matter what.
It's a massive global brand.
But brand recognition went down.
Let's read on.
She added, Therefore, and effective immediately, WMA does not recognize you as a participant of any sort or in any capacity as it relates to any and all the events of MWA.
Furthermore, let this communication serve as official notice to remove any mention of yourself as a participant in MWA from all social media platforms, including photographs of you wearing the MWA Michigan sash and or crown, and any text claiming to be a participant of MWA events.
What they don't seem to realize is that in trying to avoid the controversy, they made the controversy happen.
But I guess maybe that's what they want to happen.
So Catherine Zhu is a model.
Of course, she is very attractive.
You can tell in these beautiful photos they have of her on this website.
And here she is wearing her maga cap.
They go on to show a bunch of beautiful photos of this woman.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
I'm not sure if it's entirely relevant for the story, but at least one or two photos, I suppose.
In her email reply, Zoo wrote, Statistics and facts are not always pleasant.
It's disgusting how you would rather lie to the public's face than be supportive of someone that is trying to make a difference by talking about subjects that no one dares say.
Referring to the hijab incident, she added, that a Muslim woman tried to forcibly put a hijab on my head without my permission.
What's insensitive is that women in the Middle East are getting stoned to death for refusing to obey their husband's orders to wear hijabs.
I tweeted about it on social media.
Almost everyone was supportive of me refusing to be put in that situation.
Are the people in MWA implying that they advocate for the punishment of women who refuse to wear a hijab?
That's hyperbolic, okay?
Let's break this down to what's happening.
Marketing companies are in bubbles.
They look at her and say, oh, that's not what Americans want, because they think their ivory tower opinions reflect all of America.
I was talking to some folks, I'm not going to name them, but their personalities in media, and they said, in Europe, it was like 2015, they were in Europe, and they were hearing all this press, and they assumed everybody hated Trump, and it was so weird that he won the Republican nomination.
Then they come back to the U.S.
and they go to North Carolina and all they see are Trump signs everywhere.
And they went, wait a minute.
The media's gotta be wrong on this one.
And immediately started predicting Trump is gonna win.
And this was, you know, and then he went to win.
And the point was, the media people who do PR, who do news, live in a bubble and they have no idea.
I don't believe they're removing her because she refused to wear a hijab.
I don't believe it's political at all.
I believe they're a PR firm, there was a PR firm advising the company saying, oh, that stuff, that's far right.
We read the New York Times, we read BuzzFeed, we read Vox.
And then there you have it.
When in reality, nobody really cared.
There was no controversy.
She's just another conservative putting her opinion on the internet.
But here you have it.
The culture war is a dangerous beast.
There's no middle anymore.
There's just none.
Like, we know that centrism exists.
People like me exist.
Not a fan of Trump.
Leaning policy-wise towards the left.
Don't have Trump derangement syndrome.
Kind of think Trump has done some good things.
Like, centrism!
You know, there you go.
Boom.
I'm right here.
What does the media say?
Right wing.
Because they've just gotten rid of whatever platform there was to actually be in the middle and have a conversation about these things.
So you're either with us or you're against us.
That's the mentality.
This is why I believe she's being removed.
Obviously, politics plays a role in this.
The point I'm trying to make is, I'm sure they don't actually care.
I'm sure they're just like, uh oh, people are gonna panic, we better get rid of her.
And then they do.
And thus they've created the controversy.
Congratulations!
You've made the controversy you're trying to avoid, but whatever.
Music video director Robbie Starbuck added, apparently you can't even participate in Miss World LTD pageant if you're, gasp, openly Republican.
What a sorry bunch of bigots.
Political Kathy, you're still Miss Michigan to anyone with a functional frontal lobe in their brain.
Stick around, more segments to come in a few minutes, and I will see you shortly.
Did Ilhan Omar marry her brother to expedite the green card process, cutting it down from 10 years to 3?
I don't know.
I will say that a lot of people have talked about it.
I normally wouldn't give any credence to stories like this, until the Star Tribune reported it.
We have this story from the Daily Beast, how the Ilhan Omar marriage smear went from fever swamp to Trump.
The curious journey of the unproven rumor that Omar married her brother to get him citizenship from an obscure Somali diaspora forum to the president.
Here's the thing.
The Star Tribune, a mainstream paper with, I believe, over 100 years in print, said,
new investigative documents released by a state agency have given fresh life to lingering questions
about the marital history of Ilhan Omar and whether she once married a man, possibly her own brother,
to skirt immigration laws. Here's the thing. According to the Daily Mail,
Ilhan Omar and the guy she married have a father with the same name.
And thus, it's not just a rumor.
Okay, so here's what happens.
On some message board, someone posts a rumor, it gets picked up, people investigate, they find weird discrepancies and issues, potential perjury.
In the end, where do we land?
Star Tribune says it's possible At the very least, she committed a, you know, she, she, uh, not, not tax fraud.
People are saying tax fraud.
No.
Uh, she misfiled her taxes.
So I don't know exactly what they're calling it.
Like fraud, I believe it's the intent to deceive.
But she incorrectly filed her taxes, had to pay a fine.
She then got in trouble for using campaign money, I believe, to pay that fine.
But long story short, the rumor has traveled from some blogs on the internet all the way to the Star Tribune saying, it's possible.
Stop.
If we're at the point where it is possible, and the Star Treatment is saying so, we are not in conspiracy theory land.
We are in unverified, you know, unconfirmed reporting territory, or potential needs investigating territory.
So, the way I see it is, perhaps there should be an investigation.
Now, there has been.
Unfortunately, you're not going to be able to prove a lot of this, and there's a lot of good reasons, good things to bring up as to why It may not be true.
Because keep this in mind.
We can see something like, you know, Ilhan and this guy having the same father.
You can also consider that just because, you know, two people were raised in the same household doesn't mean they're blood relatives.
It's complicated, but I do have some updates that we can go through.
First, let's take a look at the Daily Beast, and I'm gonna push back.
I'm gonna try and push back on everybody, but the Daily... First, I'd like to point out, the Daily Beast has published an opinion piece.
This is an opinion piece.
It's not labeled.
They do this all the time.
Right, if you're gonna do an opinion, label it opinion.
But let me see what NewsGuard says.
NewsGuard claims they handle the difference between news and opinion responsibly.
I'm gonna go ahead and say no.
Will Summers is obviously an activist.
He called me right-wing.
It's just meant to be an insult.
He knows I'm not right-wing.
He doesn't care.
He's an activist.
He's writing an opinion column.
That's what he does.
And the Daily Beast has published numerous completely fabricated stories.
Plain and simple.
He writes, When Donald Trump suggested on Wednesday that Rep.
Ilhan Omar once married her own brother in an immigration fraud scheme, he demonstrated the remarkable degree to which even the most far-off corners of the right-wing internet can launch unproven, anonymous claims into the national political discourse.
Stop.
Will is wrong.
Trump was asked, to which he even says, by someone from One America News.
Trump didn't say she did.
He said that that's what he heard.
There's a lot of talk about the fact she was married to her brother.
Not his claim.
He was asked about it.
He says, I don't know a lot about it.
Someone will look into it.
And now he's attributing it to Trump.
I'd also like to point out that while the Star Tribune doesn't say definitively she did, it's not the far reaches of the right.
It is a mainstream, liberal newspaper.
And that's when I reported on this.
A NewsGuard-verified, long-standing paper certified across the board said, it's possible she married her own brother.
And there's some weird discrepancies here.
And I said, whoa, perhaps we should dig into this and figure out if it's true or not, if you're going to claim it's possible.
But what does the Daily Beast do?
They get a left-wing activist to publish an opinion piece about how it's not true.
Congratulations, the Daily Beast.
And you know what?
Shame on you, news guard.
I get it.
The Daily Beast does publish a lot of fine news.
Like, it's fine.
But at some point, you've got to say they are weaponizing fake news for money.
And when is someone going to call them out?
Summer writes, The remarks were the first Trump had ever uttered on Omar's marriage, and they represented a remarkable if not depressing capstone for the unproven rumor, which has gained steam in the fever swamps for three years as Omar became one of the country's most outspoken and controversial lawmakers.
The claim that Omar married her own brother as a way for him to gain a green card has been embraced by a number of conservative pundits.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it.
Omar, who didn't respond to requests for comment, has denied that her ex-husband is her brother.
Period.
And for good reason.
Get yourself a copy editor, and that's an opinion.
What many of the Smear's promoters never reveal to their audience is both the evidence Omar has provided to disprove their conspiracies, and the fact that the completely unproven idea that she married her brother is based entirely on a single anonymous unsourced allegation, initially made in obscure internet form, and that last bit is true.
However, since then there's been a lot of strange and corroborating information, at the very least.
Okay, so look.
Proving that she married her brother is very, very difficult and might not even be true.
It's a far-fetched idea.
And the way I see it is, back off the claim, and I can only point to the Star Tribune, because it makes it harder to actually go after immigration fraud.
Think about it this way.
I was in a conversation with another journalist about this, and he said, You know, refugee documents are often, you know, screwed up.
They get mixed up, you know, when coming to the U.S.
And you can't just claim they're brother and sister.
Maybe they were raised by the same guy.
They might not be related.
And I'm like, okay, fine.
They might not be related.
They may have had the same, you know, person raising them.
Would that not still, you know, provide circumstantial evidence that she may have committed immigration fraud?
Like, you grew up in a household with someone, he's, you know, and this guy, mind you, referred to her daughters as his nieces, and they try to make all sorts of excuses for this!
It's so weird!
It's like, dude, I think it was Wesley Lowry on Twitter who said something like, so it's his ex-wife's kids, so he said nieces because he doesn't want to say his daughter.
My ex-wife's kids?
I don't know.
I think it's really weird if you would ever refer to someone as a niece.
It's awfully specific.
Sounds like they're related, and there's a bunch of evidence showing Ilana Omar has referred to specific individuals as her sister.
And these individuals have referred to Elon's ex-husband as their brother.
And so, once again, you have this narrative bubbling up.
But I do want to stress, people refer to their friends as sisters and brothers all the time.
The problem is, you need to go back and find documents from Somalia or from the UK and actually corroborate this stuff.
And people may be doing it.
It's fine.
Where I'm at on this is, the Star Tribune has covered it.
They said it's a possibility.
We are not in fringe, wacko, internet, conspiracy territory, Will Summer.
You are incorrect.
Although it was originally from an allegation made in an obscure forum, someone dug into it, and now you have mainstream newspapers presenting this.
That doesn't mean it's true.
And in fact, I lean toward it's likely not true.
Let's make that clear.
Likely not true.
But she may have done something wrong, at least in the sense of perjury.
So here's the bigger issue.
Whether or not she actually married her brother, I don't care.
It's silly.
It's a silly thing to bring up because it's just a character smear.
But she did file paperwork saying she didn't have contact with him.
Now things get tricky.
Because they have many friends in common, some family members.
They have a father of the same name, maybe it's a different person, maybe it's one man who raised them both.
Regardless, she claimed she couldn't get in touch with him and she wanted to file, I think it's called like divorce and absentia or something, I don't know, basically stating that you can't contact this person, you have no idea where they are, so you have no choice but to just file this.
And under penalty of perjury, you claim you can't contact them.
However, her sister, according to, like, Star Tribune and others, was presumed to be in contact over social media.
Or at least there's evidence to suggest they were.
In which case, we are not in conspiracy territory.
We are in, did Elon perjure herself?
And is there evidence to prove that she may have?
Perhaps someone should investigate that.
If the Star Tribune and even Snopes are saying it's possible, then maybe we should actually look into it.
You know, I heard a great quote from a journalist at a university, who I won't name, who said, a good journalist starts as a conspiracy theorist, because any good story needs to be proven.
And they were explaining to me that when you think about all of these big stories, like Watergate, for instance, it's a conspiracy!
Oh, did this happen?
I don't know.
And so a journalist has this idea, like, hey man, this may have happened.
You investigate it, and then determine whether or not it was true or not.
Can you confirm it?
No.
Move on.
You now have liberal activists, well I shouldn't say liberal, Will Summers is not a liberal, he's a regressive activist, he's a left-wing activist, trying to shut down an investigation.
By all means, criticize the most fervent of the community, but what are you doing?
This is not journalism.
And this is what the Daily Beast does, they're a trash rag, and this is why I'm working on a fact-checking organization, because this would be a strike, straight up.
This is an opinion piece, not labeled as an opinion piece.
End of story.
It would just be stricken.
Like, no.
It's not listed as a column.
It's not listed as an op-ed.
It's listed as a fact-based news story trying to debunk something, and it's a complete and utter waste of time.
Listen.
I can't stand conspiracy theories.
Because when you push them, you actually make it harder to find the truth.
If you believe she married her brother, you don't start with that claim.
You start with, did she lie on her divorce forms?
You start with, are her taxes improperly filed?
And you move on from there and keep digging.
And that's what the Star Tribune has done.
The story they're looking at, they presented on June 23rd, was that her taxes were filed incorrectly, and then she illegally used campaign funds to pay the fine, and she got fined for that again.
It's not jail time, it's a slap on the wrist.
If they can prove she willfully did it, then it's a bigger crime, but probably not.
End of story.
But from here, we continue the investigation.
So, it's no surprise we're seeing all these left-wing journalists saying, how dare you smear Ilhan Omar?
And then you see a bunch of people on the right saying, we have evidence, it's true.
Okay, fine, none of it matters.
Okay, present your evidence, publish it, Washington Examiner, with photos.
And they do have a story, I'm not trying to act like they don't.
They have a story that says there is evidence.
Fine.
Get confirmation and let's be done with it.
It's absurd to me that, you know, when I was going to go to Sweden back in 2017, I had people I worked with saying, don't do it, Tim.
Don't go do journalism.
Why would I not go and investigate this stuff?
These people are not journalists.
They're activists and they're stopping journalism from getting done.
I can't stand this stuff.
Anyway, I got one more story coming up for you in a few minutes.
Stick around and I will see you shortly.
As the graphs have shown, in the New York Times, in Pew, in Gallup, in Quartz, in The Economist, how many graphs do I gotta pull up for you?
The Democrats are shooting so far to the left, they're leaving Americans behind.
People like me, people like Dave Rubin, people who used to have no problem being like, go Democrats, now going, what the hell is happening?
Well, I can certainly find solace that there are Democrats like Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang.
Of course, they're not going to win.
They're polling really low, and they're being smeared as the alt-right Democrats.
And even Tulsi Gabbard was called conservative!
What world do we live in?
I have no idea, because she is certainly on the left.
But now we have this story from the New York Times.
In fact, there was another story about Kyrsten Sinema agreeing with Republicans on deportations.
I don't have the full gist of the story here, so go look for yourself.
But she's a Democrat.
We can see that when it comes to what Americans actually want, they're not far left.
Yet on the debate stage, they are petitioning the activist base of their party.
All they're doing is setting themselves up to lose in 2020 against Trump.
Trump knows it.
He's playing the media like a fiddle.
What did someone say?
Trump just played everybody like a country fiddle.
Something like that.
It was funny.
Anyway, let's read this story.
Before we get started, head over to TimCast.com slash donate if you want to support my work.
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But of course, the best thing you can do, share this video, because YouTube has deranked independent political commentary.
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And if you hate me, just comment and let me know why.
Let's read the news.
The New York Times reports.
After claiming governorships from Republicans in seven states last year, including in crucial presidential battlegrounds like Wisconsin and Michigan, Democratic governors should have good reason to celebrate.
But there was as much anxiety as optimism when the governors gathered for their annual fundraising retreat on Nantucket last weekend and grappled with why a party that won with a pragmatic message in 2018 is now veering sharply to the left.
Some governors are alarmed that their party's presidential candidates are embracing policies they see as unrealistic and politically risky.
And they're especially concerned about proposals that would eliminate private health insurance.
They're committing political suicide.
I don't think that's good policy or good politics, said Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association.
I think it scares people, added Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico.
Let me just stress, on the debate stage, when they said they'd give government healthcare to illegal immigrants, that was it.
I really do feel like that was it.
The people- Listen, if you want to campaign on behalf of illegal immigrants, you're free to do so, but they can't vote.
Okay?
So who are you- It's like- It reminds me of- You ever see that episode of South Park?
Where all the hippies are coming to South Park?
And the city's all excited because they're like, ooh, this festival will bring in a ton of money.
And then Cartman goes, hippies don't have money!
That's what it reminds me of.
Like, you're doing all of this, this big dog and pony show for people who can't vote for you.
So what do you think's gonna happen then when you're campaigning, like, literally, Beto O'Rourke campaigning in Mexico, and Cory Booker actually walking illegal immigrants with them through the border?
I'm just like, you guys, you've lost the plot.
You've lost it.
Yeah, let's read on.
They say the comments were a striking criticism of the direction the Democratic Party is headed, as progressive candidates have pulled the field to the left at a moment when President Trump and Republicans are eager to paint them as extreme.
We cannot become the party of the checklist, said Ms.
Raimondo, alluding to litmus tests on cultural flashpoints.
She urged the 2020 hopefuls to resist proving their liberal credentials on every issue, and instead focus on economic security for everyday Americans.
I have family.
I'm sure you do.
Do you know what's on their mind for the most part?
Health care.
Immigration is not a number one issue.
Health care is.
I think then education and then immigration.
But I'll tell you this.
Go to, you've got two things to say.
Go to a regular family, I don't care where they live.
Find a family, go to them and say, we'd like to do two things.
Abolish your private health insurance, and then give health care to illegal immigrants.
And see how they react.
They're gonna be like, wait, what?
You're gonna take my health care away?
And then give free health, that's insane!
I could rag on that forever.
Let's read on.
The governor's angst offers cautionary signs for the party.
They are often the best-known elected officials in their states and usually are the de facto head of their state parties, which means they wield considerable political clout.
And with many of the governors having been on the ballot last year, they also possess a grasp of what the general electorate wants from Democrats.
Think about this.
They win, right?
Some Democratic governors, they won.
Congratulations!
Congratulations.
They know their state better than the national, far-left, woke Democrats.
There's two things to worry about.
The Democrats who don't want to listen to these governors?
You're in for a rude awakening.
They know better than you.
More importantly, when it comes to campaigning, let's say Kamala Harris wins the nomination, right?
And she puts on all this far-left identitarian nonsense throughout the debates.
Now it's branded with her.
They show up in Rhode Island, and Raimondo's gonna have to say, do you endorse her or not?
And if they do endorse these woke identitarians, they won't get re-elected.
Their constituents are going to say, you're endorsing this?
I don't want to pay for healthcare for people who aren't citizens.
I don't want to lose my private insurance.
A lot of people are happy with their insurance.
Not everybody.
We need to do better.
I get it.
Look, I'll say this too.
I absolutely think universal healthcare would be phenomenal.
Can we get there?
That's the question.
And the answer is not quickly.
It's a sad reality.
It doesn't mean we don't fight for it.
It means we're not going to go on stage and say, let's abolish everyone's private health insurance and then just roll out a $60 trillion healthcare plan that makes no sense.
We've got to figure out where we are and how to transform the system in a better way.
But they go up and they speak on platitudes and nonsense and they're just pandering.
Healthcare for everybody!
Even undocumented immigrants!
Look, I get it.
It sounds great.
I want to help people too.
But resources are finite.
It was actually floated, I could be wrong about this, by Ocasio-Cortez, that we just print more money when we want to pay for healthcare.
Just do it!
Yes, that's the Venezuela model.
Just print more money.
And then once that money is inflated beyond our recognition, we get rid of it and create a new thing called the strong dollar.
That's literally what they did in Venezuela.
It doesn't work.
It just causes economic collapse.
It is straight up authoritarianism.
The difference between what Venezuela's doing, Versus like, well actually, Venezuela's doing both authoritarianism and manipulative authoritarianism.
The point I'm trying to make is, manipulating money is a way to maintain control.
And they get criticized for quantitative easing, etc.
It's complicated, I get it.
You can control the currency by manipulating it, by printing your own and spending it, and devaluing and inflating the currency so it hurts other people, and it's a way to maintain control and maintain your spending power.
It's problematic.
It doesn't work.
So, let's keep reading.
Most of the officials have yet to support any White House contender, and have largely avoided intervening in their party's primary.
But in the aftermath of last month's debates, when a number of candidates, for instance, favored decriminalizing illegal border crossings and offering federal benefits for undocumented migrants, the governors are taking their pleas public.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who won last year with a mantra of fix the damn roads, recalled the show of hands moment in the first presidential debates, which she said illustrated the party's shift left, but were so terse as to offer no context or explanation about the candidates' positions.
Raising hands and not really talking about the fundamentals is counterproductive to the average voter who really wants solutions.
Ms.
Whitmer noted that at one event on Nantucket, the Democratic strategist James Carville said the candidates should have responded to the raise-your-hand questions with a middle finger.
The American people deserve more, they deserve better, Whitmer said.
The governor's discomfort illustrates a larger tension among Democrats.
Many party elites view 2018 as the obvious model for 2020 success.
Democrats won governorships and claimed 40 House seats last year by emphasizing poll-tested, broadly popular issues and averting their gaze from Mr. Trump's provocations.
Why hand an unpopular, deeply vulnerable incumbent the fodder he craves, they ask?
You can't go out and say, we can't let poor people through our borders because there's too many, and then go to debate stage and say, but let's give them all healthcare.
It makes no sense.
And Yang did it too, so he deserves criticism.
It's mind-blowing to me that when I pointed out Trump was manipulating everybody, he's distracting everybody, I actually got criticism from left-wing activists on Twitter like, oh, Tim's sniffing his own farts.
It's like, dude, you guys are oblivious.
They're like, they're morons chuckling in the corner, high-fiving each other, thinking they're going to win.
It's just like, it's Tweedledee and Tweedledum laughing around, dancing around about how they're winning.
They're insulting each other with an identitarian nonsense.
The Democratic governors are panicking, saying, what are you doing?
Stop doing this.
It is all chaos on the left.
And when I point that out, what happens?
Tim must be a right-wing commentator.
Well, I'll tell you this.
I certainly do not like the Democrats.
I've never liked the Republicans.
But I'm especially angry with Democrats, and I point the finger at them because they're supposed to be the ones who are winning and fighting on the behalf of those of us on the left.
They don't.
The story continues, saying, To progressive activists and some leaders in the party's liberal wing, vowing to protect the health care of individuals with pre-existing conditions and other incremental proposals are vastly insufficient at a time of soaring economic inequality and racial demagoguery emanating from the White House.
No issue may better illustrate the Democratic schism than healthcare, which was central to their gains last year, but which has cleaved the presidential primary field.
Progressive candidates like Sanders and Warren have called for Medicare for All, in which private health insurance would be eliminated and taxes would be raised.
Others, like Biden, want to build on the Affordable Care Act, and Kamala Harris has signed onto Medicare for All but voiced opposition to tax increases.
Well, look, you get the point.
That's where the conclusion is.
I usually keep these segments a little bit short.
They end by saying, if we're all about this rhetoric of big ideas and not focused on getting results and building the biggest tent possible for the Democratic Party, we're going to pay consequences for that.
Ms.
Winter put it more diplomatically, but pointedly reminded the presidential contenders that the road to the White House comes through the Midwest.
She said they should be mindful of how she and other governors in the region won last year.
