Democrats Have Started ABANDONING Impeachment, Even Adam Schiff Says He Is Not Sure
Democrats have Started ABANDONING Impeachment, Even Adam Schiff Says He Is Not Sure. A Democrat in a safe blue district has stated that they are not sure about impeachment being of value and that the election is too close.Two democrats had already broken ranks and voted against the impeachment inquiry but these are Trump district Democrats. Now we have a safe blue Democrat joining in.But the most surprising thing is that even Adam Schiff has said the he wants to talk to his constituents before deciding on whether to vote to impeach Trump.This seems like an insane departure from the rhetoric he has been espousing about Trump doing wrong. But after the public impeachment hearings it seems there is no evidence to support an impeachment and it has only backfired on the Democrats.
Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Democrats are starting to break ranks on impeachment, and some even outright abandon it.
The shocking thing is that even Adam Schiff, who is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who is leading the inquiry, now says, well, the evidence isn't contested, but I'm going to talk to my constituents first.
Now you should realize, the Democrats were not entirely on board with this from the get-go.
Moderate Democrats were scared, and rightly so, and even two Democrats, who are more moderate conservative Democrats, rejected the impeachment inquiry vote.
Well, as we've seen over the past several weeks, impeachment has backfired miserably.
Polls are showing opposition.
Moderate voters are not happy.
Independent voters, opposition is skyrocketing and now they are feeling the heat.
And guess what?
You even have Washington Post and on CNN, a reporter saying, Democrats are getting worried.
Now the dam is broken.
House Democrat now sees no value in impeachment as polls show falling support among independents.
You know what?
I predicted this.
I did for a long time.
You know, actually for the past couple of weeks, I've been saying I think they're going to impeach.
I don't think they're going to impeach anymore.
Let me tell you what's going to happen.
At first, we all thought they would impeach simply because they controlled the House and they've wanted to.
But upon seeing the polls, and with the risk of going to the Senate and having Joe and Hunter Biden on trial and all the Democratic 2020 contenders forced to sit as jurors, I thought there's no way they'll impeach because they'll be giving the Republicans all of the control.
What they're going to do is run the impeachment hearings, get as much negative press as possible, and then at the last minute say, After thinking about it, we believe it's destructive, a bit too divisive, and we would like the American people to decide.
That's what, over the past few days, that's where my mind has been going.
If you watch my other videos, you'd have heard me saying, I don't know if they're actually going to impeach anymore.
And now it seems this is what's going to happen.
We're going to see a bunch of Democrats break ranks.
They're going to start saying, you know, and guess what this, this, this one house Democrat is saying.
Well, the election's so close.
And there it is.
Now, what really surprised me was Adam Schiff coming out and saying, well, let me talk to my constituents first.
Oh, there it is.
Dude, you led the charge.
You claimed you had evidence of collusion in Russia.
You keep talking about all the wrongdoing Trump is doing, and now you're not sure?
What was all of this for?
You know what, man?
This plan was miserable, and it's going to backfire worse than anyone could have possibly imagined.
I bet they were thinking, we can dance around the edge of impeachment, get all the bad press, and then walk it back, and no one would care.
No, they're going to care.
They are.
Seriously, let's read the story, and I want to actually walk through with you the unfortunate ramifications for the Democrats who imposed impeachment.
See, one of the Democrats, Jeff Van Dwyer, I think his name is.
I have the article about him.
He actually represents New Jersey's 2nd District, which is basically across the street from me.
And I feel bad now they're coming for him because he did the right thing.
But in the end, maybe he will be vindicated when all these other Democrats back out and he says, I told you.
And then everyone's going to be like, yeah, OK, I guess.
But let's start with the story and see why this House Democrat is backing down.
The dam has broken.
Democrats are reversing course.
Before we get started, head over to timcast.com slash donate if you would like to support my work.
There's numerous ways you can give, but the best thing you can do is share this video.
Because, I guess as someone put it, you know, I was talking about how I hated the impeachment stuff, and someone messaged me saying, yeah, but the problem is, The majority of the narrative right now is ignoring the facts.
You know, CNN, they don't want to talk about Democrats breaking ranks.
They don't want to talk about the fact that Trump's approval is up, that independents are opposing this.
They just keep pushing this fake news narrative, so we need people talking about it.
And you know what?
Fine.
That's actually a good reason to make sure I keep up on what's going on with impeachment.
And if you agree, sharing this video is the best way to help.
Let's read the story.
Fox News reports, Michigan Democratic Rep.
Brenda Lawrence, a prominent supporter of Kamala Harris who has previously supported the impeachment inquiry into Trump, abruptly announced Sunday that she no longer saw any value in the process and called for her fellow Democrats to throw their support behind a symbolic censure resolution.
Oh, there it is.
Lawrence's about-face came as polls have shown that independents are souring on the idea of impeaching and removing Trump from office, including in critical battleground states like Wisconsin, even as House Democrats aggressively presented their focus group-tested bribery case against the president over the past two weeks.
It all keeps backfiring.
I could seriously make 50 videos in one day about every single thing that has backfired on the Democrats' plans.
What did they think?
They were going to do impeachment, but then they would just walk it back if it failed?
No!
You bet on the wrong horse!
We are so close to an election.
Oh, there it is.
Lawrence said Sunday on a Michigan radio program, noting that Trump stands little chance of being convicted by the GOP-controlled Senate.
I've been saying this!
We've all been saying this.
I will tell you, sitting here knowing how divided this country is, I don't see the value of taking him out of office, but I do see the value of putting down a marker saying his behavior is not acceptable.
It's in violation of the oath of office of a president of the United States, and we have to be clear that you cannot use your power of the presidency to withhold funds to get a foreign country to investigate an American citizen for your own personal gain.
There's no way around it.
No, no, no, no.
That narrative is hardcore impeachable, but not provable.
That's the problem.
So they want to maintain the narrative, but say, you know, we're so close to an election here.
My prediction is that Too many Democrats, the moderates, are going to back down and say, we needed to do the inquiry to get the evidence.
You have to understand, if there's a claim, we need to investigate.
And now that we've gone through it, we think there's just insufficient evidence to impeach the president at this time.
That's my bet.
We'll see what happens.
I don't think I'm a psychic or anything, but let's see what happens.
That's my bet right now.
Lawrence continued, I want him to be censured. I want it on the record that the House of
Representatives did their job and they told this president and any president coming behind him,
that this is unacceptable behavior and under our constitution, we will not allow it.
I am a Democrat, but I'm an independent United States of America citizen.
Lawrence occupies a safely Democratic district that includes Eastern Detroit,
and a reluctance to move forward with impeachment suggested that moderate Democrats in swing
districts may be also getting cold feet now that all scheduled hearings in the probe
wrapped up last week.
No evidence!
All circumstantial, all opinion, and if you turn on MSNBC and CNN, they're gonna be like, people are just ignoring reality.
Yeah, tell all of the independents they're ignoring reality.
Sorry.
You are on the losing side of this argument.
Now, that doesn't mean that Trump is right.
It just means that what you've presented was a waste of time and was insufficient.
They say that recent... And I'll add too, she's in a safe Democratic district.
She has no reason to come out against impeachment.
She has every reason to stay on board with impeachment.
But if even the safe Democratic districts are saying enough, no, the dam is broken.
And I believe it is going to start tumbling down.
Recent surveys indicate that even Democratic voters are losing interest in impeachment.
Meanwhile, 50% of independents questioned in an NPR-PBS-Marist poll conducted Nov.
11-15 did not support impeaching and removing Trump from office, with just 42% backing such a move.
That's a noticeable dip in support compared to the previous poll, Conducted the first week of October.
I believe that's what, the fifth poll now this month?
Showing that independent voters are like, no dice.
We get it.
Democrats, you don't like Trump.
But if the Democrats want to win, you gotta convince moderates and people like me that what you're doing makes sense.
And this is why I will say it for the millionth time.
You all made a mistake.
You made a huge mistake.
And now we have this.
Schiff says he wants to speak with constituents before deciding on impeachment.
Oh!
Really?
But weren't you so sure?
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said on Sunday that the facts in the impeachment inquiry are not contested, but that he has not yet personally decided where he stands in terms of supporting the impeachment of President Trump.
Please.
Please.
No.
No, no, no.
You are the impeachment cheerleader.
You made this happen.
You set the rules.
You blocked witnesses.
And now you're not sure anymore?
Okay.
What a stupid game.
I cannot stand these people and the manipulation and the fake trash they put in front of the American people.
Could they be voting on bills that matter?
Could they be negotiating and even arguing and debating fiercely real issues?
Yes.
Instead, what do we get?
We must impeach the president!
And then, well, I'm not really sure.
So here's what ends up happening.
He told Schiff he was going to talk to his constituents.
But, you know, I feel bad for the moderate Democrats, because they're getting roasted.
I mean, one of the guys, I believe, what is his name?
Colin Peterson of Minnesota.
And Jeff Van Drew, I got his name wrong.
Jeff Van Drew and Colin Peterson.
Colin Peterson's a conservative Democrat.
He's pretty conservative.
But now Republicans are going to try and take him out.
Because of impeachment, it's going to work against them.
Fortunately, they made the right move.
Both Jeff Van Drew and Colin Peterson, by rejecting the impeachment, look like they're going to be on the right side of history on this one.
And the Democratic plan to do whatever they were going to do, I have no idea.
It's going to backfire.
Naturally, though, Democrats are not happy.
So those are the two Democrats.
Check this out.
Impeachment or not, Trump could hurt these New Jersey Democrats in 2020, and Democrats are saying this.
Now, this one strikes close to home.
I live in Jersey.
I live in South Jersey, okay?
Now, I'm from Chicago.
I lived in New York for a while.
I've only been here for just over a year.
But it's interesting that it's kind of fallen on my backyard.
Democrats are being told specifically that New Jersey is, you know, it's like Union Democrat territory.
And all of the stuff you're doing is bad for what's happening here in my backyard.
Check this out.
This is a story from NJ.com.
President Donald Trump is a businessman, unlike mostly useless politicians.
He is working to reverse America's decline and working to bring back companies to the U.S.
He wants to control the borders.
Impeachment?
Well, that's dominating the Democratic agenda.
And Trump's attempt to get Ukraine to investigate a leading political rival was just politics as usual.
These are the views of Democratic focus groups in New Jersey.
Boom.
Wow.
These are Democratic focus groups.
These are regular people in this state saying, we get it.
It's politics.
Get over it.
These groups of college-educated and non-college-educated white voters in New Jersey's 2nd and 3rd congressional districts found strong support for Trump going into an election year where Democrats hope to retain the two House seats they won last November.
Trump has some standing with many of these voters, said the report conducted by House Majority Forward, a dark-money non-profit linked to the House Democratic leadership, which assembled the focus groups.
The core perception voters bring to the discussion of Trump is that he is a businessman, not a politician.
Because he is not a politician, the standards that would apply to a politician are not applied to him.
Well, that's kind of... Look, I might not agree with that, but if that's what the people think, then you're making a bad move in acting against the will of the people.
They say, House Majority Four regularly hosts focus groups and invites more than just fellow Democrats, spokesman Kaitlan Ligecki said.
We think it is valuable to check in with these voters from time to time.
And we were not surprised to hear that some of these voters still view Donald Trump as an atypical politician.
The findings indicate that 2020 might be different with Trump actually on the ballot, as compared to last November, when backlash against Republican policies, such as a tax law that targeted New Jersey and other high-tax states, helped Democrats capture those two districts and two other GOP-held House seats.
Freudian slip, what can I say?
The two rookie Democrats, whose constituents formed the focus groups, Jeff Van Drew and Andy Kim, are rated as the most endangered New Jersey incumbents by both Washington-based publications that track congressional races, the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections.
House Majority Forward is the non-profit arm of the House Majority PAC, Super Political Action Committee, which has ties to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The findings by Nancy Pelosi's dark money group make it clear as day.
With President Trump driving Republican turnout, Andy Kim and Jeff Van Drew are toast, said Michael McAdams, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Let me stop there.
That breaks my heart.
Jeff Van Drew did the right thing.
He said, my constituents do not want this.
And now he's getting it from both sides.
Democrats are coming for him and Republicans.
I'm not surprised Republicans are going to come for him, right?
He's a Democrat.
He is.
But he opposed impeachment and that's what the Democratic Party needs.
The biggest mistake the Democrats are making are abandoning him.
And they are.
Let me show you some more stories.
This one says, Democrat Jeff Andrew voted against the Trump impeachment inquiry, quote, we're coming for him, New Jersey activists vow.
That bums me out, man.
Here's a guy who was right.
I mean, look, you've got Brenda Lawrence in a safe Democrat district saying no dice, but she's safe.
She doesn't need to do that.
She's going to win no matter what, right?
And Adam Schiff saying, I'm not sure.
And you're blaming this guy?
Man, look at this one.
An op-ed was written by Bridget Callahan Harrison for NJ.com.
Congressman Van Drew is wrong on impeachment, professor says.
Here's why.
And now we get this from New Jersey Globe.
Van Drew will face primary challenge if he votes against Trump impeachment.
Bridget Harrison mulls House bid.
Mistake.
Big mistake.
Look, man, the House focus groups, we're seeing this from NJ.com, Democrats are telling you they do not like the games you're playing.
They understand what Trump represents.
And guess what?
Union, working class Democrats, they like the guy.
You know, and it's really strange, right?
We're seeing something fascinating.
There was that story CNN did.
I think it was in Minnesota, in like northern Minnesota.
It was a district that was historically blue and then voted for Trump.
What they found was at the national level, These voters supported Trump, at the local level, voting Democrat.
You know why?
Our national-level Democrats are losing their minds.
First of all, we got a bunch of do-nothing, please-just-give-me-the-keys-to-the-castle Democrats, people like Pelosi and Schumer, Nadler, Schiff, etc.
Then you're getting the new wave of the far-left activist base.
People like the S.Q.U.A.D.
So when it comes to the national level, and you're looking at these politicians, the democratic field looks nuts.
They're promising to abolish healthcare, private healthcare outright.
They're saying they're going to give healthcare to non-citizens.
And then you get Trump coming along, and yeah, Trump's conservative on a lot of issues, but he sounds normal.
You know, what I mean by normal, he sounds like what people are used to.
Here's what really bums me out, okay?
Colin Peterson.
They're always going to face competition from Republicans.
That's a given.
But the Democrats who won't support them.
I can't speak too much for Peterson, but Van Drew is facing flack from Democrats who want to primary him.
He was right, though.
And you know what?
When you can't even see it, that's the problem.
Kyle Kalinske, the ever-wise.
Now I've criticized him before for not knowing what farms are, but for the most part, Kyle Kalinske's a smart dude and I have tremendous respect for him.
I think he's a good guy who acts in good faith.
My understanding is he's responsible a bit for Justice Democrats, which was like AOC and stuff.
So definitely someone I probably have a lot of political disagreements with, but I think he's a good dude.
And here's what he said in September.
Possible impeachment scenarios.
Inquiry never even leads to impeachment vote in the House.
Second, it leads to vote in the House but fails there.
Third, it gets through the House and dies in the Senate.
Not possible scenario.
It gets through the House and the Senate and Trump is removed.
Come on, man!
You know what?
There are a lot... I think...
The big divide we see is the establishment left and the intersectional identitarian left and then like the true progressives.
Now I can't speak, like there's an overlap for sure between a lot of these people and many of them refuse to call each other out.
But I typically find that while Kyle is wrong a lot of things, I mean, I find that he's wrong.
I'm not saying I know for a fact he's always wrong.
I'm saying I disagree with him politically, right?
I think he's a principled guy, and I think there's a huge overlap between people like him and Trump supporters, and that's why you saw Bernie or Bust.
There are people who don't like Trump who vote for him anyway, because what are they going to do?
Vote for some of the more far-left Democrats?
There are people who don't like Trump and are definitely going to vote for far-left Democrats.
And there are people who are anti-establishment, period.
And that's what's crazy to me.
I don't understand why there aren't more progressive leftists who are basically like, let Trump lead these investigations against Biden, man.
Think about what's gonna happen now.
They did the impeachment, they wasted our time, everyone's gonna be angry, no one's better off for it, and now what?
Now we don't get to find out what happens in the end?
It's just, it's ridiculous.
From the beginning.
You had people like Kyle, he's a populist left, telling you straight up, man, not going to lie.
That's never going to work.
Not only that, he said it was possible that never even leads to an impeachment vote.
And here we are.
Adam Schiff doesn't even know if he wants to impeach the president.
They might not even vote on it.
I kid you not.
You would imagine.
Based on the inquiry, they would actually vote.
They'd say, okay, let's hold a vote now and see what they think.
The reason I don't think they'll do that is because it'll put a marker on every single Democrat as to where they stand.
It was bad enough they voted on the inquiry itself.
Now you've got the only two Democrats who opposed it.
If they go forward with a straight-up vote on impeachment, Well, for one, it might actually pass.
And if it does, Republicans take control, Joe Biden comes in, Trump gets to bring in whoever he wants, the whistleblower, all that stuff, and it goes all wide open.
Hunter, Biden, Burisma, everything hits the fan.
And if they hold that vote, then in those moderate districts, around 31 or so districts, you're going to have all those moderates with a number on their head saying, you know, one or zero, yes or no.
And people are going to say, you did X. You didn't vote for impeachment.
You did vote for impeachment.
Now, the best thing could happen is the, the, you know, Adam Schiff and the house say, we're not going to vote on it.
They say, we're going to vote for censure instead.
And then you're going to get the moderate saying, look, you know, even Tucker Carlson agreed the call was inappropriate.
So we thought we should vote for censure and let the American people decide.
That's going to be the big play.
Republicans have been saying it.
The American people should decide.
The election is coming.
I agree.
And that's what the Democrats are going to use to fall back on.
And we can see it bringing right back to the story about Brenda Lawrence, where she said, quote, We are so close to an election.
And there it is.
That's the play they're going to make.
That's my bet.
Even though they never dug up any real evidence, this is their safe exit.
By claiming the election is too close and discussing it, we think the American people should decide, they can fall back on, we had enough evidence.
The moderate Democrats aren't forced to oppose or support it, and they don't give the Republicans the power to call Joe or Hunter Biden and clog up 2020.
That's the play.
That's what they're going to do.
So you know what?
I think the whole game is dirty.
I'm just sick and tired of all of it, man.
You know, I'm not represented by Van Drew, but I have tremendous respect for him taking a stand and saying, you know, I'm gonna do the right thing.
But of course the Democrats won't accept that.
There is no place for a moderate individual to try and speak rationally.
What party am I in?
I have no idea.
I don't agree with a lot of the policies on the right, but the left has lost its mind.
And so you can look to the principal Democrats who said no to impeachment to see exactly how this plays out.
Van Drew's the best example.
He's in Jersey.
Like, I get it.
I think Colin Peterson wears he's in Minnesota or something.
But Van Drew is in a blue state, and he said no to impeachment, and he got slammed relentlessly for it.
Because you're either with us or against us, even if we're not, you know, even if we're wrong.
That's what the Democrats are saying.
They want progressives.
They want Orange Man bad, but moderate voters.
They're the ones saying, I don't know.
So I'll tell you what.
The problem for Van Drew is that it's coming to a primary.
And that's not going to be independent voters.
It's going to be Democrats who are going to choose.
Here's how Republicans take Jersey.
Van Drew opposes impeachment, rightly so.
Democrats primary him.
Democratic activists are the ones who are voting in the primary.
Van Drew is out, and this new Brigid is in.
But she's anti-Trump, demands impeachment, and moderate voters don't like her.
So they vote for a moderate Republican.
That's how Jersey goes red.
We'll see what happens, okay?
I'm not saying I know for sure, but I'm willing to bet.
Impeachment doesn't happen.
I don't think it will.
I do not think it will.
And so, I mean, if we take Kyle Kalinske as, you know, his word that these are the only possibilities, it looks like it's more likely to not happen or fail than it is to even get to the House in the first place.
But could you imagine what happens if they support it and then Trump calls Biden?
No way.
Don't see it.
I'll leave it there.
Stick around.
Thanks for hanging out.
Next video is coming up at 6 p.m.
YouTube.com slash TimCastNews, and I will see you all there.
A story going viral about Ilhan Omar with people saying, reports say, she is a Qatari asset funneling information to Qatari officials being passed on to Iran.
This proves it.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down everybody.
There is a story right now that according to a sworn deposition, Ilhan Omar was acquired, bought and paid for by Qatari officials.
This is coming from Al-Arabia English, which was then picked up by the Jerusalem Post.
And the original story asserts that they looked at the sworn deposition of a man named Alan Bender, who was a Kuwaiti-born Canadian businessman.
Who is saying he knows, based on what he was told, Ilhan Omar is a Qatari asset.
Now I gotta stop here, man.
There are a lot of people I see on the right that are tweeting this out.
There's one viral tweet saying it's being reported that she is.
Stop.
Full stop, dude.
This is diving so deep into hearsay, we got nothing.
Now I will say, There is Imam Tawhidi, probably pronouncing your name wrong, I apologize, who has been saying for months now that this is the case, presenting documents and things like that, but so far the big bombshells haven't dropped.
But he's been saying this is the case.
And now we're getting information that kind of backs that up.
But this is not enough, and y'all gotta calm down, make sure you do not fall for fake news.
Let me say a couple things.
For one, there are a lot of people who do not like America and will look for vulnerabilities.
And Ilhan Omar certainly is.
Because there are so many people who don't trust her, because of her anti-Semitic statements, because of her contradictory votes in Congress, she is a weak link.
And by subverting her, that gives them a way to hurt this country.
It is also entirely possible That she absolutely is on payroll of Qatar or some other country.
But you gotta... Listen, man.
Same thing I did with Russiagate, the same conversation we had.
You've got to be careful with this stuff.
Hearsay upon hearsay, stacked upon stacked.
She deserves the absolute same due process as Donald Trump would, and we've got to be careful about these smears.
Because they want to talk about foreign interference in our election, but this kind of stuff is bad for us across the board.
Now, if it's true she's doing wrong, and they're even accusing her of swearing allegiance to Erdogan of Turkey, if all that's true, fine.
We should investigate.
And I'll tell you what.
Here's how far I'm willing to go with this.
I think you need way more evidence.
It's hearsay stacked upon hearsay.
But if you're gonna use hearsay stacked upon hearsay for a three-year investigation of Donald Trump with tens of millions of dollars, well, I think we better look into Ilhan Omar.
We better look into Joe Biden.
That's the game you all wanted to play.
We gotta play it.
We do.
We can't sit here and be like, oh, someone swore in court this is the case, and now we're just gonna ignore it.
Nah, sorry.
You can't do that.
But here's what I want to do.
Let's look at this story.
And there are some interesting tidbits here that I think are worth noting.
But let's read through this, and let me just try and pull things back a little bit, because I know a lot of people are already running around saying she is a Qatari asset, she is a spy.
Like, again, someone tweeted that it is reported this is the case.
No, it wasn't reported at all, okay?
We're talking about Al-Arabia English.
Claiming that they saw the testimony of a man named Alan Bender who was told by Qatari officials this was the case.
We are so far removed from this.
If you think the hearsay against Trump is absurd, this is on the same level.
So let's look.
Let's read through it.
See what's going on.
They say, from the Jerusalem Post, the Democratic Congresswoman is said to have passed information to Qatar, which was subsequently handed along to Iran.
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was recruited by a foreign government, received funding from a foreign government, and passed sensitive information through intermediaries to Iran, a Florida court has been told.
The claims came during testimony by Kuwaiti-born Canadian businessman Alan Bender, who is giving sentence in the trial of Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al-Thani.
The Qatari Emir's brother stands accused of ordering his American bodyguard to murder two people and of holding an American citizen hostage.
His deposition, obtained by Al-Arabia English, was authenticated by the attorneys for the plaintiffs, according to the publication.
So we gotta stop here.
The Jerusalem Post is citing Al-Arabiya English.
Al-Arabiya English is claiming they saw the deposition of Alan Bender, who is saying he was told.
So check this out.
Speaking from Toronto by video link, Bender told the Florida District Court that he met with Qatar's Secretary to the Emir for Security Affairs, Mohammed bin Ahmed bin Abdullah al-Masnad, and two other senior Qatari officials.
According to his sworn deposition, the three officials told him, if it wasn't for Arkesh, Ilhan Omar would be just another black Somali refugee in America collecting welfare and serving tables on weekends.
Bender testified that the officials asked him to recruit American politicians and journalists as Qatari assets, and that when he objected, was told that several prominent figures were already on the payroll.
Omar was described as the jewel in the crown.
This man, Bender, if this testimony is true, then we absolutely need to look into what's going on in Qatar, and that's going to rope in Ilhan Omar.
But let's just say, you know, because three officials of a foreign country have made an accusation against an American politician, whether you like her or not is not enough as far as I'm concerned.
And we got a pullback on, you know, people are jumping on this.
Now, I get it, man.
There are a lot of people saying they want to do it to Trump.
It's not the same evidence.
Then we play ball.
I don't.
I don't.
I think what they're doing to Trump in impeachment is psychotic, with like, I believe that this was the case, but no one ever told me.
No, get out of here.
I don't want to hear it.
Do you have direct evidence or not?
In this case, there seems to be potential circumstantial evidence that there's some wrongdoing on Cutter's part, but it doesn't necessarily prove anything about Ilhan Omar other than perhaps we should look into it.
And you know what?
That's what they're doing with Trump, so fine.
So be it.
They did.
The thing is, Trump released the transcript of the call, so that's a lot of credit on his part.
And according to the testimony in the impeachment trial, they all said basically that transcript was accurate.
Okay, so we can move on, right?
Well, if you want to launch this against Trump, we're going to do the same thing with Omar.
But I got to admit, man, we are so far removed here.
You really, really, really got to take this with a grain of salt.
However, there is some really interesting information that raises some eyebrows.
I'll say, check this out.
They say Qatar recruited Ilhan Omar from even way before she thought about becoming a government official.
They groomed her and arranged the foundation, the grounds, for her to get into politics way before she even showed interest.
They convinced her.
The deposition shows he further told the court, during a 2017 meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Omar swore allegiance to him.
At the same time, she was a junior state representative in Minnesota.
That can be easily fact-checked.
And so I'll start looking into it later in the day.
We'll figure it out.
But keep in mind, there's a really interesting point here.
You see, not too long ago, Ilhan Omar was the only Democrat to vote against sanctioning Turkey, which was very strange.
One month ago, NBA's Enes Kanter calls out Ilhan Omar over Turkey sanctions vote.
And here's what he said.
This is an NBA star who said, He was asserting that Omar's actions made it seem like she was, quote, on dictator Erdogan's payroll and working for his interests, but not for the American people and the democracy.
Ilhan Omar is a Qatari asset, or Al Arabiya English, in concert with Alan Bender, and being propagated through the Jerusalem Post, are fabricating a fictitious narrative to smear and defame and take down Ilhan Omar just before the 2020 re-elections.
Which conspiracy is it?
Because I'll tell you what, check this out.
They're going to add more about what the Qatari officials say, but Ilhan Omar's spokespeople said this.
Since the day she was elected, Saudi Arabian trolls and mouthpieces have targeted Omar with misinformation and conspiracy theories.
A spokesperson for the congresswoman wrote in a statement to the Jerusalem Post, The latest outlandish, absurd story from a Saudi-funded media outlet is of course false, and only the latest in that trend.
The only people Rep Omar represents in Washington are the people of Minnesota's 5th District.
She will continue to speak out against human rights violations around the world, whether it's war crimes in Yemen, or the caging of children at our border, regardless of who commits them, Except when it's Turkey.
You see, here's the thing.
Ilhan Omar supports BDS, Boycott, Divest, Sanction of Israel.
But then when it comes to Turkey, she was the sole Democrat saying sanctions can be bad.
That's really weird.
Now, she's claiming Saudi funded outlets are smearing her.
They're trying to take her down.
That's a conspiracy theory.
So I don't know which conspiracy theory you should believe.
I can stress it for the millionth time.
The Jerusalem Post is citing Al-Arabia English, which she claims is a Saudi-funded news outlet, who says they saw this deposition.
Well, I'll tell you what, man.
If the deposition is real, then it'll eventually come out if it's true or not.
And you have these outlets claiming it's true.
I kind of lean towards... I don't distrust... I mean, the Jerusalem Post is just citing Al-Arabia English, so...
Who knows?
But you're gonna have to pick a conspiracy theory now because no matter what you do, you're a conspiracy theorist.
Sorry, welcome to the new world.
Either these news organizations are lying with Saudi Arabia's funding fake news to take down Ilhan Omar, which seems strange because she's anti-Israel and a lot of countries in the Middle East don't like Israel.
But then the Jerusalem Post is backing up Al-Arabia English, I guess, because Ilhan Omar is anti-Israel and they're the Jerusalem Post.
That seems nuts.
Okay, I don't know what to tell you, man.
Because either you believe that she's an asset or you believe that there is a circuitous plan to defame her through various countries that typically don't agree with each other on a lot of issues.
But I mean, I get it.
Saudi Arabia is an ally of the United States.
Trump is giving them weapons, selling weapons, putting soldiers there.
So naturally, they're probably going to be somewhat favorable to American interests, which includes Israel.
I don't know, man.
I am less inclined to believe the grand conspiracy of these government-funded media outlets trying to take down an American politician, but I don't know what to pick.
So I don't want to tell you, man.
I really, really don't want to tell you.
You know, if you come out and say, I agree with Ilhan Omar that Saudi-funded outlets are trying to smear her and take her down, you will be called a conspiracy theorist because that's exactly what she's saying.
There is a grand conspiracy among the Saudi government to fund state media to lie and smear.
But I'll tell you what, man.
Can they make up a deposition?
Is she implying that Alan Bender's testimony, assuming it is real, was fabricated by Saudi Arabia?
What is this?
What am I supposed to believe?
Am I supposed to believe that Qatari officials have been funneling money to Ilhan Omar to prop her up as a politician?
I don't know!
It's all crazy.
I will say though...
I guess skepticism is the best you can do.
And really, at the end of the story, you can really just say, you know, I honestly don't know.
The Jerusalem Post is not a Saudi Arabian outlet.
It is an Israeli outlet, okay?
It's Jerusalem.
And they're backing, you know, they're reporting on this.
But their reporting is based on a report which claims to have seen a deposition from a man who claims he talked to officials.
So we are so far removed here.
No conclusions can be made.
And I think it's important to talk about this, for one, because Too many people are saying it's a fact.
Too many tweets are saying it's proven.
Nah, hold on, man.
It's an important story to talk about, and I think we now have, you know, we're near the point where we need to have some kind of inquiry, I suppose.
I don't want to tell you, man.
We should also have one into Biden, but hey, surprise, surprise, this won't get reported in mainstream American press.
It's not going to.
This is the Jerusalem Post.
They're not going to come after Ilhan Omar.
They know it.
Let's read a little bit more and see what they're saying.
Bender's testimony has been questioned, and reports, including this one by the Post, have led to speculation, especially on Twitter.
Omar has already been found by the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board to have broken campaign finance rules, but it was a slap on the wrist.
by improperly using campaign money for out-of-state travel while she was a state representative.
Conservative group Judicial Watch has also called on the House Ethics Committee to investigate Omar for alleged offenses, including immigration fraud.
But these claims go much further.
Omar was one of 107 House Democrats who co-signed a letter Thursday calling on Secretary Mike Pompeo to reverse his announcement on the legality of West Bank settlements.
The signatories claimed such a move severely damaged prospects for peace in the region.
There's bias across the board.
There are people who want to harm America.
That's a fact.
And you gotta be careful, man, because you might not like Ilhan Omar.
You might just think her politics are awful.
But as far as we know right now, and I know it's a big political, cultural battle, she is a legal U.S.
citizen representing her district, and she was duly elected.
If you have proof otherwise, present it, and we will go from there.
We have conjecture, hearsay, circumstantial evidence so far from news reports that are hard to break down, that are hearsay upon hearsay, but I'll tell you what.
Even if I do not like Ilhan Omar, I would take more offense to outside interests trying to subvert my country's politics, even for those I do not like.
I think Ilhan Omar's got terrible politics.
I think she's an all-around bad person, but you know what?
She was elected, and unless someone can prove otherwise, I do not like these games.
I do not like other countries coming out.
This Canadian businessman, I know who he is, talking about Qatar and these other countries, not a fan.
And that's foreign influence, but I will tell you what.
Just because it comes from a foreign outlet doesn't mean I will ignore it, okay?
I want to know what's going on, because as far as I can tell right now, we have two potential problems.
Foreign interests screwing with our government and our politics, making me very angry, or Ilhan Omar... Actually, no, the only conclusion you come to is that foreign governments are screwing with our government and I'm pissed off about it.
Now, is it Ilhan Omar?
Show me the proof.
Is it Alan Bender, you know, Saudi Arabia or Al-Arabia?
Show me the proof.
But as far as I can tell right now, people be screwing with our politics and I'm not happy about it.
If it's Ilhan Omar, well then fine.
Let's figure out what's going on.
The things she's been accused of in the past have been minor campaign finance violations.
Yes, you should call her out for that.
Yes, they're bad things.
And she got fined for it.
It's not the end of the world.
If she's doing things that are illegal, we must investigate, okay?
I'll tell you what.
The big problem in all of this is that everything's falling apart, man.
Whether you want to admit it or not, the investigations, the impeachment, whatever, the nonstop scandals against Trump is the weaponization of process against the president for things they don't like.
That's it.
They don't like the guy.
They want to get rid of him.
They will find a reason.
And the same is true for Ilhan Omar.
Let's operate under the assumption that both Trump and Ilhan are innocent.
Look how easy it is to subvert American democracy by just making claims.
And for years, they've come after Trump without evidence.
Let's say Ilhan Omar is innocent, and you just don't like our politics.
Well, so be it.
That's America, okay?
And we've got problems we've got to work out.
But man, I am really worried about how easy it's becoming to screw with the whole system, and how easy everyone will take the bait.
The problem is...
What if it's true?
Right?
No, I think it's absurd.
The simple solution tends to be the correct one.
In this instance, I can't find it.
I'm sorry.
You know, with Trump, the simple solution tends to be the correct one.
Did Russians... No, get out of here, man.
Trump ran on a populist campaign.
It played well with people.
Hillary Clinton was a bad candidate.
And people voted for Trump.
That's just a fact.
With Ilhan Omar, she's trying to claim now that Saudi Arabia is funding fake news to harm her because she's going after Israel and protecting Turkey.
Man, I don't know, dude.
Her story's way more complicated, but I will tell you what.
There was a statement made, it was an interview with one of Vladimir Putin's, like, key opponents, who was, like, jailed, and he said, the greatest victory... I'm paraphrasing, I could be getting it wrong, but I'll say it in my own words.
The greatest accomplishment of Vladimir Putin is not meddling in our elections.
It's that the perception was created, and now all he has to do is snap his fingers, all anyone has to do is snap their fingers, and everyone will jump.
That's how bad things are getting in this country.
That you can have Al Arabiya say, this is true, and everyone on the right will start tweeting saying, Ilhan Omar, it's a fact, it's a fact, it's a fact.
Listen, man, I do not like Ilhan Omar, professionally, I don't know, or personally, I don't know.
I guess personally, with the divorce of her husband, I can say, yeah, I don't like that either.
But listen, the last thing we need is foreign interference, legitimate foreign interference, to accuse people of things and run non-stop investigations, take it to the voting booth, I don't know, man.
But I'll tell you what, there's going to be a lot of people who say, she's bad and she needs to be removed.
And you have the same sentiment on the other side about Donald Trump.
And in the end, all that's going to happen is that people, when they know they want to hurt us, are going to say, oh, Dan Crenshaw?
Yeah, he's a bad guy.
Yeah, for that reason.
And then everyone's going to go, here's my chance.
The left took it against Trump, and I hope the right doesn't.
But it seems like it's going to happen.
They're taking it against Ilhan Omar.
In the end, it's entirely possible that Ilhan Omar has done wrong.
I'll point out, you know, whether or not she actually swore allegiance to Erdogan.
She's the only Democrat who opposed sanctions.
That's so weird.
Seriously weird.
But you're gonna need some hard evidence.
You're gonna need some hard evidence.
And we'll see.
I'll end with one final thought.
Check out Imam of Peace on Twitter.
Imam Tawhidi, by the time you're watching this, probably well, you're probably watching this way later, he says, I will be coming out live in one hour.
I'm not a journalist.
I'm directly involved in the Ilhan Qatar scandal as a victim of Qatar's plots and malicious lawsuits.
And my name is mentioned all over the federal U.S.
legal deposition.
Turn your notifications on and retweet.
This guy's got a lot of fans.
I'm not going to speak for or against anything he's saying.
I'm just going to let you know that he's saying that I'm recording this before he's come out.
By the time you watch this, he has tweeted, he has posted.
See what he has to say.
And if evidence emerges, then we should definitely go after it.
Because let's be real.
The Democrats have said that Donald Trump is a Russian asset.
Oh, whatever.
And if that's the case, we need to know about it, right?
Sure, but that was outlandish.
And we did the investigations in good faith.
And we found, no, it's not the case.
Trump was a legitimate president.
Okay, well, I'll tell you what.
If the new standard is such, then we need to look into Ilhan Omar.
That's the standard they've created, and we've got to be very careful about people weaponizing this against us.
But you know what, honestly, man?
I will end with this.
I don't know the solution.
If Ilhan Omar is acting as a foreign agent to subvert our government, that is horrifying.
And if it's true that foreign agents are trying to subvert our government by smearing Ilhan Omar, that is equally horrifying.
And if we launch an investigation every single time someone makes the claim, that is also horrifying.
So I don't know what to tell you, man, but I will say we are vulnerable, we ARE being manipulated, at least whichever side is true, people are screwing with us, and it's making me angry.
It should make you angry, too.
Stick around, next segment's coming up at 1pm on this channel, maybe an update if we get some evidence, and I will see you all then.
The New York Post received a trove of emails sent to Governor Cuomo about the failure to secure the Amazon HQ deal.
As many of you know, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez led the charge against Amazon coming to New York based off of fake news.
And then when it came out she was screwing over her state, she claimed, I'm not even representing that district.
I mean, come on.
AOC was headlining a protest in the financial district against Amazon.
Let me tell you something.
New York City's crumbling infrastructure is becoming a problem.
Back when I lived there, there was news about the L train, which brings people from Brooklyn to Manhattan from the hipster neighborhoods for the most part.
It was gonna go under, like, a really long period of reconstruction and maintenance, which was causing chaos in the real estate market because nobody wants to live in an area when you can't cross the water and the L train is required.
It's like where Vice was, Williamsburg, right?
Anyway, we gotta fix trains, man, right?
The MTA in New York is miserable, and all that tax revenue from Amazon was gonna go towards fixing it.
Not all of it, but a lot of it would help alleviate some of the problems in New York City.
So, now the New York Post filed a FOIA request, it seems, and boy did Cuomo get slammed.
It's actually kind of funny.
New Yorkers say Cuomo got played by AOC in failed Amazon deal.
Gov.
Andrew Cuomo was deluged with hate mail following the collapse of his $3 billion deal to build a giant Amazon headquarters in Queens.
With many of the missives mocking the fact that he'd been bested by freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Post has learned.
Try and deny it all you like, AOC.
Everybody's giving you credit for this.
Let's see if you get reelected.
You got outsmarted by a bartender, thanks.
Patricia Kaufman scolded the three-term governor, noting the 29-year-old socialist firebrand's former occupation.
Her email is just one of some 2,200 correspondences to the governor about the Amazon deal the Post obtained through a Freedom of Information request.
What a dysfunctional scenario to unfold under your watch.
AOC has played you swiftly.
Wow.
David Sorbellini wrote to Cuomo.
Now, I'll tell you one thing.
Keep in mind, if you ever email a politician, this could happen.
We're going to find out.
I mean, I'm sure some of these people are getting their emails released.
unidentified
They're going like, oh, I shouldn't have said anything because now you're famous.
Stephen Lavery opined how, that little snot-nosed trashed your big deal,
then took a shot at Cuomo's masculinity.
I guess we know who wears the pants in New York now, especially in the Democratic Party.
Dude, hey man, I know a lot of people are ragging on AOC, but come on, you gotta admit it,
She, she, she, that's an impact.
She had a major impact.
What is it, like, you know, something like 20,000, 25,000 jobs?
Yeah, she did something.
She cost near 25,000 jobs, you know.
The furious messages comprise a tiny slice of around 1,500 emails and letters that Cuomo's office received following Amazon's abrupt February 14th cancellation of plans to build a corporate campus in Long Island City.
The other 700 or so sent to the governor after the deal was announced in November 2018.
Amazon blamed its surprise delivery of the Valentine's Day disappointment on unexpected opposition to the $3 billion worth of incentives that Cuomo and de Blasio offered in a secret deal in exchange for the promise of more than 25,000 jobs.
But let me just stop and clarify.
The $3 billion deal was tax incentives.
It's basically like saying a coupon, a discount.
They were expecting to bring in something like $30 billion over 10 years.
And Amazon was going to save $3 billion of that over the same period of time.
So it's all overhype.
Ocasio-Cortez was quoted saying something to the effect of, like, why are we giving these people billions of dollars?
You're not!
You're literally not!
You are giving them a discount to incentivize them to come to create economic expansion, which can then be used to fix the crumbling infrastructure of your failing city.
A number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward.
The online retail giant didn't name names, but Ocasio-Cortez, who reps parts of Queens and the Bronx, was among the fiercest critics of the deal.
Yes, she led a protest in the financial district.
In addition to bashing Cuomo for failing to tamp down AOC's outspoken resistance, other writers told Cuomo they planned to flee New York over the development debacle.
Bye bye.
Me and my entire extended family are now on our way out of your state to live in Tennessee.
It has nothing to do with the weather.
It's all to do with you, loser.
Chris Vail, who said he lives in the Finger Lakes region upstate, said he was going to relocate to North Carolina, South Carolina, or Florida.
Your failure to secure Amazon as a new corporation to do business in the state is laughable and a testament to political incompetence.
You and all the other NYS political self-serving hacks are an embarrassment.
Looking forward to putting you and NY in my rearview mirror.
I did a while ago.
I lived in Brooklyn for quite a bit, and I moved to Jersey because I'm like, New York's expensive, it's got a lot of problems, and I didn't want to be a part of it.
Taxes are really high.
I think New York has, technically, some of the highest taxes in the nation.
It does have some of the highest taxes, but it's because New York City has an income tax.
City income tax, state income tax, federal income tax.
You know what?
I'm not.
I left, right?
I moved to Jersey a couple years ago, and then I moved to South Jersey.
I'm in, like, the Philly area.
I don't want to be there.
I am not a fan.
You know, I remember the first time I went there, I was all excited, and I was like, wow, New York!
And then over time, I'm like, oof, New York.
Several abortion opponents even suggested the Amazon fiasco was God's way of punishing Cuomo for signing a February bill that codified the Roe v. Wade decision into law.
Now, that is stupid.
That move came in response to President Trump's successful nomination of two conservative judges, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
God works in mysterious ways, wrote Lorraine DiDonato of Oregon.
So thrilled to hear Amazon is not bringing jobs into New York.
Since you are a supporter of late-term abortion and the monies from Planned Parenthood and George Soros control you, you got what you deserve.
Lorem Carim also told Cuomo, surely you realize God will not be mocked.
Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi tried to exonerate Cuomo by shifting the blame to the elected officials that were against Amazon's plan, who in addition to Ocasio-Cortez included Senator Mike Gianaris of Long Island City.
There is no doubt losing Amazon was a major political blunder by opposing officials and pure pandering at the expense of responsible governing, Azzopardi said.
A spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez declined to comment.
I'm sorry.
It was AOC's fault.
Now, that doesn't mean it was solely her fault.
It was just mostly her fault.
Look, man.
You want to play games and say she's just a congressperson and nothing to do with it?
No, no, no, dude.
She has what, like 5 million followers on Twitter now?
At the time I think she had like 2 million.
She was coordinating massive press coverage.
She was making nonsensical statements, okay?
When she was claiming the state was giving money to Amazon, you get a bunch of people believing the fake news.
Yeah, you're going to rile up a ton of protesters, especially when you have millions of followers.
Now, Ocasio-Cortez didn't ask.
You know, for the press to do all of this and run wild with whatever she says, but hey, that's the reality, right?
You enter the public space, you're responsible for what you say.
Donald Trump is wrong.
He is wrong, and I'll tell you why.
Ocasio-Cortez fires back after Trump brands her a do-nothing Democrat.
Trump!
He called Ocasio-Cortez a do-nothing Democrat?
Absurd.
Ocasio-Cortez does a lot of things, like blunder major Amazon deals and cost their state 25,000 jobs.
That was certainly doing something.
She does a lot of things.
She says things that don't make sense.
She publishes resolutions that no one in their right mind would vote for, and nobody did!
And promises to pay people who are unwilling to work from taxpayer funds.
She's doing things!
Those things are just kind of awful, but, you know, she's doing them, right?
So, no Trump.
She is certainly doing things.
Bad things.
It would be better for New York if AOC was literally doing nothing.
Amazon would be there with jobs.
Now, I- I- I- Compliment sandwich.
Okay.
Or is this criticism sandwich?
She's called out excessive social media surveillance, and she's called out private prisons and lobbying.
She's done good things, man.
Come on, let's be real.
She teamed up with Ted Cruz about lobbying issues.
I don't know where that went, but I can respect the sentiment.
It's not like she's completely awful.
So I will be a bit more honest, right?
Trump called her a do-nothing Democrat.
It's an insult.
I get it.
It's hyperbole.
He's exaggerating.
It's literally him insulting her.
I would say for the most part, off the top of my head, most of what she's done has been
kind of bad.
You know, she's a gaffe queen, like gaffe after gaffe.
The Amazon thing really does take the cake though, because man, they needed those jobs.
That was a lot of revenue plus economic activity.
Those 25,000 jobs were going to be people spending money in and around those areas.
That was going to be a massive boost for New York City, and they really do have infrastructure problems.
So for all of the good things she's done, she deserves credit for it.
And that's true for literally anybody.
They say a broken clock is right twice a day.
Well, AOC's a little bit better than a broken clock, okay?
She's got a few things that I think really are worth getting behind, especially talking about big tech surveillance, especially talking about, you know, term limits, or restrict... Actually, I don't know where she's at on term limits.
I mean lobbying issues.
That people will get elected and then become a lobbyist and use their access in certain ways.
So she's called out certain things that are acceptable, okay?
But she doesn't get any free passes and I think overall she is a net negative for New York City.
Now she's famous, you know, she's bringing in a ton of money from outside areas.
She's pushing back on Trump saying that she said in my first 11 months I've co-sponsored 339 pieces of legislation, authored 15 that took on big pharma with my colleagues in hearings that brought prep Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't care.
Like, you know, we can criticize Trump for a ton of stuff.
Same as Ocasio-Cortez.
kids and made corruption the cause celebre. Try to keep up yeah yeah yeah. I don't care.
Like you know we can criticize Trump for a ton of stuff, same as Ocasio-Cortez. I think
it's always important to give credit where credit is due.
But in the conversation we're having now, based on the ever increasing public persona
that is Ocasio-Cortez, she's causing real damage for the Democrats.
We can just look to what Cuomo is getting hit by, saying his party's gone nuts.
Yeah, man.
How they let her destroy this deal is crazy.
And look, she can talk about important issues that I think we should listen to and give her respect for, but seriously, our opinions over lobbying and stuff, it's an argument, it's a political debate.
Whether or not we should have a major, massive corporate headquarters with 25,000 new jobs, billions upon billions in revenue to help fix New York City, I think that's mostly a no-brainer.
I mean, that's the kind of thing where you're like, okay, let's plan this and make sure we're looking at net positive.
But she went out and just outright was like, why are we giving them money?
And it's like, you're not?
You're giving them a discount?
So I'm not a big fan of AOC, but I will end with the last little compliment.
You know what, man?
People like Cuomo, people like Pelosi, Schumer, these are the do-nothing Democrats, okay?
These are the corporate crony... I describe them as the people who just want the keys to the castle.
Now, I do think AOC is obsessed with fame and publicity, and she clearly, clearly does this on Twitter.
So she's not particularly better than them, but I will say there is a bit of...
I like seeing her defeat these establishment crony do-nothings.
I liked it, okay?
Now I think we've got a bigger problem in that she's become a bit too big for her britches, and she's using her weight, and it's causing a lot of damage.
I mean, look, if she literally just was some freshman congresswoman with a thousand followers saying Amazon's bad, nothing would have happened.
But she's got massive press, you know, power.
So she's bouncing around, knocking things over, not realizing the damage she's causing, and yeah, it's a big problem.
She's too big for her level of experience.
I have no problem with her being a bartender, more power to her.
I think America is a place where people should be allowed to run for office no matter where they come from.
Be it a billionaire, real estate, you know, TV guy, or a bartender.
That's what makes this country great.
That you can run and win.
The problem is, she gained too much press power too fast, and she's way too naive and ignorant.
That doesn't mean she shouldn't be in Congress, it means she's got a lot of learning to do.
And look, I'm not gonna pretend like I know anything about how, you know, orientation for Congress would work, and like, procedure and etiquette.
But she's now in a position where she knows very little about economics, very little about the interests of her district, and she's just spouting activist talking points.
That's fine if you're just a run-of-the-mill freshman, and you gotta, you know, bust your chops, learn the ropes.
But she's walking around with millions of followers saying nonsense, and people keep calling her out for it, and it's causing a lot of problems, and now Cuomo's taking the heap.
So you know what?
Hey, you reap what you sow.
The media wanted to prop her up, and I believe everything comes down to the message they push.
They're the ones propping her up, making her this big icon.
And you know what?
The Republicans are laughing about it, because every single time stories come out about her, they laugh.
It just makes the Democrats look nuts.
And you see that in the email.
Someone sent a private email to Cuomo.
They didn't realize it was going to be published.
Yeah, Cuomo, you're losing it.
Anyway, I think it was funny that, you know, I'll wrap up with this.
Trump called her a do-nothing Democrat.
Sure, I get it.
But you know what, man?
For everything that you can criticize AOC for, I really do think she's got a leg up on Pelosi, Schumer, Nadler.
Those are do-nothings.
Like, what is Schiff doing?
He's lost it.
I mean, not like AOC's perfect, man.
But at least, you know, she really is celebrity-focused, and I get it.
But I still think she's a little bit better than the people who are just demanding the keys to the castle, you know?
Maybe a year and a half ago, I would have said, or maybe not a year and a half ago, that was a lot longer, but maybe around the time she got elected, I would have been more likely to say that I think she actually cares about a lot of these issues, so good for her.
I don't think so much anymore.
I think she's mostly just playing- like, she's the worst of what we could have expected from what she's supposed to be.
She's an inexperienced, naive freshman who is basically playing tribalism and not actually, you know, not- like, not actually focused on core issues that make sense or are principled.
But I really don't like the establishment Democrats.
So I'm kind of like, still kind of happy she won, you know?
And I gotta say, there's probably a lot of Republicans who love the fact that she makes Democrats look nuts.
Has resulted in a lot of people, both Democrat and Republican, rising up to challenge her.
We will see what happens.
But I'll leave it there.
Whatever.
Silly story.
I'll see you all at 4 p.m.
on the main channel, youtube.com slash timcast.
Thanks for hanging out.
The biggest problem the Republicans had, the establishment ones, is that they refused to rig the game in much the same way the Democrats did and continued to do.
And thus, Donald Trump came sweeping through, wiping out the old establishment cronies who weren't getting the job done.
This was good news for a lot of Americans who actually got a candidate who was kind of the person they wanted for better or for worse.
That's who they voted for, that's who they got.
Imagine if the RNC colluded the way the DNC did to keep out Donald Trump, and they could have done it.
Unfortunately, they failed.
Over on the Democrat side, however, they succeeded.
Bernie Sanders was the more popular candidate.
I mean, at the very least, for all of his faults, he was substantially more popular than Hillary Clinton.
And mind you, 12 to 18 percent, that's the number, because it's a couple different polls, of Bernie Sanders voters flipped for Trump.
Imagine what would have happened if the DNC said, fine, Bernie, we'll give it to you.
Guess who would have won?
Now, I know a lot of people say Bernie couldn't have beat Trump, but you've got to recognize Trump won by thin margins against Hillary Clinton in some key states.
I don't know if that necessarily means he was guaranteed to lose if he did win, you know, a couple of these states, but Bernie could have easily won many of them.
And Trump for a lot of people, around 12 to 18% of Bernie's supporters.
Well, Trump was the better of the two between Trump and Hillary.
That means if you got Bernie up against Donald Trump in 2020, Bernie does stand a chance.
Now, unfortunately, Okay, and I believe, for a lot of reasons, Bernie's probably the best choice for the Democrats.
I don't think he can win at this point.
Trump has kind of proven himself on key issues.
Now, he's proven himself in more ways than one.
I mean, for one, he's proven himself to be the bombastic, aggressive, arrogant bully that everyone assumed he was going to be.
And you know, a lot of people might take issue with the word bully, but look, for better or for worse, Trump doesn't take BS from anybody.
No matter what, he pushes back.
And that's one of the reasons people liked him.
You know, when he was debating Hillary Clinton, he would say, excuse me, excuse me, when she would try and interrupt him, but then he would interrupt her.
And you know what?
To a lot of people, they say, listen, You might not appreciate that when you're in a professional setting, but when you've got someone selling on your behalf, going to a foreign country and pushing other people around, he probably thinks the guy's going to win a fight for you.
Well, now we can see the DNC establishment has not stopped.
Obama privately said he would speak up to stop Sanders.
I kid you not.
Well, look, man, Bernie's always been an independent, okay?
He's running as a Democrat because it's his best shot, and in my opinion, He's actually hurting the Democrats a lot.
However, if Bernie wins, I think...
Man, I don't know.
At this point, I don't think Bernie could win, so I can only say it's bad.
In 2016, you could have had populist left versus populist right, but the DNC establishment intervened in a lot of ways.
You know, passing off questions.
There was, you know, there's a lot of stuff I don't want to rehash.
Suffice it to say, we know the cronies colluded, okay?
One of the most notable things was Donna Brazile giving questions in advance to Hillary.
We know there's the superdelegate system.
The system's set up in this way.
Republicans didn't want to play that game.
Well, too bad.
Let's read the story and see what's going on with Obama.
And then I got some fun and excitement for you YouTube fans.
Schuonhead versus Styx Hexenhammer in an epic debate!
Trump versus Bernie.
And we'll read through their Twitter thread.
It's kind of funny.
President Obama privately said he would speak up to stop Bernie Sanders from becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Politico reported Tuesday.
The former president reportedly said if Sanders held a strong lead in the Democratic primary, he would speak out to prevent him from becoming the nominee.
That is crazy!
But you know what?
For all of Obama's faults, at this point, the Democrats gotta push back on Sanders, man.
Look, I get it, a lot of people really like the guy, but right now, up against Trump and a strong economy, this is not the advantage.
Like, those people who voted for Bernie in 2016 and didn't want to vote for Trump but ended up doing it anyway, a lot of them are going to stay with Trump now that the economy is doing well and they don't want to back down.
What you need to know about these voters I'm not talking about black framed glasses college students going like, I'm all for Bernie, but without Bernie, I'm going to vote for Trump.
No, I'm talking about a 45 year old plumber who said, listen, man, Bernie's been a lifelong politician.
I don't agree with him a lot of things, but he's talking about ending these trade agreements.
He's talking about strengthening labor unions.
I like where he's going with this and I want these jobs back.
Donald Trump was saying similar things.
So they said, eh.
You know, it's plan B, right?
Now you've got Trump who's proven it.
And these 45-year-old, you know, blue-collar tradesmen are saying, like, why rock the boat?
Okay, Bernie had his shot, he didn't get it.
Well, Trump's got a ship and the ship is sailing.
Let's read on.
Quote, or I'm sorry, a close advisor to Obama told Politico he could not confirm whether Obama would stand up against Sanders.
Well, he already kind of is.
Obama came out and said, stop going far left, don't start a revolution.
He hasn't said that directly to me.
The only reason I'm hesitating at all is because, yeah, if Bernie were running away with it, I think maybe we would all have to say something, but I don't think that's likely.
That's not happening.
They are really, really trying to stop Bernie, man.
Wow, that's impressive.
An Obama spokesperson, when asked about his previous comments on Sanders, Look, we have a field of very accomplished, very serious and passionate and smart people who have a history of public service.
And whoever emerges from the primary process, I will work my tail off to make sure that they are the next president, Obama said earlier this month, according to his spokesperson.
Obama has stayed quiet throughout the campaign about which candidate he would support but has offered to meet with any candidate in the primary and has given advice to those who meet him according to news outlets.
A close advisor told Politico that I can't even imagine with this field how bad it would have to be for him to say something.
But earlier this month, the president warned they're going too far left.
So we get it, we get it, right?
Let's jump over to the more fun and exciting Twitter fight between your favorite YouTubers.
ShooOneHead, who is a big fan of Bernie Sanders.
I don't necessarily know how you describe her, because she's been described in a lot of ways, but she does kind of anti-SJW comedy on YouTube.
You're probably familiar with her.
If not, that's who she is.
And she's a huge fan of Bernie Sanders.
Stixx Hexenhammer.
I also, I hate describing people because I don't get it wrong, but Stixx is more so a libertarian, also rather anti-SJW, so there's a decent overlap, but they're having a debate on Twitter.
And guys, it's a good one.
It is.
I really do mean it.
I think it's a good conversation between a pro-Bernie Sanders and a more pro-Trump.
I don't want to say that Stixx is pro-Trump because I don't know for sure, so Stixx you can clarify later on, but I think they're both great YouTubers.
You have ShoeOnHead and Stixx Hexenhammer.
I know A lot of people might find it hard to find that channel.
Sorry Styx, that's, you know.
But anyway, let's read what the Twitter battle is all about.
June tweets.
Establishment Democrats trying to stop Sanders from becoming the nominee?
Goodness me, why, I never.
And I completely agree with that sentiment.
I've made numerous videos about the crony cheating, as far as I'm concerned.
Well, it's not necessarily, this one isn't so much cheating.
This is like Obama trying to use his weight to stop Sanders from gaining popularity.
It's not the worst cheating we've seen, and there has been cheating, but it's definitely Democratic establishment interference.
This one is more on the level.
You know what?
Should they be intervening to stop him?
I mean, it's on the level.
If Obama wants to speak up to say no to Bernie, I can't say it's necessarily the wrong thing to do.
Everyone's allowed to have their opinion, right?
But it's just another grain of sand in that heap of the DNC constantly trying to push out populist outsider candidates.
Mind you, Elizabeth Warren is, in my opinion, and as other people have told me, she's Hillary Clinton wearing a Bernie Sanders mask.
Right, she's been caught in numerous lies.
She's saying what she needs to say.
And that's why the establishment is okay with her.
She's their plan B. She's their defense for Bernie Sanders.
Split the vote between Warren and Sanders so Biden can take the cake.
Sticks, hex and hammer response!
For all the bluster by his fans, Sanders is an elderly socialist fundamentally incapable of winning a general.
When most independent voters despise socialism as a principle, regardless of whether he is a purist or not, he couldn't even beat Haggard Hillary.
June says, he lost because of handpicked party superdelegates and DNC effery.
He's objectively the most popular out of all of them when you don't count Biden still striding on name recognition in early polls.
I actually, I agree with June here, right?
Now Sticks has got a point about independence and socialism.
I think Bernie could have pulled something off in 2016, but he's really, really embraced that socialism.
And with Trump's economy, I don't see it happening.
Sticks then adds, he was consistently behind in the delegate count through the primaries.
He was absolutely schlonged, but he would not have won anyways.
Sanders is not the most popular candidate.
June says he literally has the most grassroots support, who sticks his counter.
Technically, Trump does.
It should be clear by now that having an army of near-broke college kids donating a buck apiece doesn't win you elections.
June adds she thinks that actually Bernie has more individual donors.
But then Sticks counters!
Or I'm sorry, June goes on to say, Donating a buck a piece doesn't win you elections.
No, but it should be the only way to fund a campaign.
Trump said he wouldn't take any corporate money and now he does.
Yet Bernie makes it this far with broke college kids.
You hate to see it.
I agree with June on this one.
I do not like the big money in politics.
I don't like Bloomberg dumping $37 million into the race just to smear Trump.
Okay?
Trump didn't spend that much money.
Trump earned that press for better or for worse.
And that's what even Jack Dorsey of Twitter said.
You gotta earn that recognition.
Well, Bloomberg and Steyer aren't doing that.
To me, that's cheating.
Okay?
And I don't care if you're left, right, top, down, whatever.
I don't like the idea that special interests are interfering in what individuals have to say.
This is how you swing elections and manipulate people.
I don't like it.
But sticks counters!
Trump is half self-funded.
Much of the rest of his cash comes from small donors, considerably more than for Sanders, who received comparable big donations by ratio.
Trump is the grassroots candidate for 2020, not pandering Sanders.
Shoe-in-heads counter!
And yet he still takes corporate money.
I'd take pandering over someone corrupted by special interests.
I will push back on that.
I do not believe Trump is corrupted by special interests.
He is the populist right candidate.
He might take some cash from certain candidates, but come on, man.
You look at the way Trump acts, nobody's telling that guy what to do.
That's one of the problems.
When they come to him and say, here's our advice to you, he goes, no, I ain't having it.
Volker and Morrison testified that they were trying to convince Trump Ukraine's on the level and he wouldn't believe them.
So you think that the NRA or some other organization is going to go to Trump and be like, here's some money, do as we say.
He's going to be like, no, I don't like it.
The plan doesn't make sense.
Nah, Trump knows what he's doing and nobody's getting in his way.
Stixx's close, this is the last tweet in the thread, he says, old mythology, long since, oh I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Stixx responded, I jumped ahead of myself.
Private business and special interests are not always the same thing.
June's response was that Trump may have been the grassroots anti-establishment guy in 2016, but just like Obama, he turned into a hack as soon as he stepped into office.
The first thing he did was give tax cuts to the rich, and continues to ignore the Rust Belt that had so much faith in him.
No, no, no, no, no, June, you are wrong.
I'm sorry.
Now, he did give a tax cut to the rich, but it did hit the middle class.
They did see major tax cuts, and there was, like, a spin that people's tax refunds were going down.
Yeah, because you're keeping more of your money.
Also, he has not ignored the Rust Belt.
He may not be succeeding as much as he'd like to, but there was recently a story, uh, New York Post had interviews with people on the Rust Belt.
They're very much still happy with him.
We'll see where that brings us.
All I can say for now is I do not believe he is ignoring the Rust Belt at all.
Old mythology long since debunked.
The Trump tax cut mainly benefited the middle class and entrepreneurs.
As both, I assure you, it was significant.
I thought this really was a great conversation.
I think they both made great points.
They were both right and wrong in some areas.
But this is the kind of conversation we should be having.
Whether or not Bernie is the right choice, or Obama or Trump or otherwise, it's good to see people discussing the issues in sane ways.
But admittedly, both Sticks and Schuh are sane individuals with great YouTube channels, so I recommend them.
So it's no surprise they had a legitimate conversation about Bernie vs. Trump.
But I would much prefer to see a Bernie vs. Trump battle because they're populists.
Bernie's the more socialist candidate, Trump's the more capitalist, and see who wins.
But having big players and the DNC collude to stop Bernie and outsiders from coming in, it's not the way.
It's not.
And as much as I don't like the big far-left push and a lot of the identitarian stuff they're pushing, I don't like cheating more.
If I lose, I lose on merit.
That's why I don't have Trump derangement syndrome.
Trump won because people voted for him.
Okay, I get it, right?
I'm not going to complain about it.
That's the way the game was played.
If I see wrongdoing, I'll call it out.
What the DNC is doing is not above board.
In this instance, Obama's allowed to speak up.
It's not the worst thing they've done, but they've done bad things.
So, I'll leave it there.
Stick around, I've got a couple more segments coming up in a few minutes, and I will see you all shortly.
I'm rounding off this day with some cultural content videos, because I've been doing too much politics lately, but it's
also because I tweeted about Star Wars, and for some reason people didn't understand my post, because apparently people
don't click links.
But for those that have been following the failure that is Star Wars... I'm not happy with Star Wars, I'm sorry.
Apparently the Mandalorian is good.
I don't know.
I'll never see it for a variety of reasons.
But there's a new clip from the new Star Wars movie, which I will not be going to see.
And we have this story from Cosmic Book News.
Fans hate goofy Star Wars Marvel jokes.
Quote, they fly now backfires.
Maybe you've seen the new clip.
They're riding, you know, being chased by the First Order, and then the bikes the First Order's on launch like catapults, throwing the First Order troopers in the air, who then have jetpacks and are flying.
And then you have a handful of people go, they fly now, they fly now, they fly now!
I kid you not, that's the joke.
And the first thing I did was, I got really angry because I don't care, you know what man, the cringe of that cringe humor, fine, I get it, but I'll tell you what man, Anybody who's been a fan of Star Wars knows that Imperial Jump Troopers were a thing.
Jango and Boba Fett had jetpacks.
They were preparing the clone troopers.
At the same time, Jango's got the jetpacks.
And apparently, in the Twitter they talk about how...
The new Star Wars canon includes jump troopers!
Why are they talking about- they fly now?
Finn was a stormtrooper!
He knows what they have!
Why is he shocked they have this when in the comics they put out for the first movie?
Star Wars is cringe to a whole new level.
Let's read the story from Cosmic Book News, because I love ranting on Star Wars right now because The Last Jedi was so bad!
And it's part of this decay.
They're lying.
You know what they said?
They said they had no source material to go off of.
That's not even true.
Apparently George Lucas said, here's the outline.
Like, it was reported, maybe I'm wrong, but it was reported that George Lucas had outlines for the next movies, and they scrapped it all.
Basically, The Force Awakens is a shot-for-shot remake of A New Hope.
And The Last Jedi, what is that?
I mean, Rian Johnson, what are you doing?
He just lit the script on fire and was like, let's just ad-lib everything.
It made no sense.
Okay, let's read the story.
Actually, yes, let's read.
It appears as if all the rumors suggesting Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker may be a complete disaster may be true, as a new clip offers absolutely no hope for the final film in the Skywalker saga.
You know what?
After The Last Jedi, part of me wants the movie to be bad, but really I want it to be good.
I do.
I'm just not going to see it, you know?
Part of me wants to just feel like emotionally vindicated that I was right how they ruined the movies.
And already this clip is kind of proving it right.
Like I say, let's read.
Similar to those cringe-inducing Poe jokes at the beginning of Rian Johnson's awful The Last Jedi, we see J.J.
Abrams is not going to fix Star Wars as a new clip recently released offers perhaps an even cringier line with quote, they fly now.
I'm guessing Disney was hoping that hashtag theyflynow would go viral and help promote the movie.
But just the opposite has happened and it's as it's simply awful and everyone's everyone's calling it Star Wars cringe.
Fans on social media have even pointed out that Poe being clueless as well as Finn about the fact that stormtroopers can fly makes zero sense.
Just like all of the Star Wars Disney movies, because in the comics, Poe has seen the stormtroopers fly before!
Not to mention, Finn was a stormtrooper!
I swear!
These people are not fans of this content.
And I can understand why there's a challenge in bringing on fans of the content in some capacity.
You might get too much fan service.
But come on, man.
You know, a lot of people complained about the prequel films.
I actually liked them, okay?
And I know that's controversial, but seriously, I'm pretty sure if you look at the Rotten Tomatoes, it's like a 50 to 60 percent.
Yeah, people ragged on them for being campy and silly and over-the-top, but at least I could see- You know, look, I gotta say, The Phantom Menace?
Eh, I got no opinion on.
It's just not that great, in my opinion.
The, uh, Attack of the Clones?
Is it the Clone Wars one?
Whatever the next one is.
Yeah, I don't even remember anymore.
I actually liked it.
I thought it was fun.
I did.
Cool visuals, nice fights, a little silly, not the best movie in the world, but hey, I dig it.
And Revenge of the Sith, I really, really do like.
I wish they would have done the transformation of Anakin to Vader a lot better.
It's like all of a sudden he's just like...
Okay, I'm evil now and it could have been done much much better
There could have been more conflict in Anakin's soul where he was regretting everything
It was doing instead of just flipping and going okay I'm Vader now they should have drawn it out a lot longer
And I guess they tried to but they could have done a better job if they had like five minutes of film anyway
Let's uh anyway the point is these new films. They're doing are
absolute garbage First, The Force Awakens, I thought it was okay.
It was pointed out by many people that it's basically a shot-for-shot remake of A New Hope.
Rogue One I actually liked, but after The Last Jedi, it was like, they brought in Rian Johnson, and in the film he's saying, you know, let the past die, kill it if you have to.
I think he did it on purpose.
That's my conspiracy theory.
Rian Johnson was trying to destroy old IP because he's noticed a problem I've noticed.
Let me tell you something.
Our culture is stagnant.
All we're doing is remakes, prequels, sequels, and nothing new.
Now, I don't really know if Rian Johnson believes that, but that's basically what he was saying in the movie, let the past die.
And so I think he was trying to get people like me to be like, I will not watch this anymore.
That's my opinion.
Just a conspiracy theory, maybe it's not true.
I don't know what his motive was, but man, is that movie bad.
And here's the thing, Looper wasn't a bad movie.
Now you got Rian Johnson's Knives Out coming out, I'm not gonna go see it.
I am not gonna go see that movie.
Let's read a little bit more, but I do want to do one thing.
One thing, as I often do, this is VirtualShield.
VirtualShield was my first sponsor.
I am extremely grateful to them for helping me make content.
So yes, I am going to promote them.
They're helping sponsor this content.
VirtualShield is a virtual private network service.
It's a simple layer of defense to help keep your data private from prying eyes, be it the government, hackers, or, you know, somebody who just wants to spy on your data.
It's not the most sophisticated systems in the world.
You're not, you know, building a tank for your computer, but you're doing the basic layer of defense that would be smart to have.
The way I usually describe it is, you don't expect someone to break into your house, you still lock your windows, right?
Well, when you're browsing the internet without any security, you have rather minimal security, so it makes sense.
So if you go to hidewithtim.com, they're doing a Black Friday special, it's 40% off, it's just $3 a month, and there's a lot of things that a VPN can do, but for the most part, the key benefit is that it helps hide and protect your data, so that people don't know who you are, they can't spy on you, and there's a lot of advantages to having it security.
There's also some things you can do with products, and if you're traveling out of the country, I won't get too much into, because it gets more complicated, but suffice it to say, Check it out.
Go to hidewithtim.com, click start now for free, and it's just three bucks a month.
And again, I gotta say, there's a lot of challenges to doing YouTube with demonetization and people who don't want to advertise, and YouTube threatening channels with, like, you can't even swear.
So I'm really grateful that Virtual Shield is stepping up to help me make videos like this.
But let's get back to the content.
They say.
So we see J.J.
Abrams and those that worked on Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker didn't bother doing their homework and, similar to Rian Johnson, just didn't care.
And now we get all of these tweets.
This is great.
Check this out.
Star Wars posted the clip.
Check out the clip from The Rise of Skywalker.
See it in theaters December 20th.
I won't.
DataRacer says, the dirt bikes have shields, but the giant space bombers don't?
Good job, guys.
This person says, I swear this 30 second clip is like an onion.
It has so many layers of stupid, and it is only 30 seconds long.
We can travel through space at faster than light speed, but damn, I can't believe that the stormtroopers could have jetpacks.
That's just over the line.
The point is that they are expressing surprise about them being able to fly.
In Disney's own canon, Poe has seen them do that already.
It is not new to Star Wars.
Finn himself was a stormtrooper, and he is unaware this exists.
Also, dumb catapult bike.
So someone posted this.
In response, there's a Twitter thread.
Or they actually have images, I guess, from the comics, and they say, note to JJ, the first order that he created already had rocket troopers that Finn would have known about.
What kind of Mickey Mouse organization are you guys running over there?
So he's got an image, I'll describe it for those listening on the podcast, that shows four stormtroopers with jetpacks carrying someone who's wearing like an astronaut suit.
You then have another image of flying stormtroopers, and another, and a first order rocket trooper.
Look at it!
This is from... It's canon!
So, you know what, man?
I have so many problems with Star Wars as it stands today.
Someone said this is just cringe.
Continuity much, Disney?
Looks awful.
Straight up looks awful.
That's a different tweet.
Using the same line of dialogue three times in a row is the exact level of quality I expect from Jar Jar Abrams.
Wonderful.
I say this.
The good news is that Abrams will be gone following episode 9, with reports offering the creative team behind the exceptional Disney Plus series, The Mandalorian, and Jon Favreau.
Favreau?
Is that how you pronounce it?
And Dave Filoni.
We'll be taking over the creative direction of Star Wars from Kathleen Kennedy's awful approach.
I might come back for that.
Uh, Favreau's, uh, I'm probably pronouncing that wrong, but he's done great with Marvel.
Um, so I'm absolutely hoping they can fix this because, man, the canon's, as far as I'm concerned, the canon's crap.
It's, it's, you know what they should do?
All of these movies should just be like, the alternate universe!
And they should try again.
Just start over, right?
Remember, you know how they did the alternate universe of Star Trek?
Yeah, this is an alternate universe as far as I'm concerned.
It's not real.
Bring back the extended Star Wars universe and all those other stories.
I didn't read most of it.
I didn't read any of them.
But I was a fan of a lot of the video games.
So bring it all back.
Bring it all back.
Get rid of this.
This is bad.
This is a mistake.
You guys screwed up.
But we're willing to give you money if you recognize it.
This is awful.
They say regarding The Mandalorian, the show is better than anything Disney has done with Star Wars, and The Mandalorian has also succeeded with their own popular catchphrases, which obviously this episode 9 clip was desperately trying to emulate.
Well, I'll tell you what.
I did not see Solo.
I will not watch The Mandalorian.
I am not gonna go see Star Wars because The Last Jedi was offensive.
I was sitting in that theater and I wanted to leave so bad.
If it was any other movie I would have left.
But I know how important Star Wars is culturally.
And so I was like, I gotta sit and watch this so I can tell people what I saw.
Because it just reaffirms that I should not go see your movie, and I won't!
Stick around, I got another cultural video coming up in a few minutes, and I will see you all there.
The other day I pointed out in a video about feminist movies, the reason why they fail in my opinion, and the reason why politics fails in my opinion, is that when I go to play games, card games, board games, video games, or go see a movie, I'm doing it because I'm trying to get away.
But the better way to explain it is, All day, non-stop, I am inundated with politics and news and here's what you gotta do and here's what you can't do.
And it's like, I get it, man.
I get it.
Now, for the last couple hours I have before I go to bed, I'd like to play a card game about goblins fighting dragons.
And now they're putting politics in it.
The point is, I'm not gonna go pay to get more of what I get inundated with every single day.
Stop.
I just don't care.
Well, that brings me to one of my favorite games, and a game I've played since I was a young child, Magic the Gathering.
Vice writes, queer erasure in Magic the Gathering book infuriated fans and drew an apology.
A new chapter in Magic's history of exclusion and erasure.
For those that are fans of Magic the Gathering, you'll get a lot of these terms, but I'll try and explain it for those that aren't.
But it's not, you don't need to know what this game is.
Suffice it to say, there are characters in the world of Magic the Gathering who are not queer.
Yet fans wanted them to be.
And... Actually, I think they might be, you know, bi or queer or something.
Apparently, fans wanted a same-sex relationship between two female characters.
And because it didn't happen, they're calling it queer erasure.
And the author actually apologized!
Dude!
If the fans want to write fan fiction, you can write fan fiction, but how are we in a world where the fans are screaming at the company and then getting the company to actually be like, okay, we'll write the story that you want instead of writing a story.
Now look, let me stop for a second.
I fully recognize the point I just made earlier, that the point of a business is to sell a product that people like.
But, if all that's gonna happen is you're gonna make a story by vote, well then you're not writing us a story at all and there's nothing to even consider.
People are gonna be like, I know exactly what happens.
Chandra and Nyssa are together.
No, I want, I want, I want, you got twists and turns, man.
So apparently...
For those that are looking at the screen, we have this Vice article, lo and behold, and this picture of this woman whose head is on fire, that's actually Chandra.
She is what's known as a planeswalker, and she is a pyromancer, so she, you know, controls fire.
There's another woman, whose name is Nissa, and I don't know what you'd call her, because I don't pay attention too much to the lore, but she's like, you know, she's green, she likes playing with trees and stuff.
And apparently, the fans really wanted a relationship.
But a new book came out, and they're not in a relationship.
So now, they've demanded an apology, and I kid you not, the dude who wrote it, I think it's a dude, actually apologized.
Let's check this out.
Wizards of the Coast publisher of the popular collectible card game Magic the Gathering issued an apology to its fans on Friday.
Some fans were upset after the publication of the tie-in novel War of the Spark, Forsaken, appeared to erase the identity of planeswalker Chandra Nalar.
Quote, Over the past week, we have seen and heard strong reactions from fans about how we handled the resolution of the Nissa-Chandra romantic relationship in the recent Forsaken novel, and we apologize.
WOTC said in a statement, we didn't live up to the expectations we created for Chandra and what she means to our fans.
Dude, hold on a minute.
There are millions upon millions of people who play Magic the Gathering.
It's a card game.
And because, what, a handful of people complained that two chicks weren't hooking up, you're apologizing?
You know what's really funny?
I'd imagine, like, if this was a Gen X era, The people who would be complaining about wanting the chicks to hook up would be like frat bros being like, let's get these chicks.
But now it's like a queer erasure thing that they're not having that happen.
Dude, not everybody's in a relationship.
You know, some people can have an identity, but not bang someone else.
This is the craziest thing to me.
Shandra could be gay.
Like, I really don't care.
Write the story.
That's fine by me.
I mean, tell me an interesting story.
You know, whatever.
But they're mad that they're not hooking up?
I get it.
They want a relationship.
But still, it's like, dude, whatever, man.
It doesn't mean she's not a strong, you know, queer character.
I'm really happy to be doing cultural content, though.
Too much politics lately.
They say Magic started as a collectible card game.
Yeah, we get it.
They say Magic's story, such as it is, has always been loose.
But since 2015, Wizards of the Coast has been trying to codify something like a grand narrative centered around planeswalkers, powerful spellcasters who travel Magic's multiverse.
Chandra is a planeswalker who wields flame, and in the early novels is portrayed as queer, developing feelings for the elven planeswalker Nyssa.
Though never explicitly stated in the published novels and short stories, Nisha and Chandra's relationship was heavily implied and teased.
They're calling it erasure because, but they're openly stating she is queer.
Okay, we're good.
I get it.
I'm cool with that.
I think Chandra's a great character.
But the issue is that she's not in a relationship so they're calling it, come on man.
Okay, here's where we're gonna go from here.
I don't care about the story at this point.
with some believing it was obviously a romantic connection and others believing they were
just friends.
Okay, here's where we're going to go from here.
I don't care about the story at this point.
The reason I wanted to talk about this is because where we go as a culture, listen,
they complain that gaming spaces are toxic, that men do and say nasty things.
Okay.
Since I was like, I don't know, eight or nine, I have played Magic the Gathering.
Now, admittedly, when I first started playing, I had no idea how it worked.
And it was only a few years later when I got into Magic that I actually started learning how to play, hanging out at the comic shop.
And let me tell you something.
No girls there.
That's just the way it was.
And it wasn't because men were doing gross things.
Like, I was 12.
Girls just didn't go to the comic shop.
Maybe it's because no one encouraged them.
I have no idea.
But then people started complaining that the spaces were too gross, toxic, masculine.
And I'll admit, man, a lot of the dudes who would hang out at these shops and these games, yeah, they're gross.
Straight up, man.
And everybody knows it.
There's a recurring meme about, like, dude, go take a shower and buy deodorant, man.
And there were a lot of people who just didn't care about how they looked, how they smelled, and I don't know what that's all about.
I don't know what attracted those kinds of people to these kinds of spaces.
Maybe it was because that's what was available to them because other spaces ostracized them, I don't know.
But I was like 13, and I was skateboarding, and was punk rock-ish, and played games like this and Pokemon.
And yeah, it was a very dude-centric space.
How do you attract girls to these spaces?
I don't know, but I'll tell you what.
Imagine you have your own space for you and yourself and your friends.
And all of a sudden, some people you don't know and don't like are showing up saying, we want to change everything about this.
And now you're getting angry that the space that was once yours is no longer yours.
Now there's two things to talk about here.
First, I can fully respect someone who says, I had my own hangout and I'm sad that it's been taken away.
And you can't really do a public hangout like that if people want to come and you're creating an unwelcome space like you gotta do something about it.
You can't imagine that your culture would stay as small as it is and not expand to females and trans people and queer people and other marginalized groups.
The reality is Magic the Gathering is an awesome game, and because of that, it has attracted a wider and more expansive audience of people.
While the game did start off as overwhelmingly male players, and probably still is to this day, it has done such a good job of being a fun game, guess what?
Everybody wants to play it, or at least more people do.
The challenge, I guess, is people seeing their spaces change and no longer being that fun escape they wanted.
That I respect and understand.
I don't know how you solve that problem.
Maybe make a semi-private club.
But the issue is, for me, when people come in and start changing that space, you will see a backlash and you will see anger.
But more importantly, there is a large group of people... So this is really hard to talk about, but there's a large group of people, as I mentioned, deal with these kind of politics all day, every day.
Why now are we seeing an article complaining about the erasure of someone's identity simply because they weren't in a relationship?
This has nothing to do with the game.
Why is this a focal point of the story?
Why is it becoming the story?
And why can't I just enjoy my chocolate ice cream?
I had my vegetables.
I just want to go get dessert.
Politics has been infecting everything.
And that's why people are angry, and I totally get it.
I don't know what the solution is.
I really don't.
Don't be surprised, though.
You know, actually, you get the point.
I made that point.
I want to make another point.
Capitalism.
Yup, you gotta love it.
The nature of the business is to expand your audience.
And that means even if the game originally was primarily attracting young men to play, you know they're trying to figure out how to get women to play as well.
And so they're doing this.
Here's the big risk that I see.
First, I don't care.
I really don't.
I'll keep playing Magic.
I've played it less, mostly because of the interference at shops I've experienced.
But I'll play with my friends, you know.
I've more so played Hearthstone, but I don't even play that much anymore.
But I play Commander.
It's a format of Magic.
And I have fun doing it, and I'll keep doing it.
I don't care about any of this stupid stuff.
Get out of my way.
I don't go to shops as much anymore.
But here's the thing.
Let's say you have 80% of your players are dudes, and those dudes enjoy a certain space.
Like it or not, men and women are different.
You then try to start attracting women by doing things like this, talking about the queer characters and their relationship, and the females, and you do a bunch of the more political, feminist-y stuff.
You're gonna start losing your core audience and sacrificing it, trying to attract people who don't play your game already.
This is the big challenge that I don't know how you navigate.
I will give advice to those that are fans of Magic.
You know, if you watch this video, I don't know.
Listen.
When I was younger, as a story I often tell, so if you heard it, forgive me.
The good skateboarders wore baggy clothes, and the newer, younger skaters wore tight clothes.
And eventually, when I got older, the younger kids started wearing dickies that didn't reach their shoes.
They were floods, right?
And so the baggy kids made fun of the tight clothes kids, and tight clothes kids started making fun of the dickies kids.
And for me, I was like, dude, everyone needs to chill out, right?
Times change.
What can you do about it?
You're mad that what you liked about skateboarding and you thought was cool isn't cool anymore?
I don't know, man.
I don't know what to tell you.
So I can fully respect why people get angry.
They say it's infuriating fans, but what about the other side of this, right?
They say queer erasure and magic infuriates fans and draws an apology.
What about the fans that are tired of this dominating a narrative of a strategy game?
What about the people who are like, I really don't care about the story?
This is why I've been talking to some friends about making a game that has no real backstory, is more offensive and comedic, and doesn't plan any of this stuff, or actually satirizes it.
But I don't know.
All I can really say is, for those that like the game, expect more of this.
Because the fans are going to demand things.
The business wants to cater to them.
And I'll tell you what.
It is not the dudes, in my opinion, who are complaining about the storyline.
They're more so complaining about how the storyline is being smashed to fit an agenda from people who don't even like the game in the first place.
A lot of people complaining about this stuff aren't big fans.
There are a lot of big fans that are complaining about it.
I'm not saying that, you know, it's not everybody.
But often what we see with political injection into games and comics are people who never buy the product in the first place, just demand that culture change.
So the next big thing I'll leave you with, and I'll wrap up here, otherwise I'll talk for a million years, is imagine you have your own space.
You're cracking a beer with your buddies, you're laughing, making crude jokes, and somebody you don't know, you don't hang out with, shows up, and the cops come in and say, you gotta change all this, you gotta take it down, and you're like, dude!
What?
Like, you don't even hang out here, man.
That's another big problem.
If Magic and Wizard of the Coast and other games are not attracting a new player base, and it's still 80% dudes, then why do those dudes have to change the way they behave for people who don't even play the game?
I don't know.
The solution is... I never do.
I have no answers.
All I do is complain about stuff.
Apparently that's all I'm good for.
But I will tell you this.
Wizards of the Coast.
I don't go to shops anymore.
I don't play anymore.
The last... I bought a box recently.
I didn't even open it.
And the reason is... this.
Seriously.
It's not because I'm politically angry about it.
It's because I don't have fun being at these spaces.
I just don't.
I don't have fun hearing about this.
I don't have fun- There was one shop that got, like, stripped of their rank- of- of their, uh, access to Wizards products because they had a kek flag.
I'm like, dude, I don't wanna- what- get- get it- what are you doing?
I don't wanna do that.
Oh, I'm a goblin to fight a vampire!
So now what I do, I- I play with my friends in private.
We play commander, we have drinks, we set up round table, and maybe that's the way it's gonna go.
You know, like I said, maybe people are gonna go and find their own way to make their own space.
We set up a couple TVs, we watch some movies, we order pizza, and we play games, and we're offensive, we make jokes, and we just don't have to worry about politics.
Part of getting away and playing games is that you can be yourself and not have to worry about other people yelling at you all the time.
