Senator Bernie Sanders just exposed his fellow senators for bending the knee to AIPAC. Take a look. There are many members of the Senate who will come to you privately and say, My God, when Netanyahu is doing is outrageous. I just can't vote because money is going to come and destroy my political career. [00:00:19] That was on the most recent episode of Jon Stewart's podcast, The Weekly Show. Let's watch a little bit more of their discussion. How does Washington get out of that bubble? To understand the trap that most people are in, childcare is too expensive. Then when the kids finally old enough education is too expensive. [00:00:36] When you finally pay that off, your parents are older and you got to take care of them. How? How do we get them to understand that. You're not going to. You're missing the point here, John. It's not a question of getting them. You know, people think. People think the members of Congress and the Senate are stupid. [00:00:53] They're not. It's not a question of knowing or understanding. It's a question of who controls what goes on here. At the root of everything. Not at everything, but a key part of this whole discussion, John, is money. In politics. People cannot vote their conscience. [00:01:09] They can't vote their intelligence when they know if they vote against the corporate world or the big money world, they're going to get defeated at the polls. As of July of this year, AIPAC had already spent over $100 million on federal elections. And here's another timely example of how corporate money affects our politics. [00:01:28] In a Senate hearing yesterday, FDA Commissioner Doctor Robert Califf admitted that the food and beverage industry often blocks the FDA's efforts, but declined to say that was a problem. Thankfully, Bernie called him out on that. We'll get to that clip shortly. [00:01:44] But first, let's see how their confrontation started. Take a look. 2010 the National Academy of Medicine recommended that the food and beverage industry be required to put nutritional labels that the American people could easily understand on the front of their packages. [00:02:03] According to the CDC, the rate of childhood obesity in America has tripled since the 1970s. And from where I'm standing here, the FDA has not responded in any way [00:02:19] with the urgency of the crisis. How long does it take to put a bloody label on a product? What sounds simple, given the current state of judicial affairs, First Amendment rights, [00:02:35] the fact that corporations have the same rights as individuals, every little thing we do, unless specifically in detail, instructed by Congress. Okay, it's not just that we lose in court, but we lose years when that happens. Let me again, I apologize for interrupting, [00:02:52] but don't have endless amounts of time. I understand all that. Have you had the courage to take on a very powerful food and beverage industry? That's a good. Question, but let's watch Califf run cover for the giant corporations [00:03:09] that are creating the problem he is supposed to fix. Take a look. And I'm really heartened to hear the bipartisan support for this, because much of what we tried to do, frankly, gets blocked. - By whom and by whom. - Let's let's be honest here. The food and beverage industry spends hundreds and hundreds [00:03:27] of millions of dollars on lobbying and on campaign contributions. You tell me the role that they are playing in destroying the health of America's children. Well, I'm not going to contest your comment about the amount of money [00:03:43] spent on lobbying. I think it's probably accurate. I don't have figures on that, but a lot of the changes that those of us who are interested in better health would like to make are blocked at the level of legislation for reasons that I'm. Still not hearing you. What is the reason that our kids are unhealthy? [00:04:01] What role do these this industry play? Even now you're getting out of office. Are you prepared to tell us that this committee, this Congress, needs to take on the food and beverage industry whose greed is destroying the health of millions of people? Well. I'm not going to cascade the people that work in the food and beverage industry. [00:04:18] You're not? - No. What is. - Your job? No, it's not to castigate. It's to point out how to make progress in this area. Pretty good. Hey, Bernie was just reelected for another six year term. He is 83. I think we all hope he can hang in there for the remainder of his term, [00:04:36] but it does seem like he's using his last years in the Senate to just really go after everybody. What do you think of these these Bernie clips? I just love the synergy of today's show, where we talk about the swamp because that [00:04:52] dude's headed for consultant job in the food and beverage industry. 1,000,000%. The reason why he won't go on the record talking crazy about those people and exposing what they're doing in terms of poisoning our population with [00:05:09] the crap that they put in their products, is because I, I would put any amount of money on it. This guy is headed for a first class ticket to consultant bank. Okay, after he gets out of that post. And that's what was just exposed there. [00:05:26] Man. This is the swamp literally at work right here. I couldn't agree with was more. It was just painful. Okay. And I think he felt like, you know, you heard Senator Sanders say we don't have endless time. This guy was talking so low and so slow. It was like, who needs melatonin? [00:05:44] Okay, this is exactly what's going on here. I agree, I would take that bet. He's been captured. That's what lobbying does. He would barely even acknowledge what Senator Sanders said. It's not even really that controversial. It's just this is how we do business and there's nothing [00:05:59] you're going to do about it. He was just pointing it out again. And here we have this little numbnuts answer, like, again, we're stupid. But as the senator told, you know, Jon Stewart, he and his colleagues are not stupid. They know exactly what's going on. That gentleman testifying, he knows exactly what's going on. [00:06:15] But we're just going to continue the status quo. And occasionally you're going to hear Senator Sanders be one of the only ones, one of the only ones to call it out on behalf of the people. Yeah. And the thing is, like, Bernie's just stating the obvious, and he's heralded for it. [00:06:32] And I think it's what many, if not most people in this country want to see. You can talk to even Republicans. And if you ask them, what's wrong in Washington is that they think the politicians are corrupt, they think they're all bought and controlled [00:06:48] by special interests and corporations. And, you know, Trump will pay lip service to that sentiment. He certainly won't do anything about it. But I think that spoke to people like Bernie's popularity. It's why Warren is a popular figure. It's why AOC is popular, and you're seeing more and more people [00:07:05] rise by addressing it on the right. People will, like, lean into it, but won't do anything about it. Josh Hawley does it. Every now and then he'll pretend to be an anti corporate like antitrust guy. Doesn't do anything on it. But we we're going to see more and more people finally actually take action I hope [00:07:26] because this problem is just unanswerable. Like you have someone in this position who is supposed to be doing something about it. It's like, well, the food industry blocks it. So, so ignore them. Like, what do you want? Like, what do you think you're. This is your job, man. [00:07:43] And there's also a danger in not doing anything about it and anything about it when you have people like RFK Jr coming in who have been saying that this is a problem for a very long time, you're kind of ceding ground to the right. [00:07:59] And if RFK does like anything on it, even something small, the right will point to it routinely. Like, well, actually, we're the party who's taking on special interests. We're the party taking on corporations. Never mind the 98% of our work that benefits them. [00:08:19] They can point to this as a success. And the Democrats, at least on this front, don't have something as significant to point to. So I commend Bernie for continuing to fight the good fight, even though he knows positions that he takes, work that he engages in is often a losing battle. [00:08:39] So hopefully he sees more success in what I assume will be his final term in the Senate. But it's just frustrating that he is outnumbered and often alone on this. - Was Sharon any final thoughts? - I think, you talk about the dangers. [00:08:54] I think one of the dangers, that we saw in the Kamala campaign, why I think the whole like, democracy is on the line and all of that stuff didn't land. I don't think it's that people don't didn't believe her. I think people were like, all right, what's so good about [00:09:09] the democracy we have right now? It's not as if a democracy is supposed to be the will of the people expressed through government. And when is that ever happening for people where something that's overwhelmingly popular that everybody wants, like, say, I don't know, universal health care, better health care outcomes, [00:09:28] when is that ever happening through the instrument of government? It doesn't. So when you tell people that democracy is going to be destroyed, they yawn and don't care. And this is why it's stuff like this, man. Yeah, I agree with that as well. But we're just agreeing on everything. And I think was made the point earlier in the show that listen, frustrated people [00:09:48] decide, let's just go down with the ship. It can't get any worse. Let's drag this thing all the way down and then it is frustrating, but hopefully it gets better because we can't get much worse. And working class people, the working poor, whatever ridiculous label [00:10:05] you want to put on folks, it comes down to this they're not going to shut up forever. They're going to fight back. And it could be ugly. It could be, God forbid, violent, but they're going to fight back. Thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it. [00:10:20] Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. You've got emojis of me Anna John Jr. So those are super fun. 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