I think the party needs to concede. Retire. Enjoy the rest of your life. What is about this guy? Seems like it's intractable. Why not have an AOC and a Jasmine Crockett, who, quite frankly, are never scared of Donald Trump or Republicans with regular people about regular things? [00:00:17] I mean, AOC and Jasmine Crockett are probably two of their best communicators. We need messengers to make sure that people are paying attention to all these hearings on Capitol Hill to communicate to voters. I don't agree with what Bernie Sanders said, that we've abandoned the working class people. We actually are the party of working class people. [00:00:35] It's a new day in America, folks, where you have someone like Joy-Ann Reid on MSNBC criticizing the Democratic Party. Hear, hear. Now, of course, this has to do with the Democratic leadership [00:00:50] in this case, in the House, refusing to kind of step aside and allow for younger members of Congress to take the reins, to serve in leadership roles, And to be more specific. This week we learned that while AOC Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [00:01:07] was trying to win a leadership role in the House Oversight Committee, Nancy Pelosi was behind the scenes, whipping up votes against her to ensure that a more moderate Democrat, Representative Gerry Connolly, [00:01:23] who's 74 years old and is currently suffering from cancer, would be named the leader Democratic leader of this committee instead. And so I'm real curious to get your thoughts was because for the most part, I mean, I agreed with what, you know, Joy Reid was saying, and I [00:01:40] don't agree with her often these days. I rarely agree with Joy-Ann Reid when it comes to what the Democrats are doing or what they should be doing and what's right and what's wrong, but I think it's obvious that everybody understands [00:01:56] this Gerontocracy situation is bad. It's bad for business. Like this idea that you can be dynamic and reach a mass audience with, you know, these freaking people that you got to wheel across the damn stage [00:02:12] or on crutches, you know, and they, they basically gotta eat in public with a damn bib on. I think that's a problem. And I'm not trying to be ageist here, but, like, just look at it. It looks insane. And then, you know, when they come out and say like, oh, [00:02:29] we're the party that has the best interest of the country and blah, blah, blah. And they do this stuff like just, just nakedly grab for power at every single turn. Like, everybody knows that, that that's the wrong move. What I will say, man, and if you ever watch a Nancy Pelosi interview and she's [00:02:49] talking about her machinations behind the scenes, she's a freaking mob boss. And I think what she would say to AOC is, why don't you whip up the votes. Okay. You don't have the power, so shut up. You got to take the power. Basically, they're saying you got to kill us yourselves at the ballot box. [00:03:09] You know, you got to have more progressives in the caucus so that, you know, these freaking corporate, moderate, centrist, whatever euphemism we want to call these Democrats so that we can actually defeat them. That's such a great point, was because so far, AOC has tried the approach [00:03:28] of cozying up to people like Nancy Pelosi, calling her Mama bear, complimenting her. She came in, she got voted into Congress to fight the Democratic establishment. And in the very beginning she did. But she caved to them pretty quickly. [00:03:44] And look, I can imagine how uncomfortable it is to find yourself in a workplace that's incredibly hostile toward you. But that's what you got voted in for, and so No one is going to hand her a leadership position, [00:03:59] because right now, the standard operating procedure for the Democratic Party in Congress is we have protocols. Seniority is the number one priority. You have to pay your dues and you have to wait your turn. [00:04:15] And understand that's all about their own sense of entitlement. It's not about what is best for constituents. What is best in terms of securing policy wins that Democrats purport to want to pass. [00:04:32] It's all about like, you know, this person's waited their turn. It reminds me of what happened with Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Yeah. All of the games that were being played during that Democratic primary, not to ensure that the best possible candidate was going to run against Donald Trump, [00:04:50] but to ensure that someone who was really rising, skyrocketing in popularity at the time, of course, Senator Bernie Sanders wouldn't have a chance, right? I remember all the little games that they played, and it's just incredible because, of course, there were a lot of denials about those strategies to essentially [00:05:07] prevent Sanders from winning the primary. But then during this past election cycle, all of a sudden, you have Democratic lawmakers who came out and just totally admitted it on cable news. Yeah. And you know what? I think about the other side, and we've talked about this on the show [00:05:24] and about like, what Matt Gaetz and them could do in the freaking House caucus, where, the Republican on the Republican side, where they could have a direct hand in picking the freaking speaker. Okay. I think part of that is their megaphone, man. Like, they could get certain political, conservative media entities [00:05:44] to echo what they're saying. Like, I think AOC got to get on the horn. She got to try to get them folks at the New Yorker and the New Republic and the, God forbid, The Atlantic and New York Times. Like, you got to find a way to get in there to put a pressure campaign [00:06:00] on these establishment Dems and just talk about like, yo, you guys are taking all these L's, and the idea that you could sit around and be this arrogant and stubborn about holding on to power till the bitter end, she's, you know, she's got to be a little bit more politically, savvy, [00:06:17] honestly, about little Machiavellian. Yeah, 100%, because it's not going to work from just doing it on the quote unquote merits, 100%. Now, I want to go to one more video here. And this is Chris Hayes, also a host over at MSNBC. [00:06:32] But in light of everything that has happened over the past decade, it does feel like Democrats still have not learned a pretty important lesson here. In April of last year, President Joe Biden announced he was running for reelection, even though he was the oldest man to ever serve as president, and was also clearly having a hard time communicating at the level necessary [00:06:51] to occupy the bully pulpit. It wasn't until over a year later, when Biden gave a cataclysmic performance in his first debate with Donald Trump, that the Democrats changed course. You would think that would have been enough for Democrats to start taking the age issue seriously. [00:07:07] But it was not. Gerry Connolly won that vote today, and he did so thanks in part to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi whipping votes for him. Pelosi whipped votes to make sure that Connolly got the oversight job over the young star in the party, even as the 84 year old Pelosi is recovering [00:07:24] from hip surgery after suffering a fall. It feels like a moment of genuine madness. Yeah, because it is. And dude, Pelosi needs to retire. But I just. [00:07:42] Look, I think that Chris Hayes raises a super important question. Has the Democratic Party learned a damn thing from this past election? And I remember before you answer was. I remember having a conversation with Jake behind the scenes in the lead up to [00:07:57] the election because I told him I'm like, look, I know people are getting excited about some of this polling and stuff. I remember it was like after the Anne Seltzer thing came out and I'm like, Iowa joint? - Yeah, yeah. - The Iowa poll. I'm like, no, I don't buy this poll at all. But in saying that, I was like, look, there's a possibility [00:08:16] that if Democrats lose this election, it might wake them up and make them realize things need to change. It might force them into some self-reflection. It doesn't seem like that's happening, at least not with the leadership. It's definitely not. [00:08:32] I don't know if you saw in the New York Times either. Yes. Yeah, I think it was yesterday where, the DNC chair, the black dude, is like, well, actually we had some down ballot wins and all isn't lost. And it's like, cope, like you can't be serious. [00:08:48] But to, you know, to what Chris Hayes was saying, who, by the way, I always thought Chris Hayes was one of the few good ones at MSNBC. He's got some like, you know, he's got some progressive instincts. I've never minded Chris Hayes. And so I'm not surprised that he's bringing this up. [00:09:04] But like, you show that picture of Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, like, these people are so cooked. And what I love too, about this is AOC, I think is very illustrative of what's going on politically these days. [00:09:20] I think these chart wielding quants in the Democratic Party, they want to show you their chart and be like, well, actually bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. And when AOC held the Q&A, when she was like, hey, why did you guys vote for me and Donald Trump? [00:09:36] Basically what she got back is like, we believe you guys believe what you're saying. We like we think you're a genuine person. We may not agree with you on every single subject that you're passionate about, but we really believe these are things that you hold true and dear, [00:09:52] and you're not some corporate shill and we love you for that. Like nobody's like, oh, I can't this issue doesn't poll well. And it's like, no, like I don't need to be 95% in lockstep with the candidate that I vote for. But I would like to vote for a candidate who I think is a genuine, [00:10:10] real human being and not an empty suit. Yes. And like, who's ever even heard of this Connolly guy? I mean, jeez. So true. No, that's such a great point. And look, you can't ignore the fact that one of the weaknesses of Kamala Harris, especially up against Donald Trump, [00:10:29] was the lack of authenticity. And love him or hate him, Donald Trump is authentic. Okay. Like real authentic. I mean, the guy can't stop himself from talking and saying things that sometimes get him into a lot of trouble. But and it just just the other day with the tick tock [00:10:44] and he said he reversed roles. He was like, yo, my son told me I was blowing up on TikTok. I'm like, hey, maybe this thing should stay around. He's just like, look, there's something admirable about that transparency because we're so used to politicians lying to us that when you have a politician, [00:11:00] just give it to you straight, even when they're, like, super self-interested and are making decisions based on themselves. Right. It's like, all right, at least he's being honest. At least he's authentic. And with Kamala Harris, it was the same stump speech over and over again. She just gave it again. [00:11:16] She just gave a speech, you know, head up, shoulders back I know, I know, we heard that a billion times. You're not excited about the opportunity economy? No. Whatever the hell that means. Well, I didn't know what it was because it wasn't really explained to me or anyone else. [00:11:31] So hey, thanks for watching the video. 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