You got to get CNN to talk about these issues. You got to get your members of Congress to talk about these issues. We're we're literally talking about it right now. Yeah, but I'm forcing you to talk about it. [00:00:15] This is why we invited you. Okay, so that was Senator Bernie Sanders addressing corporate media very directly, about as directly as anyone can for not adequately covering topics that he believes matter to most Americans. So that was a town hall on CNN last night, moderated by Anderson Cooper. [00:00:34] And Bernie made several references to corporate media, failing to discuss topics like healthcare, drug access and income, and wealth inequality. So when Anderson Cooper tried to move on to another audience question, Bernie said, no, I have more things to say about this. [00:00:49] So here's the whole bit. Sometimes these issues about health care, about income and wealth inequality are not talked about in the corporate media, and it's time that we did talk about them. That's why the question a moment ago, why are people losing faith [00:01:06] in the American system? We don't talk about it on CNN. We don't talk about it in Congress. Of course, they understand that a handful of billionaires exert enormous influence, and that has got to change. So when I'm running around the country with Alexandria and other people, what we are trying to do is demand that working class people begin [00:01:25] to stand up and fight for their rights. There is no reason we should be the only major country not to have health care, not to have paid family and medical leave, etc. Etc.. Why? We have the highest rate of childhood poverty. Almost any major country, 22% of our seniors living on $15,000 a year. [00:01:42] Anybody here think that makes sense? No. Okay, Jake, I want to get your thoughts on this. Not just on what Bernie said, but what do you think about corporate media, about the stories that they, one choose to cover and then two, the ways in [00:01:58] which they choose to cover those stories? Because a lot can happen. A lot of different networks can cover the same stories, but you get a different angle from whoever you're listening to. Which is why we were supposed to have varied media outlets. We have that, I think, in the independent space, but in corporate media, less and less so. [00:02:15] Do you think corporate media? I think I know the answer, but do you think corporate media is doing a good job of reaching the American people about the issues that matter most to the actual, real life American people? Now, look, of course not. Corporate media is designed to benefit corporations, [00:02:30] including those giant corporations that are those media companies. So time, you know, CNN, MSNBC, their parent companies like Comcast, etc.. And now Discovery Warner for CNN and all those companies want deregulation and massive tax cuts, and they're about to get an enormous tax cut. [00:02:49] It the tax are going to be, reduced from 21 to 15, for corporations. If you're in the highest income bracket in America, you have to pay around, 37% as things stand now. Out, but if you're a multi-trillion dollar corporation, 15%, [00:03:07] they have to pay way less than you. And if CNN or MSNBC is screaming from the rooftops about that? No, not at all. And it's interesting because mainstream media loves to attack Donald Trump, right? They like to find fault in everything, but, oh, 5 trillion in tax cuts for the rich and us. [00:03:22] Oh, I can't find a way to criticize it. But here. Look, I love the Bernie push this out. And I think he's like John the Baptist. He's just going around preaching and getting everybody to realize what the problem is. But he's not the solution. And I wish he was. And I love him. And I'm not saying it in a way that is meant to say like, [00:03:41] oh, he's doing it wrong, I get it. What he does is really important, and it's getting everybody to wake up a little bit and understand what the scope of the problem is. And at least he's got the credibility and the status to be able to go on CNN and bring that to a larger audience. And he's going on online shows, too. So bless his heart on all of it. But the criticism is too vague in general. [00:04:00] So he says, quote, they have these donors have enormous influence. Yes. But who do they have influence on? Oh, right. They have influence on politicians. But if you don't call out those politicians, well, then people don't know what they're supposed to do, right? [00:04:17] So now if you say, well, no, he calls out Donald Trump. But Donald Trump's not the only problem. The real problem is that the Democratic Party doesn't even fight back against the Republicans. And why don't they fight back? Because the donors have enormous influence over Democrats. But Bernie won't cross that line. He's too nice. [00:04:33] He just never, ever says, okay, here. Chris Coons takes an enormous amount of money from the donor class, and that's why he voted against $15 minimum wage. That's true. Well, did Bernie do that? No. Will he ever do that? Very, very, very unlikely. Because for him, criticizing fellow Democrats personally [00:04:52] by name is a line in the sand. But if you don't do that, we don't know who the bad guys are and we can't actually effectively fight back. And then he says, that has got to change about income inequality. I agree, but Bernie, you got to tell them how we can all get super angry about income inequality. [00:05:07] And believe me, we are. But then as a leader, I would hope that you or others in that movement can then come and say, this is how we change it. Well, how do we change it? We got to get money out of politics. And how are we going to get money out of politics? We have to have an amendment that does that. [00:05:22] How are we going to do that? We have to have all the Democrats vote for that amendment, or all the Democrats are going to vote for that amendment. No chance. No chance. Are any Democrats even pushing for that amendment? None of them are. Even Bernie isn't pushing for that amendment. Then Bernie, how are we going to get rid of income inequality if you don't [00:05:38] have a solution that actually gets there? So again, this is not to criticize Bernie and like and say it's his fault. He's the best of them. He's at least putting the issue forward certainly in the Senate. But in terms of the fix it's I guess it's on us, the next generation, [00:05:55] to follow the lead of John the Baptist and tell you how to add fix it. So finally he says, fight for your rights. Yes. But Bernie, how you have to tell people how to fight for their rights. We can go to street protests all day long. We can go to your speeches all day long, and those are good. [00:06:12] And you should. Okay. It's solidarity. It's doing something, it's getting in the game, etc. But step two is enormously important, and I would argue much more important. Tell us what bills to vote for. Tell us who's preventing those bills. Tell us whether it's a bill, an amendment, etc.. [00:06:29] Now, of course, when the Democrats were in charge, he went with the Biden strategy and that didn't work at all. I'm sorry, but it didn't. Right. So now the Republicans are in charge and it's easier to be angry. It's easy. It's easier to say that they're the bad guys. But now we can't introduce bills anymore because the Republicans are in charge. [00:06:47] So tell us how to fight back. And look, you fight for the amendment. Wolf-pac.com. You fight for a populist rebellion. One is coming. I'll tell you more specifically in the coming weeks how to actually get in the fight and help make that happen. [00:07:02] But the bottom line is you have to root out the corruption in the Republican and Democratic parties. And this sad reality is that the overwhelming majority of Bernie Sanders Democratic colleagues are completely corrupt. [00:07:17] They take the same donor money. They take it from the drug companies, the military industrial complex. They take it from the bankers, and they serve that donor class. That's why we never, ever get anything accomplished, whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge. And if you want to fix that, you've actually got to take over [00:07:36] one of the parties. Trump did it for the Republicans with fake populism, and now he's leading them to even more pro-establishment pro-rich tax cuts for the rich. We have to take over the Democratic Party. And we cannot listen to people who say, no, no, no. - No no no no no no. - Bow your heads. [00:07:52] Obey Joe Biden, bow your heads. Obey Kamala Harris, obey Nancy Pelosi, obey Barack Obama. No, those let's be honest, those are the people that got us in this mess. And let me ask you a question. And if you're the most diehard Democratic loyalist there is, and you love the four people that I just mentioned, [00:08:09] did any of them actually get us out of this mess, or do we have worse income inequality today than we did 40 years ago? Well, that's empirical answer to that. It's worse now than before. It's much, much worse. So no, Obama didn't do it. Biden didn't do it. [00:08:26] And in fact, Obama took Bush's giant tax cuts for the rich. And through negotiations with Biden and McConnell, they made 90% of them permanent. They made the situation worse, not better. That's why people say uniparty. [00:08:41] Because these establishment guys, which is over 95% of Congress, they're corrupt. And we need politicians, our leaders that are true progressives and populists to call them out by name. Otherwise, we'll never get to the how and we'll never be able to fix this mess. [00:08:58] Yeah, and that's the old trope, right? The Republicans do things that benefit the rich people. And then the Democrats say, oh, sorry, there's nothing we can do about it. Even whenever the Democrats are in are in power. And that was the original question that Bernie was actually asked during that town hall is, why are people losing? [00:09:14] Losing faith in the American system? Because, as you said, a lot of people see it as a uniparty right now. Or they look at the two parties as they currently are, and they don't understand where they fit into those either of those two parties. For a lot of us watching this here right now, for me and you, Jake, [00:09:30] even we probably feel very out of place within the Democratic Party, because a lot of the things that we want, we're constantly fighting against our own party to get these things passed. And, you know, all of it is so relevant right now, like today, as Americans are [00:09:46] bracing for things like the loss of social programs like Medicare and Medicaid, higher drug prices, loss of Social Security, and now these extremely volatile, unpredictable and unreliable money markets. There is a lot going on that the American people have to deal with. And that unreliability isn't just a problem here at home. [00:10:03] It is around the world because in light of Trump's insane tariff policy and all the damage he's done between us and our allies, confidence in the American dollar and the American system, and the fact that the American market is no longer a safe bet for investors, is putting Americans in a position where they are unable to plan their [00:10:21] personal expenditures and plan their life, or run their businesses. But over on corporate media, with the exception actually probably from Fox News, they tend to focus more on things like international markets and less on things that actually impact people. And to be fair, there's only so much they can do when [00:10:38] they're trying to cast such a wide net. They're trying to appease too many people, and now they're trying to appease even more people, because now they're trying to win over these middling people or conservative people to the point where I can't even, you know, before I'd be able to at [00:10:53] least get through a CNN segment. Now, it is kind of difficult to do so, especially with, you know, they always have to bring on somebody with an opposing view. Not that opposing views are bad, but these people, they got like, they're just so ridiculous that you can't take anything they say seriously. Give me somebody with a legitimate opposing view [00:11:11] just so I can at least understand what the other side is saying and thinking. But instead they bring on those same propagandists that we were talking about earlier. But, you know, most people don't even watch their local news channels. And as you were saying, you asked, people like Bernie to tell us what to vote for. [00:11:27] A lot of the change that people want to see, they would see more at their local level or at the state level. But a lot of people are not as engaged with local news or statewide news, and they don't participate a whole lot in local elections or state elections. They all look at the federal stuff, right? [00:11:43] And people aren't watching their local news. There really isn't a whole lot of local news for people to consume, though, because a lot of local news is corporate, too. So it's very difficult. A lot of those corporate stations across the country, they get theirs, they get their news from the same place, they get the same news feeds, [00:12:00] they get the same news copy, which is why you why sometimes you see them just saying the exact same words to their audiences. So it is very difficult. And it's a lot to ask of the average American person to just be as involved as you can be and consume as much as you can, [00:12:15] read as much as you can, get involved as much as you can, because that is a lot of work. And frankly, people don't have the time. You can't expect people to be able to take that much time out of their lives to do that. I think we do our best on shows like this one, to give people the information that we think is most pertinent or relevant to them in their lives. [00:12:34] But there there has to be more. And on top of that, we can't make legislation here at time t right. The government does. We need people in Congress who are actually going to look out for the American people. And right now we don't have that. Bernie is great, but he's not everything. [00:12:50] And we need to get newer people in there. And it's not going to happen until we vote out some of these incumbents. Yep. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.