Joining us now is Democratic presidential candidate John Cougar, who has been
running in the Democratic primary and has a big announcement to share with us.
Jake, how are you?
I'm good. How are you doing?
- I've been better. - Okay, I hear you.
Me too.
So, I am here to announce that I am suspending my campaign.
I talked to Joe Biden, and he has given me Secretary of Labor, so we negotiated.
I'm kidding, I'm kidding. He didn't do that.
And can you imagine under these circumstances.
- No, I cannot imagine. - Neither can I. Yeah.
- So. Anna. - No, not because of you, I mean.
Go ahead. Go ahead with your announcement.
The idea that there would be any kind of negotiation is hilarious anyways.
No. I'm suspending the campaign, and I'm not actively campaigning anymore,
so I'll be.
Go back to my role, strictly in media at Young Turks here,
obviously back as a host.
And, you know, I never left, but there were some restrictions
that we had put into place and some, extra programs we weren't doing.
But I'll be going back to doing most of those.
And so and I wanted to talk about what we accomplished
and didn't accomplish in the campaign.
So I can start with goal number three.
You remember the three goals that I laid out and the fourth one popped up.
Goal three was to win, right? That definitively did not happen.
And if you remember when we first talked and I said, look, we need a couple of
miracles, this was an act of desperation to try to change the course
of this campaign because Biden, I was positive, was going to lose.
Yeah, like a Democratic apparatus that actually values the democratic process
and allows for a robust primary.
Apparently they're not interested in that. So continue.
That's for sure.
But I knew that going in, if we had won, the constitutional case that we had,
Muslim leaders had backed us, etc., there was a real pathway
to getting to the 15% and more, as we saw in Michigan and Minnesota.
But those things didn't happen.
So we wound up exactly where I thought we were.
I said we got about a 1 to 2% chance, barring those miracles,
and we wound up last night in the four states that I was on somewhere between 1
to 2%. My high water mark was 2.2%.
In Oklahoma we did.
But I'm going to get to the goals we did accomplish in a second.
But obviously we didn't accomplish the goal of those couple of miracles
to get to, to be able to win this.
And I and I never, ever want to give people false hope.
So we're not in that business now.
It's definitively over, not just for me, but for the whole campaign.
Obviously, Biden is going to be the nominee except for one giant, maybe,
which is related to our first goal.
But but in terms of the the naturalized citizen issue, that was our second goal.
And on that one, well, look,
we, we put on a hell of a case.
And so we, you know, as you know, we've discussed in the previous,
interviews, we went to the district court in South Carolina, and I wanted to show
the audience something.
So you don't just take my word for it.
The judge there was District Court Judge Joseph Anderson, and this is what he said
towards the end of the process.
And, so he, if we could put that up, that'd be great.
He said, let me just repeat what I said earlier.
This case was unusually well briefed and well argued, and I repeat that.
So what that means is are we almost had it.
- We almost had. - It. And what happened?
- Why didn't it work out? - So he did about an hour and a half case.
But there was like so many defendants on the other side that they ate
up most of the time responding to us.
So by the time we got to the end of the case, we didn't really have a chance
to respond much.
And at the district court level, they are very unlikely to agree with you
because they would be overturning some degree of precedent.
So we were hoping to be able to get to the, circuit court level.
But the circuit court denied our appeal to expedite the case before
the South Carolina, elections happened.
So that kind of ended it in South Carolina.
And to be honest, I just didn't raise enough money to be able to do it
in 2 or 3 different states.
It's very expensive.
To, to to do this and I and by the way, plenty of mistakes were made.
I, miscalculated, for example, how much money I could raise and, and
because of this naturalized citizen issue, we couldn't raise anywhere near the amount
of money we've raised in the past.
So. So that didn't allow me to make a second or third case.
But but we moved the ball for whatever it's worth.
You know, Harvard law professor Larry Lessig wrote a blog
saying this isn't crazy at all.
This is actually an enormously possible.
And he explained why it's possible we might have millions of people
watching this show, but you can be the difference maker, because we just need
1% of our audience to be paid members, and then this show can be around forever,
so you can make that difference.
Click join now.
So I hand the baton off to whoever is next.
If 1 or 2 other naturalized citizens try in future presidential races, we're
almost certainly going to win on this.
We almost won at the district court level at the first try, basically.
So. I wish we had the resources to finish that, but we don't.
Now back to goal one.
When we started Anna, everybody was super skeptical.
You remember on the show we did the thing, the petition
to get Biden to drop out, etc.
And at the time people were like, you're crazy, you're crazy.
Let me read a list real quick of since I entered, the people that have said,
oh, Joe Biden is gonna lose.
Okay, so we have David Axelrod, James Carville, Paul Begala, Bill Maher,
Bob Costas, Charlamagne tha God, Jon Stewart, Ezra Klein.
That is just a short list of all the people go, we're gonna lose.
Watch out, watch out!
Nate Silver, I forgot to put him on the list.
Everybody basically saying that we were right.
We were right.
And so I want to congratulate my supporters for being right.
And then, finally there's, goal number four, which came up,
which was the Gaza, situation.
And that happened. Right?
Of course, as I was entering the race and I was trying to get push politicians
to say, hey, maybe we should consider or reconsider Israel's funding
since, you know, they're taking this money and not listening to us
and committing these war crimes.
And and I prepared a clip.
I think the producers have it from Bernie Sanders just last week.
So let's watch that.
The United States should not be giving Netanyahu
and his extreme right wing government another nickel for their war efforts that
are killing so many innocent Palestinians.
So did we move the ball enough?
I don't know, and that's a good question for everybody out there to decide.
Did we move it enough to say victory? No, I don't think so.
You know, maybe Biden drops out after the primaries, in which case we say
we had a big role in that.
Not a definitive one, but a sizable one in what we did.
If, you know, next election cycle and naturalized citizen wins, or if we
can actually get Bernie Sanders and others to push for ending the funding of Israel,
if they're going to continue to do this, then we'll
have won something tangible and real.
But for the moment being, I got caught trying.
Is there anything left in the Democratic Party that's worth looking forward to
or feeling any hope about?
And I mean that I really do. Yeah.
Because as they continue to and I'm talking about Congress specifically
as they continue to take the campaign contributions and legalize bribes that
we've been talking about for a long time.
And as they continue to trade individual stocks based on insider information that
they get on their closed door briefings, they become more and more corrupt,
and they're bribed by the same corporations and donors
that the Republican Party is bribed by.
So what's left for the Democratic Party?
And I get that some people are gonna get real offended by that.
But I'm genuinely curious, outside of the rhetoric, outside of the lip service
to marginalized communities who they never hesitate to screw over
once it's convenient for them to do so.
What's left for the Democratic Party?
Yeah, so I was short tum and long terme answer to that in the short terme.
You know, Biden's the nominee and he's going to get slaughtered.
And so I don't care what people say, I don't I could read numbers.
If you can't, that's kind of your problem. Not my problem.
And if you say, oh my God, they've already.
Andrea Mitchell today on air started blaming third parties.
He hasn't even lost yet, but they know he's going to lose.
So it's begun. The same old talking points.
But it is not impossible for Biden to drop out after the primaries and for us to get
a really good candidate against Trump, that would be an excellent short terme
Band-Aid, but it would be a Band-Aid. In terms of the long terme answer.
Look, I've been trying to lead a rebellion against the corporate Democrats
for now, you know, well over a decade.
And it had a brief success.
And when we founded Justice Democrats and got 11 of them into Congress,
but they've largely been co-opted.
And now AOC is out there saying, don't run against incumbents,
which is the exact opposite of the point of justice Democrats.
So that was a spectacular success and effort that has now, unfortunately,
come to a conclusion.
They're not going to lead any rebellion inside Congress.
They're enormously comfortable and they are very wary
of challenging their colleagues, which means, well, then you can't do
a rebellion inside the Democratic Party.
Okay.
So then the only hope that remains is twofold, which is by 2028,
which is four years from now, even if Biden drops out, there's a 0% chance that
his delegates will pick a progressive.
So, I mean, I love Ro Khanna and others, etc., but there's no
way those insiders pick Ro Khanna.
That's the reason why in the beginning of this interview, as you were joking about
Biden offering you a cabinet position, I couldn't help but laugh.
And it's not because of who you are as a person.
It's because of the gatekeepers who have stood in the way of anyone
who genuinely wants positive change in our political system, our economic system.
And look, AOC and other progressive individuals that you help to get elected,
got co-opted for a reason.
Yeah.
I just wish they were smart enough to realize that they've been co-opted.
Yeah.
Plus, maybe they don't want to find out because in order.
- That's true. - That's true.
In order to fight the system, you have to get really, really uncomfortable.
I mean, look at how uncomfortable I got in this race.
Everyone in that room is going to hate you every time you show up to the House floor
to debate legislation, vote on legislation.
And you've been pushing back on, you know, corporatist policies
that have been absolutely devastating for American workers in this country.
Everyone's going to hate you in that room. And I get it.
It's super uncomfortable. But didn't they expect that?
- Isn't that what they were supposed to do? - Oh, 100%.
So that's kind of why I've given up on it. But let me tell you.
Say two things here. One is a little interesting.
Look, when you get into power, you wind up caring about yourself a lot more.
I'm just being honest. Right.
So, for example, I know for a fact that some of the Muslim American politicians,
not Rashida Tlaib, but some of them, because I don't know about Rashida.
I don't know what she thinks. Okay.
But, some of them thought supporting me was a bridge too far and so uncommitted.
Got a lot of votes in Michigan and Minnesota and actually got delegates.
Right.
And those delegates are now going to be handed over to.
- No one. - No Joe Biden.
Oh, okay.
So it was look, it was in some ways a powerful form of protest.
Hey, he's not getting all these votes.
On the other hand, it was a I don't want to say a trick, but because I think
that they mainly intended well, but.
It just goes right back to Biden. So it was enormously ineffective.
And so part of the reason they did that is because there's only so much you
can disagree within the Democratic Party without risking your career.
Right.
So and in terms of me, I mean, look at what happened to me and look at what
happened to Marianne Williamson was a much more so Dean Phillips, anyone who dared to
challenge the leadership in the Democratic Party was either ignored or obliterated.
Right. So is it over?
Is it? Are you done with them?
And I only ask because, like you've tried with Congress congressional run,
you've tried with the presidential run.
- They're not going to let you in Genk. - Oh they're not going to let me in.
Yeah. Okay.
So and they're not going to let any of us in.
So and power never concedes without a demand.
It never has. Never will.
You know the famous Frederick Douglass quote.
So so the next plan is also very, very difficult.
Okay.
We we basically have to organize the internet and find a candidate.
And we need to help that candidate for about four years straight.
Because the only way that an outsider, an outsider populist with incredibly
popular policies can break through is by
having an enormous groundswell of support.
Right, because they're never going to be supported by mainstream media.
They will always be ridiculed, disdained, ignored, etc..
They they're never going to have the credibility that those guys talk about.
The Democratic Party is never going to, of their own volition, welcome them in.
Oh, you'd like to do a rebellion against us?
Oh, you don't take corporate donor money.
Are you going to call us out for taking corporate donor money and being corrupt?
They're never going to agree to that.
So this party, this Democratic Party as it stands now, is permanently corrupted
and cannot be fixed.
If it heads in this direction, there has to be an outsider
that comes in and takes over the party.
We already tried at the congressional level, and it didn't
work at the grassroots level.
I want to do that as well.
We'll talk more about it as we, you know, revitalize operation Hope here at TYT.
But you need someone at the top.
And Trump proved that you actually can do it in a presidential primary.
But Trump was a massive celebrity, right? Which a lot of us of course are not.
So we need to be able to build up that candidate, spend four long years.
But it's not just about a candidate. We have to organize the internet.
That's what operation Hope was supposed to be about.
And I, of course, suspended that when I started doing the campaign,
but I'm now going to do that more at TYT.
We have an incredible town hall that we do every week, and I'm going
to do it again tonight at 8:30 p.m..
We have a slack channel that is helping to organize.
So we're going to take the kernel of this incredible team that we put together on my
campaign and use it to try to organize the internet so that we can create
that groundswell, because mainstream media is never going to let us in.
We have to barge in. And one more thing.
Anna looks on a personal level.
You know, I took a lot of hits in this campaign and, although people were
interestingly nice today, now that it's over, people were like,
hey, thanks for trying.
It was, you know, but I'll say this, guys.
So I also got stuck with a huge debt.
My call to make, I made that call, and going forward, for example, if you donated
junk for America.com, you're not going.
I asked you to donate so that I could help you.
But we can't do that anymore in the context of this campaign
because it's now suspended.
Okay, but if you'd like to help in, making sure that teams.
Okay, that works so hard, that tried so hard to try to do something positive in
the world, I would deeply appreciate it.
And that would be amazing.
But you don't have to, because again, whenever I ask you to donate,
it's for you.
It's to help you guys get to power and leverage, etc.
This is a rare instance where I'm saying if you can help the team and me
after we've already, tried and it didn't work, then you're wonderful
and we deeply appreciate it.
But but you don't have to. Right.
And so bottom line is, Anna, you know me. I can't help.
Myself.
Yeah, I. Know I give it everything I got and there's no agenda other than
wouldn't it be amazing if someone actually fought for you and actually delivered
on the things that are so popular, so intensely popular, ranging from paid
family leave, lower drug prices like the what used to be known as the progressive
agenda, the Bernie Sanders agenda, before the progressive activists
in the cities took over and did went in a completely different direction.
But the 2016 Bernie agenda is still enormously popular.
It is, unfortunately, I think that agenda for for the time being is dead.
And that's the most depressing part about all of this.
So yeah.
So I hope you guys put the jennifermaker.com link in the description.
And, as we've done for other candidates. And so I appreciate all of you guys.
So all my supporters, you're amazing. I love you for trying.
And we're going to try again in different ways.
And and we're going to keep on trying.
The only advantage we have is relentlessness.
So if we keep trying and trying and trying, we're going to knock
that door down and we're more relentless.
They are than they are, and we need it more than they do, you know?
So let's keep going. Let's organize together.
I'll see you guys at the town hall tonight, and I'll see you back at tight.
We'll restart operation Hope, and we'll begin to kick ass together and build
up our power and use it for you guys.