Tucker Carlson, well his antics failed yet again,
that whole maybe right wing Fox News host who happens to like to pretend to be
an uplifter of the working common man while he invited on his show last night,
the organizer of amazon's first labor union.
That's Mr. Chris Smalls, of course, Karlson's goal was not necessarily
to uplift unions but to tear down Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, yep.
Why? Well,
she happened to miss one of the amazon organizing events for
unionization in new York city sometime last summer, back in august.
And I can tell you that Mr.
Smalls wasn't here to take Tucker's bait, he left the Fox News host floundering.
>> Sandy Cortez spends a lot of time telling you that she's on the side of
the worker, she's like a modern wobbly.
She's the Walter Ruther of our day.
And that's why last year she about to stand alongside striking workers at amazon
Staten island warehouse and we're for that because they need the help.
But at the last minute Cindy Cortez bailed on the whole thing and that infuriated
labor organizers who just want a big vote to unionize the Staten Island facility.
Christian Smalls is in a union leader at amazon and
we're happy to have him join us now Christian, thanks so much for coming on.
So were you surprised that Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who has said
repeatedly that she's on the side of the worker against
the corporation wasn't standing with you at the barricades?
>> Yeah, I mean, it wasn't just her, it was all of them.
Pretty much it's not fair.
I don't want it to make it just between us and
AOC because a lot of them didn't show up and
once again we have no ill will against them.
We know that whether they showed up or not, they didn't make or
break our election.
We just had to continue to organize.
>> I love that despite Tucker's best efforts smalls did not fall for it.
It was not about to call that AOC and while some people were a little bit
frustrated that she didn't appear for the event.
Well, Smalls had previously expressed confusion as to why that was and
this is what we know for the independent.
Smalls said that he had three meetings with her staff leading up to that rally
everything was good up until the last second.
They were like, yeah, they can't make it.
I was like wow.
And AOC cited security concerns also scheduling conflicts to explain her sudden
to attend here.
And this may have really appeared shady on its face.
But AOC actions really have matched her words.
The new York congresswoman and others have really stepped up to investigate Amazon.
So on April one the House of Representatives opened a federal
probe into Amazon's unfair labor practices.
The leaders of the inquiry which includes Ocasio Cortez have demanded that
the company hand over documents related to its labor policies and procedures,
particularly when it comes to severe weather events like the Illinois tornado
that ripped through an amazon warehouse back in January,
killing six workers who were told to stay despite fearing for their safety.
She also joined rep Carolyn Maloney democrat in new York in a letter to
Amazon demanding more information about its worker safety protocols.
It definitely seems like Ocasio Cortez is doing a lot out here to uplift the Amazon
workers.
But as we saw she wasn't attending that event.
Ben, what do you think of all this,
especially with Tucker Carlson trying to kinda really call her out?
>> Well, I just love how Tucker is trying to play both sides of the story.
He's trying to simultaneously attack AOC and when that suits him,
pretend for a moment that he cares about workers being able to unionize.
But then his true colors come through.
His true, Sherly partisan colors come through when while speaking to this man,
he goes, look, I'm a republican.
So typically I'm not much in favor of workers unionizing, but
it does seem like they could step against this behemoth a little bit of amazon and
and try to push back and get some rights for themselves.
How by just individually, one by one, just knocking on the CEO's door and
seeing if you can listen or maybe by collectively bargaining perhaps.
It's just such bad faith that he tries to win it on both ends, but not surprised.
>> No, not surprising at all It was.
>> Yeah, but I liked about what smalls was up there to do.
And I saw a lot of people felt it like, a way that he went on Fox News and
all of that in Tucker Carlson's program.
I'm like, look, this guy has a more narrow set of goals than somebody like AOC does.
That's just the bottom line.
Like he's they're very self interest in getting their union contract right,
getting their union strong, getting their situation in order because they are up
against one of the literally one of the most powerful companies in the world,
right?
These are normal everyday people.
So I have no problem with this.
And also I understand that AOC has considerations that are a little bit
bigger than whatever is going on with this amazon union,
even though part of her brand is support these type of things.
She's decided that she's got very big political ambitions.
And if those ambitions involved advancing in the Democratic Party of
2022 you're gonna see some inconsistencies every now and again.
Because if we know anything about the Democratic Party establishment
is that they're not some pro union, pro worker situation up there.
They like she's threading a really fine needle here.
And that's what I think you're seeing right here with the inconsistencies.
>> No.
I can see that, but also to I just think of AOC how she said security concerns like
that alone seems to be a sufficient answer given all of the heat in the shade that
she gets for what she does.
But I think really what we can all really kinda just boils down to is the thought
that whatever your criticism of AOC is, it doesn't really matter in the real
framework of the fact of Tucker Carlson and mainstream media acting like they're
allies of unions is something that is absolutely and completely absurd.
These outlets show us and how they covered the efforts to unionize at Amazon.
So we know this per media matters from April 1st through April 11th CNN covered
the story for just five minutes in one segment.
During a little watch Sunday morning show at six AM Fox aired slightly more coverage
at roughly ten minutes across five cent segments.
But the vast majority of it was correspondent reports about a statement of
disappointment from Amazon's management rather than quotes or
discussion of the workers demands.
And one segment, Fox news anchor Neil Cavuto praised the Amazon warehouse pay
structure and benefits, which workers hope to improve as very generous.
And so we know that after that historic vote to unionize amazon warehouse workers
in Staten Island Fox News and
CNN dedicated near minutes to discussing the story.
MSNBC really was the big winner of spending a whole forty two minutes
talking about the union efforts and this chart here really says it all and ask for
the coverage on Tucker Carlson's beloved network.
Well, I can tell you that Fox news coverage of labor issues has skewed
extremely anti union as you may think.
Network personality Laura Ingram has even done a speaking engagement at an anti
union fundraiser.
Fox has also bashed unionization efforts by Amazon warehouse workers
before taking the side of management and
labeling unsuccessful unionization votes as a victory of freedom.
I don't think we can ignore this.
We know where Fox news stands and
it would be completely inconsistent with unionization was.
>> Yeah, obviously, nobody thinks that Tucker Carlson has now become
some populist man of the people and nobody believes that although he
wears that Halloween costume almost every single day on his tv program.
But that's again, like the republicans and the conservatives,
like the conservative movement specifically, they're so out of whack in
what their ideology is these days, they don't know where they're going,
they're only plank is own the libs, whatever that means.
If that means we're going to be pro union for
one segment on Tucker Carlson's absurd tv program,
then that's what we're gonna do, but it's not tethered to anything tangible.
They have no ideology, It's just antagonism.
>> Yeah, it's definitely that antagonism there and Ben, what are your thoughts?
>> And also, while it sounds like MSNBC covered it in great more detail
across their network, that 42 minutes of coverage was just half of one
Rachel Maddow monologue, so she tends to go on a little bit.
So other than that they probably could have covered it some more.
But I think really a pretty strong democrat plan to get
more republicans in the media on board with progressive
issues might be next year at the very end of March.
To just come out on the last day of March with a bunch of Republican positions and
immediately get republicans to come out with the opposite just reflexively and
endorse a bunch of progressive positions.
And then the next morning the democrats come out and say April fools.