Unfortunately huge news during
the break, right?
As we're going to break,
the attorney came out and
gave a very short speech.
It was unfortunately concession
speech, it's over.
So Nina is lost,
in a stunning upset.
Nina was the favorite.
She was always the favorite.
And she did it, the poll was real.
She did have a 35 point lead
at one point.
And then millions and millions of
millions of dollars came in and
lobbyists money and establishment
endorsements and they took her out.
That's what happened.
And now I'm super curious to see
how mainstream media is going to
cover it very likely they will
cover it, as Dave Weigel predicted
on the show.
He's a Washington Post reporter,
and they will probably say
Progressives lost and
the voters love the establishment.
The voters chose the beloved
establishment.
They will of course,
leave out the part where they
lied to the voters and did not give
them the accurate information on
who actually had what positions.
They will leave out the Democratic
majority for Israel sent the voters
mailers telling them that Nina
Turner was against $15 minimum wage
and I guess universal healthcare.
They just flat out lied,
because that's what lobbyists do,
they're liars.
And the press barely covered it.
Barely covered it,
because they think lobbyists lying
on behalf of this establishment is
wonderful politics and
should be celebrated, crafty.
Now, of course the Republicans do
this a little different than you
should frown upon them.
But when Corporate Democrats do it,
it's wonderful,
wonderful to be celebrated.
So I'm sure that they're thrilled
and having the time of their lives
in corporate media right now and
of course, among corporate
politicians, they're thrilled.
The threat of Nina Turner, being
the leader of progressives has been
in their minds is extinguished.
I don't think that's
the case at all.
I'm going to talk about a little
bit more what could happen next.
But Anna,
you're going to tell me somebody
that was not going to end well?
>> Yeah,
no I kind of regret even mentioning
it, but okay.
>> Yeah.
>> Here's what it is,
our good friend Tom Watson,
failed democratic strategist, lover
of Corporate Democrats tweets,
it wasn't money, folks,
it wasn't the money.
>> No, of course not, Tom.
>> Hold on, I'm not done yet.
>> Of course, not, no, no.
>> To be blunt,
Nina Turner had more of it,
including both,
I don't know what IEs are.
>> Independent Expenditure.
>> Independent expenditure, yeah,
and maxed out wealthy donors.
It wasn't money,
this is the part that I love.
That's a false narrative being
peddled by the Sanders
establishment.
That the Sanders establishment.
>> The Sanders establishment.
>> How is that for a twist?
That is hilarious.
>> Look at them trying to brand
like, yeah,
that's Sanders establishment.
>> That's not going to work.
[LAUGH] >> Really lovely
work, okay?
Go snuggle up with whatever
corporation in your business that
you're falling in love with.
I have no idea, but
who Tom Watson gets paid by or
what his motivation is.
It doesn't matter,
they're all the same,
they're all cookie cutter.
Every one of them is the same.
He's just a little bit more
honest and Frank.
>> He's a consultant.
>> Yes.
>> I mean, he's democratic
consultants- >> Yeah.
>> Have to kiss Corporate Democrat
ass for their next paycheck.
He literally has a financial
incentive in kissing
Corporate Democrat ass.
So it is what it is, I mean,
I don't let it get under my skin
because he's a clown.
I mean, imagine having a career
that literally hinges on you
sucking up to people who have no
guiding principles.
Have no real mission as members
of Congress.
The only thing they care about is
maintaining the status quo to
keep their donors happy.
Imagine being the person who goes
out of his way
to defend that disgusting system.
>> Yep, that's Tom was.
By the way, like I said,
it's a lot of them,
it's most of them.
>> Yeah.
>> He's just the one taking
a victory lap
here on behalf of corruption.
And so I know it looked, but
think about it first of all,
I'm not that angry I'm totally,
unsurprised by that.
But they're
trying to frame Progressives now as
the Sanders establishment, why?
Because people hate the
establishment, so they're trying to
rebrand themselves, like people
like our ideas, so they want to
pretend that they have our ideas.
That's why they run ads saying
the Nina Turner's against minimum
wage increase and against
universal healthcare because
they know how popular we are.
And now they know how unpopular
they are, so he's trying to rebrand
us as the establishment- >> Right
>> As opposed to them.
>> Yeah.
>> Right, and by the way,
as long as the establishment media
is in charge, it'll work because
established media will never go
yeah, okay, of course, right.
Bernie Sanders and Nina Turner
are the establishment, wink.
And yeah, the dark money was more
in favor of Nina Turner.
Are you shitting me?
Is that a real conversation
that's insane, right?
Look, I'll tell you what, if
anything, I regret that we did not
raise more money for Nina Turner.
I wish we'd raise $10 million and
beat the living crap out of them at
their own game, right?
But at the end of the day, guys,
this is what I learned in my race
and that's why I thought the race
was so important.
And I think really what
happened here to Nina, as well
Is that you just and Nina but
to be fair by the way and accurate
Nina did have a lot of money.
So they spent
a ton of money against her.
But Nina also had a lot of money
because of you guys and
everybody else that chipped in
that cared about her.
She didn't have it from big wealthy
benefactors who were looking for
favors, she had heard from average
Americans.
But you just can't have enough
money to compete with media.
So why?
Just think about why, okay?
We've gone over this once before,
but a lot of you might not
have seen it.
and it's very relevant to
Nina's race.
So when they go into the voting
booth, they do not know about
politics as much as you do or I do,
right?
Every voter cares about politics to
some degree because they showed up
to vote, but it's not their life,
if they don't know all the details.
Everybody makes
the classic mistake,
assuming that their perspective is
everybody's perspective.
So since if you're a Young Turks
member, you probably know a lot
about politics.
So you think, those voters probably
know a lot, right?
No, most voters know very,
very little when they walk into
the voting booth.
And here I can prove it to you
really easy when you're voting
in a local race.
And as some of you might be really
gung ho about local races and
you might know him but
most of you like me, honestly.
When I go into look at local races,
I went, I don't know.
>> No, we got to get more involved
in local races, Cenk.
>> Okay, I know but
that's another topic for
another day.
>> Yeah.
>> My point in this case is, okay,
which Councilman should I vote for?
And I spent my life
studying the Councilman, right?
So how do I pick?
Well, one of them is D,
the other one has an R, it's over,
I'm voting for the D right?
>> RIght.
>> Okay, and if I know that
somebody is a progressive in
the race, I'm going to vote for
the progressive.
That's why the brand of
Justice Democrats is so
important because you can give that
brand to other people.
And then people go, okay, if I'm in
a district that's Progressive,
I know that that's the progressive.
In this case, she wasn't,
she was in a more Biden leaning
district, okay?
But, so in the people get
an impression of you, now,
this was a race that was very well
publicized, right?
So they might have already had
an impression of Nina Turner and
over the last month got
an impression of Shawntel Brown,
no one knew her before, right?
>> Right.
>> And so one thing that happened
was, and what I loved about
the beginning of the race and what
changed a massive sea change and
dynamic was.
Before, was Nina Turner versus the
blob, and a blob has a 0% chance of
winning because people don't know
whether to vote for Jeff or
Shawntel or Brown or Smith, right?
>> Right.
>> But when it became when
everybody else got eliminated
through all the lobbyists,
picking Shawntel Brown,
then she got tremendous publicity.
And then with Hillary Clinton going
Shawntel Brown and
Jim Clapper go Shawntel Brown, then
everybody got to know her name.
And when they went into the voting
booth, maybe they heard about it.
And by the way, a lot of
them didn't hear about
Hillary's endorsement.
A lot of them didn't hear about
sliver endorsement,
because remember, they only
get a sliver of information.
Everybody's different and they all
have different slivers, right?
So they might have heard about
Cliburn and thought okay, then
I guess I'm for Shawntel Brown.
They might have heard about
Marcia Fudges and her dog that
was supporting Shawntel Brown, and
they might have thought okay,
I like Marcia Fudge.
So that helps Shawntel's brand.
Every time they saw in the media,
the end by the way,
the ads help your brand, right?
You can have positive ads,
you can have negative ads.
And so that's why they spent so
much money on negative ads against
Nina because they were trying to
tear down her brand that when
the person walked into the voting
booth, they saw Nina Turner,
I don't know, I don't want her.
She's against minimum wage.
She's against universal healthcare.
She hates Democrats.
No, I'm a Democrat,
I'm going to vote for
Shawntel Brown, okay?
So that's how they do it.But of all
of the different slivers,
the endorsements that adds on all
the different factors that affect
all the different voters.
The number one factor by
a landslide is media,
because that is the thing that
people consume most, and that
reaches the most amount of people.
So when you see on local news,
when you see on cable, when you see
in the Washington Post, all these
positive things about one candidate
and negative things about another
candidate, it's good night Irene,
we don't stand a chance, okay?
And so for
example Shawntel Brown has that
ethics probe that we talked about,
in a just world she might literally
be arrested after the election.
She funneled tens of millions of
dollars to her partner slash lover,
right?
And that is totally illegal.
>> Yeah, dude, I mean, it's, God,
thank you for bringing that up.
Because I mean,
we should have talked about that
more throughout the night.
But it's just so
incredibly frustrating that she was
doing self dealing.
She's not married to the guy but
she's living with the guy and she's
like, approving insanely expensive
government contracts to him.
It's self dealing, it's like the
most corrupt thing you could do.
I mean, it's the same thing that
Dianne Feinstein did with her
husband and the various real estate
deals that she helped him out with.
>> And how often have
you heard in the mainstream media
about Dianne Feinstein's husband?
If you're a Progressive,
you might have heard it from us.
Or you might have researched and
researched and
found an article from 1993 or
something along those lines, right?
But overall,
they're never discussed in
the context of Feinstein,
let alone Pelosi husband, right?
Let alone Joe Manche's daughter.
[LAUGH] Let alone, right?
He would go on and on and
on, right?
And so if the framing of the of
this race was about
Shawntel Brown's corruption, when
they went to the voting booth, they
would have had a negative brand
associated with Shawntel Brown.
>> Right, of course.
>> And so that is why the media
actually is, so Anna says Cenk,
your ideology or
we talked about it earlier today.
Ideology is not quite the right
word, but it's about money and
politics, that's your frame, right?
And I explained why- >> The
framework that you see everything.
>> Yeah.
>> And I see through that
framework because it appears to be
determinative, certainly
a legislative issues as Chairman
Durbin as I told you earlier in the
program 95% of time on electoral
issues is determined to have right?
But the only thing that could beat
money is media.
But then money makes all
the difference because the media is
stagnant, it doesn't move,
the media as always in favor of
corporate politicians,
my whole life.
But by the way before,
like I happen to come to
the country in 1978 and
the Supreme Court happened to end
our democracy in 1978 through their
Bloody and decision and
the earlier Buckley decision in 76.
That's where they said corporations
spend unlimited money on
politicians.
And you'll see in my book,
Justice is Coming, that's where
the entire Democratic Party turned.
They all and there's quotes,
there's quotes, okay,
we have to take corporate money,
we will take corporate money.
Now, make sure you don't represent
the average worker because it'll
piss off our corporate donors.
I mean, you see it in live
through the quotes through
the years exactly how they turn.
So as it turned out, there was
democracy in America right
before I came, not related to me,
I was eight years old, okay?
And so back then we had a really
interesting press.
We had an aggressive press that
would take on politicians, and
that's where the sayings came from
you the job of the press is to
comfort the afflicted and
afflict the comfortable, right?
And that hasn't happened in 40 some
odd years.
>> You mean when
the Fairness Doctrine ended?
>> No.
>> [LAUGH] I'm just saying.
>> That is that, anyway- >> Yeah.
That's a long I think slightly
uninteresting conversation.
But in terms of corporate media,
they never move, they're always in
favor of the corporate candidate.
>> Yeah, yeah,
they're the corporate media, Cenk.
>> No, my point is that, that is
the hill we have to climb over.
And the reason money in politics
affects elections more is because
the media will not move,
that's a given, that's a constant
in the formula, right?
Now, on the other hand,
if we could move the media that
would be even more powerful
than money in politics.
Now, what I've tried and
basically I'll tell you tonight,
I'm officially giving up on it.
I mean, I was headed in that
direction for sure.
Anyway, but we've had a lot of
conversations off air about this.
And I would call it the media
multiplier effect, and I was not
wrong to concentrate on it.
I thought it was super important
for Progressives and for us to
break through in mainstream media,
because media had such
an overwhelming effect on politics.
And without the media multiplier
effect for our branding,
for our framing, for our message,
we had no chance.
Unfortunately, I was right
about that.
But now I'm at a point where I
realized no, there's no way in the
world that the media can be moved.
It doesn't matter how many,
I remember Alexandra Rojas,
the executive director of just
Democrats, and
she had a CNN deal at one point.
So they were having her on more,
right?
I was like, okay,
here we go, right?
And Nina Turner used to be on CNN,
if you remember, right?
Nina's on and Rojas is on, and
then they would have us maybe we're
going to break through like we've
always been hoping for, right?
But once Bernie lost the primary,
they were done with all of us.
They cut us all off and
never asked any of us back on,
because they would only do it to
kiss ass of the powerful if
Bernie had become president.
But they have no interest in actual
dialogue or policy or being fair or
objective, that's preposterous.
So now that I've given up on on
moving the mainstream media
The better strategy is to just
defeat them.
And so we have to grow progressive
media.
And if you think well hey guys,
that's all that seems impossible,
right?
They're behemoth,
they are they're gigantic.
TYT network is top ten in every
social media platform.
Not every, but nearly every social
media platform, right?
Like, for example, on Facebook,
I've told you this before,
we're number two.
And CNN I think is number four.
ABC, I think is number five.
Fox News is number three, right?
So well now, what's the future that
stupid old box in the corner of
your living room that you're now
using Netflix and Disney Plus and
YouTube for but not old TV, right?
Those dinosaurs left on TV?
Yes, they still ascendant today,
at this moment, right?
But are they going to rule
the future?
Here we're in the post game, fuck,
no, they're not, okay?
They're on borrowed time.
And so we're going to win on social
media and social media is
the future, that's the only thing
that's going to be left.
And we're going to win, and
win, and win.
And we added Rashad Richie,
we added David Schuster,
we're going to add more.
And the more you guys watch and
share and become members, and
then we're going to build a change
machine and they're going to say,
well, you're going to be skeptical.
I know everybody's
always skeptical.
And then we do it, and
then we'll and then that'll work.
And then the other side will
start complaining.
That's not fair,
the media is too progressive.
We can't win if the media is too
progressive.
And at that point, you and
I will say together,
God damn right, you can't win.
So that's the future.
Our job together is to get there.
Because here we go again,
we thought it was the future today,
and tonight it turns out it wasn't