>> Yesterday we learned that unfortunately the Congressional Black Caucus endorsed Eliot
Engel in his congressional run, his reelection run in New York over Jamaal Bowman. Now I
say unfortunately because number one, Jamaal Bowman is a true progressive who genuinely
cares about progressive issues. But more importantly, recently, we learned that not only did Eliot
Engel failed to even visit his district for months when he was given the opportunity to
actually talk about a serious issue that's happening throughout the country right now
and that's the issue of police brutality.
He made it clear that he didn't really care too much about it and only wanted to address
it because he's facing a primary run by Jamaal Bowman. Now we're learning that there are
Republicans endorsing Eliot Engel because of course, this was a great report by The
Intercept and I wanna give you some of these details.
There's a super PAC that's called Americans for Tomorrow's Future. The PAC's treasurer,
David Satterfield, is a former aide to one-time Republican Senate Leader Bill Frist. Satterfield
works now at the Huckaby Davis Lisker, a prominent firm that does election compliance and accounting
work for Republican campaigns. This cycle, the firm is handling the accounts for the
National Republican Senatorial Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee,
and the campaign of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, among dozens of other GOP
operations.
So let me give you some of these numbers, Nando, and I wanna get your reaction. This
PAC, presumably due to its visible Republican ties, is not spending directly in Engel's
New York primary. Instead, it's doing all of these tricky things like for instance,
funneling $100,000 to another super PAC, called Democratic Majority for Israel.
And they did this on May 27. DMFI is a controversial operation within the Democratic coalition.
They spent $800,000 against Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary with the help
from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, also known as AIPAC of course. So that's how
the money was funneled into an organization that is somehow tied to the Democratic party.
But the point is the money's coming from Republicans who are clearly terrified that a progressive
could take the place of Eliot Engel in this congressional seat. And let me just note that
as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Engel is incredibly conservative
when it comes to foreign policy.
He's particularly conservative when it comes to issues related to Israel. So that's probably
the reason why they wanna keep him in place. And of course, Nancy Pelosi has also endorsed
Eliot Engel. >> Yeah, I mean Eliot Engel, let's not mince
words, is one of the worst Democrats in Congress.
He's been there forever. I think he's been there for 30 years. He's just the classic
when you think of corrupt machine politician from New York who is immovable or seemingly
immovable, barely even faces a challenge to his power at any given point throughout his
career. He's just what we think of when we think of a awful corporatist Democrat who
his only job is to reinforce this horrible status quo, which is why Republicans are coming
to save.
That's the reality is that they're terrified of having another AOC. I mean, that's just
really what it is. I mean they see how much damage to their cause one person like AOC
could do. To have 10, 12, 30, 40 of those, that's intolerable. So Jamaal Bowman is a
mortal threat to a lot of these people and a lot of their interests.
And because they want to, it's not just that they want, they're not worried about losing
the votes on any particularly big issue is they don't even want dissent within the ranks.
I mean, they can't even tolerate just having that voice in there on the national stage
with a national platform talking about these issues.
They wanna completely stamp it out. So yeah, I mean, it's just, it's the least surprising
thing in the world that all the Democratic Party establishment has tried to come to Eliot
Engel's aid, including, obviously Hillary Clinton. And the only race she's weighing
in on in this cycle so far is this Eliot Engel race.
And then the Congressional Black Caucus, like you said, it's just hilarious that the Congressional
Black Caucus, which has become kind of a tool for establishment politics, is endorsing this
white man over a young, black progressive. I mean, it just, the world is upside down,
up is down, black is white.
It's just a crazy- >> Yeah-
>> Yeah. >> And to that point, yeah, I believe in the
importance of having diversity in Congress. I think when you have true diversity, not
tokenism, you have perspectives that desperately need to be shared in these debates, in these
congressional debates when it comes to various policy issues.
I think that's a real problem that we have in Congress right now. On the other hand,
I wanna be clear that I don't think that it's the Congressional Black Caucus endorsing someone.
They have to endorse someone who's black over someone who's white. That's not what I'm saying.
But what I am saying is that Eliot Engel and his complete and utter disregard for very
real issues in this country right now that are negatively impacting the black community
should have at least given the Congressional Black Caucus some pause.
And what am I referring to? Well, I'm referring to Elliot Engel finally visiting his district
for the first time in months, okay, to address the Black Lives Matter protesters. And here's
what he had to say about them. >> Then I've gotta then go down the list,
and there's just too many folks here.
>> If I didn't have a primary, I wouldn't care.
>> Say that again? >> If I didn't have a primary, I wouldn't
care. >> Don't do that to me. We're not gonna do
this. >> He said if I didn't have a primary, I wouldn't
care, in case you guys are listening to the audio version of the show and you couldn't
make that out.
But he doesn't care about something that has brutalized the black community for so long
and of course, that's police violence and brutality.
>> No, and to be clear, I'm just making this narrow identity point because they use that
kind of thing as a weapon in the opposite direction all the time, right?
If it were obviously, if Bernie Sanders weighed in and endorsed a white man over a black woman,
that would be the line of attack. I mean, that would absolutely be the line of attack,
but in this case, it doesn't. That doesn't work that way. And I wonder why?
Mostly because these attacks are always disingenuous. And they don't really believe in any of that
stuff, right? They believe in power and anyone who's gonna uphold the power which they care
to hold. So this is just, this is another, this is one of the more blatant examples of
that.
>> Yeah, and I love that you pointed that out because the use of identity politics in
order to destroy the political careers of progressives is a common trick. We've seen
it happen over and over again. But when push comes to shove, when it comes to the substantive
issues that would actually better the lives of various groups of people in this country
who have gotten the short end of everything for forever, they don't endorse the candidates
who actually have some solutions.
And by the way, Jamaal Bowman was interviewed on the conversation today. Please definitely
check that out so you can hear his ideas in case you're unfamiliar with him. He's an awesome
progressive candidate. And as you mentioned, you're absolutely right. Hillary Clinton stepped
in and decided to endorse Eliot Engel over Jamaal Bowman, no surprise there.
But what I did love, Nando, and I wanna get your reaction to this, was how Eliot Engel
had this weird meltdown when Representative Ocasio-Cortez decided to endorse Jamaal Bowman.
Here's that moment. >> This is not a dictatorship. This is the
democracy. We shouldn't have one person, from high, even though she's a colleague of mine,
think that she can anoint whoever is elected to Congress.
That's not what democracy is all about. >> Yeah, so simply endorsing his opponent
makes AOC a dictator. So does that mean Hillary Clinton's a dictator? Does it mean Nancy Pelosi
is dictator? Is he calling members of the Congressional Black Caucus dictators?
>> Yeah, I mean, he's basically saying that AOC's endorsement makes her like Kim Jong-un
or something.
This is North Korea. Yeah, I mean, it just well, I mean, in the specific case of Eliot
Engel, it shows just how used to, how comfortable he's become kind of empowered, how used to
the fact that he never gets challenged on anything. That's just the reality of his life,
is just he doesn't get, he doesn't sweat for anything.
He's just sailed through reelection for 30 years and now that he has a real challenge,
he sees it as some sort of undemocratic affront. They're like, yeah, of course, Hillary Clinton
has infinitely more actual power than AOC. AOC's just a junior congressman who's been
in Congress for two years.
Hillary Clinton is a scion of this dynastic political family, maybe the most powerful
political family in the history of democratic politics. So, Democratic party politics, so
yeah, not quite the same thing. >> Definitely, well, if you wanna learn more
about Jamaal Bowman, you can visit his website, bowmanforcongress.com.
And you can also donate and volunteer at myurls.co/jamaalbowman and there's his Twitter account as well, jamaalbowmanny
at Twitter. So yeah, we'll see how this race goes but I love watching establishment Democrats
shake and panic over the thought of another progressive taking over a congressional seat.