We have some breaking news, you gonna want to sit down for this.
The Democratic party still corrupt.
For the second time in less than half a year,
the Democratic National Committee has been given the opportunity to
vote to ban dark money in primaries and they've declined to do so.
According to DNC member R.L.
Miller, the founder of Climate Hawks Vote, not a single person on the resolutions
committee dares move to even put it to a vote just like summer 2022.
Well, it's convenient if you do put it to a vote,
then you don't have to vote against it.
Which is nice, you can have your dark money and eat it too, I guess.
So, back during the last meeting ,which was in September, the panel also
unanimously declined to let the proposed dark money ban advanced to a vote.
As ENC doesn't publicize the membership lists of its committees, which is weird,
but reporting from 2020 identified at least three corporate lobbyists who
are serving on the resolutions panel at that time.
But they probably were totally unbiased when it came to the subject.
The committee's obstruction of the proposed dark money band comes in the wake
of the most expensive US midterm cycle on record.
According to OpenSecrets, super PACs spent an astounding $1.35 billion during
that election which I will remind you was a midterm election,
it wasn't even presidential.
They still spent way over a billion dollars, and
that obviously is coming from wealthy people.
When I say wealthy people, I don't know casually wealthy people,
I mean, apocalyptically wealthy people.
A report by Americans for Tax Fairness released
shortly before the election found that just 465
American billionaires had spent $881 million.
That was just by the end of September.
By the time the election was actually done and all this stuff after,
it could have been well over a billion dollars.
That is 465 people.
You could put that in a big room, a ballroom perhaps, and
they spent enough to sway countless elections, and sway they did.
You'll be shocked to find this out but an OpenSecret's analysis done shortly after
the election found that 96% of the House races that have been called at that point
were won by the candidate who spent the most money.
And by the way,
the thing that was being requested was a dark money ban in primary elections.
It wasn't even as all encompassing as perhaps we might call for,
it was just specifically, can we not have these billionaires and
mega corporations and lobbyists and maybe other countries God only knows,
choosing who the Democratic party's candidates are.
One would think you'd want to have control over your own party, but they declined to
do that because they want the wealthy to be able to choose who they have.
>> Yeah.
So, first of all, why are those 465
people spending so much money on politics?
They must really care about the general welfare.
They wanna be so charitable to the rest of us.
I'm sure they didn't ask for tax cuts where they would wind up getting a lot
more money back than the one that that they put into politics.
>> Hold on Cenk, I apologize for interrupting.
I don't wanna on you ,can you imagine just asking a reporter
,why do you think they spent the better part of a billion dollars?
>> Yeah. >> I would love to see them try to
explain it.
>> Yeah.
By the way, when I ran for Congress I asked it all the time and
not a single reporter would ever print it.
I would ask the the politicians that were running in the race,
I would ask the reporters, they never ,under penalty of law,
they were not going to print that question.
Why do you think they're spending the money, do you think it's for
the general welfare, do you think it's for charity?
So you've got the individuals, and you got the companies.
Exxon Mobil, do you think Exxon Mobil is doing it for
the general welfare cuz they weren't feeling charitable that day.
Only a lunatic would think that, literally if you said, yes, I think Exxon Mobil
is doing it for charity because they love the American people so much,
I would get you under clinical observation.
Right?
And yet that is the assumption that they write into every effing story.
It's a mental, and I'm gonna tell you why in a second, but so once you get past
those 400 some odd people, then you got the dark money super PACs, they spent 1.35
billion in this last midterm elections, not even presidential, midterm.
Okay?
That's well over a billion.
But that's just a part of it, right?
When you put in all the super PACs, all the different outside forces and
the individuals, all of it together, in the last midterms,
there's $17 billion spent in the lections, 17 billion.
Okay?
So, why doesn't the media talk about
the overwhelming most obvious factor in politics?
And guys, I say this all the time too, to be fair to the politicians,
like Sheldon Adelson for example,
three different times gave over $100 million to the Republicans.
If someone gave you $100 million, would you do what they said?
Probably, right?
I'd be tempted to do it.
Right? I've turned down a lot of money
in the past, 100 million, that's a lot, right?
>> I have done a lot worse for a lot less?
>> Yeah, I mean,
if somebody gave you 10,000 bucks should be tempted to do it, right?
Okay.
So, of course the politicians are just working for these donors.
But the reason why the press doesn't talk about something so
obvious is because almost that entire 17 billion goes to the press.
It goes directly into advertising.
Advertising in media and most of all,
in newspapers and television.
And guess who never ever ever ever criticizes money in politics,
newspapers and television.
They've got 17 billion reasons not to.
So, mainstream media including the New York Times, including CNN and all these
things that are beloved by establishment Democrats are at the heart of corruption.
They purposely avoid the largest topic in politics.
Now, turn to the Democrats in this particular vote.
Look, you gotta introduce bills first, some have bills amendments,
you gotta get money out of politics.
I don't know that you should do unilateral disarmament before you've actually passed
any bills prohibiting the other side from doing it as well.
I no longer think that, why?
Because now it's gotten so
comical that the dark money that the DNC wouldn't even vote on and
is accepting ,a lot of it is coming from Republican donors.
Why are Republican donors giving to the Democratic National Committee?
Because they're saying you must use that against progressives in primaries.
So the dark money now is used not to fight Republicans,
it's coming from Republicans into the Democratic party to fight progressives.
So in that scenario, hell no, of course I don't want them taking dark money.
And that's exactly why they wouldn't even vote on it cuz they're so deeply corrupt.
I'll get to the reaction from Bernie Sanders and others in a second, but Max.
>> So the ridiculous thing here is in the same breath.
The DNC then asks, why is there an enthusiasm gap on the left for
Democratic candidates?
And maybe it might have something to do with the fact that they stand up and
say we have to stop the corrosive influence of money in politics, and then
throw open the doors for any billionaire whose board to funnel money in.
And what ends up happening is exactly what we've seen,
they use that money to drown grassroots progressive candidates,
they pick whichever establishment Democrat is cloned out of the DNC candidate
program, and then that establishment corporate Dem loses a winnable race.
These people expect us to believe that they're going to pass campaign finance
reform in Congress,
we can't even get campaign finance reform in the Democratic party.
So it's no surprise to me that the left is furious about this and
it's the only shame is no one at the DNC is listening.
>> Yeah.
So, by the way, you might be wondering why are Republicans giving Democratic
incumbents that seems even to run against progressives in primaries but
still they're Democrats, right?
Well, that's the point.
Republican donors have made the calculation that mainstream
Democrats are identical to Republicans.
That they have the same exact economic policies.
They can blah blah blah about race and religion and
all the cultural war stuff but at the end of the day, they're now convinced that
the Democratic party will do whatever Republican donors tell them to do.
By the way, one of those Republican donors that gave dark money to
the Democrats was Sam Bankman-Fried.
The guy who did the scam at FDX, right?
And got caught.
He pretended to be a Democratic donor, later when he got caught he admitted ,no,
he gave money to the Republicans and gave to the Democrats as PR and
to destroy progressives.
He didn't say destroy progressives, he said for PR, and of course implicit
was to make sure that neither one of these corrupt clown parties regulate me.
Okay?
And if his whole thing hadn't crashed, no the Democrats would have never regulated
them, and neither would the Republicans.
They let criminals like that run around all the time until they lose
everybody's money.
Okay?
And then, lastly, what I promised you guys,
Bernie Sanders with a strongly worded tweet against the DNC.
I want you to blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Didn't name anyone blah blah blah blah blah.
It floated into the sky.
It was useless, totally useless.
Has Bernie ever championed forcefully ability or an amendment,
which is what you really need to get money out of politics?
No.
Has Elizabeth Warren, Elizabeth Warren, remember her on the campaign trail?
She was, that's why I love it, corruption, legalized bribery, she used those words.
She goes back into the Senate after she ran for president.
Never said it, not gone, gone.
Never talked about it again.
Wait, you mentioned it a 1000 times when you were trying to win our vote,
and then all of a sudden you stop running for president and
you don't give a damn anymore?
You know what that tells me, that tells me you're a fraud.
But look, my own just Democrats that I helped start, AOC and the rest of them.
Have they championed a single bill or
a single amendment to get money out of politics?
Nothing, nothing.
So, they don't get it.
They're not bad people.
AOC Bernie Sanders said they're not at all bad people.
They're wonderful people.
I don't know, maybe they're just a little slow.
Do you not get it?
The real issue is money in politics.
By the way, if I ask you, you say, yeah, the real issue Cenk is money in politics.
Then how come you never do anything against it?
And I'll tell you, I'll give you the answer.
Here's the secret, because it would offend their effing colleagues?
You don't want to hurt their feelings.
You guys have to get along so so well, Bernie's friends with Biden and
all of these new justice Democrats are now great friends with a lot of their
Democratic colleagues, and they're in caucuses together and they have tea and
crumpets together.
You wouldn't want to offend them.
I got news for you, they're corrupt and you're never gonna say it cuz you care
more about yourself than you do about the voters.
I'm being honest, and if that hurts your feelings, that's kind on you and
not on me.