>> Beto O'Rourke is out, it's done.
He's dropping out, as of today.
This happened just like 10 or 15 minutes ago.
He put out a statement saying our campaign has always been about speaking clearly, speaking
honestly, jumping on top of things, and acting decisively.
>> In that spirit, I am announcing that my service to the country will be not as a candidate
or as the nominee.
>> For those of you listening to the show rather than watching.
>> He didn't actually say that.
>> He didn't actually say jumping on top of things, everything else was verbatim.
>> But when he means act decisively, he means I see something high, I get on to something
high, that's what he means.
>> He's been in this for a long time and initially, he entered the race with a certain amount
of viral interest from people coming from his senate race.
He raised like $6 million in the first 48 hours, and then I read a stat was that, that
$6 million in the first 48 hours was more than he would go on to raise in the next 1,000
days.
>> Wow.
>> Which I don't understand how that's possible numbers wise, but that's what was in like
the Washington Post.
Maybe they mean hours, I don't know.
>> No, it's definitely possible.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah, so here's my take on Beto, and it's a really complicated one, and you thought,
really?
Yeah, yeah, so let me explain why.
Because a lot of other candidates are in clearly defined buckets, all right?
Biden, Klobuchar are more conservative Democrats.
They say you don't really need any change, I was just gonna fiddle around the edges.
And we are not Donald Trump, da, da, da, da, okay.
And then there are the progressive candidates, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren.
Those are very clear ends of the spectrum, right?
And now this end of the spectrum is weighted down with almost all the other candidates
John Delaney, some of the former candidates like John Hickenlooper, etc.
And then there was a small sliver in the middle that could have gone either way in the beginning
of the campaign, right?
They could have gotten the progressive route, they could have gone in the more conservative
round.
And so that was Beto, Buttigieg, and I would argue Kamala Harris, Jill Brannon, and Booker,
okay?
So now that's small when you compare the 27 people that were in this race at different
times.
But it's an important five, their establishment figures that were leaning progressive, doing
things like rejecting corporate PAC money etc.
So Beto I have in the camp of well-intentioned within that bucket, okay?
I also have a Booker in that well-intentioned bucket, but ultimately made a terrible decision
that probably none of the rest of the media will talk about now, that was absolutely decisive.
So at the beginning of his campaign, he had his team that had done spectacularly well
in the Texas senate race.
But particularly his field team, the people who organized the volunteers and staffers
to go out and knock on doors, make the phone calls.
They broke every record there was in reaching out through grassroots in Texas, that's why
he almost beat Ted Cruz in a spectacularly run race.
So he had it, and that's why he races 6 million, right?
In the beginning, people were like, my god.
And in the beginning, he had started running as a real firebrand progressive, no corporate
PAC money.
And I'm gonna come back to that, cuz he should get a lot of credit for that, Medicare for
all, etc.
Then near the end of the race, he was like not really Medicare for all, and I was like,
no, and John covered- >> I feel like we had those concerns even
much earlier though, even back during the senate race.
>> I'm saying in the senate race, I'm sorry.
>> Okay, yes, yes.
>> Thank you for clarifying, yes.
So I was just about to say, John watched the first debate that he had with Ted Cruz, came
back and was like I don't think he's for Medicare for all, right?
And then Anna and I did the second debate, and we did all this on TYT.com.
We might have done it for the members.
TYT.COM/JOIN, so you don't miss any of our content.
So we came back scratching our heads, he seems like he is leaning away from the progressives
now.
And I think that, that was a critical mistake, I think if he hadn't do that, he might have
actually won in Texas.
But most importantly he runs that amazing race, he turns around and he's gonna run for
president.
And everybody says, Beto, you got this, you're the next Bobby Kennedy, you're gonna win,
this is so exciting.
So we brought in the Obama people.
Now, I would have said, and why would I want them?
I have the most amazing team that's ever been assembled.
And he's like, Obama staffers, so he hired them and decided that they were not gonna
do the grassroots campaign that he had done in Texas disaster.
So the grassroots team that was legendary left Zach Mallards, Becky Bond, and all the
people that work with them.
These are diehard progressives and the best in the business in organizing, okay?
So they immediately left because Beto decided to go in the opposite direction.
Let me ask those people who believe in those Obama staffers now, how's that work out for
you?
>> Yeah, I think it was a completely different environment for Obama.
One, the candidate was a different charismatic type of figure.
That Beto O'Rourke, for all his impassioned rhetoric was not an Obama.
And the staffers were young and they very much utilize the digital space that hadn't
previously before been leveraged for a campaign.
So there were unique crevices that this Obama world had explored.
And again, we've seen like the connection with people who worked on the team that went
to Cambridge Analytica, and then just really shifted their whole setup.
But that formula doesn't necessarily work now in this moment, that's one thing.
And two, it's interesting to me when candidates can't win smaller races.
Of course, Texas is notoriously difficult race to win as a Democrat to become a senator.
But the fact that he got really close, I didn't understand why people saw him as a front line
candidate for the Democratic ticket.
When you did have some of these other folks that were energizing the population around
more of a unique message and solutions, right?
He didn't really have any solutions for us, besides the fact that he doubled down on a
gun buyback program.
And beside the fact that he had an El Paso moment.
Which was beautiful to see the ways that he finally fought back to Trump, in ways that
other democrats would not.
But there wasn't something spectacularly special about Beto, that distinguish him from the
rest of as you said, that sort of middle pack of folks that didn't really know where they
stood depending on what their strategists told them for the day.
>> Yeah, and so there was a lane that he could have used to win.
If he came out and said, I'm the young progressive.
I love what Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are doing.
I'm gonna improve upon those plans and we're gonna get them passed, etc.
People could have been excited by that, both those candidates are in their seventies.
Then he stick with his organizing team, then he would have the best organizing team, may
be even better than Bernie Sanders' team.
And he would have raised a lot more money, cuz people would have continued to be excited,
and instead he listened to the idiots in the mainstream media.
And so those are Obama staffers, yeah, the idea that Obama is charismatic, I always think
charisma is overrated in politics.
And you think like whoa, what do you mean?
That's what everybody talks about.
But Mitch McConnell has no charisma whatsoever.
Chuck Schumer is in the negatives on charisma.
And those are the two leaders of the Senate.
>> But they could never run for President.
>> Yeah, that's true.
>> But how do you win in Kentucky?
How do you win in New York?
I mean, so most of the politicians are the driest people you'll ever meet and have no
charisma at all.
So anyway, look, I don't want to get- >> I'm more on meta side on this.
>> Okay, no problem.
>> I don't think you have to have it, but I think it's definitely a nice plus if he
do.
>> It' a key ingredient.
>> I still remember the first speech I ever saw Obama gave.
It was in 2004, the DNC speech and I thought, my god, this guy is something, that counts
for something.
I'm not saying that that necessarily gets you all the way, but it certainly counts for
something.
>> And the concession speech that Beto gave was what put him on the map really.
I mean, people were watching that race, but for a national audience, that was his moment
to elevate.
Was folks saying, this guy didn't win in the senate, but I want him somewhere on my team.
>> So look, I don't wanna get stuck on a tiny part of this story, okay?
But the bottom line is he made the wrong choices, he decided to go more conservative, he decided
to not do grassroots.
And so all the people that are focusing on all the wrong reasons if they keep missing
the critical element in this primary, unlike let me put it this way.
It's the race that I've seen it most clear in my lifetime.
The voters care about policy, they deeply, deeply care about it.
Every time Warren proposes new policy she rises.
Bernie proposes new policies on the left, he rises.
Beto decided like a lot of other candidates, no, I'm gonna propose standard milk toast
moderate to conservative policies.
And people are like, no, no, no, no, you misunderstood us, we're not at all interested in that.
>> We're gonna stop giving you money, we're not gonna volunteer for you and you're done,
and that's what happened here.
>> Yeah, and I would especially early on, as you pointed out, he didn't have like a
really strong identity.
He was sort of known more than you might expect a random senate candidate who didn't win to
be known.
But he entered seemingly just because he had this kind of viral thing and he was nationally
known because of his senate race.
And so he decided to come in and the first national introduction, a lot of people had
was this Vanity Fair cover about how I was born for this.
And if we're struggling to understand why you think at this point, you don't have a
lifetime of accomplishments and everything.
Why you should be president and you seem so sure of yourself, that's a weird combination.
He didn't have like a court issue, I can name a few things that he spoke with passion about.
But so for instance, recently he's been talking a lot about guns.
But I don't remember six months ago him talking about guns a ton.
It seems like he talked about it and it did well, and so he doubled down on it.
Occasionally that would be immigration, at one point, it was Colin Kaepernick.
But it wasn't like I'm seeing the true you come through.
It's like you're sort of, now I'm not saying he's like Trump, but Trump does this.
Trump talks about everything, he sees what gets applause and then he talks about it more.
>> Yeah, so then you might be wondering, why do I have him in the good intent bucket, right?
So look, John's right about this, the number of things he did right.
He was pretty good on the environment.
He was very good in challenging Donald Trump's bigotry.
You can say everybody is, but he actually particularly was adamant and did one of the
better jobs of doing that, but that's not why.
The main reasons why were him doubling down on guns.
Yes, John could be right that he saw a moment there, especially with what happened in El
Paso.
But he was at least had the courage to do what every Democrat told him not to do, right?
They're like no, you're gonna cost us elections and how dare you, and he's like, that's like
your opinion man.
But this stuff's getting people killed, it's getting my constituents killed, it's getting
all these so I'm gonna do it, yes.
We're doing the buyback program, that was one of the best moments for any candidate
in this entire campaign.
Okay, so you have to give him credit for that.
But even more important than that, he took no corporate PAC money well before anyone
else did, even before the justice Democrats.
Now, I know that there was issues.
He took some fossil fuel executive money during the senate race, and so there was some loophole
issues, etc there.
But guys, he led on that when no one else was.
So that is both huge substantively and shows you, he has promise.
He's a young guy, he can be brought back to the the light side, right?
The force of good.
>> We'll have to see what he does now.
>> Yeah, absolutely.
>> And he's not running for senate, he says, at least.
He's also not endorsing anyone right now, so we'll have to see.
>> Yeah, he has some good instincts.
He appears to be a good guy, and he's had some really good policies, but he got wounded
and seduced by my God, I think I'm gonna win.
Yeah, who cares about grassroots.
So I hope that he has learned from that terrible, in this political case, fatal mistake.
And that he could go back to being a progressive.
And so in a sense, maybe I'm wrong, but I actually kind of believe in him.
And so I think he could make for an interesting person in administration that's actually progressive.
And if given the right leadership and guidance, I think he comes back and plays a really important
role.
Unlike others, here I'll say it, like Buttegieg, who seems to be clearly scheming.
I've never gotten a sense from Buttegieg of I'm authentic and I've got some good instincts
and some bad instincts, and I've struggled with that.
It's no like calculating, calculating, calculating.
How do I play the politics of this to get ahead?
I've got to get ahead, got to get ahead.
Yeah, the Warren took the progressive thing that I was planning to do.
But well, I guess that's too late, so I'll now do the conservative thing, and calculate,
calculate, calculate.
So maybe I'm wrong, maybe you see it differently but to me there's a world of difference between
Beto and Buttigieg.
Of course, he wasn't going to win.
This is the right decision at this point in time, but in a sense, I was glad that he was
in the race.
>> Yeah, yeah, and I respect that he can look and see that he's definitely not gonna become
president drop out.
Because there's a lot of people right now that are running even though they know they're
not gonna be president.