"Jimmy Dore: until we fix Democratic Party elites' corruption, we won’t defeat Trump's"
The Grayzone (November 17, 2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufduP0bLfAY

Jimmy Dore pushes back on impeachment/Ukrainegate, Hillary Clinton’s smear of Tulsi Gabbard as a Russian asset, the DNC’s 2020 gift-wrapping for Trump, and more.

Aaron Maté: "Welcome to Pushback [The Grayzone]. ... Joining me in his Pushback debut is Jimmy Dore: author, comedian, and host of the Jimmy Dore Show. Jimmy, Welcome to Pushback."

[0:17] Jimmy Dore: "It's good to be here pushing back with you."

Aaron Maté: "I was thinking about how I would start off my impeachment coverage - the Ukrainegate hearings in the House have gotten underway. And I thought, who better to have on than you, Jimmy. You are someone whom I and many other people around the country and around the world have relied on to debunk the prevailing craziness of the last several years. And Ukrainegate, I think, is very much a continuation of that. What do you make of ..."

[0:51] Jimmy Dore: "Oh, I think they've got -- the country's electrified. I don't know if you've seen [but] Did you just see [how] NBC News actually tweeted out that this is boring? So, again, it's another big win for the Democrats. They're starting out slow. That's what they said, literally. 'We're building our foundation.' Your foundation is built on hearsay. They had a couple of guys testify neither of which were on the phone call. But they know a guy who heard a guy talking on a phone. No f...! It's unbelievable what they're trying to base this on."

[1:27] "By the way, if it's a quid pro quo -- oh my god, everybody's going to learn what that means now -- if there was a quid pro quo, meaning Trump said, 'You investigate Biden for me, and I'll give you this aid,' if that was true, they didn't investigate Biden, and he [Ukrainian President Zelensky] got the aid anyway. Where's your -- It didn't happen. And then the President of Ukraine testifies that he didn't feel pressured, wasn't pressured, didn't know he was being pressured and didn't know that they were withholding the military aid. This is a great case."

2:04] Aaron Maté: "The star witnesses, one of them was Bill Taylor. And what was amazing to me about him is that -- and he mentioned this in his Congressional testimony -- where back when Obama was in power, he was taking part in the effort to lobby Obama to send that military aid to Ukraine, and Obama rejected him. And that was in 2014 - 2015 - 2016. Now in 2019, the Democrats have brought him back as their first star witness to advocate a policy that Obama explicity rejected."

[2:43] Jimmy Dore: "Only the Democrats. Am I correct? Only the Democrats. I wasn't even following the impeachment. At all. Until you texted me yesterday and said, 'Hey, You want to come on and talk about impeachment?' And I was like, 'OK. I guess I should look into it because ... why Jimmy? Why? Because it's a complete show and it's a boring show. It's like we already know the end. The end is he's not going to be kicked out of office. There probably won't even be a trial. So they may impeach him in the House. That's the only drama here. But it doesn't matter. It only matters what happens in the Senate. And by watching this and looking at the case, again, they have him doing this pressuring the Ukraine to root out corruption. Ukraine is completly corrupt, that government. Also, Burisma Holdings, completely corrupt. That guy who was running Burisma was siphoning billions of dollars out of the Ukraine government, and he had such a bad reputation, that's why he had to put Hunter Biden on his board. He tried to get all these people who were connected on his board. Because he was such a corrupt guy, and being investigated by Ukraine. So Trump asking for an investigation on that and then giving the guy the military aid, anyway, even though they didn't do the investigation, or even make the pronouncement in the press, also requested. Didn't do that. Still got the miliary aide. I don't know where your quid pro quo is. Do You? I'm serious. Do you know where it is?"

[4:21] Aaron Maté: "Well, I think the argument is that there was the attempted quid pro quo. But given that it got nowhere near off the ground, the question is like Is this worth another all-consuming scandal that, by the way, like the first scandal, also happens to shine a constant light on the corruption of one of the top Democratic candidates. Because what was the issue with Russia-gate? It was that Russia allegedly stole some e-mails that showed massive corruption by Hillary Clinton and the Trump campaign might have conspired with that, which, of course, they didn't. So constantly we're talking about the fact that we're angry that we heard about Hillary Clinton's corruption via the stolen emails, now we're talking about a scandal where we're angry about the fact that Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate the transparent corruption the next Democratic frontrunner, Joe Biden, whose son is getting $80,000, it seems, per month, from Burisma. And speaking of a brilliant strategy, Jimmy, I wanted to get your response to this: There was a piece in the Washington Post this week and it says this:

[5:57] Aaron Maté: "So, because of the genius strategy, this means that, out of the gates of the Demcocratic primary when they could be campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire these pivotal states, Democratic senators, including Bernie Sanders will have to be back in DC for an impeachment trial that is supposed to be six days per week, totally keeping them off the campaign trail"

[6:24] Jimmy Dore: "Again, only the Democrats could do something like that. The best thing the Republicans have going for them is that their opponents are the Democrats, the most incompetent. And the problem, the reason why they're so incompetent, is because they can't actually do what they should be doing as an opposition party, which is actually presenting an opposite and opposing view, or vision, for where to take the country. They're not doing that. They don't have a -- I just got the Democratic mailer and it's a questionaire, like 'Hey, what do you want the Democrats to do? Nowhere in it does it have free college. Nowhere in it does it have Medicare for All. Nowhere in it does it have ending the wars. Those are the big three issues for people, and they don't even talk about them. They do it with these platitudes. About how they'll say 'Do you want to invest in education? Do you want to defend the Affordable Care Act? It's like, you guys still don't get it. They still won't offer the American people anything. Those hundred million people who didn't get off the couch to vote last time. They're not trying to get them off the couch to vote. And so in lieu of that they did three years of Russia-gate and now they're doing this [impeachment]. They don't have anything to give to the people. And of course the establishment media is not going to point this out because they're owned by the same people who are the owners of the Democratic Party."

[7:44] "And you're exactly right, you know. What did those emails reveal, right? So the Russia-gate investigation was all based on the idea that Wikileaks and Trump colluded to get Hillary's emails and that rigged the [General] election because it showed how Hillary rigged the Primary Election."

[8:04] Aaron Maté: "Yeah. Well, look, speaking of which, let me read to you a tweet from The Guardian today. Talking about Hillary Clinton and recent comments that were made. It's quite amazing:

[8:41] Jimmy Dore: "Wow. It's like Chris Christie wagging his fiinger at you for staying at the buffet too long. Am I right? Are you kidding? This is Hillary Clinton who just called a sitting congresswoman, woman of color, and a serving military veteran a Russian asset. She just did the Red-baiting on someone like that. That goes to the psychopathology of Hillary Clinton. Who is a psychopath. Even if you read the emails again. Even her own staff was pulling their hair out half the time going: 'What world does Hillary Clinton live in? Doesn't she know she's running for President and should stop giving speeches to Goldman Sachs for $600,000 at a clip.' I mean, you see that her own staff doesn't even know what world she lives in. And she's continuing to do that. And it's just funny to watch the press go along with it."

[9:30] Aaron Maté: "Well, you know I'm not sure that this counts as The Press, but Tulsi Gabbard recently went on The View and, you know, they are influential and they're part of the media and Tulsi Gabbard got into an exchange with the view co-host, Joy Behar, and let's play a clip"

"So that's Joy Behar accosting Tulsi Gabbard. Constantly interrupting her. Doubling down on Hillary Clinton's smear of her as a Russian asset. What were your thoughts on that?

[10:42] Jimmy Dore: "Well, it was hard for me to watch, honestly. The first time was really hard because I got so emotionally upset about it. And I think it's like, someone like Joy Behar, again, it's like they live in that Bari Weiss bubble. Bari Weiss the writer for the New York Times who went on Joe Rogan famously and said that Tulsi Gabbard is a "toady." And then when Joe Rogan asked her what a "toady" means, she had no idea what it meant. And that's the same thing. And so people saw that. And I did a video about it and it got three million views, right? So more people saw that than saw the original Joe Rogan. And now, Hillary Clinton and Joy Behar doing the exact same thing. It's like 'Joy. Do you not think the people who are watching the show see right through what you're doing? Don't you know that if a high school girl did that to someone else, if it was my mom's daughter, she'd smack her in the mouth and say 'Where did you learn to be so rude to a guest. You just smeared somebody when they weren't here, now she's here, she's a woman of color serving in the military who was Red-baited, and you won't let her speak uninterruptedly? You constantly want to interrupt her? Andbadger her instead of treating her fairly. So what Joy Behar was doing -- if Tulsi Gabbard is so horrible, why wouldn't Joy Behar treat her fairly then, and because Tulsi Gabbard isn't horrible, the horrible person is Joy Behar who is a mouthpiece for the establishment and smears a veteran when it's politically worth it to her.

So, she's -- Joy Behar revealed herself to be a scummy person willing to use scummy smear tactics, tactics of guilt by association. 'Let me tell you something, Donald,' she goes. ' Oh, well, Franklin Graham seems to like you.' That's just the lowest of underhanded tactics ... Let me just say that Trump endorsed Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House and said 'if she can't get the votes, I'll get them for her. She's a good Speaker and she deserves it.' So now does Nancy Pelosi have to answer for Donald Trump? Of course not. Hey Joy. Jag off Jimmy Dore says you're a great person. Now you have to answer for me. So now someone can say 'Jimmy Dore thinks you're great. Jimmy Dore!' So that's how that works and when Joy Behar does that, what she's doing is giving power to the most disgusting people in the world. So now, David Duke, if he says he likes someone, he gets to disqualify anybody from the Democratic primary. That gives him a lot of power. And that's why you're not supposed to do that. Of course, Joy Behar does this, but she lacks character and dignity. She has no integrity. Which is why Joy Behar did this on national television as if nobody saw it. [13:32] "The number one comment underneath the view -- if you go to The View's youtube channel -- The number one comment underneath that video:

Tulsi is not a Russian agent. But I am 100% sure now that Joy is Hillary's agent.

"It got over a thousand 'likes.' That's the top comment on the video. Their own viewers see right through them. And by way, Tulsi's now polling at six percent in New Hampshire. So, again, the Democrats and the Democratic establishment is so horrible that everything they do has the boomerang effect. It backfires on them. Russiagate. Trump had his highest approval ratings after Russia-gate petered out. And they're going to do the same thing with this. And they'll do anything except talk about what the Democratic party is supposed to be doing to get those hundred million people off the couch and voting. They'll talk about anything except that."

[14:20] Aaron Maté: "You know, Jimmy, you've become really well known and relied on by many people for your ability to skewer the Democratic party establishment and show their hypocrisy, and show the extent of their shortcomings. Why is it so important for you to highlight that? "

[14:36] Jimmy Dore: "Again, I say this in comedy clubs in front of regular people, not my own audience, and they get it. Everybody's anger is focused on Trump. Trump didn't cause eighty percent of workers to live paycheck to paycheck. Trump didn't take us to Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan. Trump didn't make people buried under mountains of student debt. You get rid of Trump you still have this problem. As Chris Hedges says, Trump is what you get when what gets vomited up from a failed democracy. So my point is,you get rid of Trump, you get of Pence and the Republicans, you'vek got to have something to replace them with. So when we replaced George W. Bush with Barack Obama, and then he turned out to be Mitt Romney, eight years later we got Donald Trump. So if you don't actually do something for the people, if the Democratic party isn't ready to actually lead, and serve the people, we're going to get a worse Trump. And that's a fact. That's not a theory. That's how Trump happened. And they've been predicting this was going to happen and finally it happened. This is what happens after forty years of 'lesser of two evils' and shaming people. All the Democrats have left is voter-shaming. It's amazing, you see all those celebrities out, you know, you see those tweets: "I told the bar-back to get out and vote.' Hey, why don't you tell the Democrat running to get that guy's votes to advocate for something that would make that guy's life better? That's what you should do."

[16:09] "So this idea that you hate Trump, that is not a political position. That is an emotional temper tantrum that doesn't get anything done. So, I'm trying to remind people that the reason we have Donald Trump is beause of the amazing rot and corruption inside the Democratic party. The politician that we deserve to be President was Bernie Sanders. And we would have had Bernie Sanders if it wasn't for the unbelievable and complete corruption of the Democratic National Committee which was 100% corrupted by the Hillary Clinton campaign. When you were giving money to a state party, that money was being funneled to Brooklyn to Hillary Clinton's campaign, which is fraud, which never gets talked about. And that's why we have Donald Trump.

"So until we fix the rot and corruption inside the Democratic party, we're never going to get rid of Donald Trumps. We're gonna keep getting worse ones. And that's the thing. People have no idea how horrible Barack Obama was. People have no idea that people in Milwaukee and Michigan, who voted for Barack Obama twice, would not go vote for Hillary Clinton. Because they voted for Barack Obama twice and their lives got worse. Those aren't my words. That's their words from a New York Times article that went to Milwaukee and interviewed barbers in a barber shop. Four of them voted for Barack Obama twice. Only two of them voted in 2016 and neither of them voted for Hillary."

[17:31] Aaron Maté: "You know, in that same interview where she famously called Jill Stein a Russian asset and said the same thing about Tulsi Gabbard although she tried to deny that, but she clearly did. Hillary Clinton tried to blame the Russians for her loss in Michigan. [shows screen shot with accompanying audio]

"So there you go, Jimmy. It's not the fact that Hillary had an economic legacy that voters rejected and that Obama did, too. It's that the Russians helped play a part in convincing blacks not to vote in Michigan. Like, the self-delusion and also the racist contempt ... "

[18:30] Jimmy Dore: "Yes. That's what that is. That's Hillary Clinton saying all blacks are so stupid that they can get manipulated by Russia. See how dumb they are? It wasn't my friends in white suburbia. It was dumb black people who got manipulated by the Russians. That's what she's saying, correct?" ... "

[18:50] Aaron Maté: "That's what it seems like to me. And it's amazing how all that gets a pass. I mean, part of the problem was because what she said in the same interview about Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein was so nutty that, understandably, there was focus on that. But it's crazy that an establishment figure, a former secretary of state; former presidential candidate; a possible future presidential candidate given that she is not ruling it out now, can say someting like that it's just normalized. Like the underlying contempt that elites have for voters, especially people of color, it's so stark but yet it's so normalized that it doesn't even get any attention or pushback and yet, meanwhile, if we talk about bias among candidates, there's so much focus on whether or not a Bernie Sanders supporter on twitter said something biased, and that's then deemed to be emblematic of the enire movement. Well, what about what Hillary Clinton says out in the open and no one even says anything?"

[19:43] Jimmy Dore: "You sound like me. That's the kind of angst I usually carry around all day. It's like 'No one is even ...!' The problem with the Bernie Sanders campaign is that they actually validate stupid criticisms like 'hey. There's a Twitter, and Rando on Twitter said something mean to your opponent. You have to apologize. And then they do. So that's kind of Bernie Sanders playing into that way too much. His willingness to placate the establishment or in the PC crowd, and people who are dishonest actors, doesn't make any sense to me. Again, Bernie Sanders is popular because of Bernie Sanders. His strategists are not the brightest guys in the world. I mean, what kind of a strategist lets a guy scream for an hour after his microphone goes out the night before a televised debate? That guy should be fired. No one got fired.

So I get your frustration about Hillary Clinton being able to say this, how it's normalized. But I think that Hillary Clinton overreached, as Tom Brokaw would say, so fantastically that it sounded like a sketch from Saturday Night Live or something, where she just went on with 'Tulsi is a Russian asset; amd Jill Stein, she's a Russian, too; Everybody's a Russian; I mean regular people who are regular establishment mouthpieces, like Erin Burnett, were laughing at that clip. So when you've lost Erin Burnett with your Russian Red-baiting, I think you've lost the center at the very least. So, actually, it helped Tulsi. She's polling at 6% now in New Hampshire, way above 'top tier' candidate Kamala Harris. So now when Hillary said that 'all of you are Russian, it was almost like a punch line. So now people are starting to use that. I see comedians starting to use that as a punch line. So, when that becomes a punchline to everybody, that is when the Russiagate finally is put to rest. When it becomes just a term of derision to mock somebody as a tinfoil-hat knucklehead, which is what they are."

[22:03] Aaron Maté: "Finally, Jimmy. You know, one thing that I also think has set your program apart is that unlike other major progressive platforms, you're not just trying to appeal to a sort of coastal urban audience, a liberal audience. You don't have contempt for people who may not have voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and you don't even have contempt for some people who voted for Donald Trump. And I know that there are many Trump voters out there who voted for Trump probably based on racism and based on misogyny. But I also know there are others who voted for Trump as an act of desperation, as an act of protest against the system. I'm wondering, as you travel around the country, met with your audience and heard from people, if that's your sense as well."

[22:51]

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