Tragedy and Trauma

kind of you know, disconnect from the news. The more that I begin to get back up to speed on all of the things that I've missed, all of the tragedy, all of the trauma, it's sitting with me my continued contempt and disappointment with this country. You know, there are multiple trials that are happening right now, but the biggest trial that I think is the one that we all need to be paying attention to is America at large. Through the Written House case, through the you know, McCullough

brothers case, right the family that murdered Ahmad Aubrey. All I can keep thinking about is this is who America is. We often continue to say to ourselves every time that something bad happens, every time that something just so absurdly cruel happens in this country. We love to say, this is not who we are. Donald Trump rips children away from their families. This is not who we are, except

we've been doing this for centuries. It started with Native American children that we were ripping away from their families, moved into hundreds of years of slavery where we ripped family, Black families apart in this country, sold off right. And then we come to present day and we love to say, oh, this isn't who we are, and yet it is a part of our history. And it is this very part of our history that the radical right, the Insurrectionist Party,

doesn't want you to know anything about. It's why they have created the boogeyman of critical race theory, something that isn't even taught, isn't even taught at the K three twelveth level. It's something that is actually only taught at the graduate level right and in law school. But they

don't want you to understand your history. They don't want us to be able to unpack and ask critical questions about this nation's founding and how we have developed policies right and laws that have moved forward that are actually a part of our white supremacist founding. Because you see that when you prepare people, when you educate them in a way to begin to the world around them, then you have to answer for the things you don't want to answer for. And so what is the radical rights

response to that? Just don't teach it. Ban those books, ban those conversations, Ban the mentioning of race inequity, of gender inequity. Let's pretend it doesn't exist. That's their idea of how they preserve America, how they don't make white kids feel bad about themselves. Let's all just pretend that racism doesn't happen, that there is gender equity, and women, as a matter of fact, make equal pay, knowing good

God damn well, that that is not the truth. But you see where I find myself struggling these days is that I feel like I have been having these conversations at nauseam about the democrats inability to message, about their inability to actually talk about the things that they are providing Americans with as opposed to the things that the

radical right tells us they are stripping away. You know, they're the ones that want to have a whole campaign around cancel culture, and yet they're throwing book burning parties and yet they're throwing mask burning parties. They are the

ones that are trying to cancel fucking common sense. And instead of having a conversation about that, instead of us being very real about how they are trying to roll back the clock, how they are trying to continue to perpetuate a culture of violence, a climate of written houses that all feel like they have the power and the ability to sling on in AAR fifteen and go play target practice with other American citizens. This is the climate that we are setting up, and it is being signaled

from the top. We have a Supreme Court case, for instance, right that we have talked about with our friend doctor Jonathan. That's all a Supreme Court case that is about getting ready to essentially ban individual states abilities to be able to create sensible gun control laws. So they just think for a minute that the party that initially was about quote unquote states rights has now brought up laws and ideology that is about ripping away those very rights that

they say that states should have away from them. If it's a red state, no no, you can continue on. But if it's a blue state, oh no, no, no, you don't have the ability to say that. In New York City, a city of eight million fucking people, that we all shouldn't have assault weapons right because oh, that will infringe upon their Second Amendment right, not my right to exist free of fear. That's not the conversation that

we are having. No, Instead, we are having the conversation about everyone's right to be able to bear arms, everyone's right to be able to be Kyle Rittenhouse and shoot up who they will when they want. We are the times that we are living in, folks is so incredibly dangerous. But the conversation that I will have in a bit with our friend Kurt Bardella is this, if every single election is urgent, then why is it that Democrats continue

to fall behind? If we looked and knew that Virginia was going to be an alarm right for what could happen in the midterm elections, then why was Terry mccaullough falling behind from the beginning with a no name fucking Donald Trump light in a vest? How are we not

prepared for the tactics that they are using. There's a new study that just came out right media hawks who pay attention to you know, the Fox News is of the world before the Virginia election, the number of times that critical race theory was mentioned on Fox was like in the hundreds on a daily Right now post the election, oh, critical race theory is no longer a conversation. It's no longer you know, hide the books from your children or

decide to homeschool. It's barely barely registering. And so if you know that they are using these bullshit tactics, right, and you know that they are creating a boogeyman out of nothing, then why are we constantly operating from the defense. Why aren't we able to see what they are doing? Because it's not that fucking deep, do you know what I'm saying. It's not as if this is a highly strategic maneuvering and conversation and nuance that they are having.

It's the same race baiting shit that they've been doing for decades. Just each and every election they pick a new boogeyman. And you would think that Democrats would be prepared for that. But the moment that you find yourself right explaining what you're not doing, you are fucking losing. And that is where Democrats are. So the question that I am posing with less than a year until midterm elections. Is have we already lost? Right? Because here's the thing.

When you have anchor anchors and host asking members of Congress whether or not Democrats are two woke, you have lost Democrats saying fucking woke. If they were, we would have passed voting rights out of the fucking gate. We would have blown up the filibuster. We would have been active on climate change. Why because we would have been woke and conscious too, the fucking racist ass filibuster right

that allows these small as states to have outsize power. Right, we would have done what was necessary, what the voters called us to do, because we would have been in alignment with them. But are we doing that? No, we're not. But when you are having to go on the defensive about being woke, which means being conscious too, injustice, you

are fucking losing. So here we are with a handful of months, and I'm telling you it's going to go buy in a blink of an eye, because the other day it occurred to me, said, shit, there are like six weeks until the end of this year. Right when we get to January, it'll almost be two years. It'll be two years that we've been living with COVID nineteen and we still have people fucking dying. That's how quickly time has gone, because we lost an entire year in

twenty twenty. Right, twenty twenty one went by like boom, And so what is in store for twenty twenty two? Dare I ask? Because I'm terrified? But back to these cases, You know, when you already know what the outcome is going to be, when you can comfortably say to yourself, like, oh, yeah, Kyle's not going to go to jail. He wasn't even remanded to prison, right while he awaited did trial, and

yet low level drug offenders. Right Caliph Browder, the young black man who was picked up and held in Rikers for three years under suspicion of stealing a backpack, who would then later be released no charges and kill himself after the trauma that was inflicted upon him when he's remanded for stealing of a backpack. But Kyle Rittenhouse was able to go out drink beers and fucking live his life after killing two people, You know that this justice

system ain't fucking right. When a judge can decide that we're not going to use the word victim because he believes it's too politically loaded. You know this justice system ain't right when cops can get off after we witnessed them on video shooting people in the back. You know that this justice system ain't right. But what are we doing to fix it? What conversations are we doing, what

conversations are we having? We're not So how is it that the radical right is able to say that the Democratic Party is too woke when they ignore all the same fucking shit. You know, and this is what I'm saying. It is all a distraction. It is all a distraction in order to keep white supremacy alive. If you are paying attention to this shit over here, then you are not focused on the bigger picture, which is who is

making money off of all of this? Right? Who benefits from this, whether it be through power for power's sake or money right at the sake of greed. But somebody is benefiting. And this country only works right at the expense of the least among us. So when we decide to have honest conversations about that, right, when we decide to tell the truth, right, that will be us being whoa But right now, both parties, if you ask me, are just a bunch of political ostriches. They're just burying

their heads in the sand. The radical right knows exactly how to talk to their base. They know exactly what they want to hear. It doesn't matter that they don't deliver shit. They deliver the rhetoric that they love. Right. They make these people feel proud with their millions of guns, right, and the desire for members of Congress to post videos of them killing another member of Congress. That's the shit

that their base wants to see. But the stuff that we want to see as a base of the Democratic Party, we're told, oh no, no, no, no no, that's too much, because I'm too busy fucking chasing the Karens right, trying to get them to switch parties, when since nineteen fifties they have shown exist us exactly who the fuck they are and where their allegiance lies. But we're still trying to bring them back. You know, all I can say with regard to this current political climate is take good

care of yourself, right, take good care of yourself. You have got to be balancing out what it is that we are ingesting with what we are putting back out

into the universe. We cannot sustain on rage alone. Trust me, this is what I am learning after years of doing Woke, after years of raging against the machine, that if I am not working to fill my own cup, if I am not working right as a way to speak and say what it is that I have to say, but then let it go, relieve myself of the expectations that anything is truly going to shift in this country other

than waking more people up. But knowing right this is my turn with the baton, but that I am not going to see justice in my lifetime, right, But I can only do what I can to pass the baton to the next generation, to the next group of people who care and hope that they carry the work further. But I cannot in the process burn myself out and make myself sick, because that would be feeding into the system of white supremacy that has a death grip on

this country. Coming up next, friends, is my conversation with our dear friend who has returned to Woke, f Kurt Bardella, about what he believes the Democratic Party needs to do in order to win in this next election and whether or not we're going to have the stomach for the kind of fight that we are up against, folks. I am so excited to welcome back to Woke f Daily our friend Kurt Bardela. You know him as a DNC and d Triple C spokesperson as well as a columnist

and regular guesting contributor on MSNBC. Kurt, let's just you know, cut the bs from the jump. Democrats are not in good shape. Even though you know, finally, finally, after months of deliberation, after back and forth with Senator Kirsten Cinema and Joe Manchion and you know, the Progressive Caucus in the House, we have a bipartisan infrastructure deal that was signed this week. However, there are many people, including myself, that are wondering whether or not Democrats have already lost

the midterm elections before we even get started. With less than a year and now to go until those midterm elections happen. What kind of shape do you think that Democrats are in right now? Well, Daniel, I think it's an uphill climb, candidly, and part of the reason why, and this doesn't get talked about nearly enough, the redistricting process that is happening right now, the partisan Jerry Mandarin

of congressional districts. Before we even get on the playing field in twenty twenty two, we could have already lost our majority just based on how Republicans in the state houses are drawing these lines and grouping communities of color and very concentrated areas so that they don't have widespread representations blatant racism, and it's happening in broad daylight, and it underscores I think one of the real blind spots of the Democratic Party from an organization standpoint, which is,

for too long we've kind of ignored what goes on in the local and state level, while Republicans have very systemically and deliberately launched multi million dollar campaigns to build up their bench in these places. I've always said that today's city council member, today's state assemblyment is tomorrow's congressman

or tomorrow senator. And we're seeing that happen. I mean, right now, local school boards are under siege by the radical extreme right, and that is a deliberate plan by the Republican Party to try to hijack all of the institutions and put them in their column. And that's going and as we see every ten years, that has a

very significant impact. When we look at the playing field for mid term elections, I think that after what happened a couple of weeks ago in Virginia and New Jersey, even though we won New Jersey was alarmingly close, democratsy to wake up and realize something. On climate change, we saw Republicans hijack the issue and turned the Green New Deal into a bad word. On voting rights and police reform, we saw Republicans hijack those issues and turn it into

defund the police. On the issue of infrastructure and congressional spending, we saw them hijacket and just make it into a price tag designed to scare away of voters. On education, we saw them hijacket and turned it into critical race theory. And we saw how that played out in the most recent elections. Time and again, Republicans take our issues and

scare us away from talking about them. And I'll tell you, if you would to set a year ago, Danielle that the Virginia elections can come down to the issue of education, who do you think is gonna win? Everybody would have said, oh, that faris of Democrats, and education debate is a Democrat

wheelhouse issue. And yet somehow we lost that, and we have got to stop letting Republicans hijack our issues and just run unopposed and unabashed on them, thinking that no one's going to notice, no one's going to actually buy into their fear mongering. Listen, folks, the myth that people don't buy into this bullshit should have been completely destroyed after the twenty sixteen election. We've got to start matching fire with fire here or we're just gonna get wiped out.

So let's look at the Virginia race from a couple of weeks ago, Kurt, you know, and I want to be honest where I feel that Terry mcculloff ran a bullshit campaign. I think that Terry mcculloff did not offer the voters anything right other than I am not Donald Trump, and sadly because of the I don't know, hesitation, ignorance, blatant obstructionism of two of our own Democratic senators, he also had nothing to run on right in terms of Democrats get things done, so put me back in office.

That being said, if you were running that campaign right, and in hindsight, we saw that junkin use critical race theory, parents should have quote unquote a choice. Right. We saw book banning and book burning come back into come back into focus in the twenty first century in such a way that should have been alarming, but we kind of

just shrugged at it. What would you have said to Terry mccauliff's campaign, What would you have said to him in terms of how you combat this wayward messaging about critical race theory, which, by the way, is not even taught in our K through twelve school systems. It is a higher education curriculum, right, What would you what would you have said to him to do so as not to fall into the rabbit hole of defending something that

is actually nonsense. I think I would. I would have owned the issue of education and never let Glenn young can take it from you, and to begin, I remember very early on in the campaign one of the first public speeches that Terry gave on the sign on the podium were the word's education. And yet I never felt

like I heard Terry talk about that very much. And it gave this opening to the Republicans to just kind of seize this issue, put millions of dollars of advertising behind it, so that by the time Terry woke up to the issue that hey, this is becoming a problem. It was kind of too late, the person already baked in. You know, I really feel like this again. This happens

all the time and it drives me nuts. Democrats just surrendered these issues to the Republicans and they get trapped in that, oh, we're not going to go there now that the Republicans have touched it, because we don't want to play into their into their hands, Ignoring the issue is playing into their hands. Terry should have owned the issue of education. The guy was governed for four years.

He has a track record in an education that he could have promoted and talked about every single day, so that by a time Young Can and the Republicans went there, it would have been seen for what for what it really was a political stunt, a desperate effort to grab onto an issue radicalize it in the same way that Republicans like to talk about. Remember the twenty eighteen in terms, all you heard on foxes of caravans are coming, are coming, Yet they have never arrived, and they never arrived in

never hear anything about a since. But that's what they did. It didn't work because we took that head on. We didn't let them get away with that in this case in Virginia, I felt like we kind of did. And I would have told Terry, listen, do not underestimate this campaign. Do not underestimate the money that young can is able to have at his disposal to run TV ad after.

I mean, I live in Virginia, I can tell you for months, all I saw were these Glenn Young can ads every single day on daytime television, specifically targeting women. You don't run ads during general hass Bill unless you're targeting a certain constituency. And I never saw mccalliff out there early enough, and I think that they started too late getting into the game. I think that they gave

Glenn a huge runaway. Listen, Glenn Yonkin wasn't unknown. He's never run for office before, so he kind of had a clean slate. So he got to create his own first impression with the voters, and he had that playing field all to himself for months. And by the time the Democrats got along to trying to say, hey, listen, this guy is Donald Trump and a vest don't be fooled, it was too late. Voters had already made a first impression about Young Kin. Because he was able to do

that without any pushback for months. But I mean, here's the thing. If every election we are being told right since twenty sixteen, no, actually, let's go back to Obama, since two thousand and eight, has been the most consequential election of our lifetime. Every single election we hear that mantra from the Democrats, except this actually was one of the most consequential elections, right, and not saying that all

is lost because mcculoff lost the race. But let's be clear, we had been owning Virginia for the last decade, right after hard fought like ground games done in Virginia to turn it blue, and so here we are, right. How is it that they started late, Kurt? How is it that we want to tell people that they need to get out and vote it's so consequential, and yet mcculloff's campaign could allow such runaway for Yuncan's team and yet have no recourse. Yeah, I think that Democrats at times

are it's hard for them. I think to reconcile that after the four years that was Donald Trump, that somehow the republic Party has actually gotten stronger and been able to gain ground. You know, I go back to the twenty twenty election, and while yeah, it was great that Joe Biden won, obviously, but I think about the congressional losses we absorbed, how our majority got narrowed down to just a handful, how we barely have the United States Senate if not for the miracle that really was you know,

Warnock and ass Off in Georgia happening. This was not a good election cycle in twenty twenty for the Democrats. We won by the skin of our teeth. And Donald Trump still managed to get something like seventy two million votes or whatever, right, or sixty three million or whatever it was. But it's like, man, that that should have been the wake up call that it was that close, and that the reality is Donald Trump got the second most votes for president in the history of our country.

The only person only Joe Biden got more. But like, that's a ship a ton of people still voting field this guy. Ye after four years of what we saw, So what does that tell me? It tells me that we have a huge messaging problem. I mean, I feel like we've been having this conversation for like five years anil. But but honest to god, it's like, clearly we have not been articulating in a way that is resonating with

a large swath of this country. And I think it begins with and I've been thinking a lot about this late, and I said this the other day on joy Read. You don't hear democrats say enough. I love this country. I'm proud to be an American, and I'm proud of our story, however imperfect it is, because it is a story about becoming better and the pursuit of a better

and more perfect union. That pursuit never ends. That's why we need to talk about social injustice and racial inequality in America, and sexism in the workplace and you and all the things that Democrats care about and talk about. But I think that they need to begin that conversation with the simple phrase, I love this country because I want to make it better. If I didn't give a shit about this country, I wouldn't care about any of these things. I just say it is what it is

and move on. But ever since September eleventh, somehow Republicans have been given this monopoly on patriotism. That's wrong. Republicans are nationalist, Democrats are patriots. And we got to start talking about it that way, we should not be afraid to lean in to say that we love this country and that more things should unite than divide us. But we surrender all of that to Republicans year after year,

and I don't understand why. And it allows them to use words like liberty and freedom and all these buzzwords that they use to try to mask their frankly white nationalist policies that they're trying to impose on the rest of us. But we got to change the way that we talk about this stuff, because I'll tell you that I spent, as you know, a lot of my time in the country music world, were a lot of concerts

all over this country. And now I was able, thanks to the vaccination that Joe Biden got through and shots and Arms campaign, I was able to go to a lot of different shows this summer and in the fall. And the feeling that I get everywhere that I went was that there's this perception that Democrats are out to take things away from us and to h and we have got to change that that lexicon a little bit here, or we're gon we're just gonna get slacked. You know

that that feeling is very real. And while some of it is justified. Yeah, we are trying to cancel racism and sexism and sexual harassment and bad behavior. Everybody is tripping over themselves, like worrying about did I say the right thing to a t Is this going to blow up on Twitter? Twitter is not real life, thank god, because it's accessful, thank god. Right, But we got to start as Democrats showing that we want to do things

four people, not two though. You know, Kurt, you articulate this so clearly, and you and you're right in your assessment that we have been talking about this for five plus years, right, that Democrats, when it comes to messaging, they don't have it. And then we cower behind the excuse that, well, it's easier to sell fear, right, it's easier to sell hate. But yet we watched in two thousand and eight and again in two thousand and twelve as the Obama team build a coalition with the same

freagan Americans that we're dealing with today. Now, yes, is the climate more fraught. Absolutely, is racism more potent? Correct, it is? Is violence against various marginalized communities on the rise, absolutely, But it's the same people that we are dealing with right.

And so my problem here is that when is it and whose responsibility is it to say we need an overhaul, that it is time to throw out our bullshit playbook, that it is time for us to stop being on the defensive right and say, because to your point, when we are forced into a corner that says no, no, no, we're not trying to take your guns away, we are too We are left too busy explaining what we are not trying to do, as opposed to what it is

that we are actually actively trying to do. If I am telling you that critical race theory doesn't actually exist, and that's where I'm spending my time and energy, that I'm not having conversations about how we're not making students that are globally competitive, we're not preparing them for a twenty first century workforce that, by the way, again we've

been talking about for decades but still haven't rectified. So if we're doing all of this defense work, there is no opportunity for us to create the narrative about where we are trying to push America. And my question is who is in charge of saying, let's scrap this shit that we've been doing for the past three decades. That is having us on the losing end and let us move forward. Yeah, that's a great point too. And let me just say I've always send in campaigns if you

are explaining you are losing. Yep. For better or worse. Republicans are very good at branding. I mean they seize on the things and they come up with something and you hear it over and over and over again. There is repetition, there is frequency, there is volume, and we can learn a thing or two about about that and start employing that. You know, one of the things that they do feel optimistic about. You know, I'm a big Jamie Harrison family. You know, I think that he is dynamic.

He is not a creature of Washington. He is someone who has been on the ground and hard fought campaigns in a very unique state in South Carolina, a state that, oh, by the way, if it weren't for South Carolina, Joe Biden wouldn't be our president, right And shout out to Jim Plyburn, who literally saved democracy, who does not get

enough credit for that. You know, someone like Jamie Harrison running the DNC that makes me feel hopeful because that's such a different type of character that we've had there than the previous kind of establishment types, Washington types who are at times very out of touch with the rest of this country. Not to mention, he's a personal color. What a radical idea that is, right? You know, I look at someone who's running the D Triple cy Sean

Patrick Maloney. This is a guy from New York who won in a Trump district, so he understands and has done successfully the impossible. He is an openly gay Democrat who won in a Trump district. That's a very different type of person that we've had that, you know, in that position than we've had before. And then I also think, as with anything, when you have a president of your party,

everything begins and ends there. You know, it's you know, the White House is hopefully starting to kind of get their footing passing infrastructure, hopefully getting the second part of that done in the next week or so, finally have things to go out there and promote. You know, there's then the use there's going to be a thousand events country, you know, throughout the country promoting what this infrastructure bill is,

what it can do. Using people like Secretary Boota Chedge and Jennifer Granholm to go out on the road and start getting into people's faces in communities. You know, that's a part of it too. I personally think that the president has been a little bit too protected by his staff and that we need to see more of him, not less of him. I don't I don't buy into the nonsense and DC narrative abiding gaffs. I'm like, I'm sorry.

The last guy that was in office was a freaking garbage monster who was calling the press the enemy of our country, who said you could grab women by the pussy, who on a like nothing just by all countries. I mean, you know, it's like, so if if every now to get Biden doesn't get the right word or the right phrase, so fucking what, who cares? My God? Like, we got to stop being in front of yone shadow and let

him get back out there. One of the funniest things and most intuitively smart things I saw was the SNL cold Open or they or Jason Sidekis was hosting, and they had the current Biden than Sadekis was the the Joe Biden of twenty twelve, if you will, and that kind of more Uncle Joe, the freewheeling have a good time, very gregarious. I want I think we need more of that right now. Actually, and there is that kind of let Biden be Biden. It's like, yeah, he's gonna say something.

Sometimes you're gonna Sath Mike cringe. But it's but I'd rather have more more of him out there than not, you know, speaking of the administration, I want to get your thoughts on the latest stories around the vice president right um. You know, over last weekend there were you know a couple of stories that came out about there either being friction or whether or not she's being used strategically in the way that is within her wheelhouse and

her skill set. And you know, I can tell you that for the last couple of months on Woke a app, I have been wanting to put Kamala Harris on a milk carton because I had wondered since inauguration, right and since the Shots in your Arm campaign where you saw her, you know, right next to Joe Biden, as Biden was right next to Obama. Then all of a sudden we didn't see her. What are you making of the banter

around her? You know, her her kind of disappearing act and what and what can be rectified as we move into what is going to be once again one of the most consequential midterm election cycles. You know, I think a couple of things are true at the same time, and they're not mutually exclusive. One, Yes, the invistras should do about her job using Kamala Harris. There's just no

doubt about that. I think back even to the Summer Olympics and I thought to myself, Wow, we're looking at all these remarkable women bring home gold medals, and you know, I think of even the especially our Simone Biles and our gymnastics team. I wouldn't be having Harris do something with some of these great champions on invisible way, you know.

Number Two, I do think that the way that Harris is being judged and scrutinize is so different than what we saw the prost to Mike Pence, to Joe Biden, to Dick Cheney, to any vice president we've ever had. And the only thing different about her than those people say, she's not a white guy. So that leads to tell me that there's still an inherent bias, sexist bias against a woman, the first female vice president, that she's being scrutinized.

No one seemed to give a ship that Mike Pence was just enough on the shelf for four years, that's the best. I don't remember seeing an avalanche of narratives about that. So there's there's there's definitely an element of, you know, just typical nonsense, bullshit sexism from the press corps. Number three. I think that one of Kamala Harris at her best I always thought was when she was at

a congressional hearing, grilling to shit out of somebody. Yep, you know that that the prosecutor in her comes out that the Attorney General, Kamala Harris, that was on California, Like that's her wheelhouse, that's her strength. I would have her front and center prosecuting the case, if you will, of the anti democratic insurgents like Donald Trump, like Steve band And like Marjorie Taylor Green, like Lauren Baubart, like

Matt Gates, like Man Scutler. I would have her just ripped them all day, every day, because that's when she's on fire. And I think that's closer to who she actually is. Um And I also think that one of the big areas that we've seemed to have lost, and we saw this in Virginia. Are with you know moms interesting? I would be using the Vice president a lot more in that, in the Mamola figure, if you will, because she is accomplished, she is smart, she is a fantastic speaker,

she is great in person. There are a billion different mom coalitions out there. Let's get her out there with those people too. Let's start. Let's start using her that way. She is a unique resource that we have that we need to deploy aggressively and frequently. And that's not happening right now. You know, going back to the insurrection for a moment and the prosecuting the case, you know, that was Kamala Harris's mantra for her candidacy for the presidency.

I'm going to prosecute the case against Donald Trump. And yet what we have seen time and time again with this administration is pretty much them wanting to seemingly turn the page. I don't hear Joe Biden on a regular basis talking about the insurrectionists. I don't hear him talking about Steve Bannon, you know, finally being indicted right for not showing up for subpoenas. And to your point, if

it is not the president's role. Then shouldn't the vice president, who is a famed prosecutor, who was an attorney general, have been made the advisor to the House Committee for the insurrection. Couldn't she have been front and center on you know, the fact that we need to return dignity and integrity and faith and trust into our government institutions and be out there you know, doing that, Like, is there not a way for us to do both and right? And we need to? I mean, this is the thing.

There's an irony that in some ways vice president would have made it. I think of a far better attorney general. Well, uh, I agree, as an attorney general than vice president. Yeah, it's like, um, you know, obviously, when you were a vice president, of first and foremost role and responsibility is to serve the pleasure the president, you know, and to and to do the White House is bidding. That's that's the job that's signed up for. And she knew that

going into it. I mean, but there's no secret about what that job is, and certainly the president knows that better than anybody, having had to do that job for eight years. Um. But I do think that we're missing you know again, I look at her as an untapped resources that are parts of her, and I think about what, like you said that candidate Harris and Senator Harris and former Attorney General California Harris, that that that can create value right now, and that we need someone on the

national stage doing that with regularity. I mean, because, make no mistake about it, right now, we're seeing, as some of these trials are are, you know, unfolding before of her eyes, a deliberate effort to paint these insurrectionists as heroes,

as patriots, as victims. Somehow that is just mind blowing, and I for one would like to see a more fierce response from everybody about how that's just nonsensical, how it's dangerous, how it's paid me in the way for an even more violent and deadly insurrection attempt if things don't go there away next time. The democracy is on fire right now, yep, and that fire is always spread

and grown. In the last year, we got members of Congress who thinks it's it's actually okay to create videos of the murdering other congressman and no accountability or responsibility. I mean, I'm sure as hell not looking at Kevin McCarthy to do a goddamn thing with his spineless jellyfish self. But like, I mean, everybody else, And like, we got a guy who leads Rome and Party who thinks it's okay that a mob of people wanted to literally hang

his vice, isn't it. I'm no Mike penns fan, but I don't want to see him hung on our gals in front of the United States Capital for crying out loud. No. I mean, so this is just a fire alarm going off in my head as I see these things happen, and I feel like there's still that a lack of urgency and understanding really the erosion to our democratic norms that are unfolding before us every single day. There needs

to be a forceful response to that. And it does, in my opinion, reach to the level of the presidency in terms of responsibility to acknowledge it and to call it out. And I know that the argument, oh, we don't want to give it fuel. We don't want to give it that, Like guess what it's got fuel? Right, it's burning hard, ye, Like it's spread the we don't want to give it oxygen And maybe I'll go away theory that died on January six, folks, come on, so

we need to get into the game. And I and like you said, I can't we walk into them at the same time. Why can't we do that as well as promoter our policies and and accurately label the Repuibament Party for what it is. We should able to do all those things, you know, and it is it is. It is my hope right at ye of little faith

left in midst democracy and in this party. It is my hope that you know, the Virginia election was an alarm that the alarms that have been set by this insurrectionist party where numbers of people who are actually involved at the insurrection are now elected officials, that if that is not setting off this sense of urgency that I am looking for, then I don't know what will. Kurt Bardella, it is lovely, has been lovely to have you back on Woke F. We have missed you and your analysis

and appreciate you making time for us today. We'll talk to you soon, my friend. That is it for me to day on woke F as always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.