WokeAF Daily 4.16.20 - The Trump Threat

are up to maybe day forty seven. Who the hell knows one day meld into another. But what is keeping my attention and keeping my fury is this administration. I don't know how many more fucking stories we need to break that tell us about how much the Trump administration knew about the coronavirus, how much they decided not to

act Now. The latest reporting from the Washington Post tells us that while the United States was telling people not to get masks and not to wear them in public and that they wouldn't need them, that the Trump administration was buying mass from Taiwan for senior officials. You know, it's not enough that Jared Kushner called the federal supply

of ventilators hours. It's not enough that Trump is, you know, like an infomercial used car salesman, trying to have people believe the hype about the hydroco clean pill that is being sold by his biggest donor. I mean, it's just one fucking scandal after another. And in the interim of all of this, of dealing with all of this bullshit on a regular basis, here's another thing that is added

to the pile. You know why your stimulus check is going to be late because Donald Trump wanted to put his fucking name on it, because he wanted to sign it right so that he could say I gave you American person a check right, as if he's cutting it out of his own fucking money. At the narcissism, the ignorance really at this point is deadly. There was a rally that was held yesterday a protest, an anti coronavirus

protest to protest being on lockdown and staying home. Stupid idiot Republicans decided to gather in mass to protest and say that they believe the coronavirus is a hoax and to own the liberals, they're gonna get out into the streets. Good for you. And you know what I say to those people, go lick as many fucking poles as possible. Why don't you go to the grocery store and lick the fucking conveyor belt. Like, if you are that dumb, if you are that ignorant, then by all means, you know,

you ask yourself, how did we get here? How did we get to a place where people are so ignorant that they refuse to believe science, that they refuse to believe facts, that they are just so within, so deep in their tribe and in their bubble, that they would put their lives at risk that of their family and their friends because they believed this president when he said that this was a democratic hoax. You know, this is

what I'm saying. When people don't understand that words have power, and everyone just kind of shrugs off the ship that Donald Trump says. But there are real people out there forty percent of the population that believes the things that he fucking says and takes them to heart and believes everything that Foxnews says, and they are putting people's lives in danger. If Fox News and Donald Trump did the right thing and told people, you know what, this is

actually fucking dangerous. Do you know what happened yesterday? Yesterday was the deadliest day for the coronavirus. Thousands of people died. More people died yesterday then died in the Twin Towers in New York on nine eleven. But did you hear Donald Trump mention any of that at his press conference? Did you hear him offer any bit of empathy, any bit of sadness that over twenty five thousand Americans are dead,

have lost their lives. Do you hear him offering any kind word, any word of encouragement to let us know that we as Americans have been through tough times and we'll get through this together. No, he spends his time congratulating himself, congratulating his business partners, patting CEOs on the back, and when he is caught off guard by you know, real questions from real reporters who ask follow ups like PAULA Reed did, like Yamish alisindor does he loses his mind?

We are starting to see, at least with CNN, that their chirns are actually fact checking the president in real time as he's speaking that they are calling out his behavior and not just ignoring it, because it fucking matters. All of this, all of this us being in this moment could have been avoided if we didn't provide Donald Trump with the free airtime that he's been given ever

since he came down in the escalator. If we had called out his lies, called out his impossibly childish behavior, maybe Madam President would be leading us in a crisis. And do you know what the women are showing, the women that are heads of state, heads of countries right now, that there have the ability to flatten curve. You know why? Because I believe that women put less of their ego out front when leading. They surround themselves with the experts.

If they don't know, then they ask questions. But Donald Trump, remember told us some four years ago, I alone can fix this. Right. He doesn't take responsibility for anything that has to do with the virus. But if things start going well, then he's going to take responsibility for that. How does that work exactly? Also, how do you talk about reopening a country that you never shut down? You know, folks,

we have two hundred plus days until election day. Okay, I will talk with my friends today on the show former federal prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirshner, and we will talk withal scientist and political editor at The Grio, Christina Grier, and I'm gonna unpack. We're gonna unpack this moment right the things that we are missing in the news, William Barr, Attorney General Barr saying that we need to

return to a Christian country. What we'll talk about the fact that you know, he's out there bribing the Australians much in the same way that they did with the Ukrainians to get more information about how the Mulla report got started. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about the fact that Wisconsin pretty much gave the president a big

middle finger with their election results. Welcoming back to Woke af Daily, we are bringing back MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst and former thirty year federal prosecutor Glenn Kirshner joining us to weed through I guess guide us through the fact that Trump decided to dip his toes into authoritarianism by expressing this week that he has total control over the States, only to then back off of his

claims about democratic governor's mutiny. Tell us, Glenn, how this how Donald Trump is essentially just staring in the face of the Tenth Amendment and saying, man, that seems like a suggestion. Yeah, good morning, Danielle. That's one of the amendments that Donald Trump doesn't really care for. Loves the

Second Amendment, not so much the Tenth Amendment. And when you say he dips his toe into authoritarianism, I gotta tell you, I think he has donned the crown, he's put on a robe, he's picked up a scepter, and he has sat down on his throne. Because you know what he completely ignores is that the tenth Amendment to the Constitution, in twenty seven words, sets out the balance of power between the federal government and the States. And

here's what it says. And then and then I'll of the cipher it a little bit because it's in that old English, right, So the Tenth Amendment just says that the powers not delegated to the US by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states, respectively or the people. Now, James Madison summed up what that means in the Federalist Papers, Number forty five.

And you know, let me just say, I'm going to put up James Madison's understanding of the Constitution against Donald Trump's every day of the week. I mean, James Madison was only not only the founding father, but is often referred to as the father of the Constitution. Right, our

fourth president. What he said, he said that the powers of the federal government in the Constitution are and I quote few and defined, and the powers of the state government the state governments are and I quote numerous and indefinite. I mean, the whole exercise was to you know, put limits on the powers of the king. That kind of is the charter of our country. Right, and yet Donald Tump stood up on TV and said, literally, I have

total power. And then Daniel. What was even worse was when you know, little Mikey Pence and I hate to talk like that, I shouldn't be that smart alarchy. When Vice President Pence stood up and co signed that statement by the president that unconstitutional power grab by the president by saying, and I quote that's right, the president has

plenary power, plenary meaning absolute. That really was somehow more upsetting because we know Donald Trump has never read the Constitution, but Mike Fence probably as more than once, and he actually knows what an outright liar he is being when he co signs the president on having absolute power and authority. But they don't care about being caught in lies. So

Donald Trump makes this declaration. Then he takes to his favorite platform, to Twitter, to then say that the Democratic governors, right, who were organizing amongst themselves? And why are they organizing amongst themselves? Because there's no federal leadership, right, so they are left to essentially design their own plans. The Northeast, the West, they're all organizing. And he says that that is an act of mutiny. How does that make sense? It doesn't make sense. And we've known for three and

a half years that we've had a president. But you know the problem is we have a presidency unhinged, where there is nothing controlling, you know, how the presidency operates these days. You would have thought that, you know, responsible Republicans would have stepped in and said, you know, the Republicans for all time have been states rights kind of people.

They are all about limiting the federal government's power. I mean, how often did they complain about President Barack Obama wielding too much power and trying to assert himself in ways. They asserted that the conservative you know, leaders in the country asserted was unconstitutional because the power resides in the states by by design, the Tenth Amendment says, the power resides in the states and the people except for those very few things that the federal government gets to do

raise armies, collect taxes, nominate judges. I mean, there are a very few things left to the president, and everything else resides in the state and the people. So you would have thought that these Republicans, who have believed that to their core, if they're gonna taken at their word for all time, would now be telling the President of the United States, look sport, that is not the way

this stuff works. But we have both a president and a presidency that seems to be completely unhinged, completely unmoored to the rules that govern our country. You know, yesterday Governor Cuomo, my governor, took to his normal briefings and essentially provided Donald Trump and America with a lesson in the Constitution and when over what it is that governors

can do right, which is run their states. I think that after that, you know, I don't know who tapped Donald Trump on the shoulder and whispered in his ear and said, you know you can't tweet that. You know, you can't do these things that you're saying that you're going to do, such as just magically reopen a country you didn't shut down. And you know, I wonder do you think that what this, this this exercise in stupidity

that Donald Trump is engaging in. Do you think that it will show people just how little power this particular president has. Yes, or ordinarily I would say yes, Danielle. However, what if the president continues to up the antient. Now it looks like he hasn't because he's it looks like he's I don't want to use the term punking out.

It looks like he's backing down right, And some of his more recent tweets in his campaign rally masquerading as a press conference last night, he was like, well, I'm going to let the governors decide, but I'm going to urge them to open immediately or almost immediately. So it looks like somebody has tugged on his sleeve and said, look sport, you can't order them to open, You can't

order them to close. You can't order them to do anything, and maybe they put like a cartoon version of the tent, and then then in front of him a little schoolhouse flock left and then they said, look, mister president, you actually can't do what you just told the American people you're going to try to do. So it looks like he's backing down. But then the question becomes does he ratchet it up again? And does he say, you know what,

I don't just like you. You know, you can see that his advisors over time tell him you can't do it, you can't do it, you can't do it. And as even Kelly said, if left to his own devices, with yes people all around him, he will be impeached because his instincts are just that bad and his understanding of the presidency is just that poor. And in fact he was impeached. But will will he get that, you know, impatience again? Will he ratchet it up? And will he say, listen,

I've decided, don't tell me I can't do it. I'm ordering the states to open their economies, to open their businesses. And if they don't, hey, military, y'all busy right now? And then what do we have? Do we have you know, national guards from various states up against our military. I mean, let's hope go and knock, go and knock on doors and pull people out by their shirt collars and say

that you have to go to work. Yeah, there's no practical way to sort of set out or design how it would work, because it shouldn't work, because that is not our system of government. My fear is always Donald Trump, because he doesn't understand and he doesn't honor our system of government. May try to do something, you know, tomorrow even crazier than today. So all of the blame that Donald Trump is trying to shift, Right, he is trying to shift the blame of not taking any thoughtful, actionable

measures to keep Americans safe. Right, he had a two month head start. He squandered it by calling this pandemic a hoax. He has blamed China, he tried to, you know, change the name of the virus right into essentially a racist epitaph. And now he's cut funding to the World Health Organization in the midst of a global pandemic. Yeah, his recklessness causes lives. It costs lives, It costs American lives. There's no two ways about it. But Is it a crime?

This is this is the question that I keep coming back to because we call them criminals. We know that he has been impeached. It is just it has just been brought to the attention by the Daily Beast that William Barr right in the midst of negotiating hostages. Who who knew about this? I didn't hostages being released Australian hostages being released from Iran's favor though, was another freaking favor from a foreign leader, as it pertains to the

Muller report. How glad, how I don't know you think it, Danielle let and you know you hit the nail rout of ahead no bars, globe trotting, basically engaging in qui pro quos with foreign government saying, oh, you want X, Y and Z from the United States, you want our help in releasing some bloggers that are being Australian blockers that are being held in Iran. We need a favor, though, We need you to help us unravel the origins of the Muller investigation. I mean that you know that we

don't do criminal justice by quid pro quo. I mean, and we can talk all day long about how yes, we plea bargain, and isn't that a form of quick pro quo and I we can have a rope ust debate on that. But he is running around the globe leveraging the United States power to give to other countries what they want as long as those countries will help undermine the Muller Report and help work to the advantage

the political advantage of Donald Trump. I mean, you know, just when you think it doesn't get any more dangerous or any more unhinged, we learn about this. I think yesterday we got this article. It is just, yes, we got it yesterday. It just seems to be no end. There seems to be no end, Glenn. And in the midst of all of this, they still continue to appoint judges like I mean, what does the end look like. The end looks like an enormous blue wave. Look, we

just got encouraging results from Wisconsin. Notwithstanding Trump's best efforts. The candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court that Trump was backing got trounced, got trounced as an incumbent, mind you. So this is just a continue indication that the blue wave that was building in twenty eighteen during the midterms

continues to build. And here's what it looks like, in my opinion, once it sweeps Vice President Biden into power and he becomes president, he actually appoints people who will govern, who will lead from a place of honesty, integrity, empathy, compassion, decency, and a genuine concern for the working class and for the least among us in our country who need their help the most. They will actually lead from that place.

But here's the other thing they have to do. They have to investigate this criminal cabal that is the Trump administration. And it's Trump, it's Pence, it's Pompeo, it's Mulvaney, it's bar it's Manution, it's all and it's rotis Ibaka, it's all of them. Not as retaliation, not as what's called pejoratively victor's justice, but actual justice. It's not vindictive. If there have been people committing crimes in plain sight, but because they've enjoyed the protection of the party in power,

they haven't been investigated. It doesn't make it retribution or revenge or retaliation. When the other party comes into power and says, we see all these crimes that have gone unaddressed, we now have a responsibility to investigate them and if the evidence supports it, to prosecute them. So that's why all of these crimes will have to be investigated, and if the evidence supports it, they'll have to be prosecuted. Let the criticism come. Let people say you're just being vindictive. No,

we're not. We're just belatedly enforcing the laws. Do you think that you know, Joe Biden is coming off of the height of endorsements right from Bernie Sanders to Barack Obama to now Elizabeth Warren. Does he make this right holding Trump responsible for all of his criminal behavior, for all of his actions against the United States. Does he make that part of his campaign? That's a great question.

I think he's already on record as saying, I will let the Attorney General do what the Attorney general is supposed to do, independent of the White House and independent of the President, investigate what in the world went on, and then, if appropriate, great prosecutions that I think is the right balance the strikes. So I don't as much as we all you know, And here's why that question

is difficult to answer, and I can, I can. I can argue it both ways, that I can argue the upside and the downside of answering that question both ways. Here's why it's so difficult to answer. We already have virtually an indictment of ten count indictment, and it's Volume two of the Mulla Report, where there are ten felony obstruction of justice offenses that are documented in there against

the president. Ordinarily, we need an investigation before we can say, should Joe Biden make as a plank of his platform that these people will be prosecuted. We already have an indictment, so it's we're already ten steps down the road to answering that question. Yes, of course there must be prosecutions, because we've already seen that the crimes have been committed.

But I still think VP Biden is taking the sort of thoughtful principle conservative approach of saying, when I'm elected, I will let my attorney general do what an attorney general is supposed to do, independent of the White House, investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute. You know, the question that I asked you all the time just because I need to, you know, I need to calm my nerves. Can this president move the election? Not lawfully? But when has that

ever stopped him? Correct. So the answer is he will try, and ordinarily the law would disallow it. But unfortunately, because Bill Barr is the one who determines what the law will and will not allow, I fear Bill Barr will enable him, will find some ridiculous argument to make that in this time of national emergency, there is some legal vehicle that allows the elections to be postponed, even though

he would be wrong about that. But he's been wrong about so much else before, So what would stop Barr from being wrong again and telling Trump? You know what, mister president, I think if we call one eye and turn our heads at a certain angle, we can find a legal vehicle to postpone the elections. What in the world is going to stop Donald Trump and Bill Barr, that corrupt tandem from trying to do that. I think

they'll fail. There is there anything that fail. I think they will fat Okay, but I think it's going to be a Donnie Brook hold on tight. It's going to be a battle royale, and hopefully, you know, what is right and fair and just and lawful will win the day. We'll have the elections in November and Trump will be swept out. You know of the oval office. I pray that you are right. I really do, because every single day, you know, something else. It's like they just throw everything

at the wall. And in this time of great anxiety and great strife, they know that we can't possibly pay attention to it all. Like when I saw the report about the Aussie Prime minister, a dear God, like this is this is just but but but months after impeachment and this is what they're doing. So one can only imagine what happens if they aren't stopped, if we the last frontier do not stop them in November, God help

this country. Yeah. And Donald Trump, though, is the only way to stay out of prison is to get reelected. I've never seen the defense in a criminal case of reelection, but that is his only defense. It's the only thing keeping him out of jail. Yep. And you know, when people's backs are against the wall, they will do pretty much anything. And I know that in your thirty year career, I'm sure you've seen it all, but this is still absolutely shocking coming out of a president of the United States.

It's still I reserve, you know, I am often not shocked by Donald Trump anymore, but it's just the brassness of it, the boldness of it. It is just jarring to me. And how Republicans are just lockstep right, oh, States right, States rights, States rights, and then no, he's the totalism right. I'm like, what happened to you? What happened to you? Isn't this the basis of your party? Just absolutely bizarre? Well, Glenn Kirshner, thank you so much

for keeping your legal eye on this corrupt administration. And we will talk to you again in a week to see what we're digging ourselves out of. Then, thanks, Daniell, keep up a good fight. Thank you so much. So happy to welcome back to Woke, a f daily political scientists Associate professor at Fordham University, doctor Christina Greer, and politics editor at The Grio. Girl, Good morning, good morning. So we look, I don't know why we still have

to use the word presumptive nominee. It looks like we have a nominee in Joe Biden. Over the past seventy two hours, he has been endorsed by everyone that matters, from Bernie Sanders to Barack Obama to Elizabeth Warren reactions. How are we feeling about these endorsements? Do we've you know, they came right a hell of a lot sooner than in twenty sixteen. Yeah, So in that respect, I feel like we're doing well. That it's April and here we are in the midst of a global pandemic, but now

we have an active nominee. What do you what do you feel about it? I think the endorsements are great, you know, in the sense that they came earlier, as you said, But what needs to come also with the endorsements is the work. Yes, right, like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren had some really strong grassroots supporters who do not like this centrist wing of the Democratic Party. They specifically don't like Joe Biden, and he's going to need them to really articulate to their bases why having a

Democrat in office is so important. And it's been so frustrating to talk to, you know, some of my students who are you know, hardcore Bertie Standard supporters, and they're just like, I just can't vote for Biden. It's like, do you not understand the existential threat of the second term of Donald Trump? And I think that, you know, seeing Democrats coalesce really diverse democrats ideologically diverse Democrats coalesced

around Joe Biden. I think shows certain members of the Democratic Party how these leaders really feel about like the future of not just the party but the country. All Right, It's like, listen, we got to play the hand that we had, and so we need to play it as best as we can. Because I don't think economically intellectually, I mean, you know, seeing how the president is handling this den I don't know if our democracy can withstand

another four years. And I'm not being hyperbolic. I'm being I'm saying that as someone who studies the Constitution and studies other democracies around the world and saying like this is not a sustainable existence for us. You know, It's funny because I always say, like, I'm not being hyperbolic here, you know, in the same in the same vein, because I'm like, you would think that our republic, which is you know, old, not in comparison to you know, thousands

of years like other like other nations. We are still fairly young. But you would think that our two hundred and what is it, you know, fifty plus, Yeah, fifty plus years could withstand four bad ones. But that is not the yeah, But it depends on what kind of bad ones, you know. I mean, we've had incompetent executives before, but you know, in a globalized economy, we need someone who understands and specs not just the rule of law within our nation, but how we play in the same

box with others. And so black women, per usual are canaries in the mind. And we're the ones who were like, listen, danger is ahead because you and danger girl. So it's like, come on, Molly, get into Like we're the ones who told y'all in twenty sixteen, this man doesn't understand economics. He's he's tanked every single company he's been given. How do you fail at a casino? I mean, come on, it's a casino. The house all we I literally thought

that was like taking candy from a baby. I like when George Bush, you know, tanked a baseball team, I was like, you mean an American baseball team? Like America is baseball? How do you think tank a baseball team

in Texas? For Pizzick, we're sports is king. So it's like, you know, looking at someone like Donald Trump, who's a grifter, he's a liar, you know, he's a misogynist, he's a racist, he's a xenophobic, I mean all the things, and who told people all the things, but then you still had full team was just like, well, my candidate didn't win in the primary, or my candidate didn't, you know, do

what I want. And so they just packed up their marbles and left and not they never thought like, oh, children in cages, Well, that doesn't everything to do with me. It's like, hey, guess what, You're not being able to go to work at something to do with you. You being stuck at home and trying to educate children had something to do with you, you know. And so I think that far too many Americans just never saw what I would say black women saw in the danger of

a Trump presidency. And unfortunately we're hearing kind of like whispers of that same kind of bad behavior. And then in addition, you know, this is for the two of us who spend a lot of time, you know, in the media talking about politics. There were also quite a few people in twenty sixteen who did not have any qualifications to talk about politics. They're smart in their respective fields, but it's like, why are you telling people not to vote?

Why are you telling people to vote for Jill Stein or you know, Gary Johnson, because hey, it won't make a difference. You know, both of the candidates are the same. They absolutely are not the same. And whether you like Hiller Clinton or not, you cannot deny that this woman reads. She's smart. You know, the fact that you've led what

she reads. She read, She reads and and and and you know, and is intellectually curious to defining characteristics of a president that I believe surround you should have and surround herself with people who are intellectually curious. And she and Barack Obama both surrounded themselves and people say, you

know more than I do on this particular topic. So let's talk about that for a minute, because I really think that the most important characteristic of a of a president, right is recognizing what you do not know and then having the wherewithal right to go find those people who do know. Right, value when we value experts and expertise, But when you're the president of the United States like Barack Oba Mama, which just feels, oh, I'm interested in

string theory. Let me invite the you know, the leading scientists who understands stringth theories. Let's just have a conversation with him because I'm curious, right, and so let's no, we're probably not going to get anyone, you know, as

intellectually curious as Barack Obama anytime soon. But you know, we have some talent on that stage, right with twenty two people on those two stages, a lot of them were really smart, Like a lot of them, you know, would have been really great in governance, and they already were pretty solid in governance, you know, and they cared about here were public servants, which I think is also a fundamental difference. You know, let Donald Trump is not

a public servant. Let's talk about the fundamental differences right now. Just in terms of there's an article that has been trending, and I think that this is interesting for the both of us because we are both black women. But there's an article that's been trending that Forbes put out a couple of days ago, and it's and the title is what two countries with the best coronavirus responses have in

common women leaders? So Germany, Taiwan, New Zealand, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Denmark have all managed to flatten their curves, right, And it is phenomenal to me that no one other than this article is talking about this right, the fact that it is all women who have been doing the most right.

And then you have Donald Trump, and we're talking just now about Hillary Clinton being obviously one of the most qualified people to ever run for president of the United States, and Elizabeth Warren surrounding themselves with the right people creating the right plans. What do you think it is about women leaders in this particular moment that is serving their countries as a juxta position against the bumbling idiot man that we have that fifty three percent of white women

voted for because they didn't trust themselves. Well, let's also be clear that white women are the keepers of patriarchy and always have been, right. I mean, this is how you have us chatl flavory existing for four hundred years. It's not men alone, right, It's like women women kept that going to white women. And so I think, you know, all the political science literature and all the business literature says,

you know, women are more collaboratives. Like we see this all the time when people observed, you know, college students, you know in projects, you know, women tend to be the ones who volunteer to you know, do the heavy lifting even though the mail and the group will will present the report. You know, I see this all the time.

When I break my students off into groups. It's like, okay, so it'll be a group of three women and one man, and you know, I hear them, I hear all the ideas floating around, and then it's like, okay, so I need someone to report out to the group, and the male reports out to the group, even though the three women who had all the ideas right. And so we know that women are much more This is the economics

and the business literature. Women are much more likely to say, like, you know what, I'd rather the result come out and you know, me not have all the credit and just have like the right result, you know, like I don't need to sort of make it meani me. I don't need to put my name in the memo section of a check for the stimulus package that will delay people getting their checks just because I need to have my

name on it. You know, like women tend to be less narcissistic when it comes to executive level leadership and much more collaborative. So it is a much it's a wider net of ideas that women will then synthesize and put forward. So the listening skills. I mean, we see this all the time as educators. You know, who waits to talk versus who listens, and those are two totally

different things. And we know but from a very young age, you know, bad behavior and boys is sort of celebrated and sort of excused away and tolerated in a way that it's not with women. I mean, my favorite example is always when I just gently when I break my seat and self into groups, I'm just like, I just want the women move in the class to just before you volunteer to be described, think about how many times you volunteer to be described, or if you're in a

group of people like, oh, Danielle, can you take the notes? Right? It's it's just this happens at a very young age, right, And so just making them aware and time and time again, every single semester. I've been teaching almost fifteen years now at the collegiate level. Actually I have teaching years of

school level. Time and time again, you have boys who will say, oh, well, professor, career, I don't want to be described because my handwriting is terrible, and it's like, well, here write is not going to get good if you're never described how honey, so like gets to writing, you know. But it's so interesting how boys are allowed to sort of just kind of say like, oh, yeah, I have bad handwriting, so I don't want to do it, you know, I can't do it, and it's just like that's that's

something minor. But it goes into a larger psychosis of how we see because we know, if you're the scribe, you're participating, but you're not really you're not actively participating because you're trying to write down what is being said by others. Right. And so in this moment where we have someone like Joe Biden, you know who, lots of folks are you know, still looking their wounds about Bernie or whomever else they support it. You know, is he ideal? No?

Is he the same as Trump? Absolutely not? And I think that's the frustrating piece when I talk to especially young people who you really wanted Bernie, and it's like listen, First of way, you need to understand how institutions work. Second way, you need to understand the ideological diversity within the Democratic Party and people who don't live in major cities, right,

and who aren't young and progressive. And yes, he said a lot of things that make sense, but when we think about how they would work in an institutional structure that we that we have, it's like, I'm not saying we can't imagine a better America. That's not what I'm

saying at all. But I'm also saying it's like the type of sweeping change she wants, It's like our institutions aren't set up to satisfy that, right, right, so we can adopt some of it, but like, let's be clear, the frameworks set is up specifically so that we wouldn't have someone who had some like, oh, I've got new ideas, let's all change the ship. It's like no, no, no, they wanted it to be turning around the Titanic in

a bathtub all purpose. Because as much as you have good ideas from from a person like Bernie, you could also have bad ideas from person like Trump. It's like, luckily, our institutions are serving as a stop gap so that you know they're they're they're breaking down and they're faltering, but at least they're serving as a stop gap. So this president hasn't been able to come in and just become a complete and total tyrant with zero checks and balances and zero stop gaps for us. I mean, isn't

he a tyrant? Because you know when the manns, he's definitely TEDI let me ask you something. You know, we have, you know, two hundred plus days until election day, if in fact we have an election. Um. And I have you know, my co host of Democracy Ish Torrey, who you know, um, who says he really needs to be in love with Joe Biden and he wants Joe Biden to like fight for his vote and this then and

the other thing. And I keep telling Torrey to get over it, um, and that like this decision is now literally between life and death, right, Like what you like? What do you want? Do you want more Americans dead? Or do you you know and that would mean the continuation of a Trump presidency or do you want? Um? Uh to? Right? Like, our our entire democracy is on a ventilator right now. Okay, but motherfucker's getting ready to pull the plug. So what does what does Biden need

to do to persuade the passionates? Right? The folks that are are so passionate and need to feel like they're going to the polls for something and not against something right, And I think that's where Bernie can assist him in articulating that message to the people who really support, you know, to progressive ideals. I mean, I tend to be like, listen, you know, black folks have been voted for racists and

people that they dislike for a long time. Sure, I would love if we would have this ideal, perfect candidate, but that doesn't exist. And so for me at least, as you said, we're now in life and death, not just as far as our populace is concerned, but as

far as our democracy is concerned. So I tend to be more of the camp where it's like, you know what, Sure that would be cute, great, but like, get over yourself, get your behind to the polls and vote to make sure that Donald Trump is not the president, because if we have four more years of Donald Trump, like, is Biden gonna be perfect? No? Can he be pushed? Yes, he's closer to Bernie Sanders than Donald Trump is, you know.

And Donald Trump tries to play foot seas with the white nationalists who support Bernie Sanders at times, and so like that's where the similarities sort of begin. And end. But you know, Biden's much closer ideologically to Bernie than Donald Trump ever will be or the incompetent band of you know individuals he has as his minions in his administration. And so yeah, sure, ideally I would love for someone to call me up, met Chrissy, what can I do

to get your vote? Right now? I'm like, say, we got bigger fish to fry, So like, why can't we work on making sure that this man, as imperfect as he may be, getting Joe Biden in office? Because at least we know that he would have competent people who share the idea is in values of say a Bernie Sanders candidate. He will he has to because of the ideological diversity and if he wants to get anything done.

And so this kind of purity test of you know, Joe Biden doesn't pass you know this, this progressive purity test. I'm just like, no, he probably doesn't pass the test, you know what. But there is a difference between say, uh, you so always say it's like, you know, asparagus and I'm just gonna be very frame asparagus and ship votes fell bad. But they're not the same, right, But I'd

rather go with asparagus, come okay? And so I just I think there's a level of frustration because and you know, I've thought was worry about this quite a bit where it's like that's a level of a privileged position where we're just like Joe Biden doesn't satisfy me. And so and it's like, so what do you do. You're not go vote. You're not going vote and give this man. I don't care that you live in New York, but it's like you potentially give Donald Trump another four years.

We haven't even talked about children and ages in weeks. We I mean we have we haven't talked about just just to put it in contact, we have been under lockdown. Today is like forty five days, right, girl, I've lost track? Yeah, Like I only have three days of the week, girl, yesterday, today, and tomorrow come on, um and and two times a day the time I drink coffee and the time I drink bourbon. So we've been un there, this lockdown for

some forty something days. And in that time, no one has uttered shit about what is happening at these detention centers where what the coronavirus cases are there. We're talking about regular prisons, but not the ones that this administration has purposely created for our undocumented people. We know nothing that's happening to say nothing about the low key deportations.

We know that you know, Askan and Caribbean noundocumented people are ten percent roughly of the undocumented population, but twenty percent of the deportations. I mean, like, oh, it is ravaging our communities. We still haven't recovered from the two thousand and eight you know, great depression and now I mean back then, you know, it affected a lot of Americans, but not everybody here. Everybody's on lockdown, right, Like I can't just go to London and hang out with my

friends because it's like, oh this sucks here. Let me just go to London and had everybody's on lockdown, right when you have the mob who can't make money, Like there's been some really interesting articles. It's like the mob can't make money right now because they don't have any sports going on. They don't have any casinos, they don't

have any betting, they don't have any restaurants. Like it's like with they're struggling, Like you messed up Trump, especially when we have Obama on record saying, we are funding this organization and we're funding you know, this research, and we have these people on you know, in my cabinet, on staff because no, we haven't had a global pandemic and you know all that, but hey, guess what we're

do for. We're doing for something sometimes soon. I mean, there was a really great piece, you know, because I follow sports quite closely, but how the US Open has paid for kind of like basically pandemic insurance for I think seventeen years. They've paid two million dollars a year for insurance in case they ever have to cancel the US And they were like two million dollars a year. But you know, they make so much money. I mean, this is one of the great legacies of Mayor Dinkins

of New York bringing the US Open to Queens. And so they've put out thirty four million dollars. Well this year, guess what, there's no US Open and so they're insured for like one hundred and thirty million dollars. Like they're good if the insurance company still has money, right, and so, but we've never seen you know, I was circulating an article this morning amongst my professor friends. It's like you know,

we might not go back to school and fall. There's a very large chance that we will not be in class in the fall. There are a lot of parents who a won't have the fifty sixty thousand dollars to pay for their kids to go to school, and B they don't want to pay fifty sixty thousand dollars for some zoom classes, right, because we all know when you go to college, you're only in class for like ten

hours a day. It's all the other stuff that makes college such a worthwhile experience, you know, hanging out with people from other other places, other backgrounds, the clubs you know that you're a part of, and the social organizations. And maybe I'm not doing any of that. What am I paying for? What am I paying for to see Chrissy Greer on a computer screen for an hour and fifteen minutes triice a week. Look, I think that's the calculus that a lot of parents are going to make.

And you know, it's like, yes, I've still been keeping at my level of instruction and trying to be as engaging and exciting is you know, trying to replicate that process. It's very difficult, you know. It's like I've never travel online before. My teaching styles very much of the techtile making sure I sort of curtail every lesson to sort of all thirty five students in the room. It's very difficult when I'm on zoom and I'm kind of scrolling

back and forth. You know, when it's hard for people to pay attention when they're sitting in their bedroom, you know, looking at a computer screen. You know, it's just our world is going to change fundamentally, and the way we learn, the way we engage, the way we vote, the way the way we shop, the way we shop, the way we dress. I mean, all of these things like are going to be up ended and well, and you know

what I've been thinking about though. It's like a good friend of Rhyne went to work one day, came home and her apartment building had burned down to the ground. Oh God, And all she had were her work clothes and her exercise clothes because she'd gone to the gym. It came home and nothing was there. And I was so inspired by her because she decided, I'm not going to just buy, you know, buy everything and recreate my

whole my old life. I'm going to I knew things and try new things and sort of create a new life after this fire, you know, And I'm really curious and a touch worried as to how we will be as a nation. It's like, there are a lot of things in this country that weren't working. But in our haste to get back to quote unquote normal which no longer exists, will we actually try and replicate old models just because that's it feels comfortable to kind of go back to where we were. And it's like, I don't

think we can ever do that. So this is the time to envision what our democracy could look like in a new way. You know. This is where Joe Biden should and could lean on Bernie Sanders and sort of saying it's like, okay, so I initially said these things, but that was in the past. So now how do we think about this world where it's like, you've got, you know, middle class folks that will never be okay again,

especially middle class folks of color. I think that you know, I've said many times that I believe in the phoenix, the idea that you need, at some point in time to burn shit down in order to rise anew, that there is fertile ground to be created in the ashes. But I think that to the point that we're going to try and replicate what was done, and we know what has failed, but we're going to replicate that out of comfort, right, because you find comfort in what is

perceived to be the norm, the routine. I think that what this situation is forcing in all of us is the stretching that is needed, and it is painful. Growth is painful, right, But I think that that's what this moment calls for. There's a reason. You know, if you are one of those people that do believe that there is a reason for everything, and I don't necessarily believe that, but I do believe that this virus came for a reason, right,

I do believe that. You know, in this moment, we are forced inside nature Mother Nature because needs a break from humans and the trampling that we have done on this planet, and we need to write the ship. But she doesn't trust us to do that, right, So she's like, y'all go to her rooms because I have Well, I was giving you warning signs time and time again, right, I kept giving you warning signs, like what did you think these hurricanes and tornadoes were what did you think

these earthquakes were? Right? And it's again, we weren't listening. So it's like, well, you know what, Now everybody gets to sit down. Take Yeah, now everybody gets to sit down and take a breath. And I think gets to come back. The buffalo, but the dolphins get to come back,

the birds, the bees get to come back. I think that in this time, this pause, as as our Governor Cuomo refers to it as a New York pause, I think that our democracy needs to pause, and it has right, it is halted under Trump and I and I believe that this is a time for bold imagination, bold recreation and even you know, I know that. You know yesterday I said to you, I said, oh, well, you know, what did you think about Barack's enentorsement? And you're like, uh,

you know, it was you know, he did what he does, right. Yeah. But what I felt about it, and what I appreciated is when he said, you know what, let's not look to the past because if I ran today, I'm not running the same campaign I ran in two thousand and eight because the world is completely different, right, right, Like the world is completely different, and if you are governing from a place of nostalgia, which frankly I also thought was kind of a little bit of a rub at Biden.

Remember Biden's been campaigning on this. Yeah, right, let's go. You guys can then go back to brunch and you don't have to talk about how correct and you can and you can just you know, you can go act to doing what it was that before you became so completely attached to Twitter and the tickers and the news feeds to make sure that while you were at brunch the world wasn't coming to an end. But when Barack Obama said in his endorsement video, I wouldn't run the

same campaign. You can't look backwards. We can only look forward forward and the most diverse democratic field with the most thoughtful people, this is where we're moving. And I think that if I am Joe Biden right now, after I've had this very lit seventy two hours of endorsements, I am now the nominee. I don't need convention, most likely won't have one anyway, you know, to anoint me.

It's like, now you need to pull together all of the best people, all of the best teams, right, come up with a big, bold vision and roll that shit out along with your vice president pick as soon as possible, right, But I think we also and I agree with everything

you've said. I think we also just need to be honest though about some of our friends within the Democratic Party who actually are just fine with the way things used to be, right, because that limits women and people of color, and women of color especially having too much power and too much say. And I think that, you know, we got some issues within the Democratic Party when it comes to race and racism and understanding just how bad things are and just how unequal they are on a

host of levels. And so that's that's a larger conversation. The problem is when do we have it right? We didn't have it during good times, and we kind of can't have it now because we're in the middle of the pandemic. But I'm like, but maybe we could, right, I mean, we're all kind of home, we're captive audiences. But I don't know. I mean, this nation has never had that conversation because it's never a good time to have a conversation, and so my question has always been, well,

what are we going to have it? Because we actually can't ever move forward until we have that hard conversation. Yeah, and I don't think a lot of our good friends in the Democratic Party are willing or capable of having that conversation. Well, we're going to need to and that's why you and I continue to talk. Yeah, we go, we go need to have that conversation, Doctor Christina Greer, Thank you so much as always for joining us. You.

I absolutely do and so hey, listen, let's just free for our democracy every day, every day of working progress. Thank you, friend. Okay, have a one. We still have power and I need people to remember that. I need you not to lose hope. We have an election that is coming in No is our candidate perfect? No he is not. But is he the devil? No, he is not. He is a decent, hardworking patriot that has put himself and his family on the back burner for much of

his life in order to better America. That's the kind of leader that I want in the White House. That's who I want ushering me through these dark, dark Corona times. Does Biden have faults? Absolutely? Are any of them anything in comparison to what Donald Trump is doing? Absolutely not. So I don't want to have debates about what kind of candidate we should have had. I want to talk about who's in the White House right now? All right, folks, That is it for me today on woke f Daily.

As always, I will be back tomorrow. Make sure that you are subscribed to tell your friends to subscribe to p M Mood wherever they get their podcast, because you will receive woke f Daily every single day that we have a show free for the next three weeks. It is my stay safe as fuck quarantine special. So get into it and share. Share, Share, Share, Share power to the people and to all the people power. Get woke and stay woke as fuck.