Latest / Drawn of History / John Kiriakou_s Biggest Issue with the Democratic Party(M4A_128K)

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John Kiriakou_s Biggest Issue with the Democratic Party(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I'm talking to Tulsi Gabbard on Friday.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Did I tell you that?
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, nice. Her husband just went into surgery today, I saw. Yeah,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: poor guy. I messaged him with her yesterday. She's great. Yeah,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Tulsi Gabbard, she seems, there's just something about her that
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: seems genuine to me.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: And that's why they tried to destroy her.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Is that what you think is going on with her
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: right now?
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: I think that's why the Democrats tried to destroy her.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I really do. But even right now, I mean, she's
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: just taking a leave. I know it's for her husband's health. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Headed into surgery this morning.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, is that what it says? Yeah.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: She tweeted or she, uh.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Instagram day. Yeah.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Do you think, cause she's kind of like, and she
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: just took a break. She took a complete break from politics. Yeah.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: You remember when she was running as a Democrat, every
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: time she would inch up in the polls, the DNC
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: would change the rules for participating in the next debate.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: So they would do it just one or two percentage
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: points out of her reach every single time because they
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: were threatened by her message. She just wouldn't get with
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: their program.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: She's always seemed very– like she has her own– Oh,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: she was definitely independent. Independent. That's what it is. She's
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: always seemed very independent. Well, they did the same thing
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: with Bernie Sanders. They did exactly the same thing with
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders. So I guess my question would be like–
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: and I can't remember if I asked Bernie this or not,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: but why would you stay in a party that you
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: know at a certain point is not– That's cheating you.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Yes. And, you know, the Democrats did something in after
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: the 1972 election, which I think people don't pay anywhere
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: near enough attention to. Nobody at the DNC wanted George
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: McGovern to be the 1972 nominee. He was the most
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: popular at the time, especially among young people. But he
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: was he was the weakest nationwide and he ended up
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: losing forty nine states. But You know, it's a party
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: of the people, right? If the people want George McGovern
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  Speaker 2: as the nominee, then George McGovern should be the nominee.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: And they didn't let him become the nominee? No, they
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: let him become the nominee. And then as soon as
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: he lost the race, they instituted this thing called superdelegates.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: So if you are a member of the House, a
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: member of the Senate, a governor, a lieutenant governor, a
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: state party director, a state committee chairman, you're automatically made
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: a delegate to the convention.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Well, there are like 1,500 of them.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: And so you end up with situations like West Virginia
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: and Wyoming where Bernie Sanders beats Hillary Clinton in both
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: states and Hillary Clinton wins literally every delegate.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: From those states. Wow. Like, how's that fair? So explain
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: that to me a little bit better because I want
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: to get on this. George McGovern was a major reason
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Democrats later created superdelegates after McGovern's 1972 nomination and landslide
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: general election loss. Party leaders wanted a way to give
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: more influence to experienced officials and reduce the chance that
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: a highly activist primary electorate would produce another nominee they
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: saw as too extreme. So you're saying the people believed
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: in this guy.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Even though he lost, the people believed in him. But
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the party and whoever that is didn't want it to
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: be like just like a populist vote. They didn't want
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: just the people to have the choice. They wanted to
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: go back to the days of.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: With the smoke-filled back rooms, with the party bosses choosing
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: who's going to be the nominee.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: And if they put more on the shoulders of just
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the superdelegates, then they could control fewer, and it was
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: fewer people they had to control. Exactly.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: I am proud to say, in 1983, I was a
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: sophomore in college. I was the Speaker's Committee Chairman. I
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: was the whole committee of the George Washington University College
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Democrats in the days when I was a Democrat. And
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: I saw a little blurb in the Washington Post saying, hey,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: remember George McGovern? He's thinking of running for president again.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: So I wrote him a letter.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: I said, hey, I read that you're thinking of running
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: for president again. We have a fantastic theater here at
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: the school. We can do all the legwork, ready-made volunteers.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: My phone rings a few days later, wakes me up,
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  Speaker 2: and it's George McGovern. And he says, can I see
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: that theater? I said, of course. So he comes over
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: to school. And we walk over to the theater. Nobody
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: recognized him. And he said, yeah, the theater's perfect. And
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: there's like a cutout for cameras.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: And it was perfect.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: So he says, don't tell anybody, but I am going
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: to run for president again. And this is after the
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: 72 loss. Yeah, this is, yeah, 11 years after the
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: 72 loss. Reagan is president.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: So- We put out a press release, major announcement by
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Senator George McGovern on such and such a date, George
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Washington University in the Marvin Theater. And packed the place
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: and it was on the news. Here's what a sweet
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: guy he was. He did the announcement and brought important
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: people with him. Like Mo Udall. Remember Mo Udall? He
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: ran for president in 76. He was a congressman from Arizona.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: And there he is. And then... Cliff Robertson, the Academy
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Award-winning actor, and his wife, Dina Merrill.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they both came. So he brought some A-listers. He
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: brought his own influencers. Yeah, and Frank Mankiewicz, who had
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: been Robert Kennedy Sr. 's press secretary, was Senator McGovern's
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: press secretary. He must have been geeked, huh? Oh, I was.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was incredible.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: And then he makes the announcement, he shakes everybody's hand,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: and he invites me back to his apartment, and his
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: wife made tuna sandwiches.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Nice. Just the loveliest people.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: He ended up, crazy as it sounds, coming in third.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Walter Mondale won, Gary Hart came in second, and McGovern
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: came in third.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: And that was for the Democratic Party? Yeah. Wow.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: And they kept saying, drop out, George, drop out, George,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: drop out, George, because he was pulling young people.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: I remember Jesse Jackson, when he ran, he was very close, right?
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Wasn't he the populist choice, kind of? Yes, he was
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the populist choice, 1984 and 1988. He was. Very much so.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Because I remember, I think we had a sign for him, like,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: you know, our family was always, like, you know, pretty,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: you know, liberal and hopeful and new ideas, right? That's
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: how mine was. Yeah. But, like, but not, like, ethereal
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: at the same time. Not, like, unrealistic, right?
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Not unrealistic. But we were hopeful, you know what I'm saying?
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: But yeah, didn't Jesse Jackson and did they just not
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: service him? Or what happened with Jesse Jackson? Yeah, they let.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Him kind of self-destruct. See, it says here he won
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: 11 contests. He did very, very well in 88. But
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: he was never a Democratic Party insider.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: The insiders were not going to let him have that nomination.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: That's what they do. And the Republicans don't have such
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: a system.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: You don't think so?
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: No, they don't have superdelegates, which means then an insurgent
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: candidate like a Donald Trump.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Can win a nomination. I see, but it's less likely
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: to happen in the Democratic Party? Much less likely to happen.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Because of superdelegates. Wow, I didn't realize that only one
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: party had those. Al Franken. Because, hold on, before we
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: move forward on Al Franken. So, but didn't Jesse Jackson
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: win a few like in a row? Oh yeah, he
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: was in a row. He was building momentum. And they
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: were like, yeah, we're going to put the brakes on this.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: And when they say we are going to put the
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: brakes on this, who is the wheeze? It just, it's the,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: it's the state committee chairman who make up the democratic
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: national committee. Got it. But it's just the insiders. It's
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: like the, the money talking, whoever those like, it's the
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: smoky background.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: This Congresswoman from Florida, her name escapes me three names,
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: but anyway, she was the head of, what was it? No,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: she was the head of the DNC in 20, uh,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Thank you very much.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, um, gave Hillary Clinton's campaign all the
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: debate questions before the debate.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I remember that.
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  Speaker 2: But Bernie didn't get the questions.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Crazy. It's crazy. It's fixed.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I think we all know what happened at this point. Yeah.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: The fix was in. But the fix was in. But
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: it starts to make you feel like, okay, that the
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: regular person, like what you really want, even the idea
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: of that, it used to feel real. Yes. And it
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel real anymore. Yes. And that, I think, is
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: one of the scariest things happening in America right now.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I have to agree. You're like, It used to feel hopeful,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: and now it feels, will we survive? There's something else.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: It's not a hope. I don't even know if it's
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: somewhat of a fear, but it's more of an uncertainty.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: But America used to feel like this hopeful thing, like
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: we're building this thing that means something that we're going
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  Speaker 1: to pass on to our children and that could possibly
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: stand the test of time. And when something like that,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: you believe in something like that, it makes your day-to-day
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: interactions and your interaction with your country, and it makes
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: that all more meaningful to you so you show up
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: for it differently.