AOC Is Right About Jill Stein’s Political Strategy

call from a 214 area code who's this where you calling from this is Adam from Manchester New Hampshire Adam from Manchester New Hampshire what's happening up there my understanding is that uh the Trump people have all um evacuated from New Hampshire uh there a little bit I I'm new to New Hampshire actually so I'm just trying to enjoy the England fall and uh not much the selection that saves me too much but we'll see how that goes okay what's on your mind um 7 you fall Alexandri CIO Cortez can you get off your can you get off your speaker phone are you on a speaker phone airpods is that better and the airpods uh stink but yeah yeah go ahead keep talking okay so uh AOC did a Instagram yeah did an Instagram story over the weekend and kind of went after Jill Stein I'm not sure if you all saw that I saw part of it okay um I think she had criticisms of Jill Stein that uh maybe could de valid um there's a harsh word for her namely she called Jill Stein predatory and that the green party hasn't really grown any of its base or anything like that um so that being what it is um I'm a Palestinian American I voted uh for Democrat progressives and non- progressives since I was old enough to vote my first uh my first election was uh for Barack Obama so um it's just honestly just getting super hard to stomach this much further I mean I don't want to regil you with the trials and tribulations with my family and friends in Palestine but I'm sure you know listen the majority report can imagine um so I just on a Stein bit like if you want to claim she's predatory and doesn't do enough to build a green party that's fine that's fair um criticism totally worthy of debate but when AOC is being asked the question the context in the context of the question I think she was posting on her Instagram story was like what would you tell friends who want to vote for Jill Stein something that nature and then she answers like she's a predator like like how do you expect voters like me or Arab or Muslim or Palestinian voters to like take you seriously because AOC has been like the chief surrogate of Joe Biden the last few months throughout a time where like in a just in a fair world like Biden would be on trial for you know genocide enablement and a world court and then you know she's getting there telling us to get behind him and then Kamala Harris is his successor I just like I I just don't get the rhetoric from the progressive left and you know this equivocation that we're making on the matter of genocide in terms of you know what's good for us here in America okay all right let me let me let me address what you're saying because I I I mean I I think this is and i' I've actually you know over the years and certainly within the context of of this um let's separate a few things okay um and and we'll address each one of them one the question of Jill Stein to the question of of AOC as to whether uh you you should listen to AOC and three the question of of what is the relationship between one's vote and changing policy if that's what they want if that's what you do want or what what does one use one vote for as far as Jill Stein okay distinct from who says it I don't know if I would use the word predatory I understand why uh one would use that more from the perspective of like she went and fundraised to um do a recount following uh the 2016 um uh race and raised millions of dollars and did not do anything I think it was just to pay off C campaign debt um and I do think without a doubt I mean it's simply inarguable the green party has diminished in power over the past 25 years I mean I say this is someone who voted for Ralph nater as a way of and I did it in New York I mean to be fair you know and I and I I vote swapped with Florida um or I supposedly did back then you know the internet you just you pledge um but the green party is a shell of what it was then there's been no organizing in between elections it just come out every uh four years supposedly to maintain the 5% all right so for the sake of like of that let's put that aside I I mean I think like there's nothing non-factual about the about her assessment of the green party I would even add the um with regards to Palestine specifically I mean Jason call from them pointed out Nur erat was considered for VP on that ticket and um was going to try to say this is Jason call from Green Party The Proposal was that if nura joins the team as VP it would be under the condition that the Stein campaign would withdraw from the election should the Democrats secure a permanent ceasefire and offensive arms embargo and he says and I think this is insane uh and I don't think AOC is a great messenger for this stuff but I I agree with her about this we rejected it because you cannot trust the Democrats or Israel to keep their word okay I mean if you secure the permanent cease for an offensive arms embargo I mean that would be about we would be sabotaging the entire election for the green party both now and in 28 given up ballot lines we have earned um it is not possible anyway like like those things that's to me like I would have been very impressed if they had nura erat on got all that attention from say Michigan and then secured a policy shift from the Democrats and then saved fine that would impress me more for 2028 that would be leveraging that would be actually like using like developing power and using it yeah in terms of whether AOC is like a um a good spokesperson for this I mean like the the facts are the facts about the green party that's just the fact I mean if you and and and frankly like from my perspective you know whether AOC is the right messenger she has been supporting Biden she's going to support Harris she's um a a Democrat and wants to support um uh her party and also wants to defeat Donald Trump what what's more I think like sort of like uh um uh you know telling is like why I am supportive of voting that way now I will say this that um it makes sense to me that there are people who feel I cannot stomach voting for I think it was an easier assessment to make in terms of Biden yeah uh uh let's just put this aside let's just for the moment for the sake of argument say Harris and Biden are the same person okay and they have the exact same power right now um to run our foreign policy that's not the case but I'll put that argument aside for a moment okay it is understandable to me to say emotionally speaking I cannot vote for um I can't pull the lever for Biden Harris okay emotionally speaking I can't do that I and and you know I'm not going to uh sit here and criticize you for having that emotional reaction I will say generically speaking that that is a complete understanding of what voting is about and voting is about bringing about some type of change that's what politics are and you have to make an assessment or not you specifically but one does when I look at um uh and and I'll make this argument you know separately that that Biden and Harris are not the same people right now but when I look at Trump and I look at Harris um one of them is going to be president that's just simply a fact Jill Stein has no better chance of being president than I do and someone can say well if if you guys supported Jill Stein other people might well if people supported me too I might be president I mean it's just not going to happen and so the point is is that is there a 1% chance that Harris is better than Trump on Israel and if I'm GNA vote that's what I'm going to use my vote for is I don't like one vote ain't G to make a damn ass difference but teeny teeny tiny but it's going to you know it's it's the exercise of one arrow that you have in your quiver of political power and that's what a vote is it's a hammer I think all that's I think all that's granted everything about the green party everything you said about voting like I think I get all that what I'm maybe not feeling as a Palestinian American is permeating kind of through all the rhetor right now is just sort of like like like like the mood I I know you maybe you described it as the emotion but the mood and like what that mood sets for like the future I mean it's hard right it's it's not easy but when comma Harris gets asked in inter like in an interview like like will you change from Biden's policy on Gaza and it's like she I think she just said no like like it's it's like I don't want to read into that too much but she's just she's like she she's telling us exactly what's going to happen and I I just want to add like there's there's a mood like I I'm a second generation Palestinian American my wife's the first generation Palestinian American I mean we lived through Trump we used to we used to live in Texas and like seeing like a trump you know yard sign on someone's yard back in like 2016 or whatever when he was talking about Bing Muslims like the emotion and the you know the mood that that evoked from her saying like oh this person this person is supporting someone who like literally hates me to my guts like I'm telling you Sam and and everyone else like as we drive through our streets of New Hampshire and see Harris Walt signs like that's the same like it's that same sort of like disconnect there like this politician in no way can represent me and I guess what what concerns me is Jill Stein is Jill Stein but the reason Jill Stein is sort of anything right now is because mainly the positions she's taking on Palestine and is probably attractive I mean she had the same listen she's gonna do the same numbers as she did in 2016 and can I just add first of all I'm you know this is not going to be the show that tells you how to vote as a Palestinian American I mean at least from my perspective I just I don't think that we can we can do that we can't understand the pain that you're going through even as we cover this um but I will say like one I think I see your criticism at least about AOC in the sense that like she I think she miscalculated in the weeks after the debate where she decided to get and and Bernie did this too uh get some concessions from Biden on policy and then they went really hard for him when the rest of the party was abandoning him then does that undercut their full-throated support for Harris as maybe somebody who would be a break from Biden where the base was so disgusted with Biden progressives I I guess are supposed to represent the base and that wasn't really necessarily reflected in that time period where they were trying to flank him on domestic Progressive policy priorities I think it could have made a real difference if they were leveraging that moment with Harris to get some of these things where this is where I I want people to read into read in between the lines a little bit more and again this is different from your voting I just want to probably give some hope here about a change in policy um the the Harris campaign has calculated that they don't think that they need to address this issue concretely as of right now or at least they're going to save it off for as long as possible to to make sure that a Pac money doesn't flood into the campaign um they don't feel like they need to address this more concretely and that's awful and it's wrong and it's also speaks to the uniqueness of her position but I wish that she was more explicit on say like arms embargo right um but they're not doing that because of that calculation that they're making I don't think that you should take what she said in that interview on face value about her policies being the exact same as Biden there was they're trying to leak this and have people read in between the lines there was a Washington Post article over the weekend about Phil Gordon and how he's skeptical of Netanyahu about how she's open to conditioning Aid to Israel and that that's something that she would consider as president now the clips that you describe are the ones they're going to travel and that's in part by Design they want the pro-israel money to not spend in their races and you're already seeing it in Michigan which is why she's going to have to make a decision at a certain point um the Republican operatives are playing ads saying how pro-israel she is as a rat F campaign in Michigan to get people to be a little bit less enthusiastic all I'm saying is that it's it's really really frustrating to see her repeat the Biden Administration line but we have to remember it's not her Administration it's not her staff she's essentially a ceremonial piece for them and two um the i i i Biden's history is just he's he's historically one of the most right Wing Democrats throughout his uh throughout his career whatever you place him in time and part of that has been his hawkishness especially as it relates to Israel if you go back and read Jeet here had a piece uh from February it's not relevant to Harris but about how Biden eulogized scoop Jackson who was uh a anti-communist war hawk um in the 70s and Biden gave his eulogy in 19 83 and he was a guy that was so pro-israel um that basically he wanted them to get a blank check uh that he was a Democrat but he was such an anti-communist that he thought like Nix Nixon and Republic Democrats were super anti-communist at that time and it was like about Israel was supposed to be some sort of way to Stave off the Soviet Union in the Middle East and so it was like give them a blank check whatever Biden has supposedly talked about him as being a formative person who uh in his view of Israel and you can read I tweeted that out je had the piece in February uh 2024 about Biden's Cold War perspective but this comes on top of the other anecdotes that we've told you about how he undermined Obama and Hillary Clinton in getting tougher on Netanyahu about how he waxes poetically about Golden Mayer Biden and Harris it's frustrating and they're not the same person Obama would have been better in the situation all we're looking for I think in terms of improvement are those level that level of kind of just more competence and it no matter what I say again this is not about your vote because I can't empath I can't I can empathize I can't understand the position that you're in but just to give you a sense is I do think I do think this concretely that she doesn't have these ideological predispositions and that should give activists hope that we can move her in a way that I for the first time in my life I was considering voting third party in New York state I've never done that for the first time in my life that's how disgusted I was with Biden but I don't feel that way about Harris and it's not just wishcasting it's based on concretely his history and her lack of that history I mean the the ultimately it comes down to the idea of and and and and I would look there's only so much you can get from a uh from an article like this but I would recommend uh uh people read this uh piece it's in the Washington Post trusted Aid would play a key role in the Harris review of us Israel policy let me just read the the the relevant part Harris office said it would not discuss her potential policies should she become president we're not going to address hypothetical policy questions she Remains the vice president of the United States and stands by the Biden Harris Administration policies that is um what Dean uh liberman har Deputy National Security adviser for strategic communication said in the statement um let's let's be clear if I'm vice president and I'm running for president I am not going to set a precedent of my vice president has the ability or the justification to go out and fundamentally say I'm doing a different policy than the president because nothing she says right now is going to change anything now I do not not believe there will ever be under a Harris Administration an Emar arms Embargo of Israel I do believe that there could be weapons that are conditioned and Aid that is conditioned on certain things and that that would include the possibility of offensive weapons not being uh sent to Israel it's one thing to say I'm going to do I'm not going to I'm going to do an arms embargo I'm not going to have I'm saying from the perspective of of Harris if it was up to me I'd end to Aid tomorrow period all of it um yeah but from the perspective of like you know what we're dealing with in terms of like uh the range of of action that we could reasonably expect from a president um yeah the just goe I just want to say this I I think all of y'all's points are you know well taken or so to probably agree with nearly everything and I I would just say like from like speaking from the perspective of people like me it's just like we're just like thirsting for that that one thing that one comment maybe that one interview where she would say like hey like in in January when you're sworn in and based on the new developments like would your Administration would you instruct the state department to reconsider the ly law 100% and she'd be like oh yeah yeah something have do something like that I mean and if she doesn't I think that's really you know uh unfortunate I think it's I think it's I think there is more latitude for her to do that and and frankly they should have uh you know um I think they screwed up at the um uh at the Democratic National Convention but I do but they like those headlines too that's my point though there's a part of them that likes the fact that they can look like they're tamping down these protests that I mean I suspect that also is like the that is uh they think that there is um they've made a political uh assessment of like where the elector is and where the greatest risk is and that's my guess anyways I don't know it's it's not me as one of the 10 Palestinians in New Hampshire probably so well no but I mean I think they're I think yeah I mean I think they're I think they're they're saying in terms of the actual votes lost I mean look you also have to remember like we as a country first order we're responsible for the deaths depending on whose numbers you use whether it's defense department at the low end or um very reputable sources on the high end anywhere between 200,000 and a million Iraqis and I can tell you that I don't believe there was I mean you could argue that the Democratic primary was in some way informed by the Iraq War and to some extent maybe the 2006 Congressional races Al although I contend that it was much more about uh Mark Foley and child predator the American public broadly speaking doesn't seem to care about uh the the deaths of of of of people who are not in the United States and probably uh less so you know if they are brown or black and I mean I'm talking broadly speaking I think there is like I think there is uh hundreds of thousands if not uh millions of people in this country who are and I think there's probably tens of millions of people who care but not enough that um you know they're going this is going to be their fundamental um um you know thing that they vote on um and the question then becomes at least in terms of like voting and and again uh you know it I I I totally understand the idea of like I just can't pull this lever for this person but um in terms of voting as as an outcome there is certainly um one% chance I think it's actually greater but this is all it takes for me 1% chance that um Harris is going to be better than Trump on this I mean Trump is using Palestinian as a slur and and and listen there's a reason why he can do that and no one cares in terms of like what it's going to cost him for voting because it's not going to cost him a single vote just the idea that we're having this conversation means that there is slightly more power there may be not enough but there is slightly more power uh that can be applied towards Harris than to Trump and that and and it it's obviously not necessarily two months out from the election it may not be a day out from the election but there are more people who are similarly situated to you who are constituents of Harris than Trump and that means to the extent that there's any power and there all in many instances there's not enough power to change the course of an Administration but to the extent that any power exists it exists with Harris constituents not Trump constituents and that's you know this same answer as to why people go why don't these Palestinian protesters go the Trump events well that's why yes and and and it I mean the the irony is is that's also why like ultimately there's going to be a more opportunity it doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to actually work but there's going to be more opportunity with Harris I mean look Biden dropped out and for the biggest Factor was that he was too old but had the uh Gaza not going been going on it would have been much tougher to get him out I believe that yep and and she knows that and so like you know the it's not a direct onetoone correlation but this is the way that like you know politics work it doesn't always it doesn't mean that it's guaranteed you know 80% of people uh want want to increase social security uh payments the 70% of uh you know Democrats probably uh want Single Payer Health insurance that doesn't mean that's going to happen but it means that it has a much better chance happening with a democratic Administration than it does a republican one that's the best I can tell you yeah yeah Point s and I appreciate it and yeah thanks thank you all for your show and yeah it's uh it still matters to hear people talking about Gaza and thinking about this stuff critically so so I appreciate you all well thanks for the call and and and my heart goes out to you and your family yep um what what were you going to say uh from that article though I'm curious what your takeaway was though well I mean the there were two things one was they're really emphasizing that she's the vice president Y and again I think it's um very unlikely that a future president in her mind she's a future president is going to set a precedent where the vice president can speak out publicly against her uh administration's policies she's very conscious of that that was part of what she worried about with Shapiro was his undermining well I I think I mean I think every every every nominee does that but certainly um she must have learned you don't want to set you don't want to set a precedent like um also she saw how you know the Biden Administration sidelined her for the most part and they also gave her with like tased her with things like you know but you're going to do this press conference on the border really early on some of their most difficult issues they they didn't give her abortion spokesperson right right which would have been an easy thing to do with the first female vice president I they undermined her okay so this is in that Washington Post piece while Harris is not articulated the specifics of her foreign policy she's expected largely to continue Biden's approach in many areas if she wins including supporting Ukraine against Russia pushing back against China's assertiveness seeking to build International alliances the area where Harris is most likely to differ from Biden allies and analysts say is on Israel despite her public support for Biden's position her private comments and concerns as the war has unfolded suggests she would be open to challenging Israel more directly according to people familiar with her views who spoke on the condition of an anonymity to discuss private conversations the best developed policy in terms of what could change is on the Middle East because uh they know what's not working says Ivo doder former US ambassador to Nato who is known and worked with Gordon this is the her um Chief security uh National Security adviser Phil Gordon who who could very well have a even bigger position in her presidency he's supposed to expect to uh stay on as National Security adviser was reported last week there is plenty of evidence that the Harris Administration and Phil would urge a fresh look at how we approach our overall Middle East which they're pretty clear now has to have an end state for Palestinians at its core now look we read a lot of stuff um about Biden being secretly pissed at Netanyahu and um etc etc you don't read um a tremendous amount about Biden planning to have a policy change but it's fair to look at this with a jaist eye this is obviously you know like how much this is going to help from electoral standpoint your mileage may vary but this is people backdooring um these stories as a way of of indicating where they're headed in the future now insiders I don't know but um but if they were really afraid of of funding and whatnot I don't think that's the issue I think it's it's it's here in this piece and in this statement the vice president has made it clear you know that she stands by the Biden Harris Administration policies um I she does that as vice president she's vice president now it's the same thing as like I follow a president when I'm a Circ Court Judge right when I'm Supreme Court Judge I make president again there's no way to know really ultimately what it comes down to from my perspective is Donald Trump can use Palestinian as a slur if Harris did that it would tank our campaign so you know where there the any power to influence Harris lies it may not be enough to influence her uh as president but to to the extent that there is any power it's within the constituency that is voting for Harris yep not the constituency that's voting for Trump this isn't someone I just saw an I am saying like I agree with you guys but you guys really seem to like uh Harris and whatnot I'll give a a freaking crap about like I don't have favorite like I don't you know like I like I like Bernie I think AOC is like you know the future of the center of the democratic party and I think that's a good thing but I don't you know it's not a question of of liking or not I want Trump to Lose the person who's going to defeat Trump the only person who can defeat Trump is Harris that's it there's nobody else it's not me it's not Emma it's not Jill Stein it's not Cornell West it's not uh Chase what whatever that guy's name is the libertarian it's nobody else there's only one person who is going to beat Donald Trump if Donald Trump is defeated and and to me it's not just Trump it's Republicans because I have no influence over Republicans none of us do because we're not voting for I mean that's that's what it's about who we can put into Power who is most suceptible to our pressure like who has the pressure points where we can push and are we going to be in the room where we could push said press can't push can't push can't push Biden you can't but but that's the other thing he's not the nominee and and to some extent yes there is no doubt in my mind that uh Gaza was part of that and and and we knew everybody knew in the 2020 primary that kamla Harris and Biden were from different schools or different era of eras of politics right that they were different politicians Bradley and I had this exercise maybe we were talking off camera about if we were to go through and list who those candidates were in 2020 where kamla Harris would have been on a list of people who we would have preferred to win she would have been ahead of Biden right 100% we would have said that at the time uh we would have said that over Cory Booker over Amy kachar there were a a bunch of Democrats in that race where just from where her perspective is relative to those people who we would have preferred so I don't think that we can have any like honest conversation about this without saying from a perspective of ideology kamla Harris Improvement on Biden on this issue or on many issues right in terms of where she where her mind is at and where her frame of reference comes from it's not the guy that eulogize stom thur she's not the guy who eulogized stom Thurman okay she's somebody who comes from a different school of thought at least even marginally so that's what we're saying here is just that it's a bit of a difference in terms of pressuring her um it's 244 okay sorry no I'm sorry but you agree with that right in terms of like if we were to look because we haven't really had this conversation if we were to look back on those I think like look there's um I I prior to um prior to uh Harris being the nominee I felt that Joe Biden was singularly uh bad on Israel in the Democratic party and I do not believe we will ever have a Democratic president who is going to be as bad as Biden that doesn't mean that we're going to get one that's going to be um good I mean wherever people draw that line but I think that um Israel will she will condition Aid um p starmer's labor just you know conditioned Aid like I think you know we could get if we can have the the the pressure points and it's different the UK does not supply the majority of Israel's arms that they import I mean that's the United States I think the politics are changing they're changing in the Democratic party I mean there's a reason why APAC has to deploy $50 million in you know three Democratic primaries or more than 50 million whatever it is but none in the Republican primaries like any is because the Democratic party is Shifting it is in its like nent stages of Shifting we're not seeing it at the Electoral level we have to figure out a way of dealing with this huge influx of money in uh these primaries um but that money is being expended because that is where the um the threat is from the perspective of APAC that's just that's just the reality and people can make their own assessments as to whether that's you know sufficient for them to engage with the system but you know before I would vote for uh Jill Stein personally I would leave it blank yeah right well and I'd also just say to show that I'm voting down ballot but I'm not voting for the president for the president and and and again that's like also but but when people say there's no evidence like maybe there's no evidence for Harris being better or wor there's no he there's no evidence for Harris being definitively better than Biden we'll say but there's no evidence showing that she's aligned with Biden's conservatism throughout his entire career as it relates to this issue so it's more about like an absence of evidence and then reading the tea leaves about her political ideology and what that means as it relates to Zionism so uh one I am Jewish Nev uh if we condition a to Israel why not condition Aid to Palestine I got news for you we already do oh yeah we we already do um that those built-in conditions already exist there this is an exception to the rule Israel is uh the Ley Rule and law I should say hey folks don't forget to hit the Subscribe button and check out our daily show we do it every day at 12:00 p.m. Eastern for about 2 and 1 half hours we even take phone calls you should check that 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