TGFV (Sen. Bernie Sanders), talked with Jon Karl on This Week with(out) George. Here are the highlights.
On Trump's messing around with the COVID stimulus bill (he did finally sign it last night), he said "what the president is doing right now is unbelievably cruel," pointing to folks who are losing extended unemployment benefits and who might be evicted if Trump vetoes the bill.
My view is that given the terrible economic crisis facing this country, yes, we do need to get $2,000 out to every working-class individual in this country, 500 bucks for their kids. But you can't diddle around with the bill. Sign the bill, Mr. President, and then immediately, Monday, Tuesday, we can pass a $2,000 direct payment to the working families of this country.
He also said that, during the entire time he was lobbying for $2000, with only one Republican joining him, TGFV never heard from Trump or anyone else on the higher payment, including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. He also referred to Trump as "an extraordinary narcissist, pathologically narcissistic."
He pretty much dodged the question on whether it was a mistake for the Dems to refuse the pre-election $1.8T relief bill, saying "at this moment, working families are suffering more economic desperation than any time since the Great Depression. We should be responding to that need" with no mention of Pelosi's decision.
And, finally, on whether the Biden cabinet is progressive enough, his answer is no.
Well, what I have said many, many times is the progressive movement itself probably is 35 or 40 percent of the Democratic coalition. And I believe that the progressive movement deserves seats in the cabinet. That has not yet happened.
He's like to see "strong progressives in the administration"
who believe that healthcare is a human right, who believe we’ve got to make sure that public colleges and universities are tuition free and that we have to be aggressive on issues like climate change, racial justice, immigration reform.
Next, Karl talked with My Favorite Republican (MFR), Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.
On whether President-elect Biden is keeping his promise to reach out to Republicans, MFR says so far, so good. The two have already talked, and he's reached out to govs on both sides of the aisle - and not only is he reaching out, he "seems to be listening" to them and their concerns.
I know your previous guest probably would like him to move more -- more to the left, but I've been pushing to try to keep him, you know, in a more moderate place where he's willing to reach across the aisle and work together with Republicans.
On what kinds of "damage" president Trump can do in the next three weeks or so (Karl mentioned the ridiculous pardons as one example), MFR says he "gave up guessing what he might do next." The veto of the NDAA has been troubling, he said, but the fooling around on the stimulus bill "really bothers" him.
... you know, both parties were so far apart in the House and the Senate, the Problem Solvers Caucus, some really bipartisan folks on both sides of the aisle, brought everybody to the table. They reached an agreement. Secretary Mnuchin worked together with them and made commitments on behalf of the administration. And then not eight months before or even eight days before, but after it was passed, then the president raises these objections...
On Rs standing up to Trump, he says more of them are, and more of them will. He also said that while Trump will still have a voice in the party, it's going to be different after the inauguration, when he won't have as much influence. Perhaps worse, in my opinion, is the uphill battle he faces on a larger scale.
There's an awful lot of people that want to be the next Donald Trump. But I'm going to be fighting to try to return our party to its roots, and to become a bigger tent party to reach out, a more Reaganesque party, more positive, hopeful vision for the future.
Now, since we've had an Independent, and a Republican, let's hear from a Dem - Michigan's Gov. Gretchen Whitmer who visited the Face the Nation classroom to talk with Margaret Brennan.
On whether people have learned the value of their local governments this year, Whitmer said she hopes so, adding that no governor wanted to be in the situations they're in, but "it was incumbent on us to rise to the occasion" given the lack of a broader national strategy. She also said the governors who acted regionally, learning from and sharing information with each other, benefited everyone because each state's experts were collecting different information that could be helpful to their cross-state line counterparts.
I should note that Ohio's Republican Gov. Mike DeWine was also on in the same segment as Whitmer, and he was generally in agreement with Whitmer on most of the questions, but he did point out one area where they might have differences of opinion: who gets the vaccine.
I think there's been a real consensus among what we call A1 group, which is the-- the first responders, our medical people, our EMS, people who are risking their lives every-- every single day, as well as where we've taken the most losses, and that is in our nursing homes. I think there's probably going to be more lack of consensus among people in general when you get beyond that first group.
That segued into the question of how 'essential workers' are being defined, as Brennan mentioned reading that Colorado may be putting ski resort employees on their list. Whitmer said it could vary widely from state to state, and that varying will probably speed up as the vaccines get out there. And, she said, they've going to be "doing the hard work" of identifying who is-- has the most exposure, who is out there in jobs that are, you know, come into contact with the public at greater numbers."
Brennan also asked how Whitmer makes sense of the experience of the threats against her (I think the question included both the ones where her life was threatened but also the day-to-day stuff that they're all hearing). She said every governor is getting backlash of some sort, some because of the steps they are taking to keep people safe and safe lives (she's in that bucket), but she also noted that's not the case for everyone.
Other governors are getting a backlash because they haven't done enough and people have been dying on their watch. There are no easy solutions here, no clearly obvious solutions here. Yet, I believe that the right thing to do is to follow the science and to put people's lives first because we can and we will recover from the economic blowback, from COVID-19 that has run amok in our country. What we can't do is, you know, bring someone back to life.
The bipartisan collaboration between the governors generally, which MFR has often mentioned in interviews, as well as the regional collaboration such as the kind we've seen here in New York with neighboring states, is something I hope US Senators and Congressmembers learn from, and take with them to Washington when the new legislative session kicks off next month.
I mean, there's no time like the present, right?
See you around campus.
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