Sad Putin and Slurring Trump
The Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week will be euphoric as Kamala Harris accepts the party nomination. Like every convention, it’s also going to be a lobbyist paradise, with giant corporations throwing lavish parties. United Airlines' Josh Earnest, former White House Press Secretary under President Obama, will host an after-party at the company's Chicago headquarters, featuring Elon Musk apologist Walter Isaacson, author of Musk’s mythologizing biography.
United Airlines has reason to be at the DNC, and it’s not to celebrate terrifying passengers with several malfunctions, including wheels falling off and mid-flight engine trouble. They are actively working against Democratic legislation in the Senate to break-up the credit card fee monopoly of Visa and Mastercard, legislation that would save consumers $15 billion. Major airlines like United want to stop it, because they make more profit from credit card mileage programs than from flying planes. United’s C.E.O., Scott Kirby, recently gave himself a 90% raise, earning $18.6 million in 2023, just a few years after taxpayers bailed out his airline at the height of the pandemic. Will United Airlines succeed in influencing Democrats at their biggest party in years, at the expense of us all?
Reecie Colbert, political commentator and host of Urban View on Sirius XM, joins Gaslit Nation, along with Terrell Starr of the essential Black Diplomats Podcast and Substack, to discuss how to hold a Harris/Walz administration accountable to the hopeful and inclusive vision of America they’re running on, as well as how to protect the first Black woman president from white rage and misogyny. We also look at Ukraine’s historic surprise invasion of Russia and what it means in the global fight against fascism at home and abroad.
This week’s bonus show, available to subscribers at the Truth-teller ($5/month) and higher, answers questions from listeners subscribed at the Democracy Defender ($10/month) and higher, with a special look at what to say to white women in Virginia and Georgia thinking of voting for Trump. To get every episode ad free, bonus shows, invites to special events, and more, subscribe at Patreon.com/Gaslit! Thank you to everyone who supports our independent journalism!
Book Launch Party for In the Shadow of Stalin: The Story of Mr. Jones – Sept 16
Monday September 16th 7pm at the Ukrainian Institute of America join us for a wine reception and live taping of Gaslit Nation with Terrell Starr for the launch of the graphic novel adaptation of Andrea’s film Mr. Jones! Get in free by subscribing at the Truth-teller level or higher on Patreon.com/Gaslit! RSVP here: https://ukrainianinstitute.org/event/books-at-the-institute-chalupa/
Indivisible x Gaslit Nation Phonebank Party! — August 15 at 7pm ET
Every third Thursday through election day and on election eve in November we’re calling voters in Republican-hostage states in the Midwest with Indivisible to ensure a Democratic Senate. Sign up here to join us: https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/event/628701/
Sister District x Gaslit Nation Phonebank Parties! – Every Wednesday in October!
Every Wednesday through October, we’re phone-banking with Sister District, calling voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia. Sign up here to join us: https://www.mobilize.us/sisterdistrictnyc/event/642096/
Show Notes:
Brooklyn Paper Op-ed | Credit Card Competition Act would put Brooklyn ahead of Wall Street
https://www.brooklynpaper.com/credit-card-competition-act/
How the Elon Musk biography exposes Walter Isaacson https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/1/23895069/walter-isaacson-biography-musk-review
Your unofficial DNC party checklist https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook/2024/08/12/your-unofficial-dnc-party-check-list-00173704
Merchants Support Senator Durbin’s Comments in Favor of the Credit Card Competition Act
Airlines Are Just Banks Now They make more money from mileage programs than from flying planes—and it shows. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/airlines-banks-mileage-programs/675374/
United Airlines flight attendants picket, say CEO compensation grew 90% https://finance.yahoo.com/news/united-airlines-flight-attendants-picket-214129294.html
Moscow's Chkalovsky Airfield Targeted in Drone Attack: Video https://www.newsweek.com/moscow-chkalovsky-airfield-drone-attack-video-1937725
Ukraine claims to control 1,000 sq km of Russian territory https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2lmr29ygjo
Brandon Friedman on Twitter:
Do not fly United. The last 48 hours:
"United Airlines Boeing 777 loses tire while taking off"
"United flight out of IAH caught fire"
"United flight makes emergency landing after suspected hydraulic failure"
"A United Airlines flight veered off the runway and onto the grass"
https://x.com/BFriedmanDC/status/1766524616271413250
Meet Reecie Colbert, Host of Sirius XM’s The Reecie Colbert Show and Urban View https://reeciecolbert.com/
Black Diplomats Podcast and Substack https://www.blackdiplomats.net/
Andrea Chalupa (00:00):
All right, everyone. Do we have a show for you? Welcome to Gaslit Nation with my dear friend Terrell Starr, the essential Black Diplomats podcast in Substack, who is coming to us from Kiev, Ukraine. You all know Ukraine, the number one most powerful military in Russia. So as we're recording this, one of the big stories is that Ukraine invaded Russia and is currently occupying a thousand square kilometers and is digging trenches. And the Russian military is fleeing because it's a house of cards, and there's a viral post coming out of Telegram. And it's hard to tell whether this is a joke or real, but it sounds pretty real, is some Russian reporting on Telegram that he and his family are safe. They're hiding in their basement in the curse region, and now they're just waiting for their government to come and carpet bomb the shit out of them because that's all that Russia knows is mass destruction leveling entire cities as they did in Chechnya, as they did in Syria, as it in Mariupol, other Ukrainian cities.
(01:14):
So how is Russia going to extract the Ukrainians without destroying an entire region of Russia? They don't know anything else except for dumb Neanderthal Club you over the head military strategy, that's what they do. And also there's reports that they're sending drones to an airfield outside of Moscow. And this is a surprise attack. That shouldn't have been a surprise because the Kremlin was warned about it and ignored the warnings thinking that Ukraine would never, but Ukraine being the Honeybadger of the world went there and they did it. Some speculate to strengthen their hand, should there be negotiations, but they also did it to get even closer to bomb the airfields full of Russian jets that have been terrorizing and mass murdering civilians deliberately. And also, let's be real, Kursk has Ukrainian roots. The former capital of Soviet Ukraine was in Kursk. There is a long history of people in the region being fluent in Ukrainian, including some Babas that greeted Ukrainian soldiers on a tank and speaking Ukrainian because they know. And there's also a viral video going around. And again, it's hard to say whether it's real or not because there's a lot of absurdity in war, but of an old Russian baba going off saying, I knew this would happen. I knew the Ukrainians would win. I was predicting this, and now the FSB thinks I'm a witch. So there's a lot of interesting chatter coming out of this development. What do you think of it, Terrell?
Terrell Starr (02:48):
What's interesting is that the Ukrainian officials aren't telling anyone what their military objectives are, and they really have been relatively quiet about it. And so ago, Zelensky had a convening of his senior leadership, and the head of the Ukrainian armed forces announced that Ukrainian soldiers are occupying about a thousand square kilometers inside of the Kursk region. And so the reasons behind why they're doing that are speculative, to be honest, because the Ukrainian officials have not said so. But the obvious ones are that they're taking land so that they can negotiate in the future to swap. Now, a caveat to that is we don't know how well the Ukrainians will be able to hold that land. And a rule in ground operations is that you don't take any amount of land that you can't hold. And so we're not sure if Ukrainian plans on expanding beyond that 100 square kilometers of territory or not.
(03:53):
Another reason is that they're using it as a grounds to strike at air defense systems and other Russian assets that are targeting and bombing Ukrainian cities and settlements. So that's another part of it. Another speculation is that the Ukrainian simply want to humiliate Putin on his territory and that giving the impression that they don't have, he doesn't have the ability to control his own land. And so for an authoritarian leader, that would be humiliation. And so it's a very ballsy move to be clear, right? It's really ballsy. It's incredibly, it's on brand for Ukrainians. Well, it's on brand for Ukrainians, but it's also very crafty, right? Because we were thinking that the Ukrainians would be trying to advance on their own territory that was currently under Russian occupation, but they did 360 inside. They're going to go straight into Russia where they saw the border points were weak.
(04:51):
And before the Russians did have some warning that the Ukrainians would do it, but they would say, oh, we would never do it. But like that at the beginning of the war when they thought that Kyiv would fall in three days, they're really letting us know what the symptoms, we see symptoms of the main problem, which is Russians don't get Ukrainians. Absolutely. That's the number one takeaway from all of this, right? Because many as great as the Ukrainian military is the Ukrainians are taking advantage of Russian hubris. That's a big thing. And they're taking advantage of Russian hubris because Russian leadership, namely Putin, they have this very derogatory, simplistic view of Ukrainians. And you also have to keep in mind that the tradition of how Russia bends its opponents to as will is that they bombed them to death. Now that works with that works, yes, in Chechnya, that works with a number of other places, but Russia, when you think about it also Syria, it's another location and they have their expeditions into the continent of Africa.
(06:09):
But Russia, post-World War II has not really gone into battle with a country that could adequately defend itself. And I think that's an important thing to note. And so they didn't know how well Ukraine would be able to defend itself for one. And then even as they started to learn and realize that Ukrainians are going to exist, they still deal with, as you said, this neanderthal type of mentality that if we keep bending them, they will bend and the Ukrainians will never bend. And so if you could take advantage of that hubris in order to trick them into going into their own territory because they think you won't do it, as opposed to going through the Neanderthal approach that, Hey, we're just going continue to clash with you, what you think we're going to clash with you. It's really a crafty way of fighting your enemy and your oppressor. And so Putin isn't a real pickle right now. He's in a real
Andrea Chalupa (07:04):
Precarious, he looks demoralized all the videos of him meeting with his generals. So he just looks shocked. Putin is scared. I want everyone to understand the main takeaway of this is that Putin is scared. And if you are translating that as well, if Putin's scared, that means he's cornered and he's got no choice but to use nukes. Putin cannot politically, economically afford to use nukes because the world's response will be devastating on top of an already economically devastating
Terrell Starr (07:36):
China will drop them. Absolutely. And not only that too, here's the fundamental thing, this, I'm happy that you brought it up. I'm make it real quick and I'll say the same thing about Kim Jong-un. I think they're similar in this regard. I don't think either, man, I know we're talking about Putin, but neither man wants to use a nuclear weapon because they both want to live. I don't get any indication that Putin in all of his genocidal violence, wants to use nukes. He is a political dispo who wants to continue to steal from the Russian state and live in his yachts and have all the women that he wants and buys all of his fancy watches and whatever he likes from Europe, which he claims he despises, but he loves European luxury.
Andrea Chalupa (08:23):
All his money is in Europe.
Terrell Starr (08:25):
All his money is in Europe. So he doesn't want to use a nuke. He bluffs. And when someone calls your bluff, because this is a call your bluff moment, this encouragement into Kurt's, this is a call your bluff moment, and he's not responding. And so what he does, it says that he comes out with more threats, which the Ukrainians are saying you ain't going to do nothing. And so you're literally being put in a position where you have to bomb your own territory. And so now you're in this position where if civilians are being killed, and not only that, a lot of these people who are fighting right now, you're going to raise another concern, which is the kids from St. Petersburg and from the wealthier cities, they're going into parts of Russia where they don't have to go to Ukraine, the people who are on reserve list or for those people who can literally bribe their way out of service. And so those wealthier kids are the ones with more privilege are going to the so-called safer areas like the cursed region. When they start dying, then that's an issue. And so this is causing him a lot of not only military problems, but political problems that are a direct threat to his hold on power.
Andrea Chalupa (09:44):
Absolutely. And Ukraine doesn't even have a Navy, and they destroy the Russian Navy in Crimea. They are steadily liberating Crimea. And yes, they're stretched in the east, which I think why the Russians didn't think they would do this in a million years, but they have something up their sleeves. I was on the phone with our friend Olga Laman of the Kremlin File podcast, and Olga has been scouring Russian State TV, and she said they are completely lost. They were not expecting Biden to step down. They have nothing on Kamala. And they have Trump flailing right now just slurring his way through that Elon Musk Twitter space disaster, just showing himself we're the old senile man that he is, all those STDs rotting his brain. And so Olgo was like, I'm watching Kremlin tv, they're losing it. They're losing the war against us, and Putin's losing free is just getting started. And gold is like, see, I told you about, because we did a Gaslit Nation episode, the start of the year saying, Putin's out. Putin's done. So imagine six months from now we have America gets the first black woman president, and Putin just weaker than ever.
Terrell Starr (11:01):
Kamala is going to be a lot more, she's going to be a lot more aggressive towards him than Biden. That's another conversation. But she's going to be, I think not only just militarily, but with the sanctions and the treasury because we have to remember that she was a practicing attorney, the state of California's attorney general up until 2016. And so I think that there is a way in which she'll be able to manipulate the levers of sanctions and working through the treasury in ways that we have not seen. And so Biden has been a big supporter, but I think that Putin is shitting himself about the prospect of Kamala because she made her bones nationally during the Russiagate hearings. So I don't think that he's going to look forward to her at all. Biden is this older guy that's kind of waning into his day, but you this vibrant, laughing dancing killer instinct and VP Harris that not only Trump wasn't prepared for, but Putin isn't prepared for at all. He's shooting himself.
Andrea Chalupa (12:09):
A new dawn is breaking everyone, just hold on tight, do the work. And we are going to be living in a very, very different America and world in the coming years if we fight for it. And we will. And here to help us make sense of all that and these critical months ahead and what a President Kamala administration would look like and how do we fact check the disinformation against her now and if she becomes president, as well as demand accountability to build the freer and fairer world that she's currently envisioning for us in her campaign platform and all of these big rally speeches we have on the show this week, greasy
(12:52):
Colbert. But first, here's a couple clips of Trump and Elon Musk disastrous Twitter space where Trump sounds like he could really use a permanent vacation exile to Russia.
Donald Trump (13:05):
The biggest threat is not global warming where the ocean's going to rise one eighth of an inch over the next 400 years and you'll have more ocean front property, right? The biggest threat is not that the biggest threat is nuclear warming. And I got along with all these, I got along with Kim Jong-Un. We had dinner, we had, he's the absolute boss over there. A lot of people said, oh, do you think he really, that's for sure. Lemme tell you, I saw things that you don't want to know about. He is the board. They're doing it right now while this third rate phony candidate. Don't forget, I beat Biden.
Andrea Chalupa (13:40):
So I just want to start off by saying I have never in my lifetime, and I was political from the womb, my mother was an activist. I have never in my lifetime seen this level of excitement over a presidential candidate. This exceeds Obama, 2008 levels of passion, excitement. And we know from American history, all black progress is met by white rage. So God willing, even if Kamala gets sworn in peacefully in January, 2021, the white rage is going to build and set off. Some domestic terrors attack will be lone wolfs attacks, and then there'll be this birther style movement building, and it'll be larger than Trump because Trump is on his way out. We just saw him slurring his way through that disastrous Twitter Live. He's done, Trump is done, but his KKK hoods off movement is going outlive him because that's American's story. That's American history and black progress, especially black women. Progress has always been met by that white backlash. So my two questions to are, and this is going to be the core of the discussion, I feel, number one, what do you think about this current euphoria in American politics that we've never seen before? What do you think is driving this, number one and number two, what are your thoughts on becoming white rage backlash and how we protect our democracy from that?
Reecie Colbert (15:11):
Well, number one, I am ecstatic about this euphoria. I have always been a vice president, Kamala Harris supporter back to the 2019 days. And let me tell you, this is a 180 or whatever it is from back then when there was so much resistance to her campaign and the idea that it takes a white man to beat a white man, which really, really did her in the notion of electability, and now everybody is on board. I think probably the fact that the sentiments around the lack of enthusiasm for both candidates were ignored for over a year. And people had been saying actually for years that they don't want to rematch between Biden and Trump. There was a lot of apathy, a lot of feeling of disengagement and disillusionment. And when President Biden, God bless him, dropped out, it really reinvigorated the race and it gave people a sense of, okay, this is a little something different.
(16:06):
And vice President Kam ala Harris has really been killing it, which helps. She has the Kamalamomentum. She picked the right person for VP to help keep the focus on her. And as you pointed out, they don't have an answer for her. They really have no idea to come at her. But to your second point, I think that this isn't a matter of the coming white rage. I think this is white rages, white crystal nationalism's last stand. That's why it's even as close as it is. That's why even after Vice President Kamala Harris became the nominee for the Democratic Party, you saw Republican enthusiasm tick up. Now, thankfully, our enthusiasm has ticked up as well, but they understand that this is the last stand to really capture that trifecta in the Senate, the House and the White House with that Supreme Court. Hopefully they're thinking they're going to get a few more people to retire and then really run the table.
(17:05):
They understand what the stakes are. And finally, I feel like our side understands what the stakes are as well, but we understand it in a way that we are more defiant and determined ever. And now there's a little bit of joy. So I'm happy about it. I'm not as concerned about what's next. If Vice President Kamala Harris gets sworn in and gets elected because Project 2025 has been project the last 400 years. It is nothing new. This rage is nothing new. The way that they're enshrining, their white nationalist views, particularly as it relates to women disenfranchising us and our citizenship, all of this stuff is already what they're doing. And so she is our defense against that. So I ain't scared. I ain't scared of what they got coming. Like Kamala Harris said, bring it on because we ready for you and everybody is woke. Now, I know they don't like to say that, but we are woke.
Andrea Chalupa (17:57):
We're all woke. So many Republican men are seeing their wives, their white, blonde, blue eyed wives bleed out and states like Texas independence understand finally that abortion is healthcare. I carried a pregnancy that was high risk that might've had to be aborted to save my life. Abortion is healthcare. So you're right now, it's like the white women in every single state are pissed off, which is like a bridge too far for them. The other thing I want to point out is that we've watched this with the Kremlin. We've watched this with battling disinformation driven by dictatorships. One of the best vaccines against that disinformation is humor, because they can't do humor. Dictatorships cannot do humor. And so Kamala laughs easily, which is a charming trait, which makes you likable. And her vice president Tim Walz is just naturally funny. So that's new. We've never ever had that in an administration ever, where you have this sort of like, I don't want to say comedic duo, but a joyful duo entering the White House. And dictatorship doesn't know what to do with that. It's
Terrell Starr (19:06):
Criminalized.
Andrea Chalupa (19:08):
Yeah,
Terrell Starr (19:08):
Exactly. No, literally, it's legally criminalized in a lot of places. You make fun of people like Putin or something like that. It's considered blasphemy against the state. Similar laws are like that across authoritarian regimes across the world, including you have North Korea, et cetera. So it's criminalized. And Trump would like to do it, but he can't.
Andrea Chalupa (19:30):
Yeah. I mean, one of the first things Putin did when he rose to power was he took over the TV network that published a Russian SNL Saturday Night Live. I used to make fun of them. They were gone. They were put out a business straight away, the very first things he did. Yeah, this is, yes, we're entering this interesting, revitalizing, extremely promising, hopeful, optimistic chapter of America's long bloody genocidal history. And we've so much working in our favor. The coalition has never been stronger. This is different from Obama. We understood when we had that Hollywood happy ending with Obama becoming president in 2008, and Americans were like, oh, racism. White Americans were like, oh, racism solved. Let, let's all go home. And that's really when the birther movement came. Karl Rove came and took over state governments, Republicans came a few houses of control of being able to edit our constitution. I'll step aside now. I just wanted to get all of that out of my system upon meeting you.
Terrell Starr (20:34):
Yeah, Reecie, listen, I'm so happy that we're actually getting ready to talk person to person, and so get beyond the Twitter. But I want to go back to, so I want to get back to 2020 and talk about the Harris campaign. I covered the Harris campaign. I was on the road. I interviewed her a number of times. In fact, the day that she suspended her campaign, she was supposed to come to the Roots offices to talk about gun control, right? On that day. And so what's really interesting about her candidacy and the relevance that she has is that you can make an argument that she is, when VP Kamala Harris was a senator, she was one of the biggest advocates of women for mothers who are having issues with childbirth. Yep, absolutely. And their mortality rates, that type of thing. And so back then when I was on the road and I focused a lot on black women, a lot of them were saying that we like Kamala, what they kept saying, we like her, we like her, but we don't think that these white people in Iowa and elsewhere will support her.
(21:44):
And that was the impetus to it. I don't see that same energy now for obvious reasons. And I really think that what really black people were saying was that, listen, we like you become vp, then maybe that'll kind position you higher, et cetera, et cetera. And so as black people, I think we could be tougher on ourselves than we are anybody else, right? Yeah, absolutely. These, and I really want to ask you about the energy or thereof for her in 2019 and 2020 when she was running versus now where you have all of these people just coming out the woodworks for her, and it's just essentially one election cycle, right? What happened? Yeah.
Reecie Colbert (22:31):
Well, let's be clear. As of right now is literally two weeks ago, because I have a shown Sirius XM Urban View, and I'm on urban view two other times a week on Clay Kane show. And we had been battling this notion of electability for the past four years. I mean, even up until the time that President Biden dropped out, I was hearing people say, they're not going to let her be the nominee. She can't win. And I was always pointing to the data. I'm a facts, not feelings girl. The data had always indicated that she can win, that she was the preferred successor to President Biden. But everybody wanted to ignore the polling. To borrow a phrase from Obama, though, I think it was, we were lacking the audacity of hope. We were really in survival mode. President Trump or former President Trump, felon Trump. I know people don't like to say felons. Lemme not say felon account, felon Trump, we to say felon Trump,
Terrell Starr (23:32):
Fact, felon thug. He's on those things.
Reecie Colbert (23:35):
He's a lot of things. He's a lot of things. Okay, let's say convicted. Okay? He's convicted in indicted. At any rate, he has always been a threat to black people. So in 20 20, 20 19, we were like, ah, we got to get him up out of here. And so there's a practicality and pragmatic sentiment that tends to drive our voter habits. And it's really, really, really hard to break through the notion that a black woman can't win. It's really hard to break through the notion that a woman can't win. People like to talk about Hillary, and I said, Hey, you remember that Hillary beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes, but there's this pesky little thing called the electoral college. So I think that when there was no other choice but to get behind her, people allowed that hope and that euphoria to come over and the optimism to come over.
(24:22):
So I think it was very much a psychological thing as opposed to anything that was really driven by data. Because the reality is who black people selected to be the nominee will be the nominee. President Biden was the nominee because South Carolina, he lost Iowa, he lost New Hampshire, he lost Nevada. He wasn't even close. But when it came to South Carolina, it was game over. If black people get behind the nominee, then they win. And I had the same issues advocating for Angela Brooks as the senator for the Senate race in Maryland, Karen Bass in la. And so we've proven time and time again that black women are electable, but we have to prove it from starting from zero every time. Nobody wants to use the history of evidence to say, oh, yeah, okay, well, all those other times that they were outraised and outgunned, they still won. So I think that's the challenge. But now, luckily, because it's a short window and people ain't got a choice, everybody's on board, everybody's in formation, and so we rocking and rolling.
Terrell Starr (25:19):
Well, there are a couple of things. One, statistically at the presidential level, it's almost impossible to win the Democratic nominee without black support, period. It's just proven fact. It's difficult. Another thing, and I think we can laugh about this, what bothered me about this whole conversation about Biden stepping down was that people were ignoring VP Harris. They acted as if she wasn't there For me, and I'm just talking about me personally, what pissed me off was that even in the 2020 cycle, I did a combination of commentary and reporting, and my commentary was targeting some of her positions on issues. I never challenged her qualifications. That wasn't the issue. It was just a difference in how she saw things. What I was seeing in this election cycle was that Biden was supposed to step down, and then there were supposed to be this open campaign for the best candidate.
(26:29):
I'm like, are y'all motherfucker? Lost you god damn minds. Even me. I got infuriated. And I can tell you one example. I was at a foreign policy retreat a few weeks ago, and one of couple of the, well, actually one of the congressmen, I can't say because we were on Chatham House rules, so I can't say the guy's name, but he was one of the congressmen that was pushing Biden to step down. And I was like, okay, I don't hear any of you all talking about VP Harris, about her stepping up. And that was the consternation. Spoiler alert, he
Reecie Colbert (27:05):
Was white. Yeah,
Terrell Starr (27:07):
They all were alright. But my whole thing was, and I actually had a really testy exchange with the guy and anybody who was there would tell you that we had that exchange. And I'm like, y'all see her right there. Do you really think that black America is going to allow this to happen? And I was looking at him was like, and he covered a mostly white district, and I'm like, you don't talk to our community. So you don't know the pushback that you're going to get if you don't say, okay, Biden drops down, then Harris comes up. We could have accepted that. They could have saved themselves a whole lot of trouble by doing that. And so I think that's an interesting dynamic. And I wanted to ask you about for particularly with the black women who are stepping up and galvanizing around VP Harris, tell us about how this is different from when black women were galvanizing around Obama. And I'm just interested in that because people compare those VP Harris and President Obama. I think it's unfair because they're just two different people. I would like to know what your thoughts are on that.
Reecie Colbert (28:17):
First of all, let me just say, it was always wishful thinking that vice President Kamala Harris was going to be kicked off the ticket and that she wouldn't be the successor to President Biden, particularly if he stepped aside. There was no data that ever supported that people, largely not just black people, but 70 something percent of Democrats were already going to be satisfied with her according to polling, before President Biden stepped aside. And so it was always just, I call it racist and resentful, wishful thinking that you were ever going to have a mechanism to pass over the very much capable and qualified vice president right there. And the reality is it was always rooted in her strength, not in her weakness. They wanted to clear the path for their preferred candidate, the person that they have a closer relationship with, the one who's going to return their calls, go out to tea and coffee with them and invite 'em over and have swim in the pool or whatever.
(29:10):
They wanted to clear the path for 20 24, 20 28, and 2032 and so forth. And so that's really what it was all about. But in terms of how black women have galvanized, I mean, I have to give President Obama some credit because he has helped build a pipeline of black political power. Now, his senior advisors were very much white. I mean, we can speak truth about that. However, there are a lot of Gen 44 is what they call Obama, black administration officials, appointees, et cetera, that then came on, went on to be Biden Harris officials. And so I think partly it's because of President Obama, and partly it's because of where our society has moved, where black people have taken a more autonomous role in gaining political power. And so now we have more black women with seats at the table, more black women who are independently harnessing their power.
(30:00):
I'm an independent voice. I haven't come up through the network of having, I was never on Congress. I didn't work campaigns. I was just a voice that was a scrappy Kamala Harris supporter that clawed my way up to now having a national platform. And so I think that's the difference. Part of it is kind of the democratization of the political process of who has a voice. And then part of it is just that she is one of our own, and she has spoken to issues that really impact us. And to be honest, you mentioned her work around maternal health. When I say, oh yeah, she championed black maternal health, people's eyes glaze over. They're like, what that got to do with me? I'm not a black woman. I'm not having babies. And so we have a person who actually has champion issues that really impact us. Things like fibroids, which is something that impacts 80% of black women by the age of 50. And yet nobody does jack shit about it. And so I think this is personal for us, but it's personal with the benefit of actually being a policy win, of actually being a position to put more of us in places where we can really move the needle in this country.
Andrea Chalupa (31:13):
I want to ask, and all of that reminds me of how Obama talking to David Axelrod, convincing him to come over and run his campaign. And the sort of winning line that Obama delivered was, if I win, a lot of people are going to start seeing themselves differently. Axelrod knew and he's like, this guy has it, and they won. And the rest is history. And you're right. And it was a revolution in terms of and making it cool to run for office, which we didn't have before. But the big question is this. So we're living in a time of climate crisis, and the thing about the climate crisis is it's volatility. We see extreme killer hurricanes. We see New York City being engulfed in this terrifying literal orange fog, which is also a metaphor for our country right now with all the forest fires in Canada that happened last spring and on and on goes, it's the volatility that's terrifying and radicalizes a lot of people.
(32:11):
You have young Republicans today who believe in the science of climate change that's different from their parents, their fathers and grandfathers and so on and on. It goes that reality, having us to confront reality automation, AI taking jobs, coming after those white collar jobs and that's going to displace more people, put them out of work, people are going to have to work more jobs. Inflation's a real thing. Obviously Biden's been incredible with it, and those are just the hard facts, especially compared to the rest of the world and so on. So my question to you is this, as people are facing real existential crises impacting us all at once, and that's not even to count the dictatorships fucking with our shit. You know what I mean? Packing and all that stuff. So we're right now in what is a qualified revolution. This is revolutionary what's happening.
(33:01):
A lot of people are going to their rallies for the first time. A lot of people are going to be voting for the first time. A lot of Republicans are going to be voting Democrat for the first time. This is a real revolution. And there's a lot of people who are joining the fight who are going to stay in the fight for the coming years. We've seen this happen. That's why we know. But once you're in, revolutions are easy, governing is harder. And the fact is, is that corruption is an industry. You have a lot of people who serve their time inside government and then they cash out by becoming a lobbyist. One blatant blazing example of that is Obama's former spokesperson, communications director, Josh Ernst, who is now doing communications for United, United, has been like a third world developing world airline with wheels falling off and united had to get dragged before Congress.
(33:55):
And United CEO is trying to kill a democratic bill in the Senate that would fight credit card monopolies and save consumers like us 15 billion. And United doesn't want this because they get kickbacks from those sort of schemes. And so United isn't a great corporation to say the least. And the corruption is showing like this is Victor Orin's Hungary where some streets don't even have lights because of all the corruption and all the kickbacks. And so here you have Obama's, Josh Ernst, former Obama admin official hosting a party at the DNC next week funded by United, and we all know that this DMC is going to be incredible. It's going to be euphoric. There's going to be a lot of pigs at the trough, lobbyists there, throwing their money around to build their influence. And so my big question to you is this, how do we as a public, as citizens fighting for a sustainable livable fair for your future, for all, protect a future President Kamala and Vice President Tim Walls from all of the right wing disinformation and racism coming their way, but also hold them accountable at the same time for during a time that's going to be just naturally volatile.
(35:10):
So how do we also hold 'em accountable at the same time standing up to the bullshit?
Reecie Colbert (35:15):
Well, that's a good question. I mean, there's some built in accountability from Congress. You can call it accountability. You can call it obstruction depending on it's going to be
Andrea Chalupa (35:23):
A string of obstruction. They're going to win a majority and try to impeach for the first thing that they cut for you.
Reecie Colbert (35:28):
Exactly right. So to a certain degree, there's the obstruction part, right? And so that's going to always be a hurdle. What I can say though is having thoroughly researched Vice President Kamala Harris, hundreds of hours of research going back to 2019 from her last campaign when she was, to your point, bombarded by disinformation, the number one target of disinformation, not just back then, but still to this day. One of the things that I always found really heartening about Vice President Kamala Harris is she really has consistent convictions. You mentioned climate change. When she was the district attorney of San Francisco, she actually created an environmental justice unit. So that was something like a lot of people talk about, they want to cherry pick different cases or different little niche things that they really, really care about. But as the executive of the San Francisco District Attorney's Office, she created the Environmental justice office, which was about holding people accountable for illegal dumping and targeting poor neighborhoods with litter and things like that.
(36:34):
But from companies doing that, she also tackled that when she was the attorney general as the US Senator from the state of California, she was really focused on environmental issues as the vice president, she has led the charge on along with EPA administrator, Michael Regan, on eradicating lead pipes. And so what I do know about Vice President Kamala Harris is that she's deeply convicted in her commitment to many things, the environment fighting climate change. She's talked about it as something that is going to also impact migration because what people are calling heat waves is actually global warming. And so people are going to be having to move because they can't sustain 130 degree weather in their regions. And so it might be a little naive to say, trust her. And I'm not saying that. I'm not ever saying trust the politician, but what I'm saying is look at the evidence and look at what the evidence has shown in terms of who vice president Kamala Harris listens to. Terrell mentioned earlier, and we talked about it, about black maternal mortality. She actually engaged with the black moms organizations who were combating this. And as she's been vice president, she has called in civil rights leaders, all kinds of organizations from big and small and have repeat engagement with them. And so I think that it's important to understand that the evidence shows that she is going to take in voices that are not the typical voices that are brought to the table, and that she's going to be consistent in what animates her and what she pushes.
Terrell Starr (38:07):
Yeah, greasy. I want to stick on this disinformation part, and I want to ask your thoughts about these black men who come on social media and they run with these lies about her record as a prosecutor. And again, I'm so happy that we're talking, right? Just, I'm like, okay, I remember when I was covering her in 2019 and we pinpointed very particular things,
(38:39):
The concerns that we were talking about in 2020. Y'all not framing it in any of these ways because as far as I'm concerned, this is just flat out sexism that I'm seeing from these guys. And I want to know from your standpoint, number one, I want to ask you why do you think this is, why do you think that you have, and by the way, it's clear most black men are supporting VP Kamala Harris.
Reecie Colbert (39:02):
Absolutely. Let's make that clear. But I want to ask you about disinformation that a lot of these guys are pushing, and you talk about the fact that she's going to bring in all these voices that didn't commonly have access to the White House, but you have these disinformation disseminators on social media. I saw Mark Lamont Hill actually debate one the other night, and Mark is a green party member.
(39:31):
Yeah, he is,
Terrell Starr (39:33):
Right. But the thing about him is that I do think he's intellectually honest. So he asked me, he said, okay, I'm voting for Kamala Harris. But he said, so tell me exactly what particular policy can you point to that you say is to the writer of Trump. Because this guy said, well, she's a conservative, but she's to the writer of Trump. Mark asked this guy multiple ways, different times, and he couldn't answer. And I find that to be the case where every one of these black male information, disseminators are really confronted with their bullshit. And I want to ask you what you think about this.
Reecie Colbert (40:08):
Well, I want to say that this is not a black male thing. It's really a very broad organized, deliberate disinformation campaign that has been going on, not even just since she announced her presidency in 2019, but even prior to that. The interesting thing about it is the number one way that she's been targeted is actually not policy-based. It's actually been on the issue of race and trying to question her blackness. So I mean, I have data about the nature of the attacks. Most of them have been over the course of the years is that she ain't really black as Trump tried to say she turned black, which is ridiculous. But what they understand is that the power behind that is that it creates distance between her and the largest democratic voting base, which is black people. And so that's one part. So they've tried to really mostly focus on that, but then you have the other part where they completely bastardized and completely destroyed her record to the point of not even being recognizable.
(41:12):
Now, I can recognize the disinformation because I've heard literally a hundred percent of it. It's all the same stuff that people recycle to the point to where I'm like, okay, you're jumbling up three different smears in one. So let me take each one apart of this is what you're trying to say. And this is what is actually true. This happened there, this happened there, this happened there. But I think that part of it is that people like to be contrarian and people feel like prosecutors are unfair. People feel like politicians are untrustworthy. And so it's easy to kind of target this black woman with disinformation because let's speak truth, black women are the least protected and least believed women in this country, maybe Native American woman, we can't compete there. You know what I'm saying? But in terms of how much is really thrown at us.
(42:08):
So some of these things are just, she's more susceptible to it, but a lot of it has also been put out there, and it hasn't really moved the needle. And so I think it's very much important to combat disinformation, to combat the idea that she was out there rounding up black men who were smoking joints and throwing 'em in jail. That didn't happen. That didn't happen. There was one that infuriated me. I saw, to your point, it was a black man who made this whole video saying that she kept an innocent man on death row who had been exonerated, and they were referring to the case of Kevin Cooper, who actually has not been exonerated, who exhausted all of his appeals before she became Attorney General. So she had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the fact that a person who was convicted in 1983 and exhausted all their appeals before she became ag was in jail.
(43:02):
But Nicholas Kristof wrote an article and he blamed her, which was ridiculous, and I think she did a bad job of responding to it. She just said, oh, I didn't know about it. I feel bad about it when that wasn't the right answer, Kamala, that's not what you were supposed to say. You're supposed to say, that ain't got nothing to do with me. But that's not what she said. So it is what it is. But the reality is when he got additional testing that they had been saying that this testing that Kamala was withholding, which wasn't true, was going to exonerate him, that testing came back and further incriminated him. I mean, they characterize it as overwhelming evidence of guilt. I ain't going to say the man is guilty. I wasn't on a jury. It's not my business. But my whole point is that every element of the lie, every element of the story that they pushed is a lie. He had never been exonerated. She never withheld evidence. The evidence eventually was tested again, and that evidence further incriminated him. But these are the kinds of things that they run with to try to make it seem like she was this overzealous prosecutor, truth be damned, lock up black men when that is the complete opposite of her record.
Terrell Starr (44:09):
And one of the fundamental things that I wanted to really engage on, but her campaign had ended the way that we looked at prosecutors pre Mike Brown is vastly different post the Black Lives Matter movement. Yeah, absolutely. Right. So VP Harris came in with every prosecutor regardless of race, regardless gender were looked at through a more critical lens. And so my question really what I really wanted to get out of her at that time was how reflective is she of the perception of a prosecutor pre Mike Brown versus post Mike Brown? That's something that everyone had to deal with. But I want to follow up with you about these recent polls that show that VP Harris is up by 4% in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania, and it comes to this larger conversation about the electability of black women. I don't think that issue is as big an issue as people make it out to be. It is an issue, but it's not. Yeah, absolutely.
(45:12):
As people say that it is. And I definitely believe that there are enough white people because they make up the majority elector. I do believe that there are enough white people out there who would support her. I'm curious in your thoughts with the organizing part, because you talk to a lot of people. We know some of the same people because Biden won Georgia, for example, which was the first time a Democrat won since Bill Clinton and a lot of the black women people who were down there, you got Latasha Brown for example, who I think is the most, who's the best organizer there is. She is a leader, right? Yeah. She's incredible. Yeah. We're going to try to get her on the show, but my question to you is what do you think the environment is right now around organizing people to vote in this election cycle versus even in 2020 in that role that black women are curing? Because again, the burden is always placed on y'all. I just want to ask you what the difference of it is in this election cycle.
Reecie Colbert (46:16):
Well, I think one of the differences is that it's more joyful this time. There's a sense of optimism this time four years ago now, everybody's getting covid now, but everybody's getting covid. They're just going back on. They're like, okay, I got covid. Two days later. We're back outside. Grandparents alive. Yeah, right? Yeah, exactly. Back then, I mean, it was a million Americans had died in six months or whatever. So the stakes are high as high, probably even higher. However, the sentiment around the race is much different. It's much more joyful. And that helps a lot because particularly what I have always done is try to engage people around the importance of elections. And I always have to beg and believe. If you don't want to be back and slave damn vegetables, if you don't want to be in chains again, come on, you got a boat, we going to put us back on a plantation?
(47:04):
Come on. And I don't have to say that anymore. I can be like, Hey, guess what guys? If you want to restore reproductive, it's just a different tenor that I can take, and people are engaged and tapped in, and I'm not like, oh my God, this is going to be hell for the next three months. So that helps. There's a lot of activation, a lot of enthusiasm around putting boots on the ground. People can actually get on side and knock on doors, and so think that the energy helps. It's so important. You can't put energy, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. I think that she passed, one of the biggest tests was her VP and Ace, that right? And he brings his own set of energy. And so I'm not a person who lives by the pose and died by the pose.
(47:47):
I believe that polls are instructive. Not a poll truther either. Like all the polls are wrong. Everybody just vote. No. I mean, polls indicate where our strengths and weaknesses are. They indicated that Vice President Kamala Harris was stronger with young people, with people of color before she dropped out. They indicated that she was shoring up Biden in those areas. And now that she's a nominee, we see that has come to pass in the polling. And so I think that it's important to use the polling as indicators for where we have work to do. Not to ignore areas where it appears that we're strong, but I think that things are heading in the right direction. We're going to be starting early voting in some places in September. And so there are a lot of fundamentals that are working in our favor. When I was on the one with black women call on Sunday, and I saw so many people just absolutely beside themselves about what's happening with voting suppression of voter suppression.
(48:43):
And I point out, well, we have a Democratic Department of Justice. Now. They put in protections and things like that. Not to say that it will be perfect and everything will go according to plan, but we're in a vastly different situation infrastructure wise and enthusiasm wise than we were four years ago, four weeks ago. And so I'm feeling good, and everybody's understanding this side. I mean, I'm team rooting for everybody black. I'm team black women. We are the champions. However, everybody has stepped up white women for Kamala White dudes for Kamala, API for Kamala, Latinos for Kamala. I'm like, yes. Everybody is in information. Everybody is understanding the assignment. And I think everybody is finding a way to get activated with the networks that they feel comfortable with in the communities, and that's how we're going to win
Andrea Chalupa (49:38):
Our discussion. Can.