Ana Kasparian — an untitled appearance

I noticed um you haven't yet endorsed in the Wisconsin governor's race. Uh what's your thinking there? And and might you endorse her? >> I don't think so. I met Francesca a couple of years ago. I was in Wisconsin. Uh and she seems very very nice. But again, this is a race I just am not that familiar with. We have not gotten involved in many governor's races. I think we did one in Maine with Troy Jackson. You know, obviously my major concern right now is seeing that we have a Senate and a House uh that is going to stand up to Trump. That's really where my focus is. So, as of now, we have not been involved in that race. >> Interesting. Franchesca Hong is DSA, Democratic Socialist, and she's leading actually by a decent amount in the Wisconsin governor's race, but Bernie Sanders, AOC, and some of the other uh top progressives in the country don't want to touch that race. So that's very interesting and that's happening today. So Yasmin, tell us about it. >> Yeah, so that is this is all happening in Wisconsin right now. So on the ballot in Wisconsin today, there's a few people that you might want to know about. There is Joel Brennan, who is the former secretary of the Department of Administration under incumbent Tony Evers. Tony Evers, by the way, is not seeking reelection. Then there is David Crowley who is a Milwaukee County executive who is endorsed by Evers. We also have Kendall I'm sorry Kella Roy. This kind of sounds like Kendall Roy. Kella Roy the state senator for Wisconsin's 26th district. And then there is of course Francesca Hong who is a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly. So Hong is a Democratic socialist and she has been the frontr runner in most of the recent polling that we've seen and she's running on policies such as universal child care, fully funded public schools, guaranteed paid leave, LGBTQ health care access, and expanding Medicaid, affordable housing. It's a very solid progressive platform, and even Bernie Sanders agrees with that. Let's watch. Democratic socialist Franchesca Hong in Wisconsin is expected to win her Democratic primary. Um there's been some attention to some of her social media posts recently, but she has this platform of free child care, state-run grocery stores, more health care subsidies. She wants to raise income taxes on millionaires. Some of this does seem to align with your platform. So, I'm wondering, you know, why don't you support her? Is some of what she supports too extreme for you? >> No. But raising taxes on the rich, making sure that everybody in Wisconsin or America has healthcare as a right sounds quite reasonable to me. >> Yeah. So that sentiment seems to be echoed as well because reporting from Politico says that interviews with voters on the ground in Wisconsin, Sho Hong has been able to tap into voters frustrations with party leaders and lean into local policies around cost of living to rally a strong enough base heading into Tuesday's primary. And she has received endorsements from people like Hassan Ilhan Omar, and Ro Kana. So, why isn't she bringing in some of these bigname backers like Bernie Sanders or even AOC? Well, according to Politico, a few have privately raised questions about the sharpness of Hong's messaging and electability as she navigates a series of controversies over her old social media posts advocating for cancelling Thanksgiving and defunding the police, comments she now calls bad takes that she says she has learned from. and others have just said that they're just unfamiliar with her. So, Elizabeth Warren said, "I don't know her." Which that's like uh what Mariah Carey said about JLo. I don't know her. Said in a brief hallway interview. Two people close to Bernie Sanders granted anonymity to discuss the private conversations said that even as Hong has invoked Sanders name and political ideology on the campaign trail, he does not know her personally. Sanders has acknowledged that he's met Hong before, but indicated that that is the extent of their relationship. And those two people added that Hong is less vetted and not as sharp on some of her messaging than other candidates, presenting more of a risk for Sanders, who has already been burned by endorsing people like Glam Graham Platner in the main Senate race. So, it seems as though he's being a little bit more cautious with his endorsements as of late. AOC has also just stated that she wants to focus on the House and Senate races. Uh that feels like something of a copout to me and that's also what Bernie had said. But either way, that's not the main concern. Despite leading in the polls right now, many establishment Democrats are worried that she's going to lose the general election in November, which could potentially make it harder for other Democrats to win in their midterm elections. And according to the Wall Street Journal, Republicans have spent millions of dollars boosting Hong because they believe she will be easier to beat. So the general elections in the battleground state have been determined by extremely narrow margins in recent years. Trump won the battleground state in 2024 by just shy of 30,000 votes. Joe Biden won it by fewer than 21,000 votes in 2020. So, if Hong wins the primary today, she will be going up against a Trumpbacked candidate, Representative Tom Tiffany, and they will for sure use being a Democratic Socialist and her past comments on defunding the police and cancelling Thanksgiving against her. All right. So, the reporting says that former Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker put it this way when asked what things will look like Wednesday morning if his state wakes up to find Tiffany and Hong as the party nominees. Common sense versus dangerously crazy, he said. That said, it will be a close race. Okay. So, a Marquette Law School poll also recently found that among all registered voters in Wisconsin, Democratic Socialists have a negative net favorability rating. And you can see it right there. Uh the Democratic Socialist of America is up at the top. It has a -18 net favorability rating. Uh but you know, a good chunk of that is 32 people's or percent say they haven't heard enough. So that could be an area of opportunity potentially. When you look at it by party, among Republicans, 1% have a favorable view using the combined measure with 84% unfavorable. And among independents, 13% are favorable with 52% unfavorable. 15% of Republicans say they have not heard enough, as do 31% of independents. And among Democrats, 54% have a favorable opinion of Democratic socialists, 10% are unfavorable, and 36% have not heard enough. But again, you know, it's up to the voters to decide what it is that they want. Alan Minsky, the executive director of Progressive Democrats of America, said this to Politico. He said if Franchesca Hong is elected the governor of Wisconsin, people are going to see somebody working very very rigorously as the governor like Zoron Mandani is as the mayor of New York to pursue a set of policies that people are rapidly going to recognize are in their best interests. And Hong is not deterred by this lack of endorsements. Here's what she has to say about that. >> Why do you think AOC and Senator Bernie Sanders have not endorsed you? I have so much respect for the senator and the congresswoman and they are working tirelessly to make sure that we can put Congress and the Senate and get Democrats wins in the midterms. I look forward to conversations with them about that too. >> Does this show that they don't think you're able to win this battleground state? >> You know, a gubernatorial race is different from federal elections and I think that we are focused on making sure to reach every single voter that we can up until those polls close. Um, and that's what we're focusing on right now. >> Yeah. So, Zoron Mumani also was missing some key endorsements while he was running. Uh, he did have the support of people like AOC and Bernie, of course. Uh, but I know Jen, you and Glenn were kind of talking about this in the first hour, uh, the extended first hour, right? Uh you guys were talking about how perhaps progressives kind of overshot the Overton window during the pandemic and maybe had to reel some of that back in. So do you think that that is something that's going to come back to hurt Francesca, not so much with Republicans, but amongst Democratic voters? So, I I'm in an interesting place here because uh I I warned against some of these extreme policies like abolishing prisons and defunding the police and got into a lot of debates on with uh folks on the left over it and and so here's the chickens coming home to roost and so and they're becoming such a problem that AOC uh said that woke was being woke was crazy and she's totally rejecting it Now, I don't know if the people we debated now think that woke was also crazy because AOC said it or if they're upset at AOC for saying it. I don't know. But so I would not have gone in that direction, right? And I'm not in DSA and I'm not a socialist. I'm a capitalist. Okay. So on the other hand, that's leading up to a giant on the other hand. On the other hand, uh the thing that uh mainstream media never really clarifies for you all is yes, but what are the priorities of a candidate? Like if Franchesca wins and she's the governor of Wisconsin, is her first action going to be release all the prisoners? No. Is it going to be to cancel Thanksgiving? No. Is it going to be to cancel the United States Senate? Um I'm pretty sure she won't have the power to do that. And no. Uh she very clearly laid out what her priorities are. and uh universal child care is number one on that list. Um and public grocery stores, again, you could say, "Hey, you know what? I'm not sure I want public grocery stores." Uh okay, no problem. But those are the things that she really, really wants to do, uh including guaranteed paid leave, affordable housing. So, she has these super important things that she has prioritized. And by the way, do they ever ask themselves why is she leading? Why has she been leading so much? Look, I really like Mandela Barnes who was in that primary and he dropped out. And why did he drop out? My I don't know, but my guess is that it's because Franchesca had a depressingly large lead. How did she get that lead? By trying to cancel Thanksgiving? No. Cuz people are worried about affordability. And the second thing they're worried about, Yasmin, is a politician who's not a a BS artist, right? Who's going to say, "Oh yeah, I'm a smoothtalking politician. Oh, I'm a Democrat. I'm in favor of these things, but we all know they're not going to do it, right? They almost never do it. So, with upstarts, people people who are beginning who kind of look like revolutionaries like Francesca Hung does, it's actually giving Democrat Democratic voters more comfort that they might actually do something. They might try something like Mumdani is. And Mani is trying a bunch of things in New York that he promised. And so far so good. People seem to like it. So, they're voting for something new and that I love. So, to me, you know, uh somebody like Franchesco who has a bunch of policies that I don't love but isn't going to do at all, uh but he's going to do a bunch of policies I do agree with, uh versus a Democrat who will likely do nothing. >> Yeah, I get why she's winning. And you know, I to be fair to the other candidates, I don't know the all the inner details of this race, but on the surface, I get why Franchesca's message is so uh compelling. And then in the general election, that's a no-brainer versus a Republican who's going to take away your rights, crush your ability to organize, especially in Wisconsin, work hard to do his main Republican promise in Wisconsin, you're going to be shocked, >> is tax cuts for the rich. Of course. Of course, that's a no-brainer. I'll take someone I love Thanksgiving and I'll still take Franchesca Hung by a mile, by a country mile over that. >> Yeah. And again, I know you guys talked about this a little bit on the first hour, so I don't want to beat a dead horse, but the the whole thing that happened during the pandemic where there was some very very progressive ideas that were being put out there, I as a progressive identifying person. I didn't agree with everything that was being said by everyone out there. I tried to be supportive. I never wanted to hurt anybody. I never wanted anyone to feel as though their life was less than what it was. But I didn't necessarily agree with every hot take that came out. But I didn't think that was a problem. I thought that was like normal. That was like normal political discourse. Like we're not all going to be so exacting in our our views and where we draw our own personal lines in the sand on things. Uh things like like genocide, I think that's a pretty hard line in the sand that is is difficult to move. But I think it makes sense that, you know, that messaging and that platform would kind of shift and evolve over the years and come back to a place where the American people need to see a platform that is actually going to make their life tangibly better than whatever the other party is offering. The Democrats for too long, in my opinion, have have run campaigns and elections on the idea that we are not as bad as the Republicans. And that is simply not good enough. And it hasn't been good enough for a long time. And a lot of people got mad at at Democratic voters, at progressive voters specifically, for not voting for an okay Democrat in 2024, even though that genocide line was very very hard for for a lot of us to cross. And the thing is, it just wasn't good enough anymore. And people are starting to realize that. Also, when you're talking about Zoron Mumdani, something that he is doing that is so good is he is very very public. He's on social media. He is responding directly to the people. And the reason why that's so good is because [sighs and gasps] God, you know, I was reading about this earlier today and I don't remember where, so I can't credit them or cite my my source, but basically the idea was that Zoran Mani is doing things. The way that Joe Biden actually did do things for the American people, the problem is that nobody knew what Joe Biden was up to. He was doing all these things and nobody knew what it was. Nobody felt better about their lives. And that is the difference. If you're a mayor of New York City, perhaps it's easier for you to do that because you have a smaller geographic area that you're managing. You have less people that you're managing. But whatever it is, he is be he is successful because the people who live in his city feel better about their city. They feel better about the person who is leading them because as you pointed out, Jenk, at least he's trying things. Not everything is going to work. Not everything is going to be successful. Not everything on his agenda will he be able to even attempt during his term or terms in office. But the fact that he's trying is very very comforting to a lot of people because we have simply had politicians in power for too long who don't even try anymore. They get into office and then they disappear. They do whatever it is that they do and we don't hear from them. They vote in the big the big votes, but that kind of stuff doesn't directly impact most people's lives. The problem is affordability. The problem is that people can't find jobs. The problem is wealth inequality in this country. And we see things that this government is doing. And so much of it is making our lives worse and more expensive and not the opposite despite the fact that all of these politicians have promised the exact opposite. So then why do you get into office and it's it's it's not happening. Everything you're doing is making my life worse. So I would love to see what someone like Francesca Hong can do. I also love Thanksgiving. It's probably my favorite holiday because like the food is good and I make a lot of pies and I'm not going to stop doing that, you know. Uh it has taken on its own meaning and I think that's okay. I think we can acknowledge and be respectful of the history but still transform it into something else because this is a day when people get to be off from work and home with their families and let's just eat pie, you know, you know what I mean? >> Yeah. Um so look, if we get into the um you know history of all the holidays, you're all going to be dep depressed. Uh, I mean, if you The original Santa Claus used to help poor people. Uh, but rich people got tired of that, so they switched it to helping your own kids. Did you know that? [laughter] Okay. So, that's it. I hate Christmas. No, I love Christmas. And yeah, I know the history of America. And we don't have to celebrate all of it. Uh, but uh, let us have turkey [laughter] and football [snorts] and Thanksgiving. Okay. And by the way, she's disavowed that now. It doesn't matter. She can't cancel Thanksgiving, but she can actually give your kids child care. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his swings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated