PAUL JAY: Welcome to the Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay. On Monday a thing broke out between Bernie
Sanders' camp and Governor Cuomo and such. Cynthia Nixon, who's running in a primary
against the Democratic Governor Cuomo in New York.
It came out, according to The New York Daily
News that Bernie Sanders was not going to endorse Cynthia Nixon. Well, Cuomo then came out with a statement,
said, well, why would Sanders endorse Cynthia Nixon, because we're in lockstep with Senator
Sanders on all issues. Well, then a senior adviser to Bernie Sanders
came out with this tweet. Ari Rabin-Havt, I hope I'm pronouncing it
right, writes: The idea that Andrew Cuomo and Bernie Sanders are lockstep on policy
is 100 % Grade A American bullshit.
Well, so just what is Bernie Sanders' attitude
toward Cynthia Nixon, and why is Cynthia Nixon running against Cuomo, when apparently, according
to another senior adviser in the Sanders office, Cuomo actually has passed and supports some
progressive legislation, like a $15 minimum wage, and easier access to college, and so
on. So now joining us to talk about this is, first
of all, from Wallingford Connecticut, Alexandra Rojas. She's the Campaigns Director for Justice Democrats,
a progressive political action committee founded in January of 2017. Moumita Ahmed is a grassroots organizer with
People for Bernie Sanders and co-founder of the group Millennials Revolution, previously
known as Millennials for Bernie Sanders.
And Moumita is actually doing some digital
campaign work for the Nixon, Cynthia Nixon campaign, but I should stress is not here
speaking for the campaign. And Eugene Puryear. Hes a journalist, author, and activist. He's co-founder of Stop Police Terror Project
D.C., And a member of DC's Movement for Black Lives steering committee.
So first of all, let me go to Moumita. So you're kind of closest to all of this thing. What do you make of this, first of all, what
went on with is Sanders endorsing, not endorsing, and such. MOUMITA AHMED: I think Bernie Sanders is busy
campaigning around the country for Medicare for All and college for all, and other progressive
issues.
So to drag him into a very local race, and
asking him for an endorsement so early on, it puts everybody in a very difficult position,
including Bernie Sanders. But I will say this. Andrew Cuomo is not aligned with Bernie Sanders
in any way. And he is, in fact, quite the opposite.
99 Percent of his campaign donations come
from super PACs, and the majority of his donors have given him over $200 worth of campaign
donations. Maybe like 1 percent of that out of all of
that, in the entirety of the donations that he receives. Which is quite, which is opposite of Bernie
Sanders, whose average donation was $27. PAUL JAY: Alexandra, Bernie Sanders has to
walk a fairly fine line in these kinds of races.
He's encouraging, and the organization Our
Revolution, which he helped give birth to, although he's not involved in the day to day,
as far as we know, is really promoting primary-ing conservative and corporate Democrats, as they're
called. On the other hand, Sanders really can't afford
to alienate the whole Democratic Party establishment. He needs some of them to win if he's going
to run the primary in 2020. How do you think this Cynthia Nixon-Cuomo
thing fits into this, and Sanders' problem in this? ALEXANDRA ROJAS: I think, I think Bernie can
play a big role here.
I know that he has to be careful, but him
challenging the establishment last time showed that he's willing to go up against the machine. And I think that's why people like him, right. He was able to get as far as he did even without
establishment support, and I totally agree that he's going to need some just to push
things forward, but he's the most popular politician in the country. People know, he went from being virtually
unknown last year to being a household name.
And he should leverage a lot of that power,
I think, to get even more involved in some of these primaries. He's been doing it with candidates like Marie
Newman, who ran against Dan Lipinski, and I think he really should, you know, consider
endorsing again another Democrat. You know, fighting another corporate Democrat,
especially when they're so in contradiction to his principles on not taking big corporate
money, and having that fund your race. You should be beholden to your voters instead
of your donors.
And as a progressive movement we should lean
into, I think, the biggest asset that we have, which is our integrity, is running on our
values. And I think that's the way that we win moving
forward. PAUL JAY: Eugene, Chuck Schumer, about a year
ago, he was on a, being interviewed. And he said that he's fully, he didn't use
the word lockstep, but more or less, fully on board, fully in agreement with both Warren
and Sanders.
Given Sanders and Warren's critique of Wall
Street and Schumer's role as the Wall Street Democrat that's a little rich. Here's Cuomo saying he's in lockstep with
Sanders. How do you, let's go to two issues. One, them wanting to cozy up to Sanders says
something about moving the Democratic Party, at least in rhetoric, closer, closer to Sanders.
On the other hand, if Sanders is really going
to deliver a message he has to not just critique the oligarch in the generality or abstract,
he has to really take on some of these individual politicians that clearly are allied with finance. EUGENE PURYEAR: Yeah, I think those are important
points. And I think you look at these politicians,
I would say mostly the Cuomos, the Schumers, I mean, they're just lying. I mean, just a couple of years ago Andrew
Cuomo wrote a book saying that the progressive left was the biggest problem in the Democratic
Party.
But you see what happened in the primaries,
and even if you look at states like Mississippi, and you look at the exit polls where Clinton
dominated, you can see the vast majority of people who voted said in the CNN exit poll
that they would be fine if Bernie Sanders was the candidate. I'm talking about 75-80 percent of people. So the reality is is I think most rank and
file people who consider themselves Democrats, Democratic-leaning progressive people, even
if they're not 100 percent with Sanders aren't out put out by the things that he's saying. And so the Cuomo's of the world, the Schumers
of the world, have to do something to tack to the left a little bit here.
I agree with the point you're making in terms
of the need to turn this real. I mean, I think the biggest problem that Cynthia
Nixon has, I would say, is Bill de Blasio, who was backed by many of the same people
who are backing her, who was supposed to be a progressive, transformative mayor. He ran on the issue of dealing with the police
and mass incarceration. He has actually completely failed at that.
He has not ended stop and frisk. He's backed the police officers in a number
of extraordinarily criminal shootings of black people in New York. He's pushed a massive gentrification plan
under the guise of rezoning, claiming that it's producing affordable housing. So no wonder that you have low voter turnout,
because I think consistently what you see, and what I think people in New York see, is
that even a lot of the so-called progressive organizations aren't willing to aggressively
challenge the status quo once they actually get in office.
And I think that in places like New York,
in places like D.C., Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, we continually see this, where the
Democrats claim to be so progressive, but when they actually get in office they're essentially,
you know, really essentially outsourcing a significant amount of their policy to the
corporate status quo, and just doing enough to superficially appear to be better than
Republicans in states like Oklahoma. PAUL JAY: Moumita, unions on the whole are
not supporting Cynthia Nixon in this fight against Cuomo. What is going to happen with Our Revolution? Our Revolution is fairly decentralized. I guess there's one in New York.
Is Our Revolution going to support Nixon? MOUMITA AHMED: Yes, they already have, actually. The Our Revolution group in New York City
is called NYPAN, New York Progressive Action Network. And they just endorsed Cynthia Nixon this
weekend. And there are grassroots chapters across every
borough for NYPAN, and we will be all fighting to help her get elected.
So even though Bernie himself has not endorsed,
his grassroots community in New York, which made thousands and thousands of phone calls
for him during the 2016 primaries, I think it came in second next to California for the
number of phone calls made across the country. Well, that well-oiled grassroots machine is
backing Cynthia right now. So even if Bernie hasn't quite made that leap
yet, I believe the fact that his grassroots, the entirety of his grassroots from the Working
Families Party, to NYPAN and other progressive organizations that also endorsed Bernie during
the campaign are behind Cynthia speaks volumes about where the grassroots, where the wind
is blowing in terms of-. PAUL JAY: Why, why do you think the unions
aren't supporting her? Or I should say, at least the majority of
the unions.
MOUMITA AHMED: I think the unions, I can't
really speak for the unions, but I believe it is because Cuomo has a very, he's very
vengeful. And we've already seen him start threatening
these community organizations that are funded by unions, that help provide legal support
to people of color. And he has threatened them, threatened to
defund them, because they endorse Cynthia Nixon. And that, this is this a behavior of Andrew
Cuomo that has existed for years.
Like even when we ran Zephyr Teachout against
Andrew Cuomo, he created a ballot line called the Women's Equality Party, led by him, a
man. Just to put Working Families Party in its
place because they even, you know , fathomed to challenge Governor Cuomo, or just because
they, because they suggested to him that we are going to run Zephyr if you don't, you
know, give us A, B, and C. So you know, this is, this is what I believe. Again, I can't speak for the unions.
But when you have a governor who has publicly
said in the past that he is waging a war against the unions, it puts them in a very difficult
place, especially when they have to look out for their members and, you know, working class
people who are part of their membership, and to stay at the bargaining table. The last thing they would want, I assume,
is a governor who is this vengeful with real estate developers, all these powerful people
in [inaudible] backing him. PAUL JAY: All right. Thank you very much, all my guests.
And thank you for joining us on the Real News
Network. We'll continue to follow this race in New
York, as well as primaries across the country, and then as we head into the elections. Thanks for joining us on the Real News..
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