O’Donnell To Candidates: Remember, You’re Running Against President Donald Trump | MSNBC

Lawrence O'Donnell talks about how the candidates, outside of their opening and closing statements, spent time attacking each other instead of Donald Trump. Better leadership in the Democratic party, O'Donnell argues, could have prevented this.
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O'Donnell To Candidates: Remember, You're Running Against President Donald Trump | MSNBC

28 comments

  1. Wrong !!! Some of use are fighting for more then the less of two evils, this is the perfect time to fight to see what direction the party needs to go !!!

    1. That’s the real problem isn’t it. The people are raising up. We’re suppose to give in out of fear of trump, but we progressives already let trump win once. So they know we aren’t bluffing when we say no Corporatist trash you call moderates.

  2. Couldn’t agree with this video more. President Obama said it best when he said progressives engage in circular firing squad.

    1. Obama also admitted that all his policies where that of a Republican. Obama and the failures of his administration is why we have Trump, and that’s why Hillary lost. But keep on drinking that corporate coolaid and Trump will have another 4 years.

  3. Beating Donald Trump _cannot be the top, primary platform_ for competing candidates. That happens *automatically, by default* when *anyone* else win the election. It’s done before _ever even setting a foot in the oval office._ There needs to be solid and widely appealing plans, ideas and policies for what comes *after* that – between that and the end of term. How do we restore our nation and our international relationships. How do we tackle healthcare. How do we deal with climate change? The US is the biggest contributor to demolishing our global climate by far, generating 4 times as much (!) pollution and emissions pr capita than the global average. The US pollute our planet almost as much as China does, yet we have merely 1/5th of the population of China.

  4. So we should be looking for the future looking for forward? Bernie has been consistent and right on the social constructs a modern society. Where we are and where we want to be was it by visionary even before he was politician and human rights equality fairness. So why isn’t he love to buy Joe Biden’s friends on MSNBC? He’s our candidate our choice

  5. Lawrence and Warren have 1 major thing in common.
    You can almost see the body count behind their eyes when they talk to you.

  6. Once we weed out the people that have zero chance of winning it will get interesting.
    There are just too many people debating.
    When it gets down to 5 they’ll start tearing each other apart

  7. Again, this is succumbing to Trump’s game plan. America gets to watch these guys go at each other’s throats while Mango Molester gets to sit by and laugh as people try to win who’s the toughest rather than who is the best candidate. One that can appeal to all the people Trump has walked over. Not just democrats but moderate Republicans, Millenials, blue-collar Democrats, etc. Keep Trump in a corner.

  8. We are over Joe Biden and all of the old guard!!! The gig is up. We all know now that the real battle is with big moneyed interest who have stolen the peoples power by bribing/buying our democracy, ironically with assets they acquired and concentrated, over centuries off of the backs of our working class ancestors and to this day, buy paying an immoral percentage of what their labor was actually worth. It’s clear as day, Bernie all the way. But you would rather have TRUMP than Brenie!!! SAD

    1. Bernie would be a disaster trying to run the world.  He’s too lazy to even stay in the hippy community.  Look it up…

  9. Democrats focusing on being against Trump is fine but the fact of the matter is that there wasn’t a proper primary last time otherwise Hilary wouldn’t have been the nominee.

    This is necessary.

    The Democratic party needs to THOROUGHLY parse through these candidates because after taking on Trump they will have to clean up his mess and try to bring America the three steps forward we need to make progress from the 2 steps back of the Trump administration. We need progress.

    See what I did there? You know where I’m going with this.

    Progressives have always been tentatively part of the Democratic party based on policy (a little harsh but the distinction needs to be clear).

    America needs to take leadership in the world and make progress. To do that we need to make up for wasted time and the damage Trump has caused as well as catch up to the rest of the world on basic human rights, equality, and power distribution across the population. For example, everyone including Trump loves to talk about unemployment being down but why is no one talking about how those jobs are mostly part-time, the pay gap between the sexes is mostly unchanged despite it being a talking point for Democrats for years, or how wages have been stagnant for decades in spite of rising COL and inflation and therefore not being high enough to cover basic human needs like shelter and food? I mean for chrissakes we still have jobs with tipping IN THE 21st CENTURY!

    We also need to lead by getting ahead on positions about terror (foreign and especially domestic) as well as immigration and why mass migration of asylum seekers is happening in the first place. Cops need to be brought to heel disciplined, trained and rebranded to a national standard (even if enforcing local laws their professional conduct and accountability should be universal to a certain degree). White Supremacist groups should be treated and called out for being domestic terror organizations. The asylum process apparently needs to be clearly explained as it stands in the law by today’s standards to make the wasted funding of ICE and DHLS on the border be seen as the stark unAmerican, criminal/war crime acts that they are. Give the power to go to war back to Congress and have a specific and explicit exit strategy for any conflicts we involve ourselves in as well as the many we are in that aren’t getting covered properly now.

    Bipartisanship of the last few decades hasn’t/doesn’t cut it, including many of Obama’s policy positions. And remember that was back before we had Trump enter the white house and open the flood gates on racism, bigotry, hate, and domestic terror in our back yards. Mind you those floodgate were barely holding the tide of filth back as it was and that was just the reality of most black and brown people in the country. We just get to see it all in all of it it’s disgusting glory now because 45 has given the OK.

    Remember when the worst thing most politically active Americans (most of the electorate is liberal/progressive) were worried about was the tea party throwing another hissy fit about nothing and tossing around baseless fact-less accusations just to get what they want or stop progress that would make everyone’s lives better? Reminisce in the moment for a second and then realize the horrific truth…that was only 2.5 years ago (feels like Trump has been in office for an eternity but it’s only been a few years).

    America’s problems have been problems before Trump so making Trump the goalposts for 2019/2020 isn’t good enough.

    A Green New Deal, Medicare for all, Money out of politics, stopping endless wars, finally being rid of the electoral college and switching to a 1 voter=1 vote system (winning states means nothing if every vote across every state gets counted equally), and more are all important to the American people; all are going to be on the plate of the 46th POTUS.

    Whoever POTUS 46 is, beating Trump won’t mean a break for them; they’ll have to hit the ground running and move the people without baggage or corporate backing to sway them.

  10. No one is making the case saying that we want to move forward on compassionate fiscal policy. It betrays their politics, if you are not addressing income inequality and its fueling of racism, sexism, and it’s undermining of democracy then you are not addressing the real problem. The problem with the centrist is they have a vested interest in keeping the system of injustice the same, just doing small changes on the margins to appear like there is progress, for the democrats to win this must change.

  11. Not always progressive and both dems and gop are minority parties to indeps. Media thinks only dems deserve WH and partly why they lost. Indeps not ok with this notion the media might learn eventually once ratings tank enough.

  12. The closing statements summed it all up. They need to get back on track to focusing on attacking Donald Trump. Because if they don’t focus on that we might actually burn more about them like what they stand for. And what they voted for or against. I’m a big fan of having a clear picture. And I think it’s important to know past of a candidate so that I may better know what they may do in future.

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