Speaker 1: I'm about to show you a performance. The performer is
Speaker 1: a South Carolina senator, a politician running for president, and
Speaker 1: he's starting to feel his oats. He's starting to get
Speaker 1: his game on. He's getting used to being in front
Speaker 1: of the crowd. You can tell that he can feed
Speaker 1: off the energy a bit. Let's watch Tim Scott talk
Speaker 1: about the United Auto Workers strike by turning back the
Speaker 1: clock to the Patco strike of nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: I think ro Ra Ronald Reagan gave us a great
Speaker 2: example when Federal Voice decided there was a strike. You strike,
Speaker 2: you're fired. Simple concept to me to we can use
Speaker 2: that once again. Absolutely. The second thing I would do, though,
Speaker 2: is very important. This is a probably not a well
Speaker 2: known fact. The first thing part of the challenge that
Speaker 2: we have at a with president then is I don't
Speaker 2: mean this would be disingenuous. I mean this would be
Speaker 2: here unles sure if the words are bought and paid for,
Speaker 2: but it certainly he has been leased by the unions.
Speaker 3: And I say that.
Speaker 2: Because the first bill he passed, y'all remember the one
Speaker 2: point nine trillion dollars COVID relief backage I only had
Speaker 2: for COVID vaccines. I had eighty six billion dollars. I
Speaker 2: believe for union pensions.
Speaker 3: Because they keep making these deals and as a result
Speaker 3: of the deal, they promised too much, deliver too little,
Speaker 3: and the tax payers pick up the tab.
Speaker 1: Now, first, it is incredible that a United States senator
Speaker 1: can possibly be so ignorant. It's why we probably shouldn't
Speaker 1: get rid of teaching history in schools because someday some
Speaker 1: of those kids may grow up to be senators. And
Speaker 1: unlike Kim Scott, it would be healthy and helpful in
Speaker 1: moments if those senators knew what it was that they
Speaker 1: were talking about. Now, the ua W strike of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three has exactly, absolutely nothing to do with the
Speaker 1: pat Goo air traffic controller strike of nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: But something Tim Scott said talking about the air traffic
Speaker 1: controller strike of nineteen eighty one has a lot of
Speaker 1: relevance to workers in twenty twenty three. Sometimes politicians, when
Speaker 1: they're sloppy, say the quiet part out loud. Let's watch
Speaker 1: Tim Scott do it again when he says, if you strike,
Speaker 1: you should be fired as a worker.
Speaker 2: I think all Unald Rayton gave was a great example
Speaker 2: when Federal Voice side was strike you sight your fired
Speaker 2: civile concept to me, No.
Speaker 1: Tim Scott, that's not how it works in America. I'm
Speaker 1: going to explain this to you. In the mid nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: there was something called the Industrial Revolution. What the Industrial
Speaker 1: Revolution was, Senator, was an epoch in history when people
Speaker 1: who worked on farms began to move into the cities
Speaker 1: as machines began to mass produce products that could be
Speaker 1: sold at an increasingly globalized scale. Now there were the
Speaker 1: people who owned the factories and the geniuses who invented
Speaker 1: the machines, and then there were the people who worked
Speaker 1: in the factories, and society had to deal with a
Speaker 1: changing circumstance and dynamic. The people who worked in the factories.
Speaker 1: Were they entitled to dignity? Were they entitled to a
Speaker 1: decent living from their labor? Were they slaves? Indentured servants, disposable?
Speaker 1: Were they the equivalent of what you see in China
Speaker 1: today slave labor? And in the United States of America,
Speaker 1: through a long process of struggle and sacrifice, the American
Speaker 1: labor movement was born, the union movement. And in the
Speaker 1: United States, Senator, workers have a right to organize and
Speaker 1: they have a right to strike. Now, in nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: the air traffic controllers went on strike, and then there
Speaker 1: was a problem with that. The problem has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with anything that the UAW workers are talking about today.
Speaker 1: The problem in nineteen eighty one was a nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: five law. It made it illegal for federal employees to
Speaker 1: go on strike. Now, Tim Scott, I'm going to set
Speaker 1: the record straight about the history on this for you
Speaker 1: a bit so you can do better when you're on
Speaker 1: television next time. So one you probably didn't know. In
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty Pat go endorsed Ronald Reagan did the Teamsters.
Speaker 1: It made sense. Ronald Reagan was the only union president
Speaker 1: to ever become President of the United States. He was
Speaker 1: president of the Screen Actors Guild, which currently, like the
Speaker 1: United Auto Workers and the Writer's Guild of America, is
Speaker 1: out on strike now. The reason for the strike is
Speaker 1: because those people are part of a process that creates
Speaker 1: billions in profits, and they don't get a fair cut
Speaker 1: of the profits. What they get is detritus, a sprinkling,
Speaker 1: not a living wage, but at any rate, what the
Speaker 1: Writer's Guild of America, what the United Auto Workers, and
Speaker 1: what the Screen Actors Guild have in common as opposed
Speaker 1: to Pat Coo, is that those union members are not
Speaker 1: federal government employees. They are private sector employees. The UAW
Speaker 1: senator is not the federal government workforce, and they have
Speaker 1: a right under law to strike, and your calls to
Speaker 1: fire the UAW workers who are demanding higher wages so
Speaker 1: they can send their kids to college is deeply offensive
Speaker 1: and wrong in a historic Now, coming back to Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan in nineteen eighty one, what he promised the air
Speaker 1: traffic controllers was that he would negotiate in good faith
Speaker 1: when they went out on strike. Whether you think Reagan
Speaker 1: was right or wrong, Reagan took that strike as an
Speaker 1: assault on his presidency and on his authority, and Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan used his maximum power under the law to end
Speaker 1: the strike. Again, this has nothing to do whatsoever with
Speaker 1: anything that's happening forty years later. But for Tim Scott,
Speaker 1: it's always nineteen eighty it's always the Reagan Revolution, It's
Speaker 1: always Ronald Reagan's morning in America, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: it's Donald Trump's maga Republican Party today, and that is
Speaker 1: a dark party, an insidious force that is advancing fascism
Speaker 1: in America now, in the end, when Ronald Reagan fired
Speaker 1: the air traffic controllers, someone paid attention to that. The Soviets,
Speaker 1: many years later in the archives the correspondence between Soviet
Speaker 1: officials watching domestic politics in the United States play out.
Speaker 1: Wrote to each other, and they said, this American president
Speaker 1: is different. He means what he says, he will do
Speaker 1: exactly what he says. Here's the point about that our
Speaker 1: foreign adversaries haven't stopped watching our domestic politics. When they
Speaker 1: see people like Tim Scott, when they see the eight
Speaker 1: clowns on a Republican debate stage, raise their hands and say,
Speaker 1: we pledge forever fidelity to the man who tried to
Speaker 1: burn down the constitution. When they see Kevin McCarthy, when
Speaker 1: they see Lauren Bobert and mark my words, they do
Speaker 1: see them. What they see is decay. What they see
Speaker 1: is weakness, and what they confuse is the national character
Speaker 1: for the lack of character, and our politicians everything that
Speaker 1: matters in this moment, every virtue that you can think
Speaker 1: of is under assault. That's why it's important to understand
Speaker 1: when you hear a United States senator talk that they
Speaker 1: have no idea what they're talking about.