NYC mayor Bill de Blasio just got back to New York City after taking his 13-point progressive agenda on the road. One of the main points is a $15 minimum wage, a policy that is already destroying cities like Seattle. Some are wondering if the tour was a prelude to a presidential race. Glenn tore apart de Blasio, his progressive agenda, and more on radio this morning.
Below is a rush transcript of this segment
GLENN: So here's the latest from Bill de Blasio because Bill de Blasio is thinking about running for president of the United States. I don't know if you know that. Fabulous.
But he's thinking about running for president. And he's come out with a new progressive agenda. A 13-point agenda. And Barack Obama has talked about it. He said, there was sort of this progressive statement of principles about what it means to be a progressive by some of these friends of mine. I noted that it was basically my agenda, except for the trade.
Uh-huh. Now, while he says that, one Democrat, one prominent Democrat unnamed in this article says none of that stuff is going to help us with elections and help us win back the House.
What is the agenda? The mayor wants to stop Democrats from running away from the discussion of progressive economic policy, and I do too. Please, please run on your progressive ideology.
Here's what he said. Raise the federal minimum wage so it reaches $15 an hour, while indexing it to inflation.
PAT: So raise it to 15. And then attach it to inflation.
GLENN: Federal. Federal. So imagine what a 15-dollar federal minimum wage would do to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
PAT: And then if inflation goes up 2 percent a year, so does the minimum wage. Wow, that's going to be good.
GLENN: There is no way that minimum wage can be raised to $15 in small towns and survive. It would destroy Middle America. Just destroy us.
PAT: It's already creating shock waves in Seattle. And it's not even at 15.
GLENN: And in San Francisco, I believe.
PAT: Yes. Yes.
GLENN: In both of those, you've had all kinds of stores and restaurants closing. More to come. They're only up to $12 so far.
PAT: 11.50 or something in Seattle.
GLENN: Okay. They're not even at 15, and places are already starting to crumble and close. And this as reported by progressive media. So you know it's much worse than what the media is saying. Can you imagine what it would do even in New York City, where prices are already skyrocket? I mean, you get a glass of orange juice, is it ten bucks?
PAT: Probably in some places, yeah.
STU: Certainly at the hotels it is.
PAT: Oh, for sure.
GLENN: At the hotels it's more than ten bucks. So the first one is raise minimum wage. Which would cause massive unemployment.
Then reform the National Labor Relations Act. Enhance workers right to organize and rebuild the middle class. So the right to work goes away.
PAT: Yeah. Because you're going to have unions everywhere.
GLENN: Yeah. Everywhere there would be a union.
PAT: It's a good idea. Good idea.
GLENN: Pass comprehensive immigration reform to grow the economy and protect the exploitation of low wage workers. Are you crazy?
PAT: Grow the economy. How does that -- how does that grow the economy, by all of a sudden granting amnesty to 12 to 20 million people who are here. It just makes it okay for them to be here completely and solidifies the fact that, you know, American citizens aren't going to have those jobs. I don't care America citizens of what color, they're not going to have those jobs.
GLENN: Here's what's interesting to me. The president said he's released -- I want to get this exact quote. Maybe I'm reading too much into this. Stu, you give him the benefit of the doubt.
There was a sort of progressive statement of principles about what it means to be a progressive by some of these friends of mine, according to the president.
Quote, I noted that it was basically my agenda, except for trade.
Here's the trade section.
PAT: Wow.
GLENN: Oppose trade deals that hand more power to corporations, at the expense of American jobs, workers rights, and the environment.
So the president is saying, I agreed -- these were my agenda points, except for the trade agenda.
STU: And this is -- I assume is the fight between him and Elizabeth Warren.
PAT: On free trade.
STU: Where he seems to be --
GLENN: And why do you think the Republicans are for the free trade? It hands more power to the corporations at the expense of American jobs.
STU: Well --
PAT: I don't think they describe it that way, but, yeah.
GLENN: I bet it is.
PAT: Nobody knows.
GLENN: Nobody knows.
STU: Yeah. I'm much more free trade than Elizabeth Warren, certainly.
GLENN: Yes, yes.
STU: I think everybody on earth is more free trade than Elizabeth Warren. It's hard to know on this. You wind up thinking, am I choosing between Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren as my two choices?
GLENN: Yes.
STU: Which is more of a fundamental foundational problem with the country.
GLENN: Yes. You're going from a full-fledged socialist to a Marxist. Which one do you vote for?
STU: How do you parse that?
GLENN: She's full-fledged socialist. She would have us looking like Denmark overnight. He's a full-fledged Marxist revolutionary.
STU: He's probably more right on this one than she is. Right?
PAT: It looks like it.
STU: I think so.
PAT: Which is why Republicans say they have the votes to pass this thing. Have you seen that?
GLENN: Yeah. So, again, on one side, you have Elizabeth Warren. On the other side, the president. And on another side, Mitch McConnell. I don't trust any of them.
STU: No.
PAT: Although, Obama and McConnell seem to be on the same side.
GLENN: So that leads me to believe Elizabeth Warren.
[laughter]
I mean, I really don't know who to believe on that one.
PAT: Not in that triangle.
GLENN: I talked to someone in Washington who went into the room and read it and said, Glenn, it has to have -- I think it's 60 days -- 45 or 60 days of sunlight. Has to. Otherwise, it cannot be passed. Congress cannot pass it without it having an open airing. He said, I honestly don't know -- he said, I read it. I don't know why it's been kept secret. He said, there's nothing in there that glares at me. He said, but it would take a team of attorneys to go through it. That's why the sunlight is necessary. He said, these bills are too big and too complex. And he said, I know that there are attorneys out there, that once it is online, they'll go through every single line. And they'll bring it up and say, wait. Wait. This is in there. He said, I didn't see anything. But that doesn't mean it's not there. Because this president has shown over and over again that he makes bad deals.
PAT: Right. And someone we respect a lot too. So you would tend to believe him. If he says he didn't see anything bad in it, it sounds like there's nothing bad in it.
GLENN: But he did say it needs a full airing.
PAT: We're not against that.
STU: It makes you nervous when the president all of a sudden seems pro free trade. I just don't believe that those are his principles. But judging on the surface, you know, I'm certainly going to be more free trade.
PAT: Is it possible that he could do one thing right in eight years? Is it possible?
STU: Well, he did kill bin Laden.
PAT: Okay. Two things right.
GLENN: He didn't. I want to point this out. He didn't. It took him a year to decide.
STU: Yeah. But then when he did decide, he took the flight over there with a knife and stabbed him in the heart.
PAT: Yeah. And he made the toughest decision in 500 years.
GLENN: So it was Barack Obama in the library with a candelabra.
PAT: No. It was a knife.
STU: Don't be ridiculous.
PAT: Come on, Glenn.
GLENN: So here's what we have so far with the de Blasio plan. Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, nationwide. Allow the unions to organize anywhere. Make sure that we get all of the immigrants that are already here. The illegals that are already here. Make them legal.
PAT: You have to help the economy.
GLENN: Oppose any trade deal that gives more power to corporations. Pass national sick-leave. Pass family -- paid family sick-leave.
PAT: So if I'm sick, my wife gets to stay home as well? Is that it?
GLENN: Yeah, paid family leave.
PAT: The whole family gets to stay --
PAT: What?
PAT: Yeah. The Family Medical Leave Act. It's not just for super, hey, I have a cold.
GLENN: No. It's like cancer.
STU: Major. Yeah, something like that. You can actually leave. But the company is not forced to pay you for that time.
PAT: So this one the company would be forced. Wow.
GLENN: Here's the problem with that. Sure, you might have companies that are so grinchy. But those companies, eventually no one wants to work for. You know what I mean? They're so bad. But there's a lot of companies that, like, if you guys left and said, hey, my wife has cancer, I would do my best to hold on. But if it went on for however long --
STU: At some point, yeah.
GLENN: At some point, you know, this is a bad example.
PAT: How long? Like a week and a half?
GLENN: Like 20 minutes. If she's not better by the time I get back from the next break, I can't do it.
PAT: That's understandable.
GLENN: You can see that. It's the CFO of the company. Can you imagine how bad you would be if you fired somebody because their wife had cancer and was in the hospital. Nobody would want to do that. The press would be awful. Awful. You would make as many accommodations as you possibly could. But at some point, you're like, I have to have a CFO.
STU: Yeah, someone actually has to do the job.
PAT: Yes.
GLENN: And I can't have some guy in the interim.
PAT: And you can't necessarily pay 2CFOs. One that's actually working and one at home with his --
STU: You can under this plan though.
GLENN: Yeah!
PAT: Is that funded by the government?
GLENN: No.
STU: By evil corporations and their profits, which they don't need?
PAT: Jeez. Can you imagine doing that to a small business. It would kill them.
GLENN: You can't make it. This is a kill all small businesses plan.
STU: It's a genocidal business plan.
GLENN: It really is. Small business genocide. Never again is now. Make Pre-K after-school programs and child care universal.
STU: Yeah. So this was his big change --
PAT: Oh, wow. Child care too.
GLENN: Yeah, babysitters are free now.
PAT: That's a good deal if you can get it.
STU: That's one of the first things he did in New York. It was universal Pre-K.
PAT: He didn't do child care.
GLENN: What kind of grinch is he?
STU: I don't know if he did child care.
GLENN: If I can get my kids from three years old --
PAT: To be raised by somebody else. And I don't have to pick them up until like 9:30 at night, and I just dump them in bed as soon as they get home, that would be ideal. That would be ideal.
GLENN: I don't know if I want to pick them up at all.
JEFFY: Thank you. Thank you.
PAT: Right. You don't need to pick them up at all. Why not child care overnight, every night.
GLENN: Here's what I want to do. I want to have sex with, let's call them surrogates.
STU: Okay.
GLENN: When they get pregnant, I'm not there.
PAT: Why would you be?
GLENN: You put them right in Pre-K. Mom's got child care.
PAT: Besides, she should have had an abortion, she wouldn't have to deal with any of this.
GLENN: Exactly right. That's what I was pushing for. The abortion. Okay. If I can't kill the kid, I don't want to see the kid. I want the kid going right to the government. It's a shared responsibility.
PAT: Should she decide to choose with her own body and have the kid, then it's her responsibility for the first three years. And then you dump them into child care.
GLENN: Right. So you know if she changes her mind anywhere in the first three years, she can still kill the child.
PAT: Like it's a late-term abortion. Really long-term. Like 25th trimester.
GLENN: That's Peter Singer: Before they reach the age of consciousness where they know tomorrow is coming.
STU: Yes, that's the way he phrases it. If they can't say, Daddy, please don't kill me, you're free to go.
GLENN: No. No. They can say, Daddy, please, don't kill me. They just can't say, Daddy, please don't kill me because I want to see tomorrow.
PAT: Or I want to watch Cartoon Network tomorrow.
GLENN: Tomorrow.
PAT: So you can't kill me today.
GLENN: As long as they say I want to watch the Cartoon Network today and today only, then you can abort them. As long as you can convince them there is no tomorrow, you can kill them. That's an actual Peter singer viewpoint.
STU: We may have mangled it a little bit, but not much.
GLENN: Not much.
STU: He initially said you should be able to commit an abortion. Infanticide. Beyond that, it was three to five years old.
GLENN: He said three. Then he came out and apologized.
STU: I'm glad. At least he apologized.
GLENN: Except he apologized and said, I shouldn't have put a time on it. It should be open to any time.
PAT: You don't want to limit yourself to three years. The kid could be 19 and not know tomorrow is coming.
GLENN: Exactly right.
STU: Yeah. What if he's turning out like Jeffy. You're not allowed to --
PAT: Exactly. Or orphan Annie. Well, I guess she knew the sun was coming out tomorrow, didn't she?
GLENN: Yeah, she was singing the song.
PAT: That was a bad example.
GLENN: That's all we have to do. Is, if we want to be evil bastards, once they start killing all the children because it's legal, we just sing: The sun will come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow! As long as we have that, our kids can live.
STU: Yay!
GLENN: Expand the income tax credit. Allow students to refinance student loan debt.
VOICE: Well, what if there is no tomorrow. There wasn't one today.
GLENN: Right.
PAT: Did you think about that?
GLENN: They can all die.
Close the carried interest loophole. End tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Implement the Buffett rule so millionaires pay their fair share.
PAT: Yes! Finally!
GLENN: Close the CEO tax loophole --
PAT: Another finally.
GLENN: -- that allows corporations to take advantage of performance pay write-offs.
PAT: Yeah. I hate that
STU: It's about time.
GLENN: Yeah. There's the 13-point progressive plan that Bill de Blasio is now hocking and thinking about running for president of the United States.
PAT: That guy would kill us. He would finish the job that Barack Obama has started.
GLENN: And when it wouldn't work, he would blame us. As they always do.
STU: Why is he doing this so fast? You just became mayor of New York. It's because if he hangs around long enough for his policies to really get into effect, no one is going to elect him.
GLENN: Well, the good news is, he's forcing Hillary Clinton to run to the left.
STU: Yes.
GLENN: So between him and Elizabeth Warren, she is running hard to the left. Notice nobody is talking about that.
PAT: There was an article on Drudge yesterday.
GLENN: Drudge.
PAT: Yeah, but at least it's out there. That she is, what, the most liberal elite candidate.
GLENN: Ever.
PAT: Yeah, or at least in decades.
GLENN: So she is going hard left, which is good. Because you'll see where she stands. We have her on record now, scoffing at the 20-week abortion rule. Passed Congress last week. She says, that's not right.
STU: It's amazing. You're talked about something that is supported by over 85 percent of Americans. It's the third trimester sort of stuff where, I mean, it's not even close.
GLENN: Money doesn't talk. It screams. And she needs money for her campaign now. She needs to be as far left as she possibly can be.