Former Sanders co-chair Nina Turner puts pressure on Biden administration: ‘That $2,000 should have been there on day one’

Nina Turner, former national co-chair of Sen. Bernie Sanders's 2020 presidential campaign, says middle- and lower-income Americans are “drowning” and need a substantial relief package from the White House and congressional Democrats. Turner, along with a large number of progressive leaders within and outside Congress, are pushing the Biden administration to go big and go fast on COVID-19 relief to families that they say are in dire need of help to pay for food, rent and more.“When you have people enduring a pandemic of this nature, they need instant relief,” Turner told Yahoo News. “And so that $2,000 should have been there on day one."

Video transcript

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NINA TURNER: When you have people enduring a pandemic of this nature, they need instant relief, and so that $2,000 should have been there on day 1. I liken it to somebody being in the middle of the ocean drowning.

And if you're on the shore, and you can save them, you say, hold on, wait a minute, I'll be back in a few days, or I'll be back in a month. That won't suffice because they're drowning. And that is what is happening to the overwhelming majority of people in this country and, dare I say, the world, but we're focusing in on the United States of America.

My name is Nina Turner, and I am running for Congress in Ohio's 11th district. That represents portions of greater Cleveland and greater Akron. I am very proud of the progressives that are in that Congress who are really pushing and making it known every single day they are not relenting. So whether it is on getting the $2,000 or canceling student debt or fighting for the $15 an hour minimum wage to be in reconciliation, the progressives are really on the move, and they're really pushing hard.

And we need that, and that's a bubbling up. We forget because it is the members of Congress. But to me, it takes teamwork to make the dream work. And that is a bubbling up of the grassroots that are making that demand, the very voters that we're talking about right now saying, hey, what about us? And we, my party, we should be answering the question, we got you.

Wishbone, jawbone, backbone.

Unity is an action word, I would say, and it takes two parties to participate in unity. I'm OK with having the conversation. But at the end of the day, Democrats are in control. So they can have the conversation with our Republican sisters and brothers.

But ultimately, when it comes to acting on behalf of the people, regardless of their party affiliation-- the last time I checked, there are poor Democrats and poor Republicans. There are Republicans that need health care, and there are Democrats that need health care. And there are others who don't even identify in those ways. They just, flat out, I am a human being in the United States of America. And hello, federal government, I need help.

So have the conversation. That's fine. But you got to act. And yes, Democrats, we got what we asked for. We asked for control of the presidency. We asked for the control of both chambers of the Congress. We have it. So now it is time to deliver on behalf of the people.

I'm running for the 11th congressional district in my home state of Ohio to continue the great work that I've started in service to the people. And that means hearing their pain. My proximity to pain is real. and that's why you've got people like Congresswoman Cori Bush. Her proximity to pain is real.

And people share stories. Even Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley just recently shared a story about student debt. You need more elected officials who come from that working class and have not forgot-- to poor and have not forgotten where they came from, so that they can be there and lift up the muted voices in our country.

Government is needed. And for so often, it's been this narrative, I think, since President Reagan to paint government as negative. Well, that's not the-- government is designed for us to do collectively what we can't do by ourselves. The people who are out there in the streets, from Black Lives Matter to other activists-- just the activist class, the activist leadership-- they are giving me so much hope about what is absolutely possible, that we're going to take-- make the impossible. President Nelson Mandela has a quote that I love so very much. And it is, "It always seems impossible until it is done."