The Young Turks - 2023 ‘Turks & Jerks of the Year’ Special

Episode Date: December 29, 2023

Join TYT's Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola, Dr. Rashad Richey, and Dave Koller for this year's annual Turks and Jerks special. Brace yourselves for the ultimate 2023 rollercoaster ride! Join us as we reflect on the highs and lows of the past year, where heroes clashed with foes in an epic showdown. YouTube and TYT.com members rallied together to nominate the standout community Turks and Jerks of 2023, and we've got the inside scoop on the results! Get ready to relive the moments that defined the year and discover who emerged as the ultimate heroes and, well, the not-so-beloved foes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive?

by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. All right, welcome to Turks and Jerks. We do this every year. We picked the worst person and the best person of the year.

And we are, of course, the ultimate arbiters of that. So Jake Uger, Rashad Ritchie, John Iderola, and Dave Culler with you guys. Of course, Rashad's the host of Indisputable. John's the host of Damage Report. Dave is one of the co-founders at TYT and I'm me. So normally we start with turn of the year because jerk of the year is harder to determine because there's so many candidates normally. But this year, I think jerk of the year, based on your year,

your voting was a little bit easier. Huh. So we're gonna start with jerk of the year. So I'm getting right into it, okay? We got holidays to celebrate. So jerk of the year, who is it going to be? Well, you guys voted, we're gonna tell you the results of your votes, and then we had our own nominees too.

And at the end, we picked based on a combination of all those factors. We're gonna start with John Iderola. You tell us who your jerk of the year was. the year was. First of all, I'm gonna briefly say that I disagree with your premise. I think it's harder to choose a Turk because it took me like three solid days to come up with anyone who wasn't awful. That's the way the world is unfortunately did not take me along to come up with my jerk and probably won't suppress. Okay, I apologize. I am having, I did not get properly set up. Jerk of the year, me on today's stream. That's just Turk of the year, Edwin, doing his job and

remaining below level of the desk. Okay, with that said, let's get into this. My jerk of the perhaps will not surprise many of you because it combines both the spirit of the title as we use it which is that the jerk of the year is not necessarily like the person who you know went out and committed like the worst crimes necessarily it's it's someone who encapsulates jerkiness and is also a person in this case who is just an old school jerk and that's Elon Musk he's the biggest jerk in the country perhaps the world perhaps history mainly because he combines a lot of different aspects of jerkiness. He has a large fan base of people who give him credit for things that he does not deserve

and has not earned. He is a massive waste of potential. He's a guy who, he's made some good choices in his life. He got wealthy early on in life and decided to invest in a number of companies, most of which have done well. And he could have just done that. He could have just, you know, like helped us get to Mars or whatever, you know, help fund this company where the actual engineers doing the work of producing EVs, never forget,

he doesn't know anything about any of that, would help to normalize EVs. He could have just done that and instead he decided, no, he wants to be cool and he wants to be liked and he wants to be funny and so he's ruined it all. Not only for himself in the eyes of reasonable people, his reputation is just absolutely kaput and he's done damage to the companies that he's ostensibly CEO of, but also he He decided I need to have a safe space for myself and it's gonna be Twitter. It's gonna be the entirety of Twitter, I'm gonna buy it and I'm gonna ruin it. I'm going to free it up to all of the worst people, I'm going to make a number of different

changes of the platform, every single one of which has made it worse. And in so doing made it a place that the productive work that had generally been done in terms of activism, journalism that was done on Twitter, it's harder to do it, it's more thankless to do it and I worry about the long term sort of invisible damage that it's done to multiple different areas of our society. I could go into a whole lot more about what we found out about the sexual harassment claims against him, the fact that he's never met an employee that he didn't want to crush beneath his boots, the bizarre, constant, cringy behavior, the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the platforming and normalizing of absolutely horrendous people.

It was almost all bad from start to finish. There were a couple of things that he did that were okay. He kind of helped with Starlink a little bit in Ukraine and then tried to use his control over that technology to harm the war effort in Crimea. And he also made Ronda Santis look like an absolute doofus during the launch of his presidential campaign, thanks to it taking place on Twitter, which didn't work anymore. But other than that, it was really bad and he's a major jerk. Yeah, but tell us how you really feel. John. So I can keep going if you want. I have a lot to say. That was very clear.

Or as I think Elon Musk would say Bart will have this. We'll see what are things about that. Let's see how Earth responds to that. There you go. And of all the things that you mentioned, I think firing two-thirds of his employees at Twitter is probably really high up there. All right, but let's get a different thought on jerk of the year. We're going to go to Dr. Rashad Rishi, a host of Indisput. Okay, all right, so we're doing jerk, right? Yes. Okay, Matt Gates.

Need to say more. On face alone? Right. First of all, this hairstyle. Here's the thing. There's nothing to like about Matt Gates. I agree with John. You can actually find a couple of things, maybe remnants.

with Elon Musk and a few others. But this guy, no, he likes children. He also gets away with major crimes. He sits on committees that he also utilizes to leverage investigations away from him. He gaslights every single day of his life. He acts as if he's some pro-Christian values saint. While at the same time, according to the narrative,

He snorts cocaine and shows naked pictures to his colleagues in the house. So that's Matt Gates. But here's the dynamic as to why he's the jerker of the year. Matt Gates is the future. He's the future of the Republican Party. He is what the Republican Party will look like post Donald Trump. You see, he's still inside of the mainstream, even though he's a fringe human being. Donald Trump will be the worst president if elected.

I hope to God he actually gets arrested, prosecuted, and placed in the pokey. But the personality of a Matt Gates will personify beyond the Republican Party after Trump. These individuals have no backbone. They are affectless leaders. They have absolutely no care for anyone who elected them. They do not believe in representation. They believe in self-representation, and they hold these positions of power to do one thing, to gain more power. If you are ever confused as to why these political members of Congress or the political gatekeepers of the Republican Party, why are they adverse to allege values they used to have?

Well, they no longer are a party. Their true politics is now power. So whatever it takes to get them in proximity of power, they will now do. So it may seem adverse to some Republican ideology historically held. Why? Because they no longer have a true ideology, it is simply about power. So that is my jerk of the year. Okay, my favorite part of Rashad's explanation was the use of the word pokey. That's right, property.

But look, fair is shown America, so I'll say, I actually think that There's at least one redeeming quality of Elon Musk to you mentioned Starlinked, John, but I think that it's actually better than you even said it. And on Matt Gates, I'll be fair and say there is one thing, which is that he stopped taking corporate back money. Okay? All right, you see that? Look at me finding the silver lining.

Well, and he agreed to do an interview on TYT, which a lot of others don't, including our friends. Yeah, look at the founder of TYT talking about that, okay, I agree. That actually, and that turned into a wild interview with some of the things that Rashad mentioned being mentioned in that interview, and then he never came back out. But at least he had the courage to come on in the first place. Look at that. We found two redeeming things.

Okay, but overall, not good enough. Not even close, so good point, Rashad. All right, Dave, you're next. All right, so first people have to understand when I'm on the show, I try to, I'm always slyly in my own way harkening back to the Friday postgame show. So I go to Latin America. And my jerk of the year at people, here's where you all say, what? Who? Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua.

In reality, this is a lifetime achievement award. Although he did earn it in 2023, and I'll get to that. But he's basically, whoo-woo. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now.

I get a free chili dog. Chili Dog, not included. The Naked God. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. He started off in the 80s as Ronald Reagan's chief nemesis on the global stage, other than maybe, you know, Brezhnev or whatever, and he was a leftist rebel leader. He threw out the dictator in Nicaragua, had a little run as president of Nicaragua in the 80s with his left-leftist principles and was trying to help the population.

Then he went out of power, came back into power, abandoned everything, he is now a tyrant. He basically uses the state machinery of Nicaragua to oppress and jail his political opponents. He's thrown out all social organizations and NGOs who are trying to do anything because he perceives them to be against him. He and his family and his children and his wife run Nicaragua basically as a dictatorship. It's the most politically repressed nation in Central or maybe Latin America. 10% of the population of Nicaragua has left. And those are the people now pressing many of them on the southern border of the U.S. In 2023, good for Nicaragua, Miss Nicaragua won the Miss Universe contest.

And Daniel Ortega didn't like it. He thought that that was a threat to him. So he barred her and her son from coming back to Nicaragua and arrested her husband. Like, what is this guy doing? And why is a jerk is because he's the latest, on the long list of these leftist revolutionaries full of ideals who then become tyrants. You can read Animal Farm or you can go back to Lenin and Stalin and who many, maybe you go back to Robespierre or Julius Caesar, they all do it. I don't know what the hell's wrong with these leftist guys, but Daniel Ortega embodies them. He's one of the last of these traditional Soviet Union supported communist rebels got into power and then just threw it all away to become a dictator.

And so for me, he's the jerk of the year. Okay, and by the way, of course, a lot of leftists have gotten into power, for example, in Uruguay a little while back, and did a great job. As long as they didn't abuse power, and that's the problem with power corrupting. Yeah, but those are leftist politicians, that's fine. These are leftist revolutionaries. Like Nick Uruguayat didn't overthrow a dictatorship. He got elected to power. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's serving.

And of course, Lula in Brazil. Many others, many others. Many others. But the rebels, yeah. Yeah. And it was just a shame because you would think that the rebels would be even better. But unfortunately, it hasn't turned out that way. Okay, so now I want to thank some of you out there,

botch job, thank you for gifting five young tourist memberships. And I mentioned that particularly because one, you're an American hero and two, because a lot of these folks that we mentioned have done a botched job. So kind of appropriate there, everybody, t.com slash join to become a member or t.t.com slash gift to give the gift of membership. And now I move on to my jerk of the year and then I'll tell you who you guys voted for. So mine is a kind of a slam dunk if you asked me. Well, you did ask me and that's why I picked him, Benjamin Netanyahu.

So Hamas did something atrocious on October 7th, killing 1,200 Israelis, over 800 of them civilians. And that is when Israel had the sympathy of the world behind it. And everyone wanted to help. And he took that sympathy that Israel had and lit up dumps the fire with it. And has destroyed any goodwill that Israel had by killing now. now at least 20 times the number of civilians that Hamas has killed. It's by all accounts, New York Times, and including a lot of great journalists in Israel,

some of the worst war crimes we've ever seen in our lifetime, dropping 2,000 pound bombs in the middle of residential areas, four times larger than any bomb. America dropped in Iraq and the worst fighting in residential areas, 29,000 bombs overall, just endless war crimes. endless war crimes and atrocities and he bragged the other day that he had prevented a Palestinian state and that he would always prevent a Palestinian state. So a permanent state of war is what helps him politically, but it doesn't help Israel and it doesn't help the Palestinians,

obviously doesn't help America or the world. And I can go on and on. But apparently it is evident to all of you as well, because when we ask you to vote for Jerk of the Year, in on YouTube in the YouTube community, there was 154,000 votes overall. And the clear winner, Benjamin Nenya, 55, so sorry, that's on t. TYT.com. I'll do that one first, keep it up. On tyt.com, 73, you got 73% of the vote, DNC got 15%, Ken Paxton 8%, that's the Attorney General of Texas, and Lauren Bobard got 2%.

They were first nominated and then votes. Now let's go to YouTube community. He got 55% there. Santos got 17 and Ken Paxton got 15 and Rhonda Santa's got 13. I was a little bit surprised at how well Ken Paxton did in all these polls. And don't get me wrong, he's more than earned it.

He's intensely corrupt. It's so corrupt that even other Republicans in Texas investigated him, but then at the end they panicked And Trump said, no, we like corruption. And Maga fan fan, Maga fan. Way to be corrupt, big guy, fill the swamp, fill the swamp. And then the Texas Republicans were like, oh, sorry, sorry. I forgot we're pro-corruption now.

And he's back to doing atrocious things, including trying to arrest people based on miscarriages, etc. Just an awful, awful human being and certainly should be considered. But in Santos is obvious, DeSantis is obvious. For those of you who don't know, the DNC has been doing their usual antics in the primary and blocking all Biden challengers in a number of states, et cetera. But overall, the clear winner among you guys who are voting was Netanyahu. Now look, there's a little bit of recency bias because that stuff is so dominant in the

news today. And since we do this every year, I went back. and really tried to think through who is it that that is the jerk of the year and not be overly influenced by it. But when I did that, it still came out to Netanyahu because these are historic war crimes. And the amount of people killed in Gaza that are innocent civilians is unbearable. So with your overwhelming vote and ours put in, Benjamin Netanyahu, congratulations. You're the jerk of the year. So yeah, did you have a comment?

Yeah, definitely. So yeah, I tried to think back to the earlier phase of the year. I try to make sure that I wasn't missing anything. I think, look, there are some people like Ken Paxton who sort of like got you coming and going. Like he had the corruption stuff earlier in this year and he closes out the year with Kate Cox. So I think he really earned his spot. I think Benjamin Netanyahu winning the time. Netanyahu winning the top spot.

I mean, you could hypothetically say, well, the war, you know, the continuing war in Ukraine has been absolutely devastating too. But Putin was on our list at the end of last year for very similar reasons because of the number of civilian casualties. I did want to just point out, I thought it was interesting that on our lists, I mean, maybe some people considered him as a finalist and on the community list, no Donald Trump, despite, you know, he's said absolutely horrendous things. He's stoked political violence.

He's talked about leftists being a vermin who need to be rooted out. Not to mention the 91 indictments and all of that, he's certainly been in the news a lot. And we're really facing, you know, potentially him becoming president again, perhaps from the pokey next year to give a shot to Rashad. And yet he wasn't on any list. He's very likely to be on the list next year. Unfortunately, so don't worry about it. Yeah, he's back. Rishat, thoughts about the other candidates?

Yeah, I want to say this about Netanyahu. First of all, obviously, right? That what he has done and what he's doing, the eradicating of life. Now, we're not talking about in mutual combat. We're talking truly about killing children, right? The Gaza Strip, the average age of a Palestinian is 19.2 years of age. Over 40% of Palestinians in that region are under 14 years old. So every time we hear about a death toll, damn near 50% are guaranteed to be children.

So that is the kind of carnage. And we don't have access. As you've pointed out on many shows, Jenk, we don't have access to see the carnage because he got rid of it. He closed it out, made sure we weren't there. So I agree with you, this is historic in nature. These are war crimes and unfortunately we have feckless leaders all across this nation and all across this globe who are unwilling to say and do exactly what is required to stop a tyrant like that. Yeah, I'll give you last two stance on our jerk of the year, Benjamin Nanyahu, 36 kids killed by Hamas on October 7th, heartbreaking, 36, over 9,000. kids killed now in in Gaza by Netanyahu's government.

And in Afghanistan, we were not overly careful in the United States. But nevertheless, Israel in two months has killed more civilians than the US killed in Afghanistan over 20 years. Two months versus 20 years. So unfortunately, Netanyahu is more than earned jerk of the year. Yeah. Could I throw out a few additional names if we have time? And I also want to point out, I do think it's a little bit weird that, you know, that Lauren Bober ended up getting two percent on one of the lists.

It just seems like such like I'm not a fan of Lauren Bobert or whatever, but it seems weird that she ranks there, even if you were gonna choose like, you know, a sort of MAGA adjacent Congresswoman, I feel like Marjorie Green has really worked harder to belong on their list. I mean, she's a sort of person that goes around saying like if she'd been in charge on January 6, they'd have had guns and they would have won. Lauren Bobert's terrible, don't get me wrong, but I feel like Marjorie Green's quite a bit worse. But I would add, I don't know that Ron DeSantis got the credit he does, or the discredit he deserves.

I mean, you had the stunts of flying migrants all over the country. He talks about wanting to gun down migrants at the border, like he's a really bad guy. And the fact that he's running against Trump, I think makes people forget how truly horrific he is. And I also think Greg Abbott deserves a spot there. I mean, he's the guy, you know, deploying the barbed wire wrapped floating buoys, you know, at the southern border. He's just as bad as Ken Paxton when it comes to issues of reproductive rights. He 100% stands as an obstacle to any sort of gun control reform in Texas. He was super on board for the voter suppression and will be going into this next year.

So I feel like Greg Abbott, if it, if the list extended to like 10, definitely deserves a spot there. I like how at TYT, we give the winners first and then the nominees after, which I would add Yaya Sinwart to be a nominee to this list as well. Tell us who. The military leader of Hamas. Oh, yeah, yeah. So no question. I would add Victor Orban, you know, as long as we're doing foreign leaders, he hasn't gone

to Hamas' leader or Netanyahu's level remotely, but he is. He's gone to Ortega's level. He has gone to Ortega's level, that's right. Okay, guys, we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back to the year, including some that you nominated that I hadn't even considered, we're gonna do your nominations for us than ours. So stay right here. All right, back on Turks and Jerks.

Jank Yugar, Dr. Rashad Ritchie, John Iderola, and Dave Kohler with you guys. I'm gonna read a couple of quick comments and we're going to go to Turk of the Year. Third party time wrote in our member section, Edwin for Turker the Year. Nice. It's good guys. All right. Well, let's see if you know. Underrated.

If he makes the list. But I love how you're thinking. Wolf Dragon Donna said my favorite power panel. Well, that's nice that we appreciate it. Twitch Micro on Twitch Rodin. Matt Gates always looks like he's going 100 miles per hour with his head out the window. That is a hilarious comment. And the main reason why I'm reading these comments in the first place.

And then last one is Ford Country wrote in and YouTube members, Nuddy Yahoo, hands down, though dishonorable mission is for anyone who still supports them and should know better looking at you, Federman. And yes, Fetterman is really frustrating these days, but I probably wouldn't go that far. Okay, now having said that, let's go to Turk of the year. Okay, so Turk of the year is usually a challenging category because it's the best person of the year and there's tons of jerks of the year. as nominees, but finding the do-goaters are a little bit more difficult.

But a lot of you had interesting nominations, and then obviously the host here did, and then we'll tell you who won overall. But I'm gonna go to the community first. So this person got a ton of votes in our YouTube community, bow of the fifth column, Justin King. Huh, interesting. So they explained, the community did, that he's a political comment. commentator who gives back to the community, so we like that.

He is the best combat and foreign policy commentator. One member wrote that we have on the left. He also just raised over $10,000 for a woman's domestic violence shelter to make sure the older kids had a tablet and some internet access along with headphones and a gift card. Then he cuts a check for the rest to the shelter. He does it every year. All right, Bo the fifth column did not expect that shows up on our list. I like it and I like how you guys contribute and get us thinking in an unorthodox ways of different ways than we did here.

So that's terrific. Now, an ex one is very important. Doctors and medical professionals in Gaza and a lot of people nominated them and obviously very logical. I don't have to explain it much to you guys, given the harrowing circumstances that they're in and a lot of the hospitals are under siege. and they have stayed there knowing that they can get killed to help others. Many people nominated UAW and SAGA after strikers. I had a similar but a little bit different nomination, which I'll get to a little bit later. And obviously it was the year of the strike in a lot of ways, UAW and SAG and After all delivering major victories.

And I love that they fought back more than anything else. and the fact that they won on top and it got seemingly great deals was terrific, not just for them, but for all workers in America. So thank you guys to all the strikers. And then along, and then Bisan Oda is a Palestinian filmmaker best known for her social media videos documenting the 2023 war in the Gaza Strip that we're seeing now, or the destruction more than a war. And one member stated, Bisan Ordin, for opening our eye to what is happening in the hospitals and refugee camps in Gaza, despite being targeted herself by the IDF, Yil al-Dadu for being the bravest damn journalist in the world, despite being targeted and having almost his entire family murdered by the IDF. He went back to work the next day, selfless. So both the medical workers and the journalist in Gaza. So that is unsurprising that they came up on Turks of the year list.

Now let's go to our list, let's go to John first. Yes, I couldn't agree more about that. Both the professional journalists as well as a civilian citizen journalists. I think super important and so many journalists have died in Gaza already that it doesn't get talked about enough. But I went in a different direction. I tried to look back over the year and thought who in America was doing good work on important issues. And it was noticeably harder than in previous years. And I don't like admitting that.

that I'm not just being cynical, perhaps a lot of names are occurring to you. But I did come up with a few, three of them, in fact, the Tennessee three. So they are collectively my Turk of the year, that is Justin Pierce and Justin Jones, Gloria Johnson, who earlier this year following one of the many, many, many mass shootings in America that happened and nothing is done, used their positions inside the Tennessee state legislature to allow activists to come in and try to get the the Republican super majority there to do literally anything about gun violence. And as a result of that, they were like effectively censured, and then two out of the three, both the justins were expelled. And thankfully they are both

back in their positions. But they face not only being expelled, but also some of the most utterly condescending and racist talking points from the Speaker and other Republicans in the the house, they were mocked and attacked by right wing media around the country, and all for just trying to represent their constituents on a topic, gun violence, that the Republicans in Tennessee had shown they just weren't going to do literally anything about. And so now, thanks to the Republicans there, they have much elevated positions, and will probably accomplish a lot of good in a number of different areas. So for doing this work at great risk, temporarily at least being expelled the Tennessee three of my Turks of the year.

All right, great pick. Rochette, let's go to you. Okay, mentors, mentors, all right? So this is a very personal story for me, but it also has translation to almost anybody. I've always considered myself to be a decent mentor, trying to take opportunities with organizations, etc. And I learned something about three months ago. There's a guy who works for me here in Atlanta, a young guy, very good guy.

And I realized that he had been working for me for about a year. And I had never taken him out to lunch. I had not taken him, you know, to just talk about what his dreams are, what his goals are. Those things are important to people, just graduated college. And the only reason why organizations exist for mentorship is because we fail to seize the moment, the opportunity to mentor those who are around us. And so I encourage everyone to become a mentor is real easy. The word mentor means provide guidance, a little bit of direction,

and all of a sudden you become a mentor. And we may not need so many organizations to do it for us. And so if you aren't a mentor already, pass off to you. If you're not, find you at least one person in 2024 and pour the best year inside of them. All right, excellent. And Dave, you're up. I guess it's the year of the state legislators. My two nominees for Turks of the year are Melissa Hortman,

the Speaker of the House of the Minnesota State, or Minnesota House, and Carrie Diedzik, the majority leader of the Minnesota Senator, Senate. You can ignore almost all the letters between the two D's, and it's DZC. So while a lot of people are talking and dreaming of what we can do, of what we can do through legislation to improve this country and make it more progressive

and responsive to the needs of the citizens. These two ladies in Minnesota passed laws expanding workers' rights and safety, protecting abortion rights, created a paid family leave program in Minnesota, expanded voting rights, gun safety laws, clean energy support, adjustments to the law to improve general fairness, bolstered the social safety net, money for affordable housing and construction, money for school lunches, for nursing homes, shall I go on? Well, I can't go on. That's my list. That's a great accomplishment. They did it, mostly under the radar because the national news doesn't often cover something that's going on in one state. And on top of this, Carrie D-Zick had cancer surgery earlier in the year

while these votes were going on. Now, sure, there were favorable wins in Minnesota. The Democrats controlled both houses and the governorship, and they had a good, healthy budget. But that doesn't guarantee anything. There have been times where at the federal level, Democrats had had the trifecta and the budget at the federal level doesn't matter. There's plenty of money, and they still can't do anything at the federal level. And many other states in the country have favorable wins, and they still don't get nearly this much positive legislation passed. So my Turks of the year are these two ladies from the Minnesota state government, Melissa Hortman and Carrie Diedzik.

These are great picks. And I love the ones that Dave mentioned because they're not in the news that much. And those are incredible accomplishments. And it goes to show you, it turns out there is something you could do if you wanted to do it. And so I love that. I think those are great picks. My picks are also a pair, the two Shons. Sean Fein and Sean O'Brien.

So that's the head of the Teamsters. That's Sean O'Brien on the right and head of the UAW. That's Sean Fane on the left. And so these two badasses pick some fights this year and they won them. And we've been looking for, you know, leaders, whether they're democratic leaders, union leaders, any leaders on the left to step up and take the fight to the other side. And they finally did it. And we've been doing young Turks for 21 years.

And finally, finally, we've got union leaders who are fighting against giant corporate power. And they proved that if you take them on, turns out you can win. You know, for so long, leaders on the left have been compliant, bow their heads. Oh, there's nothing we could do, there's nothing we could do. Well, Sean Fain and Sean O'Brien proved that's not remotely true. This it turns out there's a lot you can do. Get caught trying. And I also love their attitude.

Sean Fane didn't just do whatever union leader my whole life has done. Just go kiss the Democratic president's ass and go, please, please help us. No, he's like, no, no, no, no, no credit, okay? And he had such a tough stance on him, then all of a sudden Biden showed up on the picket line. Huh, you know, Obama had talked about, oh man, if there's a, you know, collective bargaining is at risk, I'm gonna go get my working boots on and I'm gonna join the picket line zero nothing nothing and it's not against Obama that's just how democratic leaders have been my entire life but Joe Biden found a way to get out on that picket line because fein was tough on him and he used his

leverage he didn't just give away the store the minute a Democratic leader walked by it was the correct strategy and then when Trump tried to steal the thunder and come in and pretend that he was for workers. Sean Fing kicked his ass left and right and made it abundantly clear that Trump has never been for the workers. So he just, he took no prisoners. Sean O'Brien was the same with the Teamster strike. They got great deals for their workers. And then Sean O'Brien on top took on the guy I call Senator Wayne Groh from Oklahoma, John Wayne Mullen. Fine, that's his actual name. It sounds like a serial killer. It got into fist the cuffs in the Senate hearings, Bernie had to settle it down.

The fighting left has finally arrived. So I'm thrilled about that. And by the way, they were also nominated by the YouTube community and by folks on t.com as well. So before I tell you who the overall winner is and give you the percentages for the community voting, let's talk it through a little bit. So Dave got me to waver a little bit with his picks. So good Tennessee 3 was great big. But I just, I picked the two shawns because I've never like seen anyone side fight back

like this. And it was just a pleasure to watch. But what do you guys think? I mean, I would have picked them except I knew that if I didn't someone would. So I felt like it was safe not to, which is why I went in a different direction. But also, for me, I just, I liked having activists on the one side, actual elected officials actually working together. I thought that was great, that's why I went in the direction of Tennessee 3.

My main thing, and I'm really happy that you pointed out yours too, because I was not familiar that they'd accomplished all that. It is good to remember that there are leaders out there. Everyday leaders like Rashad is shining a spotlight on. And it's great to have leaders in the labor movement that we can see the stress. strategy they're pursuing, we can see the successes. We can see the next steps already brewing in that particular area. Because it really does feel like, it feels like there are fewer like sort of aspirational

motivational figures for us to look to. You know, there's great movements, which is important, and sometimes that's more important. Like you have all these different people engaging in these strikes across so many different industries. You've got nurses and you've got teachers and you have the screenwriters and you have the actors. you have, you know, in the auto manufacturers as well. That's great too. I feel like we have fewer elected officials that we can point to as people who are in the fight that are trying and maybe not even succeeding. They're up against so much, but they're trying. I feel like we

have fewer now than we've had since like pre-Berny, honestly. Like that's how I feel and it's kind of a depressing thought. It is good to have this sort of opportunity to remember that there there are good people out there, but but I feel like we are lacking that sort of leadership in especially amongst elected officials. Yeah, I mean today on the young Turks, Anna and I gave credit to Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal for writing a strongly worded letter to Tesla. Like that's what we're down to, like praising strongly worded letters. Okay, so we're, this country is so hungry for a fighter and a leader on the left.

And so we're giving you some options here. But I believe one person is going to rise probably for 2028 that'll make a giant difference. That's my sense of it. Rashad, what do you think? You know, I want to say this. I think John is right. There's this sense that dynamic leadership has somehow taken the back seat, not as aggressive, not as vigilant. But I will say we're working inside of a decentralized model of leadership, decentralized model of leadership. So where we used to live,

used to look for a great state or national champion, we may look for a great hyperlocal champion or multiple hyper local champions. And back to the dynamic of mentorship, I give an example, Jake, every single time I see Jake, he mentors me. Why is that? Because he takes time to make sure we're going to have lunch. We're going to have a cup of coffee. We're going to have a conversation. It's going to be guidance. And I'm able to call the brother in a time, talk to him about ways of the world, et cetera. Those moments are moments of leadership as well. So I don't want to discount those moments as if they're not powerful and impactful just like somebody who's a, you know, prominent leader. But that's where the leadership comes from. Because you got to

build a bench of leadership prior to the public moment. And so without the dynamic of support, mentorship, leadership at levels that cannot be seen, you will never produce the levels that are seen. First, thank you, Rashad. That's incredibly kind of you to say. But you guys are right. It is very telling that we don't have a single national political leader on any of our lists. You guys didn't have one, we didn't have one. They're all state level or union leaders, etc. Anyways, Dave, what do you think? Well, all true what everyone's saying, the three of you are kind of to say, yes, we know that positive change comes from the ground up, it's people movements. But when the elected officials do finally come through, whether it's FDR or whatever, I go back to 80 years.

Or Carrie DeTick and Melissa Horton, then, okay, that's great. That affects millions of people. All the people in the state of Minnesota are going to have a better life because of that. So many more than the UAW members. And I know that that has knock on effects at other unions. But when they come through, it's a lot of people's lives who got better, which is why I went with some elected officials. Yeah, well, but Dave, you're right about that, but that's why wouldn't it be amazing if it happened at the federal level where it could affect 330 million people. Yeah.

Can I throw out sort of a two more, like both a Turk and jerk kind of, because there's an area that I don't think we have anyone in. I do think, I don't know if it really fits under the rubric of Turk of the year, but the very predileged. productive journalism is all the different journalists that worked on the stories initially having to do with Clarence Thomas, but then eventually spreading to corruption stories covering the majority of the Supreme Court. I think there was some great work done there that caused a lot of Americans to think about the justices differently than they perhaps had been. I think it helps to put a few cracks in the myth that these are like divinely inspired

fonts of judicial wisdom. No, they're regular people. They're people with political thoughts, political biases, personal failings, financial aspirations. And so I think that was great work. And then I would couple that with, I think Clarence Thomas deserves at least an honorable mention for Jerk of the Year because the dude has not given an inch after all of these revelations. And he's not the other justices have been shown to have accepted gifts and gone on trips and all of that.

And not just at the Supreme Court level, there's been follow up research showing how many judges at the appeals court and the district court have been sent off on these vacations and under the guise of like speaking engagements and things like that. But we have a major problem with our Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, and look, I guess Roberts has given him sort of an assistant saying that all they're gonna do is put out this little statement about ethics. They're not gonna, there's gonna be no oversight, there's going to be no major reforms. He's not gonna be recusing himself on anything.

There's definitely some jerkiness to be had in the Supreme Court as well. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because, and maybe, People might think it's ironic, but it isn't. The journalists come up almost every year for Turk of the year. The reason why people might think it's ironic is because we do a lot of media criticism on the shows, right? But that's the juxtaposition that's so interesting, because it's not ironic. We love journalists, we want great journalism and we applaud great journalism.

We're worried that in mainstream media, we're not getting a lot of it. That's why we do the critiques that we do. But John's absolutely a pro publichood, breaking those stories. about the Supreme Court just particular Clarence Thomas was amazing. By the way, the lever, David Sorota's organization, bringing a ton of stories about the East Palestine train disaster, so many stories about infrastructure and the government doing things wrong. And David Serota's on the left, but he's criticizing the Biden administration,

that's a Democratic administration. That's good journalism. That's honest and challenging the people in power no matter who they are. who they are, and then of course the journalists in Russia are some of the bravest in the world. To, I mean, they are constantly falling out of windows, etc. Putin is just absolutely brutal to real reporters and I can't just can't imagine the courage that they have to do journalism despite all that in great journalism. And then finally, as the people pointed out in the community, the journalists that are in Gaza are unreal. The courage is breathtaking.

And, and I've lost track. I know last we had covered it about a week ago, it was at least 68 journalists killed. It's probably near 100 now, but I've lost track of the count because it's unbelievable how many journalists that they're killing, let alone Shireen Abuakle, who was killed by the IDF before the Gaza war. And by the way, to Israeli journalists too that are brave enough and courageous enough to call out what their own government is doing wrong. So credit to all of them. Okay, now let me go to your guys votes. So at t.yt.com, it was a clear winner,

or there was a clear second place too, but the winner was doctors and medical professionals in Gaza. They came in at 46%. Sean Paine and Sean O'Brien, agreeing with me, 32%. Remember, they had no idea who my pick was. They were nominated by the community, and they came in second at 32%.

UAW and SAG AfterStrikers at 18% and Bissan Olda at 3%. And then now let's go to Young Turks YouTube community. The new BMO ViPorter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card. And then some.

Get your ticket to more with the new BMO VI Porter Mastercard. and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash V-I-Porter to learn more. Where there was an astounding 36,500 votes. Turk of the year usually gets less votes because there's so many jerks and not as enough Turks. But Bo the fifth column, look, even if it's just his fans, I applaud them. Our fans had us win tons of polls.

And I thought that that meant something and it means something when Justin wins Turk of the year in our YouTube community. So great job there. Well, and really fast I would just add on, there's a lot of crossover I think in the audiences. I mean, people in the damage reporter are always talking about the videos. I have people sending me videos on Discord and stuff like that. I think I don't know that we necessarily agree on everything politically, but I think that there's quite a bit of like philosophical and ideological overlap, certainly amongst the audiences.

Totally, I mean, that's near 20,000 votes for him. That is amazing. So great job, Justin, on the performance this year. And then doctors and medical professionals came in second at 26%. UAW and Saga After Strikers third. You see a theme here, and then Sean Fain and Sean O'Brien at 2% coming in fourth. Okay, so last time for a jerk of the year, I concluded that my pick was the correct one. Now, of course, YouTube community and TYT community also agreed with me as well, ty.com community.

In this case, I'm not going with my own pick, I'm going with what the community overall picked, not just in YouTube community, but on our website as well, which is the medical professionals and doctors in Gaza. So there are official Turk of the year, and my God. I mean, they deserve every accolade in the world and they deserve every kind of award. This isn't much at all. But we appreciate them, we love them. And no matter what side of the conflict you agree with, I hope you're on the side of peace and on the side of innocent civilians and not on the side of Israel or, or, you know, certainly not Hamas, right?

It's not about picking sides, it's not about picking identities, it's not about picking countries. It's about protecting innocent civilians on both sides and and that who does that better than doctors and medical professionals, especially as 29,000 bombs were dropped in Gaza for them to stay and to take care of the people who needed them most. Incredible courage and our hats are off to Turk of the year well, well earned. We appreciate. Just briefly, I think people who do that sort of work in war zones in almost any context, I think are like we, we, it's easy for us to say they're brave, but if you really stop and

think about it, it's almost impossible to actually conceive of what they're doing. That's true in almost every context, but it's especially true in this particular one, not only because they're a far greater risk than even medical professionals and other conflicts would be in that, in this particular conflict, it has been, the pattern has been clear that even when they are literally in the medical facilities, they are not safe. They could be bombed at any moment. Whatever sort of normal, like lines in the sand that aren't crossed in terms of attacking medical infrastructure has not been respected in this conflict. And then on top of it, they're working with even less working infrastructure, access to electricity, communications,

medical supplies, all of that, food, clean water, you name it, even compared to other war zones and long-term conflicts. So very difficult, thankless work, and they're doing it. They're sort of doing immediate responses to the massive numbers of deaths and injuries that are happening right now, but they're also staring down the barrel of a coming crisis in terms of spikes in disease, famine. We already see the rates of diarrhea and things like that, like massively shooting up. And the resources are not coming in to stop that.

So they're already overwhelmed and the next few months are going to be even worse. And so I don't think that they can get enough praise. Yeah, and I think it's, you know, they're relatively easy to say, hey, medical's in a war area. But but this one has been particularly brutal. And I keep going back to how small Gaza is, it's about the size of Las Vegas. And I keep to ask you guys to imagine that you're in Las Vegas with your family. and you find out that they're going to drop 29 bombs in Las Vegas, somewhere in Las Vegas, right? And they're 2,000 pound bombs, gigantic, kills anything within 100 feet, I believe,

and then has a kill perimeter that is much larger, an injury perimeter that is much larger, etc. 29 of those, it would make me an absolute, I mean, I would do anything to get out of there. But instead it's been 29,000 and the doctors stayed. Look, I don't think it's a particularly bold thing to say, but I'm not sure I would have stayed. And I'd like to think I have courage, I'd like to think that I take on some risks, etc. But that is a risk that is so stunning. I just can't thank them enough.

And for all the medical professionals, by the way, you don't see in conflicts that aren't talked about as much. Not only the next obvious one, which is Ukraine, but also in Yemen. And in conflicts all across the world. And in Yemen, people were brutalized. The Saudis also dropped an enormous number of bombs in Yemen and killed so many people, and especially from famine. especially from famine, starved them to death, et cetera. And for all the reporters, the journalists and the medical professionals, the nurses that stayed, there was a woman, a US nurse that came out of the Gaza

strip and gave an interview on CNN. And I remember saying that maybe that she should be Turkey of the year, because she not only did all of that, but she got the message out to the rest of the world. You have no idea how bad it is. And that applies to all of these war zones. So obviously, we appreciate all of it. of them. Okay, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna take a quick break here, but we're gonna come

back for the members and one of the things we're gonna do is read some of your hilarious comments. I don't know why you guys are so funny today, okay? But there's a bunch of comments about the Turks and the jerks, and then I want to open it up a little bit more and have a little bit of fun on some oddball jerks and Turks of the year. So there's a great time to become a member, we certainly need it. t-y-t.com slash join.

You can hit a join button below. You can also do t-y-t.com slash gift. And that's a great way to celebrate the holidays overall. And we appreciate all of you. Thank you for being part of the TYT family and community. And for the members, we'll be right back. Back on Turs and Jerks, Jenk, Rashad, John, and Dave with you guys. Like, Ters and Jerks used to take three hours.

We would really belabor the hell out of it, right? So I'm kind of amazed that we zoom past it. It's like we finished it under an hour. It never happens. So I can talk more about Elon Musk if you'd like. Oh, I didn't even get into the Reuters report. Or the cyber truck, do you want me to do the cyber truck for 45 minutes? To hold, hold, okay, but I want to go to some comments here and then oddball turks and jerks for you guys.

And no 1775 Jim wrote in on super chat. For the past few years, I've always considered the jerk of the year has always just been a runner up to Trump. It's a given. I wanted to read that because it's a good point. It's one that is similar to the one that John made. Donald Trump is kind of to jerk of the year what Michael Jordan is to the MVP and the NBA when he played.

Like come on, we all know it's Jordan, okay? But we can't give it to Jordan every year, it's boring, right? So we're everywhere, oh, look, you wing, wink, wink, right? I don't even remember. Yeah, I don't even know if I think. I get that reference. He plays sports. Right, good one, John.

He does play sports. But, but, you know, this year, we, we, Trump got to run for his money. He really did, but it's a good point. Monk Without a Cause wrote in making my new tradition, an annual hot-day gift in the name of my favorite co-hosts is your Jackson White. Okay, that's beautiful. Like that, Action Jackson, or as some of his fans call him, Snacksson, as soon as I heard that,

I thought that was the greatest nickname ever. Okay, so how does, well, I was gonna say, how does one get that lucky? Well, you don't get lucky, you work out and you look great, and that's how you get that nickname. Grind it out in the gym, my friend. That's what you do. Well, I wouldn't know, but yes, that's what I hear.

Okay, so YouTube members, Manuel wrote in, honestly for me, Rashad and the indisputable community are also Turks of the Year, the most positive change driving news show I know. Nice. Well, that's beautiful, isn't it? Well, thank you. Chicks in the mail. That's a very genuine comment. I appreciate that. All right.

Yeah, that's wonderful. I love to hear that. So Rashad drives so much positive change. You know, we did that campaign to get water to the residents of Mississippi that needed the water because there was water as usual was poisoned by things that went wrong. And and Rashad led us to raising $30,000. Jeez. To get those folks clean water.

So absolutely right, driving. And a lot of awareness in addition to the money. So thank you all, everybody. Yeah, 100%. Everybody check out Indisputable. And Mariam Tamimi, thanks for becoming a new member. And on Twitch, T-Pain 89 said, watching my dad who was wearing his Dragon Squad shirt today,

he also got two TDR sweaters and Justice is coming for Christmas. Happy holidays. Wow, I love it. But your dad is not going to outdo me in wearing Dragon Squad shirts. I don't know how many I have, but it's minimum half a does it. Oh my God. And so every day I'm like, do I go red dragon or green dragon or just the thing that says

Dragon Squad? Yellow is good. And we have the grumpy dragon line, shop t.y.com. But of all the faces that I wear, I wear Rashon's face the most. Sounds unfortunate. This is so true. I ran in two jank and he had on my t-shirt. That was amazing.

Yeah. All right. All right, last couple here, Ghost Talk TV wrote it. I like how Gates makes me feel about myself. That's hilarious. He's such a bad guy. It makes me feel good about myself. Dr. Hayes says about Elon Musk, but he invented the dancing robot.

Did he? I don't know. It was a person in a robot costume. It was funny. Okay. Okay, all right, yeah, I'll do one last one. Tall glass of shut up, Jubes says, maybe there should be ranked choice voting for Turks and Jurs. Okay, we're gonna work on that. I like how you're thinking about this, election reform, democracy's on the line, there you go, okay?

All right, I have such a random jerk of the year, oddball pick. Aaron Rogers. So, like, what are you doing, brother? What are you doing, brother? What are you doing? Like, the constant drama around the vaccines and then he recovered from his Achilles heel. No, he didn't, weirdo lies. But, and I'm gonna pair him up with, because it's just popped into my head, with a political

person, Bobby Kennedy Jr. And the reason I'm pairing them up is because half the time I can't tell why they're lying. Like some of the time you can tell, like, oh yeah, he's against Vax, freedom, whatever, right? And Bobby Kennedy Jr. has always been against vaccines way before COVID-19. But then the Ashkenazi Jew thing and how it doesn't affect, why, why did you say that? I was so weird, right? And so yeah, that's just we're throwing out random stuff, so that was my two random ones. John, you had some?

Yeah, I have a few. Obviously we focus mostly on politics, it's sort of our thing. But I did try to think a little bit about like the worlds of art and sports, I know you guys I don't think I do, but I sometimes watch a sport or two. And so Sammy Zane is at the WWE, all around great guy, has done great advocacy, you know, around civilians, you know, being put at risk in conflicts, particularly in Syria. I think he continues to deserve credit for that. I would say Taylor Swift trying to get people interested in voting despite now becoming like

the biggest boogeyman on the on the right. So I think that's worth something, but I have like my most oddball one. is gonna be Greta Gerwig for Barbie because Barbie didn't have to be all that interesting and she just really made something fascinating I think that has a lot to say about both women and men and I wouldn't mention it except that I really enjoy the movie but then also it caused so many hissy fits on the right this year I mean Ben Shapiro I think his review of it is still happening like They just talked about it and talked about it.

It just ruined their life that she made Barbie. And so it's on its own merits, a fascinating movie. I watched it for a second time and it holds up to rewatching. And also it ruined Ben Shapiro's day. So I think that deserves an album mention. Yeah, now that you mention it, we probably should have picked Bud Light for turn of the year. And Taylor Swift, by the way, now being blamed for

for Kansas City's losing streak. So, cause and effect. Yeah, I'm sure that's what it is. I've got an oddball. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Jerk of the year quickly. Not because this person is not a potential candidate for jerk of the year period,

but because of the oddball question she could not answer. And that's a former governor, Nikki Haley, trying to be president of the United States. Somebody post that question, as you know. hey, why did we fight the Civil War? And she could not figure out the answer. And then post the question back to the guy who's not running for president. And he gave the greatest answer, and he's my oddball Turk.

He said, I'm not running for president. You are. Drop mic. This woman was governor of South Carolina, had to deal with the flag. just like other states like Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama. Roots are deep in the south with the legacy of the evil empire known as slavery. But in a town hall meeting, this woman could not simply say, yes, they were fighting to retain the evil industry of slavery. She couldn't do it.

Now here's the dynamic. You trust somebody like that to be in a room with oil tycoons, with powerful men and women, To have your back when she can't answer a simple question at a town hall, of course not. She's my oddball and the guy who posed the question and said I'm not the one running for president. He's my oddball Turk. Yeah. You know, I talked about this on the show today, but I was like, like she's freaking out. She's like he's a Democratic plan.

So what? Like if it's a Democratic plan or a Republican plan ask me, is LeBron James a good basketball player? Like, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what? Like, who cares? Right? Like, but why did they have the civil war is just as easier question, if not easy. Right. Like, it's the easiest question in the world. And she, and she flubbed it. Why? Because she's a panderer. And she apparently thinks that the Republican

voting base is deeply racist and didn't mind slavery. That's why she was reluctant to say the obvious answer of slavery. Exactly. Yeah. And and and I told the story about how when I ran for Congress, my Democratic opponent sent four plants into a town hall to ask me tough questions and they had their talking points, etc. By the end, two of them said they were going to vote for me. Nice. And the third one was wavering. And I say that we have it on tape because I don't want you to think it's BS. It really, that's what happened. Why? Because I guess I bothered to talk to them and they were Democrats to begin with, right? And I talked to him into, hey, why don't, maybe we should fight for our positions, right?

And so the idea that there's a plant, a plan to do what? A plan to ask you really easy questions? Okay, okay, right. Right. So one more thing, I'm a little bummed that there are no national progressives on the list. And unfortunately, that's a little bit telling. It should at least be a candidate, right? If someone nominates, no one even bothered to nominate a single national progressive.

So pretty depressing turn of events, especially in a Democratic administration where they could have asked for more, they could have done more. I don't want to get too depressed talking about it, but it is noteworthy. Dave, your picks were already oddballs, but in a good way, in a great way. Right, like the Turk of the year, you almost swung me. So any other thoughts on it? No, not even a tennis player? The Greek dude?

No, the Greek dude has been playing tennis since he was nine years old. He's forgiven for everything. And he didn't do anything anyway. No, I don't have any oddballs. All right, God bless. Okay, well. Can I throw out one final out ball? Yes.

Because I think that this list has been really biased towards one group and that would be humans. So I would say the Orcas for finally taking it to the yachts of the world's billionaires and millionaires. They're fighting the good fight, they're doing it without weapons, you know. So, but I think they deserve some credit and keep on the good fight, dear Orcas. All right, well, we had a whale of a time, but now we gotta go. I like that. All right, everybody should get indisputable damage report. And of course, young Turks, we love you guys.

Have a great new year. Don't worry, we'll be back tomorrow. But for now, bye bye.