The Young Turks - About Turn

Episode Date: October 4, 2022

Florida Senators are voting for more federal aid even though they voted against hurricane relief. Brazil’s presidential race is forced into a second round after the former president could not secure the majority of the vote. Iran’s supreme leader blames the United States for the mass protests. PA Candidate Doug Mastriano pledges that if he is elected he will ban porn, pole dancing, and CRT on day one. Host: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. 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. It's Anna, it's John. We're gonna have an awesome show. That's right, I'm back. I know you're all excited. You're all wondering, where was Anna? I was on a cruise. I was overeating, oversleeping. I feel super hyper right now as a result. John, how you doing? I'm good. I'm wondering, are we going to find out much more about the cruise on the bonus episode today? Yes, yes, for our members only bonus episode, I will continue to talk about how I did nothing. I want to know about these buffets personally. Okay, actually I do have a lot of interesting stories to share about moneyed individuals, people with money. What kind of life do they live? Okay, what is a cruise like for people with money versus those without money?

It's actually really interesting. really interesting. I want to know these things. You'll know these things. If you're a member, t-y-t.com slash join to become one. Jank Yager is out for today. He'll be back later this week. We're going to have an awesome show today. John will be here for the entirety of the show after he's already hosted damage report, which is pretty bonkers. I don't even remember that show. So thank you for doing it, John. Don't worry. I put that show to my mind the second it's done. Sometimes before it's done. You're the hardest working man, probably in the company. You're on all the shows. You do all the shows. You're the boy. You do it all. I'm happy to be here with you.

Well, why don't we actually get started with the first story, something that broke while I was away, something that I've been really wanting to talk about on the show. What happened in Florida and the disaster relief money that Republican lawmakers voted against. Senator, you wrote a letter Friday to the Senate Appropriations Committee asking for disaster relief dollars for desperately needed resources to rebuild Florida communities. After Hurricane Sandy hit Northeastern states in 2012, you voted no on a $50 billion relief package. What a relevant question to ask the Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, especially after Hurricane Ian, destroyed some portions of the state, including areas like Fort Myers,

which has been almost completely wiped out as a result of a storm surge. Now, these hurricanes, of course, have been happening in Florida, but they're happening more frequently. They've become more intense. There's all sorts of issues involving, yes, climate change, overdevelopment. And so maybe it's a bad idea to vote against disaster relief funding when you know for a fact that your own state suffers from these natural disasters and tends to need help. But Marco Rubio isn't the only Republican lawmaker who has voted against disaster relief funding. You have Rick Scott, who used to be the governor of Florida, but is now a lawmaker. These are both Republican senators from the state of Florida who voted against the federal

funding for hurricane relief. But now they're soliciting some help from the federal government. They need some funds and they have signed on to a letter asking for those funds. Here's what the the letter says, a robust and timely federal response, including through supplemental programs and funding, will be required to ensure that sufficient resources are provided to rebuild critical infrastructure and public services capacity and to assist our fellow Floridians in rebuilding their lives. This was a letter sent to the Senate Appropriations Committee, essentially soliciting some government funding to help rebuild parts of Florida that have been destroyed. Now, I think that it is the right thing to do. The whole point of the government

is to protect its constituents, to respond to these kinds of emergencies and these disasters. Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, people like DeSantis are getting a lot of heat for being massive hypocrites for previously voting against this type of relief funding. But wait till you get a load of Matt Gates, who's actually even worse if you ask me. But before I get to him, John, I want to hear your thoughts. Yeah, my thoughts are that he's a weenie and a weasel. Pick your W word, he's that thing. He's why people hate politicians because he's so clearly lying about something very, very important using lies that have been debunked literally five years ago and still continuing to spread those lies. The host on the broadcast that you showed did a good job

of both framing the conversation around his obvious hypocrisy. And then when he told lies about why he supposedly did what he did. She was ready with at least a little bit of fact checking on that. The issue, though, that puts us in a bit of a bind is that a lot of Florida voters won't necessarily see this. But even if they were to, I wonder how much they would care. Because think about the hypocrisy. So he was against the funding when it was, say, Hurricane Sandy or something. And he's for the funding now. I bet they probably agree with him on both of those things. They probably don't care if New York City or New Jersey or something gets the funds they need to recover. And they definitely want the funds for themselves too.

Is it possible that his hypocrisy is actually kind of representative of what a lot of people who, you know, they're probably not thinking too much about this. They're not necessarily focusing on the human cost of having politicians like Marco Rubio who don't give a damn about what happens in any other part of the country. But I wonder if they would honestly just agree with his stances? Well, I think that is an important point to make, John, and I think you're unfortunately correct about that. And it's because the country is so divided that we almost see individual states as entirely

different countries that are enemies rather than fellow Americans that we should support, even if they have political views that differ from our own, right? So to your point about Dana Bash, having some facts ready to debunk the lies that Marco Rubio was telling, I do want to show that portion of the conversation and then fill you in a little more because what Marco Rubio was essentially saying was, well, I voted against it because there was all this pork that wasn't related to disaster relief. That was a lie. And the fact of the matter is, doesn't seem like he has any concern about other Americans and other states needing assistance and relief after a natural disaster. So without further ado, let's watch that video. for your state when you didn't vote for a package to help theirs? Oh, I've always voted for hurricane and disaster relief. I've even voted for it without pay for us. What I didn't vote for in Sandy is because they had included things like a roof for a museum in Washington, D.C., for fisheries in Alaska.

It had been loaded up with a bunch of things that had nothing to do with disaster relief. And I wouldn't support disaster relief efforts. I would never put out there that we should go use a disaster relief package for Florida as a way to pay for all kinds of other things people want around the country. I read the Congressional Research Service report last night. It sounds like that roof actually was damaged by the hurricane. And what happened in Alaska was the result of another disaster. But in any event, my question is about the future.

Are you telling me that if Hurricane Ian relief contains anything that smells like pork, you'll vote no? Sure. Sure, I mean, he just says it. But again, let's double down on the incredibly critical point here, which is, is Marco Rubio didn't vote down that bill because it had pork that was unrelated to disaster relief. The other provisions absolutely did have to do with disaster relief. It's just that it has to do with disasters in other states that he doesn't care about at all.

And so literally a day, one day before he and Rick Scott had sent that letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee, He voted against the stop gap measure that would have provided hurricane relief funding. The stop gap spending bill that the Senate passed on Thursday includes about $18.8 billion in additional funding for the federal emergency management agency to respond to Hurricane Ian and future disasters. All 25 senators who refused to vote for the bill were Republicans. And Rick Scott voted against it along with Marco Rubio, who didn't vote at all. He abstained. But Rubio does have a history of voting against disaster relief funding. For instance, in 2013, he voted against the $50 billion relief bill meant to help states impacted by Hurricane Sandy, which of course left a trail of damage on the East Coast and hundreds dead.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who was a congressman at the time, also voted against multiple bills that would have provided aid to victims of Sandy. And so this is an ongoing trend. You see it happen over and over again. And it's just amazing to me because whenever they're in need, whenever they need to deliver for their constituents, all of a sudden they pretend like they're pro relief funding. But fact of the matter is they're always against it. They always vote down those types of bills because, first of all, they never want to think about what could happen in the future. They never want to be prepared for any natural disasters, which inevitably happen.

But they also point to all the other provisions that help other states out. Are we the United States of America or is it just about Florida? It's crazy. I thought they valued unity, I found out after Biden's speech a month ago. Yeah, and look, we can definitely talk about how, like, like, We're all going to be affected by the ravages of climate change. It's going to be incredibly damaging and incredibly costly all over the country, but not equally distributed.

Florida's probably going to be hit harder. And so when he helps to stop the prevention that would be necessary to make that extra damage in future decades not happen, we're going to be footing the bill as a nation for the extra costs that Florida and places like it are going to be required. And we'll pay it because we do believe that we're in the United States of America. But why is it that he gets to make us pay even more that we could stop it from happening? That would be nice, I would love to do that. He won't let us do that.

Republicans like him won't let us do that. And so we're obligated in future decades to send the buckets necessary to save Miami. We'll do it again because we actually have compassion and we care. But they're not just stopping the aid after the disasters. They're making the disasters more likely to be terrible in the future. But the one other thing I wanted to say was when it comes to her fact checking, which I think was okay, and it's about as much fact checking and as vigorous fact checking as you're allowed to do in the media. But imagine if it was- It's as good as it gets, John. It is.

It is. But imagine if instead of, oh no, I looked into both of those and that was actually disaster relief funding. Well, moving on, imagine if instead he says they fixed a roof and that wasn't disaster relief funding. fix these fisheries in Alaska and that wasn't disaster relief funding. Imagine if she'd come back and said, oh my God, has your, have your aides, has your office so misinformed you? Dear God, you, like, you were trying to do the right thing, but they gave you this terrible information. No, the facts are that all of that was disasterally funding. Do you now regret the horrible mistake that you made in voting against that when obviously your heart was in the right place? Or if he were to potentially be able to remember another example, we, we, we

We talked on the damage report about New York Times did a fact check. Ted Cruz's office put together 21 things that were in that legislation that they opposed as pork barrel spending. Only one was not actually related to the disaster relief spending. So 20 of their examples were for disaster relief. So put him on the spot and say, since this cannot be the reason you opposed it because your reasons make no sense, what's the actual reason? And Senator, if you would like to move on to other topics, we'll get to that after you answer this.

If not, we can just end the interview. Because you're clearly lying to myself, as well as people who've been through these disasters, why did you actually oppose this since your argument is BS? They could never say it, but imagine if they did. I mean, that would be interesting to watch him weasel his way out of. I think it'd be difficult for him to do it. But yeah, I mean, that would be a great line of questions or great line of questioning. Because look, when we talk about division, they're the ones who sew it, right?

They're the ones who have this us versus them mentality. My heart breaks for people in Florida. And, you know, when you talk about Fort Myers, you look at the before and after photos of Fort Myers. I was just in Fort Myers last July with family there. I was there with my in-laws and we had a great time. Usually when I go visit my in-laws there, we'll take a quick trip to Fort Myers. It's only two hours away from where they live and take like a little mini vacation together as

family and we've built some memories there. And the majority of the local community there is absolutely Republican. I believe like 60% of the voters there cast their ballots for Donald Trump. Who cares? I don't care. At the end of the day, they're Americans. They've been devastated by what happened. They absolutely deserve the federal relief. I'm happy to see that money go toward them so they can rebuild their lives. But what makes I think some Americans different from others is you have some Americans who just, they don't see other people who have different political beliefs or might live in a different state as their peers or fellow Americans. They just see them as the others, regardless of race, regardless of religious creed, they don't

care. And that kind of division is destroying this country in so many different ways. I get it, we're gonna have political ideas that differ. We get angry, we debate those ideas, But to have this inhumane callous response, this us versus them kind of response when people are in need, it's just disgusting. And that's not what leaders are supposed to do. That's not what public servants are supposed to do. But Marco Rubio actually isn't as terrible, believe it or not, as some other Republican lawmakers based in the great state of Florida, because Matt Gates proudly voted against disaster relief funding and admitted that he voted against it because he doesn't want to give Democrats a win during this.

lame duck session. I'm not even kidding. So here's, let's go to his statement here, because he was asked about it. Gates joined dozens of his colleagues in signing a letter that said they would, quote, do what is necessary to prevent additional funding for the Biden administration. Okay, this is not funding for Biden. This is funding for the people in Florida or other states that have experienced terrible natural disasters and need help rebuilding their lives. The letter continues to say, any legislation that sets the stage for a lame duck fight on government funding gives Democrats one final opportunity to pass that agenda. John, what exactly is that agenda? If I, if I recall correctly, the agenda here with that

funding is to provide relief to people in the state of Florida. Yeah. Where Matt Gates is a lawmaker. No, this is literally like drowning your constituents to own the libs. It's like Biden, Brandon is desperately trying to help you dry off all of your possessions and get the power back up. But Matt Gates thinks that you would rather see him look bad than actually be able to live in your home or have your businesses open once again. I am assuming that there are not a lot of Republicans, even that like Matt Gates that actually believe that, I am hoping that this is him misreading the room. I don't know, we'll see. I doubt he's going to be booted out of Congress over, like, so abdicating his ethical responsibilities to his constituents.

Well, the constituents need to know about what Matt Gates is up to and what he's doing. And if you live in a media bubble that purposely censors that kind of content, you're just not aware. You're not aware of your lawmakers, literally working against your best interests. It's just, it is insane. But it is heartbreaking. I feel terrible for people who have been impacted by this hurricane. Again, Fort Myers, like looking at those pictures, I was on vacation when it all happened, but looking at those pictures, I was just tearing up because I can't imagine. Yeah. Just watching your entire life just be submerged in floodwaters and it's all gone, you know, and to know that you live in a state that doesn't typically like to help people

out with government programs, that's also terrifying. Anyway, all right, well, we've got some international news in the next segment. We're going to get you up to date with the elections in Brazil. We'll also talk about the ongoing protests in Iran. Important stories, so don't miss them. We'll be right back. and John Iderola with you. We've got a pretty important segment on some international news. So why don't we take a quick trip over to Brazil and give you guys an update on the elections there. Brazil's presidential election between incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro, who is known as the Trump of the Tropics,

and Lula de Silva will go to a second round, because unfortunately, Lula de Silva, the leftist candidate, did not receive a majority of the votes, meaning more than 50% in order to avoid a second round. Now, while some progressives in Brazil are disappointed by this, Lula de Silva is just undeterred, defiant, and excited to continue campaigning to basically win this election. And I certainly hope he does. Here are the percentages with more than 99.5% of votes counted,

The leftist veteran Luis Inacio Lula de Silva had secured 48.3% of the vote, not enough to avoid the October 30th runoff with rival Jair Bolsonaro. My understanding is they don't call it a runoff. They call it a second round, but you guys get the picture. In the US, we would call it a runoff. Nonetheless, Bolsonaro who significantly outperformed pollsters predictions and received 43.3%. Now the polls did indicate that Lula de Silva had a massive lead over Bolsonaro. I think the reason why you see some disappointment among progressives in Brazil is that they did not expect a second round to need to happen. And leading up to the election, you have the Trump of the tropics, Zaire Bolsonaro, essentially spouting the same election fraud lies that Trump had spewed

prior to the 2020 presidential election, he had also implied that he wouldn't step down or accept defeat if he lost the election, essentially setting up a similar scenario that we have been experiencing here in the United States with Trump refusing to concede. But what I will say is after the election over the weekend showing that there would need to be a second round and that the pollsters overestimated the support for Lula de Silva, Shire Bolsonaro, shockingly, not questioning whether there was election fraud in this presidential election, John. That is funny, but I've seen a couple statements from him that imply that there was still fraud, actually.

I mean, one would think it's impossible to maintain that fiction, not only when you haven't been knocked out, so you have another chance, so there's not as much of an incentive to imply that the entire thing was fake, but also the fact that you did better than the polls indicated. Now, of course, they're going to say that that's proof that the polls were lies, but that isn't proof that the electoral system is secure, the fact that he did even better. And if you were to ask them, why are all the polls lies? Because that's what he says in the same way that Trump and Republicans say that here, that all the polls are lies, despite the fact that they're conducted by many different organizations independently. They're all lies. Why? Well, it's to maintain

this fiction that he has no support so that they can steal the election and it'll look like it makes sense. So why didn't they steal the election then? Why? Why? Why didn't De Silva get 60% of the vote, 55% of the vote? Why? They don't have any answer. How is it exactly that they're doing all this coordination and how is it exactly that the challenger is able to rig the vote in all of these disparate counties rather than the president who would theoretically have more capacity?

None of this makes any sense. And it doesn't matter if it's in Brazil or if it's if it's in the U.S., if it's in Russia. The arguments are all the same. They're all nonsensical except in that they're designed. to appeal to people who have a victim complex when you train your supporters to believe that the other side are the absolute worst, they'll do nothing to not lose, or there's nothing that they won't do to not lose, then you'll believe anything. You don't have to make rational arguments. And so that's what we're seeing. But bear in mind, he's going to continue to assert

that you can't trust the vote, even if it may, if it allowed him into the second round, because he needs to keep the option of saying it just in case in the second round, De Silva does win. Right. And look, Lula de Silva does have a significant lead over Jayao Bolsonaro. So the chances of him winning the presidential election, winning the second round, pretty high chances, right? And Lula knows that, which is why he remains defiant. He didn't, you know, get disappointed or at least didn't show that he was disappointed. He said following the results of the election, quote, the struggle continues until our final victory. We are going to win these elections, this is for this for us is simply extra time. I mean, the man is incredible,

not only due to the policies that he had implemented when he was the leader of Brazil, he lifted tens of millions of Brazilians out of poverty. He was doing really well in the previous presidential election. And the reason why he didn't win is because he was made a political prisoner by Bolsonaro and, you know, the judge who was working with Bolsonaro to essentially throw Lula de Silva in prison for these like trumped up nonsense corruption allegations. That was thrown out eventually, which is why he's able to run in this election. But when he was casting his ballot, when Lula was, he made a point about that, about how good it felt to be able to vote because in the previous election, he didn't have the ability to.

He was thrown in prison because he was made a political prisoner. So it would clear the way for Bolsonaro to be the leader. But I want to go back to a quick point you made, John, I think it's an important one about this conditioning of victimhood, right? Conditioning people to see themselves as victims when they're not. It is amazing how well that works, how easy it is to propagandize people into thinking that they're somehow being screwed over, they're somehow victims because of their political ideology. A good example is, I mean, conservatives here in the United States constantly talking about how they're censored, how leftists won't have conversations with them, how they won't be debated,

because we're always running away from them. They will make that argument, like, as they're on progressive or leftist shows. It's like, it's amazing. And there's no stop in that line of thinking, even as there's a contradiction slapping them in the face, you know? Yeah, yeah, no, 100%. And for For some, it's to train them to think of themselves as victims when they're not. You know, like think middle class or wealthy Republicans that believe that them being white is the worst handicap ever and they're being, like that's absolute nonsense. And then there's taking people who are actually victims of a variety of different things, very poor conservatives potentially and convincing them that they're a different sort of victim.

It's not their economic problems really that need to be fixed. It's something else, something that doesn't challenge the economic status quo. What's been interesting about this, the election in Brazil, because I've been following a great episode of John Oliver's show, breaking it down last week, I've been tracking some of what Bolsonaro's been saying and everything. And all too often, I feel like for a very long time, people are not upfront about their lack of expertise about the politics of different countries. Because different countries are different political histories, different political cultures.

I'm not an expert on Brazil. I'm simply not. And yeah, I've noticed that it seems to matter less these days. If you, if you listen to Bolsonaro, if you see his speeches, it sounds exactly like what you could say Trump or you could say DeSantis or Tucker Carlson are saying. It's the same exact boogeyman. And honestly, Vladimir Putin had his big speech just a few days ago. He was talking about literal Satanism and the transgender community and everything. Like in the same way that like fast food franchises have made every town in America kind of the same, like boneheaded primal, pathetic conservatism has made the politics of so many countries seemingly the same on the surface at the very least.

No, absolutely. And the reason why they go to their endless talking points about transgender people or whatever is because they want any distraction, any scapegoat for the pain and suffering they cause by colluding with corporate interest to essentially rob their own constituents. And it's disgusting because at the end of the day, everyone gets screwed. The only people who come out winning are the corrupt politicians and the corporations they serve in the communities they target, get demonize, harassed, targeted. And the rest of the population who gets fooled into believing these narratives get robbed. It's just, it's so wrong. And, And the other thing I wanted to just quickly mention is this is such a critical election,

because it's not just about Brazil, it's about what Bolsonaro is doing to the indigenous community there, what Bolsonaro has done to the Amazon with the endless logging that's been taking place, just destroying the Amazon rainforest, and he seems to have absolutely no regard for democracy. And I think that was already evident in what he did to his political opponent in the previous presidential election. But we'll keep an eye on this. As I mentioned, the second round will take place October 30th. And I really do hope that Lula de Silva keeps up with this momentum. He's an incredibly inspiring person. And this would be incredible news. Lula winning would be just a massive win for not just Brazil, but for progressives and leftists across the globe.

All right, well, let's move on to some of the unrest taking place in Iran. It's interesting, John, you and I have covered this story together, and we're continuing to cover it together. And I'm happy to do it. So let's talk about the latest. Why aren't the big news outlets covering the protests in Iran? Protesters are being killed. There's brutal killings from the regime. They've gone into Sharif University right now, which is one of the top universities in the world.

They've imprisoned the students. Gunshots have been heard. Mahjabrani is frustrated over the fact that it doesn't seem as though there's enough attention being paid to the protests that have been taking place for several weeks in Iran. These protests were sparked by the death of a young woman who was taken into custody by the morality police in Iran for allegedly wearing her hijab incorrectly. It was later discovered that she was dead. The authorities claimed that she died due to a heart attack as a 22-year-old. But witnesses say that she was severely beaten in custody, and that's what led to her death. Now, while that might have been the catalyst for the unrest that's currently taking place in Iran, there's a lot more going on that is worth discussing.

There had been a lot of rage brewing as a result of these antiquated religious ideas, social control, political censorship. And it's all just kind of come to a point where Iranians are not only taking, to the street, they're refusing to call this a protest. They're saying, no, this is a revolution. There is no turning back. So the Ayatollah finally weighed in on this. He broke his silence today. And here's what Ali Kamei had to say about the unrest. It's the US's fault. It's the West's fault. It's not our fault for brutalizing people, especially women. It's not our fault for engaging in the kind of disgusting political censorship and oppression that we've been engaging.

And no, it's the US's fault. But there is a bit of truth to that statement, which I do want to talk about because it's more nuanced than he's wrong, the US is great, the West is great, we've done nothing wrong. The US has played a little role in this with their economic sanctions against Iran, which has completely devastated the economic stability of innocent Iranians. And this was after, of course, Donald Trump decided to rip up the Iran nuclear deal, which Iran had agreed to, had been following. They had completely stopped developing their nuclear program. There were safeguards in place to make sure that they were following through on their promises. But of course, Trump came in, ripped that up, and what do you think Iran's going to do? They're going to go back to

developing their nuclear program. And so the sanctions have devastated people there, and it happened And just before COVID, and as we all know, COVID has been an economic disaster for most countries. So it's just been one issue compounding after another, after another. Now let's get you the actual statement by the Ayatollah. Speaking to a cadre of police students in Tehran, Khomeini said that he was heartbroken by the death of 22-year-old Masa Amini in police custody, calling it a sad incident. Really, do you really find it sad? Why was she arrested in the first place? However, he sharply condemned the protests as a foreign plot to destabilize Iran echoing authorities previous comments. He says the rioting was planned. These riots and insecurities were designed

by America and the Zionist regime and their employees. Yes, yes, it was America that convinced the morality police in Iran to take a 22 year old woman into custody. and then allegedly beat her to death. But I do want to get to the nuance in a moment. John, I want to give you a chance to jump in first, though. Yeah, so, I mean, I guess I'm jumping in as late in this now as he is. Like, his statement is terrible. His statement is trash.

But also everything that he or any other representative of the government says has to, you have to take it understanding that they have waited a very, very long time. So anything they say is going to be obviously. more suspect, less effective than if they'd said it very early. If you want to convince us that you think it's such a sad incident, maybe on day one that would have worked if you'd shown like a little bit of sympathy or empathy, not weeks later seeming only to mention it because the protests haven't yet been absolutely crushed as you've been trying to do all along, then no, it doesn't count for literally anything.

The plot obviously is conspiratorial. Why wouldn't it be everything in politics is these days. Like to hear some of the most influential people in Iran, in the United States, in politics and media, nothing is organic. Nothing actually just happens. It's all planned. I don't under, is everybody in government in meetings like all the time planning all this stuff? How exactly would we get all of these young people in Iran to protest day after day after day with the threat of imprisonment or death? How would we convince them to keep doing that? And honestly, as bad of an excuse as it is to say that it's a foreign plot, let's say that it was. So, it's now on you to control what you can control, perhaps by no longer trying to control

what you've been needlessly controlling for literally decades. You can't necessarily stop the economic damage of those sanctions or whatever. That's an ongoing diplomatic problem that should be solved. But when it comes to the morality police, I kind of feel like that's within your control. If you wanted to end that and released at least a little bit of the pressure on the Iranian people, then perhaps they'd be a bit more sympathetic towards you when it comes to the economic stuff. But you're not choosing to do that. You're just pointing the finger abroad and pretending that that's the source of all of your problems.

The people of Iran know that that's not the case. They know exactly what form of oppression they're suffering from. Yeah, you're exactly right about that. And so let me just get to the nuance that I keep alluding to. Look, the reason why the supreme leader, the Ayatollah, has any power in the first place is because of the coup, the United States orchestrated in Iran. So there is some truth to the U.S. having a role in helping things develop the way they have in Iran, which has been pretty disastrous for the people in Iran. We went against their political will and engaged in regime change on behalf of business interests. And so there's accuracy and if he had made a statement like that, but of course he's not going to make that statement because that's what led to his power and he doesn't want to give that up.

You're right, but you're being way too generous. That is not what he's saying. He's saying this protest, okay. No, no, but this protest, John, I protests are never only about the thing that sparks it. Right? So you have the yellow vest protests in France. It wasn't just about attack, one tax. It was about all of the neoliberal policies that were squeezing workers in France that just led to the unrest in response to that one spark, that one final spark, right? And I think that's what we're seeing in Iran as well.

There's frustration, obviously, over these insanely conservative religious standards that they have there. the oppression, there's been frustration brewing over that. But there's also a lot of anger over how people are doing economically. And it's US foreign policy 101 to implement sanctions so people like the regular citizens of that country get so fed up that they start fighting for a revolution or they start pushing for regime change. It's like one of the tactics the US gets involved in. I don't agree with that tactic because I don't think the US US should be meddling in the political business of other countries.

I think that it should be organic. And look, I'm 100% in favor of these protests. I want them to live in a freer society, a better society. But there is a small role by the United States. And I would be lying to the audience if I didn't mention that. That's what I'm trying to say. I get what you're saying. And the general point about these social movements, not necessarily being about the one thing

can be true, but I also think that in each of those, you could try to sort of plot in a qualitative sense. Yeah, but how significant is the initial spark? Like, this isn't just about her death, perhaps, as tragic as it is, but about the system of social and cultural control. That doesn't necessarily encapsulate all of the concerns, clearly, like if you listen to the protesters, it doesn't, but it's also more than enough by itself. If that was the only thing, I think that's enough to generate a social movement like this. And, yeah, like, again, he's not, he's not making the point that, like, this is the, this is the obvious end result of decades of American foreign.

Like, you're making a nuanced point that's based in history and makes sense. He is not listening to people's actual concerns and trying to convince them, you've just been manipulated by the Americans who we will literally won't even allow you to access the internet to listen to what the Americans are saying. They can't hear us right now. And so, like, that's not going to work. That's just not a convincing argument at that point. Oh, 100%.

And let me just be clear. I mean, he's not a good faith actor. He's not an honest actor. Of course, he's just trying to place the blame on external factors rather than, you know, maybe reflecting on how he has taken a part in brutalizing people in that country over whatever religious morality or standards of morality he might have. But I do want to also just, the young women who are out there taking their hijabs off and really putting themselves at so much risk are so incredibly brave. I'm so inspired by them. I do want to go to one more video here because in this video you'll see, you know, female students. They're at an all female school taking their hijabs off, like swing.

in the hijabs over their heads while chanting, and it's in it's in Farsi. So let me just translate it real quick. They're chanting death to the dictator. So let's take a quick look at that video. It's a dog. I like this a go. My dad is a dog. And I mean, thousands of people have already been arrested for taking part in these demonstrations.

It's hard to pin down the exact number of fatalities. Amnesty International put out a number that says. dozens of people, upwards of 50 individuals have died, including five children, but the numbers probably higher than that. Some of the protesters have been met with live ammunition. It's just what you would expect from a terrible oppressive regime, and they're still willing to put their literal lives on the line to fight for a better future. Yeah, it's obviously incredibly inspiring. And it makes me think, like I know sometimes, I think even our fans get annoyed at how much time I spend, especially on the damage report,

responding to incredibly fragile, broken men, freaking out about everything involving women, about women in the military, whether it's Tucker Carlson or she hulk comes out and they just start crying for literally weeks and the woman king comes out and Ben Shapiro like hides under the covers for a full weekend. Like the reason that I freak out so much about that is when I see like those scenes, And we've been seeing them now for a couple of weeks, it is a reminder that should not be necessary of how much women are capable of, how brave and strong and big and effective they can be. And these guys don't want that. They want humanity to face its future with an arm tied behind its back.

Not all of us working together as best as we can be, as free as we can be, accomplishing everything that we can do. They don't want that. They are on the side of the oppressors. In Iran, here, it's the exact same thing. We see that and we're inspired. Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro see that and they're ready to start crying again. They do not women want women to be inspired. They don't want them to see those scenes.

They don't want them to see fictional depictions. We should all be cheering this sort of bravery. I could not agree more. And I think the biggest miscalculation I have personally experienced by conservative of men is the effort to underestimate the capabilities of women. I think Dennis Prager learned that lesson the hard way last week. Just putting that out there. But to the women of Iran, to all the people who are fighting for more rights,

for a better future, more power to you, solidarity. I just love that they're fighting. And we'll stay on this story and update you guys as we learn more. For now though, we gotta take a break. Send in your super chat, send in your members comments. I'll read them during the social break. But when we come back, we'll give you an update on a Pennsylvania Republican candidates efforts to manufacture more culture wars.

And in an effort of doing so, basically telling constituents, I'm gonna do nothing for you. That story and more coming right up. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and John Ida Rola with you. If you're not already watching the damage report, a TYT network show that's hosted by John, you should be and you should also subscribe to his YouTube channel. John, what kind of crazy stuff were you up to today? today? What did we talk about today? There was a little bit of updates in the document scandal.

More documents that apparently had not been turned over, including electronic communications. So we gave a little bit of update on that, as well as a couple different defections that appear to be going on in Trump's legal team. So that was definitely fun. Hershal Walker gave an interview, terrible idea. He should literally never do that. And oh, no, definitely Rick Scott doing everything he can to dodge questions about what Marjorie Green and Trump have been saying the threats they've been making its other politicians. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, we're going to get to a little Rick Scott later in the show. For now, though, there's another crazy person who's worth discussing. And that's gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano.

So let's discuss what he's up to. On day one, the sexualization of our kids, pole dancing, and all this other crap that's going on will be forbidden in our schools. On day one, all the graphic pornographic books that are in elementary schools will be pulled out. On day one and done, critical race theory is out the window. That's right. Come on. Yeah, day one and done is the feeling most women had after their first date with Doug Mastriano. But nonetheless, he's a Republican Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate.

And he was telling the people of the great state of Pennsylvania in that little spiel that he plans on doing dittily squat for them on his first day in office. Should he win that gubernatorial race? He's facing off with Democrat Josh Shapiro in the general election and I would go for Shapiro. Because again, what Maastriano was saying there is I'm not gonna do anything for you guys because everything he listed is a non-issue. Kids in elementary school aren't doing poll dancing and they certainly aren't watching porn in their classrooms. Okay, I mean, the schools don't even have enough funding for textbooks they need. The idea that they've got like a browser subscription and they're watching porn in class is ridiculous.

But these are the kinds of non-issues they campaign on because what else would they do? I mean, what else would they campaign on? We're gonna hold corporations responsible for robbing you and not paying their fair share in taxes. Hell no, they're funded by those guys. So they gotta find something to run on. So why not manufacture nonsense to outrage the people of people of people, Pennsylvania. Yeah, and but they did like it. I mean, they were, they were cheering. Interestingly, cheered harder for getting rid of CRT, I think, than all of these save the children stuff. It should

all be equally, it shouldn't merit applause, since that stuff isn't actually happening, as Anna points out, they're not, they don't, American schools don't even have good enough internet to stream high definition porn, okay? Like, it's not an actual problem. But if you're a conservative, I get that you've been convinced that this is serious. Like us saying, by the way, CRT literally is not being taught in a single second grade class means nothing to them because they think that it does. They think that there are pole dancing classes in kindergarten. They think that there are litter boxes in the bathrooms.

They have been convinced to believe in saying things. And so the job of a candidate like Mastriano is to just play that insanity. But if you are a conservative and you have not been 100% brainwashed, I would beg of you to think about the actual problems going on in your life, because he's not going to address literally any of them. Like, imagine if you had a car and it was falling apart, and you brought it into the mechanic, and you said, like, my wheels are falling off, my engine doesn't work,

and the transmission makes a whole bunch of weird noises. And the mechanic was like, well, don't worry, I'm going to fix all that. I'm going to get the unicorn off your roof, and you got a troglodyte hump in your tailpipe. We're going to shoe him away. And then the sprites that have taken up in your AC unit. We're going to get rid of them too. You would be shocked at the madness before you.

But what if you had been watching late night TV for the last few years? And Tucker Carlson had told you to worry about troglodytes humping your tailpipe. You might find after a couple of years that that would be convincing to you. But it isn't actually solving your problems. And so why would you trust a guy who is so obviously playing to nonsensical made up stuff? You know he doesn't care about your wages, your odds of retiring, your ability to pay for your health insurance. You know that because he's not even talking about the topics. You know, this whole brouhaha about schools, sexualizing students and all of that.

I mean, are parents involved at all? Because this is what I always wonder about this. I get that there are a lot of parents who are super busy and they might not have the time to, be a little bit of a helicopter parent like my mom was. So my mom knew everything that was going on in school. She was there all the time, okay? And so if anyone had told her, hey, they're showing your daughter's class pornography, she would like, you know, just do the basics. Like look into it. You know, she would, she would inquire about the curriculum and whether or not there's any explicit content being shown in in these classrooms, the thing that shocks me is it doesn't matter how outlandish

the accusation is. No one seems to want to verify the accusation that's being made. They just kind of take it at face value. And what is it about, I don't know, some portion of the country, it might be most people in the country who are so ready and willing to take the sleazyest politicians words at face value and just go along with it and be scared, like constantly live in a state of fear over issues that don't even really exist. Well, I mean, you know that in a lot of elections, really milk toast awful Democrats will try to make the election about how bad the other side is. And it's often not that difficult to do because the other side is pretty bad. Well, you know, that the other side in this case has convinced everyone in that room that you and I,

because we are liberals, we are satanic pedophiles. And so by comparison, Doug Maastriano might be sleazy or Ted Cruz might be a little weenie, but at least I guess they're not satanic pedophiles. So I guess we should side with them. That's like that that makes it a little bit easier. How could anyone say that we're satanic, John? Like look at us. I mean, I guess I'm an atheist. I guess I'm a step closer. Oh, that's true. I don't know. Yeah, but um, yeah, it's it's like- Except when you're an atheist. you don't really believe in Satan. But nonetheless.

He's equally made up. They never seem to understand that point. But yeah, so look, it is one of the worst things you can do politically to train people to only think about politics through the lens of things that you've made up. That's insane. But they have one tech tool that's helping make that work. As you point out, every one of those parents has never seen like a stripping pole or something in a classroom they go to.

They don't read the books in the library. But if they did, they would find that they are not. hardcore pornography. So how can it work? Well, it can work because they don't need to see those things in their school. First of all, they trust Republican politicians implicitly, but more importantly, they are presented with made up stories from somewhere else. So Ben Shapiro, who will never cover the actual news, he'll have some story about a second grade teacher in Louisiana saying the word gay or something, you know, or Tucker Carlson will be able to highlight that in San Francisco there was a drag show or something, they don't need to see it in their actual school because

it's fed to them by libs of TikTok. Now it's all made up, it's all fantasy, but they believe that it's this pervasive problem. Nobody ever needed to prove the rainbow parties were happening or any of these other urban myths, but that didn't stop parents from around the country being terrified by it because they heard about it anecdotally. What were the rainbow parties? Google it. Anyway, just one of these myths. parents believe. That is that that's how it works is they they hear it through the grapevine, but in this case it's the Fox News grapevine or the telegram grapevine or the truth social grapevine. They believe okay, maybe I haven't seen it, but it's everywhere. So it's probably

here too. Listen, if having children means that you're going to live in a state of unjustified fear, maybe reconsider having kids. You know, like if it's going to be that easy to scare you and to think, I don't even know what rainbow parties are, but I mean, Oh, I thought you were joking. I can't say it on it. No, I really don't know what that is. It's explicit. You can read about it in books in elementary school libraries.

Don't even say that because they'll clip it out. There's a how to guide. Well, no lip says that they're doing it. But anyway, here's what the real problem is in states like Pennsylvania. If you're concerned about what's transpiring in public schools, elementary schools, the number one concern should be, is my child receiving a quality education and is my child school properly funded to ensure that they have the resources necessary that my child is receiving a quality education? And the answer to that

question is no. In fact, that's been an ongoing problem in the state of Pennsylvania. And I want to give you some context for that. So Pennsylvania actually ranks 45th out of 50 states when it comes to the share of revenue for school districts. Wow. So they have among all 50 states, they have among the lowest budget for their public schools. In fact, there's been a total funding shortfall of at least $4.6 billion. And as you can imagine, John, the pain isn't shared by all schools in Pennsylvania. Some schools are funded better than others. For instance, Pennsylvania has one of the widest gaps between low wealth and high wealth school districts in the nation. In fact, a typical

high wealth district in the Commonwealth spends about $4,800 more per student than a low wealth district. And the gap has been growing. And so finally, the governor addressed this to some extent. Governor Tom Wolfe recently solidified his legacy with a historic $3.7 billion education budget, which includes a $1.8 billion increase for the current school year. But this has been an ongoing issue. And again, I just want to reiterate, when schools are so severely underfunded that they can't even provide the basics, the textbooks that the students need to get a decent education, just going to venture to say they're not spending resources on installing stripper poles

or they're not buying porn subscriptions for elementary school kids. So there's a lot of stuff to be scared about here in the United States. I think what we saw transpire in Florida with Hurricane Ian is a good example. The deterioration of our public education, another good example, be scared about that stuff. And go into action to change that, but to be scared about imaginary monsters that Republican candidates who have nothing else to campaign on, throw in your direction, that just doesn't make any sense. Let's all be adults, let's actually verify these claims. All right, we got to take a break that does it for our first hour. When we come back for the second hour, we're going to talk about ExxonMobil having a little bit of a hissy fit over the fact that Biden politely asked them to stop exporting our fossil fuels.

They don't like it because they want to profit by selling oil to the highest bidders. So we'll talk about that and more coming right up. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.