The Young Turks - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Fires Back At Republican And Right-Wingers Slam Trump's SOTU

Episode Date: February 7, 2019

Peggy Noonan tried to come for AOC, and it failed. Rick Santorum, Ann Coulter and more Republicans slammed Trump's SOTU speech. Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS 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. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jane Cougar, Anna Kusperin, Emma Viglin, everybody.

Hello. All right, da-da-da-da-da-da. Okay, good to have you here, Emma. Emma, of course, is a reporter for the Young Turks, is on Rebel HQ. Check out our videos on Facebook and YouTube.com slash RebelHQ. And we've got a big show ahead for you guys, some fallout from the State of the Union, of course, involving Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of course. So, we're gonna get to that in just a sec.

But later in the program, my favorite story guys, I mean, as always, there's a lot of amazing, fascinating stories, but my favorite is Fox News complaining about fairness. Oh my God. So that apparently they've been teaching fairness in the schools and that is unacceptable. And okay, and we've apparently deduced the real source of the problem in America. Okay, so yesterday we've been telling you about John Iderlo's show damage report. That's our live morning show. If you remember, you can get that live video anytime you want.

If you're not, you can do an audio podcast of it, Facebook.com slash the damage report, TYT. We're trying to get the 10,000 followers on there, but we have. So we're done with the damage report and we're never going to discuss it again. All right, so let's move on. We're wasting precious time. Okay, all right, in all seriousness, we got a big show ahead for you guys. And then tonight on Rebel Headquarters, one of my guests is a conservative who is going to defend the State of the Union.

The other guest is instead rational. In fact, the rational national. Yay! Okay, so both of those are going to be super fun guests. Let's get started, Anna, what's up? All right. We begin with reaction to Trump's State of the Union. love going after AOC.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a prime target of theirs, and her appearance at Trump's State of the Union was no exception. In fact, Peggy Noonan, who is an op-ed writer for the Wall Street Journal, and who also happened to serve as a special assistant to Ronald Reagan, had some pretty strong feelings about the way AOC was behaving during the State of the Union. She writes, and good-natured with the white jackets, who I see on some, who I see some on Twitter are calling the straight jackets, okay, AOC had a rare bad night looking not inspired, warm and original as usual, but sullen, teenaged, and at a loss.

So not spirited, by the way. And so first of all, when you say I see some people on Twitter saying that translation of that is I would like to say, because I think it's funny, but I don't want to get in trouble. So I'll ascribe it to other people. And Peggy Newn is a conservative, so she's like, oh, those women in white jackets, straight jackets, they're crazy for being Democrats, ha ha, all right, we got it, that's very classy. Look, I don't mind digging pot shots. I do it all the time, but be honest about who you are.

And then, so does Casa Cortez have to look spirited at all times? And I thought being spirited was kind of a young thing, but now you're saying she's young for not being spirited and that it's some sort of teenager thing. So they have found every imaginable and non-imaginable ways to criticize her. So when she's enthusiastic, she's young and inexperience, but when she's serious, she's sullen and teenage, so no matter what, she's young and they hate her for it. Yes. Yeah, and also, I don't enjoy ever being told by anyone, man or woman, to smile, right?

So how about I get to have whatever facial expression I want to have at any given moment, whether it's a resting bitch face, or it's a look of enthusiasm, or just, you know, a look of complete and utter disgust, which is the look I would have on my face if I were sitting there, listening to this nonsense state of the union address where the person who has divided the country more than any other president in U.S. history is calling for unity, right? So I would have a similar look on my face. But Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as always, will respond to the critics and do so in a swift and effective way, and I'll give you an example.

So she says, why should I be spirited and warm for this embarrassment of a state of the union? Tonight was an unsettling night for our country. The president failed to offer any plan, any vision at all for our future. We're flying without a pilot, and I'm not here to comfort anyone about that fact. Oh, I love that last line. I just love salt and I love sass. And I especially love when it's used in the right context. Yeah, now she comes with a heavy bag of sea salt.

Well, this Wall Street Journal reporter, it's an irksome thing that the mainstream media tends to do a lot of these publications. They have strict standards about what they can and cannot say and they cannot appear partisan, but it's partisan implicitly. You can read it in the framing of how she's talking about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. We know what your political stances are. So it's frustrating that they pretend to be neutral and like these are. Arbiters of truth, but when in reality, in the way that they frame things, it's super

obvious how they feel. To be fair to Payne Newton, she's a columnist, right? And so she gets to have more opinion, but she's still doing that veneer of like, oh, no, no, no, it's not that I disagree with Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, it's just that there's a certain etiquette that you're supposed to have in Washington. To me, those are my favorite, the etiquette cops. You have to be civil, and you have to be civil in a certain way, and you have to be civil. Even if you don't like the president, you have to be warm and spirited.

No, okay. Okay. There's a very specific group of politicians or people in the political world who don't ever, ever get to talk about etiquette, decorum, or any of that. It's the Republicans, right? So as long as you're supportive of who's the president at this moment, right? As long as you're supportive of Trump, you don't get to talk about the rhetoric, the decorum, the etiquette of anyone else.

You don't get to critique it, right? Because you can't just let the president say the things that he says and do the things that he does without any critique and then go off and talk about, oh, Alexandria Acosta Cortez wasn't smiling enough during the State of the Union address. No, you have no leg to stand on. It's over. It's a sexist comment. I mean, I know she's a woman, but when I think you were hinting at this Anna, when people

tell you the smile, it's usually men who are, I don't know, are passing you on the street. Trump supporters would say that to me when I'd interview them sometimes. sometimes, which was a fun anecdote. But yeah, it really is men oftentimes who feel like they can tell you how to feel, how to look, they want you to appear more pleasing. Yeah, so and there is an uneven playing field, as we often point out on the show, where Trump can be the most surly vicious guy there is in the planet and tell you that women are bleeding from wherever and attack them in unspeakable ways.

But when you're at the state of the union, you must be warm and spirited towards him. No. No, why do I have that obligation? I don't. And Republicans can consistently attack Democrats, Joe Wilson, yelling out, you lie to Obama. And Ted Cruz saying that we're going to be stuffed into Hobbit homes. The Louie Gohmert saying Obama is going to reconstitute the Ottoman Empire. Whatever madness, insanity that they have.

They can come up with insane conspiracy theories about how Democrats have organized 99% of the scientists in the world to all lie at once about climate change. I mean, they can, there are no rules for Republicans, no rules at all. But Democrats, you are constrained to incredibly specific rules, including your facial expressions. Right? So no deal, no deal. And when, and that is at the heart of this. It might seem like a fun little story, but there is a core here where Alexander and

Casar Cortez refuses to play by Washington's rules, and it's driving them crazy. I love it. From major issues to minor issues like this. I love it, I love it. So she also gave a response to Trump's State of the Union address and did so on MSNBC. Rachel Maddow invited her on. So I want to play her comments, and then we'll comment on that. The president was unprepared.

I don't think that he did his homework. I, you know, we've seen states of the union addresses delivered, delivered by many presidents, Democrat and Republican. They almost always have substantive policies that are offered. I agree with Senator Kovashar there, that there was no plan. There was no plan to address our opioid crisis. There was no plan to address the cost of health care. There was no plan to increase wages.

It was, you know, I had to ask myself, is this a campaign stop? Or is this a state of the union? So that's a great point. Even if you agree with Trump, and some conservatives are also saying this, like, hey, we like what Trump is saying, but what's the battle plan? What are we doing? Because usually in the state of the union, if you're unfamiliar with these, they lay out what their agenda is for the upcoming year.

And they say, okay, now I think that immigration is a problem, and here's what I'm going to do about it. situation where he has one go-to move, but it's at least the policy, I'm gonna build a wall. Now, he didn't care about it the first two years, all of a sudden he thinks it's a national emergency, but at least it has like some fix to it. Opioid, bad, what, what are you gonna do about it? Well, if you cared about the opioid problem, you might talk about the pharmaceutical industry and the pill mills and et cetera, no.

What's, I mean, if you could discern an answer, it was wall. Everything is wall, wall, but like, are you going to put forward any legislation? And obviously Congress does that, but the president usually backs a piece of legislation or champions a piece of legislation, et cetera. There's no substance at all. And that's a critique not based on whether you agree or disagree with him. So Casimir Cortez, clearly right there again. Yeah, and she's not the only one who's criticized him for lack of clarity, lack of policies.

There are people on the right who have done so as well, including Rick Santorum, a huge supporter of Donald Trump's. So this is not coming from a partisan perspective, this is coming from an actual objective perspective. And he also lost his place in his speech on the prompter several times, which a bunch of people have caught. It seemed like an obvious attempt to humanize him in ways. So he talked about kids with cancer, he talked about cancer treatments, he talked about HIV-AIDS treatment, addressing topics that everyone can agree on and that every president, Obama too,

about these topics, but they were just really side shows to his actual policy proposals because maybe there's some internal polling that says the American people think he's cruel, which is the reality. Right, yeah, that's a good point. I mean, the policy that he wants to champion the most is not a popular policy. Building the wall does not have the majority of voters supporting him. So that's something to keep in mind. Maybe that's why the speech writers pivoted toward the anecdotal stuff, you know, the heartwarming

And by the way, conservatives hated that as well, probably because they're heartwarming stories. But I don't know. No, you don't know. Of course that's why they hated them, right? They're like, oh, stories about heroic Jews, yeah, okay, tell me when the Trump's state of the union is on. Yeah.

Well, let's move on to other critics because I found some of this fascinating. A number of prominent right-wing figures had some pretty critical things to say about Donald Trump's State of the Union address. In fact, Rick Santorum was one of them. Now, for context, Rick Santorum has been very complimentary toward Trump. He's a pretty big Trump supporter. However, following the State of the Union, he had some pretty harsh words for the president's performance.

Take a look. This was probably the worst delivered speech I've heard Donald Trump get. He ran over his lines. He mixed up the line, he didn't deliver his punch lines, he would deliver a line and go to the next issue, and I don't think he even realized he was moving on to the next issue. There wasn't a paragraph. Someone didn't do a good job of breaking his speech, so he knew what to do. That, he got, that was a problem.

Now, where I don't agree with, with Jennifer is the president, I counted, you know many things the president proposed on domestic policy tonight? Now, Bill Clinton, I would sit through this speech and it'd be an encyclopedia of proposals. Stacey Abrams, in four minutes, proposed 40 things. And an hour and a half, Donald Trump proposed eight domestic policy, eight the entire night. Okay, so this is a weird, topsy-turvy world where I actually completely disagree with him on Stacey Abrams. And we talked about that for our members last night. One of our biggest criticisms was that there weren't any specific policy proposals.

But that's beside the fact. What's important here is what he had to say about Donald Trump's speech, which I was actually pretty shocked by. He hated it. He's the guy named after the gay sex act, right? Right? It might be a little bit of- Oh, right, it's the first. Right.

So, yeah, I mean, this is an unimaginable sentence, but I agree with Rick Santorum. So, look, we said it while we were doing the live play-by-play of the State of the Union. He ran in from one topic to another in a way that was, like he was talking about cancer and then he went to charter schools and it was such a run-on sentence with no pause at all that you couldn't tell if the $500 million he was asking for was for cancer or the charter schools. But the one part I disagree with Santorum is, hey, somebody should have broken up to paragraphs for him better, et cetera.

No, I'm sure they did, but he didn't practice the speech. You see people who do their homework and are prepared understand that this is kind of a big deal the whole country's watching. You might want to know what someone else wrote for you in that speech. He's a one page or kind of guy. Exactly, this speech is way longer than a page, so he has trouble concentrating. I mean, I would love to bet anybody on whether he read it twice, right? Now, if it's, look, in an ideal world, the president writes a speech, but nobody lives

in that world, the Republicans don't do it, Democrats don't do it, and they're all theoretically really busy, although Donald Trump has six hours of executive time, right? So he would have to, but okay, I'm not saying. He doesn't say he needs to write it, but he needs to edit it. He needs to at least read it, maybe a couple, and deliver it a couple of times so that you practice it, not because I need you to be a great showman, but because if you care about your side, you want to effectively deliver that message. But of course, the guy hates homework, he's a petulant child.

So that's why he was not prepared, so he's like, cancer, charter schools, whatever, I'm gonna keep going here, I'm tired, right? When do I get back to eating burgers and watching Fox & Friends? So of course it's his fault. Yeah, I mean, right before the State of the Union happened, there was a breaking news story from the New York Times that talked about how Trump was very unhappy with the speech because it wasn't harsh toward the Democrats enough. So what that signal to me was that he was bored with the speech, didn't really feel

passionately about it. And I think that that really did come through in the way that he delivered the speech. speech during the State of the Union. Hey, you know, if you're unhappy with the speech, I got great news for you. You're the President of the United States, you could change it. You could order them to change it, you could edit it yourself, I know, picking up a pen, come on, right? But what do you mean you're unhappy with the speech?

It's a speech you're giving. It's not like you didn't have time to prepare, it was delayed. First of all, you know, when the state of the union is coming up, second of what was delayed by Nancy Pelosi. You had all the time in the world have crafted in any way that you like. And why was he unhappy, by the way, on the substance? Because they emphasized unity. They talked about what Emma mentioned earlier, which is, hey, AIDS, cancer, will try to make

you look human for once in your life? And he's like, ah, I don't like kid, when do we get to punch the Democrats, right? Yep. Well, that would defeat the whole point of your supposed unity speech. And by the way, why does he want unity? Because as he explained, and we told you in the play-by-play as soon as it started, he started talking about unity, and then of course he got to the punch line, which is now if we're going to be unified, you can't do it.

investigations of the president. Well, yeah, now unity is convenient for him because he's lost a chamber of Congress. So that's when you pull unity onto the table, say this is what I want, so I can, you know, we can give more tax cuts to my wealthy friends and to myself. So one of the other conservatives who did not like all the unity talk was Ann Coulter, who Trump apparently has unfollowed on Twitter. And it might be, it might be because she's been coming after him pretty strong, pretty aggressively.

And so here's what she had to say, Golden Beaches of California. This was the lamest, sappiest, most intentionally tear jerking state of the union ever, as opposed to the fear mongering that she loved so much. Please fire your speechwriter Donald Trump. And she also said 45 minutes in, we got 30 seconds on the wall, he better be breaking ground tomorrow. She's so sad. She's such a sad, sad person.

But I actually think that Trump's sadder, because here's Ann Colter giving directives to the president, and before he was largely taken him. And then when people caught on to the fact that he was taking his orders from Manculture, then all of a sudden, as usual, with a petulant child, he got all, you know, through a temper tantrum. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna unfollow you. Like, what president sits around unfollowing people because their feelings were hurt? No, I know, I know, but Jank, she wrote a book titled In Trump We Trust. She wrote a book.

That was the title of her book. She's the biggest opportunist in media. I mean, I don't really think it's close. But I also think this is representative of something larger that's happening with Trump, which is the fact that he's been unable to deliver on the wall. It is the first major loss for him and for his base because he's planted his flag here. He's said the wall is incredibly important. He's been unrelenting on it.

And there seems to be no way that he's actually going to be able to make. make it happen. And she is a constant voice in his ear on his tweet feed saying the wall needs to be built. The wall needs to be built. Tweet feed, Twitter feed. But yeah, she is a representative and indicative of his broken promises to his base and he cannot stand it. And for that, thanks Ann Coulter because it's clearly triggering him. Yeah. Yeah, it is a little bitter tweet to compliment Anne Coulter on that. All right, well, this is the part of the show where I move on immediately. So there's one final part to all of this that I want to get to. Ben Shapiro, in typical Ben Shapiro fashion, shared his fast-paced talking points about the State of the Union address

that happened last night. Wow, that was pretty smarter than you. Well, thank you. Anyway, so during his commentary, he felt that it was important to bring up what he perceives as disrespectful behavior by Democrats. Take a look. You can see in the background, if you're you were watching this, the Nancy Pelosi is ruffling through sheets of paper, which, by the way, is kind of rude. I mean, just if a Republican had done that while President Obama was president, there'd be endless talk about how condescending it was. Okay, so she was shuffling papers behind Donald Trump, and I don't know what she was doing. I was, I was amused by it. I didn't really think it was that big of a deal, and you should be paying attention to the president's

speech, right? Who cares what Nancy Pelosi is doing behind him? But nonetheless, I do want to Can I just say before we move on to the hypocrisy, which is gonna be super fun. I don't want, if you didn't watch State of the Union, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. It's not like the entire time that for the hour and a half of Trump, the interminable speech that Trump was giving, Nancy Pelosi's like, no, she did that once, and we made note of it in our play by play, which you should always check out when there's a political event. So, at one point she wrote notes and I said, man, I'd love to see what notes she just took. And that was it.

It was for a short period of time, she took a note, she shuffled some papers. Can you believe it? No, Jake, I think you're being a big hypocrite right now because if anybody did something like that to Obama, everybody would be really upset about it, the media would talk about it, they wouldn't let it go, they would think it was super disrespectful, except here's the thing. There were some individuals. It was weird how smart you got there again.

Yeah, wow, you broke the IQ leader. So there were Republicans, there were Republicans who were incredibly disrespectful to President Obama. One of them was a man by the name of Joe Wilson, who did something during Obama's State of the Union in 2009. If you don't remember, I can help refresh your memory. Take a look. The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegal.

So again, that was Republican Joe Wilson yelling, you lie in the middle of Obama's speech. Because Republicans are so respectful, and they're filled to the room with decorum. And that's why Ben's pointing it out that the Democrats are the ruffians, the barbarians of the gate with their notes and their folders. Which is why I support Donald Trump, a man who swears every other word and can't go a tweet without a typo. Yeah, so when Donald Trump talks about grabbing women by the genitalia, well, that's decorum, that's decorum, okay?

Shuffling papers, oh my God, what has this country come to? This is just absolutely outrageous. This is why we need the insight of the intellectual dark web. Okay. You know what bothers them, I think, more is Nancy Pelosi's approval rating has been really bad for a really long time. But Trump and hating on him has been very good for business for Nancy Pelosi. Her approval rating has hit a new high that it hasn't been at for a really long time.

And now people are making memes about her. She's cool. She's with the AOC crowd, right? And I mean, I know, not really. But truly, there's been kind of a renaissance in her public image, and they can't stand that. So that's part of why Ben Shapiro is getting triggered by paper shuffling. and doing this, which shouldn't bother anyone at all. So I think you make a really great point.

I do think that they're concerned about Democrats and their newfound ability to fight back. I think that's really at the heart of what's going on. Because the Democratic Party and establishment Democrats have been hating on Trump, right? That's never changed. What did change was that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer finally decided to fight. And they finally started to use the same type. of strategy that you would typically see on the Republican side. And so I hope that it's a lesson establishment Democrats have learned, right?

It's not simply, oh, we're hating on Trump, but we're gonna be completely weak when it comes to fighting back. They actually fought back, and it worked, it worked. So I think people on the right are concerned about that. I'm just hoping people on the left have actually learned a lesson from it. Yeah, and finally, we get to the difference between the right and the left in terms of critique of national leaders, whether they're Republicans or Democrats. So for Obama, our critique was that the Affordable Care Act should have included a public

option that would have made prices a little bit more affordable. We were right about that. He shouldn't have done signature Jones strikes, he shouldn't have gone after journalists. Their critique was he shouldn't have put mustard on a burger, he shouldn't have worn a tan suit, he shouldn't have held a coffee while saluting the Marines. Meanwhile, Trump's bowing to North Korean generals, but that is not an issue for them. On Nancy Pelosi, the critique is that she's actually quite conservative in protection of the status quo.

Yesterday we did a story about how her aides are going out and telling healthcare companies, don't worry, we're not gonna do Medicare for all. That is a very important topic and monumental policy in this country. And we're trying to correct the record of the wrong impression of the mainstream media has that Nancy Pelosi is some sort of progressive champion because she did the bare minimum of of standing up to Trump when he is deeply unpopular. Meanwhile, the Shapiro intellectual argument on the right is she shuffled papers. So, and apparently they were upset about the way she clapped at Donald Trump.

And by the way, some on the left were excited about the way she clapped at Donald Trump. So can we- I don't know, Jake, I feel like you're really, you're really grasping straws here with your argument. You're just, you're a straw man argument. That's right, that's why there should be more money in politics, and the donors are always right. And they pay me this about these opinions.

Okay, so I guess to Ben's argument overall, I have this last thing to say. We leave you with that as we go to our break. When we come back, though, we are going to talk about Donald Trump. Yes, he's in the news still. Oh, New Mexico. Governor of New Mexico with a can of whoop-ass. Okay, we'll give you the details on what she's doing. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fitting the Republic or UNFTFT.

As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational,

aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time.

All right, back on a young Turks, let's read some comments. Go to the members first, t.wit.com slash join to become a member. MPC says he talked about cancer and HIV, but has taken away the ability to afford for health care to provide for that care. And that's exactly right. I mean, we made the comment during the play-by-play that while the story of the 10-year-old girl financing her own cancer treatment is heartwarminging and touching, etc. 10-year-olds shouldn't have to finance their own cancer treatments. We should have health care for everyone in this country. So that's why we believe in Medicare for all. And Trump, of course, proposes to do nothing about that. Joy writes in, as loathsome as Pelosi is for being

an establishment hack, the criticism against her and AOC's behaviors by the right wing are a huge sexist backdrop during a patronizing campaign, state of the union speech by a serial cheater an assaulter. Here, here, totally agree. We're always stuck in the position of saying somebody like Pelosi is wrong on the substance, but the attacks against her from the right wing are almost always unjustified and oftentimes tinged with significant sexism. So now, on to Twitter, McGuiver, 505 says the one and only Emma Viglin is on TYT today.

Yay, my day just got exponentially better. That's awesome. There Will Be Witt, writes in, LOL, a conservative talking about a politician being rude. Does he know Trump is president? Yeah, for real. And now finally on YouTube super chat, Gerald Butler, very nice of you, Gerald, thank you for participating in this way. And he said, please keep on keeping the truth to truth, love you all, right back at your brother.

So speaking of the truth, pitchfork economics with Nick Hanhauer is one of our podcasts. You guys got to check this out. I just think it's a terrific podcast and in the latest episode he talks about regulation and how the idea that regulation keeps down growth is total nonsense. And Nick is one of the more successful people in the country who's the first in a non-family investor in Amazon, he sold this company for billions of dollars to Microsoft. So it's not like he doesn't know what he's doing, I mean, he's an actual successful businessman as opposed to Trump.

And so listen to the podcast, it gives you an excellent idea of what's real in economics and what wealth creation and how to improve the economy from a progressive perspective, hence an actual honest perspective, a real perspective. And while you're checking out our podcast, check out No Filter, that's Anna's show, another great podcast and damage report by John as well. And by the way, the Jimmy Doors show too. So lots of great podcasts for you guys. TYT.com slash app is a good way to get all of our podcasts, but obviously wherever you get podcasts as well.

All right, Anna, what's next? All right. The governor of New Mexico is pushing back against Donald Trump's policy of taking active duty troops and sending them to the southern border. Now, earlier this week, the Pentagon had announced that it would send an additional 3,750 active duty troops to go patrol the border, even though they're not supposed to. to do that. And so now the governor, Michelle Grisham, is essentially sending them back, saying, no, I don't want them in my state. This doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Here is her statement. New Mexico will not take part in the president's charade of border fearmongering by misusing our diligent National Guard troops. So she is sending them back. However, a small contingent around a dozen guardsmen will remain in the southwestern corner of the state to assist with humanitarian needs in a remote corridor for cross-border immigration. She also mobilized state police to assist local law enforcement. Governor Grisham also directed 25 troops from other states, including Arkansas, Kansas,

Kentucky, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Wisconsin to withdraw from the New Mexico border. So she has really branded herself as someone who wants to fight back against Donald Trump, and specifically Donald Trump's wall. In fact, I have a fun ad to show you that kind of helps illustrate that point. Let's take a quick look at that. I'm Michelle Lujan, Grisham. New Mexico's 49th in employment and 50th for schools. We got to bust through some walls to make changes.

I'll create public and private partnerships to rebuild our infrastructure. We need more apprenticeships and skills streams. And we have billions in the permanent fund to invest in schools and small businesses. And here's what I think of Trump's wall. Really went for it. Like, bless her heart. Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah.

Was it? No, no, she's a good guy. Like, I'm on her side for sure, especially on this. That ad though, it's like if one of my long's friends tried to make an ad, right? Like, it's just like physical walls running through it and the way she scampered. I really liked it. Okay, all right, okay. It's not for me, it's for other people.

It's cute. Okay. Now, this is a good debate on the young tour. So first of all, an analogy I use about my dad all the time is that he, like, he won't bother trying to find a door. Like, you put him in a room and he will just go right through the wall. Doesn't care. So that spoke to me in that sense.

Second of all, I kept trying to figure out when did they, did they do an edit? Did they do a cut? Or did they do really thin walls and she actually ran through? them, which would be even more fun. I think she ran through them. Yeah, it looked like very thin drywall. But I mean, it had the powdery stuff and everything, I think it was legitimately drywall. Yeah.

See, now we're having a conversation. Thin drywall, obviously, because thick drywall, like you'll really hurt, maybe hurt yourself. I don't know. I've never tried it. I've never ran through a wall, yeah. No, I've done construction. Yes, you will hurt yourself. Did you ever hang drywall?

Of course. That's really impressive. Drywall. Oh, please. Okay. The post came, I'll tell you all the different things I've built. Okay. Including a bathroom.

What? That's right. That's right. So anyway, one day the Republicans would criticize me. This guy worked in construction. I think he knows about politics. I mean Trump. Right, exactly, exactly.

Anyway, I love how she's standing up to it. My favorite part was two things actually. One was ordering all the other states out. She's like, I'm the governor of this state. Yes. I appreciate it, nothing against you guys, but you gotta go now, okay? So, strength. Then the second part that I liked was that it was a smart policy.

So she's like, look, actually in one corner of the state, the southwestern corner in Hidalgo County, she's like, we do have an issue that needs a little bit more humanitarian assistance. So she kept a dozen guardsmen there and told the state police officers to help the local police officers there, because people are coming up to folks' doors, et cetera. She's like, there we have an actual issue and we could deal with it in a humane, intelligent way, and so I'm gonna use the resources I have and direct them to where we have the problem. The rest was just optics, and the Republican governor had ordered the National Guard, their National Guard, when he was in charge last year to go along with Trump's propaganda.

And she's like, and I'm not, no, I'm not doing your marketing gimmicks, right? I'm running through walls and I'm actually taking care of real problems. And yeah, so there are still a lot of federal troops there, right? Which is pointed out in the article and it's crazy that federal law prohibits the use of active duty troops for law enforcement, but we've completely disregarded that. So Trump is in violation of the law technically when he's sending these active duty troops down to the border. But presidents have done it in the past 12 years, according to this article.

So I just find it crazy how we've decided. that some illegal actions are totally fine because the president does it. I mean, under Obama, NSA spying too. But it's just bizarre that it's something we've just agreed upon. Yeah, look, I agree with you, but I think the way in which Trump uses members of our military as political props is unprecedented, right? So Trump doesn't do it because he genuinely thinks there's an issue at the border. He does it to paint this narrative of a disaster, a crisis at the border.

border, something that our military needs to get involved in to protect national security. Now we know that that couldn't be further from the truth. These are individuals who are coming into the country seeking asylum. They're fleeing violence in their own countries. Now, if you want to have a debate about the economic strain that puts in the country, that's one thing, right? But what Trump is doing is painting these people as dangerous criminals who are coming in to murder everyone, and that is just not the case, period.

So, all right, let's run through the next story the way she ran through that drywall. All right, let's do it. It's be strong. Actually, you know what, I just forgot, we do have to take a break. Let's take that break, and when we come back, a pretty explosive story regarding Trump's inaugural chair and how he possibly used one of his companies to get favors from Trump and how he might be investigated, that's a terrible tease, I promise you it's a good story. Yeah, it is, but look, I'm gonna throw one of my curb balls there.

So I'm known for the heater, but I got a lot of curveballs. If you watch regularly, you know that. I got one on this story. So let's see if we have a disagreement as fervent as the one we had about the sheetrock. All right, we'll be right. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them.

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Let's do just a couple of comments here. Jan Bramsky, Braski, says, was the New Mexico governor getting primaried by the Kool-Aid man? So that's funny. You guys are probably too young to remember, but the Kool-Aid man would run through walls. But we remember. You remember? No, I can tell you. No, no, I remember.

I don't think those ads are really that old. Oh, really? Maybe we're just getting old, too. I don't know. No, no. Okay, no. Emma's actually young, so I believe her that they're still around. You want to play?

No, no, no, no. No, you want to play? Yikes. You know I'm always down to play. Okay. I don't want to show papers behind you. I don't want to be that disrespectful. Anyway, Dan, either sign Dan or sing Dan.

Anyway, thank you, Dan, because he writes in, just signed up for TYT membership. After 10 years of watching, I own a restaurant and have you guys on every day. I get a lot of heat for putting politics on, but I have a platform and I'm gonna spread the hashtag progressive message. Oh, I love it. I love that. I love that. So if you're in a similar situation, you've got a restaurant, you got a bar, you got any

kind of place where you can put up some programming, put up the Young Turks, you can get It can get it from here, you can get it from YouTube, our site, you can get it from YouTube TV. If you're on local television in New York, R&N, in Washington, D.C., WM.D.E. So turn to that channel, Young Turks is on 7 to 9 p.m. on those local channels, and put us on. Fly the Colors. Love it. And thank you for signing up to be a member. And by the way, if you're a member, I've mentioned this in a while, but you could also upgrade

to. support the show, t.com slash upgrade, I believe is still around. And because there's different levels of membership, you can still get a gift. And then finally, if you like something that we're saying, t.t.com slash yes, or if you're on the site, you just see the yes, blue yes button right next to where you watch the show. Throw something in there. Every part helps. We've got to build a rock solid homo progressives here for you guys, especially as the campaigns

are going on now. Okay, Anna, what is next? Earlier this week, we learned that federal prosecutors are looking into Donald Trump's inaugural committee. Now, very few details are known at this moment about what they're particularly looking into, what are the issues with the inaugural committee. But recently, ProPublica obtained a memo that was tied to a company, an investment firm, called North Star.

Now, North Star was founded by Tom Barak, who was Donald Trump's inaugural chair. Barack also serves as the chairman for this investment firm North Star. Now this is all important because the memo obtained by ProPublica gives us an idea of the strategy that the company, the investment firm had in mind while dealing with Donald Trump and its other connections. So I'm gonna read you some of the information that we know. from this memo. So Colony North Star, the investment firm founded by Tom Barak, planned to use its connections

to capitalize off of Trump's proposed investments in infrastructure. So we all know that Donald Trump claimed that he cared quite a bit about improving America's infrastructure. He talked about it while he was running. He didn't really do anything about it at all until last night during the State of the Union, where he claimed that he cares about the infrastructure again. But he hasn't actually done anything yet. And anything that he has proposed relies on privatization.

So privatizing infrastructure projects. So that's important to keep in mind as we go through this memo. The colony memo shows how the company was positioning itself to take advantage of Barack's relationship with Trump and foreign officials immediately after the president was sworn in. Barack hosted a chairman's dinner during the, during inaugural week with his own private list, which included business people and foreign dignitaries. Now, I'm gonna give you more details in just a minute, but there are two issues here, right? So the first issue is, all right, is he lobbying here and is that okay?

And the second issue is, all right, what's the involvement of these foreigners? Because remember, foreigners are not supposed to donate any money to the inaugural committee. They're not supposed to take part in that at all. So could that be part of the investigation? I don't know, no one knows at the moment, but these are the questions that are being raised as the story develops. The president was sworn in, again, we're going back to what the memo said. During the campaign, the president promised he would rebuild America bridge by bridge and road

by road. While the plan is encouraging and highly needed, the U.S. government does not have the necessary resources to mount such a campaign on its own. Colony North Star can spearhead an operation that contains the external resources required to fulfill the ambitious infrastructure plan being supported by the Trump administration and leaders in the U.S. Congress. The key is to strategically cultivate domestic and international relations while avoiding any appearance of lobbying.

Again, these are the words from the actual memo obtained by ProPublica. If the government can't afford to invest in infrastructure, that is a problem. Maybe you shouldn't give a $1.5 trillion tax cut, which saps the government of resources so that you have to contract this out to your friends who also preside over your inaugural committee. Yeah, so does this highlight Trump's potential corruption, yes. Is it problematic if there were foreign donors giving money to the committee? Yes, that would be a crime.

But that's an if. So overall, I have two thoughts about this. That might be a little surprising. One is that if there is no foreign donations to the committee, this is not that big a deal. So it turns out that it's a crony of the president who wanted to make money off of his connections to the president, to which I say, of course. Now, do you think that all the people who donated to and participated in the inaugural committee of Barack Obama and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton just did it for their health.

Am I saying every one of those guys wanted a trillion-dollar contract? No. But did some of those folks want favors from the president? Of course they did. And that's Washington 101, Corruption 101, am I in favor of it? No, I can't stand it. That's what we fight against the most on this show. But the establishment's disdain for Donald Trump.

Trump has gotten them to actually do some work for a change and expose things that actually happen all the time. So I like that they're exposing the story, I just don't want you to think that Trump's the only one who's ever done this. Well, yeah, it seems like Rick Gates and the fact that he's spoken to Mueller has influenced this because Rick Gates was involved with this firm, and that's why maybe this is coming out now. I just think this is part and parcel of the Trump administration's, the worst aspect of it, which

is this complete blend of industry and corporatism with the government and the kind of free-for-all. So while this may be something that happened under Obama, under Bush, under Clinton, it's more egregious because it's a part of the whole of the corruption as opposed to just one instance of it. So here's the thing that I'm curious about, right? The argument goes, the argument in the memo is, well, the U.S. government doesn't have the resources necessary to carry out this very ambitious proposal by the president. And so this is a great opportunity for our company to jump in, right?

So jump in with what resources are they talking about, right? And they specifically mention their international resources or connections. So these are things that matter. So you're right, Jank, in that the corruption is business as usual in the country. But I think what really stands out about this story is the fact that we're right. Rick Gates is involved, right? And more importantly, the foreign issues that Donald Trump's campaign had, okay? So let me give you the connection to Rick Gates.

Let's go to Graphics 16. Person familiar with the creation of this memo said it was written by Rick Gates, who was deputy chairman of the inaugural committee and was then hired by Barack as a colony consultant. And he's of course now pled guilty to other crimes and cooperated with multiple. Look, I don't know why there were ambassadors at the meeting that Tom Brock put together and what the foreign connection is. Well, how does it give them, did they build infrastructure in Kuwait or something? And he's going to use that.

Why does he care about, is he going to raise money? Not necessarily for the inaugural committee, but for his company from foreign sources and then use that to get the contract here to build infrastructure? I don't know. If he is going to get money from foreign sources, there's nothing illegal about that. So that part will have to see if the investigation covers anything real in that sense. So I'm definitely not prejudging it, as you can tell here. But to me, the most important issue here is what they were going to do with infrastructure.

Instead of having the government do infrastructure as we did in the 1950s, which was incredibly successful, Dwight Eisenhower administration, a Republican administration helped to build the highways, the bridges, et cetera, in this country, made a giant difference for us, improved our economy dramatically. But the idea that the American government can't build roads and bridges anymore, it's preposterous. Well, okay, then how are we doing the military? We've got, what, $750 billion in the Defense Department budget, so I guess we should wrap that up because the American government can't do anything right.

No, this is a way of saying, I want you to spend the same amount of money, but I want you to let me make a giant profit off of it. So in fact, of course, that means that it won't be the same amount of money. If it costs, let's say, a trillion dollars to do all that infrastructure spending, well, when you factor in their profits, it's going to be at least $1.2 trillion or $1.5 trillion. Or maybe they put the upfront costs, but then they put tolls on all those roads and all those bridges, and you pay for the rest of your life, and then maybe they put a trillion in, but They had two trillion out.

So why are we doing that? Why don't we just build it and then hire Americans to do that as we've done throughout American history? Well, I think why Trump ran on that was because it would be popular to increase activity and job activity to push for more infrastructure. Our infrastructure gets a grade of D plus. It's embarrassing. It's a national embarrassment like our healthcare system, like our child care system, our education

system as opposed to a lot of the other industrialized countries in the world, our infrastructure is incredibly bad. So he ran on that. And then he decided he was going to contract it out to his buddies and people who he was involved with. And he hasn't done anything about it, but that's the kind of approach he's going to take. If he actually ran on giving corporate handouts for infrastructure, I doubt it would have been as popular.

Yeah. And so Barack gives money to Trump, he runs his inaugural committee, so he's done favors for Trump, then Trump wants to do a favor for him. Remember, he's the president, he's supposed to do favors for us, the American people. So that's the underlying problem with Trump and the corruption, but also like I said, it happens a lot in Washington, which all they care about is themselves. And so when they see infrastructure, they don't see a way to help the country, they see it a way to grease the pockets of their allies.

And so Trump looks at as a giant piggy bank, and how do I rip people off and hand it to my friends and people who are giving me things? favors back. And so that's why they say, let's work with them on an infrastructure bill. I'd love to. Look, and to be fair, they had a good compromise on criminal justice reform. There there isn't a lot of money involved so they could actually get to an agreement. Here in this case, Trump's going to insist that we pay off his cronies.

No deal, no deal, we'll wait till you're out of office and we'll do real infrastructure bill where Americans are hired and we build it at an affordable price where we don't get ripped off by corrupt politicians. Yeah, that would be ideal. We'll see if that happens. Where's this Barack's birth certificate, by the way? Yeah. Maybe that's why they couldn't finish the deal at the end.

They're like, you know that your friend has the last name that's similar to Barack Obama. He's like, that I'm against it. I'm against it. We're done with it. All right, let's move on to another story. Brett Kavanaugh's position in the D.C. Circuit Court needs to be filled, and Trump has nominated a woman by the name of Naomi Rao to fill that position. Now, she is currently undergoing Senate hearings.

The Senate needs to confirm her, and we're learning quite a bit about her. In college, in a little after college, she had written a number of columns that we had talked about on the show, where she questioned whether... A woman's sobriety plays a role in her getting raped if she has been a victim of rape. But now there are more stories coming out, recently one published in The Intercept, that talks about how she has used her position within the government to essentially stall incredibly important guidance pertaining to sexual harassment in the workplace. Let me give you the details. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which is managed by Naomi Rao, has been stalling a critical employer guidance on workplace sexual harassment for over a year.

So in November of 2017, shortly after the Harvey Weinstein story really blew up, the government got involved. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission delivered the new harassment guidelines to her government agency, the O-I-R-A. But it was fallen back into, it has fallen into a black hole under her leadership. So there hasn't really been any effort to respond to it, to comment on it, to maybe change it to something better, it's just completely stalled. And when you consider what she had written in the past about sexual harassment, about sexual

assault, it does not draw a great picture of who she is and how seriously she takes these issues. Yeah, so as usual, they intercept doing a great job reporting here, because they explain that this has been held up by her for about 15 months. And my immediate question was, okay, but how long does it take normally to get this kind of guidance circulated through that department? And it turns out the answer is 90 days. And so if it's normally three months and this taken 15 months, well, then you get a fuller

context for how much they have held this back. And then they went on to report other facts about it, including why it might be held up. One is, there's two different factors here. One is this office is being used to block a lot of regulations. They don't want regulations, so they just send it into a bureaucracy. And Naomi Rao apparently is being called the deregulation queen by some, for of course for Conservatives, that's such a huge stamp of approval. And that's why she is now getting what could be perceived as a promotion to this incredibly

important court, even though she's never been a judge. And they're like, oh, you're willing to do whatever corporations want to kill regulations that might help the American people. That's it, you're our person, let's get you on the court and move you on up. She's in fact now, you reported as being on the short list for the next Supreme Court nomination for a Republican. She's never been a judge. She's never even been a judge.

She's part of the Federalist Society. The Federalist Society has been fighting to get these anti-regulation conservatives onto the Supreme Court. And that's all that really matters. As long as she is active with that organization, conservative politicians will definitely nominate her at some point. This is the natural progression of the conservative philosophy. She does not want government to work.

She's been clear about that in her writings at Yale and throughout history. They want government to be deregulated, deconstructed, so that there are not these safeguards in place and standards so that they can protect women in the workplace so that there can be the variety of these other protections. It's the natural result of their extremist philosophy. And something that also stuck out to me too from this piece was that some of her writings indicated that she wants to give the president a lot of leeway, kind of like the unitary executive theory where the president can do whatever he wants, and that's what she believes is the true

version of the Constitution. Right, meaning she doesn't believe in the Constitution. Exactly. But that's what blows my mind is these conservatives say that they're strict constructionists, that they believe in the Founding Fathers and their originalist philosophy. The Founding Fathers were incredibly speculative and afraid of a president being ultra-powerful. It is the exact opposite of what she's saying. So conservatives in this day and age are not strict constructionists, they're authoritarian.

And she is a person who is manifesting that philosophy, and that's who they want to fill Brett Kavanaugh's seat. I mean, with her writings about sexual assault, you have to think that Republicans would be even an iota smarter about who they're going to nominate. They had to do one ounce of research, and then they would have figured this out. Well, so let's break down a little bit more why the Conservatives like her so much and why she's useful. But in doing that, I want to go back to the same point I wanted to make about the office that she held under Donald Trump. So they hold up regulations on workplace protection, partly because they don't want any

regulations to hinder business in any way. My God, if you had a person who was discriminating at work, but it cost the company a nickel, Well, who cares about the discrimination? Yeah. We just, we want to protect corporations at all costs. But the second component of it was the new regulations in this case also included guidance on sexual orientation and gender identity being protected. And they don't want to protect those things.

Right. And so that's why they held this one up. And Jeff Sessions prohibited transgender people protections in workplace discrimination under Title VII when he was the head of the Justice Department. So this goes along with the Trump administration theme of no, we do not give the same equal rights to gay Americans that we, or trans Americans, as we give to straight Americans. So by the way, if you continue to be surprised that the Republicans actively, legally discriminate against LGBT community in this country, you're not paying any attention at all.

Or you're getting funded by the Koch brothers. Or you're getting fun by the Koch brothers, or you're being greedy and you think, hey, you know what? I want my tax cuts. And look, I'm already rich. I don't have to worry. They're gonna discriminate against other gay people and I don't really care about them, et cetera. But the Republicans will discriminate against gay people. They do it every time.

Every time they're elected, they do it. So don't come around and pretend to be surprised about it, okay? Yeah. And so, look, there's one other part of this that I wanted to bring up because it's so incredibly short-sighted, even for politicians who don't really care about the American worker, but care much more about corporations. This whole guidance, first of all, it's non-binding, right? This is guidance to essentially help out companies as they navigate through these very complex

issues, because accusations of sexual assault, sexual harassment, they can be difficult to investigate, to decipher all of that. And so the whole point here was to make it so the employer is not liable for inaction. It's like, hey, let's help you out, okay? If an employee comes to you with accusations of sexual harassment or sexual assault, here's some guidance, here's what you can do so you don't end up being liable. So it's hilarious because this wasn't, this was an effort to not only protect employees from terrible actions, but also guidance to help employers when they don't know what to do

when these types of accusations come forward. But they're so obsessed with carrying out their hatred towards certain groups of people, including transgender individuals, that they, you know, will stall this type of guidance and they'll, you know, go against the best interests of everyone in the country, both, you know, corporate leaders and employees. So now I wanna go back to, is it fair to judge what she wrote in college? And they say that she was being intentionally provocative back then. So I can relate to this.

I was intentionally provocative and I was conservative back in college, law school, et cetera. And I wrote things that I regret. The question though is, wait, do you regret it? Have you changed your mind? So I have a long track record and history of being progressive for a long time, right? Now, she doesn't have to be progressive, but did she, is she uncomfortable with those things that she wrote? And her track record indicates she's not at all uncomfortable with it.

So she wrote, she said homosexuals want to redefine marriage and parenthood. Now look, she wrote that back in the 1990s. If she's evolved on that, a lot of Democratic politicians have evolved on that. So okay, that'd be fair and I wouldn't hold it against her. But she's holding up things that would give equal rights. to the homosexual community, the LGBT community in America. Yes. So it appears she hasn't involved at all.

So just own it, just own it, who are you? And that's why conservatives like you, why are we pretending that they like you, what, because you're moderate? No, they like you because you don't believe in LGBT rights. They don't look at the stuff you wrote at Yale as the problem, they view it as the solution. And by the way, why are we having a conversation about Naomi Rao? And she hasn't been a judge, this doesn't make much sense in that context. Here's why we're having a conversation about her.

Because when she was at Yale, she raised her hand and said, I will fight against women, I'm a woman, I will fight against minorities, I'm a minority. And when Republicans see that, they frothed at the mouth. They're like, yes, this is a perfect tool for us. And so to give you a sense of how much more she said against women, she said feminist women Studies programs want to replace the so-called, and this is a description of it, not an exact quote, want to replace so-called male rationality with more sensitive, no, sorry, it is a direct quote.

Feminist in women studies programs want to replace the so-called male rationality with more sensitive responses common to women, she wrote with a why. It may be kinder and gentler, but can you build a bridge with it? Like women, right? You want to be kind and gentle to them, but can you build a bridge with it? Come on, what good are they for? I mean, maybe she's making you a great point. Maybe since she's a woman, she can't be trusted to serve on the D.C. Circuit Court.

Well, speaking of women, what will Joni Ernst do, right? So with this news that has come out about her, will she stand up? She voted for Kavana? She won't. Look, I have a lot of empathy for what she went through, and I got choked up watching that video of her describing what happened to her and responding to it, too. That information was leaked without her consent. I feel terribly for her. But will she stand up for women?

Will she ask this nominee hard questions and vote with her experience? She will not stand up. Tim Scott already said he's not going to vote for her, so right? Good, awesome. One Republican? Just real quick, the earned story that we prepared but we hadn't covered it because we ran out of time, she had alleged that she was a victim of sexual misconduct when she was a student. And then she's going through a divorce with her husband.

I don't want to get into the details of her personal life, right? And I do feel terrible for what she went through. But that story enraged me for a number of different reasons, including her continuous support of Donald Trump and her support of Brett Kavanaugh, even as Christine Blasey Ford was in that hearing, sharing very specific details about what she went through. And she continues to support Trump after he made Christine Blasey Ford a laughing story. stock during one of his rallies. So, you just, you touched a raw nerve with me by bringing her up.

I meant to, I mean, I meant to bring it up because the hypocrisy is so glaring. I feel terribly for her, but you have to, it's not just your words, it's your actions as a lawmaker when you have power like that. Well, let me go to Raoul's direct quote, because we gave it to you yesterday, but I want to make sure you hear it. She wrote back then, when a woman, quote, drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, Well, getting to that point was part of her choice. So if that doesn't blame the victim, it comes awfully close and is an outrageous thing to say, obviously.

She said feminist scholarship, which attempts to fabricate a rich history of female work where none exists. Okay, so does that mean that anything that you've done in your career is worthless because you're simply a woman? Anyone who applauds your hard work should know that that hard work does not exist. For people who have these strong feelings about feminists, particularly women who have those feelings, I just, I hope they understand that not too long ago, Rao would not have the ability to even comment about politics and have her opinions taken seriously, right?

And so I get it, there are people who, for one reason or the other, believe Rush Limbaugh's narrative of what a feminist is, even though there are variations of feminism, lots of variations, there's a lot of disagreement among feminists about what is and is not female empowerment. But regardless of what you think about those debates, understand that feminism led to the opportunities that Rao gets to take advantage of today. But she is selected to defeat those opportunities. They could pick any woman, they could, they have a, there's 330 million people in the country, they have a lot of different choices.

It's not an accident that they're picking Rao, they're picking Rao because she says women have contributed nothing and it's a fabrication that they have a rich history of work. You know what the fabrication is, ironically? record, you know, because your record is predicated on the fact that you will attack women and you will attack people of color and you will attack gay people. That's why you stood out in the first place. That's why you, by the way, she clerked for Clarence Thomas, was also picked for a similar reason.

And so Tim Scott, the only black Republican, Emma mentioned him in the Senate. He voted against a couple of Republicans that were nominated because they have, you know, honestly, racist pass. And he said, Republicans, quote, should stop bringing candidates with questionable track records on race before the full Senate for a vote. Senator Scott, why do you think they're doing that? You think it's an accident? Oh, golly gee, we just dominated another guy who has a questionable record on race and

another guy and another guy. Or maybe you're in the wrong party. And so they don't pick these people because they have a problem of seeing out. outrageous things against minorities, women, et cetera, in the past. They picked them because of that. And if you're a person of color and you're a woman and you attack your own, that is their dream candidate. And they view that as your main qualification.

So let's keep it real on why she's been nominated in the first place. And if you think that's a real qualification, there's something wrong with you. So obviously they should not vote in favor of her. And last thing on this, being nominated for these positions, it's a job interview, okay? The Senate gets to decide whether you get to move forward or not. And there is this feeling in Washington, not just by the establishment politicians, but of the press, that it is her position already, that it's her privilege. No, you don't have that privilege, you're interviewing for a job, and there is hundreds

of millions of people we can choose from, and many that are way more qualified to be a judge than you are. So sorry, we don't agree that it is your position to lose. No, it is your position to gain if you could pass that job interview, and there is excellent reasons why you shouldn't. When we come back from the break, we are going to talk about the countless scandals that are now coming out of the state of Virginia. 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.