The Young Turks - All Fired Up

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

House Republicans accidentally released a trove of confidential COVID documents. DeSantis fires campaign staff amid cash crunch as he lags far behind Trump in polls. Veterans quit DeSantis’ Florida State Guard over militia-like training. "Disgraceful": GOP advances bill that could remove 220,000 teachers from classrooms. Tracy Chapman, Luke Combs and the complicated response to song "Fast Car." HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com 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. All right, welcome the Young Turks, Jake Ugar, Anna Kusperin with you guys, Amazing Monday show for you guys. Legendary Academy Award winning actor, Jake. James Cromwell will be a guest to talk about the Hollywood Writers Strike a little bit later in the program.

So don't miss that. And he is very progressive and very outspoken. So he'll probably go and say some things. Okay. So that's later in the part. And then also is the Santa's already done? That's also a little bit later in this hour. Okay. So having said that, Casper. Well, we begin with a contentious topic, a controversial topic. And that has to do with the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. And more importantly, a new report that downplayed what scientists actually believe about the origin of the pandemic. So let's get started. Last week, members of the select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic in the House released a report that provides some pretty compelling information on what scientists knew about COVID's origins and a potential lab leak. Now what's interesting about this is as I go through the details of the story, you can see that due to political pressure, the scientists felt the need to downplay what some of their thoughts were, some of what their research was. And I want you to kind of focus on that as I go through all the details. Now here's what you need to know. Much of that report is about a paper released in March 17th of 2020 titled the Proximal Origin of SARS Cove 2.

Now, that paper was widely cited as evidence that COVID had emerged naturally rather than from a laboratory. Now, the authors of that paper wrote in no uncertain terms, the following. Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus, you know, the coronavirus, is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus. All right, case closed, that's what the research says, right? But what's fascinating about this story is the type of conversation that was taking place among these very scientists behind the scenes. And we have slack messages to provide evidence of the kind of conversations they were having. So now we're learning that assertion that I just previously read to you. It was completely inconsistent with the author's private conversations.

Okay, so on February 2nd of 2020, the lead author of the paper said the following, okay? I still believe, then he notes a particular virus is from Yan'an, which is about as far away from Wuhan as you can be and still be in China. Christian G. Anderson wrote, referring to a virus that produced COVID-like symptoms in minors in 2013, a strain that was longer, was later stored and researched at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. What are the chances of finding viruses that are 96% identical given that distance? Seems strange given how many SARS-like viruses we have in bats. Now Anderson's feelings are even more clear in a slack message that he sent responding to a colleague who wanted him to rule out the lab leak theory. Okay, so pay close attention here and we're gonna provide a screenshot.

There's a screenshot of the slack message that Kristen Anderson has had sent, Christian Anderson, and the text reads, the main issue is that accidental escape is in fact highly likely, it's not some fringe theory. So why did the paper conclusively rule out the possibility of a lab leak when its lead author was so convinced of the contrary, okay? So one reason is that the scientists were more concerned about the political ramifications Toward China, if they put out, you know, a definitive report indicating that it is very likely to have been a lab leak, okay? So Andrew Rambot, who's another author of the paper, said in

a following Slack message, okay, and here's a screenshot of it, given the crap show that would happen if anyone serious accused the Chinese of even accidental release, my feeling is we should say that given there is no evidence of a specifically engineered virus, we cannot possibly distinguish between natural evolution and escape, so we are content with ascribing it to natural processes. And in response, Anderson wrote the following, yep, I totally agree that it's a very reasonable conclusion, although I hate when politics is injected into science. But it's impossible not to, especially given the circumstances, we should be sensitive to that. So I'm gonna pause and ask you for comment, Jank, because it is interesting that in this case,

the scientists are making a political decision in regard to what the outcome of this paper or report should be, rather than just sticking to the science and being abundantly clear about what the likelihood is. Yeah, so we covered this throughout since the beginning of COVID-19, obviously. And I think we were pretty early on to being skeptical about this, and we've got some videos of that show you a little bit later. The reason I bring that up here is because it never made sense that a virus, like the ones they were studying at the Wuhan virus lab, broke out right next to the lab, but it was

definitely not the lab. I always thought like, wait, how do you know it's definitely not the lab? It's one thing to say, look, we think it could be a bat, we think it could be this other animal, we think that it might have come from the wet market, et cetera, but we're not ruling anything out yet. I would say, okay, the scientists, and this is important, guys, it's important for this story, your overall way of thinking about. A scientist have a high bar before they conclude anything definitively, right? So one of the things that they're saying here, and you saw in some of the quotes that Anna's reading is, hey, listen, we say, even

if we leave the door open to it coming from the lab, the Chinese are going to be super pissed because we don't have evidence that it came from the lab. We don't have anywhere near that kind of evidence to say it definitely came from the lab or it might have come from the lab. But the reality is, the way they phrased it made it seem like they had ruled out that it had come from the lab, and that definitely wasn't true. Now this is massively counterproductive. There might have been a number of reasons why they did it, and I'll tell you the main reason

they shouldn't have done it. One is not offending the Chinese, especially without enough evidence, is Anna pointed out. Number two is were there some US scientists that worked in that lab, right? Or with that lab or sent funding to that lab, and Rand Paul had started to question. in that and normally the Republicans are filled to the room with conspiracy theories. And I remember covering it going ridiculous ridiculous and then we got to the lab part. And I was like, not ridiculous. It's a good question as to, wait, did we help there?

Should we be a lot more careful about these labs and the research, et cetera? And then the third possible reason is maybe they wanted to protect scientists at large from getting attacked. Because if it was scientists who accidentally leaked the virus, they're gonna get a lot of blowback, especially from the Neanderthals who hate science to begin with, right? So, but none of those come close to justifying it because now you've done great damage to the scientific cause because now they're going to say, you see scientists lie all the time. No. It's just such a disaster.

And look, for anyone who downplayed the possibility of a lab leak and then turned around and moved the goalpost to say, it could have been a lab leak, but who cares? It doesn't matter. Who cares what the origin is? I completely disagree with that. In order to correct past errors, you have to acknowledge past errors. 100%. And it's important to know what the origin is, I mean, to any extent that we could actually

determine what the origin is, in order to prevent it from happening in the future. What do you mean? Who cares? And not only that, look, guys, the people who say that honestly are just ideological. They're not real scientists and they don't, I'm not sure that they appreciate science. Because this doesn't mean that you shouldn't trust scientists. I'm going to get to the distinction after we give you a little bit more evidence as to what kind of scientists you should and shouldn't trust. I know it requires nuance, but stay with me. But the people who say, don't worry about where it came from, don't worry, ignore the facts, because we're trying to protect scientists, don't understand science at all.

No, science is about the pursuit of truth. If you're ignoring the truth, you're not helping the cause of science by definition. So I want to go back to Anderson and some of the messages that he wrote, it appears it seems that Anthony Fauci may have also played a role in censoring the scientist's suspicions, right? The suspicions that it could have originated from a lab leak. So going back to Christian Anderson, he wrote the following in an email on February 4th, 2020. The idea of engineering a bioweapon is definitely not going away and I'm still getting pinged by journalists. I have noticed some of them, starting to ask more broadly about lab escape, and for now I have just ignored them. There might be a time where we need to tackle that more directly head on, but I'll let the likes of Jeremy Farrer and Tony Fauci figure out how to do that. Okay, now another huge reason that scientists could have misrepresented their beliefs was to appease the publisher of this report. So it was eventually published in nature medicine.

And apparently nature medicine initially rejected the paper in part because they feared that if it even suggested a possible lab leak was possible, conspiracy theorists would run rampant with that information or with that possibility. And here's how Anderson responded to nature medicine when these concerns came up. Anderson pushed back against the rejection assuring the nature editor that their project had started with the goal of beating back conspiracy theories, but that the data and evidence made it impossible. None of this helps refute a lab origin, and the possibility must be considered as a serious scientific theory, which is what we do, and not dismissed out of hand as another conspiracy theory.

We all really, really wish that we could do that. That's how this got started, but unfortunately, it's not possible given the data. Again, that is a statement from Christian Anderson on February 20th of 2020. Ultimately, the authors conceded and they changed their work rather than stand by their suspicions. The authors edited their paper further to more strongly dismiss the possibility of a lab leak for its later submission to nature medicine. The journal's publication of the paper just a month later effectively ended debate for a year or more as to the origin of the pandemic. And Ryan Grimm did great reporting on this over at the Intercept if you want to read some of the more finer details on this story. more devastating quote that shows you exactly where the problem came from.

And then we'll talk about how you can tell whether scientists are telling the truth or not these days. And I hate that we're going to, we're forcing that conversation because of the mistakes that these knuckleheads made. And knuckleheads is putting it politely. Anyway, here's another email that was discovered by the scientist. At the end, one of them writes another, says, anyway, it's done. Sorry the last bit had to be done without you. Pressure from on high. Okay, that's definitive. So that's, That's government sources like Fauci and the others going, no, let's not say what's true. Let's put pressure on the scientists to skew the results in a certain way so people think that it is not from the lab.

And that is a terrible mistake. I don't know if it's Fauci in particular, some other government official, it could be Fauci, it could be someone else. But whoever made that mistake, that was a horrible mistake. I'm going to explain more in a second. Yeah, look, we don't know if that particular message you just read was in regard to Anthony Fauci. But I do want to use Anthony Fauci as an example as to how disastrous it is to not be forthright with the public when it comes to, you know, anything having to do with the pandemic, anything having to do with what the science says regarding a virus. In the beginning of the pandemic, remember Anthony Fauci, knowing that there was a shortage of masks, told the public,

No, no, no, don't wear masks. That's counterproductive. You don't need to wear masks. Now, we know in retrospect, that was a lie, but there was a shortage of masks, and he wanted to protect whatever supply we had of those masks for frontline health care workers. He should have just been honest with the public, because once he was caught in that lie, what did that do? That led to distrust toward the government, distrust toward Anthony Fauci. And so that's why it's really important for them to be as honest as possible about what they know. And to pretend as if, like, hiding the ball is going to protect them and the general public is never going to find out what the truth is, is ridiculous.

It's likely the public will eventually find out what the truth is. And again, that breeds distrust toward our institutions, towards scientists. And that is potentially lethal, especially in the context of a worldwide pandemic. So whether was Fauci or another government official doesn't really matter too much. People personalize things too much. Like for a lot of Democrats now, Fauci is an angel. And if you say that Fauci might have done something wrong, they think you're a right winger and then attack you. And a lot of folks have just lost track of what the facts are and don't really care, right?

And on the right, they think Fauci is the devil. And he didn't make two wrong decisions. He made 200 wrong decisions. And it's because he's in cahoots with this guy and the other guy. And then they've got all these secret plans and they're going to kill us all, except the Chinese and the Ashkenazzi. Jews, that's a new thing from RFK Jr., all these insane conspiracy theories. But when someone makes those two giant mistakes, I was going to bring up the mask too, and now we know that it might have been a lab leak and they purposely made it seem like

there was no chance that it was a lab leak. Well, those two mistakes have to be acknowledged. Yeah, it has been acknowledged for a number of reasons. One, if you're a journalist, you're supposed to actually report things that are true, okay? Number two, to Anna's point, if you don't know that it comes from the lab, then you won't be as careful in the labs. And it turns out, by the way, things, viruses leak from labs all the time. And it turns out we have to take much more precautions saying, oh, we don't worry about it, don't talk about it. It's not what scientists do.

It's not what rational people do. So now, guys, before you like go down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole and go, well, okay, that's it. I don't believe any more scientists. That's preposterous. So all scientists are, are people trying to figure out what is true in the natural world. And they are not one entity, they're a great number of different scientists throughout the world, different countries, different programs, et cetera. So how do you know what to trust and what to be more skeptical of?

Well, things that are new are not as rock solid. So it's the novel coronavirus, not quite sure exactly how it came out, whereas gravity very well established, right? So another thing is, and this is the critical one, is it coming from a government agency with a limited number of scientists, or is it the entire scientific community after having analyzed studies, meta studies, journal reports, etc. Because if it's coming from a government agency, well, I mean, you're already at a 50% chance that any government agency is lying about anything in particular. Because that government agency is partly has some function that they're doing and half of what they're doing is political spin for whoever's in charge.

So you are, you should be more skeptical of those very specific committees, government scientists, etc. But when the scientific community, look at what happened here. The minute they started reading the reports, other scientists were like, wait, this doesn't make sense, we're going to challenge this. That's the job of scientists, it's the challenge, challenge, challenge. So they challenge it so much that they beat back that original theory put out by the government. And now most scientists think it could certainly be from a lab leak, right? In fact, as we've covered on the show before, we also have federal government agencies, like the energy department, for instance, coming out with their own reports indicating that

it's more likely than not that the lab leak theory is true, right? And that was following the FBI, releasing a similar statement. Again, it's not definitive, I want to be clear about that, but anyone, you know, pouring cold water on that theory and saying that it's definitively untrue is either being dishonest or they don't know the facts. Yeah, last two things before we show you some clips, just to show you guys context of what we do. One is, look, this made the conspiracy theorists way worse, not better, right? Because they're like, oh, if we say that it might come from a lab, they'll all have, dude, they're going to have conspiracy theories no matter what. But if they catch you lying, the conspiracy theories are going to be multiplied by 200. Exactly.

Which is now much, much worse. And guys, when you do not base things, this is why we're showing you the clips, do not base things on ideology, base them on facts, on facts. So early on, we were skeptical about this when a lot of people on the left were like, don't look, don't look, don't look. So Anna, you got the clips? Yeah, so this is a video from 2021, I believe. Yes.

It does appear that there is some indication that a lab leak in Wuhan, China is the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. They should do a deep investigation as to who has signed on to the idea that it was definitely not manmade. Because now we find out, no. There's a possibility. And guys, understand that it's not settled today, right? There's a lot more work to be done on it, so we don't know for sure. But now they've opened up the possibility of, oops, it might be manmade. Right.

And that's a very large oops. And Jake, I do think that the partisan narrative that played a role in this is super important, right? Because I'm noticing this with so many other political issues where if your political opponents raise concerns about something, then you are almost expected to deny it, to reject it. Oh, it's my political opponent saying it. There must be some nefarious reason for why they're doing that or saying that. But I think it's important to, in the very least, assume that they're making these claims in good faith. Do think about the story with an open mind and see if there is any credibility or any merit to what the claims are. Because just because they're your political opponents doesn't mean that they're wrong 100% of the time, clearly.

Yeah, and look, I have a very harsh standard for that, but this still cleared that. So as you can see, that clip was from June 10th, 2021. And the reason we gave you that is so you know, look, we are constantly trying to find out what is actually true and share it with you. At that time, Rand Paul was attacking Fauci to no end. And all the Democrats were saying, Rand Paul's crazy. He's so nuts. There's no way it was from a lab league.

But wait a minute, hold on. Now, my rebuttableist presumption is that Republicans are lying. Okay, so, but hold on. If ever, first of all, Republican politicians, not Republican voters, there's a big difference there. Second of all, with Republican politicians, why do I have that presumption? Because they almost always lie. Like every time they do a hearing, like, oh, we've got this secret guy who's going to tell us that Joe Biden took a $5 million bribe from the Chinese. Oops, he's a Chinese spy.

Like one time after another, like the 19 out of 20 times is alive. But guys, the important part is it's a rebuttable presumption. So when I heard Rand Paul's test, you know, charges, I was like, that one doesn't make sense. doesn't make sense. And then wait a minute, that third one, that one kind of makes sense, okay? Let's look into it further. Then the report comes out that it might not be from the wet market, that it might be from the lab. And then I go, okay, now we're turning around. And we turn around based on facts. And as you see here often on the young Turks, several years ahead of other people. So now, where do we stand now for whatever it's worth and it's not worth much?

But my opinion based on what evidence we have, and the evidence is not definitive in either direction. But I would be pretty shocked if it was not from the Wuhan Virology lab right next to the outbreak. It would be very, very surprising if it wasn't coming from the lab. That's my conclusion, for now. Yeah, I co-sign on that. We don't know for sure. It is not definitive. But anyone saying that it is impossible that this was a lab leak, again, is either lying or doesn't know the mounting, you know, evidence indicating that there is some likelihood that that is the case. Again, not definitive, but something that we should keep an open mind to. Again, not because I want to say some comment against the Wuhan, you know, virology lab. Not because I think that, you know, the Chinese are up to some nefarious, you know,

bio weapons program, but because we need to know what actually transpired to prevent it from happening again in the future. Yeah, and I gotta say one last thing, which is, guys, just because it came from the lab doesn't mean every other conspiracy theory is true. Okay, because some people will then take that and go, oh, okay, so that means obviously the Chinese did it on purpose. We have no evidence of that. And by the way, it hurt their country. Even more than us eventually, right? They didn't even know how to contain it and they couldn't contained and they did lockdowns that were devastating to their economy eventually, right?

So number one, two Chinese did it. It was a bio weapon. You have no idea that that's true. And now the latest insanity that RFK Jr. has brought out, it was designed so it doesn't affect Chinese or Ashkenazi shoes. Really? If it was designed not to affect the Chinese, how come they had to shut the country down for like over a year? All those people died. What the hell are you talking about? Well, they're like, oh, no, there was this one study and they saw this one random fact and all and then, and the finish, the finish also not affected. You don't have anywhere near enough evidence for any of those speculative crazy theories. And when you put stuff like that out there, look, anti-Semitism is like the magnet for all

conspiracy theories. That's where they all wind up. So now half the right wing is going nuts going, ah, we know it, we know it. Bio weapon designed by the Chinese and the Ashkenazi Jews. I don't know what their insanity is, but this is why you don't lie as a government official representing science in a wrong way, because then you open up Pandora's box to lunatics that run like crazy with it. We're gonna take a break when we come back, some updates on the presidential election,

the GOP primary specifically, big news coming out of the DeSantis campaign. Don't miss it. All right, back on TYT, Jankana with you guys, Emil Sinclair and Robert Holloway, also with us. They just joined, but Athena Hanson, Chef, Rockstar, and Matthew Mann, all just joined, but at premium level, which allows us to keep the prices at $4.99 for everybody. You guys are amazing, thank you for doing that. And they hit the join button below the video. You too, you can as well. Casper.

All right, we've got some big updates on Ron DeSantis' presidential run. Let's do it. He promised to drain the swamp. It got worse. He did not drain the swamp. He promised the bill have Mexico pay for a border wall. They did like 50 miles of wall. There's massive expansive still there.

Looks like Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis, is finally getting a little more comfortable taking jabs at Trump after noticing his campaign is on life support, let's watch more of what he has to say because he doesn't hold any. He said he was going to eliminate the national debt. They added almost $8 trillion to the debt in four years. And of course, in 2020,

he turned the country over to Dr. Fauci and those lockdowns and the borrowing and printing really sent us on a bad course. So that was DeSantis speaking to Howard Kurtz on Fox News. interesting about the statements he was making theirs. He was obviously taking jabs at Trump, calling him out by name. He didn't hold back. And it's different from the previous attempted jabs at Trump that were a lot less, let's say, candid, a lot less transparent about the failures of the Trump administration, at least in the eyes of Ron DeSantis. Now, there is a

notable change because he is doing worse in the polls. And more importantly, campaign donations are starting to dry up. So he has now made decisions about essentially cutting his staff in order to cut costs thanks to less campaign donations coming into his presidential campaign. Fewer than 10 staffers were fired Thursday of last week. Each of them involved in event planning. The campaign confirmed. There has been reporting that more terminations are expected amid concerns that the campaign is spending money too quickly. DeSantis is trimming his campaign staff after bird through nearly $8 million or $8 million of his 20 million second quarter fundraising hall in the first few weeks of the campaign.

So the donations have started to slow down a little bit. He has been outraised by Trump. And what's also really interesting about the story is the difference between the kinds of donors who are funding DeSantis versus Donald Trump, which gives you a sense of where the Republican electorate is at the moment. And in fact, Trump has outraised DeSantis by a lot, and he's relying on small dollar donors to do it. Let's watch.

President Biden and the Democratic National Committee blew the Republican field out of the water, raising $72 million in the quarter that ran from April to June. Far surpassed in the GOP field, former President Donald Trump brought in $35 million. And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who trails Trump in the polls by double digits, also trails in fundraising. He raised about $20 million. That's a good haul, but there are signs of trouble for the DeSantis campaign. So clearly from that video, you can see that Joe Biden comes out ahead in terms of fundraising.

He has raised $72 million, whereas Trump has raised $35 million. And the lowest fundraiser here is Ron DeSantis at $20 million. Yeah, so it's a little bit deceptive because Ron DeSantis has $130 million sitting in a super pack. So he's not going to run out of money anytime soon. anytime soon. That's not the issue. The issue here is he's starting to flail. So he's getting less new donors. His small donor base is very small compared to Trump and compared to Biden. So he's relying on big donors and big donors are starting to lose hope in him, including Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News. We'll get to that in a minute. So he's in trouble.

And he's now trailing Trump by 32 points. 32. That is not a small disadvantage. He's in a world of hurt. Now, the things that you saw in the beginning are true, and he should have been saying that all along. And I'm glad some Republicans are saying it because it has a prayer of breaking it through to a couple of percentage points of Republicans. But you know, Trump didn't actually do any of the things he said he was going to do.

He built 50 miles a wall, kind of. Mexico certainly didn't pay for it. And he left $8 trillion in debt, $8 trillion. He was a disaster. And it's important to have Republicans saying that. But at this rate, I don't, DeSantis is not a skillful enough politician to be able to catch Trump. As I've been saying now for the last week or so, I think Trump at this point is the only person who could be Trump.

The other guys that doesn't look like are going to catch him. Yeah, it's a really great point. And, you know, I think a lot of the excitement around DeSantis had to do with his handling of the coronavirus, although clearly there were significant flaws in how he handled the coronavirus pandemic. But his unwillingness to shut down the state for a longer period of time ended up playing well for him, which is why he handily won his reelection campaign. But with that said, just going to the polls, Trump currently leads DeSantis by a whopping 32 percentage points in the real clear politics average of national GOP presidential primary polls.

And Trump is absolutely loving this. In fact, over the weekend, while speaking at a turning points USA event in West Palm Beach, he used the opportunity to mock DeSantis. Let's take a look at that. In the brand new Florida Atlantic poll, good poll, Atlantic University, we are totally dominating dissentists right here in the state of Florida. So we want him to get home and take care of insurance because you have the highest insurance in the nation. And the bill that they passed made it very good for the insurance company. All the money that he's using, which now is stopped because all of the people that were supporting him, they're saying, hey, wait a minute, you're down by 57 points. You know, they may like him or they may

not, but they don't want somebody that's down 57 points. And, you know, they don't, they're not stupid people. They're smart people. In fact, all of a sudden, I'm getting calls from people. They're saying, you know, sir, I'm just called to say hello. I said, I thought you were a dissentist follower. No, not at all. That was a false report. It was never that close, by the way. It was never that close. But it was at 21, 22 points. That's a lot difference than 50 and 60 points. But running for hopeless cause is election. It should be used to support the party winning against Crooked Joe Biden in November 2024. We got to fight together. We have to all get together and we have to fight.

Now one of the previous DeSantis supporters who certainly did not give Donald Trump a call is Rupert Murdoch. Because according to the New York Times, Murdoch continues to sour on Trump and is actually now desperately looking for a replacement. to support in lieu of Ron DeSantis. According to the times, Murdoch has privately told people that he would still like to see Governor Glenn Yunkin of Virginia enter the race, according to a person with knowledge of the remarks. And he has made clear in private discussions over the last two years that he thinks Trump, despite his popularity with Fox News viewers, is unhealthy for the Republican Party.

So he's looking for anyone else, anyone else to support. report and prop up so Trump doesn't win the Republican primary. But I don't even think a media mogul like Rupert Murdoch has the ability to do that. No, they've actually lost that ability and they don't realize it. So guys like Murdoch are the ones that pushed DeSantis into the race in the first place, because Murdoch had soured on Trump a long time ago, because what does Murdoch and the other donors want? They want multinational corporations to get everything they want, higher, lower taxes, more immigrants let in so they could pay them lower wages. But I agree with letting more immigrants in, but not for their reasons.

Yeah, not to exploit them. Not to exploit them, but they actually treat them decently, et cetera. But there's all these different things that they're in favor of, and Trump has given them a lot of it. And that's why in the beginning, they held with him until he passed a giant tax cut for the wealthy and for corporations. And they love that. Then when Trump started to accumulate more power for himself and not share it with the donors, then they started getting very upset. So they then give DeSantis a ton of money to run against Trump. And they think, well, we've done this 100 times before.

We give the money to DeSantis and then all of our media says DeSantis and not Trump. And we saw it and we showed it to you guys so you can see it with your own eyes. All the Fox News hosts all of a sudden softball said DeSantis. DeSantis is great. DeSantis is great. Trump, we're a little problematic. We're a little worried about Trump, et cetera. And Murdox thought basically through media and money, I could buy the election like I always do, right?

And me and my buddies in the Republican donor class. Well, they miscalculated. Now the media, including right wing media, including Fox News, is not as strong as it used to be. Because now there's so many other forms of media that a guy like Trump who already had the spotlight and who was already president has escaped velocity. They cannot rein him back in. He already has too much followers and too much other alternative media that cover him. So no matter how much they attack him in traditional corporate media, which is mainstream and right wing media combined, they still can't beat him and he's got a 32 point lead.

So when Murdoch, and that quote said to me, oh my God, Murdoch's lost it. He used to be the best in the business in buying politicians, manipulating elections, et cetera. He doesn't get it, you think Yonkin is going to come in from Virginia do any better? He's not going to do any better, he's going to do worse. Well, okay, so let's actually talk about Yonkin for one second, right? I see Yonkin as someone who maybe personality wise is a little different from Ron DeSantis, but certainly politics wise is very similar to Ron DeSantis. And it goes beyond the two of them

both being Republicans. Remember, Ron DeSantis has decided to center his platform on anti-woke stuff, right? How did Glenn Yonkin win the Virginia gubernatorial race by focusing his campaign on anti-woke rhetoric. Yep. So what exactly would differentiate Glenn Yonkin from Ron DeSantis in the Republican primary should he decide to enter? And is Glenn Yonkin able to overcome the entertaining charisma that Donald Trump provides for his supporters? No chance.

Yeah, so Glenn Yonkin is a laughable, you know, option. Yeah, the fact that Murdoch doesn't understand that, shows you, oh, wow, this is a Hell of a moment. The owner of Fox News and the Republican donor class have totally lost touch with how politics works in this day and age. So remember, everybody's got different bubbles. And in the Republican donor bubble, they're like, what do you mean? We just get a standard, fake corporate politician. They give us everything we want, but they give the masses some red meat, but some of which they halfway do, but as long it's not too harmful and half of which they're not going to do. But the bottom line is, it's like a good look.

guy and he says the pro-corporate stuff and we feed him with money and this we get you know the Fox News guys and secretly Joe Scarborough and the MSNBC guys go legitimate super credible we're really worried about him he's oh my God he's probably better than Trump right and then we win those days are gone so sorry that kind of stuff isn't going to work now guys don't think we're in favor of Trump I want Trump to lose that primary super badly and a lot of people disagree and they say, oh, Desantis is worse. No, Trump is definitely worse. He almost ended our democracy. He might end it next time. But you have to report things as they are, not

as you wish they were. Objective reality matters. And objective reality is he has increased his lead and has an overwhelming lead. That's reality. And to your point, Jank, about the threat of Donald Trump, should he win the Republican primary and beat? assuming Joe Biden is really running for reelection, if he beats Joe Biden, right? During that very same speech at a Turning Point USA event over the weekend, he talked about how he plans to consolidate even more power in the executive branch by doing away with the independence of other government agencies. And he detailed it and it was very, very clear about how he wants to solidify executive power should he get reelected.

So he already has his eye on dismantling our system of checks and balances, just based on what he said in that speech alone. So just something to keep in mind as we move forward with this election, we're just giving you the details of what's transpiring in the GOP primary. Doesn't mean that since Trump's doing really well that we support Trump, it's just how things are playing out. In fact, quite the opposite. Look, you know me, I'm confident and many people would say overly confident. I think I know how to beat Trump, but these guys ain't it. And do you see any Democrats trying to beat Trump? They're not even trying.

They're like, oh, let the Republicans try. Oh, they're losing by 30 boys. It's amazing because they're underestimating him again. How could you underestimate him again? Are you insane? Look, one of the Democratic nominees should nominate me Trump czar and let me go to work, okay, taking this guy down because these rookies don't know how to do it. But that's not going to happen.

So they're all going to flail around and it looks like both the Republican side and the Democratic side are going to make the same exact mistakes they made in 2016. I remember it being 2015 right around now, but they had already done a couple of debates. So maybe a month from now or so in 2015. And I said, oh my God, this guy's going to win. And everybody was like, Trump's not going to win. I'm like, guys, he has like a 20, 30 point lead. And he's killing him in the debates. They're like, no, don't believe you're lying eyes.

No one in the cocktail party circuit likes Trump. Okay, and here we are making the same exact mistakes. We're going to take a break when we come back. The latest manufactured drama this time having to do with a crossover cover of Tracy Chapman's fast car. Come right back. All right, back on TYT, Jankana, and look at all these amazing people. Nerve 2005, gifted a young tourist membership on YouTube, Chris Birch gifted two, Chef Rockstar gifted five, and Athletes LLC is back and gifted 20.

You guys are all amazing, we love you for it, way to look out for the community. All right, Casper. All right, well, a lot of emotions for this next story, especially since it has to do with an incredible artist who I loved, especially in the 90s when I was coming up. Let's talk about it. Country music star Luke Holmes' cover, crossover cover of Tracy Chapman's fast car has unfortunately and inevitably opened up new discourse regarding and alleging racism. Now, the Washington Post took the lead on this, arguing that as a black woman, Chapman's 1988 song didn't receive the accolades that a white male country singer is enjoying today. But a closer look shows you that this narrative is complete and utter BS.

In fact, some of you might be too young to remember what the 90s was like or what kind of music was played on the radio over and over again. But I assure you that Tracy Chapman's songs were celebrated, were played quite a bit. And I'm glad that this story broke because it's giving me an opportunity to listen to and remember how much I loved her music. Now, I want to read you a few excerpts from Emily Yars piece in the Washington Post about this. She writes, to quite a few people, this is cause for yet another celebration in Combs's whirlwind, whirlwind journey as the genre's reigning megastar with 16 consecutive number one hits. But it has also prompted a wave of complicated feelings among some listeners and in the Nashville music community. Did it? Okay, well, why? Well, she continues by explaining that although many are thrilled to see Fast Car back in the spotlight and a new generation discovering Chapman's work,

it's clouded by the fact that as a black queer woman, Chapman 59, would have almost would have almost zero chance of that achievement, herself in country music. Now, Emily R is specific there by noting country music, but Tracy Chapman's music was not in the country genre. And given the genre it was in, it was not only celebrated, it was awarded quite a bit. So just to give you a few notes, Chapman released her debut album in 1988, and that was the album that Fast Car was in. And the album was certified six-time platinum by the recording Industry Association of America. The album also received six Grammy nominations, and she went on to win three that year. So the three categories that she won the Grammys in included Best New Artist, Best Contemporary Folk Album,

Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for Fast Car specifically. So it was definitely celebrated. Everyone loved her music. But Tanner Davenport, who is the co-director of the Black Opry, says the immediate success of Combs's fast car kind of just proves that when you put a white face on black art, it seems to be consumed a lot easier. That's just complete revisionist history. I have even more information about how much her music was celebrated, rightfully so. And what is frustrating about this is how it's fabricating and manufacturing a needless race narrative. Yeah, so guys, did that happen in the past? Definitely, right?

So Elvis took a lot of songs from the black community. And so there's a heated debate of it as to whether he gave proper credit and the most people think he did not, right? But some say he did. So that's for musical stories, et cetera. But is it a fact that black artists would come up with songs, beats, et cetera? and they would not take off because of racism and being blocked on the radio, et cetera, and then white artists would do the same thing, and it would take off like a rocket, and then they would keep the money and the black artists wouldn't get any of it.

Definitely. Look into music history. That happened, and then that rains down on us through the generations, et cetera. So it's not like it's necessarily completely eradicated. Now, having said that, is today the same as back then? No, of course not. It's preposterous to say that. Are there successful African American musicians? Are we having this conversation?

Do people understand that how mental that conversation is? I think Beyonce is okay. I think Jayce's doing all right. Should I go on? Should the greatest entertainers, musicians, singers right? We have now are almost universally black. Like that's not true, there's Taylor Swift, there's others, right? But they're certainly well represented.

And then this slight a hand with, in country, music. But wait a minute, would George Michael have been well received in country music? And he's a white male. No, probably not because he did careless freaking whisper. Okay, and it's not country music. Which was a great song. Right. Would Ricky Martin be well received in country music? Probably not. But is it because he's Latino? No, because it's a different kind of music. Exactly. So I'm not saying that there's no racism in country music. I'm not saying that there's no discrimination. But using this as an example is, it hurts your cause because it sounds ridiculous.

Tracy Chapman is a legend. Nobody thinks she's not getting, I don't know anyone who doesn't think Tracy Chapman has gotten enough credit because people give her tons of credit and rightfully so. Are we ever going to get to a point in the country where white female reporters aren't just gonna like fabricate a race narrative in a perfectly lovely story that like Tracy Chapman herself, who is a very private individual who does not speak to the media, likes to keep to herself. In fact, you know, previous statements made it abundantly clear that she liked to separate out her music career from her personal life, which is why she doesn't give a lot

of statements to the press. But she did give a statement to the press in regard to this story. And she's super stoked. Want to know why she's super stoked? Because she has publishing rights to this music. And because she has publishing rights to this music, this crossover cover has made her a lot of money, a lot of money. So let's go to, I'm going to go to other elements here, but I want to like skip ahead to what she says. This is graphic eight. I never expected to find myself on the country charts, but I'm honored to be there. I'm happy for Luke and his success and grateful that new fans have found an embraced fast car. Wow, she sounds really oppressed. Right. And let's go to the next graphic. So Combs's version has generated

at least half a million dollars in global publishing royalties, Billboard estimates, with the bulk going to Chapman, who owns both the writers and publisher's share of the song. Now, if Tracy Chapman wasn't getting the proper credit financially as well as other ways, then I'm 100% on your side. And I go, why? She's created this song. There's no question.

This guy's doing a cover song, right? But she's 100% on board ideologically. Like, oh, yeah, sure, people do covers of that song. Oh, it's taken off again, and it's our country charts, which it wasn't before. That's great, she says. What are we disagreeing with her? No, no, no. How insane is that?

We should be aggrieved on her behalf and just fabricate a drama and a conflict that doesn't exist. What did you want Luke Combs to do, not do it? So then Tracy Chapman wouldn't have half a million dollars right now? I don't get it. I don't get it. And guys, so the main point here is I don't know this particular. report, I don't even know what our ethnicity is, but that's not the point. I'm sure that it's bubbling up. And I know people are going to get, some people are going to get super

mad at this, but we don't have to make everything racial. Not every single thing has to be, okay, that we're going to find racism here, even though the black artist is saying she's thrilled and she loves that her music is going to country music fans. And it's not just about the money she's making. She likes that it's being introduced to more people. Exactly. And it's from a black artist. That's not a bad thing. That's a great thing. So I want to go to her tweet, the Washington Post reporters tweet about this, because even Twitter felt the need to correct, or at least provide some context to make it clear how popular Tracy Chapman and her music was. So she writes, as Luke Combs' hit cover of Tracy Chapman's Fast Car dominates the country charts,

it's bringing up some complicated emotions in fans and singers who know that Chapman, as a queer black woman, would have an almost zero chance at that achievement herself. But- Except she just did. She won three Grammys for that specific album. And one of those Grammys was in regard to that specific song. And by the way, Twitter felt the need to add context to it, writing that Fast Car by Tracy was nominated for three Grammys or Grammy Awards. I'm sorry, nominated for six, not three.

She won three, including record of the year and song of the year. She won for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best New Artist. And she has seven other nominations for Grammy Awards and two wins. And this whole thing of like, you can't, like, so Luke Combs would have no chance of one of his original songs doing, breaking through in the smooth jazz category. Is that racist against white people? No, it's just the wrong category. And in this case, it's actually Tracy Chapman's song that did break through in country music.

Just happened to be sung by Luke Combs, which you was perfectly happy with. All right, you guys get it. But like, if there's some in the community who are like, nope, this is definitely racial, and even though no one is aggrieved, there's no victim, there's no nothing, and everybody's thrilled with how this is gone. We're going to call it racial anyway. I have added, Haas, but you lose credibility every time you do something like this. Yeah, you lose credibility and you needlessly, I think, expand divisions in the country over nonsense,

over totally fabricated conflicts that don't need to be fabricated at all. If the two parties here are happy with the situation, if Tracy Chapman is celebrating this, and she's really the individual here who, if anything, would be aggrieved, if there was a problem in place, why are random people, including random reporters, needlessly injecting themselves into this situation, again, to fabricate a conflict that doesn't exist? Super last thing. Look, life is about perspectives, right? How you view certain things, almost like a filter on Instagram, right?

So the filter that they could have gone with instead here is they could have been like, oh my God, the song of a queer black woman is number one in the country charts. Isn't that amazing? What a great day in America. And that would be equally true, wouldn't it? In fact, it would be more true. And the fact that that that song in particular, the lyrics of that song, I mean, hit close to home for Americans across the country.

Yeah, right? She got all Americans to relate to a queer black woman's plight. And now all of the country music fans are relating to it. That's a giant win. I'll take the win. Thank you. Thank you, Tracy Chapman, and thank you, Luke Combs. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we have some disturbing news regarding Marjorie Taylor Green's latest statements involving guns. And we'll also talk a little bit about how she decided to try to dunk on Joe Biden by comparing him to incredibly popular past presidents. That and more coming up.

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 at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.