The Young Turks - American Con

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

House conservatives threaten to oust McCarthy over the debt deal. McCarthy schemes to cut Social Security. Trump says he knew documents were classified in Leaked Audio "Enormous policy failure": States throw hundreds of thousands—including many children—off Medicaid. Higher worker pay isn't causing inflation, Fed says. HOST: 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. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too.

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Later in the show, we'll also have John Iderola joining me for some lighter content, including Ron DeSantis trying and I dare say failing to hit back at Donald Trump. You'll see what I mean, we've got some video to show you, lots of fun. But let's start off with something that isn't so fun. the debt ceiling negotiations and the unbearable theater that both parties are currently engaging in. This deal fails, fails completely. Not one Republican should vote for this deal. It is a bad deal. This deal is absolutely one of the biggest abominations since I've been in Washington DC. What did Republicans get? Oh, I mean, I could totally tell you what Republicans

got out of this deal, which is pretty much everything they wanted, even though they're going around and pretending as though this debt ceiling negotiation resulted in progressives of all people getting everything they wanted. No such thing occurred. Progressives got nothing. Democrats, honestly, the corporate Democrats got what they wanted, which was spending caps on government programs with the exception of defense spending. And what's amazing to me is you have the Republicans pretending as though this is just a massive spending bill when it is exactly the opposite. I mean, you could consider it a spending bill if you take into account the increased spending for defense. But just to give you a quick reminder of what House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and

President Joe Biden agreed upon, here's what we know. It might change, but here's what we know. The bill text applies Congress's pay-as-you-go rule, otherwise known as pay-go, which requires new spending to be offset by savings elsewhere to executive actions. That would mean presidential actions like student loan forgiveness would require a huge offset. So the pay-go rules in Congress essentially serve as a massive obstacle in getting anything material passed, anything that actually been. benefits ordinary Americans. And now, because of this deal, should it pass, the executive branch would have to deal with PAYGO rules as well. Is that something that progressives wanted?

Or is that something Republicans wanted? Let's keep going. The bill would also place a cap on non-defense discretionary spending. So any government program that offers any support to ordinary Americans will be capped. Negotiators agreed to cap annual discretionary spending for two. years, okay, two years keeping non-defense spending levels flat next year and raising them by 1% in 2025. That means funding for most domestic programs such as housing, education, and road safety initiatives will stay the same next year at around $936 billion. Now, it sounds like

they're just, they're just capping spending for these programs, except when you take inflation into account, it ends up being a cut in spending. But there's more. Obviously, we've also talked about the work requirements that will be implemented in regard to individuals who need to rely on food stamps. Food stamps, not really where I would look to to cut spending or essentially provide more obstacles for people who might need that assistance. People who qualify for SNAP benefits get about $6 a day. The idea that we need to do away with these types of programs or severely cut them in order to pull America out of a terrible deficit situation is laughable to say the least. But let's be clear about something that is what Republicans wanted, not something that

progressives wanted. Nancy Mace, who of course is a Republican congresswoman, went on Jake Tapper's show on CNN today and said that this bill is a massive handout bill to progressive priorities. What a laughable statement, what a comical statement to make. And of course, Jake Tapper didn't push back and ask for specifics. And to be clear, there are no specifics because this bill gives Republicans what they want. And all of the huffing and puffing that you're seeing today from the Republican Party is just theater. And I think that they're trying to squeeze Democrats, squeeze the Biden administration into essentially providing more concessions. Now, the deal, by the way, also raises the age limit until which able-bodied, low-income adults without dependence would be required to work to receive food stamps from 50 years old to 54 years old.

The expanded restrictions would expire in 2030. Of course, this doesn't take into account the fact that we're dealing with record low unemployment that people around the age of 50 certainly experience age discrimination in hiring practice. But let's just ignore all of that and make it even more difficult for people later in life to get the assistance they may need as a result of not making enough money in this hellscape economy that does not really do much to increase or keep wages up to pace with inflation. So there's more. Homeless people and veterans, I should note, will be excluded from the new work requirements. But there is also a massive favor to tax dodgers, right? So in another concession rights time, to Republicans, not to progressives, two Republicans, the Biden administration agreed to clawback $20 billion of the $80 billion in new IRS funding that was designed to crack down on wealthy Americans and corporations that evade taxes. So if you're a Republican lawmaker, and I would love someone like Jake Tapper, who has the

opportunity to ask these questions to Republican lawmakers, I would love him now. ask this, okay? If this is supposedly a handout to progressive lawmakers, if this bill is just chuck full of all sorts of provisions that the far left wing of the Democratic Party would want, how do you take into account the cut to resources that would allow for the IRS to do its job and ensure that wealthy tax dodgers no longer get away with refusing and failing to pay their taxes. I mean, if the idea is to respond to the deficit with the urgency it deserves, how do you justify allowing people to dodge their taxes, which robs the American government and the American people of the resources they need, right? The $80 billion toward the IRS was

supposed to end up increasing revenue for the federal government by ensuring that we collect more taxes to the tune of $200 billion. dollars. But of course, Republicans aren't serious about their concerns regarding the deficit. The deficit explodes under Republican leadership. That was certainly true under the Trump administration. And this nonsense continues. So look, the only thing that Democrats did in fact get out of this deal was something that specifically benefits one Democratic senator. And of course, that's Senator Joe Manchin, one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate. So Joe Manchin managed to slip into the deal,

a provision meant to accelerate the construction of the Mountain Valley pipeline, which of course is a multi-billion dollar natural gas pipeline in his state that runs through his state that's been repeatedly stalled on environmental concerns. So if this bill passes, he is going to get exactly what he wants. This is something he's been very focused on. He will not let it go. He's very persistent. And so he snuck this into the debt ceiling negotiations. And of course, Biden is doing him a solid, even though Joe Mansion is the one who served as one of the major obstacles to Biden's agenda, the build back better agenda. Okay, so apparently all of these concessions to Republicans isn't good enough, isn't good enough. And apparently corporate media doesn't

have the, I don't know, mental capacity to ask follow up questions where Republicans come on their shows and pretend as though they didn't get everything they wanted. So with that said, And the far right wing of the Republican Party is now threatening Kevin McCarthy, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. They argue that, you know, maybe they should consider revoking Speaker McCarthy's speakership role because he didn't do a good enough job. On a House Freedom Caucus call Monday night, for instance, Representative Ken Buck, a Republican from Colorado, floated using the motion to vacate, a rule that would allow any House member to force a vote to remove the speaker. Two sources familiar with the call said.

Then you have Representative Paul Gossar, particularly nefarious figure in the Republican Party. He proposed using the threat to force McCarthy to allow members to amend the bill on the House floor under an open rule that would stall the bill's passage. Fascinating. Lauren Bobert regurgitated that point. So let's take a look at what she had to say while talking to Steve Bannon. This, at the speaker's request is what I've heard, this was to be a closed rule with no amendments allowed.

At his request. That's what I'm told. The speaker's not told me that directly. But now we have members who are working in the Rules Committee, who sit on that committee saying, let's look at these amendments and consider opening it up. That's the way it should be. What amendments?

What amendments, Lauren Bobert? What amendments Paul Gosar? What amendments Ken Buck? What exactly are they unhappy with? There will be increased spending on defense. There will be a cap which translates to a cut when it comes to all other non-defense discretionary spending. There are work requirements implemented for the neediest people in the country,

those who rely on snap benefits and food stamps, what more do they want? Matt Gates is continuing on with this ridiculous theater. Let's hear what he had to say. If the speaker puts together a Democrat-Republican vote, yes, for this. What will the freedom caucus do if the people who are objecting to this bill get overridden? If the Republicans get overridden by a Republican speaker teaming up with Democrats, to pass this bill? Again, I think the operative question there is whether or not the speaker can get to a majority of the majority.

If a majority of Republicans are against a piece of legislation and you use Democrats to pass it, that would immediately be a black letter violation of the deal we had with McCarthy to allow his assent to the speakership, and it would likely trigger an immediate motion to vacate. Well, I guess now Kevin McCarthy needs to call Matt Gates's bluff. because they did in fact work with Democrats. And this is something that I find particularly disgusting on behalf of the Democratic Party. The fact that they would fight so hard to pass this bill that provides so many concessions for the Republicans and provides nothing for ordinary American people who voted them into office in the first place is just absolutely disgusting.

So I want to go to a set of graphics, this series of tweets tells you exactly what happened, what Democrats in the House did to aid and abet Kevin McCarthy and Republicans in ensuring that there would be a House vote today on the debt ceiling bill. Okay, so Grace Seeger writes the following. In a break with tradition, enough Democrats voted for the rule for the debt ceiling bill to pass. Traditionally, the majority party is expected to carry the rule without minority support, but 29 Republicans had voted against it. Democrats waited until the Republican knows were out before voting in favor. So get a load of this, 52 dozens, 52 Democrats voted for the rule allowing it to pass. And when I when I say allowing it to pass, I don't mean the bill

itself. They voted in favor of a rule that will allow for a House vote on the debt ceiling bill. Okay, that's what Democrats engaged in. And House leadership, Democratic House leadership, I should say, with Hakeem Jeffries, you know, serving as its leader, has already agreed to essentially doing what he can to ensure that this massive bill that's full of concessions to Republicans gets passed. He supports it. He made that very clear this morning. But I do I don't want to just quickly speculate in regard to what it is that Republicans are so unhappy with. Now, I do remember that during the negotiations, an issue regarding making some of the tax era, Trump era tax cuts for the rich permanent, that came up. So as far as I know, the current

iteration of the debt ceiling bill does not include making permanent the Trump era tax cuts for the rich. That could change. Because remember, what Republicans are engaging in right now is theater. But there's something else, something that I didn't actually think Republicans were serious about, but maybe they are. So Republicans allegedly wanted not two years of spending cuts on non-defense discretionary spending on government programs that help ordinary Americans. No, no, no, they wanted 10 years, a whole decade of spending cuts for these government programs. So is that what they're holding out for? Who knows? But one thing that it became clear to me after listening to Lauren Bobert speak to Bannon about why she's so upset.

You know, she didn't specify what she wants exactly, what kind of amendments she would present at the house. But she did seem to really, really care about being able to do these hearings, to have these debates. And really, those are the opportunities that members of Congress, both on the left and right, have an opportunity to provide this illusion of governance, right? These debates on the House floor, these hearings that they engage in, that gives the American people the idea that they're actually fighting for you, that they're trying to work for you. It's a part of their campaigning. And so the fact that they want to debate this on the House floor, propose amendments without even specifying what amendments they're fighting

for in the first place, I think tells you a lot about where their genuine priorities are. It's not really about their issues with the legislation itself, because the legislation itself gives them everything they want. What they really want is their opportunity to engage in these debates on the House floor. Lauren Bober is so delusional that she doesn't realize that she consistently embarrasses herself on the House floor. But nonetheless, I think that's what they want. I think they hate the fact that this was a deal that was made with Kevin McCarthy and and Joe Biden behind closed doors, they want to be able to be part of this process and be part of the theater in a bigger way, I think, for their campaigning purposes. But when we come back

from the break, we do have a particularly egregious and disgusting statement from Kevin McCarthy, because look, make no mistake about it, regardless of how many times they lie, regardless of how offended they pretend to be when they're called out on it, Republicans absolutely want to cut Social Security and Medicare, and Kevin McCarthy just admitted it flat out. That and more coming up. I just want to say I'm loving your comments. I love hearing and reading about your perspective. So if you're a YouTube member, if you're a t.yt.com member, if you like to send us super chats, please do so. I do want to hear your take on where we currently are with the debt ceiling negotiations. I want to hear what you think about how Democrats have handled this.

So write in, I really enjoy reading from you guys. All right, with that said, I do want to move on to Kevin McCarthy saying the quiet parts out loud. And this, of course, has to do with the most popular social spending programs in the country. Let's watch. And now we're cutting. And you know what? I'm going to make some people uncomfortable by doing that, but I'm not going to give up on the American people. And this isn't the end. This doesn't solve all the problems. This is the first step. I'm going to announce a commission coming forward from the speaker from bipartisan both sides of the aisle. We only got to look at 11% of the budget to find these cuts. We have to look at the entire budget.

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is real salty over the fact that the Republican Party was unable to take Social Security and Medicare, put it on the chopping block, and cut or partially privatize these programs, something that they have been pretty upfront about before, but all of a sudden they pretended as though, no, no, no, we would never, never touch the third rail. We would never touch these wildly popular programs. In fact, they did that fairly recently. Stick around for the example, but first, let's hear more from McCarthy on just how egregious he finds it, that they're unable to cut programs that we, the American people, have paid into. We only got to look at 11% of the budget to find these cuts. We have to look at the entire budget. The Congress has done this before. Why didn't you see the whole budget? Because the president walled off all the others.

The majority driver of the budget is mandatory spending. It's Medicare, Social Security, interest on the debt. So you only have 11% to look at this budget. But we were able to increase our defense to protect us. I mean, God forbid we ever make the mistake of not increasing defense spending, which is getting ever so close to a trillion dollars a year. I mean, it's just absolutely disgusting that he is openly admitting, like, we should give ourselves a pat on the back, am I right? Right? I mean, we managed to increase spending on defense while cutting some social spending programs that help the poor that help ordinary Americans. But God, I'd really like to do more.

I'd really like to cut Social Security and Medicare, which we have paid into. Look at your pay stub right now. Look at how much of your hard-earned money went towards Social Security and Medicare. These are universal programs that are incredibly popular for a reason. And they're called entitlements because we paid into them and we are entitled to them. Now with that said, just want to remind you about the conduct we saw from the Republican Party during Biden's state of the union address because Biden called them out on their attempts to cut Social Security and Medicare. And here's how they reacted to that. Some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I'm not saying it's a majority.

Let me give you anybody who doubts it. Contact my office. I'll give you a copy. I'll give you a copy of the proposal. That means Congress doesn't vote. I'm glad to see. And I tell you, I ain't. I mean, my favorite part of it.

about that video is that clown, Marjorie Green, liar, liar, come on, come on. Really? We're stupid? You think we're stupid? I mean, they lost it because they did not want to be called out on the public stage in regard to what their priorities are, which is cutting social security and Medicare. And now you have House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reflecting on that and feeling real salty about the fact that he was unable to accomplish really the creme de la creme for the Republican Party, which is cutting these programs or partially privatizing these programs. By the way, Medicare

is already partially privatized through Medicare Advantage, something that we've talked about on this show quite a bit. That has led to, you know, private insurers, okay, going out of their way to overcharge our Medicare system and fatten their pockets. So there's already an issue with privatizing Medicare to some extent, but they want to do all sorts of things, like raise the retirement age to 70 years old. Okay, again, raise the retirement age to 70 years old for Social Security, a program that we paid into. And the argument is, well, it's not solvent. It's not solvent. What are we going to do? We can't stay afloat with Social Security. It's just a costly program, except there is a solution. I'll get to that in just a moment.

Before I do, though, let's talk a little bit about why Republicans had that reaction after they were called out by President Biden during his state of the union address. In April, Associated Press and N-O-R-C did a poll. They wanted to see where the hearts and minds of American voters were when it came to Social Security and Medicare. Do they favor these programs? Are they open to potentially cutting these programs or raising the retirement age? Let me give you the results. 79% say they oppose reducing the size of social security benefits and 67% are against raising monthly premiums for Medicare. About 65 million older and disabled people access government

sponsored health insurance through Medicare and rely on monthly payments from Social Security. Let me just quickly give you this side note because it's important. Part of the reason why Medicare and Social Security is considered the third rail. Part of the reason why it's such a popular program that's incredibly difficult to cut or privatize is because it's universal. It's because everyone, regardless of what their income happens to be, will benefit from these programs once they hit a certain age. So when we're thinking about policies that would improve material conditions for Americans, we need to think about it in a way that will make the policy foolproof and will make it difficult to reverse the policy. I think the magic of Social Security Medicare is the fact that it is a

universal program. With that said, let's get to some more results from this incredible poll. So the same AP NORC poll found that a majority, 58% of respondents support the idea of increasing taxes on households making over $400,000 yearly to pay for Medicare. Now that was something that President Biden tepidly suggested, tepidly proposed. Of course, he didn't fight for it or do anything about it. But I would love to see a Democrat actually put their money where their mouth is. Here's some more interesting data from this poll. Some Republicans have floated the idea of raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare to keep the programs, to keep the program solvent or flush. But a majority of Americans overwhelmingly reject

that too. In fact, three quarters of Americans say they oppose raising the eligibility age for Social Security benefits from 67 to 70 years old, and 7 and 10 oppose raising the eligibility age for Medicare benefits from 65 to 67. And that doesn't surprise me at all. Again, if it's something that you have paid into, if it's something that you are entitled to, the idea that the Republican Party should be able to privatize or cut those programs is ridiculous. But here's a very simple solution. If you're genuinely concerned about funding social security, we could just do away with the tax cap that the wealthy benefit from.

So if you look at your pay stubs, you'll notice the amount you get taxed for social security specifically. The vast majority of Americans will be taxed over the entirety of their yearly income. But for wealthy people, once they hit a certain amount of money in income each year, Social securities, they stopped getting taxed for Social Security. So I looked up the chart from the Social Security Administration to see what the cap is for this year. And if you can see in 2023, anyone making above $160,200 will no longer be taxed for Social Security above that amount. So in other words, for wealthier people, for high income earners, the percentage of income that they contribute to Social Security is obviously much lower than what ordinary people

making an ordinary salary contribute. So why don't we just do away with the tax cap? Problem solved. But you'll never hear Republicans make that point or even offer up that solution because they love tax cuts. They benefit from the tax cuts themselves. But what's even worse is that that the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, and let's be clear, the corporate wing of the Democratic Party dominates the Democratic Party, they also don't suggest it, ever. I never hear them suggest that. So the idea that we need to hurt individuals, hurt ordinary Americans who, A, love these programs, and B, paid into these programs, is just flat out wrong, needs to be called out.

And while you might be called out here on this show, you're not going to hear it in corporate press ever, ever. They engage in the theater themselves. They pretend like it's an urgent matter and we need to cut social security or privatize it immediately or raise the retirement age. But there's a simple solution and that solution is never delivered to the American people. All right, there's a big breaking news story. I'm going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk about some pretty damning evidence that will work against Trump's defense in the classified documents investigation. That and more coming up. Ice cream. Welcome back to the show, friends. I'm Anna Kasparian and we have a pretty big

breaking news story that will not change a damn thing when it comes to Republican voters who support Trump. Nonetheless, let's do it. Sources telling CNN, federal prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of a summer 2021 meeting where the former president acknowledges he held on to a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack against Iran. The recording indicates that not only did Donald Trump know he had classified materials in his possession after he had. left the White House, but that Trump also seemed to know there were limits on what and how he could declassify records since he was no longer president.

Breaking news, Donald Trump is a liar. I mean, look, I guess it's good that we have evidence to prove it, how much of a difference it makes I'm unsure about. But that's right, what you just heard from Jake Tapper happens to be true. We've just learned, according to CNN, that Trump was caught on tape in a recording admitting that he not only had classified documents in his possession that he really should not have had in his possession, but there were other elements in that recording that should concern you, especially when you hear about where the recording took place. So if you're wondering why or how this conversation could have been recorded, here's your answer. This meeting was back in the summer of 2021 at Trump's Bedminster Golf Club.

And among the people in attendance were several Trump aides and two people working on an autobiography of Mark Meadows. Now Mark Meadows was not in attendance at this meeting. But during this time, Trump was in the habit of having his aides record any conversations with journalists, writers, or people working on books. We're also told that you can hear paper wrestling. It appears that he might be waving something around. Though it's unclear if he's waving this document that he's referring to or if he's waving something. else. Now perhaps more importantly for investigators on this recording, you can hear Trump suggests that he would like to share this information with the people he's speaking with,

but he acknowledges that there are limits to his power to declassify post-presidency. Oh damn, I mean, I thought Trump was telling the truth when he said that all he needs to do is think about declassifying highly classified documents and it just happens. Wow. Turns out he was lying, who would have known? Now Mark Meadows' autobiography apparently substantiates the report. So according to CNN, Meadows' autobiography includes an account of what appears to be the same meeting during which Trump recalls a four page report typed up by Trump's former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley himself.

It contained the general's own plan to attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged President Trump to do more than once during his presidency, which would have been a disaster. I'm glad he didn't listen to Mark Millie. However, the four page report also mentioned that there is a different document than the classified one that Trump was apparently waving around during that meeting. So if you've lost track of Trump's excuses for why he was able to steal classified documents from the White House and and take it home with him. First of all, we don't blame you.

He's dealing with so many different investigations as we speak, but here's a recap. Initially, Trump allies argued he had a standing declassification order so that documents removed from the Oval Office were immediately declassified. But by way, that's not a thing. A few weeks later, Trump told Fox News that he could declassify things just by thinking about it. Just by thinking about it, folks. Earlier this year, Trump's legal team told Congress that classified material was inadvertently

packed up at the end of the administration. Most recently, Trump told CNN at a town hall that materials were automatically declassified when he took them. Again, that's not a thing. In fact, some of the documents he had in his possession weren't just classified. And look, I will also admit that it appears that the federal government likes to declassify all sorts of documents that really have no business being, I'm sorry, they classify documents that really have no business being classified, right? There's really no reason to classify them. However, some of the documents that Trump had in his possession weren't just classified.

They were top secret documents that you can only review in a protected government facility. And what's clear from what we're seeing in this new reporting and in these recordings is that Trump knew that what he was doing was wrong. And also Trump was communicating about these classified documents with others. So this new information is very likely going to hurt his defense in this investigation. I'm going to be completely real with you guys. I think that even if he's found guilty of intentionally taking classified and top secret documents home with him when he knew he wasn't supposed to, I don't think he's ever going to see the inside of a jail cell. But one thing that I do know for sure is that even if he's found guilty of all of this,

even if the evidence is so damning that one would assume that ordinary Americans would turn on him, you shouldn't make that assumption. It ends up lionizing him, it ends up turning him into some kind of martyr. And what's amazing to me is that Ron DeSantis, who's in the midst of this feud with Trump because he's running against Trump for the Republican primary is regurgitating Trump talking points about the FBI. I mean, just today, Ron DeSantis said that one of the first things he'll do as president is fire the FBI director. Really? That's your top priority? Firing the, okay, okay, I mean, I got no love for Christopher Ray. Okay, I don't care. But why would you care so much about doing something about the FBI? Is it because the FBI did the raid of Mar-a-Lago?

because of Trump's possession of classified documents, like, why are you carrying water for Trump? What a weirdo. But let's see how that all plays out for DeSantis. Let's see how this plays out for Donald Trump. I don't think it's going to look good. But I don't think it's really going to have an impact in regard to Trump's base. I think that they will stand by his side no matter what. And I think that given the right wing media ecosystem spreading lies and providing cover for Trump, they will genuinely believe that all Trump had to do was imagine that he declassified these top secret documents and that it magically happened just by him thinking about it. All right, let's move on to other news, particularly news that actually impacts you guys.

So with a go ahead from the federal government, including Democrats, more than a dozen Republican led states have begun removing people from their state from their statewide Medicaid programs. Now they consider this the unwinding of the pandemic era federal policy that that very temporarily barred governments from basically kicking people off the program. And with good reason, I mean, we're in the middle of a pandemic, people are getting sick, people are getting hospitalized, individuals are dying. So the idea was let's not kick people off of Medicaid during this very clear emergency. But now, because the federal government has given the green light, these red states are able to do something known as red determination.

The redetermination process is all about determining whether or not an individual is eligible for Medicaid. Our system is so disgustingly broken that you have these goons like spending their time prioritizing kicking people off of government programs that they need. But nonetheless, there are huge problems because number one, many Americans have been left in the dark about these changes and they don't even know where to start when it comes to beginning the redetermination process. The other issue is that the income threshold to qualify for Medicaid is so damn low that you have to be making like a tiny, tiny amount of money to qualify. If you're making $35,000 a year, which in most cases you cannot live on, you do not qualify for Medicaid in many

of these states. So let's give you the details. Here's what we know according to Jake Johnson's reporting over at Common Dreams. The U.S. Health and Human Services Department has estimated that upwards of 15 million people nationwide could lose Medicaid coverage during the redetermination process. And again, I really want to emphasize that it would be wrong to simply blame Republicans for this. Now, historically, Republicans have been worse on this issue than Democrats have. But the only reason why red states are able to do this red determination process is because Democrats in the federal government have given them the green light. So there was a bipartisan deal late last year where Congress agreed to essentially cut off the pandemic protections,

giving states 12 months to redetermine who is and is not eligible for the health care program. And that health care program, Medicaid, covers tens of millions of Americans across the country. Now as the very states that refuse to expand their Medicaid programs through the Affordable Care Act begin to push low income Americans off the health coverage they've come to rely on, enrollees are absolutely left in the dark. For instance, there's a Kaiser Family Foundation poll that asked an important question about this issue. Just under 3 and 10, 28% of Medicaid enrollees overall are aware states are now allowed to remove people from Medicaid. And as a result, according to the New York Times, early data does in fact show that people lost coverage for procedural reasons, such as when Medicaid recipients did not return paperwork to verify their eligibility or could not be located. The large number of terminations on procedural grounds suggest that many people may be losing their coverage even though they are still qualified for it. Many of those who have been dropped have been children.

I'm going to give you some of those stories, specific examples in just a moment. But let's just fantasize for a moment what it would be like to live in a country like Canada or a country or a place like the UK where they have nationalized medicine, where they have a single payer healthcare system, where every single person gets the health care that they need without this weird, privatized fragmented system, right? You've got some public health insurance that's really, really difficult to qualify for. I mean, you need to be incredibly poor to qualify for it. Then you have the privatized model, which price gouges you. You have the prescription drugs that we also get price gouged on. Just imagine living in a country that has a single payer system, like Medicare for all, where you don't have to deal with all this heartache and all this pain. But I do want to give you some more details in regard to what we're already seeing in regard to people losing their health coverage through Medicaid.

So in Arkansas, for instance, more than 1.1 million people, that's over a third of the state's residents, we're on Medicaid at the end of March. In April, though, the first month that states could begin removing people from the program, about 73,000 people lost coverage, including, get a load of this, 27,000. thousand kids. I mean, FM, right? You know, Republicans care so much about the children that they will force them off of Medicaid, which they might need to keep them healthy. I mean, you might be thinking, oh, well, they're kids. Kids are healthy. They're spry. They don't need Medicaid, do they? Except some absolutely do. So I should note the majority of people who were dropped in the state lost coverage due to procedural reasons, okay? The barrier of entry, the barrier to do what you need to do and file the necessary paperwork in order to qualify for Medicaid. Then there are issues regarding how poor you need to be. Among those who were dropped was Melissa Beaufort, a diabetic with high blood pressure who makes about $35,000 a year at a health clinic in eastern Arkansas, helping families find affordable health insurance. Her two adult sons also lost their coverage because guess what?

apparently $35,000 a year as a single mother who has children to feed is just too much money. You know, she's living the good life. $35,000 a year, single mother to two sons. Let's go to Florida though, where you'll hear the terrible example of a seven-year-old who desperately needs health care coverage, but will now be denied. Early data released from the state of Florida, for example, shows that more than 205,000 people in the state lost coverage for procedural reasons after April eligibility checks. And there was a seven year old involved. So one of these individuals is a seven year old boy in remission from leukemia who is now unable to access follow up and potentially

life saving treatments. And that's according to a letter that was written by advocacy groups who are urging DeSantis to change course on this. The group also wrote that families with children have been erroneously terminated and parents are having trouble reaching the DCF call center for help with this process. Additionally, unclear notices and lack of information on how to appeal contribute to more confusion. But that's not the bug, that's the feature. In fact, I remember when the coronavirus pandemic first started, when tens of millions of Americans had lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Florida was a difficult state to get qualified for unemployment benefits, even if you absolutely do qualify for it. And it's because they didn't

really heavily invest in the infrastructure, the state infrastructure necessary to process the claims. So while people living in states like California applied and were able to qualify for unemployment benefits almost immediately, in Florida, that wasn't the case. Some people in some cases had to wait months for it. So again, I just want to emphasize that isn't the bug that is the feature in some of these red states who really lean into the pull yourself up by the bootstraps mentality. And in the end, millions of Americans absolutely will be affected by this. The Congressional Budget Office, for instance, estimated earlier this week that states Medicaid eligibility checks will likely leave 6.2 million people without any insurance at all. America, land of the free, home of the brave, place where even as a seven-year-old child who is

dealing with leukemia, you might not get the coverage you need. And it's just so shameless. Republicans are so incredibly shameless about this. But by the way, I don't really hear a peep from Democrats either. All right, I do want to end the first hour on a story that I love, Because it seems like the inflation narrative that we heard from people like Larry Summers was complete BS, and now even publications like the Wall Street Journal have no choice but to admit it. So let's talk about it. The Federal Reserve of all places is finally confirming what we as progressives have already known. High wages for workers did not translate to the inflation that the country is

is currently experiencing, not even close. So this analysis was done specifically by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. And here's what we know based on the analysis. So a measure of wages favored among economists and policy makers explains only about 0.1% of the three percentage point increase in consumer price inflation, excluding food and energy, San Francisco Fed economist Adam Shapiro said in an article published Tuesday on the bank's website. So let me just let me really emphasize that again, okay? Rising wages only accounted for 0.1% of one percentage point of the 3% inflation that the country experienced. So negligible

to say the least. In fact, recent evidence shows that wage growth tends to follow inflation, as well as expectations of future inflation, Shapiro wrote. So in other words, when we experience inflation, some employers tend to raise wages a little bit so their workers can cope with the fact that inflation is impacting their ability to live, their livelihoods, right? So it follows inflation, the wages increasing follows inflation. That never gets talked about. So I'm glad that Shapiro mentioned that in his analysis.

Now, what's really driving inflation? We talk about it on the show quite a bit, but in case you missed our coverage on that, here's a reminder. Some economists say that the reason could be that some companies are taking advantage of an opportunity to increase their profits while supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia have pushed cost higher in recent years. Studies have found that several companies have raised prices far above those cost increases, and this is especially true for goods and services.

There's something intentional happening here. Explain that. Hi. Yeah, well, you refer to the increase in costs. I mean, all of us know that this has happened, right? So you're inclined to be a bit more forgiving when you see, you know, the price of something that you regularly buy going up. You assume that, you know, a competing item has probably gone up to, and the businesses that are competing with each other are kind of able to securely assume that their rivals are going to be raising prices. So there's an opportunity there to test the limit to see how far they can go, and some have found that they can go beyond the initial cost increase, that in this period when things are

very uncertain, consumers can't be sure that they're being taken advantage of, they can't be sure that there's an alternative that hasn't gone up in price, and they've managed to push up their profits, and that in turn pushes up inflation. So in other words, as you just heard from a Wall Street Journal reporter, companies took advantage of the inflation narrative that was regurgitated and repeated in corporate media over and over again to increase their prices to maximize corporate profits. So this idea that they had no choice, that running their businesses had become far too costly and they had to raise prices as a result, that was all BS. What they saw was an opportunity to piggyback off of this narrative and raise

their prices while making it appear as though, I mean, they weren't doing it to maximize profits. they were doing it because they had no choice. And since that was the talking point that was repeated over and over again in the corporate media, most Americans didn't really know what was going on. In fact, what most Americans heard was nonsense from people like Larry Summers, who claimed that the inflation was specifically due to things like, and I agreed with him on this point, the Federal Reserve and its monetary and fiscal policy, okay, I agreed with him on that. But he also really like to emphasize government stimulus associated with COVID relief bills.

If you don't remember, here's the reminder. I don't think the $2,000 checks make much sense. We have stimulus already much more than filling out the hole. And given that lots of the hole is from the fact not that people don't want to spend, but that they can't spend because they can't take a flight or they can't go to a restaurant, I don't necessarily think that the priority should be on promoting consumer spending beyond where we are now. So I'm not even sure that I'm so enthusiastic about the $600 checks, and I think taking them to $2,000 would actually be a pretty serious mistake. And I have to say that when you see the two extremes agreeing, you can almost be certain that

something crazy is in the air. And so when I see a coalition of Josh Hawley, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump getting behind an idea, I think that's time to run for cover. I got to say, I definitely see something crazy. And the crazy thing, thing I see is Larry Summers purporting that $600 stimulus checks or $2,000 stimulus checks will translate to the inflation that we're currently experiencing right now. How laughable and ridiculous is that? But since Larry Summers is a Democrat, Republicans loved what he said there. And you know what they did? They used him as a cover for the austerity that they had been pushing for. I mean, even a Democrat wants austerity. Even a Democrat thinks that we've provided

too much financial relief to ordinary Americans. Here's what that look like. Larry Summers, he pointed this week to the $1.9 trillion American rescue plan that was passed earlier this year in March. He said that's a major reason behind the rising inflation, something he called at the time, quote, the least responsible macro economic policy we've had in the last 40 years. is it possible that Americans are suffering now from high prices because the Biden administration over-stimulated the economy with all of this money going into the economy? The inflation thing is so real that everybody acknowledges it now. Of course, it's not just Republicans.

I mean, Larry Summers has worried about it openly and Joe Manchin worries about it quite rightly. And the problem Joe Biden has is that it's going to affect the passage of built-backed. better. They've already created a lot of harm this year with the previous two trillion dollar package they passed earlier this year without a single Republican vote. It created raging inflation, which Larry Summers, the last honest Democrat in town, admitted was going to happen, predicted was going to happen. So the best way to sum up the impact of this package, if the Democrats pass it, and of course it'll be all by themselves, is they double down, on all the mistakes they've already made this year.

Yeah, well, I thought you put it well. I mean, and Larry Summers deserves a lot of credit. So I would like to, in this moment, dispel the notion that there's any fundamental difference between corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans when it comes to these types of economic issues. Like the idea, like, wow, even a Democrat like Larry Summers,

not even a Democrat. You guys are the same. and you know it, and the audacity of Republican members of Congress, any member of Congress, speaking out against a tiny, tiny bit of financial relief for ordinary Americans as they very likely engage in insider trading in their positions of power is just unbelievable, pathetic, and should be called out. Again, should be called out in the very least by the media, by actual journalists. But we have a deficit in journalism in this country as well. And what's so frustrating is that part of the theater that we have to consume every single day in the press is this idea

that corporate Democrats and corporate Republicans, individuals who are bribed by the very same moneyed interests are somehow fundamentally different on economic issues. They're not. They're the same. They want austerity for you and all sorts of goodies for themselves. and their corporate buddies, period. We've got to take a break. When we come back, John Ida Rola will join me for the second hour of the show. Thanks for listening to the full episode

of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.