The Young Turks - Another Minor Dies In Border Custody

Episode Date: July 25, 2019

More heartbreaking news from the border. John Iadarola and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. What? Welcome to the Young Turks.

I'm Anna Casparian. John Irola joins me for hour one today. Hello, so there was an emergency, and Jank is unfortunately unable to be here today. Now, we're still going to do our very special shindig for today's postgame show. It's going to start immediately after the second hour of our program. And the whole point of the shindig, it's going to be open to everyone. So if you're not a member, you can watch it. But our activist level members will be able to ask us questions about the debates next week.

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Activist level members pay a little more, and we want to make sure that we provide extra perks for individuals who do provide more. and keep us afloat as a company. So, how are you doing? I'm good. Good? Yeah. Well, I mean, other than the news and all that. Looking very nice today.

Other than our career field. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I'm trying occasionally. It's a little tight. I'm not going to lie to you. But other than that good. All right, okay.

It's better than having a skinny neck, right? That's what I hear. That's what in cells tell me. Okay. Hold on. Okay, let's move on. Do you have measuring tape? I need to check anyway.

Let's go. He was diagnosed with the flu and transferred to a different border patrol station to prevent it from spreading to others. The next day, he was found dead. That was one of the six migrant minors who died in border patrol custody. And the reason why we're talking about this young man again today is because Carlos Gregorio Hernandez-Vasquez had an autopsy or there was a forensic analyst who looked at. into the cause of death to try to figure out exactly what happened. And this is incredibly important to do because we want to understand exactly why so many migrants have been dying in Border Patrol custody.

As many as 24 have died so far, at least six of them have been children. And so Border Patrol is saying, no, it's not our fault, they're showing up sick. But the autopsy indicates that that is not the case. And I'm gonna be completely honest before I get into the gruesome details of this autopsy. This is difficult to read about. It's difficult to even talk about because this was a 16 year old unaccompanied minor whose parents are still back in Guatemala and he came here seeking safety and the way that he was treated is just inhumane to say the least.

So he actually died in May and according to the Texas Monthly, Carlos Gugoria Hernandez Vasquez crossed the border near West Laco alone, back in May 30, I'm sorry, this is like a difficult story, on May 13th. And when he was held, at that point he was held in a processing center for unaccompanied minors in nearby McAllen for six days until getting sick around May 19th. So at that point, he should have been taken to a hospital, but he was not. He did see a nurse practitioner, according to the Texas Monthly, and that nurse found that he had a 103 degree fever.

Now, he was not sick when he first arrived to the detention facility. He became very sick with the flu, and he tested positive for the flu. At that point, he was prescribed Tamiflu and transferred to the Border Patrol station. Back to the border patrol station, Hernandez died the next morning. This is the part that's difficult to even think about. There was a video that was shown to the woman who did the autopsy. And according to the video, he's seen lying on the floor, vomiting on the floor. And he walks over to the commode where he sits and later lies back and expires.

That is according to the autopsy report. That's what the forensic pathologist wrote, and he was surrounded by his own vomit. And I just want to give you a sense of what Border Patrol did wrong in this case. They are supposed to transfer minors within 72 hours and they fail to do that. They're supposed to transfer the child to the office of refugee resettlement within 72 hours. Not only have they failed to do that with the migrants who died, but they failed to do that with migrants overall. And they're completely admitting that.

So they're breaking the law and confessing that they're breaking the law, but there haven't been any consequences. Not for them. Not for them. There's been consequences for other people. There have been consequences for the migrants, some of whom. have gotten very sick or lost their lives. And I just want to remind you that our lawmakers just handed the Trump administration $4.6 billion

in taxpayer money with no safeguards to improve the conditions that these migrants are being kept in. And that is the reason why Nancy Pelosi was so angry with AOC and other freshman Democrats, they voted against that appropriations bill because they actually have a conscience. Let me give you more. Dr. Judy Melanick, who's also a forensic pathologist, said the following. In my opinion, there needs to be a public health audit of the policies and conditions in these migrant camps and a forensic review of all migrant deaths.

There are already laws that are being broken. So I agree that there should be an audit, but what's the audit going to do if we have an administration that has absolutely no willingness to follow the rules? has no willingness to treat people humanely, and we have a certain portion of the electorate who reads about this stuff and thinks, all right, this is what we voted Trump in for. Yeah, and there's no, there's not going to be consequences for the people. Like, for the people, as you filter down through the bureaucracy, if some people die, there's not going to be consequences, it's like odd and it's weird, it's noteworthy that an autopsy

is done in the first place. And so even when something terrible happened, something, again, which is not predictable, But we know is going to happen, we know we're going to get more of these sorts of cases. It's not going to be consequence for them. Yeah. And I apologize if this is a weird thing to focus on. I only say it because I don't, I never lived right near the border. Most Americans don't live near the border.

And so I think that when you just hear about a place at the border, you think about some remote place out in the desert or the scrub or something like that. But I noticed that they said they was transferred to McAllen. And my fiance is from right next door to McAllen. This might be a weird thing to say, but it is a bustling place. It's rapidly expanding, huge economic growth and everything. No, Trump told us that it's crime-ridden and dangerous and full of MS-13 and drug cartels. Well, I can't speak to that, I didn't see any.

I can't say that there's tons of trade over the border every single day of people with money passing over from Mexico and stuff like that. Like, this is not like, they just couldn't get help to him because he was off in the middle to nowhere. He was very much not in the middle of nowhere. The thing that I can't get past is, and I don't know, maybe just to be able to handle these types of stories, I need to not do this, but I can't help but think of who I was at 16 and how scared I would be to travel to a foreign place by myself, right?

And then be placed in that condition without my family, without anyone I know. And just at that, you know you're dying, right? If you're suffering from that illness and you're vomiting all over the place and you're by that toilet, like you're dying alone. Like that 16 year old kid died alone. And I can't get over that. I can't get over the fact that we're letting this happen. And we have 30% of the country who thinks it's okay.

They look at this and they think awesome, you know? Or don't want to be told about it in the first place? No, they know, they know. And they don't care. And that's the, it had been over a decade since a migrant had died in border patrol custody. Trump is now in charge, and now we have at a minimum of two dozen migrants dying under his watch. And it's sick. It's sick that his base still remains loyal to him, regardless of how many people die as a result.

Now, let me give you some more information about what's going on with our immigration system that should frustrate you. The House of Representatives has just passed legislation that would, in essence, force the Trump, administration to improve conditions in these migrant detention facilities, there was only one member of the GOP in the House, one Republican in the House, who voted in favor of this. And just to give you a sense of what this bill would do, I want to go to this video of Representative Raul Ruiz, who was the author of this legislation. Take a look. It ensures that every individual in CBP custody receives a health screening to triage for acute

conditions and high risk vulnerability so people don't die under the responsibility of CBP. It ensures that an emergency care provider is on call to pick up the phone and help make triage decisions for life-threatening medical emergencies. That's it. That's all we're asking for. My bill also prioritizes high-risk populations, you know, the most vulnerable to severe illnesses and dying, to receive a health screening within six hours. including children, pregnant women, and the elderly. My bill requires very basic and necessary things like toothbrushes and diapers. It includes nutrition standards to make sure that infants have formula and babies have baby food.

How hard is that? Apparently, it's extremely hard for Republican lawmakers because, again, only one of them voted in favor of it. The House passed this Democrat-led bill that would require customs and border protection or CBP to enact safety and hygiene standards for migrants in their custody, and it was a 233 to 195 vote. Representative Don Young from Alaska was the only Republican member of the House to vote in favor of this legislation. We should check to make sure that he's still a Republican.

He might have been forced out of the party since then. Yeah, and look, first of all, we have spineless members of the Republican Party who are much more concerned about their own political careers as opposed to doing the right thing. Now, I might disagree with someone like Justin Amash on pretty much anything, but Justin Amash was willing to do the right thing and take a principled approach, knowing that it was going to hurt him politically, and it has hurt him politically so far. My point is, leaders, as I've said before, lead, regardless of how difficult it is to put yourself in that position and do the right thing at that moment. And Justin Amash, luckily,

has done the right thing. Now, it's in a different context when it comes to impeachment. In this case, you have a Republican, one Republican in the House who did the right thing. I don't know what kind of consequences he's going to face. But we talk about consequences because this is what the Republican voters want. This is what they want. They like the inhumane treatment. And then you're supposed to pretend as if, you know, they're worth sitting down and having a debate with. I mean, when have we lost our humanity? When have we decided as a country, this type of behavior is okay?

Allowing children to die under our watch, something that could easily be preventable is okay. So you've correctly identified the approach of the many Republicans there. But then take a look at that vote and think about what happened when we were talking about the funding bill. And the sometimes vocalized but often just the assumption that AOC and the others who voted against it are stupid. They're stupid because they don't trust the Republicans to just do what's right without any regulations. Okay, well, when we tried to get regulations, they all said no.

So do you think that they're going to do the right thing without those regulations if they're so opposed to it? The fact that Democratic leadership viciously went after freshman Democrats because of their moral objections to handing the Trump administration $4.6 billion in that appropriations bill makes me sick. The fact that Nancy Pelosi felt the need to sit down with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times and attack freshman Democrats more viciously than she's ever attacked, Donald Trump makes me sick to my stomach.

And it makes me embarrassed, honestly, to have a D, you know, in my voter registration, to consider myself a Democrat. Because I don't want to associate myself with that kind of Democrat. I want to associate myself with leaders, and I think that Pelosi should really think about the fact that freshman Democrats right now are acting as leaders while she is essentially doing Donald Trump's bidding when it comes to handing over taxpayer money for border patrol without safeguards for migrants. Well, we know what wing of the party we're, you know, a part of.

But before that wing really even had many elected representatives in it. So we certainly, yeah, we understand that. This is why they, look, this is why they hate justice Democrats, this is why they hate, and they have already taken punitive measures against anyone who have. considers primarying Democrats. Because we're not alone, John, like we're not in a bubble when it comes to the Democratic Party. There are many people on the left who are frustrated with the lack of leadership here.

And look, the House voting in favor of this current legislation is great, but we know what's going to happen is it's unlikely to even come up for a vote in the Senate. McConnell is not going to bring it up for a vote in the Senate. And if he does, the Senate is dominated by Republicans. Yeah, yeah, he wants to be labeled the Grim Reaper and the Grim Reaper. Reaper needs dead things and this will help to insure some. And really fast, it's, it's so ridiculous when you look at some of the votes. And I think this is a great example of it that like you would think you would hope that

in the past, you know, 20, 30, 50 years ago, there wasn't much information about what was going on in DC and now we're just swimming in it. And I actually think it's worse now because so much of that information is false or intentionally manipulative, you would think that there are certain things that you just can't vote against because you'll get destroyed based on it. So if you're the Republican Senator who earlier today blocked two election security measures designed to stop foreign powers from interfering in our election, she just blocked it and didn't say why.

And when journalists reached out to her staff to find out why, she just didn't comment because she doesn't have to. Because it doesn't matter, you can do whatever you want. You can vote to ensure that migrant children die, that they swim in their own vomit, and then they die on the floor of a prison cell. And it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, make whatever ad you want, nothing gets through anymore. Enough of the country is horrible that you can be horrible and it will improve your chances

of getting elected in certain parts of the country. Trump has succeeded in dehumanizing innocent people who do not deserve to be treated this way. We had a system in place, and when you hear this is a manufactured crisis, and I've said this before I'm gonna say it again, it's not to say that there is not an influx of migrants coming in. There is an influx of migrants coming in, attempting to seek asylum. The way that Trump has handled it, has turned it into a crisis.

The punitive measures he has taken, the fact that he has decided to detain every single person rather than allow them to, you know, just release them and allow them to come back for their court date and see a judge. That is the way we used to do it. Over 80% of migrants would come back, see a judge, judge would hear their case, make a decision about whether they get to stay or whether they need to go. And he's intentionally doing this. The Trump administration thinks that this type of behavior serves as a deterrent.

But it has not served as a deterrent, taking children away from their parents has not served as a deterrent. It is not working, it is not leading to the results that they want. And now the latest is the Trump administration is threatening Guatemala with a travel ban if they don't help to stem the flow of migrants coming into the country. People are desperately fleeing for their safety. They're leaving the country. What is Guatemala going to do?

You want them to prevent people from leaving the country? I mean, that's happened in history before. There's every reason to believe that he thinks we share a border with Guatemala. I mean, that's saying that sounds crazy, but he thinks Al-Qaeda has spelled ALCAI-D-A. Yeah, this administration is trash. And anyone who continues to support this type of behavior falls under that category. I'm sorry. That offends you. Get ready.

Let's move on. We got to take a break. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-Inging the Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different

historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must not learn what you have learned.

And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Hey guys, welcome back to TYT, Anna and John with you. As I mentioned earlier, Jenk had an emergency and unfortunately he can't join us today, but we will still have our shindig later tonight. All right, I also want to tell you about one of our new partners.

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That was so good. Just as good as normal. That was good. I gotta remember that. Thank you. Okay, let's move on to some other news. They didn't want me to say that either. A new study indicates that as many as 16,000 individuals living in red states could have basically continued living.

The states could have saved their lives if the lawmakers within those states agreed to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Now, there were a number of red states who decided, no, we're going to be defiant and we're going to reject federal money and we will not expand Medicaid to help cover people living in poverty in our states. And so as a result, there were consequences. And this new study that was published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, and it was done by a team of researchers from the University of Michigan, found that quite a few people, not a few, thousands of people died as a result of this decision.

The 22 mostly red states that refused to accept expansion starting in 2014 caused 15,600 unnecessary deaths among their residents. 14 states are still holding out on this federal money. They still refuse to expand Medicaid. Now they're mostly in the deep south and some havens of warped concepts of freedom such as Wyoming and South Dakota. That wording, by the way, comes from a column in the Los Angeles Times and I want to give credit it to the writer here because I think he did a great job and really did speak about this or

write about this in a truthful, honest way with a lot of passion and conviction. Some states such as Maine and Louisiana adopted expansion more recently when they replaced GOP governors with Democrats. Coincidence. So no, but this is the power of elections. This is why voting does matter. Local elections matter, national elections matter. If you're governor, if you're in a deep red south, if you're in a deep south state, right?

And you're in a red state that refuses to expand Medicaid, get active and vote these lawmakers out of office. Yeah. This is unacceptable. These deaths could have been prevented and they don't care. They decided no, we're gonna go ahead and be incredibly defiant and we're gonna allow our own constituents to die as a result of it. Yeah, yeah, and the numbers are of course an underestimate because I think you said it was

from 2014 and 2017 in the study. Well, it's been a couple more years, how many more people unfortunately lived in those states? and had kidney failure or diabetes or God knows what, that could have been treated, but the Republican governors did the fairly unprecedented move of saying no to this expansion. So one thing that I think a lot of people might have forgotten about was the original form of the Affordable Care Act mandated that states take the federal money and expand their Medicaid programs. And then that was challenged in the courts. Like, Republican lawmakers felt so passionately about this and felt so strongly against

expanding Medicaid in their states, that they went to court and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. The expansion mandate was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 2012 decision by Chief Justice John Roberts, possibly trying to strike a compromise that would allow him to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act as a whole. Roberts made the expansion voluntary state by state. So that really did open the floodgates in the worst possible away with many red states deciding that they were going to reject that money. And just to give you a sense of what could have happened, I mean, how this would have been helpful in saving lives.

One study cited by Miller's team, and that's the lead researcher in this study, found a significant 8.5% reduction in mortality among patients with end state renal disease after they enrolled in Medicaid. study found a decrease in rates of cardiovascular disease among adults 45 to 64 associated with state adoption of the ACA Medicaid expansions. And I guess it should be obvious, but just like it's not obvious, especially for international viewers. You might be used to like, oh yeah, in America, there's lots of partisan back and forth and

everything. But when I said unprecedented before, if the federal government says we're going to give your state free money, it does not get turned to. down. That just does not happen. I defy anyone to come up with another example of hundreds of millions or billions of dollars being rejected. Now, yes, in three years, the states would have been responsible for 10% of the cost. You could 100% swing that, or just take the money for a couple of years. Not doing that is, it's one of the most partisan things I think I've ever seen, because the benefit is so high to be able to say, I brought in this money for you, vote from, you know,

They're willing to possibly jeopardize reelection to give a middle finger to Barack Obama. No, you're absolutely right. And what I also find fascinating is that when it comes to fear mongering about Americans dying, they love to exploit that issue, the death and the fear mongering when it comes to migrants, right? Oh my God, we need to keep them out. They're dangerous, they're MS-13. Of course, it's demagogue, demogging, and complete and utter lies. Our lawmakers are killing us.

Our lawmakers are making a conscious decision to let us die, right? And especially in red states, especially in the 14 states that have decided we're gonna continue rejecting this expansion of Medicaid, we're gonna reject the resources that would help keep people living in poverty in our states alive. Yeah. Yeah, and the interesting thing too is so when Roberts did that, he created a sort of natural experiment where we suddenly had, we were able to do an analysis state by state with some having the expansion, some not, and we showed how important it is for people who already

have less resources in their everyday normal lives, to qualify for Medicaid, obviously you're going to be on the lower end of the economic spectrum, how important it is for them to have health care. And so then once you've established that, it's easy to go one step farther and say, well, then wouldn't it be much better for everyone to have access to health care, to have insurance? Maybe while the ACA obviously is preferable, because the people in the states where they had access to it are having better outcomes, maybe if ever, Everybody had better care than that is available in the ACA, we'd get better benefits,

but across the entirety of the country. I would argue most Americans don't even know about what's going on in these states. So this is a perfect opportunity just to kind of go back to, look, there's political strategy, there's policy, right? So we had a discussion about the policy, but just real quick, let's talk about political strategy. If I were a Democrat in Congress, I would not shut up about this, like nonstop, nonstop. I would be like John Stewart with the 9-11 victims fund, right? I would do press conferences, I would go on cable television, I would talk about this study.

Would you believe it? Almost 16,000 people died because of the fact that these Republicans decided to reject federal resources in expanding Medicaid. They don't care about their constituents. They would much rather see their own constituents die just to make a political point, just to feed into political division in the country. How come we're not hearing about it? How come you have to read a Los Angeles Times column to know what's going on?

Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, I hope that that would be effective, but we do have two senators who just voted against giving healthcare to the first responders and others who are willing to stonewall it for quite a while until it became a big national story. But that's my point. They're shameless. No, but they're not necessarily.

Two still voted against it. No, you're right, you're right. But remember, McConnell, it appeared had no intention of even bringing that up for It worked on him, yes. It worked on him. Political pressure works. Democratic leadership should try it sometime. Yeah.

All right, moving on to other news. He was found in a secure area of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, semi-conscious, in a fetal position with marks on his neck. Accused child sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, was found in his jail cell with injuries around his neck, indicating that he may have attempted suicide, although. Although law enforcement is saying that they're not entirely sure if that's what happened. There are other possibilities including self-afflicted wounds, inflicted wounds in order to maybe get moved to a different jail or facility.

He could have also been a victim of an attack by another inmate. They're not giving us too many details, but he was found semi-conscious with these injuries around his neck. Also, while Epstein told authorities he was beaten up and called a child predator, the sources said, he has been placed on suicide watch. So regardless, they've decided to put him on suicide watch and his injuries are not serious. Epstein's defense lawyer was just recently asking a US court of appeals judge from the Second Circuit to reconsider the district court's decision to deny him bail.

There's no indication the appeals court has made a determination on whether to hear the appeal. So Epstein wanted to just hang out in his fancy Manhattan mansion as he awaits his trial. And luckily that was rejected because he was considered a flight risk. He had a fraudulent passport and he also had $75,000 in cash and a bunch of loose diamonds. As one does. Yeah, I mean, I guess I get the strategy of trying to use this to get a second chance of the possibility of bail. But regardless of whether he attempted suicide or if he was attacked, it's obviously far easier to just keep an eye on him than to allow him to go out and continue living.

If I were him or if I was his defense attorneys, I would try it, especially considering how he was treated back in 2007. But why not just install a camera, have some security? That seems simpler. You mean in his jail cell? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Whatever.

He shouldn't be in his Manhattan mansion. Obviously, that's what I'm saying. Right. His previous sentence, as you can recall, was ridiculous. He was able to leave prison for a giant chunk of the day. And he was continuing with the behavior that's gotten him in trouble while he was serving his sentence. So I'm glad that his request was denied.

Look, I don't, I think that he should be brought to justice. I don't know what happened. I don't know if he tried to commit suicide. But let's speculate. No, yeah, I'd rather not. Well, it's such a crazy case because I'm not going to be able to remember the name, but there was a lawmaker who I think earlier today in an interview said she'd received phone calls pressuring her to drop investigating this, saying you're not going to get anywhere

and you don't want to get involved in this. I mean, who knows? Maybe that'll turn out not to be true or God knows who it was that was saying that. But they should be so careful with him while he's in custody. Whether it's a suicide thing, like whether he's telling the truth or not. He could get attacked. Certainly, that sort of person does get attacked in jail. He needs to be protected because as much as he would love to someday live in, you know, France

or the Philippines or something, there's a lot of people who don't want him to reveal what they know, what he knows. Well, yeah, I mean, he has connections to so many people in positions of power, exactly. That's a great point. And one other thing I want to mention is that, you know, this wasn't some prostitution issue, right? He was a child sex trafficker. He was having sex with children as young as 14 years old.

And so the charges that he's facing include one count of sex trafficking minors and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking. He should be brought to justice. Again, we don't know for sure what happened with him or why he had those injuries around his neck, but they should keep a close eye on him and make sure that he survives to see his day in court. Yeah, and then be pardoned by the president. Don't say that, that's, oh my God.

He wouldn't? What? His base would flee if he did that? No, come on, he would do that. I'm not saying he will, but I'm saying he could. And I think he'd be quite fine. I feel a little sick and I think I need to take a break. So let's do that.

I've done my job then. When we come back, we will talk about Churning Point USA. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell

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It's open to everyone. Our activist-level members will get to ask us questions about our predictions for the debates next week. That's the whole point. So let's talk a little bit about the Revolution Rally and the debates next week. Next Tuesday and Wednesday, please join us for our special coverage of the debate. debates here at TYT. We're gonna go over the second Dem debate with, I'm sorry, we're gonna go over both of the debates, obviously, and Jank and John are actually gonna cover it from Detroit.

So you're gonna be in Detroit not only for the debates, but for what I think is even better, the Revolution Rally. I'm hoping so. It looked like fun. Every time we would call you guys up, it looked like you were having a great time. I love it. It was reinvigorating. I think I needed that energy and our viewers have such incredible energy,

political activists have such incredible energy. And even people who aren't affiliated with the Revolution Rally, people who are there protesting migrant detention facilities. I'm open around the Sunrise Movement. Right, the Sunrise Movement, I believe, was there as well. And it just feels good to be around people who want to progress this country, to make things better, especially when you cover the kind of news stories that we cover every day. Well, I'll just quickly say there is one thing I'm dreading other than the actual debates,

which I'm dreading. I'm supposed to do, for shop TYT, I'm supposed to do like a modeling session. Can I be a disaster? Can I just be there while you model? There's no one less qualified to model a shirt. Just drape it on me. No, but here's what you don't understand. If you had the personality, I think you have the looks to do the modeling thing.

But you don't have the personality of a model. I don't even know what that would be. Some people are just natural. I'm not natural. At all, in any way, and I think you guys can attest to that if you watch the show. Yeah, it's not being natural. You're like, you have too much humility and- Maybe. And you're not, I don't know, you just, you're not, there's no model behavior happening

with you. Can I also say one other thing? So for the first part of the week, I am going to be in Detroit for the Revolution rally and to cover the debates, and it's going to be great because we're going to be able to Skype back and forth and give our take as the two nights go on. For the rest of the week, this is going out to the nerds. I'm gonna be in Indianapolis for GenCon, which is this massive board and role playing game convention.

And so if there are TYT members that are gonna be attending and you wanna get together and play a game of like blood rage or clank or something, we can play. But you can't track me down and like cut me or stab me or choke me or stalk me or anything like that. You can't kill me, so don't do that. If you're one of the people that want to track me down and kill me, please don't do that. But if you wanna play a board game, let's do that, that would be fun.

I'm just worried about somebody killing me, that's all. Okay. And I don't want that. You can also join us on the ground in Detroit for the Revolution Rally. It'll be taking place on Tuesday, July 30th at 4.15 p.m. at the Western Book Cadillac Hotel. The rest of the day schedule can be found at t.t.com slash rally. And one other note about that, we have Abdul, Abdul Isayyad scheduled to speak at the Revolution

rally. He's a progressive activist who ran for the governor's seat back in 2018. His campaign was endorsed by Bernie Sanders, AOC, and other wonderful progressives who we support. So it's gonna be a wonderful event, please show up, I think you're really gonna enjoy it. And again, go to t-y-t.com slash rally to check it out. He's a great candidate. He really is. He was.

You're in great race. I'm struggling today. I don't know, I don't know, I'm just struggling with getting my words out today. It's you doing this right now is like me modeling t-shirts. It's just not natural. It's not natural. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Do all the things that he said that you shouldn't do. Don't murder me. Don't murder me. All right, let's get to the rest of the news. Let's get to the rest of the news. Africans are celebrating today following Ricardo Rosello's decision to step down. Previously he had decided that he would not seek reelection, but the mass and intense protest Against him continued, they went on for weeks, and finally, just late last night, he'd made a decision that he would step down, effective August 2nd.

Now, he was involved in homophobic and misogynistic text messages, which were later leaked to the public, and there has been a corruption scandal plaguing top officials in Puerto Rico. Several of them have been arrested and are facing investigations as a result. They had misdirected $15.5 million to their buddies in government contracts. This was federal money that was not supposed to be spent the way that it was spent. So according to NBC News, his resignation, as I mentioned earlier, is effective on August 2nd. And it came late last night through a Facebook video. In the message, he touted what he considered to be accomplishments of his tenure, saying he fought corruption and made strides for different communities.

Just ripping a page off of Donald Trump's book. Just say the exact opposite of what you got in trouble for, which is corruption. He said, quote, my only North Star has been the well-being of my island. What I wish most is peace and progress for my people. Well, I mean, you had an opportunity to deliver peace and progress to your people. You did the exact opposite. The news came after three attorneys commissioned by the president of Puerto Rico's House, Puerto House of Representatives, Carlos Mendes Nunez, unanimously found five offenses that constituted

grounds for impeachment. So they- He should have held out for Nancy Pelosi to defend him. Hey-oh. Raw-nerf, raw-nerf. But look, they were about to impeach him. And I think he realized these protests are not going to stop. These impeachment proceedings are very likely to occur. And he just decided, maybe I need to step down, and I'm glad that he's done it.

And I'm glad that he did it. And I'm also happy to see Puerto Ricans celebrating their victory here. Yeah. Well, to actually see corruption hurt you politically. It's rare. We found the place in America where that can actually happen. Well, let me just say it. And Jank made this point earlier this week.

So credit to what Jank said, corruption scandals seem to only affect a certain group of people, right? Yeah, that's true. We have legalized bribery in America, but we have all sorts of corruption. that goes unchecked. And all Americans, regardless of their political affiliation, are frustrated and angry about it, which is why someone like Donald Trump campaigned on this, I can't be corrupted message. I fund my own campaign, I'm the one who would pay Hillary Clinton in these bribes. Remember, that was the messaging that really did resonate with some of the voters.

Now, of course, he was the largest swamp monster, he's part of the problem, he would exploit that system. Yeah. But there's a double standard, unfortunately. There shouldn't be. Everyone who partakes in corruption should face the consequences for it. And in this case, it's only affected Puerto Rican officials. Yeah.

Yeah, just briefly, if I told you about my hometown's mayor, Joseph Gannum? No. So I'm from Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Joe Gannum was mayor for quite some time until it was discovered that he had stolen $900,000 or something like that. So he went to federal prison for a bunch of years. years and then he got out and he's mayor again. Oh my God. So that's my hometown and they know everybody who voted for him knows exactly what he did.

Maybe he's not doing it anymore. I don't know, that'd be great. I'm just saying we tolerate so much corruption. Yeah, it's complicated and looking at the details and all that, but yeah, we just, we tolerate a lot. And Donald Trump, I mean, you mentioned him, like he's got, you know, a defense contractors is heading the Department of Defense. So pharma lobbyist is heading H.A., like, down the line, it's the swampiest administration

in 100 years, and people either don't know or don't care, and that's disappointing. With those parades though, it is amazing to see, like just, I've watched a lot of the crowd footage and how jubilant everyone is, and probably how shocked they are that it worked, especially because what I had noticed was a lot of the press coverage of the protest was really focusing on the atypical, if there was a bit of chaos or a little bit of violence, that's what got a lot of the attention when that's what, you know, 99% of the people weren't doing. And to succeed, like, I don't know about you, I've been in a lot of rallies and a lot of marches. I've never once gotten what I marched for.

And to see people actually get it, that's, that just lifts your heart. Imagine how great it would feel to not just defeat Donald Trump. That's not enough, but to defeat him by electing a progressive. I might cry. Yeah. And it's not going to be like a sad meltdown, like I had on election night. It's going to be like real joy and happiness. We have to fight for it, guys.

Like we need solidarity. We need to just prevent the narratives that I see developing right now meant to divide progressives. Like I see it happening already. It's all over the place. Just focus on the issues and let's stick together and fight for the right candidate. Yeah. Nah, but what if someone makes your skin crawl? Maybe don't vote for him. I'm kidding. That's sort of narrative. That's what makes my skin crawl, actually. And just in case you guys missed that story, John's referencing an MSNBC panel over the weekend where a former assistant U.S. attorney said that she didn't like Bernie Sanders because he makes her skin crawl. But didn't know why. She literally said, I don't know why, but he makes my skin crawl. Yeah.

It's a hard hitting news there. All right. Let's move on to what else? is going on in the country. Donald Trump appeared at the Turning Point USA Summit. This happened on July 23rd, where he actually took the stage with Charlie Kirk and unknowingly stood in front of a doctored presidential seal that was actually meant to mock his connections to Russia and his propensity to play golf all the time. So let's go to the first video and you'll see what the scene look like. Sold 15 people and lose an election. By calling out these four people, the squad.

By calling them out because we don't like when they talk about evil Jews. Sorry, guys, that was the wrong video, but that's okay. Let's go to E1, please. This is the video where you can see the doctored seal behind him, and then I'll explain what the seal says why it's doctored. So I'm going to show you the graphics that give you a sense of how it was doctored. First, they used this seal that is used in Russia with the, I guess they're eagles, two eagles. And then the eagles are holding golf clubs.

A bunch of them. Yeah, so right there on the right hand side, you'll see the doctored version. Now, the official president of the United States seal looks like this. It's one eagle holding the greenery and the arrows. So that's what they should have used. So the question is, how did this happen? Well, on Thursday, the conservative group actually ended up firing the individual who's in charge of doing this. So it seems like someone might have infiltrated the organization and did this as a way of trolling Donald Trump.

I don't know. Is there a reason to believe that? I don't know. I just imagine he just searched presidential seal and he chose the first one on Google or whatever. I think it was probably laziness. Maybe, I don't know. The Turning Points USA spokesman called the mistake unacceptable and said it was the result of a rushed online search to find a second image of the presidential seal to display behind Trump. You're right, maybe it was the rushed, how do you, okay, this is a well-funded organization.

All sorts of terrible people that we usually do negative coverage on this show give money to this so-called non-profit organization. How do they not have an infrastructure in place to not make these types of mistakes? Also, the smokes person says, we did let the individual go. I do think it was, oh, I don't think it was malicious intent, but nevertheless. All right. Then that's stupid. Yeah.

Okay, it's a little bit embarrassing or whatever. Okay, that's like the 30th most embarrassing thing about turning points that's come out in the past year. That guy, if he is a part of that organization, that sham organization, that guy almost certainly like, I would say in a way that's probably unhealthy loves Donald Trump and supports Donald Trump. Probably. And they threw him aside because in their own view, he accidentally got the wrong image.

How do you not know what the presidential seal looks like? They don't care. Their attachment to all this stuff is so shallow. They say they love the American flag, and then they rush for literally any other flag to throw their support behind from the Betsy Ross one to the Confederate flag, all of that. Like it's all just shallow imagery. I wouldn't have noticed if you showed me that image. I saw a little bit of that rally, I didn't notice that they had the wrong thing up.

Yeah, honestly, props to whoever broke this story. I don't know, it was all over the media today, so I'm not sure who spotted this first. But it's hilarious. Yeah. And by the way, I believe that the text that you see above the double head, I don't know the actual Latin, but I think it's like the 45th is a puppet. I think is what that actually means in Latin. It's amazing. Well, there was one other thing that happened at Turning Point USA that I want to talk about.

and it's actually a lot more important and could have some ramifications for members of Congress. Donald Trump spoke at the Turning Point USA annual conference, shindig, summit, whatever it is they want to call it, deplorable organization with disgusting human beings. And in the middle of his speech, here's what he had to say to continue inciting more threats and violence against freshman Democrats. They're petrified that they're going to insult 15 people and lose an election by calling out these four people, the squad, by calling them out because we don't like when they talk about evil Jews. We don't like when they say horrible things about Israel. I don't know. They have a big problem because they have others than these four. I could name another 20 right now without

looking at a note. I could name another 20 that I think are in many ways worse. They were worse. They're not in this group, but they're worse than this group. And they're Democrats. And at some point, we will be naming them if you don't mind, because we want to get the word out. We have to get the word out. So as we know, Donald Trump's words do encourage people to act out in violent ways. We know that right-wing talking heads like Sean Hannity encouraged people like Caesar Sayak, who sent pipe bombs to Democratic members of Congress and to CNN to do what they did. I mean, they are, there are impressionable people in the country, maybe some people who have undiagnosed or untreated mental health conditions, who hear that type of messaging and actually

think that, oh yeah, these democratic lawmakers said that they hate the Jews. They have never once said that. That was a complete, and utter lie, and the President of the United States is spouting that nonsense, With the very intention of riling people up and possibly inciting violence against members of our Congress. This is crazy. But look, the reason why I say Turning Point USA is full of deplorable people, and that's not to say everyone who's in the organization or as a follower is a bad person, I'm talking

about the organizers, the people who actually work there, right? Look, they're young, impressionable people who maybe don't know some of the stuff that turning U.S.A. does. But just to give you an example, they've put together a professor watch list with the intention of targeting what they consider left-wing professors. And many of them have received threats, have been confronted by people, their family members have received threats. I mean, this is all about getting together and intimidating political opponents. It's all about getting together and going after individuals they disagree with. It's gross. And it's no surprise that they would support and be, you know, staunch supporters of someone

like Donald Trump. Yeah, that list too. I mean, it just really shows that like, well, there's a lot of discussions that we have nationally that are incredibly shallow and fake. But the pro-free speech discussions are so absent any actual devotion to those concepts. Like, that they say the most important issue to us is to make sure that on college campuses people can express whatever opinion they want. If you express left wing views, we're going to track you down, try to get you fired.

They essentially put together an online doxing list of professors they disagree with. That is what they do. That is what they do. And they proudly flaunt it. And I mean, that's just one issue that's come up with Turning Point USA. Never mind that various instances of outright brazen racism. We've shown you those videos. People have gotten fired and they think that that somehow, those report.

repercussions somehow rectify the situation? No, they don't, they don't. The organization as a whole is meant to do what it keeps getting in trouble for, right? And they don't really hide it. I don't know. Yeah, the entire thing is frustrating. If Cesar Sayak had waited, if he hadn't done what he did when he did, if he'd waited six months, does anybody think that he wouldn't have targeted the members of the squad?

That if he'd just gone to a few more months of rallies, and so that the list of enemies that were being shouted into his ears all the time was updated, that he wouldn't have sent it to AOC and Rashida to leave and others. I have no doubt he would. I have no doubt he would. And the thing about like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, all of them, like I know that they've given up whatever attachment to political values that they had, and it's all just devotion to Donald Trump, I get that.

But very rarely, does that sort of, I guess, self-centered partisan activity actually extend almost suicidal levels where they tried to dodge the subject of Cesar Sayak, they would continually say the pipe bombs didn't even work, why are you exaggerating? Well, what about this? What about that? Effectively normalizing sending pipe bombs to members of the media that you oppose. He sent it to CNN and stuff like that. They are willing to gamble that there's not anybody who's going to send pipe bombs to Fox News.

Because they want the idea that you send pipe bombs with the people you oppose, it's really not that big of a deal for their point of view. It is. They work at places like that. Yeah. And they are willing to risk their own safety and the safety of the people that they work with. And then at the same time, they'll argue that they're concerned about free speech on college

campuses. Exactly. Right? I mean, we are living in a country that claims to be a democracy, a representative democracy, when in reality there is daily active intimidation against anyone who wants to speak truth to power, speak out against Donald Trump, just tell the truth about what Donald Trump is really doing. Yeah.

And it is pretty incredible because there has been great reporting, but overall, you know, the false equivalency that we've been complaining about in the media is still there, right? Treating both sides as if they're equal or neutral and that, or being neutral in, in reporting these stories as opposed to objective and telling the truth about which side is actually violent and dangerous and poses a real threat and risk to our democracy. Yeah. All right, I want to read a few members' comments and tweets. I know I haven't done that throughout the show because there's just a lot on my plate on

days like today. But Amy Jean Progressive Queen writes in, and this is from earlier in the show, John, love the subtle flex. I think it was about your-metaphoric or physical? I think it was about the neck conversation. No, I just wanted to say it before somebody commented that this is really, you know, this is really tight. It's gonna get red.

Oh, does John have a muscular neck? I don't think that's what it is. All right. Park Chop Express says, someone check John's permits. I don't. Oh, for the guns, for the guns. Got the guns. And then, all right.

I don't like this, but please continue. Do I get any love? These are all about how wonderful and hot John is. Let's see. Oh, I'll show you my guns in just a minute. I bathe in a very stable genius's tears. John, women thirst. It's in caps, thirst for you, especially from the TYT army.

Of course, shop TYT wants you to model. That has not been my experience, but thank you. And thank you to all the delightful guys who send me messages on Instagram. Only guys. But thank you, I appreciate it. Does wonders for my self-esteem. I want to show TYT live a little love as well. Melissa Matrice says, I don't know what I do without TYT live, hosts and fans included.

Recovering from surgery and three affections, infections can be super mind-numbingly boring. Oh my gosh, I really hope you get better and I'm really sorry to hear that. Zappa fan says, hooray, I can watch TYT live on the big screen, Wi-Fi and electric back after a very minor storm in my area in South Jersey. Missed this show, really missed the show. Oh, I didn't know there was a storm in South Jersey. I hope you're okay and I'm glad you have your electricity back. All right, John, you get through the stories too quickly. I know.

Well, I thought that we would have a little bit more time because I don't think I'm going to be part of the shindig, and I did want to hear your thoughts about the debate, but it looks like we don't have time. Yeah, you've got to watch. I'm going to be talking about it for almost an hour. Maybe I'll submit some questions. Maybe you should. All right, guys, we're going to take a break.

When we come back, we're going to have a whole new panel and dive right into the second hour of the show. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen 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.