The Young Turks - Atlanta Shootings

Episode Date: March 18, 2021

An update on the Atlanta massage parlor murders that look like anti-Asian hate crimes, and what police are saying now. 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. Welcome everyone to the Young Turks. I'm John Adirola and joined today by Francesca Fierintini. Francesca, how's it going? I'm okay. It's been a day. I think I'll be all right. How are you? I'm glad to be with you for two hours. Yes, I'm glad for you to be here and I totally knew that we would be doing this together before today. No, I'm glad, I'm glad to be here. You know, if I was going to, totally but anyway, yeah, no, look, we keep it real. That's, you know, for better or worse, both actually.

We do it for better and for worse. Yeah, some days in the news are just really rough and you'd prefer to not have to exist. But if you're going to have to exist, but if you're going to have to exist, to have to like follow the news and talk about it but but we have to and there's a lot of really important stuff of the news and over the next hour I'm going to present some and then we're going to switch over and you're going to present a bunch Anna Kasparian is off for the week as deserved as time off can be so really hope that she's not watching this right now really hope that she's whittling or working with wood or something and has charlie in her lap that's that's all i hope lots of whittling exactly and she's gone to an am

farm for the week? What's going on? No, she works with wood. That's her thing. Anyway, as I said, we do have a lot of important stuff we're going to be talking about. We're, of course, going to be giving you some of the details about the terrible string of murders in Atlanta. Updates on the Violence Against Women Act. Let's see, the filibuster. Could it potentially change? We'll be debating that. And what can we expect in your hour, Francesca? Oh, it's going to be the governor's ball in the second hour. We're talking about Rhonda. Santis on the rise because I guess when you ignore a pandemic, that's what happens. We're going to talk about the recall of Gavin Newsom and Gavin talking about maybe pushing

Senator Feinstein into an early retirement, although who can say it's really early? Anyway, it'll be a great second hour. That is really stretching the definition early of early. But anyway, yes, so lots to get to obviously. And with that, Why don't we launch into the big news of the day? As everyone watching this, I'm sure is well aware last night there was a horrific string of shootings in and around Atlanta that left a number dead, especially apparently targeting women of Asian descent. There were shootings at two massage parlors in Atlanta, one in the suburbs. It left eight people dead, a 21 year old man suspected in the shootings was taken into custody in southwest Georgia hours later after a man hunt. So identified quickly, tracked down, and acquired quickly, and then pretty much everything after that, Francesca, when it comes to the police and this individual, I think we can all agree we would have preferred that it had been very different.

Glad that they got him before he could kill more people, and apparently he had been planning to potentially travel to Florida and to commit more shootings that would have almost certainly left more people dead. But aside from that, pretty unfortunate. So we want to show you some footage that a lot of people have been talking about today. And it involves one of the representatives for the police talking about what they know about the shooter. Did take responsibility for the shootings. He said that early on once we began the interviews with him. He claims that these, and as the chief said, we say this is still early, but he does claim that it was not racially motivated. He apparently has an issue, what he considers a sex fix.

and sees these locations as something that allows him to go to these places and it's a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate. Like I said, it's still early on, but those were comments that he made. Did he discuss any kind of religious motivation for this? Not that I'm aware of.

Not that I'm aware of. Or political? Non-political. I've heard nothing about politics. They got that impression that, yes, he understood the gravity of it. it and he was pretty much fed up and it then kind of at the end of his rope and yesterday it was a really bad day for him and this is what he did. Remorcible?

I'm not going to go to, I don't know if he was remorseful or not. Francesco, what are your thoughts? I mean, I think it's an incredible exhibition of a police officer doing the PR work for a murderer. When, when do we get this kind of an insight into someone who just killed eight people. At what point did anyone ask a police officer to say anything other than we're in investigating whether this was racially motivated, whether it was politically motivated. We're investigating it.

You don't just funnel the words of a mass murderer into the public sphere unquestioned. I mean, if anything, say nothing. So I would, it's just shocking. It's just immediately shocking to hear that. And I guess I just want to say that for everyone, when this something like this happens, you immediately think, probably because most of you watching are not mass murderers, which is wonderful, great audience, I'm just kidding. Don't kill us.

You immediately think, why would someone do this? I mean, I think that's the any rational response is why would someone do this? And I think that we all have to kind of take a step back and think about like there is no justification. Number one, there's never a justification for this kind of killing. So let's just get that out of the way. But you definitely don't expect a police officer or chief to come up and immediately make the talking points that the murderer apprehended very peacefully, as most white suspects are, to do the PR work for him. Yeah. Yeah, and I know, oh God, there's so much there.

I want to touch on the last point that you made, which a lot of people have pointed out. point this out that they, when it's a white shooter, they always seem to capture them peacefully. And you know, people who especially are in media and the right wing that whether they admitted or not, they do think of themselves as unpaid PR for these sorts of racist murderers will say, well, you know, they surrender. That's what's different, is that they surrender. Is that what's different? Is, like, I mean, how many white shooters suit up with body armor and all that, clearly anticipating that they're going to be killed and yet they still get brought in. I think it has something to do with the fact that the police in one situation versus another conceive

of threat very differently. And that is the big thing. We know that the cops are trained that the most important tool that you need to check constantly is how deathly afraid are you right now. And if you get to a certain amount of fear begins shooting. That's basically how it works. And I think that there is something about these sorts of shooters that they believe is less inherently threatening to them. A little bit of the Ron Johnson, I felt like I was under no threat at the Capitol sort of thing. Absolutely. But anyway, obviously the more important point in particular here is what he did and why he's in it, and we can't know for sure and it is possible, although never, you know, for sure that over the next few days we'll get far more information

about that, but I would say what the killer says the day of is largely irrelevant. And I don't think, and this is seemingly controversial, I don't think that whether a thing is racist is up to the racist. Is that controversial? Because the cop is acting as if it's really up to the person who did it as to whether it is an instance of racism or not. Absolutely. That's exactly right. And I think that And I know we're going to go into the numbers of anti-Asian hate crimes that have occurred recently. But I would urge people to understand, especially understand how the Asian American community is feeling right now. That now for the first time, right, states are opening up,

people are out and about more. One of the sort of ironic things we kept on talking about lockdown is that there's going to be less mass shootings. You know, because that's the hell world that we live in in this country. And and lo and behold, it was right. Except now that, you know, lockdown is ending. People have been fed so much anti-Asian racism vis-a-vis the pandemic. And now this is what's happening. They're being targeted. And so just put yourself in the, in the shoes of families, in the shoes of workers who put themselves on the line, you know, who are actually trying to open up, trying to run a business, who are trying to live their lives, and understand that You cannot see what happened last night in Atlanta and divorce it from the many, many, many instances of anti-Asian hate crimes.

So whether or not what's in the heart of the shooter was that he was targeting Asian women is irrelevant right now. It's irrelevant. Yeah. And just very briefly to touch on the, I would say what his criminal defense will at some point, you know, claim as the foundation for some sort of insanity defense. the whole thing he's obsessed with porn or whatever temptation, insert whatever BS thing he's going to say, even though in this case it was the cops for some reason doing that defending for him. There's been a lot of conversation about that. And I want to read this tweet from Millie Tran who said, as if these things aren't related and based on centuries of sexualized

and submissive stereotypes of Asian women, white supremacy is rooted in misogyny and racism. Yeah, they come up with something that seems like it's something else when it is just another part of that thing. And the lack of ability to see the connection seems like it's part of the problem, actually. Yeah. Yeah. And I just think that, you know, folks need to understand, obviously, all immigrant communities have been invisibleized and are invisibleized in their particular ways. Obviously, one of the biggest communities that it's been hit by COVID is the Latino community, right, working in like meat processing plans and such. But Asian Americans have been invisibleized for so long and have been used as scapegoats for so long. And have been used as scapegoats for

so long in this country, right? Going back to the Chinese Exclusion Act, etc. And the ways that not just invisibleized, but also hypersexualized. And ironically, you know, with these spas that were these Asian women worked in, that is precisely the kind of work that is invisibleized work, sex work that we don't talk about, and also the ways in which we sort of allow ourselves to see folks who work in those industries as dispensable and as disposable and how there's no way you can bring yourself to kill that many people, honestly, or anyone really, but unless you are willing to participate in a level of dehumanization that absolutely a culture of anti-Asian racism has created, that has been fomented and stoked by the pandemic and Donald Trump so recently

out of office. But so again, this stuff, it's not one to one, but be smarter than that, guys. Like, zoom out a little bit. Understand, situate this. Not just in the year, not just in the four years of Trump, but in the long, you know, long history of racial animus in this country. Exactly. Yeah. And it's such a weird dodge. I mean, as many people have pointed out, like, you know, this is, this is Atlanta. How many strip clubs did he drive past to get to these spas to then say, it was just temptation I was fighting against. Like it's such a bizarre argument. But anyway, as you alluded to, we do want to talk a little bit about the numbers. There's some interesting trends here in this tweet. Verbal harassment makes up 68% of hate incidents,

physical assault makes up 11%. Women are 2.3 times more likely to report hate incidents. And in particular, in terms of sort of xenophobic attacks against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, those numbers are basically what we see, the distribution between women and men. And 45% of reports originated in California, making it the first in the nation for hate incident reports. And, you know, not directly connected, but on the pre-show for the damage report this morning, I was talking about how there's this new report on white supremacist's propaganda incidents, like it being distributed at campuses or flyers and things like that. And in 2020, there was something like 5,400 incidents.

In 2017, it was like 250. Like it has simply exploded. But again, we're supposed to act as if that's not a problem. White supremacy probably has nothing to do with this. Right. No, and then I think the other excuse that people are making, right, is because some of the perpetrators of anti-Asian violence have been black. That is seen as like, oh, see, well, uh-huh, yeah, so they're black.

So anyway, white supremacy doesn't apply. Bye. And that is two things. One, it's an excuse to not actually deal with this kind of hatred and racism. Number one, it's an excuse. It's the same thing with black on black crime. Oh, well, black on black crime. Oh, yeah, okay, well, then we don't have to talk about it anymore. People are still dying, but we won't talk about it, right? But then specifically, it's seeing that so narrowly and not again zooming out and understanding the ways that white supremacy, the ways that the roles that immigrants, the ways that, the ways that African Americans have been put into and the ways that they are either taught to behave, make yourself invisible, do work that no one else wants to do. And also the ways that that

then pits communities of color against one another, that is all part of a rubric of white supremacy. That's part of a rubric of a country that sees people of color as useful pawns, as model minorities when they need to be, as sexual objects, when they need to be, as in this man's case. Right? And then as victims when they have a bad day. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't even, we have this tweet from Matt Walsh. I'm not even interested in showing it. But anyway, but the argument you made is one that's definitely out there. And I will just say that it is to add on everything you said was exactly right. If your stance that you want us to believe is that America doesn't have a race problem, racism doesn't exist. These

are things that supposedly serious people actually still say in 2021. If that's what you believe that racism isn't a problem, white supremacy isn't a problem, it's weird that when a white guy kills Asian people, you yell, yeah, but black people kill people too. That's a weird, yeah, I think maybe we do have a racism problem. That's not what we're talking about. Why are you talking about that? Why is, why are black people the excuse for literally everything that white people do if we don't have a race problem. But they do find this convincing or at least distracting. And after all, oh, super fast. When something like this happens and yet another white guy shot up a bunch of people, we know exactly what the strategy is. For Fox News, for the Matt Walsh's and all that, it's maybe briefly we'll pretend to care about the victims,

although they generally don't even bother to do that. Let's keep our head down for a day or two. And then we can go back to demonizing whoever we want. And we will never learn from this. We will no conclusions. will be drawn that'll be useful or helpful. Right, and the problem is, I mean, like with the Florida nightclub shooting, right, where the perpetrator was Muslim and targeted the LGBTQ community, it's once again sort of seen as like, well, that's a problem over here and or, oh, well, this man is ISIS, that's great.

You know, that's a perfect tool for the right to use, but they don't care about the LGBTQ community, but they don't care about the Asian American community. And in fact, Asian American organizations and LGBTQ organizations have been leading calls for community-led solutions rather than more policing, which as they very well know, comes down on people of color, specifically black Americans. And so the solution is so much about solidarity. And so I would urge, you know, news organizations, including us, right? But like, you know, we have to make sure that we lift up some of the work that is being done in cities like Oakland or Los Angeles or New York, that actually is being led by the communities, which they say, no, no, no, no more policing. We don't want more cops on the streets. That's your solution. We know who gets hurt when that happens, right? We know that feeds into the system of racist policing already. We need actual tools in the community. And those tools can also be housing, you know? business loans, stopping gentrification. So yeah, yeah, anyway.

Oh, those are all wonderful points. Just briefly, let's touch on some of the anti-Asian xenophobia that's been kicked up for the past year. It didn't begin a year ago, obviously, but some of the most powerful people in the country decided that that was going to be their hobby for the the past year. Let's talk about Donald Trump, who seemingly the only thing that gets him worked up about COVID is its nation of origin. So we want to show you a clip, and I want to be very clear in this clip, this is not Donald Trump from a year ago or six months ago or two weeks ago. This is Donald Trump from last night. As I call it the China virus, COVID. It's fun. He's got a little nickname. He's got a bunch

nickname. Sometimes at rallies will go through a whole bunch of them. So look, we can't say for sure to what extent the national conversation led by the right demonizing Asian Americans over COVID specifically contributed to this. But I feel like it's something worthy of being discussed, Francesca. No, yeah. And like I was saying earlier, I think that it does make sense that now the people are coming out more and they're interacting. There's going to be more attacks on a group of people that have been demonized this entire time. And I think that oftentimes we, We hear that, oh, the China virus or Kung flu, and it seems so basic and stupid and hack that we, you know, you don't really think it's like, it's got to be more than that. There's got to be, you know, and this is the other thing I've been hearing like, well, what is it? Is there like some secret Reddit, you know, like thread that we don't know about, some 4chan thing, some 8chan thing? Like, what's going on? It might just be as stupid and as basic as Kung flu. It might just be as stupid and as basic as, well, let's demon an entire group of people for this global pandemic that our government utterly failed at containing.

Yeah. And then pretend that. It's so weird because like they, when it can be used to attack China, it's something that they're very worked up about. Can you believe that China would do this? Why would the Chinese government? Why would the Chinese do this? But outside of that, it's being exaggerated, it's not a big deal. We don't need to worry about it. Really, no, you shouldn't do anything. You literally shouldn't even stand six feet away from someone. You shouldn't put cloth over your face because it's that little of a deal. But wait, the Chinese did it. It's really big deal that the Chinese did this thing that doesn't really matter. It's really weird how things can matter or not. Like Tucker Carlson for one day in the past few months cared about the vaccine.

And that was when they were going to give the vaccine to black and brown people. And he called that white genocide. And then he went right back to saying that you shouldn't take it because it's probably going to do mind control for Bill Gates or something. But anyway, So they did this, you know, the demonizing China, the Kung flu and a million other things. And it wasn't just Trump, you know, they used it casually on Fox News, the online right. That was like literally they thought the funniest thing last year. And it would be one thing if a year goes by and then, oh my God, there's been a lot of harassment and attacks against Asian Americans. And obviously this is the single worst day of it, but let's bear in mind that this wasn't

the entirety of it. This has been going on. But people were saying it at the time that this is going to result in that. And yet they kept doing it. And now we have the result. What are we supposed to do when they can so recklessly do something that is so easily, predictably linked to violence? And it doesn't seem to hurt them with advertisers. It certainly doesn't hurt them with their audience, nothing will seemingly be done. They have a bigger audience than they did a year ago. And they're certainly, especially with Tucker Carlson, making far more money than they were a year ago. So what are we supposed to do when they're allowed to do this? The link is so clear. Yeah, and I think that's exactly what a lot of communities of color have been facing. I mean,

this is also a year of massive police brutality, specifically against black Americans. And at some point, you know, you throw your hands up and you're like, well, what, if no one's offering solutions, I mean, the demonization of the right, the like giant everyone's antifa and they want to like, you know, they want to destroy us. You're like, no, we are, everyone is actually incredibly far too civil, far too generous. Every time we're being asked to never link these events, It's a bad apple. He had a bad day, right? What are you asking people to do time and time again? You're asking people to handhold racist murderers again and again and again.

And many of those murderers are police officers. So never be surprised if people are going to actually like start to stand up for themselves. And I would argue maybe even start to fight back. But of course, I can't even say that because then the right. right wing will say that I'm calling everyone to arms. No, sadly, we have to rise above that. And sadly, the left is always better on that because we believe in that thing called human rights, you know? But it's just, it is, it is frustrating. It's, it's in aggravating and the fact that we don't have actual justice, the fact that we need more investigation of hate crimes, that we

need solutions that are not about policing. And we need to get creative. And look, I think This is not an aberration, guys. This is part of a defund the police movement, a refund other areas of our communities and of our lives. This is all part of that. This is part of the same rubric. This is also part of necessary gun control. And I know we're going to talk a little bit about that. Yeah. Well, we do have to take our first break. There's a lot of other news that we're going to be talking about. So stick around lots more where that came from. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-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.

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Dave T was one of several people that had comments on that first story. Dave T says Georgia Sheriff's gaslighting of murders of Asian women is absolutely part of the functionality of white supremacy, telling the press that what they know is happening is not happening. It is part of the violence. Yeah, and he's gonna have to put out some kind of statement, right? Like you can't say all of those insane things without at least trying to cover your ass on that, right? It just seems so weird. Okay, Thar Goddess says not only was that officer doing PR for that murderer and putting his talking

points on the public consciousness, he's doing the job of the defense lawyers. Sex addiction and mental distress could be used to defend the shooter. Well, they'll certainly try. Again, I think that what he says about it is not the most important thing, the actual thing that he did. We have a super chat from Electric Blue Omla Dragon who says, my 1400 was deposited today. Sharing the love with TYT, you folks have become like friends over last year. I only see a couple people in my pod and not often, but I see you folks every day. Thanks for being there. It's a very nice super chat, Electric Blue. Thank you for that. Thank you to new YouTube members on the main channel, Peter Hamby and Christine Hussar. Thank you for that. There's a super chat from BC

trumpet the produce dragon. It says, Fantastic Week. I'm actually shaping up that way. A lot of Francesca this week. Okay, how much time do we have? That lens cap is right in the way of it. Grasshopper says, TYT is always keeping it real. Well, we certainly try and we very much appreciate you joining us. We're going to try to continue with that same spirit as we launched it as so much other news. But we'll be back with that in just a second. We're going to be.

Welcome back, everyone to the Young Turks, Francesca, you ready to move on? Yes. Okay, let's do this. Earlier today, the House successfully passed the Violence Against Women Act, as expected, and as expected because this is America, it was an oddly divisive piece of legislation. It passed 244 to 172, 172 votes against the Violence Against Women Act. There were just 29 Republicans who joined all Democrats in support of it. Now a few years back when this passed in the House as well, I believe it was 32 Republicans then. So violence against women apparently acceptable to slightly more Republicans than it was just a couple of years ago. And some of the comments from Republicans who said

that they couldn't support this is that it's needlessly partisan, Francesca, needlessly partisan to, for instance, the current bill would expand victim services and reauthorize grant programs for the criminal justice response to domestic and sexual violence. It also includes provisions that would expand housing options for survivors and and immunity for non-native perpetrators of sexual violence on tribal lands. It would also close the so-called boyfriend loophole to prevent dating partners and stalkers convicted of domestic violence or abuse from purchasing and owning firearms. And I'm going to guess that that's actually probably one of the main things that's

causing so many Republicans to say this is needlessly partisan. Yes, the last point, which is you can only be violent if you're married. And even then, it's probably okay in a lot of their minds. Yeah, the boyfriend loophole, once again, which is, is right, you know, just because you're not in an actual marriage with someone doesn't mean that they can't, like, be violent toward you in the home. So yes, that is probably what it was part of. This also lapsed, right?

Like, this has been, this has been dangling this, this bill for a while. Yeah, passed in, passed in 1994, updated and reauthorized in 2000, 2005, 2013, expired at the end of 2018 due to a government shutdown. Briefly renewed by resolution reopening the government, but expired again in 2019. So, you know, it only takes a couple decades or whatever to get around to this. But yeah, in terms of that, the boyfriend loophole, I mean, so much of this is just so obvious. It's such common sense. But we already know there's like no better predictor of when a guy is going to eventually kill a woman than that he committed an act of domestic violence against her. Of all of the terrible parts of this, we at least have the silver lining that it does provide a warning.

And in theory, something could be done if we lived in a rational society. But instead, we have a couple hundred Republicans in elected office who believe that sending some sort of signal to the NRA is far. infinitely more valuable than stopping women from being needlessly murdered by their domestic partners. Is the NRA even still a thing? I mean, I know they've gone to Texas, but like how many times over bankrupt are they? This is again the ways that I just can't get my head around Republican women and I can't get my head around the idea that they at all believe in feminism or care about women's rights or care about women's equality. Because, you know, if anything happens to them, If anything, I mean, they basically just protect their wealthiest constituents.

If something happens to a woman who's wealthy or has a second home, just go to the second home. Or go, you know, like the ability to access any kind of refuge from a violent partner is directly correlated to how much resources you have. That is absolutely true. And so, and this is the timeless thing about, oh, you don't want to be dependent on the government for anything. Well, yeah, that's cool, lady who wears pearls on a Tuesday. I don't know, like, what are you doing? I mean, look, pearls on a Saturday, fine. But just, I mean, this is the entire ideology of Republican women, which is, you know,

don't rely on the government, just rely on your big, strong partner who hopefully won't be brutalizing you or, you know, trying to hurt you. The second thing I'll say is. Oh, no, go on. No, no, go ahead. Well, I was just say the only thing I can imagine some Republican women saying is just get a gun. Like it doesn't matter if you're like potentially at risk of being murdered, that's just a better reason to have a gun. So they really get it both ways. The potential murderer gets to buy more guns and it actually sort of in some ways puts pressure on the women to arm themselves as well.

It's, you know, hateful and cruel and needless, but it does sell guns. Exactly. And I think the other thing I was going to say is that, you know, again, we silo these issues. much. So we see the Violence Against Women Act as just a thing about, oh, it's just women, but it only applies to women, yay women, you know, and the men's rights activists are sounding off and they're being red-pilled right now. Well, guess what? A lot of statistics show that mass murderers, people who do things like open fire on spas, have histories of domestic violence, have histories of brutalizing their loved ones. And so if we actually take those crimes seriously. If we actually prevent those perpetrators from getting firearms, we could save

other lives, right? The same ways that rape cases are always treated as some weird perversion. They're always like, you know, we put them in a, do a rape kit and then toss them in a storage unit to be left for 50 years later. It's real cases that have done that, right? Turns out, rapists also murderers. Hey, weird how that happens that, you know, violent criminals would do other violent crimes? Yeah. So if you actually follow the rape case, you could have prevented a murder case. So again, we're being told that these are separate issues. There's nothing to do with gun violence. There's nothing to do with other people. It's just women getting what they want. I realize I'm just sort of imagining the right winger and Tucker Carlson because that's how much real estate they take

up in my brain. But anyway, it's important to name this. This is super important to not let lapse of fight for. Yeah. And you know, finally in terms of where it goes from here, you know, there's some people like Joni Ernst says that they're going to have a Republican version of this that can pass. Okay, what exactly would the difference be? I think I know it's stripping out anything having to do with guns because we want to make sure that we keep these guys armed.

But maybe that's possible. And maybe that's the actual thing, maybe you can get 10 Republicans to sign on to this. But if you can't, and if the changes they would make would so defaying the Violence Against Women Act that it doesn't end up passing, you know what you get to do? You get to add this to the list of things that people like Kristen Cinema and Joe Mansion just don't value as much as they value the dignity of the filibuster and that grand tradition of our deliberative body. It would be great. I really wish we could stop women from being murdered, but I just value the filibuster too much to pass it. Yes. That's what it is. Yeah, that's what it is. H.R. 1, you can put

on there. I mean, how many different bills? I would love to see some questions to Kristen Cinema about that because it's coming. It's going to go to the Senate. It's almost certainly going to be filibustered. Why do you value the filibuster so much more? I'd like to see that. And you know what, with that, why don't we talk a little bit about the filibuster actually? I knew you were going there. I was. That's a transition for you and I just made it awkward. Damn. Anyway, Joe Biden recently had an interview and indicated potentially potential support for reforming, if not getting rid of the filibuster. Let's like a look.

Here's the choice. I don't think you have to eliminate the filibuster. You have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate and back in the old days when you used to be around there. And that is that a filibuster, you had to stand up and command the floor. And you had to keep talking alone. You couldn't call for, you know, no one could say, you know, quorum call. Once you stopped talking, you lost that and someone could move in and say,

I move the question of. So you gotta work for the filibuster. So you're for that reform. You're for bringing back the talking filibuster. I am. That's what it was supposed to be. Look, I think don't hold me to the numbers, George, but I think between 1960 and 2000,

I'm making this number up, I don't know. There were like, you know, 50 filibusters. Now they're like 200 cents then. Just put a hold on it, that's it. Yeah, I mean, you know, so the idea, it almost is getting to the point where there's, you know, democracy's having a hard time. functioning. A hard time functioning. That's an understatement. But anyway, some good numbers

there, and he's totally right. Again, he's just sort of making up the numbers, but we know that it's true. The filibuster was never used in the sort of just expected casual, let's not even discuss its sort of way that it became under the Obama administration. So that would potentially be significant. What do you think about that, Francesca? Yeah, I mean, I think the more you learn about the filibuster, the more you're like, nope, abolish, just like ice, you know, you're like, abolish. But of course, this is Joe Biden we're talking about. And so, you know, I think as I learn more about the filibuster itself, you're like, oh yeah, just like a lot of things that have been abused in this country, you know, this has been bastardized.

This has been completely taken out of the original context when it was enacted and it could be walked back. So yes, there is room for reform. It, you know, you can put the onus on the minority instead of the onus on the majority, which doesn't make any sense as it stands now. It does. And yeah. And so without getting into all the different little ways on how it can be reformed, because I'll leave that to smarter people than me, I think that those steps are good. And especially if someone like Joe Manchin is on board for it, you know, well, we've got to bow down to mansion because he's got us all by the, you know? No, but I think that's good. It's good. It's a step in the right direction for sure. Yeah. And let's quickly just buttress Biden's point

there with some actual numbers. So according to Ezra Klein and New York Times, from 1917 to 1970, the Senate took 49 votes to break filibusters. 49. Those are cloture votes. That is fewer than one each year. Since 2010, it's been taken on average more than 80 votes each year to end filibusters, more than 80. And there'd probably be more if our representatives sort of worked hard to correct problems. They try to pass so little legislation that honestly, there aren't nearly as many opportunities to filibusters as there should be in a functioning democracy. But that is there. And the sort of reform that Biden is talking about there is one that Mansion has recently indicated he might be in support of. I'm sure he will go back on that soon. But one thing I would like

on people like him and, you know, cinema and others, I'm sure there are others that don't want to get rid of the filibuster. They just haven't been identified in the same clear way that those two have. They keep getting asked, will you reform it? Or maybe it'll be tied to like the Biden agenda, but in a very vague way. Like, would you support the filibuster if it means that Biden doesn't get what he's working for? I really want to see it tied directly to individual bills. You will not be able to raise the minimum wage, even to the $11 that mansions in favor of, if you keep the filibus.

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you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash T-YT. Check it out today. You're choosing the filibuster over the minimum wage. Why is that? You're not going to be able to pass H-R-1 with the filibuster. You're choosing the filibuster over H-R-1.

Why are you doing that? Violence Against Women Act, any number of other pieces of legislation. As long as we make it vague and philosophical and just about the norms and all, of that, they get to hide in the same way that Republicans hide against voting against this legislation by using the filibuster. Let's make it specific. In the same way that the filibuster in use is supposed to draw attention to that opposition, let's put some attention on Mansion and Cinema's opposition to reforming the filibuster. If they really value it over this legislation, they believe that that is a, that is the moral position to hold, it is a justifiable

position to hold, then make them hold it in interviews. Now that probably will just result in them doing less interviews. But if one of these journalists gets it, stop making it vague, ask them about specific things that are on the line if they maintain their opposition or reform. That would be my advice. Yes, absolutely. Yes. And especially because we don't know who they're talking like, why? What are you doing this for? Why are you upholding this at all? And it's a complete miscalculation and a misread of the Republican Party that's been using the filibuster in bad faith to block anything, any kind of progress, any legislation, and then say, look, see, government doesn't work for you. Oh, well, better got it and sell it for parts. Yay, yay, yay, make my friends rich, make my friends rich.

You know, like, that's the goal. We've seen it. It happened in 2016 when Trump was elected. So, like, you know, and this is the thing. I'm all for reforming, but if, you know, Biden says over and over again, you can't question people's, what is it? He's like, you can question their actions, but never their motives. And it's like, eh, I'm pretty sure we can question Republicans' motives when it comes to the filibuster. They are completely bad faith about it. Yeah, well, then look, I'm gonna,

just because you're, you've opened up the door, while he did say that he's in favor of the reform, he also said, I think the epiphany is going to come between now and 2022. With that epiphany being, the Republicans will suddenly wake up from the Trump fever dream that they've had. And they'll become reasonable. And they'll decide that democracy still counts for something. And they should, you know, give a damn about their constituents or even the people who aren't their constituents in theory. Because he was asked about that by, I believe, of Stephanopoulos, who said, you know, you said this is going to happen. It hasn't happened. And Biden, rather than using that as an opportunity to say, you know what, I was trying to unify the country, but we do have to take stock of the state of the Republican Party and identify what they are. But he didn't say that. He said, oh, it'll happen later. It'll happen by 2022. And as I said on the damage report, because the midterm elections being right around the corner is going to lead to more bipartisanship with the Republicans. That's usually how it works in America. But he said it. He said it was.

straight-faced. He said in an interview. So we have to assume that that's what he really still thinks will happen. Bless his, you know, little naive centrist heart, you know, it's just, I still want the world and the political world to be as Biden thinks it is somehow. Like, ooh, you know, remember when Republicans didn't touch the third rail of racism or they did, but it was just thinly veiled, you know, and they were like, you know, mascot. Now it's mask off before it was mask on. You know, that kind of thing. And he, which is funny because he, his whole impetus for running was when Trump basically

equated Nazis with being good people. And it's like, do you not get it or are you just not saying that you don't get it? Like we are in a vastly different time. I mean, it was all bets off after January 6th, you know, all bets off about whether this party is playing fairly or cares at all or whether they're going to know. No, there's not going to no epiphany. If they start another party, look, if they create another party, maybe, Liz Cheney at the helm, Romney up in there. I wouldn't hold your breath, though. So, you know, but I do think, yes, yay on the reform, once again, should be abolished.

But if he can get this done, let's do it. Absolutely, let's do it and make it harder to block this legislation. I agree. With that, we're going to take our second break, but there's still more to come. We're going to have Donald Trump deserving credit slightly, briefly. Find out for what after this. So, I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be able to be. So, I'm going to be able to be. Welcome, everybody on with the audience. Welcome, everybody. Let's get after it.

Anyway, let's see what's going on with the audience. Affectos, had a comment about cops and guns, says, I wonder how many cops are going to be stripped of their guns if it comes out that they're abusing their wives or girlfriends. That's opening a can of worms there if that passes. We'll see what the union thinks. Nell Unit, thank you for becoming a YouTube member. Really do appreciate that. Imitation agent says, when fuel's saying about having a bad day,

it didn't go from spilled or coffee broker shoelace to decided to commit a hypersexualized hate crime and murdered people, absolutely full of anger today because I think it's a really good point I will allow the music reference and the reading of lyrics on the show. Normally, I'm opposed to that. Anyway, okay, Howard D. says someone like Candace Owens will blame Cardi B's Wop performance of the Grammys for that shooter's sex addiction. Oh no, that's a really good prediction actually. That's what's going to happen. That's exactly. That's a good prediction. I really hope that Candace Owens isn't watching this because she's calling up Laura Ingraham right now to get book. And then if that happens, I hope that Constance Wu and Cardi B do a Wop performance together.

I wish that anyway. Oh, yeah, obvious. Anyway, let's see. Ray Turner and the Bearded Dragon said 125 to 165 women killed by partners every year in the UK. Yeah, yeah. We have some particular problems in the U.S., but let's not forget that men kill women everywhere at all times and always. British 32 says hi John and Francesca enjoying TYT again. Friend of mine had a pre-up with hidden claws she didn't know about.

So when her husband raped or it was classed as consent or she would lose everything on divorce from him. That's just about one of the sickening, most sickening things I've ever read. I cannot believe that. So sorry to hear that about your friend. Roger Harris says we're so tired of paying the price for a picture perfect Biden presidency. It's about the people. Yeah, and look, we gave him some credit and took away some credit in that. that. I will say he does at least seem to be able to be moved a bit on the filibuster, which is a significant thing to be moved on. That is good. We had a president and Trump that could never be moved at any productive direction for four years. Biden at least maybe can be.

So that is something. Again, as we said, it's about choosing your opponent and this opponent can potentially be bested at least. With that, we are going to take a short, short break, but come back because there's more news after this. I'm going to be able to be. Welcome back to the Young Turks, everyone. It's me, John and Francesca. How's it going, Francesca? Hi.

Good. I'm still here. Glad to have you here. You're still here. You might wish that you weren't soon, because we're going to talk about something that's going to be really fun. But anyway, let's get into it. Pretty much the only time that the vaccine has talked about on Fox News, they are telling you

that it is right and proper and just and patriotic to be really suspicious of it. But that changed, at least briefly last night when we're talking about. Maria Bartaromo had Donald Trump on and asked him if he thinks that people watching the show should get the vaccine. And here's what he had to say. Mr. President, I know that you received the vaccine. Mrs. Trump also got the vaccine. Would you recommend to our audience that they get the vaccine then? I would.

I would recommend it. And I would recommend it to a lot of people that don't want to get it. And a lot of those people voted for me, frankly. But, you know, again, we have our freedoms. and we have to live by that. Francesca, he just told the Fox viewers to get the vaccine. Is he the best guy now? Wait, that's not even real applause, I don't think.

I mean, he did a good thing. Should we give him credit? And if so, how much? Yeah, yeah, that slow clap is exactly what he deserves. If he was on camera from the grease stained bed that he was calling from, then I would have given him all the props. You know, I just want to see his face when he says all that. But also notice, no one has ever bungled leadership quite in the way that Donald Trump bungles leadership. He is at once, like, a strong man leader, dictator, but also, like, a naive, I don't know, church-going, like, dits.

Like, he's just so, he's just like, you know, but we've got freedom, so whatever, anyway, this country, you should get it, but he, you know, we do have freedom. Like, you still don't take this seriously. you show us the arm, just roll up your sleeve once again, show us your, you know, little like sluggish, ripply, gnar, just, just show us where you got the vaccine. Obama did. She, he showed us the delts. Show us the dealt. Get it again or show us the photo of you getting the vaccine. And then, you know, one of your little sycophants will draw you like Superman flying through the air with your, you know, like flappy delts like flying in the wind. I'm just saying there's more he could do and he just has no gravity. There's no,

he could not do gravity if he tried. Yeah. Well, for the first time in this clip so far, I've heard the voice of Donald Trump and the voice of Francesca. And I found her much more troubling than Trump for the first time ever. But anyway, I appreciate the slow clap. So did Mr. Unknown who said The slow clap is actually a condition that Trump has been struggling with for several decades. But anyway, peace love and Dave says today is the day Donald Trump became president. I guess am I having a fan Jones moment? Is that what this is? But no, I mean, look, what's on the line is huge. It is whether we beat the virus or not. And our best chance is getting a lot of people vaccinated. The biggest obstacle to that is conservatives,

especially Republican men, and nobody appeals to Republican men more than maybe Marjorie Green, but probably Trump. So if he tells them to get it, that's good. Now, I share your concern about the fact that he wasn't on video, which makes it almost to certainty that the Q&on forums are saying that that was faked audio, and it wasn't actually him. He would never tell us to do that. But considering how opposed to the vaccine Fox has been, how Tucker Carlson, right after that on his program told people to be suspicious of the vaccine, I do think it's important. And I want to know what you all think out in the audience. So we have a poll. It's up at t.t.com slash polls. Will Trump's pro-vaccine statements result in more of his supporters deciding to get

vaccinated? And you can answer yes or no. And I do think it is very important. We may not like him. We may want him to be gone. But at this point, just about the most important thing he can do is encouraging people to get the vaccine. So I hope that more people ask him constantly. I'm surprised that after all the wheelings and dealings with Moderna, they didn't make him the spokesperson. And to be totally honest with you, I wouldn't have had a problem with that. I think that would have been fine. Emoluments clause, be damned. Be the spokesperson for a big pharma company. We pretty much live in that world now. But he can't go all the way. Sure, we're going to do all the backhand deals, the backdoor deals, we're going to give them all the money, going to give them to the

development money, et cetera, like exclusivity, don't have to sell the patent rights, anything like that. But I'm not going to promote it. Yeah. I'm not going to, nah, because I need that anti-Vax vote. He could get so much credit. Just go around the country, promoting it. But he won't. He won't. He won't. I think he gets that his audience is fundamentally opposed to it. That is one of the things that might be, you know, a step too far for them. Don't tell me he doesn't need the money. You know what I'm saying? That's true.

He needs the money. Okay, keep going. Well, actually, you know what? You bring up the vaccine and money. Why don't we turn to our last story, which is about the vaccine and money. The deployment of the vaccine was pretty quick compared to some of the early predictions. And shockingly, even in America, available broadly at very low or no cost. treatment for COVID, not so much. But the vaccine has been. But will that actually last,

especially if this vaccine, if this virus becomes something that we as a nation or the world are dealing with for many years. If it branches off into a ton of different mutations, we might end up having to get booster shots for a very long time. And so there was this virtual Barclays Global Healthcare Conference where a couple of high-ranking employees at Pfizer or we're talking about some of the potential for earning more money in the future. Let's take a look. If you look at how current demand and current pricing is being driven, it's clearly not being driven by what I'll call normal market conditions, normal market forces. It's really been driven by kind of the pandemic state that we've been in and the needs of governments to really secure

doses from the various vaccine suppliers. So what we believe, what I believe is as we move from a pandemic state from a pandemic situation to an endemic situation, normal market forces, normal market conditions will start to kick in. And factors like efficacy, booster ability, clinical utility will basically become very important. And we view that as quite frankly a significant opportunity for our vaccine from a demand perspective, from a pricing perspective, given the clinical profile of our vaccine. So there's a lot to dive into Francesca, but before we get to the substance of it, I don't know for sure, it's difficult to say from that image. And it is possible that some sort of virtual Zoom background. Was he in front of the beach in that? I don't know if we can put that up briefly.

I think out of his window was sand and a deck chair and the ocean. Maybe it's virtual, I don't know. But if you're talking about how we need to find a way to exploit the global need for life-saving medicine to get more money, don't even make us think that you're at to the beach, that you're going to log off of this Zoom and then take a little swim with a manatee. I don't know. I don't know for sure. I'm just putting that out there as a potential. And then you're going to carve Trump into its back, huh? Is that what manatee? You're going to, I get it. First of all, anyway, what do you think? He's on a floating tax haven, John, Peter Thiel set it up. It's fine. It's not actually a beach.

It's just a floating. I don't ever want to be on a Pfizer Zoom ever. Like that is TMI on like corruption. Do you know what I'm saying? Like I know we have to talk about it, but I like watch that. And I'm like, yep, don't want to know. Do do, do. Now that's not obviously a good response.

the correct response is we need to rein in big pharma, but you can just see with the cavalier way that they talk about this, that absolutely they're looking to cash in. And this is mind you, like this is when, let's say, I think it's 10 countries have administered 75% of the vaccine in total, right? Countries like the United States and the UK are racing far, far above countries that have not seen a lick of this vaccine who are begging the World Trade Organization to make companies, like Pfizer drop the patents so that their production companies can start to produce them at a low cost. But that's not the way it goes. And so, you know, this whole time I thought that like behind the scenes of working on the vaccine, they were just like, you know, fairies, like the Keebler

elves and they were just sweet and little, they were just Pillsbury doughboy, you know, and they just wanted us to live. And I feel like that's not true. Well, I mean, of course we should make a distinction between the actual scientists who are working on it and the corporate executives that have as little connection to that as I do, basically. Yeah, the scientists are Keebler elves. Oh yeah, they're very adorable. I mean, look at Fauci, that's all the evidence you need. But yeah, like we, you're rightfully pointing out that there are many countries that have none, literally none. Some really hard hit, like, and it's not always for the same reason, some of its mismanagement. I mean, Brazil has

done very little vaccination and they're losing more people in the last week than any other country. But some countries just can't get any. They can't buy it. And because of what you pointed out, they can't manufacture it. So like we have these plans that the US is contributing money to COVAX to eventually distribute some of it. And like Biden to his credit, I guess, said once we have excess supply, we'll start sending some overseas. But like people are dying now. can't wait to die until later on when you decide that now it's acceptable. They could start making it. That's a thing that could happen. We could send them the PDF and then they could manufacture the vaccine and potentially thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands

of lives could be saved. How is this the way that it works? And I know it's naive and obviously we let people die of all sorts of diseases that they don't need to die of. But like this is supposed to be the thing that got us all together for once? Like, you know, malaria is complicated or whatever. But this one, we had commercials talking about what heroes we consider people to be. And it turns out, oh my God, some of that might not have been genuine. It might have just been companies trying to make money as they continue to. Anyway, okay, that's going to be the end of the first hour. And soon Francesca is going to take over. We got one more break until then, so we will see you in just a few.

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