The Young Turks - Australia Strikes Back, Trump Elephants, and Amber Tamblyn

Episode Date: March 7, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from March 6, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join. Hour 1:  Cenk & Ana. Trump rebuffed claims Tuesday that his White House is in chaos amid reports of high-profile departures and discord within the top ranks of the West Wing.  "The new Fake News narrative is that there is CHAOS in the White House. Wrong! People will always come & go, and I want strong dialogue before making a final decision," Trump tweeted. "I still have some people that I want to change (always seeking perfection). There is no Chaos, only great Energy!" The Turnbull government admits it has no idea if Australia will be exempt from US president Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, despite claiming last year that it would escape the levies. Ministers have warned that the tariffs could spark a trade war and lead to global recession, and say Australian officials are scrambling to learn the details of the plan. World stock markets tumbled on Friday after Trump announced he would next week impose tariffs of 25% on steel imports and 10% on imported aluminium, in an attempt to shield local manufacturers from global competition. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has quietly begun allowing more trophy hunting of African elephants, despite President Donald Trump’s pledge last year to uphold a ban on importing parts of animals killed by big-game hunters.  Hour 2:  Actress Amber Tamblyn faces backlash after Tweeting that Hasidic Jews in New York City are targeting her. Of six crash reports involving robot cars filed in California so far this year, two involved a human approaching the car and attacking it. 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. Thank you for watching or listening to this free podcast of the Young Turks. We want to make sure that you get some portion of the show every day. But if you want the full show, which is actually five segments, come become a member and support independent media as well. TYT network.com slash join.

Meanwhile, enjoy the free podcast. What kind of a show do we have for you today on The Young Turks? Is it a show, show? No, no, no, no. It's a massive show. Giant news just came out right before we went on air. I'm going to tell you about it in a second. Down goes, all right, you'll see in a second.

Hold on now. Election night tonight. The official kickoff of the 2018 elections, we had a special election in Arizona last week. But the 2018 cycle begins today. By the way, the polls close in a couple of hours in Texas. So if you're still in Texas, go vote in the primaries. Vote, vote, vote, vote. If you want to know how to vote in any state that you're in,

go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash register. So John and I will be giving you election night coverage tonight, and we are going to be talking to a lot of the candidates. Beto O'Rourke is in a race. He is likely to go up against Ted Cruz eventually. that's really interesting. You got seven Justice Democrats up tonight. So decision night already in March here in America.

Okay. And then later in the program, the Russians going after a former spy. Yes, that would appear to be the Russian government. A Russian journalist stabbed in the throat. How does she respond to that? And then there's so many amazing, wonderful stories. There's unfortunately stories of corruption, but stories of redemption as well. That's why we call it the Young Turks, okay?

So without further ado, let's get going. Okay. Now Donald Trump just put out a tweet a little while ago, of course, early in the morning, saying that he's got everything under control in the White House. Later in the day, it turned out not the case. But first, let's read the tweet. It's super fun. He says, the new fake news narrative is that there is chaos, capitalized.

If I was trying to say there isn't chaos, I wouldn't have capitalized chaos. But anyway, that there's chaos in the White House. Wrong. People always come and go. And I want strong dialogue before making a final decision. I still have some people that I want to change, always seeking perfection. There's no chaos. Only great energy.

Who puts out a statement like that? If a reality show host puts out a statement like that, you wonder if they should pull them off air. I mean, look, I get it. You want drama for ratings, but that's a little too mental, right? But he's no longer a reality show host. He's the president of the United States. Could you imagine if Obama sent out a tweet? I mean, they'd have doctors go check in on him.

There's no chaos, only great energy. Is that what we're calling it now, energy? Okay, well, Jeff Bush's got to be smiling today thinking, for the first time being low energy turns out to be a good thing. Okay, so he puts out that tweet, and it's fun in games. I was going to tell you about the tweet anyway because it's funny. Then it turns out, chaos ensues. Are you ready?

Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Down goes Gary Cohn. Down goes Cone, down goes Cone. So now, look, it's not Donald Trump, don't get too excited. But Gary Cohn, top economic advisor to the president, one of the most important people in the White House. He was the president and CEO of Goldman Sachs. Donald Trump during the campaign ran against the global elites and the globalists, as he would call them. He even showed the CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfine, in those ads.

Blankfine and Cohn worked together for a long amount of times. He goes into the Trump White House anyway, and now he is out. So why? That's a super important question. in the official reports they say well he agreed with disagreed with a steel

and aluminum tariffs and he lost that fight it ain't about no aluminum tariffs okay there's two reasons why Gary Cohen's leaving one is mission accomplished what do I mean

mission accomplished I mean this White House an absolute disaster and an absolute disarray so why is it mission accomplished all Gary Cohen wanted was the giant tax cuts. The tax cuts for the banks, like Goldman Sachs,

tax cuts for the rich, like Gary Cohn and everyone he knows, and for all the corporations. We're done here, man. I told you guys. I said the minute that they get those tax cuts, the establishment's done with Donald Trump. That's the main thing he's going to get, and the rest is just playing out the string.

And Cohn is in the heart of the establishment. So that's reason number one. He already got what he wanted. Aluminum tariffs. Aluminum tariffs. We're talking about that. Now, look, Gary Cohn is not in favor of that, and he thinks it's bad for the economy overall.

He's not in favor of trade wars. I understand that. But that is a minor issue in the landscape of the madness of the Donald Trump White House. So the second major issue is anyone with two bits of sense has got to get the hell out of there. It's about to implode. Look, the rest of the media, for all that they attack Donald Trump, they're still not getting.

The standard politicians, they're not getting it. Certainly the rest of the country doesn't understand how close we are. I keep telling you guys, we're not that far away from the end. He's going to be gone soon. In the last seven days or so, he lost Hope Hicks' communications director. He lost Gary Cohn, his top economic advisor. Now, he's lost so many people I'm losing track. who was the third major person that left?

Who just pulled a shoot? We just had a giant, giant person leave. Anyway, that's how insane it is. People are dropping out like nuts. If two of those people had left in like a year in the Obama administration, people were like, what is this? It's madness. I'm now driving

myself crazy. Anybody remember who left the White House? Within the last week, Hope Hicks, I know, and Gary Cohen left today. Jesus and Lord mercy, everybody on Twitter is screaming it at me, but I can't, I don't have Twitter in front of me. Okay, so anyways, you think Gary Cohen wants to get stuck holding the bag when they come for Donald Trump? He wants plausible deniability. He wants to say, yeah, I'm gone, man. Me, the Russian investigation, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They got Trump after I left.

I don't have anything new with that, man. I don't have anything new with that. All these people aren't leaving because things are going well. No, they're about to get them. Again, I know, I know a lot of people say, oh, you don't know that. You know that's just speculation, man. Okay, let's see what happens. But this is devolving very, very quickly.

All these people like Rick Gates have turned evidence on not just Manafort, but Donald Trump. They're closing in. Look at the panic of Sam Nunberg on television yesterday. And Gary Cohn might be a lot of things, but he ain't dumb. So he's thinking, I got our tax cuts, and I don't need any of this hot mess. So I'm gone. And that is the sensible move. And soon, there'll be one more person leaving from the White House.

Hear me now, quote me later. Okay. All right, we move forward. Now, more Trump madness. Let's get going. Okay, I got too many stories for you guys. So, this is an amusing story because someone thought that Donald Trump wasn't lying to them. In this case, it happens to be the Australian.

government. A while ago he made a promise to them and now come to find out that he didn't mean it. No, really. But they are genuinely surprised, which amuses me. Health Post reporting here, Australian media is accusing President Donald Trump of reneging on a promise he reportedly made to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last year. They're accusing him of that because it's true. So let's give you the details. Trump, quote, emphatically promised Turnbull that Australian steel and aluminum would be exempt from any steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the U.S. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation

reported. The agreement, which was reportedly witnessed by several U.S. and Australian officials, occurred during the G20 meeting in Germany last July. Look, I don't know how many times I've got to say this. Trump doesn't mean

anything he says. So there's several reasons for this. One, he's a pathological liar. So he'll tell you one thing in one minute. Forget a year later. A minute later, he'll tell you the opposite. Just yesterday, I did a story on the show about how he contradicted himself within the same tweet. Okay, second of all, he doesn't have any philosophy or principles.

So what is his governing philosophy on aluminum tariffs? He doesn't have one. So when he promised them that he would exempt Australia, what was that based on? Was it based on a principle of we will exempt allies? because we think it's better for the economy or better for foreign policy. And among the allies will be Australia, the UK, et cetera. No, he didn't put any thought into it. You know why?

Because he's dumb. He didn't think if I give Australian exemption, I might have to give New Zealand one. Is that going to be based on regions or going to be based on allies? How am I going to make those decisions? No, Turnbull probably gave him a compliment, said, hey, Mr. President, you have awfully large hands. And he was like, okay, that's it. You're exempt from the tariffs. That's right. And a year later, you think he's going to listen to that? No, somebody else is going to come in the room and tell him he has large hands. He's going to be like, Australia's out. That's

it. And right now, what's the reality? They're out. Nobody's getting an exemption. Companies might get exemptions, which would lead to terrible corruption as they try to convince the government to give them exemptions one by one, an assistant of institutionalized crony capitalism. But there are no exemptions countrywide. Trump, as always, didn't mean it, was lying to you, didn't even know what the hell he was saying. So Tom McElroy says on Twitter here, opposition leader Bill Shorten says it appears Donald Trump has dutted Australia, which is an awesome term, on failing to keep his promise to Malcolm Turnbull to accept Australian steel exports from planned tariffs to exempt Australian steel exports

from plan tariffs in the U.S. Yes, in fact, Australia, you have been dutted, as have all of us. Steve Chobo, the Australian trade minister, says, I'm not going to provide a commentary on the Trump administration's trustworthiness. I do declare that one stung. Is Donald Trump and his administration trustworthy? Of course not. Don't be preposterous. And I like how they got their feeling, sir.

You should have known that from day one. Okay, now we're moving forward. One more Trump's story about broken promises. Okay. Curious story comes out today. Let me quote here from Nick Visser and Chris DeAngelo at Huffpost. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Surface has quietly begun allowing more trophy hunting of African elephants, despite President Donald Trump's pledged last year to uphold a ban.

on importing parts of animals killed by big game hunters. Hmm. Yeah, when I read that headline, I thought, wait, didn't Trump say the opposite? And wasn't he fairly emphatic? In fact, he was. Let's go to that tweet from earlier. Trump said, big game trophy decision will be announced next week, and now it's back in November of 2017. But we'll be very hard pressed to change my mind that this horror show in any way helps conservation of elephants or any other animal.

Wow, those are strong words indeed. Well, he's definitely not going to change his mind, right? Did he change his mind? Of course, because he has no mind to change. So somebody came in and was like, should we just ignore the idiot in the White House and just do what we want to do anyway? Obama had banned this form of trophy hunting. Trump's administration wanted to reopen it back up. Trump finds out how they butcher the animals.

and, you know, for a rare moment of morality, he goes, well, that's a horror show. I don't want that. And then they go, just wait him out. He's a moron. He'll lose focus. And we'll just do it anyway. And that's what they're doing right now.

Speaking of horror show, can I just show you what that horror show looks like? We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fing 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-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical

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

over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. That I believe is an elephant hunt by Donald Trump Jr. You cut that part off. and then with a knife, and then you thought that was a cool thing to take a picture and show to your friends. And oh, congratulations, I'm killing these species. To be fair, I'm pretty sure that those animals also had rifles, right? No, you just murdered them. Okay, wow, you must be so brave.

Anyway, that's the horror show that Donald Trump is talking about. And for the first time he is right about his sons. Now, here is senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. Tanya, Sanarab, a good person trying to make sense of this. She says, what the agency just did with this memo is completely contrary to everything Trump has been saying. That's right, Tanya. It is. Because Donald Trump can't be trusted for a second.

He doesn't mean anything he says. He's a pathological liar. How many times do I have to go over this? You've got to stop getting surprised. Nothing ever stays with Donald Trump. He will change every opinion he has to whatever is politically expedient the next second. All right, last quote for you guys. The decision was first revealed publicly by Safari Club International, and this goes to why in the world they're even changing this position.

A trophy hunting advocacy group with closed ties to the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. That's the beginning of the answer. the group, along with the National Rifle Association, sued to block the 2014 ban on elephant trophies from Zimbabwe. Because I was wondering, I'm like, look, who's bothering to undo Donald Trump's decision on this? There isn't a lot of money involved. Okay, Ryan Zinke is a guy who really wants to make sure that this continues. It's probably got a couple of millionaire buddies who donated to him, et cetera.

But it's not enough to move the needle on this, especially when Donald Trump was so adamant so publicly. Ah, the NRA, there you go. Now, it turns out the NRA wants it, and if the NRA wants something, they'll get it. Trump administration keeps talking about, oh, we're going to keep the NRA in check. You can't keep yourself in check. So for the millionth time in a row, another Donald Trump promise broken. All right, we're going to come right back, and when we do, we got news on Republicans.

got news on Democrats. We've got news on Americans. We've got news on Russians. We'll be right back. You're right in the middle of this podcast. We've got another great segment coming up for you. If you'd like the full show, which is actually five segments, go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. You become a member, you support the show, you support independent media, and you get the whole two-hour show ad-free every day. Let's go do it now. All right, back on the Young Church. with you guys. Brian Newton says there was an article I read detailing how the press reacts under a Putin regime and what to expect from Trump monsters all around. Well, peas in a pot

and all that. Ishka Bibo says, well, about the journalist in Russia. Well, they came to protect themselves and their families. I don't know if I'd have that kind of courage. Some people want to just survive. Don't get me wrong. You're absolutely right, man. I don't know that I'd have that kind of courage. Are you crazy? I mean, look. I think I have a tiny, tiny bit of courage, but not that kind of courage. Yeah, I don't know if I would. Yeah, I'd be like, pack your bags, we got to go, we got to go. I wouldn't turn around and then be pro Putin.

Like, just go get another job, man. You don't have to debase yourself. Right. Right. But on the other hand, take it on Putin and Russia ain't no joke. So anyway, Dionysus says she's a very brave journalist. You couldn't be more right. I want to thank our members, Adrian Williams, and Sue Devereaux are our members of the day today.

Thank you, guys. Today we got a big election night. So John and I are going to do election night coverage tonight for you guys. Texas, seven just Democrats are up. Will seven of them win? I'm going to keep it real. Will zero of them win? Will three of them win?

Four of them win, two, five. I have no idea. And I am very nervous about it. But right after, normally we'd have rebel headquarters right after the show, but you'll have election coverage instead because the polls close in about 50 minutes. So if you're in Texas, go out there and vote. And of course, our members get all of our coverage whenever they want commercial free. So t-y-tnetwork.com slash join to become a member.

All right, what's next, Anna? The mayor of Nashville, Tennessee, has officially stepped down following a sex scandal. that she was involved in. The former mayor, Megan Berry, was caught having an affair with the head of her security, Sergeant Rob Forrest, and

the affair was consensual. Yes, they're both married, but having an affair is not breaking the law or committing a crime. However, an investigation did find that they did use some taxpayer money during their affair,

which led to her promptly stepping down. Now, she pleaded guilty in court as part of the negotiated agreement with the district attorney, Glenn Funk, to follow, to felony theft over $10,000 related to her affair with her former police bodyguard. Now, as part of her plea deal, Barry was sentenced to three years of probation and has agreed to reimburse the city $11,000 in unlawful expenses. So to give you an example of how she committed this crime, go on work trips. And of course, the head of her security, the man that she was having the affair with, would travel along with her, and then they would stay an extra day and, you know, carry out whatever situation was going

on there. Okay, you guys get it. Now, I think they do. Yeah, okay. Now, Forrest, the sergeant here, also pleaded guilty to property theft and was sentenced to three years of probation. As part of his plea agreement, he's required to reimburse the city $45,000 that was paid to him as salary and overtime during times when he was not performing his duties. So he would be on the clock while he was carrying out this affair. And as a result, he was using taxpayer money and he will have to reimburse the city that amount. Now, an affidavit detailed nude photos that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said appear to be buried taken on the phone of forest during city trips. They also highlighted hundreds of deleted phone chats on Forrest's phone.

This story seems odd to me. Now, they did something wrong. They did use taxpayer money and they should be punished as a result of that. But I feel like the investigation and the hyper focus on Megan Barry is odd considering how politicians throughout the country typically behave. Let her go! No. Let her go. Okay, let me explain. So I first see the headline. And sorry, I guess this is a bad admission on my part, but I didn't know if the Nashville mayor was Democrat or Republican. I'm not that involved in Tennessee politics. So I, and I thought to myself, and look, you believe me if you want, don't believe me if you don't want. But I'm telling you right now that before I read the story, I saw the headline that she slept with her bodyguard and had to step down. And I thought, who cares? Why? Is it our business?

Right. And so, and I said, I don't care if she's a Republican or Democrat, and I'm curious to find out. But if that's all there is to the story, she shouldn't step down at all. Now, I was curious if she's a Republican, if she was a hypocrite, talked about family values, that I would care about. But even so, I'm tired of judging people. You know, it just, it depends on the severity of it, right? So then we looked into it. Now, of course, it turns out she is Democrat.

She's apparently progressive and was very progressive. popular in Nashville. And so, by the way, another southern popular progressive who then winds up having a scandal and then is taken down. Anyway, so now that I've read all the details of it, not quite as easy to say let her go because they really shouldn't have done a couple of things here, right? So one, you can say they shouldn't have the sex. Yes, but that's not our problem, man.

That's not our issue. and they were married. It's so easy to judge people on sex. So easy, right? No, I don't want to. I don't want to judge them whether they're Democrats or Republicans on the sex alone. I don't care, right? So, and we have been consistent on this show.

If they ran on family values, we point that out. There's been a couple of Republicans involved in sex scandals who did not run on family values. And I said, let them go. I don't see what the problem is. That's their problem, not our problem. So anyway, in this case, yes, they shouldn't have stayed an extra day in Athens Greece and the different trips that they took. Yes, they used taxpayer money. More problematic

even than that was they then switch instead of his boss keeping his time sheet to the mayor, her keeping the time sheet. And he starts putting those hours on overtime. No, you can't do that. Why did you do that? Because that looks like that's intent. It looks like they switched it so that they you get charged more hours. I don't care if you sleep with them, but you can't charge more hours on purpose. And some of these trips, she didn't have security on before. But after the affair, she has security with her all the time. That's still racking up the bills, right, for taxpayers. So it's wrong. So I'm half kidding when I say let her go. On the other hand, it is so easy to do political assassinations of people. All you have to do is look into their sex life.

For guys, you're going to get a hit eight out of ten times, okay? But now, apparently, for some women, you're going to get a hit a couple of times. I've seen Republican women have issues with this, too. But most of the time, the people looking at Republicans, so they get progressives far more often. Right. Look, I actually don't have a problem with the outcome of this story because of the fact that they, you know, misused taxpayer money. You can't do that. You're stealing from your very constituents.

So I think that it makes sense for her to step down. If it was simply the two of them having an affair, then I don't even think it's a story. I wouldn't even bother talking about it on the show. But the thing that I do want to point out is how it's interesting how this country works, right? So there's one form of theft by politicians that's completely acceptable. And then there's this form of theft from taxpayers that is completely unacceptable. And so what I mean by that is politicians throughout the country will push for insane tax cuts for the wealthy, and then what do they turn around and do?

They do regressive taxes on the working class and the middle class, essentially robbing the people who need that money the most. That form of theft is totally fine, but this form is unacceptable. I just think that we need to focus on what the real issue is. Yeah, $10,000 is pretty serious, but think about how much money gets taken. taken away from, you know, Americans throughout the country on a regular basis in the form of these tax cuts, which then further defund programs that we need. And I'm not talking just about, you know, welfare programs.

I'm talking about quality education, which has been completely underfunded and dismantled as a result of politicians pushing for tax cuts. Yeah, and I want to be super clear about this. It isn't just policy differences, oh, what level should taxes be? No, we just did a story today that TYT broke about Heidi Heikam. She's a Democrat from North Dakota. So she voted for banking deregulation, and it turns out she's got a million dollars invested in the banks that she deregulated.

Right. And it turns out she's the number one recipient of campaign donations from the banks. Well, come on now. Look, that's not a policy difference. That's corruption 101. And that doesn't involve $10,000. That involves billions of dollars. An amazing stat is over a five-year period in the top 200 corporations,

that donate to politicians gave $5.8 billion. That's a lot of money, okay, that they spent on donations and lobbying. You know what they got in return from taxpayer subsidies? $4.4 trillion. So we're putting people, she's got, she's on probation, she's out of office, etc. for $10,000. But $4.4 trillion taken from our pockets, and that's business as usual. So, I mean, I'm partly tired of the judging of people's sex lives,

and how easy it is to do political assassinations of your opponents, because everybody makes mistakes. And especially when you make one about sex, it usually is compounded because you know what people do when they're having an affair or the wrong kind of sex? They lie. So it's super easy to get them, right? And the right wing does it over and over again.

Meanwhile, $4 trillion left the building, and you weren't paying attention. Right. That's exactly. And that's exactly my point. And, you know, just to add to that point, she wanted to raise taxes to pay for a new transit plan in the Nashville area, which would cost $5.4 billion. So here you have a politician who wants to raise taxes. This is, by the way, 100% speculation on my part, but I just want to give you my perspective. I feel like you want to

do things like raise taxes, all of a sudden you become a target and people want to investigate you. Yeah. If she had given corporate tax cuts, nobody would have looked into her sex life. Okay, I know, people, oh, that's a conspiracy, blah, la, la. It's speculation, that's for sure, but it's just my view of what's going on. It's funny how guys like Elliot Spitzer who go after the banks, but I can name you a dozen people who go after the banks. All of a sudden we find out all about their sex lives. What a funny coincidence. Anyway, all right, what's next?

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and Wired Magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash T-Y-T, 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 dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. politics in the United States feel a lot more like reality television and it could be because we have a former reality television host as our president however if you take a look at the type of television programming most Americans are watching these days you'll kind of understand why someone like Trump ended up becoming our president in the first place now recently there

was this huge scandal huge controversy I should say regarding the season finale of The Bachelor. Hold. Now, the controversy was the fact that the guy that all the women are trying to marry, his name is Ari Lewandike Jr., he made a decision to propose to one of the contestants, and then later changed his mind and then proceeded to pursue another contestant. And then after he did that, decided to go back to the previous woman. And people were upset about it. Now, he dumped Lauren Burnham and proposed to Becca Cufferin, okay? Lewandike later, I'm sorry, Liondyke, that's how you pronounce his name. Liondyke later questioned his choice and broke up with Cufferin to pursue Burnham again. And then we have a

bunch of fun screenshots of what occurred because we can't play the original video due to copyright reasons. So. Okay, so, look, I insisted that we do this story, and I'll tell you why. Partly because I very randomly caught 10 minutes of this live last night, okay? And it's because last night we'd watch the Oscars, so it was still on ABC. And I was going to watch John Oliver's show, which was brilliant, by the way. So summer television is fantastic now. HBO, Netflix, absolutely killing it, Amazon, Hulu, and others as well, right? But then you've got this dumpster fire.

And so, first of all, I want to be clear that I'm not trying to judge the people who watch this stuff. It'll seem that way, but so let me tell you ahead of time, I've done your drug. So my wife and I used to watch The Bachelor. I don't remember if we watched one or two seasons. And when I was, you know, about to go to watch my show and this was on, I got stuck. And I did watch it for 10 minutes. It was like a train wreck and you couldn't look away. But the reason I want to do this story is we've got to.

to look away. This is hurting the country. It's emotional porn. And it's, so let me explain the scene that I saw. So they go back and forth a little bit. And, you know, I find I don't give a damn about any of these people. And they're all half actors, right? So he was, he couldn't decide who was, in fact, I remember I watched crashing from HBO. So I caught a little piece of this. And then when it was done, I was going to go to John Oliver's show. Then I caught another piece of it, right? So I saw the little bit of like drama, which way he's going to go. I was like, that one I lasted for like 15 seconds. I'm like, I don't care which one he's going to go with. Okay, let's watch this, right? Then I come back and he's breaking up with a girl

that he said yes to. Who cares, who cares, who cares? Except for she started crying and weeping and they wouldn't stop following her with the cameras. Why would they? That's exactly what they want. That's what the producers of the show want. That's what, you know, And again, I'm not judging either, but that's what the audience reacts to, is attached to. They want the drama. It's a soap opera, essentially. Exactly. And the people who are involved in the soap opera, I get it, they signed up for it.

I know that. But there are also people, and they got caught in this play and now kind of a zoo or a coliseum. And at that moment, she is genuinely upset. And he won't leave the house. and I'm positive the producers are telling him don't leave the house. She's asking him to leave. She's an emotional wreck and he won't leave just to rub it in a little bit because we want more crying for the Coliseum, right?

She goes into the bathroom so the cameras can't follow her, but they won't take off her mic. So you see her, you hear her sobbing and sobbing and you've got this, and I could feel like the audience kind of loving it, and it made me sick inside. So I have numbers to back up the fact that the audience did love it, even though Twitter erupted with a ton of criticism. So this was the 22nd season finale of The Bachelor, and it hit new season highs and gave ABC a win in the key demo. So it averaged a 2.2 rating in adults 18 to 49 and 7.8 million viewers.

So a lot of people were watching. It broke all sorts of records for The Bachelor specifically. And I, look, I am actually kind of surprised by your commentary, Jake, because this isn't new. I mean, they've always done this. It doesn't matter if they're weeping and crying. That's considered good TV. And they're not going to take the mic off. That's like, you know, getting rid of the one component that the audience keeps coming back for.

But what I will say is what I'm noticing in government right now, and it never, it didn't hit me until recently, was that the way Trump conducts things, is very similar to what you would see on a reality show. So, for instance, and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't remember Obama having these highly publicized and highly televised negotiation sessions with members of Congress. Now, one might argue that it's transparency and it's a good thing, but the way that Trump carries himself makes it very apparent to me that it's theater, right? It's, you know, he likes the production of it all.

He likes the drama of it all. And he's done it time and time again. It's never meant to negotiate actual policy and lead to real solutions. It's always meant for the drama. People in the media latch on to it and they debate it and they talk about it nonstop. Meantime, they're deregulating, you know, the environmental protections that we have. So that's the part of it that makes me worried because now society has devolved in not just the type of television that we're watching, but the way that we govern. And that's concerning.

So I think there's just a couple of differences. One is we all knew that it was not, unfortunately not we all, right? But a lot of us knew it was a play before. And when you see Amarosa crying in a reality show, you'd have to be the biggest sucker in the world to think that that's real, right? So she's an actress and she's, her job is to go piss off everybody on the set and then have them crying, her crying. And it's so, like, why are we still watching? It's so fake, it's so fake, right? Okay, now in this case, like again, she signed up for it, et cetera, but that was genuine.

She's not going and being like, oh, my God, oh, I'm so sad. Later I'll make millions when I become The Bachelorette and et cetera, which probably will happen, by the way. Okay, but she was in bawling, in the bathroom, and Nicole's TMST on the edge, like, ooh. Oh, this is good. And it just, I don't know, maybe it's partly because I happen to see it, right? And it was gut wrenching. And I didn't want us to be entertained by that. And then to your point, Anna, look at what the country has become.

Right. So we got so used to it that we put a reality show host as our leader, as the leader of the free world, the most powerful man on earth. And yes, Obama from time to time would bring in leaders from both parties, and it was totally fake. They would have a fake conversation. Nothing would get negotiated. But Trump is a showman.

So he agrees with the Democrats and finds out and gets excited. And then Schumer says we got a deal. And then it turns out they don't have a deal. Then they go on camera and cry. And Trump lied to me. I didn't know it. I mean, they've, so we got, we're the frog in the boiling water. We got used to the fake drama and the hysteria so much that we became, you know, we became a reality.

show. And so we got to get out. It's a dumpster fire. We got to get out of this existence because it's hurting us. It's hurting the whole country. We got to take a quick break. Let's do that. And when we come back, more news for you, including a celebrity who went after the Hasidic Jewish community in New York. Thanks for watching. We're listening to this free version of the Young Turks podcast. You know that the full show is at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. If you've become member you get the full show ad free we love you for watching or listening either way there's going to be a new free podcast tomorrow you can keep on doing that but if you want to get the full show ad free t yt network dot com slash join 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 podcast at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon