The Young Turks - Backroom Deals

Episode Date: October 1, 2022

Joe Biden devastated millions by pulling student debt relief. AOC goes off on a hateful Republican after he spews his transphobic rhetoric. A former Trump rep. has pleaded guilty to child pornography charges and was sentenced to prison. A book reveals that Nancy Pelosi resisted impeaching Donald Trump for a whole week after January 6th. Yikes, these Fox hosts just defended these oil companies and it’s not a good look. Host: John Iadarola, Cenk Uygur, Max Burns Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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He in fact started third degree strategies, but furthermore, you're never going to guess where you're going to find his videos. Oh, you got it. It's rebel headquarters, of course. Everybody's on rebel headquarters. All right, Max, great to have you here. Thanks for having me. No problem.

So now, we got a hell of a show for you guys. And one of our reporters caught a right winger. He caught him. He caught him. You're gonna love that story. All right, and many more. John, proceed. Okay, let's start off this Friday show right with really depressing news.

Dark Brandon is regrettably getting brighter with every passing day. He got a lot of credit, deservedly so for doing a good amount of student debt cancellation. And we find out this week, it is already starting to be chipped away at. They have caved pressure from the GOP, with the argument being given that there are legal challenges pending from student lending industry figures. So they're very worried about these legal challenges. And so for some borrowers, that cancellation will no longer exist. We're going to give you all of the details. So they were prompted this week in the US Department of Education to reverse course on the previously announced cancellation for some and no longer

allow borrowers with federal family education loan program and Perkins loans, which are guaranteed by the federal government, but they're held by private lenders to participate in the debt cancellation plan. So those two categories have now been carved out. And this follows a number of different developments, which we've been tracking on the network, including six Republican-led states filing a lawsuit in Missouri federal court. This is just yesterday, arguing that the student debt cancellation plan, quote, is not remotely tailored to address things. effects of the pandemic on federal student loan borrowers, a legal requirement they say under the Biden administration's justification for the cancellation. Maybe they have something there. I personally

never thought nor needed the plan to specifically address the pandemic's effect on student debt. That was an exacerbating condition. It made it worse, but it was terrible long before the pandemic. In any event, this appears to have worked. So the suit that they are so worried about, involves a Missouri student loan servicer, which they say that it's part of the state's government. So if it sees a drop in revenue because borrowers consolidate their loans under the federal family education loan program, then that would be bad for the state. And so how dare you do this, I guess? But I'm sure the important question that you're wondering is, how bad is this? How many students does this affect? And it is somewhere between irrelevant and devastating.

800,000 borrowers, according to the administration, bear that in mind. That's what they say, 800,000 will now be excluded from relief, many more than that, potentially up to something like one and a half million. I've read two, John, two million. Well, I believe the two million figure includes that 800,000. But again, basically everywhere you look, there are different estimates that I've seen. So over a million people at the very least, maybe 2 million people will either no longer have their debt canceled or will have less of their debt canceled. Now, that is not a massive portion of the over 40 million people who stand to benefit from it. But it's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people who spent the last two months ecstatic at the prospect of this debt finally being lifted off their shoulders. And now they're going to find, oh no, it's going to be put back on there. And not because, these Republican states launched this lawsuit, and month after month, they grounded away and

the Biden administration fought them at every step. But unfortunately, finally, the conservative Supreme Court has allowed it to stand. And now begrudgingly, the Biden administration is going to have to reverse it. No, instead, they caved. They caved super early on in the process. And so if you're one of the people that will no longer get that debt cancellation, who are you going to blame? You should blame these Republican states. That's true. But I don't think you're going to have a lot of fond thoughts for Dark Brandon at this point. Yeah. So those are great points by John. So whether the number is 800,000 or all the way up to 2 million people, it is out of about 44 million people who are getting relief overall. So that gives you good news and bad news. The good news is

it's not the majority of people. It's a small percentage of people that are being affected out of the ones that got relief overall. The bad news is it's a small enough percentage that there There isn't going to be any cavalry. Nobody's going to ride to the rescue is my guess, okay, is my sense of it. That's my analysis of it, right? I wish there was, but there probably won't be. And in fact, mainstream media, in this case, probably most likely MSNBC, if you stuck up for those two million people would yell at you at the top of their lungs. Because they would say, oh, you're doing damage. He already gave help to the 42 million and now you're trying to take credit away from him, you monsters.

No, by the way, don't actually take credit away from the $42 million. That's wonderful. That's fantastic, right? But we're just, is it okay if we try to help everybody? Is that okay? And remember now, so that's the policy. You always want to help as many people as you can and do the right thing and try to get the justice.

Now, on the political end, when Biden did this, his poll numbers among young voters rose in double digits. Giant jump up in his poll numbers. to which I say, of course. That's what we told you all along, obviously. Now, by doing this, he's chipping away at his popularity. Why?

Because he doesn't, he's worried he's going to lose a court case. To John's point, and it's absolutely right on the politics, who cares if you lose? Get caught trying. If you fight the Republicans on this, then you could frame the Republicans as the bad guys trying to take away your student debt relief. And it won't seem like it applies only to two. It'll seem like it applies to the whole 44 million. Republicans are trying to take away student debt relief.

That way they get saddled with the bad polling and the unpopularity, and you look like you are the defenders of student debt relief. But when you buckle, it forces us to be honest with people and say it was your fault for buckling. And then I know MSNBC, New York Times is going to yell at us, But that is actually a fact. And it's our job to bring you unbiased news, unlike the rest of media. Max. Yeah, this entire situation blows my mind.

I mean, this is really one step forward, two steps back. Because now the Biden administration has set a precedent that Republicans don't even need to go into court and prove their case to get the White House to back down. They just need to threaten and file a lawsuit. I mean, we've essentially done with court what Republicans have done with the filibuster and created this situation where not only has, have we enabled them now to pressure Biden on so many other things, but we've created this image again that that Joe Biden will make a bold proposal, but he's not willing to stand behind it. And that is just as damaging for democratic

morale. Yeah. Yeah. And to the extent that people learn about this widely, and we'll see. It's a policy-based story, so the media probably won't talk about it very much. And it affects the lives of working people burdened with debt. So again, they feel very little ethical obligation to cover it significantly. But if people hear about it, it's going to reflect poorly, as we've been saying, on the Biden administration. But more importantly, for those 800 to 2 million people, are you ever going to support Joe Biden again after this? Are you going to ever trust the Democrats again after this? It's a very easy case to make that it's worse to seem to cancel it and then reverse it to have just never done anything at all.

This is definitely worse. You might have been making new plans for your life, considering the possibility being able to move or change up your career, start a business, buy a car, buy a house. And now, oh no, no, you're going to be paying the $500, $750,000 a month in debt once again. And it's especially bad because this isn't just chipping away needless. at an awesome plan, it's chipping away from a plan that was good, but needed to be expanded massively anyway. So you are now very much going in the wrong direction. And I want to buttress what Jank was saying, because he was talking there about sort of the perception of these things and how you can, how you can sell what you're trying to do all that. And that's important

in politics. But I also want to differentiate like the right wing now, the way that they talk about inflation, the way that they talk about crime, the way that they talk about gas. price is constantly trying to pin that sort of thing on one politician when they would never accept that under their own. That's how you make a narrative that's not founded in reality. But in this case, if Biden really wanted, if the Democrats really wanted to spend the next couple of years pitching themselves as the defenders of those who've had their debt canceled, while maybe incrementally expanding the cancellation along the way, you are not making up a narrative that the Republicans are trying to stop this. They're 100% trying to stop it.

And not just in this lawsuit. This is six states. There are, going to be others. You have multiple student debt servicing companies that are already working with state governments to try to make sure that the cancellation is not tax deductible at the state level, which is going to severely cut how much is actually canceled. You have basically every Republican politician and Republican pundit not only complaining, whining, crying endlessly after the cancellation about the fact that it actually happened and making their side look terrible, but they spent literally years fighting against it, which is why it took so long for it to happen in the first place, it would not just be a narrative, it would be the truth.

And now, like, the water's been muddied, and now I guess there's some good progressives, but the Democrats are pretty bad again, and the Republicans are pretty bad, and who's to say? And the Democrats are obviously factually better on this, but it's going to be harder to make the case than it needs to be. Yeah, so, look, everybody's experience is different. And so if you see me saying this on air, you might think, well, I don't get that, of course, But in my case, I know a lot of folks in the establishment. And when we do stories like this, they literally yell at me, okay?

And they say, you're trying to take credit away from Biden. It's your fault if those people that got screwed on this find out that Biden screwed them. Okay, just, I swear to God, they said. And they say it super clearly, right? So obviously you have to pause and think, what an absurd thing to say. No, it's, wouldn't it be Biden's fault? Because think about it, guys. If Biden had said, no, God damn it, I'm going to fight those Republicans in court,

today we would be doing a story about, go get him, Joe, dark Brandon, laser eyes. Look at this. That's amazing, right? Instead, he forces us to do a story where we have to take credit away from him. Because it's true, because it's true. I know we've all lost sight of the fact that news is supposed to give you news. everybody assumes that news has an agenda. So that's why people say to us, why aren't you helping Biden?

Because they genuinely think that the job of mainstream media is to help Biden. Well, we don't think that's our job. We think our job is the delivery you thinks that actually happened. And this happened and it matters. But guys, no matter what we said, you think that every one of those 800,000 to 2 million people who's watching the Young Turks right now, they're like, oh my God, I didn't know about it, but I just found out. I mean, I hope so, but I doubt it if I'm being honest.

What's happening instead is they heard the news that they were about to get $20,000 in student debt, like $20,000. And then they heard the news today, psych, you're not getting it. And by the way, Biden is the one who folded and wouldn't even fight for you. It doesn't matter what we say at all. That's in their lives. If you think $10,000 to $20,000 isn't going to affect. their lives and they're not going to notice, you probably live in Washington or you work in

television or at the New York Times. No, of course they know. Of course they know. I mean, that's so ridiculous to say they don't know. So, and of course, John is right. Max is right. It also says a message to Republicans, so you could bully Biden and he'll give in. So you've got to wonder at the end, why? Why would you take the L when there was no need for it? You had the W. you. Go back and watch our old young turkslips. We're like, way to go, Joe. This one was really good. We wish it was a little bit more, but it's okay. It's okay. Way to go, right? Now we're taking credit away. So why did he do it? Private lenders, who are private lenders who give debt? Financial institutions. Some of the most powerful people on earth and certainly

the most powerful people in D.C. along with the drug companies, the oil companies, etc. So the banks came in and said, hey, Joe, you want to take government money and give it to working middle class people who went to college? That's your business. I don't like it. I definitely don't like it because I think that that's going to come out of my height at some point through taxes, okay? But you want to take money out of my bank? Oh, and you're going to pay for it ahead of time, but I'm not going to get the interest on it. I'm not going to get the fees on it. Oh, hell no, Joe, you will kneel. It's not the Republicans. It's not the Republicans. It's the donors. And then Biden, what does he do? Immediately the minute a donor raises his head,

he surrenders. And so to all my establish from friends, I'm sorry that that's true, but it's definitely true. All right. So, you want to take the first break? I think we should. All right, that's awesome. Let's do it. As I said, we got a doozy of a story. Matt Sheffield from TYT reports, broke a story about a Trump official, you are going to want to hear, and that is lit up the internet, points out their hypocrisy in an over-the-top way. So that's coming next. Stay right here. All right, back on TYT, Jank. John, I'm Max with you guys.

John's got the next story. I do, and it's going to be highlighting a truly awful individual. Take a look at this. Dr. Kumar, can biological men become pregnant and give birth? So men can have pregnancies, especially trans men? So can biological men become pregnant and give birth? So are you saying that a biological female who identifies as a man in? therefore becomes pregnant as, quote, a man? Is that what you're saying?

These questions about who can become pregnant are really missing the point. I'm here to talk. No, no, no, no, no. This is me asking a question and you answering. I'm asking the question, sir, not you. That is Representative Andrew Clyde, and he is indeed asking a question, but he's not interested in any answers to those questions. And to be clear, he's doing something else. He is intentionally wasting an opportunity to actually learn something. about a topic he pretends to care about. He was speaking with Dr. Bhavik Kumar, director of Transcare at Planned Parenthood, a literal expert on trans care. This guy questioning him has no idea what he's talking about, but he's also not interested

in finding out. He's interested in grandstanding to tell the Maga base that he despises the trans community. He doesn't give a damn about them. He sees them as a source for maybe jokes, maybe a little bit of casual cruelty, and that's it. And he's not going to allow this guy to actually. teach him, educate him about the topics because these are of course real people. What happens to them medically actually matters. And so he tries to get in some good answers. But Clyde just steamrolls him. Take a look. Right. And I'm answering the question. Somebody with a

uterus may have the capability of becoming pregnant, whether they're a woman or a man. That doesn't make a difference. Okay, we're done. Not every person with the uterus has the ability Let me tell you, if a person has a uterus and is born as a, is born female, they are a woman. That is not a man, and the vast majority of the world considers that to be a woman because there are biological differences between men and women. Okay, so just to really clarify how little he actually cares about this, he knew the line he was supposed to deliver. It wasn't supposed to be about care, it wasn't about to be, it wasn't supposed to be about ensuring that people live through pregnancy or anything like that. It was to just say who is, who gets to be a woman or not. And he cares so little about it that he had to write it down.

Just this is a woman. That's who I think is what. He can't even do it extemporaneously. He had to read it off of a piece of paper. Now we're going to have a great response to Clyde and his condescending approach to that conversation from AOC in just a sec. But first I wanted to give you a chance to jump in. Yeah.

So let me break it down for the right way because I'm not sure anybody's ever explained it to them in this very clear. way. And although we've, God knows, a lot of people have tried. And then we'll see why they care. Okay. So some people are born as women and they have a uterus, but they think and they feel that they are men. And so some of them transitioned to becoming men. And but they still have their uterus so they can get pregnant. And so that explains it. It's actually super simple, right? But I don't know why you guys don't believe them. Do you get that that's super weird that you don't believe them?

Like, oh, you think like that you're actually a man and you feel that way. I don't believe you. What a weird thing? I'm a steeler's friend. I don't believe you. Why don't you believe me? Why would I lie about that? And saying that, hey, I feel like a man that I'm an actual, I'm a man mentally, psychologically.

And so I'm going to transition to being a man. that's not a being a Steelers fan. That's much more difficult. That's much harder. And you've got to put up with Neanderthals like Clyde. Your whole life, your whole life, people filled with hate coming to you and saying, I don't believe you. I don't believe it.

And I think you're bad. For what? I was born this way. You were immoral for being born that way. Who would choose to do that? They do that because that's what they actually feel. But right wingers are right now, right now, all across the country are going, no. If you feel that way, we're going to say we don't believe you and we're going to hate you in every possible and we're going to pass laws against you.

We're going to say so you don't get the same rights as everyone else. Why? Why do you care? There's something about it that bothers them. And what it is is two things. One is let's be honest. And I know it's going to bother a lot of people and it's going to offend some people. But our job is to tell you the truth. Yes, it's of course partly religion.

It's a giant part of it. Religion teaches you to hate gay people. Don't tell me it doesn't. Some of you it doesn't. Some of you have wonderful sects of your religion that are open and caring and understand the message of Jesus and Muhammad, et cetera, and one of love and inclusivity, right? But a lot of religious people don't feel that way, and you know it. So the right wing evangelical leaders spread.

And so I don't care if they catch feelings over it. I don't care of CNN says, oh, you're not allowed on TV because you offended a portion of our audience. They spread hate, this poison throughout the land. They say, if you see someone like this, demean them. Say they're less than you. Say they should have less rights than you and that we should all hate you and not even believe you, not even believe you. And by the way, the right wing does this to everybody. African Americans say, hey, cops have been beating us up for hundreds of years.

They go, I don't believe you. You made it up. Think about how insanely offensive that is. And forget about how old way, did we offend them or not. Think about it if it was you, if it was you. You're a white right winger and you say, hey, I think this. Oh, in fact, you know it. And on a thing that you shouldn't get offended over, you deeply believe in Jesus Christ,

and a lot of evangelical rightwangers, you deeply believe that Jesus Christ was a hateful figure. He hated gay people. He hated trans people. He hated poor people. He loved rich people. And when I tell you that's a myth that doesn't exist, oh my God, you get so angry. And you go, why won't you believe? me that Jesus is real and that he thinks these things. So can you not empathize with people

who go, can you not believe me on something much more benign that I actually think these things about myself? And universally the right wing, because they are honestly, the immoral people in this country say, no, I'm going to focus on hatred instead. And that's what you just saw. Max. This is exactly where the GOP is. I mean, it's say the phrase, say the bumper sticker cut the YouTube clips, send it out to raise money from magomorons. I mean, this is a congressman who was hiding, barricaded, afraid for his life on January 6th, who went out and said that these were just peaceful tourists walking around the Capitol. And this man wants to be the arbiter of our reality. And the fact is, it's not just that he doesn't want to know the truth. It's not just

that he's uninterested in the science, it's that he wants you to not be able to learn as well. These are the same people who want to make it illegal to talk about the science of transgenderism in schools. These are people who in Idaho want to have social services, take your kids away if you try to talk to a doctor about gender affirming care. They're not interested in building a society based on reality. They're interested in implementing their own narrow, bristow, view of reality that denies these people even exist. And I'm glad at least that AOC stood up and took none of it. I certainly agree that for a lot of the base, it's a genuinely held awful horrendous view.

But I'm also not going to give a pass to so many of their leaders, whether an elected office or on TV, that didn't give a damn about this topic two years ago. And in two years from now, they'll be talking about Dr. Seuss again instead or something. They don't actually care about this. It is a convenient thing to get the, from their perspective, rubes fired up so they don't question the economic order of things. That's my view. But really fast, just because she did a great job, we gotta go to a bit of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responding to this in this clip.

The same folks who tell us and told us that COVID's just a flu, that climate change isn't real, that January 6th was nothing but a total. tourist visit are the same, are now trying to tell us that transgender people are not real. And I would say that their claim is probably just as legitimate as all their others, which is to say, not very much at all. I think that's a great response. And I also, because Dr. Kumar didn't get a chance to actually speak in that hearing, Dr. Kumar did tweet out, trans people exist, trans people have abortions.

abortion is essential health care and so is gender affirming care. I will not let bullies who are out of touch with reality silence or stop me from advocating for people who need trans and abortion care. And I will continue to push the challenge I've been promoting for some time promoting people like whether it's Clyde or the various clones of Ben Shapiro actually learn from a person like Dr. Kumar, they actually know things. Maybe talk to one of the people in the communities that you're constantly demonizing. It could be an eye-opening experience, but it might cost you some of the billionaire

dollars you rank in. All right, we gotta go. We do it. When we come back, the story I've been promising you guys, TYT reports catches a Trump official doing something horrific. We'll be back. back on t-y-y-jank john and max with you guys and rebecca rebecca had just became a member by hitting the join button below on youtube you can do likewise if you're watching on youtube great day to do it because we're getting away a blue apron gift cards just for members oh by the way if you you got to be a member to win okay even for the comments so hurry up and sign up for membership okay i say that especially if you won And, oh, and if you're not on YouTube, t.com slash join. I want it to be inclusive to everybody, of course.

Join up on our website. You get all of our shows whenever you want, and you get great gifts like this. All right, John. Yeah, yeah, and great news delivered by an actual gnome. Anyway, with that said, why don't we jump into a very serious story? For more than two years now, basically every Republican in and outside of politics has pretended that they care a ton. about saving the children, protecting them from predators, from groomers. Well, let's test that theory. Let's test how much they actually care about discussing these predators when they're found

because Matthew Sheffield over at T.I.T. Investigates has uncovered a former Trump official who has pled guilty to child porn charges. And we're going to give you all the details. Bearing in mind that this stuff is as dark as you're probably already thinking it's going to be. He is a former Commerce Department official in the Trump administration sent to a five and a half year prison term after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography, Adam Hageman, also sentenced to five years of parole after release and a mandatory requirement to register as a sex offender. He was apparently arrested back in November of 2020. You would think he would have been busy with the whole election thing, but no, he was found to

be a member of an online group chat dedicated to sharing images of child sexual abuse. Here are the details. He shared with members at least one video of a child being molested, claimed to have sexually abused a child as young as 15 and indicated that he wanted to sexually assault children between the ages of 12 and 16 years old. Prosecutors asserted that they found dozens of child sexual abuse videos on his phone after they executed a search warrant against him. He also requested of the other members in this group that someone find, quote, a dad with a young kid he will rent out to us.

So those are the crimes that he committed. We will now be spending a number of years in prison, as seems 100% deserved. Prior to that, before serving in the Commerce Department under Donald Trump, he worked at Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA as a campus event coordinator, events that were frequently attended by underage children. If you want to see a picture of this individual there, he is on the right, to be clear. And he apparently really got around in Republican circles, you can see him hanging out with Sebastian Gorka, which is the thing he chose to do for some reason, Madison Cawthorne, as well.

And there is reason to believe that others might be caught up in this investigation as well. It seems like there was another individual, Ruben Verisigwe, I believe, sentenced in April to 12 years in prison following a guilty plea. What do you think? Yeah. So I want to talk about who's the most guilty here. And I want to explain why we have the political landscape that we do in this regard. So first, first, of all, to be fair, the Sebastian Gorka and Madison Cothner, two people, I generally despise. So my feelings on them are clear. They don't know that that guy's a child molester, okay? So they haven't taken a picture with him. It happens. Of course. Okay. Now, Charlie Kirk,

on the other hand, hired that child molester to go talk to children. So now, I'm sure, well, I'm not sure, but I would guess, I would hope that he didn't know. Okay, but you're doing a thing where you're trying to literally change the minds of kids. And it's funny because they're always like, oh, the left is trying to indoctrinate the kids. We have an entire organization that we're super proud of where we try to indoctrinate kids. It's called Turning Point USA. Then you've got like an even bigger responsibility to be careful and to do vetting, etc. And you've got these predators going around in your organization.

And using your organization, look, we don't know. We know that he wanted to molest kids. We know that he trafficked in pictures and other things related to kids. We know he's been arrested for that. And look, he also liked babies. It's just the most disgusting thing you can imagine. Okay. So now you're not going to get babies at Turning Point, USA.

I'm trying to be as fair as I could possibly be, right? But you are going to get kids in some of the age ranges that he's. liked. So, and for the Trump administration people who are constantly, Trump people constantly attacking others from being groomers and pedophiles and et cetera. Well, if you're accusing others of it and there's somebody inside your own house doing it, then you've also got an extra responsibility. Okay. So now, why does the larger point is why does the right wing call everybody groomers and pedophiles? Q and on now unfortunately believe, I know, It's unbelievable, but 15% of the country, at a minimum, believes in Q&A, that there's a ring

of powerful people who molest children and sometimes even drink their brain juice, okay? Now, this guy didn't drink their brain juice because that's the thing that's made up. That's, no one does that, right? Not even the worst right wing around the world does that, okay? So, but they believe that they're powerful people inside the government who do this. Hey, look, it turns out it's a Republican. It turns out it's a Republican. Is that going to change their mind at all that maybe it's not the leadership of the Democratic Party,

but that it could be a range of people that just happen to be pedophiles in different places or that maybe it's the Republicans that do it. No, it'll never change their mind because they're doing it out of emotions. They're not doing it out of facts. This is a fact. The guy got arrested. Okay, so now look, the reason they do it is a thing called projection. It's in their heads.

The reason why the right wing makes that accusation a thousand times more is because a lot of of them, not all of them, of course not, but a lot of them, they're thinking about it a lot. And I'm going to give you the weirdest analogy here. When I've played, I've been playing fantasy football for about a quarter of a century now, so we're one of the first ones that adopted. And in the beginning, when I started playing it, I loved it so much, I thought everybody was doing it. I'd go talk to other football fans, and I'd be like, oh, how many points is Barry Sanders

score for you? And they'd be like, what are you talking about? I was projecting, because it was in my head, so I thought it was in their head. And of course it wasn't. That's what they do with pedophilia. It's not in our heads. We don't know what the hell they're talking about. But they come up to us and they're like, oh, the pedophilia guys are terrible.

They run everything, don't they? We're like, what? Because they think, well, I would like it. So I assume you like it. I assume they like it. I assume the people in power like it. No, no, they don't. No, it's just you who likes it.

So stop accusing other people when it's actually you guys who are doing it. Max. No, I think you're absolutely right. Right. I mean, there is a cabal of powerful people who are attempting to and in some cases successfully grooming and molesting kids. They just happen to all be working with and around Donald Trump. And it's not that much of a surprise when you remember that Donald Trump is the guy who would very casually talk about how sexy his underage daughter was and how much he wished he could date her. And this guy is not the first, second or the fifth person to be involved in this. There were state campaign chairman for Trump that were caught sending solicitous messages to what they thought were children. There were people who were trying to groom campaign staff. This is a problem that was given safe harbor because the campaign and these organizations simply will not look into you. They benefit from not looking too deep at the people who want to work for them because if they have any kind of quality control, they would have literally nobody left to work for them.

And that safe harbor has resulted in terrible cases like this. And it is clearly something that Republicans are going to pretend does not exist and try to sweep under the rug when it comes up. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna disagree a bit more, actually, with you, Jane. And not in total. I think that the projection part, I think, applies to a number of, again, the regular base. I'm going to differentiate the base and those who are pushing the stuff.

Not tons, but if you can conceive of a world where this many people want to engage in acts of pedophilia, you're out of your mind. I cannot imagine that being a popular thing because to me, it's reprehensible. If to you it's reasonable, then that's weird. That doesn't mean that you want to do it, but that's very weird. Whereas for the pundits, the Ben Shapiro's, the Matt Walsh's, the Charlie Kirkson stuff, I don't think that they're projecting wanting to do this. I don't think they think it's happening at all. they find it to be an incredibly useful distraction and that's it and I will actually, I will be more fair to Charlie Kirk than you just were. Not only do I not think that he could have known that this guy had those views, I also don't think he should feel particularly

bad for having hired him because how would you find out, honest, I can't imagine how he would have known. However, I will challenge him in one way. I just asserted that you don't actually care about this stuff, it's not real to you, it's just a convenient grift and you have have a chance to prove me wrong. All you have to do, Charlie Kirk, is talk about this story. If you actually care about these things, you don't have to apologize for him working for you or anything like that. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with a TD small business account manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and

support your business needs. Ready to press play? Get up to 2700. when you open select small business banking products. Yep, that's $2,700 to turn up your business. Visit TD.com slash small business match to learn more. Conditions apply. But you do have to talk about how terrible it was that he was doing these things and that he was in these high profile circles in Republican, you know, the Republican Party. But of course, you're not going to do that. When the QAnon people that run the Q&N forums and it turns out that they've got tons of child porn, they never talk about it. They cared about Epstein. only in so far as they could kind of reference something about Clinton, but as soon as Trump

was saying and doing the weird things, they never mentioned that. Trump talking about Gilane Maxwell, they never mentioned that. Again, when there's actual pedophilia, they do not care, which is only consistent with this being a convenient political narrative and not something they really care about. But again, prove me wrong, Charlie Kirk. Talk about this actual story. Yeah, so John, look, let me clarify. I agree nearly 100% with what you just said. So the main point of clarification that you need there is, so for the Q&N forum guys, so they're the ones that are kind of in the middle. They're not like the big right wing pundits, but they're not just grassroots either. They're like leaders within their social

media circles, right? Those folks are probably the single most dangerous subset. Because they're thinking about pedophilia 24-7. That's true. And they're assuming everyone is doing it. And they're telling everyone is doing it. There's a reason why they're assuming that. Those are the guys that I, if I was the authorities, I'd look most into them. And they're going, oh, dare you, I have freedom. No, you don't have the freedom no molest kids. So I'm worried about what you're doing, okay? And so now for the Matt Walsh's of the world, John, I know I totally agree with you. I don't know that he thinks it and he's projecting it. But what he's, what they're doing is slightly worse because they can tell that they're profiting off of that when they talk about it.

So they talk about X and it either brings in money or it doesn't, right? It resonates or it doesn't. So if it doesn't, they're like if they said, hey, you know what, immigrants are wonderful. Everyone's like, boo, they're like, okay, never say that again. That doesn't make money, right? When they say, hey, everybody's pedophiles, that resonates. And they make money. So they say, oh, good.

I can make money. It's hateful. It's not true. It's a conspiracy theory. It's disgusting. It makes people hate each other. But I'm making money off of it. So I don't care at all.

So that's why the Matt Walsh's of the world are the most immoral in a sense. Because they're like, oh, great, a thing that I know isn't true. I will profit off of and so division and hatred throughout the country. Yeah, okay. Like Jesus would. But the most concerning part, guys, is the one that's the toughest to deal with. And by the way, there's two different subsets there too. Among the grassroots on the right wing, some have actually been molested.

And so that's why it resonates for that. that. And they think, oh, it happened to me. It probably happens to everybody, right? And for those people, my heart goes out to them. Like, I want, I want help for you. I don't mean that in any kind of condescending way. I genuinely, you will molested, you know, and that is incredibly traumatic, et cetera, right? But there's another half who it resonates with because they think, yeah, isn't everybody thinking about molesting kids? And that's the one that's the moneymaker for the right wing pundits. You appeal to them. You go those guys on. You're going to make a lot of money because unfortunately, there's a lot of them. And they're all going towards a certain area. That's why

they don't want to hear that it's left wing, like that it's not left wing, right? They don't want to hear that. They want to hear self-affirming, oh, I think it, but they're the ones who are yeah, doing it. They're the evil ones, right? And that's a big number. And that's disconcerting. Yeah, the unforgivable thing here, I think, is the silence as well. I mean, to John's point, when something like this happens and your first response is let's talk about something else, let's sweep this away and get it out of the headlines, that is sick and that enables further abuse. We saw that in the church. We've seen that in countless organizations. If there is people really interested in policing this kind of abuse of children, then Charlie Kirk, Matt Wall, should be able to. to talk about this loudly and condemn it in their own party. But what we see is not just silence, but trying to blame shift and what about and muddy

the waters of this, which is one of the most disgusting things I've seen. Yeah, I'm going to add one last quick thing. Look, when it's ours, we call him out right away. Anthony O'Neiner, what a clown, what an idiot. Why did he do that? That's terrible, terrible. It's so easy. Why would we try to protect him?

It doesn't make any sense to us. Bad guy, you call him a bad guy. You move on, right? But for them, they don't think about it like that. They're tribal, us versus them. So when Trump wishes Gislai Maxwell well, twice, twice, he had a chance to correct it. Literally the biggest groomer in American history, the technical term like grumer, it means something. You cultivate people, kids for molestation.

That's exactly what she did. The biggest in American history. He's like, oh, I wish you were well. She's a friend of mine. And none of them on the right wing called him. out. Not one. What does that tell you? That tells you they don't care about the issue. They just care about politics and profits. 100%. Let's turn to other exciting news. The hour is rapidly waning, unfortunately.

It might be difficult to remember at this point, but in the immediate aftermath of January 6th, most reasonable people knew who to blame. There was not a lot of disagreement that Donald Trump had inspired the violence that we saw, but it also only took a few days, a couple of weeks until things started to change. And the Republicans who'd been willing to condemn Donald Trump suddenly were singing a different tune. And in those brief moments following the insurrection, something could have been done. If Donald Trump had been impeached, tried in the Senate at that point, he might have actually been convicted, but he wasn't. And do you know who's apparently to blame for that?

She's standing over there. I'm gonna give you the details. This is coming out. Ryan Grimm has a great write-up on this on The Intercept about a book unchecked to the untold story behind Congress's botched impeachment of Donald Trump. And let's lay out what happened as the insurrection was going on. So in one anecdote in the book, there were senators hiding in a conference room from protesters. Senator Lindsay Graham looked over and saw the Senate Sergeant in arms in the safe room with them. Graham yelled at them, what the hell are you doing here? Go take back the Senate. You've got guns. Use them. He's ordering the Sergeant Arms there to begin shooting MAGA people at that point. Graham then called White House attorney Pat Cipollone and warned that Republicans would

remove Trump from office using the 25th Amendment if he didn't call off the mob. Well, as Graham was doing that, some Democrats thought, yeah, I think this is probably going to lead to impeachment. And so they started working on that. The first member of Congress was Representative David Cicillini, Democrat of Rhode Island. He scribbled the impeachment write-up on scratch paper while locked down in the Rayburn House office building. He and Representative Ted Liu worked on a 25th Amendment letter to Vice President Mike Pence,

but at the same time kept pushing on impeachment. because they probably rightly knew that they could not count on Mike Pence, notwithstanding the assassination plot against him. Now, Judiciary Committee Council, Aaron Hiller called his boss, Jerry Nadler, Chief of Staff Amy Ruckin and told her, I'm about to do something that's completely unauthorized by leadership. Should I tell you or not? He told her, do it, she said. Go find 200 co-sponsors right now and get it done. Don't wait for a blessing from leadership. And so, Eventually, Cicelini handed the impeachment write up over to Representative Steny Hoyer. He's the person who actually controls a schedule on the floor.

And instead of actually scheduling a vote in that immediate aftermath, he handed it to Nancy Pelosi. And that was where it died for a crucially long period of time. She decided to gavel the chamber closed. Everybody went home. And there was a bunch of arguing back and forth over the next week as the days rolled on. And eventually they did have an impeachment. But by that point, enough Republican politicians had been able to look out at the country, go on Fox News, and while initially they were willing to condemn Trump and say in no uncertain

words that he had inspired this violence, that was his plan, they began to be reassured as they talked to regular Republicans that this was not actually a line that shouldn't be crossed to many of them. Many of them might be frustrated, but they were frustrated that the plan didn't work. And so some of those Republicans, like Lindsay Graham, who were willing to have MAGA voters gunned down by security, went back to endlessly defending Donald Trump. And apparently we can thank Nancy Pelosi for that. Yeah, so I've got some conflicting thoughts on this. So first off, let's just establishes a side note here. Lindsay Graham, of course, exactly the coward that we thought he was. It's the guys who pretend to be the toughest that are the biggest cowards. So Lindsey Graham has

been in favor of every single aggressive, offensive war that we've started and thought about starting. Like, oh, yeah, we'll show the Iraqis how tough we are. The minute he's in danger, please shoot him, shoot him all. He probably wet himself. He probably, I'm being literal. That's how much of a coward, Lindsey Graham is. These Republicans who pretend to be tough guys are the weakest, weakest people you have ever met. We just go boo, they're like, ah! Remember how scared they are of Muslims and immigrants and trans people, just their whole lives is bathed in fear. And that's the kind of man, Lindsey Graham is, okay? Remember, he was telling him, shoot, our support, Republican supporters, Trump supporters, go murder Trump supporters. By the way,

Trump supporters, you're okay with that? Maga's cool with that? That's weird, right? So now, to the main event, I get the logic of, hey, Pelosi took too long, and then maybe in that moment, Lindsey Graham, after he cleaned up in the bathroom and got a new pair of pants, might have voted to impeach Trump because he was so scared, he was so angry, et cetera, right? I don't believe it. I think it only took like two days for the Republicans to turn around from, I hate, I can't believe Trump did that. We were attacked and I might have been killed to right back to that goddamn knees and licking Donald Trump's boots, right? So they would have licked his shoes no matter what. Lindsay Graham is a coward through and through. The minute the trouble

is over, he's back on his knees and groveling at Trump. So there's no way the Republicans would have convicted Trump. So that's my sense. Okay. Now, having said that, why is Nancy Pelosi slow rolling it? So look, this is the giant disconnect between people who view and read establishment media and people who read all of the news, okay? So if you just watch Establish media, they're never going to talk about this, okay? Almost the only things they ever show are positive about Pelosi. So they're genuinely confused when we say she's weak. They're like, because the only thing they've ever heard on MSNBC is about what a lion she is,

how she's so strong, double speaker of the house, got Obamacare passed. It's a great hero, Nancy Pelosi. So if that's all you've ever heard your whole life, when we say she's weak, you're like, these guys are crazy. But that's because we know stories like this where she, for no goddamn reason, goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's take it easy on Donald Trump after he tried to have us killed, invade the capital, and overturned democracy.

Why? Why would you be that pathetically weak? And that is what Pelosi and Hoyer do 24-7. That is who they are at their core. Their instinct, their instinct instinct is, I've got to have. help Republicans. I got to protect Republicans. Don't attack Republicans. Whatever you do. They just nearly murdered you. In fact, Pelosi was one of the people that they were chanting about killing. And her first instinct was protect Republicans. That is unbelievable and pathetically

weak. Max. Yeah, this story, and I say this as someone who's said a lot of nice things about Pelosi, is just an example to me of Democrats losing the momentum of needing to know every single detail about something before even beginning the process. And in that losing that critical moment, I mean, we saw that with the gay marriage vote. We saw that with abortion. We've seen that with gun control. This was perhaps the best opportunity to get real action. I mean, for a brief moment, Democrats had Lindsey Graham. He went out into the Senate floor and said, I'm done, count me out. This was insane. And well, I agree, it was probably an uphill battle to impeach Trump at any point. There would have been a better moment that after all these people's lives was just credibly threatened.

But instead, we chose to go the consensus path to keep fact finding and working around and tooling things around. And people moved on. The party re-solidified around us. And we lost this great opportunity, at least to get Republicans honest and on the record for the first time ever. And then instead we got what we got, which was a very slow and still ongoing national disaster. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So look, obviously we might all disagree about exactly how it might have played out. But I at least hope that we can take this as a teachable moment, learn something from it. And after the next insurrection in January 2025, maybe we can have a better immediate response. I think you'll have to wait until January of 29, right?

because they wouldn't do an insurrection after 25. No, no, he could lose against AOC. And then they all freak out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought it's true. You're optimistic. Just wait for November. Exactly, or maybe, yeah, maybe they just do quicker. Yeah.

Okay, I think we have a few minutes. Why don't we jump directly into this next video? We at Chevron believe that nothing is more precious than life. And that the most precious life of all is the dead kind that has been compressed for hundreds of millions of years under massive rocks until it magically becomes oil. oil that we can refine and sell as gasoline. So a cool-ass tank can crush a clay hut. That's an ad for Chevron, but just in case, that wasn't real. That wasn't an actual actual ad. Just to be clear, Adam McKay fame director put that together. And there's more.

Let's watch. Because at the end of the day, we at Chevron straight up, don't give a single about you, your weird children, or your stupid, batty ass dog. And we have billions and billions of dollars to pay for this commercial time, this cheesy footage, and this bull's music. All so that you will be lulled into a catatonic state that makes you forget one singular fact. Chevron is actively murdering you every day. See, the human brain can only deal with so many things at once. So these emotionally loaded scenes will always push aside other thoughts like Chevron is murdering me. It's just a human brain. It's just how our brains work. You meet puppet who exists only to feed us profits. Chevron,

it's hard to even comprehend how little of a we give about you. And this commercial also applies equally to Axon VP Shell or Delinquent Laptog Media and any hack politician who's trading the future of life on this planet for filthy money and oil stocks. Okay, so he's had a lot of hits, but that's a good one. Yeah, so Adam, Mekase, a great director of Don't Look Up, Vice, the big short, you name it. right? And that is a ballsy ad, or parody, obviously. But as they say at the end, but I could broaden the scope of that. No, that applies to a lot of things. So what you don't, like, again, mainstream media doesn't tell you. No, the whole point of a for-profit public

corporation is maximize profit, and we don't give a damn about you. So any talk of like companies being patriotic, if you hear someone saying that, understand they know, nothing about politics or capitalism or the economy at all. Companies are not human beings. They don't have feelings. They can't be patriotic. The only thing they are is profit maximizing machines. So of course they don't care about you.

And when you're in the oil business, you maximize profit at the expense of the rest of us because you're literally putting, you know, creating climate change, which might actually kill us all. Certainly kills a ton of people because of the extreme weather events, and you see that all around you. And that's the point that they're making. And the pollution, of course. Everybody forgets the respiratory illness that kills literally millions of people every single year around the globe. But guys, it's literal. So you went like Chevron gets super angry.

Oh, we don't kill people. But there was a third of Pakistan was underwater. Thousands of people died. Is it purely Chevron that created climate change? No, but is it partly Chevron that created private change? climate change and all those other companies that are in the oil and fossil fuel business? Yeah, yeah, it was them. It was them. But yet, our government does absolutely nothing about it, and our media actively covers it up. No, what do you? You're radical, saying things that are

obviously provably true. How dare you? So, all right, we got more on it, but Max, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, this ad is, I love this ad. And a lot of people on the right are getting furious about it, but show me the lie. I mean, I think the most accurate point, Part of this is I've just always assumed any time there's an ad that has a cowboy with a flag that that company is trying to kill me. I mean, whether it's Marlborough or Chevron or Archer Daniels Midland, anytime the cowboy comes out, you know the company is doing something awful. Yeah, no, look, I was going to make the same point. I'll add one other defense contractors, right? And then they will get like out and say, oh, you were saying the tobacco companies are trying to kill us for profit?

No, but that's actually. line. That's actually literally their business model. And defense contractors, are you saying that they create missiles that land on people and kill like a hundred people at a time or 37 people and some of them are grandmothers and babies? Yeah, that's what I'm saying, because that's literally what happens. How dare you say something that it's true? But they genuinely say the right wing and mainstream media and almost every politician will genuinely say, how dare you tell people the truth? Well, we just did. So kiss our ass. Yeah. Okay, we're out of time.

We have another component to that story, but we're out of time. We don't have time. Okay, all right, it is what is. Like Earth, we're out of time. Oh, okay. Everybody check out Max Burns on Rebel headquarters. Everybody check out the Dragon of Dragons, John Idrolla, on Damage Report. Nome Dragon.

All right, join the Thunder. When we come back in the next hour, more amazing stories, including conservatives freaking out about playing the flute. Okay, we'll be back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks, support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon. Thank you.