The Young Turks - Bad Advice

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

In Rhode Island, Democratic Leaders are helping a blackface-wearing conservative, run against a black woman. A study shows that half of The United States seniors cannot afford basic living expenses. Turning Point USA has issued a cease and desist order for ABC’s show, “The View” claiming the hosts made defamatory statements. “Journalist,” Glenn Greenwald does not ask Alex Jones hard hitting questions about Sandy Hook Elementary. A GOP lawmaker in Pennsylvania claims he opposes gay marriage, but was in attendance at his gay son’s wedding. Host: Ana Kasparian *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 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. On July 18th, get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited.

Sorry. Smurfs. Only dinner's July 18th. Oh yeah, welcome to the young Turks, I'm here. In studio, I'm looking nice and toasty. Yes, that is a tan. If you're wondering, I am back from vacation. I did the show yesterday, but it's my first day back in studio. And I'm so happy to be here, so happy to be here with the TYT crew, with our audience. And I'm excited about the show today, because we've got a good mix, okay? We've got lots of dunking sessions to get to,

which I'm really looking forward to, including the unbelievable and almost relentless, relentless tongue bath that Glenn Greenwald gave to Alex Jones recently. We've got multiple clips to show you of that. We're going to debunk the usual lies from both Democrats and Republicans in the second hour since it's Wednesday, of course. John Iderola will be joining me to cover a whole host of stories, including a fascinating scientific discovery regarding pigs being able to breathe, breathe in oxygen through their anises, according to scientists in Japan. It is an insane story. I didn't think it was real at first, but apparently it is.

And so yeah, we're gonna dip our toes into a little bit of science in the second hour and probably embarrass ourselves. But you don't want to miss it. You can become a member and check out our bonus episode tonight as well. And you can always do that by going to t.y.t.com slash join. Or if you're watching us on YouTube, just click on that join button. You can also gift YouTube membership, and I'll give you some more details on that a little later in the show.

But for now, why don't we get to our first story, which I think does a good job explaining why the mainstream Democratic Party is trash. Let me just move over here. All right, we good? All right, we're having a few technical issues. Why don't we take that down? take that down for now and just do the story without it. Okay, let me center myself. No biggie. Sometimes these things happen. So let's start off with these Rhode Island Democrats.

Rhode Island Democrats have decided that it's a great idea to promote a right wing or conservative rather than endorse the progressive candidate running for state Senate in the state of Rhode Now, if you've been following corporate Democrats and the nonsense they usually engage in, this isn't a surprising story to you, but it does give you a specific example of why the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, including progressive voters, are so furious with the mainstream Democratic Party because they've made it abundantly clear that they would rather support corporate and even conservative, even right wingers before they assist, help endorse a progressive candidate for local races, for federal races.

Let's get to the details of this particular case. It involves a progressive by the name of Jennifer Rourke. As I mentioned earlier, she's running for state Senate in Rhode Island. But since she's a progressive, the Democratic Party within that state has decided to endorse someone else. There she is. She's a wonderful candidate who wants universal health care. She wants a Green New Deal.

She wants to raise the minimum wage in the state of Rhode Island to $19 an hour. Sounds pretty fantastic to me. But corrupt Democrats don't want that because those funding them don't want to, you know, pay a little more for their workers. They don't want higher wages. They don't want to enact progressive policies that might, you know, maybe mess with their bottom line a little too much. So they fund corporate Democrats and in turn corporate Democrats do whatever they can to just

crush progressive candidates like Jennifer Rourke. Now, if her name sounds familiar to you, there's a reason for that. So she had a political opponent, a Republican running against her in this race, who did something pretty terrible, something violent, and he had to drop out. Gene Lugo, an off-duty cop running for state office as a Republican, oof, this was caught on camera, punched Rourke in the face twice and was charged with assault and disorderly conduct. Doesn't look good for you when you're running a campaign. Lugo actually went on to drop out of the race, as did Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey,

who's the conservative Democrat incumbent that Rourke was challenging. And I say that she was challenging him because he ended up dropping out of the race as well. Now guess what happened next? This is where things get good. And again, this is a perfect example of what you can expect from corporate Democrats when they're being challenged by progressive. Rhode Island Democratic Party leaders helped another conservative Democrat get on the ballot to run against Rourke in the 29th Senate district race. Work is now facing a challenge from Michael Carrillo, who wore blackface and appears to be a fan of Tucker Carlson.

There he is with the blackface. He even posted this on Facebook, and so it was pretty easy to get that screenshot. He was allegedly dressed as James Brown, but there are other issues with this individual. And there are certainly bigger issues when you have a mainstream Democratic Party knowing about these issues and deciding to endorse him, promote him, and do whatever they can to get him elected instead of a progressive who wants to do right by hardworking individuals, workers in that state. Let me give you more details. So this guy, Carrero, also appeared to have liked a Facebook page called Support Officer Darren Wilson, referring to the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown in 2014, and the show page of Tucker Carlson tonight. Well, I mean, look, on Twitter,

I follow a whole bunch of unsavory individuals. It doesn't mean that I'm promoting them or endorsing them. It's part of my job, keep an eye on what they're doing. Doesn't mean that I like them, right? So you might make that case when it comes to the pages that this conservative Democrat liked on Facebook, except there's more to the story. Apparently, there's also a photo on his Facebook page that features himself with Tucker Carlson, smiling all chummy and buddy buddy. Now, Michael McCaffrey, who's the incumbent, the conservative Democratic incumbent that Rourke was challenging, signed an affidavit, swearing that he collected signatures.

for Carrero. At least five members of McCaffrey's family signed his nomination papers to get him on the ballot, okay? McAfree also has an A rating from the NRA, just to give you a sense of how conservative he is. He's also fought against legislative efforts to codify Roe v. Wade. He also previously endorsed, was previously endorsed by the Rhode Island Right to Life, meaning an organization that is against allowing women to make decisions about their own bodies. They purport to be in favor of life, but let's be brutally honest about how deceptive that is considering how they treat people the second they're out of the womb and don't have the means to pay for basic necessities like food, shelter, clothing, things like that. That's when the

bootstraps come in. That's when life is secondary. But moving on, let's talk a little more about what's going on. McCaffrey also has an A rating from the NRA, fought against legislative efforts to codify Roe v. Wade, terrible guy. And he's the one who decided, well, let's get another conservative Democrat to run against Roark, because we can't have Rourke. Work is a progressive. Rourke is someone who wants to ensure that workers are getting paid a livable wage. We can't have that. Our corporate donors, they don't like that. They don't like that. All right, so what do we do to defeat her? Well, not only did the state's Democratic Party get involved, They got him on the ballot, right?

And they knew that the blackface incident happened. They saw the picture, but they decided to endorse him anyway. He doesn't even have a campaign website. He doesn't have a policy agenda. All they know is that this is a conservative Democrat who's going to play ball with what we want, which is carrying out the best interests of our corporate donors. And Jennifer Rourke said it perfectly. She says the fact that the Democratic Party leadership would rather work with the guy who wore blackface against me.

A black and brown progressive working class candidate running for office was very disappointing. But it also shows that they are not real Democrats. I would disagree with that. Currently, this is what the Democratic Party overwhelmingly represents. But let me continue. That they'd rather dig their heels in and protect their own power than support a candidate like me get elected and improve the lives of working people everywhere. That last part is definitely true.

They don't have an incentive to improve the lives of working people everywhere. They have an incentive to listen to what their donors want, and their donors want to crush progressives. They want to assist their corporate donors to crush workers, and they don't want a better state. They don't want a better life for people, because that means it would cut into their profits. Now, let's talk about those corporate donors just briefly. Between April 1st and June 30th of 2018, for instance, the Rhode Island Democratic State Committee took in $566,762, which look, doesn't sound like a lot, especially when we talk about federal elections, but in the context of politics in Rhode Island, it is far more than

the 41,800. it raised in the first three months of that year or at this point in any other recent election cycles. In 2014, for example, the last time statewide office holders were on the ballot, the Democratic Committee raised $10,585 in the second quarter. Now look, those numbers would be totally fine if we're talking about the average voter making small dollar donations to the Democratic Party, but that is not what's happening. Who are the donors? Well, Donors include high profile names like former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and super lawyer, David Bowies. Who is that guy? Who's that David Bowies guy? Well, I looked into him. And in 2017, his law firm directed the Israeli private intelligence company BlackCube to spy on the victims of Harvey Weinstein to find any dirt they can use to discredit Weinstein.

accusers. That's what he was involved in. What else? Oh, that's right. He also personally signed the contract directing Black Cube to attempt to uncover information about Harvey Weinstein's victim. So for anyone who says, well, it was his law firm. Doesn't mean it was him personally. No, no, no, he personally signed the contract directing Black Cube to do that. And then, by the way, months after Cyrus Vance Jr. dropped an investigation into a sexual assault allegation against Weinstein. He received a massive donation, a $10,000 donation from Bowies. Weird, weird how that works. It's almost like there's a transactional thing happening here, both when it comes to our criminal justice system in the case of Harvey Weinstein, of course. But more importantly,

and on a broader scale throughout this country, you see that transaction happen between the corporate world with money flowing into our public servants. And that money does what? We know what it does. It persuades these public servants to serve the corporate donors and work against everyday, hardworking Americans who are just trying to get by. That is what's happening in Rhode Island. That corporate influence has destroyed the Democratic Party. When you see the Democratic Party move further and further away from representing the best interests of working Americans, understand there is a reason for that. And that reason has a lot to do with corporate greed and with unlimited campaign donations.

All right, well, let's move on to something a little different here. I'm going to talk a little bit about poverty in America. It's related to the first story we did. I ever wonder why conservative talking heads incessantly shift the country's focus onto to endless culture war narratives that actually don't really have much of an impact on most people's lives. It's meltdowns over pronouns, non-existent CRT curriculum in elementary schools, questions about whether or not the green M&M is going to be sexy enough when she's not wearing the high heels that she traditionally wore. That's the kind of conversation you hear

from right wingers day in and day out. Nonsense, garbage, trash. Now, the reason why they focus on that, is because if they don't focus on that, they might slip up and tell you what they really think workers should deal with in America. And it ain't popular. I want to give you an example. Here's Sean Hannity and an argument he recently made on his radio show. Maybe instead of working a 40 hour a week, join the rest of us. Work 70, 80, 90 hours. And I know that people don't like to hear that advice, but that's what I do. Anyway, thank you both. David Bonson, Steve Moore. I've done that my whole life.

Just keep working, working, working. Anyway, when I was a contractor, I remember I would work through the night if I could. You know, people would let me stay or if I was working in a commercial facility, I'd stay as long as they let me. Does anyone really believe that? Mr. I sit in an air-conditioned room and simply read from a teleprompter and share my incredibly biased right-wing talking points that provide cover for the worst behavior. in this country? Is that the hard work you're referring to, Sean Hannity? But I mean, think about that message. You should work 90 hours a week. How popular is that message? This is what they really think. This is what the right wing ideology in this country has always been. On one hand,

they'll argue you need to work endlessly. Day, night, doesn't matter, night shifts. 90 hours a week, you should do it. Why not? Even if you're getting paid meager wages to do it, even if you're working full time and your minimum wage job can't even afford you a two bedroom apartment anywhere in this country. Doesn't matter. Work 90 hours a week. Do it because I'm going to pretend that I did it at some point in my life. He didn't. Then you have people like Charlie Kirk who think, I don't know, man. Maybe you should think about working for free. Let's watch. Hello from Montana. Charlie earlier you suggested young people just get out of high school should go offering to work for someone for free as a trade, or at least that was an impression I got.

Genuine philosophical question, how would such a young person support themselves financially in that case? If they couldn't support themselves who could support them, do parents have an obligation to invest in the young kids to help them become financially independent? Yes, you'd have to live at home probably for a year or two years, for sure, if you were going to go work for somebody for free, but here's what happens, and we're getting emails affirming this, if you go ask somebody for a job, and after six months, they will pay you. By the way, if you ask them for a free job, just so you know, they legally can't even do that. There's intern laws and they'll be like, okay, I get the point. But the point is you're going to work so many hours or work in the night shift. By the way, it's okay to work 20 hours a day. You understand your body can take way more stress.

I have seen the limits of the human body. Would you say, Andrew, over the last 10 years? You could push yourself. And yes, you might get sick. He's seen the limits of the human body. You might get sick. I mean, he has personally experienced sitting in a chair, twitching weirdly in his face, while screaming nonsense at his audience while he lies about people, while he lies about what the

real issues in this country happen to be. That's a real hard work that he's doing. He knows what that physical pain is like. No, this is what the right wing beliefs. Okay, everything that they say that tends to pander to working class people is irrelevant when in reality, all they see working class people as is like slaves, really, for the corporate world. For the people who fund their programming, as you'll learn when it comes to Charlie Kirk and the billionaire backers of Turning Point USA, people like Foster Freeze, a mega-billion-dollar Republican donor. He's worked really hard by sitting there, taking money from billionaires who use him as

a propaganda tool to spout nonsense like what you just heard. So that's the reason why they focus mostly on culture war narratives that are meant to scare voters, that are meant to distract from the actual bread and butter issues that do impact their lives every single day. And I want to give you a sense of how bad things have gotten. I mean, you're probably living in this country, you're living in America, you probably see it all around you. And it's really important to be in the present moment and acknowledge what's happening and focus on what we can do to change that, not get distracted by the very intentional distractions that these talking heads who are funded by the corporate world want us to be distracted by. So let's talk about what elderly

people in this country are experiencing. There's an organization, actually this is the University of Massachusetts. They have a project known as the Elder Index. And they're looking at the economic anxieties that our senior citizens are experiencing today, and here's what they found. 54% of older U.S. women who live on their own, and 45% of older men in the same situation are either impoverished in the richest country in the world by federal standards or cannot cover their necessary expenses, according to the elder index, a project at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. For older couples, the figure is 24%. So clearly if you have two people living in the same household, they might have individual

retirement accounts. So there's more of a chance that they'll be able to make it. But not everyone has a partner later in life. You might have a spouse or a partner who passed away. Maybe you never married, maybe you like the single live, get a girl, I see you, right? And if you've made that decision or if you've ended up in those circumstances, you should not end up impoverished in one of the richest countries in the world. And I'm curious what Charlie Kirk and Sean Hannity would say to 81 year olds who had a medical

emergency that depleted everything that they saved for their nest egg, for their retirement. It's now gone. What do they do? Is it their fault? Should they go work 90 hours a day? Do you think that employers are going to hire an 81 year old? Do you think it's right for an 81 year old to go to work? Why am I talking about 81 year olds? Well, it's because this one story really stood out to me. So Kaiser Health Network interviewed Fran Seeley, an 81 year old retired school teacher in Portland, Maine, whose monthly income consists of $925 in Social Security payments, $287 from an individual retirement account, and $400 from a reverse mortgage. Seeley's annual income of $19,000. $2,300 falls well below the $22,560.

The index deems necessary for an older adult in excellent health in a home they own with no mortgage payments. I mean, things are bad for the boomer generation. And the boomer generation, relative to what millennials are dealing with, relative to what Gen Z is dealing with, had it pretty freaking good and they're struggling. So think about the looming crisis, the looming retirement crisis that's ahead of us when it comes to millennials aging, Gen Z's aging, and generations after it. So let's talk about what her situation is, because this 81 year old is luckily incredibly healthy.

With high inflation straining her budget even further, Cili said that, quote, I have to cut back in any way I can. The biggest worry I have is not being able to afford living in my home or becoming ill. I know that medical expenses could wipe me out in no time financially. Well, Seeley, it's your fault, girl. It's your fault. You just didn't work hard enough. Should have worked for free. Or, you know, you should have put your body through more. Maybe you should have considered 90 hour work weeks. What's wrong with you? You just, you didn't prepare properly. It's not the flaws within our system. It's not corporate greed that put you in the position you're in today. It's not the fact that Americans funded the research and development

of the drugs that pharmaceutical companies are now price gouging you with, causing you to potentially go bankrupt in the future if you do have a medical emergency. It's not any of that. It's not any of that, okay? It's your fault, according to people like Charlie Kirk and Sean Hannity. because you didn't work hard enough. It's your fault. If Democrats were genuine in wanting to do something about our broken economic system, they would be hitting at Republicans the way I'm doing right now. They would immediately point to their BS culture war narratives.

And they'd say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I know you're obsessed with pronouns. And I would prefer to just respect people and refer to them with the pronoun that they like. You don't want to respect people. I think that's weird, but okay. But I'd like to now pivot to the fact that you like pharmaceutical companies price gouging our senior citizens into oblivion, into financial oblivion and ruin. Let's focus on that.

But notice how it's only progressive candidates who do that. Weird, right? Except it's not weird. When you have a system that allows corporate interest to fund both parties to their liking, well, then you just have a bunch of prostitutes on both sides doing the bidding of their corporate donors. Spouting the same talking points that we heard from clowns like Charlie Kirk and Sean Hannity. So for Seeley, apologies that you are living in fear that you might go bankrupt soon because you're healthy now and you might not be healthy in the near future.

But don't worry, there's sound advice from Sean Hannity. Let's hear it again. Maybe instead of working a 40 hour a week, join the rest of us. Work 70, 80, 90 hours. And I know that people don't like to hear that advice, but that's what I do. Anyway, thank you both. David Bonson, Steve Moore. I've done that my whole life.

Just keep working, working, working. Anyway, when I was a contractor, I remember I would work through the night if I could. You know, people would let me stay or if I was working in a commercial facility, I'd stay as long as they let me. If you're living in poverty, it's your fault. You should be working 90-hour work weeks. That's the right wing for you. Anyway, we got to take a break when we come back.

Turning Point USA has threatened the ladies of the view with a lawsuit. And I love it because they have no case. And it gives me an opportunity to dig into their past. So don't miss that. It's a great story. We've got that and more coming right up. Welcome back to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian. And Mr. Shadow, who is one of our YouTube members, you can become one by clicking on that join button, helps to support the show, and we read some of your comments.

He says, I've worked 80 hours a week for three weeks straight and was burnt the hell out, too tired to even play with my kid. And by the way, they also say in the same breath, like, where are the fathers? Oh, the family's breaking down. Where are the fathers? You should work 90 hours a week. Okay. Charlie Kirk doesn't know what it's like. Of course he doesn't know what it's like.

Of course he doesn't. He's never really worked a day in his life. He's literally a mouthpiece for billionaire corporate donors. Like, there's a reason why he is advocating for people to work 20 hours a week for free. It's not like a shocker that he would say something like that. That's who they are. Okay, that's who they are. It's pretty gross.

Anyway, speaking of Charlie Kirk, his organization, Turning Point USA, is threatening ABC with a lawsuit, and I think it's hilarious. So let's discuss. Charlie Kirk and the fine people over at Turning Point USA have sent a cease and desist letter to ABC after the ladies of the view hurt their fifies. They did a segment and they didn't like the segment. So they sent the cease and desist letter, which by itself is hilarious. Like, the letter was sent by a lawyer, counsel, professional counsel for Turning Point USA. And the errors in the letter, like I'm just talking about spelling, not good, maybe reconsider your legal counsel.

Spend some of that money that you guys are taken from billionaire donors by a better lawyer. But anyway, what happened? What did the letter say? Well, you know, recently Turning Point USA held their, you know, youth summit situation. They had all sorts of speeches by people we can't stand, Laura Ingram, Matt Gates, who wanted to call women he doesn't agree with ugly, you know, the yush, the yush. And when the ladies of the view were covering it, they talked a little bit about the neo-Nazi march that was happening outside of the conference.

And turning point USA, like I get it, like they really don't want to be associated with white supremacists and Nazis, even though oftentimes they do things that make it about. abundantly clear that they're associated with white supremacists. And I'll make that point in just a moment. But here's what the cease and desist letter said. The false statements of fact intentionally made during the views July 25th segment were unquestionably harmful to Turning Point USA's reputation and brought the organization and its student affiliates into disrepute with the public, potential donors,

and current and future business partners posing a significant financial financial financial loss to the organization, they'll be fine. As long as they're advocating for workers to work for free 20 hours a week, as Charlie Kirk did recently, those billionaire donors, they're gooch, they're happy, okay? Let me give you more. The letter continues to say, the view co-hosts mocked the elaborate event for taking a page from the WWE simply because of special effects, inaccurately portrays. Let's just stop before I get to the rest of it.

You're triggered by that? They just make a comment about like, oh, look at the special effects at this event. It's like the WWE that hurt your feelings? Is that what you're worried about when it comes to destroying your reputation? What? Okay, let me continue. Inaccurately portrayed the group as being officially tied to the GOP because they are. And I'll provide the proof of that in just a moment. and Joy Behar criticized the group because neo-Nazi protesters were outside the venue.

So, but a better look at this letter does show that there are some issues with the legal counsel, and it also leads me to believe that maybe there's no merit between this threat. So it continues to say the view hosts insidiously and cavalierly stated that Turning Point USA let neo-Nazis in to the SAS event metaphorically. They wrote embarrass, it's, you know, they meant to say embarrassed, but even if they meant to say embarrass, it was, anyway, embarrass them, and that the neo-Nazis were in the mix of people. Okay, so let's be clear about something. The view, they're having a conversation, there was really nothing wrong with the conversation

they were having. They made a few errors as they were discussing this summit. But since we're talking about ABC here, we're talking about a real legal department that's terrified of lawsuits. So literally during the same broadcast, they had to correct their errors and they did so. So let's start with the first example where the legal disclaimer informing viewers that there was a mistake made literally happened. Again, in the same broadcast, let's watch.

I've got a legal note. The conservative group. Honey normally does this. I know, I know. Yes. This is our knockoff lawyer. The conservative group Turning Point USA has condemned the group of neo-Nazis and said they have nothing to do with the organization. But where was Susantis is why I want to know.

But you let them in. You let them in and you knew what they were. Right. So you are complicit. All right. So during that disclaimer, Whoopi Goldberg made an error. And the error was that Turning Point USA allowed the neo-Nazi marchers into the conference, which they did not. At least there's no evidence that they did. And so did they just leave

that error? Or did they correct it in the same broadcast? I don't know, let's watch the next video and figure that out. I'll make a quick clarification about the neo-Nazis at the Turning Point event. They were outside protesters, my point was more metaphorical. You embrace them at your thing, I felt. So they were not in the building. No, but you know what? If the so-called Antifa, who are anti-fascist, that's what Antifa stands for, would go there in protest, then Antifa would get a bad reputation. That's why, when I hear that Antifa is that. Right, but that's not, but let me just make sure that everybody, because, you know, misunderstanding what people say is

very big. Yeah, I know. Yeah. So we want to make sure you, I know they were not in the building. All right, so they corrected that error as well. So as far as I can tell, they have corrected the small errors that they made. So what is the cease and desist letter about? What do you want them to cease and desist? Like, what do you want them to further correct on the air? Now, they allege that they're not in any way associated to the, associated with the GOP. They're not in any way associated with some of these unsavory white supremacists. Except, I don't know, past reporting would indicate that's not true. First, let's start off with the speakers at this youth summit, the student action summit that they did, okay?

Laura Ingram happened to be one of those speakers, and here is a screenshot from the video. Laura Ingram destroys liberal beta males. Okay, from the Turning Point USA YouTube channel, you guys can check it out for yourselves. There's more. High school conservatives have it the hardest. They have it so hard, everybody. But they're not in any way politically slanted. They're not associated with the GOP, even though they got their initial seed money from foster freeze, a billionaire mega donor, which we'll get to in just a moment. But more, more.

This isn't from the Youth Summit, but here's another video that you can find on their channel. why liberal parents want their kids to be trans. You know, more of the culture war hysteria you can expect from people who want to distract you with things that really have no impact on your life. Here's a video of Charlie Kirk. He apparently spoke at the event as well. The left thinks it's winning, but it's not. So was there any content that's critical of Republicans?

I mean, Greg Gutfeld, you know, he spoke at the event. Wait, conservatives are the funny ones now. I bet this has nothing to do with supporting one party. I bet it has nothing to do with being, you know, bootlickers for the GOP, supporters of the Trump administration at any and all costs. I'm sure that this is a fair nonprofit organization and it is unfair to associate them with the GOP. How dare you? But what about their funding?

Let's get to their funding. In addition to traditional funding, other organizations sponsored Turning Point USA events, usually within the range of $5,000 to $10,000. Sponsors have included the Heritage Foundation, right-wing organization, Alliance Defending Freedom, right-wing organization, the Reason Foundation, Libertarian Organization, don't agree with a lot of what they do, but every once in a while they have some reporting that I think is pretty decent. the Foundation for Economic Education, Prager You, the Job Creators Network,

and the Leadership Institute and the Generation Opportunity Institute. I bet you guys can guess these aren't lefty organizations. These aren't nonpartisan organizations. These are right-wing organizations. But there's more, there's more. The first big backer for Turning Point USA was Foster Fries. The 77 year old Republican mega donor known for bank ruling Rick Santorum's 2012 presidential campaign and for his strident critiques of Islam. Kirk approached Freeze at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa and asked him to donate to a new student focused group he'd recently created.

He gave me $10,000 a couple weeks later, Kirk says. Cool, any donors on the left? Any anyone from a, you know, the opposing political views supporting this organization, working for this organization, doing any work? Oh, it's just right wingers, right wing politicians and right wing donors. Oh, okay, so why are you offended? The ladies at the view associated in you with the GOP? What's offensive about that?

Please sue them. Please sue them. Listen, lawsuits can be great because there's something known. as the discovery process. And Turning Point USA, somehow, even though they engage in all this political activism and don't deserve what they're labeled as, they're considered a charity, a nonprofit. And when you're considered a nonprofit, you don't have to disclose who your donors are. Luckily, we have some insight because Charlie Kirk provided that insight himself, but they

You don't have to disclose it. And so if Turning Point USA wants to sue, please sue, because I'd love to know who the rest of your donors are. That would be so, so wonderful. I mean, it gives you an opportunity to prove yourself, right? I mean, look, it's clown show. Do do do do do do to clown show. That's, but do it, go for it. Please sue them. And then a few other things, Jane Mayer over at the New Yorker reported back in 2012. a conservative non-profit, gee, I wonder why she thought they're conservative, that seeks to transform college campuses, faces allegations of racial bias and illegal campaign activity. This is the New Yorker. You guys can check out this piece from 2017 yourselves.

Perhaps the most troubling for an organization that holds up conservatives as the real victims of discrimination in America. Turning Point USA is also alleged to have fostered an atmosphere that is hostile to minorities. Screenshots provided to me by a source show that Crystal Clanton, who served until last summer, as the group's national field director, sent a text message to another Turning Point employee saying, quote, I hate black people, like F them all, I hate blacks, end of story. While Kirk served as the public face of Turning Point, Clayton, its former field director acted as its hands-on boss, according to former employees. In 2016, or in a 2016 book that Kirk co-authored with Brent Hamichick, time for a turning

point, setting a blah, blah, blah, you guys get it, that's his book. He described Clanton as the best hire we ever could have made. He called her integral to the successive turning point while effectively serving as its chief operating officer. He added, turning point needs more crystals. So does America. Look, man, I can go on and on and on. It's endless.

So do your little lawsuit. I can't wait. I'm super excited. All right, we got to take a break. Let's do that. When we come back, we've got more news. We're going to talk about Greenwald, fillating Alex Jones, and how it's painful to watch,

but also kind of fun to watch. So we'll get to that and more coming right up. We've got a lot more news to get to, so let's get right to it. I think there's cognitive isn't like we're supposed to look at it because of screening a room. I mean, Glenn, do you and talking about how handsome you're talking about how handsome you find him compliment, like complimenting him, giving a public tongue bad? Like, what's going on here? You guys need a room? No, that's talking about how handsome you find him, like, complimenting him, giving a public tongue bad. Like, what's going on here? You guys need a room?

Now that was Glenn Greenwald interviewing Alex Jones and telling him how handsome. What a handsome gentleman he is. We're talking about the same Alex Jones who terrorized the victims of Sandy Hook by referring to them as crisis actors who are working for the government to take people's guns away. The same Alex Jones who spewed those lies and led his audience to viciously and violently target parents who lost their children in the Sandy Hook shooting. I can never get over the story of the Posner family who had to move seven different times because Alex Jones targeted them with his lies.

And this is after they lost their little boy in that shooting. But Alex Jones, according to Glenn Greenwald, very handsome. Okay, I mean, look, different strokes for different folks, homie, if that's what you're into. Good for you, I guess. I mean, but let's get to some more of this interview that happened. Because look, I get it. Sometimes when you're interviewing someone, especially someone you want to challenge, someone you disagree with, you might want to ease your way into the tough questions, right?

So you might start off even a little complimentary in the beginning, right? friendly, cordial, get them to put the walls down, put their guard down, then you can start hitting them with the hard questions. But that's not what happened during this interview. Now, this was an interview meant to promote some documentary about Alex Jones. You see a woman in the panel who doesn't really say anything. She's the documentarian, I guess. She barely speaks throughout this entire exchange. I watched the entire interview. And it was amazing how it just turned out to be nothing more than a massive PR exercise to rehabilitate the reputation of a man who is insane, who has victimized people who have

lost their children in mass shootings, who has spewed the most insane conspiracy theories, and has made $165 million over the last three years selling ridiculous supplements and prep gear to his audience. But let's hear more from this exchange. I want to hear more about the whole Sandy Hook situation. Let's watch. I want to ask you a little bit about Sandy, I know the expectation is I'm supposed to come here and ask you over the head. I don't know if I have no interest in here.

before me as I tried. You talk for hours, not any people interested in the particulars. You don't watch that if I'm on. I'm not going to jump through groups. I'm sort of like an easy game like anger, but I'm here. I do not want to ask you that question that I'm actually interested in myself, which is, you know, do you have, just, you did say that you have made mistakes? Obviously, one of those is the stuff of the second match and you probably watch you that don't come very clean about that that did you make statements that turned out being untrue. You've obviously spent a lot of kind of reflective time.

like a soul fall or snow what is it that you think caused you to do that um i mean you you refer to something like you know just like identify with it myself that when you know people who lie for a living are telling you that you're a lie or what people who are produce providence to spread this information or infusing you giving that you kind of want to dig in a little bit and not give an inch to people who you know are So in asking Alex Jones about the vicious lies he told about the victims of Sandy Hook, Glenn Greenwald offers a question that includes a good cover story for why Alex did what he did. It's just that Alex is such a, like, he's quizzical, right?

He's suspicious of the establishment, he's suspicious of the establishment's lies. And so when children are gunned down in this country, a normal person will question whether or not those children were really gunned down. Maybe they're grieving parents are just crisis actors, because of course, you want to immediately question the validity of what's being reported by the establishment. You see, Alex Jones is actually a great person who maybe got it wrong once, just once, right? Just once, right, Glenn? Glenn, who four years ago referred to Info Wars as garbage, and now is filating Alex Jones publicly for the whole world to see, again, please get a room.

No, I mean, what was that? You know, people like Glenn Greenwald, love to point to the fact that I interviewed Madeline Albright once. And guess what? Watch the whole interview. Watch it. I said it was a pleasure and honor to interview you. You know why? Because I wanted to get her guard down and I want to ask her tough questions, which I did, which I did confronted her about the fact that she said that women, there's a special place in hell for women who don't support Hillary Clinton. This was in 2016. I asked her about that. She got very snippy. Asked her question. about her support for Saudi Arabia.

Those are actual tough questions. I didn't punch her in the face because I wanted to answer my questions. But that's not what Glenn Greenwald did here. It was like nonstop, like hey, you want a handy? Why not? Why not? And his buddy Matt Taibi felt the need to go after like Sam Cedar for being critical of this interview. Nah, watch the interview for yourselves. It's 40 minutes long.

There wasn't a single hard question asked. The whole point was Alex Jones. You know, sometimes he makes mistakes. He's human after all, but he's a fighter for the truth. He's working against the establishment. He's, he's an American hero. Let's watch more. What is it about how social media works,

about how group's publishing it. Have you thought about some of the psychological and cultural dynamics that led you to the to make some of those mistakes in Seattle you are. And I think what is interesting, I've identified with this with myself, and I think you start out as kind of this outside, you start out as I've accessed TV, you start crawling a little bit,

and then suddenly you become, I think, one of the most influential people in the country with one of the largest audience is it's hard, I think, sometimes to remind yourself by not access TV in hospital anywhere because it wasn't long ago when you weren't getting so much scrutiny and it decided that you're suspected, you were

scrutiny than anybody. And I think it's really, that's exactly it. That's kind of a slow name and then. You're doing a better job than my own PR agent. Glenn, thank you. That's exactly it. I'm a victim of my own success. That's what happened.

You know, turns out that I have all this influence and I have an audience and I didn't realize that I had a responsibility to not lie about about the parents of Sandy Hook victims. Children who were viciously gunned down in their school. I didn't know that that was the wrong thing to do because I was a victim of my own success. Come on, man. No, this is embarrassing, Glenn. It's just embarrassing.

It's so, it's like, I throw up in my mouth a little bit watching it. It's like, how do you get yourself to do it? Like, when is enough enough? enough enough. Like, who has dirt on? Like, it's, I can't believe that it's just about the money with Glenn. There's more to it. There's more to it. Because how do you debase yourself like this publicly? And it's also the same narrative that we hear from people like Glenn Greenwald, who doesn't really seem to care much about anyone on the left who wrongly get censored on social media platforms. But it seems to be very hyper-focused on defending Alex

Jones and his ban, like fighting back against his ban on Twitter and other platforms. Oh, he's such a victim. And it's not about Alex Jones. It's not about Alex Jones or the lies that he told. It's really about protecting freedom of speech. No one buys it. We all know that at this point, there's something going on. You're compromised in some way. Who knows, maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe you are getting, you know, funding from people like Peter who literally spied on you. It was a big story back in 2013. And that's enough to convince you to turn your back on anything decent politically, socially. All of a sudden, you're just literally doing PR work for the worst people in the country. Okay, great. By the way,

just to give you an idea of what Alex Jones did and the lies he pushed. In one 2015 show, Jones told his listeners, Sandy Hook is synthetic, completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured. In other episodes, he mocked Sandy Hook parents weeping over the deaths of their children. Jones even shared addresses, maps, and personal information associated with the families of Sandy Hook victims, including revealing information about Lenny Posner. So the Posner family, they're the ones I was talking about earlier. They lost their son in that horrific shooting. And they were further victimized by Alex Jones and his audience who were terrorizing them, forcing them to move seven different times. Posner said that he has had to move,

oh, I'm sorry, I'm mistaken. He hasn't had to move seven times. He's had to move about a dozen times, a dozen times since the shooting to evade Jones's followers. In 2017, Info Wars listener and Sandy Hook conspiracist, Lucy Richards was sentenced to five months in prison for sending death threats to him. Today, Posner lives in hiding and goes to multiple post office boxes to receive his mail. Despite his efforts, individuals occasionally call and file false reports, police reports on Posner in attempts to get him in trouble with local law enforcement. Real classy. Just absolute scum of the earth individuals victimizing this family that has gone through so much already. And they did it under the direction of Alex Jones, who is now getting his reputation

rehabilitated from Glenn Greenwald. So go ahead, share that picture that I took with Madeline Albright again. Please do it. Go ahead. It's all you've got. Then I took a picture with a woman who I then did a decent interview with. But that, that was so disgusting. I mean, I would think that the right wing would be horrified by that display of affection between two men. But no, I mean, as long as you're rehabilitating the image of someone who has spewed the worst garbage, it's totally fine with the right wing. Anyway, Glenn caught some feelings over critics. Who cares? Keep crying about it. We get to criticize you as much as we like if you can't handle it. But you should answer some questions about what motivated you to go from calling

Info Wars Garbage just four years ago to now helping to rehabilitate the reputation of Alex Jones. Explain yourself. I'm very curious. It's a total 180. And I don't think it's just about the money. Anyway, we have more stories. We got to take a break. So let's do that. And when we come back, John Iderola will be joining us to talk about a whole host of issues. Trump has a meltdown. I don't know if that's news. He has a meltdown every other day. But this one's fun because he got word that he's being invest. He's part of the DOJ investigation into January 6th. He's freaking out about it. We also have an individual from UK who just wrecked the corporate media and pro-business narrative. And it was just such a sight to see.

So don't miss that. We've got that story and more coming right up. We'll be right 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 slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.