The Young Turks - Bad Luck, Chuck

Episode Date: March 15, 2025

10 Senate Dems Join Republicans To Pass Gop Spending Bill. Aoc Calls Schumer’s Decision To Vote For Gop CR “Reckless.” Angry Constituents Skewer Republican Rep At Fiery Town Hall. WATCH: Hannity & Habba Mock AOC For Working As A Bartender. Mayor Moves To Punish Theater For Screening Palestinian Doc. Fetterman Argues Musk & Co. Don’t Care About Getting Richer. Hosts: John Iadarola, Jordan Uhl, Jules Suzdaltsev SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞ https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER ☞ https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH ☞ https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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319 3rdi 319 3rdi 3rdi 319 Drop it. Welcome one and all to the Young Turks power panel and it is a power panel that could not be any more online if it tried. You've got me and that's all well and good. But more importantly, return to the show after far too long. Host of Good Morning Bad News. Jules Sousdalsv is here. Has it going? Welcome back. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me back on. Glad to have you here. Jordan Yule as well, our Lord and Savior.

It's good to have you here, Jordan. Thank you. A pleasure to be here, my children. A pleasure to have you here as well. And there's a lot that we're to cover in the show. I just right off the bat, I just want to let the audience know that most of today's panel supports free expression and literature. And so we are encouraging people to read band books. It was a thing that we were all going to do. But at the last minute, It looks like Jules either doesn't like books or maybe just has a problem with Lovar Burton. I don't know.

I think reading is something that children do and it should be cut off at a certain age. So I'm just going to start the hot takes rolling in. Everyone should listen to audiobooks. Frankly, even keeping your eyes open is a little bit like extra for me. So sleep a lot. It seems, wait, it seems woke to keep your eyes open actually. Incredibly woke. You should probably shut them.

But anyway, by the way, the idea that books are thing for kids and real men set them aside is definitely a monologue that Jesse Waters has already done. But anyway, we do have other news we're already talking about. We're talking about the government, which looks like it's not in fact going to be shut down, but maybe Democratic leadership will be. Town Hall's also probably looking to be shut down in the near future because they've been very fiery of late. And yes, Republicans making fun of working class people. We got a lot of fun and exciting stuff to get to. So definitely hit the like button. and share the stream. But with that said, gentlemen, what do you think? Should we launch into this

thing? Let's, let's do it. Let's do it. Okay, let's start with some, I don't know, not fun, whatever this is. If you do nothing, you sit back and you say it is going to be terrible, and that's right, a shutdown will be terrible. But our job is to put the onus on the Republican president, the Republican House, the Republican Senate, the people who control the government. just to see Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing to Elon Musk. I think it is a huge slap in the face and I think that there's a wide sense of betrayal. That sense of betrayal is spreading and we're going to be jumping into it. But there you had AOC and Bernie Sanders who really doesn't seem to have aged much in like the last

four plus years, maybe next time around. But anyway, they're fighting back against the fact that Chuck Schumer and nine other Democrats in the Senate have given in. They've given the Republicans what they want and they've passed their CR and the government will continue. We're going to put up a graphic right now showing the Democrats that voted in favor of this. Some of them perhaps are surprising. Others not John Federman just is going to vote for whatever annoys us most. So you can expect that. Obviously Chuck Schumer, he's saying basically that if a government shutdown had gone into effect, it would have given Donald Trump and Elon Musk, even more power to destroy the government.

I don't know if definitionally that's possible. They can do anything they want right now. I don't know what more they could possibly get. But that's the argument that he's made. And a lot of people in the Democratic Party are furious about it, particularly in the House. And like I said, you saw AOC right there. But it's important before we get into the discussion of this,

for you to understand what exactly happened. So they passed this bill. And it's being presented as just a normal CR, continuum resolution that continues government funding because of this weird system we have where you just constantly have to do this seemingly like five times a year but it's not actually that it's not specifically the same as other CRs in the past so it does continue funding but it also changes things so there is an increase in military spending there's a 13 billion dollar cut in domestic non-defense spending the bill also forces the district of columbia to revert back to its

fiscal year 2024 budget levels, cutting local spending by more than $1 billion, which could impact schools, police, and other services. I kind of feel like the loss of $1 billion will probably have some effects, but it did that. And it's not to say that there's nothing positive in it. It increases funding for air traffic control and nutrition assistance to mothers, infants, and children through the WIC program. But then also again on the negative, it cuts $185 million from nuclear nonproliferation programs, cuts $1.5 billion from the Army Corps of Engineers construction funding use for projects to mitigate the impacts of hurricanes and floods. Also includes a provision that effectively neuters lawmakers' powers to challenge Trump's

tariffs on Canada and Mexico. And again, the argument is that all of this, no matter how bad these many things are, the far worse option would be to allow the government to be shut down. That's the explanation that the leader of the Dems in the Senate has made. Take a look. The potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse. For sure, the Republican bill is a terrible option. It is not a clean CR. It is deeply partisan. It doesn't address far too many of this country's needs.

But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even more, even much more power. via a government shutdown is a far worse option. So it sucks, it's terrible, here you can have it. Also, I don't remember the Democrats talking for the last four years whenever the prospect of a government shutdown was looming over heads about the amazing opportunity it provided Joe Biden to all of a sudden have far more power. I've literally never heard anyone say that. But that's what they're saying now.

And there's not a lot of people who are big fans of Chuck Schumer's move. There is one, though. It's Donald Trump who praised him for his guts and courage and promises us that so much more is coming, including the big tax cuts, which are, of course, coming. And a non-pass would be a country destroyer. And so that would be it. Yeah, if the Democrats hadn't voted for it, that would be it. That's just over. The country is destroyed. There wouldn't be further negotiations where maybe some of the more terrible components of this would be taken out or something good. oversight on Doge or something could be added. And that would be it. We're done. But anyway, sarcasm aside, Jules, I want to start with you. You know, he's made a case for why this is actually a good thing, but not all Democrats agree. Where do you come down on this? I mean, I think it's beyond embarrassing to see what Dems are doing. I think basically all other Dems besides this like group of 10 agree with me that, you know,

we just spent four years watching Biden like plod through doing, I mean, he did a lot a lot, but he didn't do the things that progressives wanted. He couldn't address student loans effectively enough. And all of it seemed to be under the guise of like, well, we don't have enough power. We don't have enough votes. And suddenly Trump just strides in with Elon, takes a hatchet to the government in a way that like, frankly, it would have been great if Biden took the time when he was in office to do and maybe wiped out student loans, raised minimum wage. And it feels like there's this like huge disconnect. And at the same time, Democrats are doing this thing where they're like, well, you know, they have all the power. There's nothing we can

really do. And if that's the case, then then why even come to work? Why even show up? It feels like there's, and every, everybody sees this. And so obviously there's this massive amount of anger and vitriol and, you know, calls for like AOC to primary Schumer, which would be great. Um, you know, I think like it's crazy how unprepared for the moment, uh, the Democratic leadership is in a way that we have been talking about for over a decade. So, yeah, it's nice to be proven right, and it's also the worst possible timeline in the worst way. Jordan? Yeah, we watched Chuck Schumer outside of the Treasury rally a few weeks ago say we won't rest and we will fight in a what many thought was an embarrassing moment for Democrats.

This is a time where everyone was looking to Democrats in Democratic leadership for direction, any sort of articulation of their planning. and we saw next to nothing. And when you have framed Trump and the Trump administration as a threat to democracy, as one of the most dangerous administrations that this country has ever seen, to yet again after confirming all of their nominees and some of them unanimously, to then just hand them this win when you had a moment where you had leverage for no reason. Your justification is that it will continue dismantling. the government, they're already doing it and you're doing nothing to stop it. This was an opportunity

to throw a wrench in the gears, to obstruct anything that they were doing, to not give them an easy win. And here they are. I think there's a lack of faith in Schumer, not just from voters. I'm totally with jewels. Yes, we've been criticizing these people for years. Liberal and Democrats called us crazy or antagonists or wreckers, whatever. And now they're finally seeing the light. other Democratic leaders in Congress, Akeem Jeffreys at a press conference was asked if Senate Democrats needed a new leader, and he repeatedly avoided the question at a press conference today.

So I think it shows that there are serious doubts about Schumer's ability to lead in this moment, even from his colleagues. Yeah. Yeah. And the criticism from his colleagues is not just coming from like Bernie Sanders and AOC and like Ilhan Omar chimed in. No, it's pretty broad. it. Nancy Pelosi said that they should have gone for a one month stop gap bill instead of

instead of this. So that's Pelosi and AOC criticizing you. Representative Joe Morel, a member of the more conservative new Democrat coalition said, I think they're going to rue the day they made this decision. He pulled out rue the day. He really doesn't like this. Frankly, now I think this just gives license to Republicans to continue to dismantle the government. They now have the acquiescence of Senate Democrats. And like maybe it would be one thing if it if I, if I I could reasonably say a sentence like this. Sure, they gave Trump this, but they've already done, I don't know what, I don't know what to put in that sentence. For Schumer, I literally do not know. And I'm trying to be fair, I don't know what to put in that. It would be like,

okay, maybe you surrender on this, but it's okay, you've been such a fighter on nothing, on literally nothing. Why are you in charge? That's not a rhetorical question. I think it merits an answer. And I think a lot of people are wondering now, why exactly does it need to be Schumer? Anyone could just not do anything. We could put literally, one of us could stand in and just, you know, do what the Carville wants us to do and just lay down and play dead. We don't need Schumer for that. We could at least have someone like telegenic playing dead or something. So what is the point of having Schumer? And I think a lot of people are thinking that maybe a time, the time has come for a replacement. And not just necessarily of him as the leader of the Democrats

of the Senate, but just him in the Senate at all. And we'll turn to that in one sec. But first, here is more from AOC on why she thinks that Chuck Schumer's decision in this case has been such a bad one. This Republican extreme spending bill removes all of the guardrails and all of the accountability measures to ensure that money is being spent in the way that Congress has directed for it to be spent. This turns the federal government into a slush fund for Donald Trump and Elon Musk. It sacrifices congressional authority, and it is deeply partisan. And so to me, it is almost unthinkable why Senate Democrats would vote to hand the few pieces of leverage that we have away for free

when we've been sent here to protect Social Security, protect Medicaid, and protect Medicaid. The strength of our leadership in this moment is going to demonstrate the strength of our caucus. And I cannot urge enough how bad of an idea it is to empower and enable Donald Trump and Elon Musk in this moment. It is dangerous and it is reckless. It's dangerous and reckless. And I think Jules might have thrown the word shameful around it. It's all of those things. And so as I said, people are thinking that there's maybe it's time for a change. Apparently at this Democratic retreat that was going on, one member said that, uh, Centrist Democrats were ready to write checks for AOC for Senate to primary Chuck Schumer

and get rid of him. He's never seen people so mad. And I'm sure some will freak out like, oh, how could you possibly say that? Why? Oh, and especially not AOC. But like, the Democrats lost to Donald Trump, how is it that there's no high level conversations about primaries? How do you just continue on, not without a, not even just, not a change in like philosophy or ideology, but literally with the same leadership, after you guys lost an election to the worst candidate conceivably, not just historically, but conceivably. And so I don't understand that. I feel like something has to change. I think that getting rid of Chuck Schumer, having aOC primary, that would certainly be a good first step,

but one of what I think should be many. Jordan, I'll go to you. What do you think about these calls for Schumer to step down? Absolutely. He had, shown repeatedly that he is not fit to lead in this moment. If he wants to remain a senator, I guess, sure. It seems like there is a strong contingent of voters in his own state who are unhappy with him and how he is operating as someone who represents them in Congress. So, you know, I'll hesitate and leave that for New York voters specifically. But in terms of Senate leadership, my God, this is bad. I also want to point out it is some of these other votes are very confusing. Brian Schatz voting for it. This is a guy who has tried to position himself

as like the brave, one of the few brave Democrats willing to lead in this moment. So it's like even people who are positioning themselves as being willing to stand up to Trump, to call him out and refuse to sit idly by as Trump and Elon Musk dismantle the government, he voted for it. So it just, there's some very confusing votes. I don't think I will agree with their justifications, but I'm, I would like to see more for why some of these Democrats voted for this. Jules. I mean, ultimately, this is so frustrating because I think this is the end result of like letting Congress turn into God's waiting room. You know, we watched Republicans, we watch the Tea Party take over the party and really push through for, for, I was going to say for, for.

or worse for much worse, but for them better, sort of this bunch of younger, more, you know, the far right leaning candidates who have very effectively captured the party. And Democrats never allowed that to happen. There was, there was a very similar kind of movement towards the left in response to what was happening in the country and was happening in economics and happening as a result of capitalism. And, you know, Democratic leadership, the same ones that are power today, blocked Bernie. They've, they've, you know, they've been primaring progressive members. And so now, now that like the, you know, the fire is raging and it's time to act, they're continuing to do the exact same nothing that we knew that they were going to do back

when, you know, we were pushing for more progressive members. So it is really, this is the same thing I just said. It's incredibly frustrating to be proven completely right in the worst way possible. Like we do need to primary Schumer. We need to primary most of Congress, in my opinion, because there are so many young people who have better values, better ideas and are willing to fight who are sidelined or not even allowed to run because of the name recognition of these establishment Democrats who will not step down in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. Yeah, they just have a stranglehold on the party. And the idea that like these are the characters that are going to get people fired up to vote for Democrats in the midterms, let alone the next time

around is just hard to imagine. I'm gonna end with one stat, you know, it doesn't, I guess it's a moot point now, but one of the considerations was who would be blamed if the government was shut down? And Democrats, people say 32% they would blame the Democrats, but collectively Republicans or President Trump is at 53. And you know why Republicans of President Trump is much higher? Because they're in charge of everything. They have all the power. So when bad things happen, people blame them, that's reasonable. Anyway, we're going to take a short break. Lots more to get to after this. if you haven't already, and we're going to jump into some town hall footage. Take a look.

So that is what happens when you go against Republican leadership's advice to maybe cancel your town halls because people are really, really mad. But I guess to some limited credit, North Carolina Republican representative Chuck Edwards decided he was still going to do a town hall. I mean, I'd give him more credit if he went and he was honest about the state of the Republican Party and what the effect of the tariffs are and what Elon Musk is doing all that. And unfortunately, he didn't. He made claims like Donald Trump loves the Constitution. and stuff like that. But he was slammed a lot. And he said, you see a lot of advice in Washington, D.C. from different folks saying, you know, Republicans shouldn't be out there doing town halls. And I'm thinking, why not? I love the people. It's a parisocial relationship then,

buddy. I don't think they love you, too. But anyway, there was more than just the one guy who had a problem with Edwards. Take a look. The American people sent President Trump back to the White House and Republican majorities in the House and Senate with a the time is now to fix how Washington works. To that end, I was proud to vote recently for the House budget resolution, which provides. provides the framework. And you wonder why folks don't want to do these town halls. Do your job.

Yeah. Do your job that you were sent there to do. Yeah. Are you ever to get up all? Thank you. That's nothing to say. Thank you for that feedback. Okay, we're going to have to look into that video because it's supposedly of

representative Chuck Edwards, but I suspect it might be Louis C.K. doing a Sebastian Gorka impression. But anyway, yeah, they weren't happy. By the way, that's at the point where that first video plays with a guy stands up and he's yelling at him. And a lot of people are mad. They were booing pretty much every bit of this, but particularly the veterans are mad. And why wouldn't they be?

Tons of veterans are being fired. veterans are going to be one of those most damaged by the nationwide crusade against DEI. They're losing access to their programs, offices are being shut down. It's a terrible time to be a veteran and it's hardly ever been a good time to be a veteran in America with the way we routinely disrespect them. But people were also mad about that CR, you heard that, also mad about Elon Musk, who obviously Edwards is going to do literally nothing to corral. And some of the recent statements by Elon Musk, I think, are likely to make the next round of town halls even worse, because as we talked earlier this week on TDR, Elon Musk recently said about Social Security and Medicare, the waste and fraud in entitlement spending, which is all of the, which is most of the federal spending is entitlements. So that's like the big one to eliminate. He's a genius. I don't know if anyone's ever said that before, but I'm pretty sure he is. But anyway, he wants to cut those programs. because he doesn't need them and he doesn't care for them to continue. It requires taxes to pay for them.

He's not a fan of that. And so Republicans for decades have been marching steadily towards a position where they can take out those programs. That's what their their ultimate goal has been. And now finally with Donald Trump and with Elon Musk, they feel free to do that. And so we're going to go to more video from the town hall in a bit. But Jules, this one got pretty rowdy. But we've seen that quite a bit over the last few weeks. That seems to be the norm for Republican town halls. what do you think yeah i mean look i think there's a little bit of like liberal schadenfreude here where it's you know you see online people saying like well they voted for they're getting what they deserve which is unbelievably stupid because we're all going to hell together but there's also this feeling of like you know oh the tide is finally turning against republicans and i don't think that's

true at all i think obviously you know when you're personally directly affected by this you get angry but i'll even say from my you know my own life with republicans like i'm ukrainian i have Ukrainian relatives. And when I talk to them what's happening right now and watching, you know, Trump dismantle Ukraine, I, I swear to God, one of my relatives said like, look, I hate what's happening. I regret my vote. I think, you know, I think this is terrible. But you got to give the guy credit. He does what he says? And it's like, so what does it take? What does it take to not, you know, bow down at the knees of Trump and bow down at the knees of the Republican Party and Elon Musk before, you know, Republicans actually frankly do the same thing that we want to do with

Democrats, which we're also failing at. So it's nice to see these town halls. It's nice to see the Republicans are seeing the results of their votes. But I also don't think it makes a difference. And like I said, I don't think being snarky about it has any impact and also makes us look kind of stupid. Yeah, I understand that not wanting to like, you know, hit people who are suffering or whatever. But I will grant you that if it was just the town halls, I would agree. But, but we've also seen. I mean, in polls, people do seem to understand that these things are really damaging. And on some of these things having like the tariffs and all that, like Fox News is even pushing back. Jesse Waters has talked a little bit sometimes about Doge hurting like good conservatives and

stuff. So maybe it's possible that some Republicans are actually hearing that messaging. What do you think about that that other potential evidence? I mean, I agree. I think Republicans are finally sort of coming to terms with the choices that they've made, but it also, you know, we're facing Donald Trump who knows he never has to win another election. So it kind of doesn't matter, you know, once, once Trump in whatever way it happens leaves office, I think that the baggage goes with him or maybe with Elon Musk. So it's, again, it's hard to feel hopeful that like, oh, there, you know, there's going to be a, you know, a turning of the tide when it almost seems like kind of calculated to explicitly avoid that while

causing the most damage and enriching the richest people in the world, like, it's, it feels really powerless in the same way that like all of this has felt incredibly powerless. Jordan, what do you think? Do you agree? Well, I think this guy specifically is an avatar for the worst tendencies of conservatives in Congress, right? So sure, I guess it's good that despite like you point out, despite Republican leadership saying don't have town halls, he did one. That's a very low bar to clear. But this is also a community. He represents communities that were hit by the storm, the hurricane that just decimated parts of North Carolina and parts of the south. These are constituents who need help. And I just, you know, as we were

preparing, look through what he's been focused on in Congress, beyond just defending everything that Trump is doing. It's cheering on Colombia losing its grant. because of protests on campus. How does that help your constituents? You know, the cuts to the government, the reckless slashing of benefits that many people in especially rural North Carolina desperately need, he's going out there and grinning. Like, no wonder people don't want to do this. No, people get into it.

People like him get into it because when they get a $1.1 million PPP loan like he did, they also want to have their hands near the instruments of power that allow that loan and loans like it to be forgiven. But he's also the same type of politician that goes in and make sure that student debt doesn't get canceled. That debt doesn't get forgiven. His does, but ours doesn't. Yeah. Yeah, that hypocrisy is definitely the case. And you see a little bit of that even in how he starts off bent like saying, you know, that I'm going to do these town halls. But then he gets a really negative reaction. He ends up having to leave with security escorting him. Although people yelling at was not violence, Jesus. Don't deport these protesters just because you disagree with them Republicans.

I know you love to do that these days. And then he goes and he put people's the move that all these Republicans are. They're not my actual constituents. It's all just paid protesters. You know the Democrats. They're so well organized and everything. Yeah, no, nobody's really mad at us. Ignore the polls, ignore the fact that the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post op-ed section is against our policies even. Ignore all of that. It's probably all just George Soros. That's That's how they're consoling themselves. Colgate Total is more than just your favorite toothpaste. It's dedicated to advancing oral health.

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bar. You were in a bar, AOC. That's the only thing she and I have a drink to serve one. Yeah, AOC. You know, like an amazing political victory. She's a great congresswoman, very popular. Yeah, but she once worked in a bar. So screw her until the end of time. She sucks. She can't be intelligent. That was the context of the conversation because she once worked at a bar. And it's especially rich to see Alina Haba, who I've never seen win a case. She's a lawyer, that's her actual credential. And she just loses and loses and loses to the tune of tens of millions of dollars for Donald Trump. And yet succeeds despite the fact that she's shown to have no talent whatsoever in her chosen field. And she's laughing

it up with Sean Hannity, who makes $25 million a year and has, for years and years and years, mocking the idea that someone as lowly and peasantish as a bartender might aspire to actually be an elected leader. We have more in the extended clip, to take a look. I mean, Jasmine Crockett and AOC and the squad seem to be leading the intellectual thought of the Democratic Party. intellectual thought, Sean. The last I saw, they're dancing down the halls of Congress. I never seen anything like this. I'm watching TikToks of crazy things. They're singing. They're dancing. They're cre- they're holding beers. Well, you didn't see me, but I did. I was doing, oh, the intellectual side of the party.

And I love when AOC lectures Elon Musk about not being intelligent. I'm like, oh, she's such a genius. You know, I'm inspired by her every word. You were in the bar. You were in a bar. You were in a bar, AOC. Come down and not to have a drink to serve one. Exactly. You are in a bar.

You can't be smart. You're serving people drinks. You're a service worker. Ew, Pituy. You can't possibly be smart. Not like Elon Musk. I mean, ignore all the evidence of the things he says and the decisions he makes and all that. that. He's really, really rich. He's obviously smarter than you, you poor. And so look,

this is just the latest in a long line of Republicans, especially Fox News doing this. So way back in 2020, Laurie Ingram ridiculed AOC as the Doctor of Mixology. Her degrees in economics, actually, that's what she studied. But just a little reminder, in 2023, 79.09% of the workforce in the US was employed in the service sector. the sort of people being mocked there. 63% of adults have worked in the restaurant industry. I mean, how many Republican waiters and bartenders were watching that segment? As the two hosts, both millionaires, are just spitting in their face over and over and over.

But again, as I said, this has been going on for some time. So AOC has actually previously responded to this. In fact, she did so at the DNC last year. Take a look. Ever since I got elected, Republicans have attacked me by saying that I should go back to bartending. But let me tell you, I'm happy to any day of the week because there is nothing wrong with working for a living.

So slightly different views on work. One side wants to replace workers with AI enrol robots as fast as humanly possible. And the other actually has some, not nearly enough, but some people in elected office who've actually had jobs of this sort. Jordan, I'll go to you first. What do you make of this? I mean, this is just more elitism and classism from Republicans. What job is okay? What job or jobs are okay for people to have pre-congress or pre-civic engagement. Because for them, the ideal pipeline is to go to an elite prep school, to go to a prestigious private university. Then if you go to law school, you have to clerk for a Supreme Court justice or another federal judge before you then go into politics. You have no real

work experience. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, and you look down on workers. And I think these types of comments should be spread further throughout rural America because they hate you. You need to know they hate you. Because when you see things like that, it's not just about AOC. It's about everybody in those sectors. It's about all blue collar workers. You are an impediment to their ideal lifestyle or their ideal utopian vision. That's why billionaires are buying up and establishing bunkers around the world for when the inevitable climate catastrophe comes, you're screwed, the one that they contributed to and did nothing about, you're screwed, but they're fine. A world with fewer humans is what they want. And like you're saying,

John, they're happy to replace your jobs with AI or automate these jobs with robots or completely outsource your jobs to another country. They want you working for them. And if you do anything about it, to try to gain an upper hand or get on the same playing field as them, a level one, they'll oppose it. They'll mock you. They'll insult you. They'll denigrate you. They do not care about you. Jules, have you worked in the service industry? I have worked in the service industry. And I mean, Jordan, you're a hundred and ten percent right. You know, I think most of the working class at this point understands that we are in a class. for one that we are losing pretty pretty emphatically losing and when you look at it that way it's kind of obvious that well there's nothing that you know one side has more hate and contempt for than the other side you know the rich hate and have this massive contempt for the working class who by the way have generated all of their money for them or it's been stolen from them so it's you know

it's never surprising to see you know these these mega wealthy tv hosts and and billionaires and millionaires sneering at people who work for a living, as AOC says. But at the same time, the reason that they're able to do it is because unfortunately within this country, I forgot who said this, but we're a country of temporarily embarrassed millionaires. And so that's the rhetoric that they're trying to say. They're trying to say, look, you may have a working class job now, but if you are right, if you're good, then And someday, you'll be like us. And wouldn't it be nice to be like us?

So it's, it's, you know, again, there's no surprise here that they're attacking AOC for having a real job. Because what Elon Musk does is not a real job. What Donald Trump has done his whole life for not real jobs. These are jobs that are that are conned into, you know, based on extreme exploitation and theft. That's not real work. That's a scam.

Everybody who has a real job knows that they are being scammed. And so on the one hand, yeah, this rhetoric should be moving. the masses, you know, to fight back against the class war. But on the other hand, the part of the reason that we're losing is that the system is so effectively designed to convince you that actually you're not on the side of the working class. You're on the side of the millionaires and billionaires. You just don't know it yet. You're just not there yet. You know, you're one good move, one one active field to you away from joining us. So, you know, it's more of the same and It's just ramping up now is right in front of us.

Yeah. Yeah, we have to end, but a couple of questions, not to the audience, although feel free to respond, but to those hosts. So I looked it up and Sean Hannity back in the 80s was a general contractor, which is an important job, but it's a physical job. You work with your hands. Can you be intelligent if you had that working class job? Are you always forever more fated to be an idiot? Alina Haba worked in the fashion industry, designing accessories. Can you be intelligent if you had that sort of job? I mean, that's not a doctor. That's not a lawyer, an engineer. That's a job that a regular person would have. Are you an idiot for the rest of your life if you had that job? Or is it okay because you guys have been elevated into the status of elites, elites of elites. So it doesn't matter what you had at that point. And you can now mock the people who are still in the early stages of the path that you trod. I would really like to know. I'm very curious. But anyway, this utter disdain, the constant disdain for working people, like I don't get why more people don't see it. It's just constant.

By the way, Lauren Bober owned a restaurant. Is that better because it's management? It had a bar. It was called shooters, wasn't it? Like I have a feeling they had bartenders. Was she just needlessly giving wages to morons and idiots? By the way, if you can't tell, I was a bartender. So I take this a little bit personally.

I was also a waiter and I made sandwiches and I made pizzas and I was a bar. barista and the university as well. I was a caterer for many summers. These are not terrible jobs. They're not stupid people that work. These are necessary jobs. You can't have your gala affairs without people in these industries. Anyway, just something to think about. We're going to take our last break of the hour and more to come after this. Welcome back one and all to what remains of the hour with Jordan Jules and myself. We've got two more stories to talk about, so let's jump into this. The mayor of Miami Beach is now trying to shut down a non-profit cinema because they

showed an Oscar-winning documentary that he's apparently not a big fan of. Now for context, the documentary is titled No Other Land. It was made by two Israeli and two Palestinian filmmakers, and it profiles the Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank. So you could probably start to figure out why he had a problem with this particular documentary. The mayor is Stephen Minor. He introduced a resolution to revoke the lease under which O Cinema rents the space they use. He described the film as a, quote, false, one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people that is not consistent with the values of our city and residents. Well, first of all, maybe it's false and maybe it's propaganda, but it's not one-sided.

It was made by two Israeli and two Palestinian filmmakers, kind of by definition it has the input of both sides, buddy. I'm sorry if that's inconvenient to you. But anyway, the founder of that cinema said that the threat of losing its physical location in Miami Beach was, quote, very grave and we take it very seriously. At the time, I think that's supposed to be at the same time, we take very seriously our responsibility as a cultural organization that presents works that are engaging in thought, and that foster dialogue. And we take very seriously our responsibility to do that without interference of government. By the way, there's journalists that are profiled in this documentary. One of them, Yvall, Abraham, he appears in it quite often.

He condemned the mayor's attack and took issue with the description of the documentary as being egregiously anti-Semitic. He said in an email, when the mayor uses the word anti-Semitism to silence Palestinians and Israelis who proudly oppose occupation and apartheid together, fighting for justice and equality, he is emptying it out of meaning. I believe that once you see the harsh reality of occupation in Masafarayata in the West Bank, it becomes impossible to justify it. And that's why the mayor is so afraid. Now, this is something that he's pushing towards. He put this resolution forward, and that means that it's going to have to go to a vote of the different commissioners.

And we don't know exactly how they're going to end up voting on this, but some have started to indicate it. So one commissioner, Tanya Katz off bat, said an interview that she would oppose the resolution. She said she saw the film solely because of the debate and described it as very difficult viewing. Another commissioner, David Suarez, said it was, quote, too soon to say how he would vote. So he's not ruling out basically destroying this business because he opposes their exercise of the First Amendment. In response to emailed questions, he noted, quote, what is clear is that the city will not tolerate the the abuse of its taxpayers' funds by the O Theater.

In an email to the community, Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez called the screening, quote, deeply troubling for members of our community. But she noted the theater's longstanding practice of hosting the city's Jewish film festival, which it also does and would kind of, I think, rightly fight back against the idea that they're being one-sided about this entire thing. In any event, they have four more showings scheduled for no other land. They're all sold out, probably in no small part, thanks to the controversy. But I love that now, the forces opposing free speech and free expression, free association, are feeling so emboldened nationwide.

Like shutting down a lease, that's just phase one. I mean, if they get, if they get fired up enough, the owner of that cinema can end up being deported or black bagged by ice or something, considering the atmosphere of free speech, radicalism we're living in America. Jules, I want to start with you. What do you think about this? Yeah, John, you nailed it. I mean, this is actual government censorship.

As much as they love yelling about like woke cancel culture, this is anti-woke cancel culture. And frankly, like, you know, I'm Jewish. And when I see this kind of thing, when I see anti-Semitism wielded as a weapon against fake anti-Semitism, that not to be too confusing is inherently anti-Semitic, you know, when you tie this entire faith to a movement that is pro-genocide, that is pro-genocide, that is pro-like, like, like government censorship, you know, anti First Amendment, it makes, frankly, Jews look bad. And that encourages anti-Semitism. But obviously, and we know this, the goal of like all these policies, all these movements to shut down pro-Palestinian, you know, film and protest is it's just silencing dissent. It's not in any kind of effort to protect Jewish people. So for me, I feel much more afraid because of this, not because of, you know, like protests or like

Mahmood Khalil, you know, speaking out against genocide. You know, when I see what my government is doing, and especially when I see the response from the right where they're like, oh, this is great. We should be silencing more voices. We don't want debate. This is anti-Semitism, which inherently we can clearly see it is not. Like, as you said, two Israeli co-producers, you know, we're involved in this. So many Jews, so many Israelis are against the genocide that, you know, it's naked on its face that this is just about power. This is just about controlling speech. And it's, you know, I use this word a lot, but it is, again, very embarrassing when you just look at what's happening and understand how twisted and wrong that it is. Jordan. Yeah. This is like Jules and you

we were saying, this is censorship, plain and simple. Trump during his joint address said free speech is back. But we've seen across the country, free speech and free speech rights are never applied to the pro-Palestinian movement or anything or anyone who is critical of Israel. Of course, in New York, we have the case of Mahmoud Khalil, who has been illegally detained, has not been charged with a crime, but is being accused vaguely of being. a national security threat here in Miami they're trying to revoke the lease of this theater for showing an Oscar award winning documentary but then across the country and before this

37 states have laws outlawing any business participation in the boycott divestment and sanctions movement 37 you cannot in this is in blue states too how are we allowed to protest this What actions are we allowed to take? Because what we're seeing here is, even by showing a documentary, or what we're seeing across the country by participating in protests, anything that is critical of Israel is anti-Semitic. And then you look at this documentary. It's produced by and directed by multiple Israeli filmmakers and Palestinian filmmakers. In their Oscar acceptance speech, he talks about October 7th, and he calls what. Hamas did illegal, he's calling for the hostages to be returned home. He's saying everything that they purportedly care about and is at the forefront of their minds when it comes to this issue. And that's not enough. They want that documentary completely inaccessible. And that's why, John, there is no US nationwide distributor for this film. What many people might not know about it because it's so hard to see

by design in the United States is that it is filmed in large part large part before October 7th, and it's filmed and it's set in the West Bank. It's not set in Gaza. So people are then seeing with their eyes real horrific examples of what Israel has been doing pre-October 7th. And that is something that they cannot let spread throughout the United States. Yeah, you're seeing it literally everywhere. By the way, I love that, I don't know, for 10, 15 years now, what do we have? Like 200 comedy specials, a right wing dude saying that they're going to say the things you're not allowed to say, and they all say the exact same things and they all get paid

very well to say it. Meanwhile, this is stuff that you really can't say, because if you do, theaters might get shut down and it won't be distributed because of the possible threat of boycotts and all of that sort of stuff. So again, like, you know, when choosing not to buy a Tesla is described terrorism by the president. Like, there's slightly different standards of what constitutes an attack on free speech. Hopefully people will wake up to this because for far too long, the right has been able to define what censorship is. Basically, censorship has only ever meant that like, you know, when you did a Nazi salute, someone called you a Nazi, that's censoring you or whatever. But the government, you know, Trump doing, we were talking

before the show, Trump doing his speech to the DOJ and saying that CNN and MSN, NBC were breaking the law by being biased against him. I don't think those are equally censorship. I think one of them is actually censorship and one of them is just you not liking being criticized for being racist or whatever. But anyway, hopefully over the next four years people will wake up to this. In any event, we have one more topic to close out the hour with. I apologize to everyone that the final topic does involve John Fetterman. But with that said, let's jump into it.

So you think that Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, they're there for altruistic reasons. They're not there to help their businesses of themselves? What I'm saying is that, you know, is it meaningful different to be worth $100 billion, $150 billion, or $200,000? billion. From the point of view of a regular person? No. From their point of view? Yeah, clearly they're willing to do anything, and I mean anything, to get more money that they'll never spend. Yeah, I get it, Fetterman. It's insane. They're insane, you know? Did Smogneed need quite as big of a pile of gold to lay on? But no, he really did seem to like it. And he didn't want

any to be stolen. Dragon sickness is a real thing. And it affects every single billionaire. around the world. They didn't extract all of this wealth by being okay with just having $25 million. No, they're willing to do anything, manipulate anything by any politician to raise those pointless numbers. And they're doing that. And it would be one thing perhaps if John Federman asked this question by someone like Stephanie Rule was to get it wrong five years ago, 10 years ago, that would be bad enough because billionaires already then We're influencing elections by donating to politics and all that. But when you have the richest man in the world marching into government agencies and firing thousands of people, manipulating government contracts to benefit himself, having the president do infomercials on the front yard of the White House to help save his stock price.

Yeah, I do think that he's concerned about his own wealth and not just him. Mark Zuckerberg didn't make all the changes to Facebook and Instagram that he's been doing recently because he's not. interested in making more money, all of these billioners, Jeff Bezos, are all bowing down for their financial interest. That's what they're doing. And that's what the government is right now. Back in December, Public Citizen, they did a profile of the incoming cabinet. And they found that the collective net worth of Trump's top appointees is reportedly estimated to exceed $460 billion, including Elon Musk's 400 billion net worth. Now obviously those numbers need to be updated a little bit, because Donald Trump has obviously been really bad for the stock market, so those numbers are down

a little bit, but they'll get back up, don't worry, they'll buy the dip. And so, yeah, they have more wealth than any previous cabinet, maybe all previous cabinets. And so you have Bernie Sanders doing a tour around the country to get people to understand what it means and why it's so damaging to live in an oligarchy. And then you have John Fetterman, like lounging in a chair, And I guess trying to get us to buy that he doesn't understand how greed works. Jordan, I'll start with you. What do you make of this? You know, don't want to go on a limb here, but I think something might have happened to him.

Because if you look at his tweets in 2020 and before, he has no problem talking about billionaires, buying elections, influencing our politics, and billionaire and corporate greed keeping the minimum. wage low. He has dozens of old tweets and comments when he was even just a mayor and then lieutenant governor. And then when he started to run for Senate, that was his position. You talk about how DC can corrupt well-meaning people. I don't know if by the end of that campaign, he was well-meaning. And I think part of the blame should be laid at the feet of some of his advisors, some of the more institutional DC figures that glommed onto him during his first couple years in the Senate. And what we saw has been a pretty disappointing transformation from

John Federman, the Senate candidate running against Dr. Oz to whoever this is now. I mean, you're going from somebody who, again, was calling out corporate and billionaire greed and talking about how it keeps our wages low to, you know, they're fine. Billioners are fine. And also, Also, I really only care about Israel now. Jules, what do you think? I mean, look, I don't, I with Jordan, don't understand what happened to Federman. I also, you know, that that cutaway shot where he is just both legs out lounging during this interview is, is ridiculous to see. This man is nine feet tall.

But on a serious note, like, you know, if we're a real country, we would have like health care and specifically healthcare to address whatever mental illness causes billionaires to hoard unfathomable wealth that's killing the rest of us. I mean, you know, being a billionaire period is a crime against humanity. So when we see members of our government, members who we voted for, or at the very least we supported, fly right in the face of that and support the billionaire class, I truly don't know if he's been compromised, if this is truly like a, you know, a, you know, a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a, a, uh, a, a diso disorder of some kind because he did i mean jordan you're right he was not like this and we have

seen you know sort of similar about faces with other other members of congress um but there's really i have to say personally there's something about fetterman specifically that is really unnerving to see just how far in the other direction he's gone i mean you can you know with with uh you know other democrats it's kind of like okay well mansion sucks we all kind of saw that coming that makes sense. But, you know, Fetterman at this point, is he getting a lobbying job right after? Did he suddenly like learn what money was at some point and decided he wanted a lot of it? It's, I don't know, it like he is truly one of the saddest frustrating, um, the examples of this happening. Jules, I don't think it's that because I think he already has some money and people who

have money don't want more money. I've never seen any indication of that before. Um, but anyway, yeah, I don't think he doesn't really strike me as like a mansion because mansion never purported to be any better than he was. It's really, it's more of a cinema thing, which I think is worse. Like I'm probably going to, I don't know, get some people mad or whatever, but like I feel like there should be something that can be done when someone runs with a very clear track record, promises, agenda. And then the second get in, they get in, they just flip off all their volunteers and say screw it up going the opposite direction. Like him and cinema really, I think, are they're on a separate tier where they're not breaking any laws, but it kind of feels like

it should be illegal to do what they've done in a system where we don't have the ability to recall them or anything like that. So anyway, yes, very frustrating. And look, you can you can find the full interview online. They go back and forth. And there's a little bit of like, I don't know, like an argument, Stephanie Rural trying to like imply that because the right is so, you know, so corrupted and so bought out by these billioners now that it doesn't matter, the Democrats have also, you know, raised a lot of money and all that. I think we can be concerned about both and still identify that one is worse or whatever, but Federman implying that like they don't care if their wealth goes up. Again, that's the sort of thing that

like I think in a compassionate society would get you institutionalized. And it just doesn't seem like he's getting the help that he needs. In any event, that's all the time we have for this hour of the show. Jules, it's a pleasure to have you back. Where can people see your work? You can follow us on Good Morning Bad News on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Not X. Yeah, follow him on TikTok. They're just on the TikTok. They're dancing, they're singing, come on, they're not intelligent or anything. Meanwhile, Jordan, thank you again for being here and where can people watch you? My videos are on Rebel HQ and also Instagram.

Don't follow me on X, but Instagram. Jordan, you will underscore. I've got videos on there as well, including a new one out today on free speech hypocrisy on the right. Go figure. A lot of that to discuss. Well, thank you, everyone. The second hour of the show is going to be coming up after a short break.

And you're definitely going to want to stick around for that. Yaz is going to be taking the lead. Michael and Sharon will be there as well. So it should be a lot of fun. We'll see in a bit. You know what I'm going to be.