The Young Turks - Bad Strategy

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

Reports have suggested that Democrat Kyrsten Sinema will reject “The Inflation Reduction Act”. Democrats are putting money toward extreme right-winger campaign ads, because they believe that they will be the easiest to beat. Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey had a tantrum after John Stewart ripped into conservatives. The Sandy Hook and Alex Jones trial has begun, and things are heating up. Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Farron Cousins *** 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. What's up, everyone, What's up, everyone? Happy Monday. You're watching TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and Jank is still out this week, but have no fear. We've got to Farron Cousins joining us today for the first hour. And in the second hour, Jessica Burbank will be joining me to talk about some other news,

including Elon Musk's father being incredibly, honestly, emotionally abusive in a very public way. So we'll talk about that. Farron, how are you? I'm doing wonderful. Thank you for having me back again. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of daddy issue stuff happening with powerful men in this country and we all get to suffer the consequences of it. So we will be talking about that. But in the first hour, I'm really looking forward to a discussion about what the future holds for the proposed legislation that was negotiated by Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer over in the

Senate. What is cinema going to do about it? Well, there are already some signs indicating that she is not in favor of the very modest tax hikes for hedge fund managers. and the like. Later in the first hour, we'll also discuss Senator Pat Toomey getting real defensive over the backlash that he has received after blocking legislation that would have expanded health care to our veterans who have suffered health consequences from exposure to toxic burn pits. So we'll get to that video and more later in the first hour. And as always, just want to encourage you guys to like and share the stream if you're watching us on YouTube. We're going to have a great bonus episode today. So if you want to watch that, you'd have to be a member.

You can click on that join button if you're watching us on YouTube, or you can go to tyt.com slash join. And for now, why don't we get started with our first story? Kirsten Cinema, what does the future hold for her? Mansions and Schumer signed on to this bill, assuming that the party would fall in line behind them. That's now not looking like a sure bet, at least of Kirsten Cinema has anything to say about it. Reality is Manchin is yesterday's news. Mansion is yesterday's news. That is a right wing Republican panel on Fox.

Given up on Mansion because he did negotiate a pretty watered down bill with Chuck Schumer. That does provide very modest tax hikes for the rich. And also some funding to combat climate change. And also, of course, for Mansion, the most important part. expansion of drilling for natural gas on federal lands. We've talked about that in great detail. You can check out those videos from previous shows. But the question is, will Kirsten Cinema play ball?

Will she vote in favor of this legislation, which is likely if it passes, to be done through the reconciliation process, meaning they can do this without the legislative filibuster, obstructing the effort. They can do it with a simple majority, but they would need every single Democrat, including Cinema, to sign on to the legislation. So the question is, will she do it? And if you look at her past comments about any type of tax

increase that would impact her wealthy, beloved donors, she's always said that she'd put a stop to it, she wouldn't support it, she wouldn't vote in favor of it. Now, as Common Dreams reports, as Cinema reviewed the 725 page bill over the weekend, reports suggested she is likely to to object to a $14 billion provision taking aim at the preferential tax rates for wealthy investors, who of course make up a large portion of her donor base. Cinema has long objected to the closure of the carried interest loophole, which pertains to the percentage of profits hedge fund managers keep from investments. The profits are not taxed the way we're taxed for our income. They're taxed at a rate of about 20% compared,

to the 37% top tax rate for ordinary income. And so this is not at all surprising to me. Now, there's a lot of speculation about what she's likely to do. Mansion is trying to urge her to vote in favor of the legislation. That, by the way, is a red flag for me because Mansion is always looking to enrich himself through fossil fuels. So I'm worried that any positive impact by the climate change provisions would be mitigated by the the damaging impact of the expansion of drilling for fossil fuels on federal lands, by the way. But nonetheless, Ferran, you know, we're speculating here a little bit. But what do you predict is

gonna happen with this bill? They are probably gonna have to come back and maybe adjust what the carried interest loophole removal would pay. You know, okay, instead of bumping them up to to 37% Senator Senema, what if we only bumped him up to 32% or 31 and a quarter percent? It's gonna be some kind of negotiation on what that final number lands on. And again, we're talking about a very small tax that applies to a very small group of individuals. But even that is apparently too much. I mean, the grand total of it may be 14 billion in funds that it could raise. And it also, by the way, changes, you know, how long you have to hold the asset.

So you have to have it for a certain amount of time instead of just immediately flipping a stock or an investment and dropping it down to 20%. So they may drop that part out of it too. But this is legislation that the Democratic Party understands. We got to do something 100 days out from midterms right now, 100 days. We have to do something or we're going to get pummeled. And it does concern me because I feel like they would still be willing to give away the farm just to get enough votes to get this thing passed. So God only knows what's going to happen, you know, who knows what Mansion's going to say while he is the delegated guy like, go talk to her and get her to go along with this. Like you said, I don't trust that at all.

Right. Because these two could come back with a completely new deal that looks nothing like what we've already seen. Well, let me just say, as we've talked about on previous episodes of the show, I think the deal as it stands today isn't nearly far, it doesn't nearly go far enough when it comes to ensuring that the wealthiest individuals and corporations in this country pay their fair share in taxes. So that's number one. When you take a look at the percentage of taxes, ordinary working Americans pay from their income versus the percentage of taxes, the wealthiest people pay in this country. I mean, you get a sense of how. skewed the system is in favor of the rich and how punitive it is for ordinary working Americans who are already getting screwed with low wages, with terrible benefits, with in some cases awful working conditions. But you mentioned how desperate they are to get something, anything passed. And I think you're right about that. And given the desperation here, I would speculate that they are very likely to just do away with any tax increase provision.

And I want to be clear, the way that it's written right now is not an overall tax increase for carried interest. So according to Business Insider, and this is a comment from Kimberly Clausing, she was a tax official for the Biden administration previously. She says, quote, the bill would not entirely close the loophole. No, no, we can't have that, but would lengthen the amount of time that you have to hold the investment for it to qualify as a capital gain. So it's already weak sauce to begin with. I have no doubt that they'll probably cut it out in the final bill just to get Kirsten Cinema on board. And then what's left? Yes, there is some money appropriated to combat climate change.

My fear, my worry again, and I'm gonna repeat this over and over again because it's important. And it's really a perspective you're not getting in many other outlets other than independent progressive media. The fact that we're expanding, drilling for natural gas, which releases, methane into the atmosphere and this drilling will be done by private corporations, private fossil fuel companies on federal lands, lands that belong to all of us is a huge problem. And I want to know just how much it will mitigate some of the positive impacts of this legislation. Now Mansion is wanting, of course, Kirsten sent him out to vote in favor of this legislation. But it's interesting how he kind of worded his argument in the next clip that you're about to watch.

So let's take a look at that and I'll explain what I mean. And I agree with her 100% we're not going to raise taxes and we don't. And on that, I think that basically when she looks at the bill and sees the whole spectrum of what we're doing and all of the energy we're bringing and all the reduction of prices and fighting inflation by bringing prices down by having more energy, hopefully she would be positive about it. But she'll make her decision. I respect that. Wait, I thought you were raising taxes in this legislation and it's not just the carried interest tax loophole that's allegedly being closed if the bill passes in the way that it's

written today. But there's also the 15% minimum corporate tax. And there hasn't been a lot of commentary about that yet. But I'm gonna go ahead and guess that cinema isn't going to be in favor of that either. But we'll see, what do you think, Farron? No, I agree with you 100%. I don't think cinema, based on what she's told us in the past, that she's never okay with any of these tax increases. I just can't see her going along with this, especially because, you know, she's not facing election in November. And as much as we always like to think, like, oh, this is going to come back to Biter, she's got a couple years to go. And believe me, the public will have, you know, we can put it in campaign ads. We can mention it in the campaign trail. you can never recapture the anger that you felt at the time when those things happened. So a lot of times when years pass, they get away with it. That's how we end up with so many horrible people always coming back to D.C. because the outrage subsides. They may do one or two things that are decent. They'll write on that. So cinema, unfortunately, and Mansion, to a degree

still, they hold all the cards because they know y'all got to do something. You got to pass this legislation, it's writing on me, you got nothing without me. So you're going to bow down to me. And I do think it is absolutely ridiculous that we're sitting here, Democrats trying to say, well, how few people can we raise taxes on to pay for not destroying the planet? Meanwhile, on the Republican side, you got Donald Trump burying his ex-wife at his golf course so he can get tax break. Like that's the kind of difference between here. Like, well, maybe a couple rich people could pay more. And Trump's like, put the body over there. I don't have to pay taxes anymore. That's the kind of callous greed we are dealing with. And we still can't somehow win.

That's just, that's just ridiculous to me. Absolutely beyond parity at this point. Yeah, great reference with Trump exploiting the death of his ex-wife and burying her in his golf course for tax benefits. It is, I mean, the shamelessness is pretty incredible. I mean, it's amazing. But I do want to end on some numbers, right? Because it's important to understand what motivates these politicians. As I've said before, and I'll say it again, it's not about whether or not these politicians are good guys or bad guys, you might have your own perspective on that, and that's totally fine. But everything is based on incentives and disincentives.

And when you have a system of legalized bribery, it takes an incredibly strong and principled individual, someone like Senator Bernie Sanders, to kind of withstand that preference. pressure from the corporate money and the corruption that's now a mainstay in our Congress. For instance, cinema counts private equity firms among her top contributors with the securities and investment sector donating more than $2.2 million to her since 2017, and that's according to Open Secrets. A great resource, by the way, that I highly recommend if you're trying to see exactly what kind of incentives are motivating the actions of our politicians. And by the way, This doesn't feel like a nail in the coffin for you. Let me give you one more piece of info on this story.

Cinema has indicated that she is open to letting Republicans modify the bill as the GOP plans to attempt to kill the reconciliation package with poison pills, further weakening a package which already mandates oil and gas leasing in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico and severely limits the authorization of new wind or solar energy development, angering climate campaigners. But you know, you have people like washed up comedian House Sparks or, you know, all sorts of corporate Democrats telling us we should celebrate this bill. Climate activists love this bill. Well, I've heard from quite a few climate activists who do not love the bill as it stands today. And it could be watered down further thanks to the corporate corruption among our corporate Democrats, people like Kirsten Cinema. So as we get more information, as these negotiations continue, we'll fill you in on the deal. details.

For now, let's move on to a strategy by Democrats that I think is questionable to say the least, but they have a longtime defender. Let's do it. We think the contrast between Democrats and Republicans, as they are now, is so drastic that we have to, we have to win. I love that woman. I just worship her. Yeah, there you have longtime Democratic operative, James Carville, creepily declaring his undying love for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as she defends the strategy of Democrats promoting an uplifting, incredibly dangerous, Republican candidates in congressional races. And the idea is, well, if we prop up Republican competition that happens to be extreme and insane, well, voters will have no choice, but to vote

for us wonderful moderate Democrats, what could go wrong? Well, I think we saw back in 2016, what could go wrong with the presidential election? And there's a lot of backlash among the Democratic electorate and even some in the media in regard to what Democrats are doing with the strategy. They say it's risky. They say it's dangerous. But I do want to go to this next clip where we hear more from Carville on why it's not a bad idea at all. It's a great idea. We've seen efforts by Democratic campaigns and outside groups to tilt the playing field in their favor by propping up extremist Republican candidates in some of these races. Some of these very critical races around the country, the idea that it would make it easier for Democrats to win.

But on the flip side, if the vote doesn't go their way, you could end up with conspiracy theorists, election deniers, and so on, and some pretty important places. The idea of a political campaign is to win the election. It acts in its own interest. And let's take Pennsylvania, it clearly was in Josh Shapiro's interest that the Republicans nominate Doug Maastriano. I would, I've done the same thing. I would do the same thing. I don't see any ethical or moral problem with doing this. And again, I think most of the opposition to this is from the pontifical class, mostly located on the coast.

I don't see anything wrong with this. And you try to do everything you can to help your candidate or your party win an election. And that's pretty simple. And that's what the D-Triple-C is trying to do. Sometimes it backfires. Sometimes it doesn't work. Well, okay, you know, people do stupid things from time to time. But I wholeheartedly endorse this idea of being involved in their primaries to help them

nominate the stupidest, goofiest extreme person they can. So Farron, I don't understand what he's saying here because on one hand, he's like, this is smart, I would do it. There's no ethical problem with it whatsoever. You know, sometimes it doesn't work out because sometimes people do stupid. So is it stupid or is it smart? Is it only smart when it works? What was that? I do. I love it. It's like, hey, this is a great idea. You know, maybe it doesn't work though. And then, hey, we're left with the goofiest, nuttiest, you know, whatever it is. First of all, let me just point out something about James Carville. I don't know why we ever listened to him. You know, I don't know how he got put up on this pedestal.

Because he what, he helped Bill Clinton win two elections in the 90, where Clinton didn't even get 50% of the popular vote in either of those elections, that's something people forget, right? Bill Clinton won two terms because Ross Perot siphoned off enough of the vote to allow Bill Clinton to win. And we treat James Carville and Paul Begala like, oh, well, they did this. They're wonderful. No, they had it not been for Ross Perot, nobody would give a crud. Sorry, almost. But anyway, nobody would care one bit who these two idiots were. They'd be laughed out in D.C. They lucked into this position of being put on a pedestal. And I'm looking at the numbers right here, verifying what I'm saying.

Secondly, the success story they point to, a lot of these articles, is Claire McCaskill. Oh, well, look, we elevated Todd Aiken, the legitimate rape guy. And Claire McCaskill won that Senate seat. Okay, wonderful. What happened next, right? Where's Claire McCaskill today? Because I think Josh Hawley is sitting in that seat today. So doesn't always work out, even in the examples that they say, look how it worked.

It's no, no, no, you also got to look down the road a little bit because it didn't work out for anybody in the end. Absolutely. And you know, it's interesting because the only thing, corporate Democrats, I want to really draw a distinction here, the only thing corporate Democrats run on at this point, this point is vote for us because we're better than the Republican Party. Republican Party super dangerous. They want to steal elections. They're gonna dismantle our democracy. They're a real threat to the future of this country. Well, it's really, really hard for you to make that argument when you are literally propping up with your own campaign funds, the extremist Republican, because that's what you need in order to run your campaign. It's not like they would ever have the audacity to run a campaign based on policy issues that the electorate

desperately need and want. You know, progressive policies that fund social spending programs that actually materially improve people's lives. When you take a look at the history of the Democratic Party and why the Democratic Party was successful in previous elections throughout this, you know, nation's history, right? Like, especially from the New Deal on, it's because they represented themselves as the party that looks out for ordinary working Americans. Well, now that we have unlimited campaign donations, legalized campaign, you know, bribery essentially by our corporations, while they've moved further and further away from representing the needs of the working class, politics has become nothing more than nonstop culture war narratives.

And for Democrats, I mean, look, you have Republicans who run on, be afraid of the LGBTQ, W-B-T-Q community. Be afraid, be afraid, right? They run on abortion issues. They run on all sorts of things are just completely cloaked in politics. Democratic side, they have their own brand of fair-based politics. And the reason why they focus on it, the reason why they try to scare the electorate about the dangerous nature of the other side is because their corporate don't want them to run campaign that feature social spending programs that are incredibly popular with the electorate. So everything is just, it shows you what their priorities are, right? It's not about legislating, it's not about governing, it's not about

leadership, it's not about doing right by the electorate, by the people who elected you in this position of power in the place. It's all about me, me, me, me, me. I want to be elected into this congressional seat or what it is. I want to get reelected into this congressional seat. But I don't want to set my donors. So I'm going to go ahead and run an entire campaign where the only illness is the bad guy. Okay, we're also talking up the bad guy. So your argument here is follow. You know, it's interesting too when you're talking about these campaign donations and what has happened to the Democratic Party over the years prior to citizens united, being passed or not past, sorry, the Supreme Court handing our elections over to corporations.

Prior to that, the two top donor groups to the Democratic Party, number one, obviously unions, number two, trial lawyers, the people that go out there, the people I work for, the people that go out there every single day and fight against these corporations. Those were the two biggest donor groups to the Democratic Party, and that's what the Democratic Party, we were told at least stood for. Citizens United passes. Who takes over the top? Wall Street Banks. That was now, you know, last time I had checked, it's been a couple months, but that was the top donor, Wall Street Banks took over for these groups that actually fought for better lives, fought for a cleaner environment, fought for worker safety. All of those groups get pushed to the

wayside now because the money from Wall Street is just far greater than anything. The unions and the trial lawyers could ever even imagine. And it's so obvious how it has warped this party to where, yeah, it's difficult for them to go out there and run on the issues because they don't even really know where they stand on these issues. So instead, like we're talking about here, what do they do? They say, okay, let's put the nuttyest, goofiest person you can find and then say, hey, you don't want this guy in office. You need to vote for us instead because look at them. Look at this weirdo. That's not a campaign, but that's what the Democratic Party's doing today.

Like, well, at least we're not goofy over here. It's, again, ridiculous is the word I always come back to because that's what politics has become. Absolutely, and we end up suffering the consequences of all of this. I just want to fill in a few blanks in regard to what Carville said in that interview with Jim Acosta, because he specifically mentioned the race between a Republican by the name of Doug Mastriano and a Democrat Josh Shapiro. Josh Shapiro helped to prop up this Magachud by the name of Doug Mastriano. And this is the, I believe, the gubernatorial race in Pennsylvania, if I'm not mistaken. So yes, it's the gubernator gubernatorial race. They're running for governor.

And here's what we know, okay. Polls show that Republican, Doug Mastrian, Ostriano behind Democrat Josh Shapiro only by three points, three to four percentage points, which is within the margin of error. I give you that because Democrat Josh Shapiro got real bold, real cocky and thought there's no way this Magachut is going to win this seat or this gubernatorial race. In fact of the matter is there's a pretty good chance that he will win this gubernatorial race. And so play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

But at the end of the day, the people who really suffer are the individuals who are going to end up living in that state. And it didn't have to be this way. You could have a Democrat who actually runs on issues that matter, but no. Let's prop up the person that we think is extreme because that'll give us a better shot at winning. But it turns out that's not necessarily the case. All right, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, we've got more news for you, including Pat Toomey getting defensive after he received a lot of backlash for denying veterans. the health care they need to survive. We've got that and more coming right up.

where he hosts a show aptly titled Fair and Balanced, one of my favorite show names imaginable. Farron, where else can everyone find the work that you're doing? Also the other YouTube channel, Ring of Fire, so it's YouTube.com slash the Ring of Fire. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, which I promise I will start doing something on TikTok. But all of those, I'm at Farron Balance. So as long as you remember Ferran Balanced, you can find me wherever it is. is you're looking for me. So that's that's where I am all over the place. I also wanted to just quickly read from our Twitch community because Ozel or Ozal 84 says, by the way, thank you for

being subscribed to our Twitch channel for 26 months. It was my birthday last week Tuesday and I missed my chance to get a birthday shout out. Anna, can you please shout me out a belated birthday? Happy belated birthday. I was also born in July. I think it's a pretty great month. And I hope you had a great time. I hope you're enjoying yourself this week as well. So love hearing from you guys. You can always become a subscriber for free on Twitch. If you are a prime member, you can use your prime membership to get a free subscription. And I highly recommend that because what's better than funneling money from the richest man in the world or one of the richest men in the world to independent progressive media? Love to see it. All right, well, why don't we move on to some

other news today. We were pretty tough on Democrats in the previous segment. Now it's time to talk a little bit about what Republicans are up to, because as always, they love pain and suffering. And Pat Toomey is no exception. Republican Senator Pat Toomey is getting real defensive, following the backlash he's received over his decision to block the promise to address Comprehensive Toxics Act, which would have expanded healthcare to cover veterans who are sick due to exposure to so called burn pits. Now, why did this Republican senator block the bill? I mean, Republicans claim that they support our troops, they really value our soldiers and our veterans. All right, they don't really care about them at all. They just use that as a talking

point for campaigning. Well, here's Pat Toomey, attempting to provide cover for his terrible, terrible, callous decision. This is the oldest trick in Washington. People take a sympathetic group of Americans and it could be children with an illness, it could be victims of crime, it could be veterans who've been exposed to toxic chemicals, craft a bill to address their problems, and then sneak in something completely unrelated that they know could never pass on its own and dare Republicans to do anything about it because they know they'll unleash their allies in the media and maybe a pseudo celebrity to make up false accusations. The Republicans are not opposed to any of the substance of the PACT Act.

My honest Democratic colleagues will fully acknowledge that my objection, and if I get my way, I get my change, it will not change by one penny any spending on any veterans program. What I'm trying to do is change a government accounting methodology that is designed to allow our Democratic colleagues to go on an unrelated $400 billion spending spree that has nothing to do with veterans and that won't be in the veteran space. Now, the pseudo celebrity that Toomey attacked in that clip is John Stewart, someone who's been vociferous in wanting to provide the health care necessary to our first responders, to our veterans. He's very fired up about this issue. And he poured cold water on the claims by Pat Toomey here. You know, the claims about like, oh, this is an accounting matter. Really you're going to deny health care to veterans over an accounting matter? Here's John Stewart's reaction to that. And he says as it's written, the money can be used for things unrelated to veterans. That's nonsense.

And burn pit exposure. It's just utter nonsense. The secretary of the VA has to go every year. Even though it goes into a mandatory spending tranche where it comes to that, the VA secretary still has to go in every year and explain the appropriation and the use. And the spending of the money is related to the bill. It's not a slush fund. But if you want to talk about slush funds, if Senator Toomey wants to explain his fiscal

conservatism, then why is it that he voted, you know, every year we vote for what's called the OCO. It's a $60 billion, $70 billion fund that goes on top of the $600 billion or $700 billion or $800 billion that the Pentagon already gets. And it is unaccountable. There are no guardrails. It truly can be spent on pretty much whatever they decide they want to spend it on. Toomey's never raised a peep about it. And the reason why he's never raised a peep about it is because Toomey love slush funds that benefit his corporate donors, particularly those who serve as private defense contractors and tend to get all sorts of favorable treatment in the defense bill. So Farron, I'd love for you to jump in here because we often criticize Democrats and it's much deserved. But Republicans are always on another level. I mean, the callous nature of You know, we're, we're sitting here earlier in the program talking about how we have these Democrats that are, you know, iffy on whether or not we can even raise taxes on billionaires and millionaires. But then again, we always look to the Republican side and they're saying, well, we're not going to take care of the soldiers that we voted to send overseas.

they got exposed to some of the worst toxins imaginable. I mean, the damage that these toxins do to people, I don't think most people understand this. It's not something that gets better, okay? These are not individuals who are going to get a bunch of money, go to the doctor, a year later, like, hey, great, my life is wonderful. These are lifelong problems that will never be completely fixed. All we're trying to say is, you know what, we did this to them. We did this to them. And in the case of the Agent Orange victims in Vietnam, we literally did this to them.

I think we should pay for that. That's all that's all this piece of legislation is saying. And you can't even get to me and these other Republicans to come out there and be honest about it. And the reason they don't have to be honest about it is because they know that their followers, their base, whoever it is their voters, they're not gonna go and look it up, right? They're not going to do the homework that John Stewart did there. So it's good that Tapper put Stewart on there to explain like, no, he's lying to you about this. Because if he doesn't do that, the audience is going to hear, oh, well, I didn't know it was a giant slush fund that Democrats could take and spend on whatever. But at the same time, it was also his job as the interviewer to call that out.

He shouldn't have done his homework and not let him say it in the first place. But he didn't do it. And to think, Bernie Sanders, I guess it was today, maybe yesterday, came out and said, you can't send these people to war and then not take care of them when they get back. I'm paraphrasing, of course, he said it far better than I could. But that's at the heart of this. We're recruiting these people, a lot of the ones, especially the burn pits, recruited after 9-11, overwhelmed with this sense of patriotism and duty to this country.

We owe this to them because you pumped that into them. You pumped it into them that you have to go defend your country. You have to sign up, this Uber patriotism that we saw for a decade. We did this. You have to make it right. And you can't even get Republicans to say, okay, fine, we'll take care of you. It's sickening the way these people act. And then lie about it too and get away with the lies.

That's sick. Right. Exactly. It is sad that you need a celebrity like John Stewart to cut through the BS because any other person on the broadly speaking left isn't going to get the kind of air time that John Stewart got on CNN. And I love the point that you made about Jake Tapper, which is, look, he's right in front of you. You're supposed to be an anchor who's well versed on these issues. you've got to challenge his lies and his talking points in real time. And Tapper did fail to do that.

But at least John Stewart was later interviewed and was able to respond to it and pour cold water on the excuses that we heard from Toomey. It's also worth knowing the context of this bill because the exact same piece of legislation actually passed the Senate with widespread bipartisan support. Then it went to the House and they got sent back to the Senate. where it got blocked by the same Republicans who previously vote in favor of it. For instance, the bill, the honoring our promise to address comprehensive toxics, is that a word toxics? Like I don't, it sounds weird. But anyway, Toxics Act was approved in the Senate in June by a vote of

84 to 14. It went back to the Senate again for a procedural vote last week and was expected to pass with its broad bipartisan support. But that was when Toomey and other Republicans of course, blocked it. It would need to pass the legislative filibuster, which requires 60 senators to vote in favor of it. So many of those Republican senators who previously voted for the exact same bill later blocked it. Veterans Affairs Secretary Dennis McDunuff said that Toomey's delaying action was petty and unnecessary. He said the accounting changes that Toomey is seeking would harm veterans care. I can't in good conscience do that because the outcome of that will be rationing of care for vets, which is something I just can't sign up for, he said.

And so that's the reality of the situation, right? I don't know what the real reasoning is for Toomey. I would probably speculate that he got a little salty after Schumer and Mansion came up with some sort of deal legislation that would fund climate change efforts and they're going to pass it through reconciliation. Allegedly, we'll see where it goes. Maybe that's what he's salty about, who knows, but the idea of delaying any type of health care that's desperately needed by anyone in this country. I mean, obviously, we're talking about vets here. But let's just take a step back and look at the general population. We don't help our fellow Americans when they're ill. And that's in the richest country in the world, one of the wealthiest

countries in the world. The fact that we allow our fellow Americans to suffer, to die without the health care that they need to survive. It says a lot about our government, says a lot about legislation that's prioritized in this country. And you know, you would think that in the very least we would take care of our veterans. But of course, that's not the case, especially when we're dealing with these Republican lawmakers and they're disgusting narcissism. Anyway, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, we've got more news for you, including some highlights of the Alex Jones trial, which I will admit I have been watching closely because I enjoy every minute of it. You will enjoy it too. So come back. We'll show you some videos.

And question right off the bat. Have you been following the Alex Jones trial? I've been reading about it. I can't bring myself to actually watch it. But yeah, I've I've read about the happenings. It's quite quite the thing. I'm a vengeful person. So I have to say being given the opportunity to watch Alex Jones and members of his staff have the worst day of their lives every time they testify. Alex Jones, by the way, hasn't testified yet. We don't know if you will, but his producers, some of his anchors have testified, delicious. And look, I'm not gonna have you guys sift through all of that content. I'm gonna do it for you.

And so let's talk about the highlights here, okay? The lawsuit against Alex Jones by the parents who lost their children in the Sandy Hook Massacre has demonstrated just how little InfoWars cares about delivering the truth to its own audience and they'll tell the most outrageous lies to turn a profit. At least that's what we're learning from the testimony that we're hearing from Alex Jones's own staffers and we're gonna show you those highlights in just a moment. But before we do, it's really important for you to understand the context because Alex Jones by default has already been found guilty of defaming these parents by claiming that they're crisis actors, that the Sandy Hook massacre was really a false flag operation in order to take guns away from

law abiding Americans. Obviously, those were all lies. Obviously, that caused a lot of damage to these families who were then targeted, harassed, and threatened by Alex Jones and his audience members. And so Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of Jesse Lewis, a six year old who died at Sandy Hook are requesting a $150 million or $150 million in compensatory damages for years of torment and threats they endured in the aftermath of Jones's lies about them on Info Wars. They are suing Jones in the first of three trials in which juries will decide how much he must pay relatives of 10 people killed in the December 14th, 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Now, the reason why the trial is happening is because the jury needs to decide how much money will be awarded to the parents, right? Again, he's already been found guilty of defamation. This is a civil suit. And here's what we know so far. Testimony so far shows just how little info, testimony so far shows just how little Info Wars really cares about the truth. In fact, Info War staff testify that they did not check easily available facts about Sandy Hook or much else before broadcasting their incendiary assertions. One good example is one of the hosts who did testify. His name is Owen Schroier and he admits as much in this next clip. Let's watch. I was just covering a story that was given to me.

You made care of your time? It didn't matter, right? No, I didn't say that. Okay. You were handed the story while you were on air live. You ran with it, right? Yes. You did zero to determine it is accurate, right? Correct. You did no vetting of the story at all, correct? Correct. You did nothing to determine if it was a joke or a parody, right? There are video clips in it. You didn't watch them, right? Correct. Correct. I mean, Farron, nothing like getting into an info war with information that you haven't even bothered to verify. And his callousness, you know, the body language of him sitting there just, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just they still don't care.

They don't. Part of the reason is because I still don't even think that they think that they have to. I mean, you know, they've filed the bankruptcy. They're going to try to shield all the money. and prevent, you know, the families from getting what they deserve from this. But just such, I can't even say the word, but just the kind of human beings these are, you know, and again, like you said, that's just one clip. There's so much more coming, but reading all about this, what is transpiring at this trial, it is difficult to contain the anger and the rage that we feel when these. people just tell, oh yeah, well, this is what we did. Yeah, families had to move, you know, six, seven, eight, I think one of them had to move nine times because Jones's fanatics continued to find their address and show up at their home and harass them. And these are

parents who buried their children at Christmas time. Yeah. I mean, burying a child is, is difficult enough as it is, if you have to take Christmas presents that were already wrapped under a tree and remove those, because that child was just murdered in school. I mean, it's something that's almost too difficult to explain. I had to do something similar with my sister who had a child pass. Oh, my God. That is the hardest thing I had to do in my life, ever, ever. And so many of those families went through it. And that's just one of the reasons why the whole Sandy Hook thing just changed me as a person. not in a good way either, just so angry at what we've become.

And then to watch these people do this in the trial, not care, still not care. Ten years later, don't care about it. There's no excuse for being such a disgusting human being. But that's what they are, just the lowest level you can get as a person. The sociopathic nature of the testimony really blows me away, because you have to have sociopathic tendencies to feel entirely comfortable demonizing, lying about, and targeting parents whose little children, young children, as young as five, six years old, were slaughtered in a mass shooting.

I mean, you have to have like zero emotion, zero soul. You have to be 100% self-interested and obsessed with profit. And that's really what we're starting to see. I mean, I've always assumed it based on the kind of coverage that they did, you know, on the story and other stories, by the way. But you see it play out during the testimony. And just to fill in some more blanks before we go to more videos, Scarlett Lewis, who was one of the parents targeted, using internal emails and testimony from

Info War staffers showed how Jones and his top, I don't know why he calls them lieutenants, so there are other hosts on the network, ignored multiple warnings that continuing to broadcast Sandy Hook lies would harm the survivors and land info wars in legal trouble. In a videotaped deposition, a former employee, Rob Jacobson, said he repeatedly delivered these warnings to info war staffers only to be received with laughter and joke. So going back to the point I'm trying to make here about how sociopathic you need to be in order to carry out these disgusting lies on your programming. Now, other damning testimony came from another employee over at InfoWars named Daria Carpova. Daria Carpova is Infoors' corporate representative, and she advanced the same

bogus claims, refusing even to rule out the possibility that the trial itself was a staged event. She cast Jones as the victim worrying over his health and saying the Sandy Hook lawsuits have cost him millions. Poor, poor, poor Alex Jones. And here's a little taste of more of the cover that she tried to provide for Alex Jones and his disgusting behavior. Again, Alex Jones was still researching things. And with the contradictions in the media that was thrown in that time in the mainstream media, he thought that it was his duty to investigate, especially when it involves something as tragic

as the death of children that shouldn't be used in, say, a government operation. Can you look at the title of that April 1st video for me? Can you see it? You see it on the page? Yes. Okay, the title of that video is not, there are contradictions that raise questions

about what happened at San Diego. The title of that video, if I'm ready, is crisis actors used at that. Is that right? Correct. But oftentimes titles just are meant to grab audience's attention and then later in the video they get into details, just like all of the nation media does. Mask off, mask off. Okay, and like the thing that's amazing to me, Farron, is just how stupid these staffers really are, right?

Because she's a corporate representative for info wars. And it's like, yeah, I mean, it's just clickbait. You know, it's click babe, everyone does click bait. Look, clickbait is annoying and it's an unfortunate necessary evil in media today. I don't like it, but here's the difference, okay? You might have a title that's attention grabbing, but you don't get to lie in the context of that title or that headline, certainly not in a way that's defamatory to the subject that you're covering in that piece or in that video. So if you look at the Johnny Depp Johnny Depp Amber Hurd trial, defamation trial. The focus was on the headline of the opinion

piece or the op-ed that Amber Hurd wrote, even in a title of something, if you're being defamatory, you could be held legally liable for defamation. And so she's just, she's just not very bright. And she's just like, yeah, it's just clickbait. I mean, yeah, we lied and assassinated the characters of these parents for profit, but doesn't everyone do it? No, no, everyone doesn't do that. No, they don't because they know that if they do, even Fox News understands if we do this, we're going to be held accountable. You know, I've gotten letters as so many others who do this too, you know, saying if you don't change this title, you know, we could sue you for defamation. And it's the simple difference of like saying that somebody said something versus saying they implied it. So yeah, you can get sued for a title, you know, just as you could, lying about something.

So there's a world of difference in a clickbait like Alex Jones had his worst day in court ever versus Alex Jones ate a baby on live TV. And then you get into the heart of it and say, well, he didn't actually eat a baby. No, you've already made the defamatory claim. And therefore, nothing else that you say matters. Doesn't matter if you say that you're kidding about it. If somebody doesn't click on it to get the full context, you have defamed them. And it doesn't matter. And that's what, you know, I don't know. I'm assuming that woman there was, was younger, she looks very young. And so maybe she's just naive. Maybe she's not familiar with it. Maybe she's inexperienced. Or maybe she's just as callous as the rest of them and simply doesn't care. I mean, I didn't see any emotion on her face. I saw no change in her demeanor. Just like, yeah. I mean, what? We did it. What do you? What? I mean, they think they think they're the very. victims. It's amazing. I mean, you have the Posner family moving a dozen times because of the credible death threats they were getting from members of the Info Wars audience. But no, they think they're the victims because they have to stand trial for the defamatory content they produced and broadcasted for years, by the way. So it's not even just, oh, they had one video title that was defamatory, but the content of the video was actually very clear and accurate. No, every everything that they were doing was incredibly defamatory. At the heart of the trial is a June

2017 episode of NBC's Sunday night with Megan Kelly, in which Kelly profiled Jones in the broadcast, Sandy Hook parent, Neil Hesslin, protested Jones's denial of the shooting. He recalled his last moments with Jesse, his son, saying, quote, I held my son with a bullet hole through his head. But the Info Wars folks decided to deny that that even happened. Afterwards, Jones and Owen Schroier, the guy you heard from in the first video, erred shows implying that Hesselin had lied. Will there be a clarification from Hesslin or Megan Kelly? Schroier said on Info Wars, I wouldn't hold your breath. Nonetheless, by the way, Schroier thinks he's the victim. He was quoted as saying this, I'm very upset that this trial continues.

It has had a tremendous negative impact on my career and livelihood. Owen, good. You are not fit to do what you're doing for your career. You're presenting yourself as a truth teller, as some sort of journalist, and you're intentionally defaming victims of a mass shooting. Individuals who lost their little kids in a mass shooting. Their children were slaughtered in that mass shooting. and you decided to further victimize them with your lies.

You are not fit for this line of work, period. And before I get to you and your thoughts, Farron, I wanted to go to one more video because Darya, I think, says something. Darya Carpova says something pretty enlightening in this next clip. And it shows you the kind of thought process that takes place in the production process over at Info Wars. What is truth to them? Well, let's watch.

On May 9th, 2014, do you see that? Yes. Okay. That was an episode called Revealed Sandy Hook Truth Exposed. Yes. And InfoWords wants it to viewers to have faith that they can get the truth from InfoWorse, correct? It's up to the yard. We always rely.

We always, we think our audience is smart and we rely on them to. figure out themselves what they think is true and it's not. But we present our opinion. Well, the truth, right? That's what you're telling your audience to give them is the truth. Sure, everybody has their own definition, truth. Everyone's got their own definition of truth, right, Farron? Truth is subjective, right? It's, you know, there is no such thing as truth. It's what you want it to be. That's the thought process over at Info Wars. Yeah, yeah, that is exactly. the message that she is sending out there that, hey, there's no truth. Truth is whatever you want

truth to be. And that is obviously, it's not even worthwhile for me to say that's not how the world, because we know that. But I will say just watching these people, knowing what's happened and reading all of this, I just, I hope this trial goes horribly for them. Like I want this to be the most miserable experience that they have ever had. I want them to lose everything that they've ever had, everything that they've gained, every, every dollar they've ever earned. I want it all gone. Like I truly wish nothing but the worst results from this trial for any one of those info worse people. That's just, that's what they deserve. They absolutely deserve that. And so hopefully, hopefully that's what the jury will do here. And, and, and I, and I, and I

I just I can't imagine anybody on that jury hearing these things, you know, and thinking, no, they've suffered enough. Hopefully that is not the case. But then again, you never know. And that's the worst part about it. Right. And how exactly do they make their profits by slanging all sorts of weird pills in the context of their deceptive broadcasts? In the context of their defamatory content. And final video for you all. Hoen Schroier was specifically asked about the kinds of pills that sold through Info Wars. And I really appreciated this interaction. Let's take a quick look. And then there's leaks, the things you sell. Insta Hard, that's a pill you guys sell? a new one, but I guess it's a pill.

Okay, oh, well, I'm sorry. It is a product, though, that we sell, yes. Fair enough. Diet Force, something you sell? Yes. Do you have any idea of where that stuff sourced from? Info Wars Life? The pills.

You mean the the actual ingredients? Yeah, you don't? No. Do you know if any of the stuff is approved by the FDA budget? I don't. Do you know if any of it's been tested to see if it's effective or any good at all? Well, we tested products for ourselves.

You mean you take it? Yes. And you're still here, so it must be okay? Yeah, it works for me. All right. So he takes Insta Hard or doesn't take Insta Hard? Very confusing testimony there. But not only do they have zero problem with defaming parents whose children were slaughtered,

I also have zero problem potentially getting their own viewers sick by selling them pills that come from who knows where and does who knows what, Farron, final words. So you're telling me that Insta Hard is not in fact approved by the FDA. I just can't believe that. That's such a, that's such a reputable brand Insta hard. I had no idea. But yeah, I would actually really like more clarification. I wish that lawyer would have gone on. Like really, can you tell us your experience with these particular supplements that you guys are hawking out there to, you know, the most ridiculous audience imaginable outlook? Grifters, liars, and I think sociopaths, do you put it. That's what we're dealing with on this side. And I just wish this would open more people's eyes to what is really happening at that network. But I don't think it will with that particular audience. Yeah, and it's unfortunate because they're being misled, possibly getting sick from the supplements they're buying from this programming. It is what it is. But all we can hope for is that the justice system works in this case. As I've said, Alex Jones has already been found guilty of defamation. The question is what will he have to pay out in damages? And this is the first of three trials where a jury will determine what he owes. So we'll find out what the outcome of the

This particular trial will be by the end of the week, we're guessing, and we'll stay on this story and fill you in as we learn more. We got to take a break. But Farron, thank you so much for doing the show with me. You are so much fun to host with. And one final opportunity to plug your programming. Yeah, YouTube.com slash Farron Balanced, YouTube.com slash the ring of fire, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, at Farron Balanced. And thank you so much for having me today. It was always a pleasure. I love it. It's our pleasure. Have a good night. And everyone else, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be back in just a few minutes.