The Young Turks - Bannon Helped Epstein

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

Joe Manchin responds to AOC accusing him of "killing people" by huddling with fossil fuel lobbyists. Manchin is also still saying that he doesn't support human infrastructure and that there's no rush to get the reconciliation bill passed. Bernie Sanders said on Sunday that Joe Manchin not supporting President Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending package was “not acceptable.” Rose McGowan stumped for Larry Elder in California. Steve Bannon reportedly coached Jeffrey Epstein on how to respond to sex abuse allegations. Chris Wallace rips GOP governor over a contradictory stance on vaccine mandates. A man in Alabama died after 43 hospitals did not have an ICU bed for him. Hosts: Ana Kasparian & Cenk Uygur 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. So, you know, I'm sorry. All right, welcome to the Young Church. Thank you, Granite, I can spare with you guys. A whole other lovely week ahead.

Will it really be lovely? Well, I guess. I wouldn't even really guess that. I'm just saying it as an expression. But usually the news is dicey. Okay. So anyways, but speaking of good news, though, tomorrow at the top of the show,

one, two, d'em, big announcement. And you guys are going to really like this one. Okay, so sometimes is there a big announcement and I go wink, wink, and it's like shop, t-y-t.com has seven and a half percent off, right? Totally. No. Jink is the over-hyper. That's who Jank is.

But in this case, I don't think he's over-hyping. No, you guys are going to love it. So make sure you watch it at the top of the show tomorrow, right? I'll keep telling you that throughout. All right, look, we got a lot of news. Finally, good civil war within Democratic Party. It's broken out. Let's do it.

Senator Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat in the Senate, is bought off by the fossil fuel industry. There's no question about it, you just see the dollar signs and it tells you all you need to know. Now despite his massive conflicts of interest, he is now claiming that no, he's not bought off, he's playing defense because Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called him out for being beholden to the fossil fuel industry. Now I love this video because here's Joe Manchin playing defense. I'm sure you've heard your fellow Democrat, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,

said this about you and a tweet. Mansion has weekly huddles with Exxon and is one of many senators who gives lobbyists their pen to write so-called bipartisan fossil fuels bills. It's killing people, sick of this bipartisan corruption that masquerades as clear-eyed moderation. Is your fellow Democrat? Is it true that you have weekly meetings with Exxon and other lobbyists for fossil fuels? No, they don't, weekly meetings. It's just false.

I keep my door open for everybody, it's totally false. And those type of superlatives, it's just awful. Continue to divide, divide, divide. I don't know the young lady that well. I really don't. I've met her one time, I think, between sets here, but that's it. So we have not had any conversations. She's just speculating and saying things because she wants a situation.

She's not the only one, I'm sure you've heard, there are a number of your fellow Democrats who say that you're opposed to this because you're bought and paid for, by corporate donors. I'm a poster because it makes no sense at all. That was fantastic, and it shows you the type of leverage and power that progressive lawmakers can have if they're willing to call out their own when they're more willing to basically protect corporate interests as opposed to the best interests of their own constituents. Okay, so this is great news. We're now having a national conversation about whether Joe Manchin is bought off by corporate

donors. And so, look, I think Dana Bash did a really good job in that interview. She was tough and asked the questions you needed to ask. The next interview, we might even get a follow-up on whose donors are. Because once you find out who the donors are, it gets worse and worse. I do know someone who asked that question. We'll get to him later. Fine, it's me. You're unbearable. Okay. Okay, no, but seriously, this is really important. And I only give that as an example of what should happen on a regular basis. But no corporate Democrat was ever asked about their donors until just Democrats came in and now finally have brought this issue forward.

And not just Democrats, wonderful progressives like Katie Porter. And now it forces, just what did I tell you guys? It forces the media to then ask them about it. Now we're having the right conversation. Why is Joe Manchin doing what he's doing? And so I got so much more on that. But thank you to AOC and the others for us finally getting to the heart of the matter. What actually motivates them to vote the way that they do?

Yeah, and before I get to the second part of Mansions interview with CNN, I do want to give you the tweet that sparked this conversation in the first place. AOC had tweeted the following, Mansion has weekly huddles with Exxon and is one of many senators who gives lobbyists their pen to write so-called bipartisan fossil fuel bills. It's killing people, our people, at least 12 last night, sick of this bipartisan corruption that masquerades as clear-eyed moderation. And of course, she's responding to Mansions Op Ed, where he makes clear that he is against the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill, which includes incredibly important provisions, including climate action, paid family leave, and expansion of Medicare to include dental and vision.

And so I love the fact that she hit pretty hard in that tweet. It apparently had an effect. And here's the second part of the interview. Do your own facts. I mean, your own opinions. You're just not entitled to create your own facts to support him. And that's exactly what they're doing. The facts I've given you is the transition's happening.

Reliability. Look what happened in Texas. It was natural gas that basically shut down. In Texas it caused all that horrible carnage of people. It was awful. You have said pause. What the Senate wants to do is get this worked out by this week so that the House can vote on it September 27th. Is that a timeline that you can support it anyway?

There's no way we can get this done by the 27th. If we do our job, there's so much differences that we have here and so much, there's so much apart from us where we are as far as our, I'm giving you different things, I've been talking, I'm working, working with people, I'm willing to talk to people. It makes no sense at all. There's so much to unpack in that clip. And I want to debunk much of what he had to say, which means, you know what? It's time to take a trip to the debunker. You didn't see Republicans when we had control of the Senate try to rig the game. It shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.

Our systems are not racist. So Jake, two quick things I want to mention before I toss to you. Number one, this is a side note, but Mansion in a very weasily way just said that people died in Texas during that winter storm because of the natural gas failing the people of Texas. No, it's a deregulated, privatized energy grid that failed the people of Texas. Since it was deregulated, it was not weatherized to withstand the temperature, that Texans were experiencing during that winter storm. That's a side note.

Getting back to the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, he claims he has a problem with the spending. Then why did he vote in favor of the framework for that bill, which clearly stated that it would spend $3.5 trillion. Now he's backing away from it, and gee, I wonder why. Could it be that he has these weekly meetings with his donors, including ExxonMobil, which we'll get to in just a second.

Cenk. Yeah, I like the line that Davis wrote ahead the other day. We're now negotiating this with a coal baron who lives on a luxury yacht. And that's who Joe Mansion is. So when we are debunking him, understand that he has, as we've mentioned many times, not just corporate contributions to his campaigns, but personal money invested in the coal industry. So that's why he keeps saying it doesn't make any sense. And in a way to be fair to him, it doesn't for him. He looks. money. Now, we would save the planet, but for him, that doesn't make sense. He doesn't want to lose any money. So I want to contribute to this in going back to the first video, he said, I keep my door open. And he said, you know, every week, I don't know. Look, I don't know about every week. In other words, yes, you do meet with them all the time with great regularity. In fact, a jar of Jambingino member here wrote in not weekly meetings. So, okay, so what is it biweekly then? But it was very clear from his answer.

He said, in the middle of it, I keep my door open. That means, yes, I definitely have meetings with lobbyists. And so he said the superlatives are awful when you point out the fact. And later he said facts are not negotiable. But at that time, he's like, you want to point out a fact about my regular meetings with lobbyists. Well, that is just a superlative. And that is divide, divide, divide. She don't like that.

Yeah. Corruption, not awful. pointing out corruption, awful, that is a normal talking point in Washington, D.C. And if you notice, and AOC later took umbrage with this, he called her a young lady instead of a congresswoman. Now, you can say, hey, that's nitpicking. But she made an interesting point, AOC did, when she said, now if I used age and gender, would that seem okay? So if I say, oh, I haven't met the old man, okay, but I hear he says this. And I was like, oh, damn, that's a really good point. Like no one would find that acceptable. And she further added, he's using that

kind of language, not because AOC needs a title, and she needs some respect in that sense, but he's using it in a way to put her down. Like this young lady who doesn't know how Washington works, within the context of his answer, it's clear that that's his implication. To diminish the power she has, really. That's what it's really about. So I also want to remind you all of something we learned about earlier this year, when a senior Exxon Mobil lobbyist mentioned Joe Manchin by name as he was interviewed for what he believed was another position at a different company. Now, he didn't know he was being recorded, but here's what he had to say. Who's the crucial guys for you? Well, Senator Capito, who is the, who chairs the Senate, who's the ranking member of environment of public works.

Joe Manchin, I talk to his office every week. He is the kingmaker on this because he's a Democrat from West Virginia, which is very conservative state. So he is, and he's not shy about sort of staking his claim early and completely changing the debate. So on the Democrat side, we look for the moderates on these issues. So it's the Mansions, it's the cinemas, it's the testers. Oh, that senior Exxon mobile lobbyist just said that he speaks to Joe Manchin every week. Joe Manchin the Kingmaker speaks to him every week.

Seems like Representative Acosio Cortez was absolutely correct in stating very specifically how often Joe Manchin meets with fossil fuel lobbyists. And there's another thing that Keith McCoy said there that's really relevant. Joe Manchin isn't normally shy about it. But here we've come to an interesting intersection because he will go and take checks from the Chamber of Commerce right before a statement or right after a statement, where he basically supports their legislative priorities. And he kills corporate tax cuts, then goes to the Chamber of Commerce and just give me the money, give me the money. Now though, he's being called out for his corporate owners in the press for the first time in national media. And so before he was brazen

about it, because there's no downside. You can go collect those checks, you can show it to people, Hey, I just got bribed. And the restaurant association is the perfect example. Right after he kills minimum wage, he goes and collects checks from them. I mean, normally if you had a functioning press in America, they'd be like, oh my God, look at the outrage. That looks like outright bribery, right? And Manchin used to walk around with checks like taped to his head in Washington.

And no one ever pointed it out. And so now being pointed out by a fellow Democrat, then on CNN, my guess is he'll be a little less brazen now. So we'll see if he takes a couple of patches off of his NASCAR suit, right? I doubt it. But there's no question that Exxon Mobil lobby is saying, oh yeah, that's my boy, okay? That's the guy we go to to get ExxonMobil a good hearing under the dome, as they say. Now one other things, throughout that interview, he kept saying about how there's no urgency for this three and a half trillion dollar bill. He said, on the other hand, there is urgency, and he kept using the same.

word over and over again about the $1 billion so-called bipartisan bill. Yeah, the corporate handout bill. Yeah, yeah, the corporate backed one, right? So why is he saying that? Because he can say, oh yeah, the $3.5 trillion, I'm like, we're going to negotiate, I'll do something along those lines. But later, let's vote on the one that's corporate backed first. Well, that's the oldest trick in the book.

So he apparently thinks it's still the old days where he can do that trick. And we're about to find out, because the old days were like a minute ago. So if the progressives say no, you're either passing them both at the same time or you're not passing your corporate-backed one, then he'll find out it's the new days and he actually has to negotiate. Well, the good news is on that same episode, the other senator who was interviewed was Bernie Sanders. And during that interview, he made abundantly clear that progressives will not pass the bipartisan corporate handout bill unless they pass the $3.5 trillion. budget reconciliation bill. They're not kidding. They're now on the record multiple times making it very clear that they are willing to sink the bipartisan bill unless they get exactly what they want with the reconciliation bill. Now look, they're going to negotiate are a few things

likely to be either cut down or cut back a little in that bill. It's likely, right? The real question is to what extent? But nonetheless, I do find it interesting that back in 2017, Senator Joe Manchin was asked point blank, whether he is influenced by his corporate donors. He didn't really seem to scared of that line of questioning. Maybe he minimized independent media in that case. But I do want to remind you all of how that interview went down. Well, you voted to repeal the stream protection rule. And your top donor is first energy that wound up getting in some degree of trouble for putting arsenic in a pond.

It seems like they would benefit from the repeal of that regulation. So did that have anything to do with your vote? No. Jenks, I know it's hard to believe, and I know it's hard for people to, I don't have any idea who gives me money. I don't solicit from the standpoint. Do you do this for me? Quit pro quo? That's never been me.

That's not my political mantra at all. This is the list of your top donors. I thought you said that you don't, I understand that you said you don't do quid pro quo. That was clear. Yeah. But you know who your top donors are, right? I do not. You don't know who your top donors are?

I do not. You're showing me something I've never seen. Okay, so this is from Open Secrets. I know you have, Jenks, I know that it's hard for anyone to believe. I do not. I do not, Jenks. I do not. Yeah.

He totally in the dark about who his donors are. I'm sure he has no idea as he's fundraising for his reelection campaigns. I'm sure if he has no idea at all. Guys, if you know Washington at all, that is actually the most outrageous fabrication anyone could ever say. I know it's hard to believe, Jank. I know it's hard to believe. There's a good reason why it's hard to believe. No one should believe it.

Yes, they know who their top donors are with great specificity. That is the one thing they are all obsessed with. The idea that a sitting senator wouldn't know who his top donors are is patently absurd. And so I'm hoping that's the next level we get to in mainstream media where they can say, hey, look, here's a graphic of your top donors. It looks like there are a lot of energy companies and drug companies, and it looks like your votes match their interest nearly perfectly. That's the interview we had here on the Young Turks. It was a little uncomfortable at times, but that's called journalism. And I just want to direct you guys to one more piece of data regarding campaign donations that go to people like Joe Manchin, specifically from fossil fuel companies.

Japanese, analysis of campaign disclosures found the six Democratic senators, Senator Mark Kelly, Maggie Hassan, Joe Manchin, Chris Coons, Kirsten Cinema, and John Tester received a combined total of nearly $33,000 from lobbyists, political action committees, and lobbying firms affiliated with Exxon over the past decade. So it's not just about Mansion, Mansion just tends to be the most vociferous in speaking out against the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, but understand that corporate Democrats in the Senate are and will continue to be a problem unless they're taken to task over their conflicts of interest, not just through corporate lobbying and the money that they received from legalized

bribery, but also from their personal investments in fossil fuel companies. Joe Manchin makes half a million dollars a year alone from being invested in a fossil fuel company in a coal company and that's a problem. Obviously, that's a conflict of interest and he should be completely divested from it. But half a million dollars is more than double what he receives in his Senate salary. So I doubt that's going to happen unless laws are passed to make it so. Yeah, we'll provide a link down below in the description box for that interview that I did with Joe Manchin about four years ago. It was really interesting. Check it out if we can. Always check out the description box, good links in there quite often.

All right, we gotta take a break. When we come back, a self-described feminist has decided to back a misogynist like Larry Elder in the recall race in California. We've got that story and more when we return. All right, welcome back to the TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys, tons of news. We go over to Casper. Rose McGowan, a woman who has placed herself in some sort of feminist movement, is now stumping for a man who sees women as second class citizens. Now I'm specifically talking about the gubernatorial recall election in California, Gavin

Newsome might be recalled. It's really too hard to tell based on polling, but if California voters do in fact vote in favor of recalling him, the person who is likely to replace him is Larry Elder, who's got a pretty long history of treating women in, you know, in a way that makes it clear that he sees him as second class citizens. Now why? Why is she supporting Larry Elder and why do she decide to stump for him over the weekend? Well, McGowan denounced the Democratic Party throughout her endorsement speech for Elder, claiming that Newsom's wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsome, offered her hush money in 2017

to stay quiet regarding her sexual assault allegations against Weinstein. Now, as far as I know, there's no evidence of her paying hush money. And if she did pay hush money, that would be a serious allegation. But she does claim that the entire Democratic Party is or was protecting Weinstein. Newsom's wife denies these charges through a spokesperson. She says that it's disappointing, but not surprising to see political opponents launch these false attacks. Just days before the election, their limited correspondence has been strictly as fellow survivors of sexual assault and in Jennifer's former capacity leading the representation project, an organization that fights limiting gender stereotypes and norms.

Now, during her speech, McGowan also said, quote, do I agree with him on every issue, meaning Larry Elder? No, so what? He's the better candidate. He's the better man. And I think that we'll maybe have a discussion about whether that's true in just a minute. But here's a little more from her stump speech. Why not change? Why not go peak? Why not put a stake in the heart of evil? Because that's what this really is. This is good and this is evil.

And if you're tired of people looking at this country like it's the Florida of the world, which it is looked upon that way, because it's earned it in a lot of ways. I know this place has it in it to be better. I know it does. I've met so many good people in this country. Not the elites. Absolutely not. But the person I meet, you know, that's the housekeeper at the hotel I'm staying at,

who shouldn't even have that title because she's a queen of a woman. And then we have the Jennifer Siebel Newsom's of the world. Why? Why do you keep choosing that? Why do you keep electing that? Don't listen to their buzzwords. Cult leaders, which is what these people are. I would know I grew up in one, like I said. They massage your mind. They keep you in fear. They keep you in doubt. I kind of suspect on the inside that this is all a lie, but I don't want to be the one that stands out and takes it on the chin. Well, I'm here to confirm for you. It is a lie. It is a fact. Listen, I'm no fan of Gavin Newsom, I'm certainly not in favor of replacing him with a lunatic

like Larry Elder, but no one elected Newsom's wife to be the governor. And she's not the governor, she's the governor's wife. With that said, you know, McGowan cares a lot about the issue of sexual assault. So I don't know, maybe she didn't know that Larry Elder has not only made disparaging comments about women, but specifically disparaging comments about women who have been sexually assaulted. His disparaging comments have been as recent as January of 2017 when he deleted a tweet that implied women taking part in the women's march were too unattractive to be sexually assaulted. But he's the better man.

He's the better man. You know, he's the better man. Anyway, go ahead, Jake. I have more, by the way. Yeah, so, look, I think it's kind of a little bit sad to watch. I think, I really, I mean, I'm, I don't know a personal mental health situation, but when you are, get on a hinge from reality enough to think Larry Elder is the better choice for women, I got to start questioning your judgment. And so, and it's not political in the sense of like, hey, I like Gavin Newsom's tax position better than I like Larry Elder's tax position. No, it's on this issue, right? And so, and so look, let me give you, let me be fair and tell you what she said about why she's making this accusation.

And so, and it's not impossible. So for, she said, apparently, she claims, Gavin Newsom's wife said, what can Boyz Schiller do to make you happy? Okay, now, Boy, Schiller, what is that? Well, Boy Schiller Flexner is the law firm that represented Harvey Weinstein. And so, and it turns out the son of the co-founder, Jonathan Schiller, is Josh Schiller and is a sister-in-law to Jennifer Newsom. Okay, now does that mean that she's actually connected and actually said those things when she called Rose McGowan? I would be surprised. That's a hell of a thing to say to a person you don't know.

And some of McGowan's comments have not proven to be perfectly accurate. She went on to say McGowan did. I had no idea who that was, so I just had nothing and hung up on her. That was my last contact with her. Well, I mean, if you say that she said this mysterious thing about this law firm, and then you instantly hung up on her, even though you didn't know what that law firm was or what those series of names were, well, then how are we supposed to know what she actually meant?

Even if your story's 100% true, you never even gave her a chance. And so there's a lot of issues here that makes me go, this doesn't sound like the most credible story. I just, I lost track. So how many degrees of separation was that from Gavin Newsome? Yeah. How many degrees of separation? It's Gavin Newsom's wife's sister-in-law's something. Oh, okay.

Sister-in-law, how could Josh be a sister-in-law to Jennifer Newsom? Yeah, so understand that stump speech wasn't about, hey, Gavin Newsom did a bailout that he shouldn't have done to PG&E, which has sparked many vicious wildfires and destroyed people's lives as a result. It wasn't about that. It wasn't about the homeless issue. It wasn't about any of that, right? Look, I do not like Gavin Newsom. I voted against the recall. And the reason why I voted against the recall is because there are no candidates who would replace him and do a better job. In fact, all of the other candidates are pretty awful. Larry Elder being the top of that list of awful replacements,

okay? And for her to make the, it's about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. That's all this was. That's all that was. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, based on something that's, I don't know how many degrees of separation from Gavin Newsom himself. And you're playing with people's lives. I don't, look, I know, Jake is actually, I respect the fact that you're being considerate about potential mental health issues that Rose McGowan has. But she's messing with people's lives and it's not cute, it's not funny, and this is exactly what people are referring to when they discuss white feminism, right? Because white feminism isn't about doing something in a collective way to ensure equality between genders. White feminism is about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me,

that's it, that's all this was about. And it was disgusting. Let me give you more from Larry Elder, since that wasn't enough. Let's go to the next clip. This is Larry Elder on his radio show, talking about women. You know, when you look at all these women that have marched something like two million women, Donald Trump has probably gotten more obese woman off the couch and in the streets working out than Michelle Obama did in eight years. Sounds like he cares a lot about women. What a great guy.

There's more, though. In the early 2000s, Elder maintained a page on his personal website on women and domestic violence statistics, citing three articles that alleged a narrative that violence against women was exaggerated for political gain of feminists. I'd love to know what Rose McGowan thinks about that. One more. He said, quote, women know less than men about political issues, economics, and current events. Good news for Democrats, bad news for Republicans, for the less one knows, the easier the manipulation. You know, women are all just idiots that are easily manipulated by smart men. Yeah, and of course Larry Elder on other social issues that I hope

people like Rosemian at least pretend to care about like racial issues is horrible. So the reason why Republicans love Larry Elder is it's a person who's African American who says that it's the fault of African Americans at every turn, every turn. and makes them feel like they have peace of mind about the racism. Larry Elder has said, well, the slave owners should have gotten reparations because they were losing property. We showed you that clip last week. And he said that he was glad George Zimmermo's new neighborhood watch in Trayvon Martin's community. And he'd like it if George Zimmerman was doing neighborhood watch in his community.

I mean, that's just absurd. He's an absurd person who, like many minorities in the conservative circles, are paid to be there because of their particular demographic, but only under the condition that they speak out against their own demographic, their own culture, their own people, et cetera. So to back a guy like that, because you think that you had a foot, like, that somebody, Gavin Newsom's wife said two names you think before you hung up on her. No, but that's a, if you had real evidence, we're very open to it because we don't like Gavin Newsom because I don't think he's remotely progressive and I think he's works for corporate interests. But right before an election, you're going to go put your weight on Larry Elder who has this awful track record because you think Newsom's wife said two names that you didn't investigate because you hung up immediately. No, I'm sorry, but that's just not credible enough. It looks like you're being at a minimum used for political and electoral reasons in a way that's a little disgusting. And I leave you with one more graphic on this story.

In his books, Larry Elder endorsed pregnancy discrimination, according to a report for media matters, suggesting that working mothers aren't dedicated and available for an all hands-on deck commitment to work. What a warrior for women's rights. Good job, Rose McGowan. Proud of you. Real proud of you. She said he was the better man. Yeah, it doesn't look that way, no. All right. Let's move on to, I don't know, maybe Rose McGowan would think of these people as better men as well. Who can tell? A new book titled Too Famous by Michael Wolfe reports that Steve Bannon gave sex offender Jeffrey Epstein hours of media training prior to a 60 Minutes interview that didn't end up happening. Now, this was written about by Ben Smith in the New York Times, and I'll give you those

details in a second. But Bannon apparently visited Epstein back in 2019, months before his arrest on charges related to federal sex trafficking. The pair met at Epstein's Upper East Side Mansion ahead of a 60 Minutes interview that never ended up happening. And the pair practiced for the interview with a camera. Now I'm going to give you Bannon's statement in response to all of this in just a second, but I do think it's important to get into the nitty-gritty, give you what the details are. Bannon is both conducting the interview and coaching Epstein on the little things, Ben Smith writes, telling him he will come across as stupid if he doesn't look directly into the camera now and then,

and advising him not to share his racist theories on how black people learn. Mainly, Bannon tells Epstein, he should stick to his message, which is that he is not a pedophile. I mean, look, it's such a serious story, but look at this like a viper's nest of awful people. Like, now look, Jeff, we're all racist here, but it doesn't play well in America. So let's stick to not being a pedophile, even though you're obviously a pedophile. Okay. Like just, I mean, do I need to say anything more?

I mean, and the right wing looks at that and goes, A, child molestation and child sex trafficking is horrible, B, those are my boys. What? What? And why do you think the Republicans are constantly charging Democrats with child molestation and in participating in these child sex trafficking in rings? Projection, it's in their head all the time. So they go, well, if we're doing it, we assume they must be doing it.

So hey, Bannon's buddies with Jeffrey Epstein and goes and helps him do media manipulation like he did for Trump. And so he thinks, well, if we're all having, you know, doing whatever you're doing with kids, I guess the Democrats must be doing it too. Let's blame people. Come on, look here, show them the picture. There's another guy who seemed to be giving Jeffrey Epstein advice, and it was the guy that Bannon used to work for.

Oh, look at that. Hanging out with Epstein all the time. By the way, that's Gisley and Maxwell, who's now in prison, who helped Jeffrey Epstein, procure the women or the children actually for his crimes and Donald Trump wished her well twice after she'd been arrested. After she had been arrested. I wish her well, he said in a press conference before the American people. But who cares, right? I mean look, child sex trafficking for these Q and on conspiracy theorists is only a serious issue if they can use it against their political opponents. If it has to do with people

they agree with politically, well, then it just becomes a little inconvenient. Yeah. So, you know, we've talked about how terrible it was that a lot of powerful people who went down Epstein's island plane, including Bill Clinton. They, on the other hand, would be like, oh yeah, you're right. Bill Clinton, terrible. Trump. Oh, no, no, no, Trump was just like chastising him or so. No, Trump, I mean, every time we have pictures, by the way, there are multiple pictures of them arm and arm, partying the other, et cetera. Oh, there's another It goes on and on. No, no, no, no, no.

Trump was yelling at him. Really? Do they look like they're yelling at each other? They look like they're really good friends. That was at a party where they're both watching women dancing. Yeah, and they're leering at them and pointing out. Trump even said, everybody knows Jeffrey likes them young. He knew.

He knew that he was with children, okay? And that he talked about how they would come over to Epsi's pool. Trump knew for a fact. And they're like, oh, it doesn't matter. As long as he's a Republican, we don't care. Do anything you want to kids. Go help Jeffrey Epstein, the worst monster child sex trafficker in American history. Oh, that's all okay.

As long as this is my guys like Bannon and Trump. You guys that never mean a goddamn thing. All you want to do is just tear people down, tear down the left. And you use all of these incredibly serious issues as just talking points and propaganda. And it's really disgusting. And so here's this disgusting, I could go on and on it with adjectives about Steve Bannon, I'll pull some back. But this slovenly mess of a man going to, oh, Jeffrey, how can I help you, make you look better about your pedophilia?

And now, of course, he's going to have a lot of BS excuses. Oh, no, I was trying to expose him. Get the f out of here. Then why didn't you expose him when he was arrested? Oh, why didn't you help the authority? Did you turn in the information you had to the authorities? Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, yeah, all of a sudden, when you're caught with your hand in the pedophile jar,

all of a sudden, oh my God, Jeffrey Epstein, I was just getting him on tape. No, you weren't, you monster. So Ben Smith also writes in the New York Times of Wolf's book and the portion of the book that refers to all of this. By the end, Bannon seemed impressed. You're engaging. You're not threatening. You're friendly.

You don't look at all creepy. You're a sympathetic figure, Bannon says. Oh yeah, the worst child sex trafficker in history in this country. You look sympathetic. You don't look like a creep at all. We did a great job. We'll be able to lie really effectively to the American people. We'll trick them into thinking that you didn't have sex with all those children.

What we all know you did. Have I helped you enough? Bannon ass? Right? Yeah. And every Republican goes, I don't care. I don't care. They're one of my less children.

They're on my team. I love him. I love Bannon and Trump. Who cares? Who cares about the kids? Oh, I think the Democrats dude. Well, do you have any evidence of that? We have overwhelming evidence of this. No, I don't have any evidence of that. But some rando on Facebook told me, some rando on 4chan told me, if that still exists. I'm pretty sure it does. But look, Ben Smith wanted to check up on this, right? So he hits up Bannon. He's like, yo, bro, I mean, this is what Wolf is writing about you. Like, any statement? Do you want to confirm this happened? And Bannon did confirm that they met and that there was 15 hours of footage with Epstein. However, Bannon disputed Wolf's characterization of the transcript. Bannon said that he never media trained anyone and was recording the interview for a previously unannounced, and never released by the way,

eight to 10 hour documentary meant to illustrate how Epstein's perversions and depravity toward young women were part of his life, and that was systematically supported, encouraged, and rewarded, get this, by the global establishment that dined off his money and his influence. Oh, that's interesting. Like, are you referring to people like Donald Trump? And what happened to that documentary? What happened to it?

Yeah, that was because Bannon helped. I mean, got Epstein on tape. By the way, let's note here, guys, Epstein agreed to have Bannon tape him. Why? You think they would do that if they were enemies? Imagine if, you know, actual journalists, like Ryan Grim from the Intercept, says to Jeffrey Epstein, hey, I'd like to come and tape you for 10, 15 hours. What do you think? Jeffrey Epstein, well, no, hell no. I don't want to talk to you for 10 to 15 seconds, let alone 10 to 15 hours. Bannon, on the other hand, is buddies with him. So he's like, oh, you're going to help me? Sure, yeah. I mean,

here's a guy who knows he's being accused of the worst crimes you could imagine. And he lets this Bannon guy into his house for 10, 15 hours, and puts himself on tape with possibly incriminating evidence. Why? Because he trusts Bannon 100%. Because they're really good friends. And apparently they must have been for a long time to build up that kind of trust. And so now Bannon, who never released any such documentary, had years and years to do it, never turned it over to the police. I mean, that is incredible evidence that you withheld from the police?

Well, that's an interesting question that police should ask him about hey, why did you withhold that evidence about that child sex trafficker? We got Gislaid Maxwell in jail right now. We could use it against her. Give me the goddamn tapes. Not me, give it to the cops.

Why aren't you working with the cops? I thought you believed in law and order. Blue Lives Matter and all that stuff. No, you're withholding that evidence because you want to help your friend the child molester. The child rapist. And let's be clear about something, okay?

It's not Bannon's fault. It's the global cabal. Yeah, yeah. Like the fact that he used that excuse as part of his response to Ben Smith, it's one talking point, one trick pony, and what's incredibly frustrating is that Americans eat it up. All these people need to do is spew hollow, empty talking points about the elites without I'm not ever getting very specific about it. And people are like, oh yeah, yeah, it's the elites, it's the elites.

Okay, go on, go on. What do you think Steve Bannon is? You think Steve Bannon is like living in a tent on a sidewalk in Los Angeles? Anyway. Okay, Anna, one last thing. So it's a great point. Who's the one major elite that Bannon knows? Homeboy is working for the Chinese government as we speak.

Yeah, by the way, he knows a Chinese billionaire, that's another elite, that's a good point. But the one he's most famous for is so-called real estate, mogul billionaire who became president. That would be the definition of elite, and that's the one Bannon knows the best. Right. And if you were planning to spring a trap on these global elite who were buddies with Epstein,

well, do you have that information? Do you have it on these folks? And you're not telling us? No, guys, again, if you're a right-winger, why don't you ask Bannon these questions? Hey, brother, do you have evidence on all these guys? Because you said you got it. You were working with Epstein

to expose the global elites. So, Where's your goddamn evidence, Steve? Where is it? And who are you gonna expose? And why have you been hiding it for year after year after year? Why are you hiding it? Nah, don't get caught and go, oh, yeah, oh, I was gonna get him. I mean, on table, it looks like I'm helping him.

And I'm telling him how sympathetic he is. But I was gonna get him much later many, many, many years after he's already dead. And made, what, after his co-conspirator gets acquitted? When were you going to expose him, Steve? What a monstrous liar. Lyer. All right, we gotta take a break, but when we come back, it's a little alarming that a conservative like Chris Wallace asks tougher questions of GOP lawmakers than members of the corporate media tend

to. We've got that story and more when we come back. All right, back on TYT, Jen Canana with you guys. News. Chris Wallace, a conservative anchor on Fox News, happens to ask tougher questions of Republican governors and GOP lawmakers than most members of the corporate media do, which is pretty alarming. But I got to hand it to him, his line of questioning toward Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts

was perfect. Let's take a look at the first clip. It should be a personal healthcare choice. This is not something that the government should mandate. And somebody shouldn't have to make the choice between keeping their job and getting a jab in the arm. I mean, it's just wrong. I've talked to people, a number of people who have told me if they made me take the vaccine, I'm just going to be fired. I'm not going to do it.

But you say it's a personal choice. In fact, to attend school in your state of Nebraska, children must be vaccinated against a number of diseases. Let me put them up on the screen. They must be vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, and rebella, hepatitis B, and chicken pox. Why are those mandates that parents in your state must comply with and do comply with routinely? Why is it that they're not so objectionable in such a violation of personal freedom, but Biden's vaccine mandates are? Well, for all those that you just listed, there's a long history that parents have had the opportunity to see how those things have been implemented. And there's still a lot of people out there who don't know what to trust.

And in fact, this is really an outcome of what the CDC has done because they flip-flop on so many issues, whether it's masks or whether you have to mask after being vaccine and so forth. There's just a lot of people out there who don't know who to trust right now. I'm sure right wingers and some podcasters putting all sorts of false information out there has nothing to do with people being confused about what they should or shouldn't trust. I'm sure that has nothing to do with it, right? But here I'll answer the question directly for the Nebraska governor. The reason why all those other vaccine mandates are not objectionable, but this vaccine mandate is objectionable is because this is what the right-wain. is using for their culture war issue of the day. That's all it is. That's the reason why. We have more from the interview in just a second. But Jay, go ahead.

Well, look, to be fair to the right wing, I think they probably should get polio for freedom's sake. And throw in a little bit of chicken pox too. Why? More freedom. You don't want to be a little free. You want to be a lot free, right? So Rubella, whatever it's high for, whatever we just smear it all over yourself, then you'll be the freest man in America. Now, of course you wouldn't do that with those diseases because no one ever told you to, not only the doctors, but it wasn't a political issue. It wasn't right wing, left wing, or anything like that. You're like, oh, polio is really bad. I don't want to have it. That's the conversation that used to happen. Now it's, hey, coronavirus is really bad, over four million dead all across the world,

and go just talk to anyone you know. Did they know someone who's been affected by it, right? But no, magically, that's the one where, oh my God, the same government that approved all those other ones, the FDA approved this one. Every doctor in the world says it, go to any emergency room, they'll tell you, we're all full, especially in the South, right, because of COVID patients, and they're dying, and you can look at the morgue, and you can see them being taken on in the back. Like, nope, nope, this is the one. Why, Tucker Carlson, Jimmy Dorr, whoever else, right, Donald Trump kind of winks and nods at it. And every dumb-ass radio host, oh, minus four of them because four of them got coronavirus and died because they didn't take the vaccine.

And so because of that, and his voters saying, I demand you be dumb. So he goes on national TV is dumb. And Chris Wallace challenges him on how ignorant he is. And he looks like an idiot. Yeah, but I don't even know if it's the constituents pushing this on the Republican lawmakers. It's Republican lawmakers who chose to turn this into a culture war issue, right? I mean, the Disinformation coming from right wingers was apparent from the very beginning of this pandemic. Because, I mean, look, masks, for instance, masks became a culture war issue, a symbol of political identity and nothing more, right? That's what it turned into, unfortunately. More than 650,000 Americans gone, dead, hospitals, ICU beds, completely overwhelmed, completely full,

to the point where, and we'll talk about this later in the show today, people with other health emergencies like a cardiac issue, get turned away and literally die because there are no hospital beds. So it's it's incredibly frustrating and notice how rather than directly answer the question, he immediately started talking about like people don't know what to believe, people don't know what to believe. And then later he tried to make a point about how, well, you know, those other things that we've gotten vaccinated for, those are, you know, very serious issues. But COVID is not as serious. Oh really?

You don't think that 650,000 Americans gone? as a result of this pandemic is not a big issue, we have a 9-11 every two days in this country, meaning 3,000 Americans die every two days in the United States from coronavirus. Apparently the governor of Nebraska doesn't think that's a big deal. He thinks that those lives aren't really that important. Interesting. All right, let's go to the second half of this interview. Well, the president should look at the data, and maybe the president should attend one of the weekly calls his administration has with all the governors.

He's not been on one yet since he's been president and maybe talk to some of the governors and ask them about what's going on in their states because he appears to be pretty ignorant of what's going on in places like Nebraska. Let's talk about the COVID situation in your state. And again, it's not just about kids. It's about the entire population. Let me put the stats up on the screen. Back in June, Nebraska was averaging 23 new cases a day. Now, with the Delta surge, you're averaging 750. new cases a day. Governor, that's the highest since last winter.

Yeah, and again, what we focus on is preserving our hospital capacity, and that we have seen steady increase in hospitalizations throughout the course of the summer. Here in the month of September, the number of hospitalizations has bounced around between 379, and then on Friday it dropped down to 350, so it's been in that range through most of September, and that is in contrast to the 987 we had at our peak in November of 2020. 20. So you can see we're well below where we reached our peak last year. We did declare a staffing emergency for hospitals to be able to help them manage their folks, you know, to make it easier to bring in nurses and so forth. But what we focus on is providing that hospital capacity. We set up a transfer center to be able to move people around between hospitals statewide and all that to make sure we're protecting the hospital capacity. And that's our guiding star here in Nebraska. And we've done it very successfully. Hey Pete, why are you having problems with hospital capacity? Could it be that there are high numbers of new COVID cases and hospitalizations now that,

you know, people like you have failed to encourage people to get vaccinated? Like, I love how he did that. I love how he just immediately deflected. It was like, well, you know, we're doing a great job with hospital capacity. No, you're not. You're not doing a great job with hospital capacity. You're not. When the hospitals are overwhelmed with COVID patients, you're doing a poor job in managing the

situation and the audacity for him to point to President Joe Biden and be like, oh, maybe he needs to have a discussion with these governors. No, maybe he knows what's going on and he sees the failure of GOP governors like Mr. Ricketts and has decided to finally show some leadership on the vaccination issue. And by the way, it's only, it's companies with 100 employees or more that are not mandated to get vaccinated. They are told you should get vaccinated, but if your employees do not get vaccinated, they need to submit to COVID tests every week. Honestly, I would go further if I were president. I'd be like, no, vaccine mandate, no exceptions other than if there's a health issue with getting vaccinated.

I wouldn't even make an exception for religious reasons. Sorry, when your religious beliefs harm public health, we got to put public health above your religious beliefs. I'm sorry. We don't live in a theocracy. You don't like it? Too bad. Oh, but God thinks that I have a right to make you sick. Well, God might think that, but the Constitution doesn't. And I know you don't believe that. You think the Constitution is the Bible, but it isn't, and you're ignorant. Okay, now he says, oh, we're doing a good job managing hospital capacity.

You know what would help you manage hospital capacity? If you encourage people to take the vaccine, then your hospitals wouldn't be filled up with unvaccinated people who have coronavirus. Now, look, Anna, I think there's two different kinds of Republican politicians. The ones that are mouth breezes themselves, and they'd revel in lying. And they said, oh, so if they had gotten a question like Ricketts did, they would have been like, oh, you know the problem with why we're having more COVID cases? Because one, we're not, two, they're not giving enough ivermectin, three freedom, right?

So this guy instead buried himself in a pile of numbers, and you could tell he, I know you're going to think I'm extrapolating, but you can tell even in his facial expressions, he's kind of embarrassed when he like did that ridiculous attack on Biden, and then he just kind of pulls back like, He seems so unfazed by everything. Yeah, he's like, you know why? Because he got it, there was, and by the way, I tell you this from having read a lot of the governor's reactions, not his, but I'm saying across the country throughout these last two years, and half the Republican politicians in the beginning were at different

points came out, even Governor Ivy in Alabama and was like, hey, get vaccinated, what are you guys doing? This was crazy, right? She's also against vaccine mandate. Now she's turned around. Why? Because they say things that are rationalized, they say two plus two equals four. And then their pollster comes in and says, oh my God, you're not going to believe this, but Republican voters in the state hate four.

You've got to say that it's five. And so they come out and they go, two plus two equals five, that's what I meant. Five equals freedom, okay? That's what it is, and I don't care. So that's why it's, their voters are mouth breathers. So yes, the virus actually, the virus of misinformation starts in shows like Tucker Carlson's, It then spreads to the voters, and then it percolates up to the other half of the Republican politicians, because the other half were happy, the abbots, etc., the Santuses, were part of

the original virus along with Tucker Carlson, is spreading horrible misinformation for their own political purposes. So it's a nightmare choice of all of these ghouls and goblins in the Republican Party, and if you're offended by that, we're offended that you're getting our fellow Americans killed at 200 times the size of 9-11, and everybody should be a thousand times more offended by that than, oh my God, the poor feelings of Republicans as they'd like to infect everyone else in the country. I don't care about your stupid feelings.

Yeah, exactly. And look, he wanted to pivot, Ricketts did, he wanted to pivot toward a discussion about like, oh, but children, you know, children are safe, you know, it's not a problem. And Chris Wallace, to his credit, redirected the conversation to where it needed to be. But I do want to answer the issue involving children and coronavirus. So New York Magazine reported recently that last week saw over 250,000 new child, child coronavirus cases, which according to the American Academy of Pediatrics is higher than at any point in the pandemic. It also means that children now account for more than a quarter of all new cases.

Now, this is true, most kids experience mild cases of coronavirus, thanks to their strong immune systems, and the under 18 sets still accounts for fewer new hospitalizations than any other age bracket. But as of September 2nd, data from 24 states found that under 2% of coronavirus cases in children resulted in hospitalization. So kids are in fact being hospitalized, so it really depends on a number of factors. The spike in hospitalizations is especially concerning. Why? Given the capacity of pediatric ICU units, which average just 12 beds per hospital. In Louisiana and Texas, some children's

hospitals are completely overwhelmed, with federal surge teams bringing emergency workers into help. Meanwhile, they're disingenuous and immoral leaders continue to tell them, it's optional. It's not a big deal to take the vaccine. Maybe you endanger your kids' lives and see how you like it. And that's because they're terrible people and they do it for political reasons. They're the worst of the worst. Yep, they're only pro-life

when it comes to regulating a woman's uterus. That does it for the first hour. When we come back, we're going to talk a little more about these overwhelmed hospitals and what it means for other patients who have medical emergencies and need care. And Howard Stern versus Joe Rogan. It happened, and it happened for a good reason.

We'll explain. Thanks for listening to before. full episode of the Young Turks, support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.