The Young Turks - Behar Bashing

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

Buttigieg allies frustrated at GOP attacks over train wreck. Norfolk Southern FINALLY agrees to paid sick leave deal. Florida journalist shot to death covering shooting from earlier in the day. Host: 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. Woo! It's up! All right. We got a fun show, amazing show, disaster show, all that wrapped up into one for you guys tonight. Uyghur, Anna Kasparin with you guys, and there are literally disasters in the show,

including the first story. Quite a few, quite a few. Well, Pete Buttigieg is having a tough time. For good reason, lots of foibles, so let's talk about that. Pete Buttigieg and his allies are super salty about the fact that he has been criticized pretty aggressively, both by the conservative media and also by actual journalists like David Sirota, who has been following his lack of regulations for the rail industry and his lack of concern for days after the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Now Buttigieg, who is the secretary of the Department of Transportation, will have you believe that he's been concerned from day one, but his actions seem to prove otherwise.

And so Politico writes this lengthy piece that's full of all sorts of excuses by allies. to Pete Buttigieg. So let's get into the details here. So on Wednesday, Buttigieg's allies were complaining that he's taking an unfair pounding weird choice of words, but nonetheless, over the disaster, all because of his perceived ambitions as a one-time and future presidential hopeful. No, no, that's not because he, that's not the reason why he's being criticized. Go ahead, Yeah, so it's funny for people in Washington, the folks who are actually affected by this in East Palestine, Ohio are such an afterthought. This has instantly become political football.

Thousand percent. Who's up, who's down? How is it affecting poor Pete Buttigieg? Who's taking a pounding over this? No, the residents are taking a pounding. Pete Buttigieg has done nothing and hence he is a tiny bit politically hurt by it because of his own inaction. action. He's not the one that's the victim here. It's amazing the way that they frame it. And they say, and why? Is it because he actually didn't push for any safety regulations? No.

It's because of his perceived ambitions to run for president. That's why he's being unfairly attacked from all these different sides, but especially the right wing are making this. But guys, we tell you a thousand times when the right wing is making stuff up, right? And they do it all the time. And in this case, their angle onto the story is wrong. But Buttigieg is, actually didn't do anything, and this accident wasn't because he was might run for president. It's a thing that actually happened in the real world. Buttigieg has been Transportation Secretary for two years. He admitted himself during an interview on Yahoo News that the derailment in East Palestine

is one of a thousand train derailments every year. You have been the Transportation Secretary for two years. If you know that these train derailments are as common as they are, who exactly was he expecting to regulate them? Who exactly was he expecting to take ownership and leadership of this position? And the fact of the matter is, Pete Buttigieg thought, great, I got nominated for Transportation Secretary. I'm confirmed, perfect, it's going to be smooth sailing from here. And then I'll run for president in the near future and everything will be great. Except it's a real job, believe it or not.

It's a real job. And yes, Republicans, the Trump administration further deregulated the rail industry. We've been covering that extensively. But who is in charge right now? And this is what we see with Democrats all over the place. In California, for instance, we have hundreds, I mean, tens of thousands of people suffering from severe mental illness all over our streets, okay, literally dying on our streets. And California, which is a blue state, completely dominated by Democrats,

you know what they say? Oh, it's all Reagan's fault. It's all Reagan's fault. He closed down all the mental asylums. It's all Reagan's fault. Who's been in charge for decades in California? Has it been Reagan? Yeah. Has it been Reagan? Do you guys get what I'm saying here? I'm just so sick of Democrats like thinking that any criticism toward them is like just part of an orchestrated right wing attack and it has nothing to do with the substance of the critique. I mean, it's insane. Well, it's actually a tactic that the Democrats use. So they're using it in this case, in this political article too, which is, they did it, right? Okay, all right.

Reagan did defund those hospitals. And in today, White House press secretary is saying Elaine Chow was Elaine Chow who wouldn't regulate for all that time under Trump. But, okay, that's also true. But Buttigieg didn't fix it. Two years. Like he, but guys, it's not like he ran out of time. He's never tried. Not once in two years.

So he's doing the same exact thing as Elaine Chao, but it's political football. So it's Chao, it's Buttigieg. No, it's both of them. They, their parties take corporate money, stuff it into their pockets, and then don't regulate them. So for cost cutting reasons. So, but the reporters drive me nuts. They just turn it instantly into is chow? Is Buttigieg down? Who's up? Who's down, right? Focus. Who cares what the Republicans and Democrats said?

What's the actual problem? It's not that Buttigieg didn't show up in time or he showed up too earlier or too late. It's that he didn't do his goddamn job and neither did Elaine Chow. And one more thing. It's actually worse than him just sitting there thinking, oh, I'm a cabinet secretary. I'll run for president later. Remember, they were supposed to, and they did pass an infrastructure structure bill. So he thought it was good, he was going to take the credit for the infrastructure bill and raise tons of money from the transportation industry when he was president. Now he's like, God damn it, I got to do the job. As you're going to see in this, in more devastating quotes here, he really has no interest in the job whatsoever. It's incredibly frustrating. Okay,

so with that said, one other comment from a senior Democrat who demanded to be anonymous for this piece, Pete Buttigieg has taken a lot of bullets. for this president on this? No, he has taken a lot of bullets because he has failed to do his job. He has been the head of the transportation department for two years. He knows about the derailments. He knows that there are thousands of them every year. And he chose not to regulate them. All right. So here's more. No, hold on. He's saying a bullet for Biden. Wait, are you implying that it was Biden's fault and Biden didn't want to regulate the trains? And Buttigieg, oh my God, he wanted to get in there and regulate. But you know what? Biden.

wouldn't let him. So he's taking a bullet for Biden. So now you're throwing Biden under the bus in an wild attempt to, it wasn't me. It wasn't me. It wasn't me. It wasn't me. It was everyone but me more. All right. So three people in Buttigieg's orbit admit being exasperated by the furor saying that nobody asked him about the derailment in any of the 23 media interviews he conducted during the first 10 days after the accident. Now, he's getting criticism because, I mean, the first point that people were making was it's been like over a week now, how come the transportation secretary hasn't addressed this? And then when he finally had a public appearance that would have been perfect for him to address it, or at least show some concern

for the people at East Palestine, he decided to talk about something that made absolutely No sense. We'll get to that in just a second. But according to Politico, Buttigieg was prepared to speak about the incident if asked, according to a dot official. But for 10 days, no interviewer asked him. Does he need to be prompted to say something about what happened in East Palestine? Really? He needs to be prompted, Jenk. Yeah. And of course, the reason why he says that is because he's saying, well, look, my job is all about marketing. I'm not here to actually do any governing or to protect you guys. And since the media didn't ask, me about something that might be damaging to our brand the only thing that I care about of course I didn't answer any of those questions I didn't care about that crash I haven't cared about the 999 other crashes and by the way neither did Chow and neither did the administration before that so for his point of view he's like I didn't think I should comment on an issue unless the media made it an issue in which case it could hurt my political ambitions and the president's

political ambitions and that's the only way that it would be relevant to him. He's telling on himself without realizing he's telling on himself. Exactly. So with that said, then on February 13th, we started to see a large uptick and mentions on the secretary's social media accounts, particularly on Twitter said a spokesperson speaking on condition of anonymity to describe behind the scenes events. That afternoon, we began to see stories on television and get inquiries about the Department of Transportation and Secretary's role in this derail. Now, the reason why there was a lot of attention toward his Twitter account 10 days later is because 10 days after the derailment, he attended the National Association of County's Conference.

And during that conference, he had some strong thoughts about what should be done in the construction field. Why don't we take a look at that? I would urge you, especially because often this is more in your hands than mine, to really work with organized labor, to work with your contractor. to work with your community colleges on building a workforce that reflects the community. We have heard way too many stories from generations past of infrastructure where you got a neighborhood, often a neighborhood of color that finally sees the project come to them, but everyone in the hard hats on that project looking like, you know, doing the good paying jobs, don't look like they came from anywhere near the neighborhood.

Yeah, except he just completely made that up, right? So just a lot of happy talk, a lot of pandering, which Democrats mainstream, corporate Democrats love to do, pandering to issues pertaining to diversity, even when what he's specifically talking about has nothing to do with diversity. Construction jobs are actually pretty freaking diverse. Like if you look at the statistics, 51.9% white, 29% Latino or Hispanic, 10.8% or almost 11% black or African American. he just made it up, he just made it up because it's not, he's just coasting, he's just coasting, and he is shocked that anyone would be frustrated by the lack of leadership coming from the Department of Transportation under his watch. So the 10 days comments really interesting because actually there was at least one organization, news organization covering this very extensively before then.

It was the lever, which is a progressive news outlet run by David Soroda. And we had them on here to talk about it as well. And but mainstream media was like discounted it because they thought, oh, Sarota's a progressive. So this must have to do with Pete Blonde. Buttigieg versus a progressive five years from now in a theoretical primary. So even though Cerritos reporting is perfect and exactly right, we're going to ignore it. Then 10 days after the accident, the right wing media picked up Cerritos reporting.

And they're like, oh, we could use this for our own purposes. And they did. And once right wing media picked it up, then all of a sudden mainstream media was like, oh, okay, left wing media is totally irrelevant. And they have all the facts, so we're going to ignore them. But right wing media is talking about it. Well, now this is a national issue, okay? So then Buttigieg, who knows all about it?

That's why he gave that quote about, this is about his presidential ambitions and people from all sides are attacking him. That's a veiled reference to progressives, right? Ignores it when a progressive asked him. But when Fox News asks me, jumps to attention, wait, this could affect my political career. Because the mainstream media cares about right wing media. Because right wing media has power, right? Progressive media, we're building power, but not to, we're not at the same extent as right wing media. We don't have the resources. We don't have billionaire donors that give us tens of millions of dollars to run our operation.

Yeah, and we don't have mainstream media amplifying our issues and our facts, whereas as soon as right way media says something, mainstream media has a reverberate throughout the country. And hence then they use this, the Buttigieg fans in the administration, they say these are bad faith attacks from Republicans. And when they say that, that's catnative for Democratic voters. They go, oh, this must be a Republican attack on poor Pete Buttigieg. Instead of saying, hey, Buttigieg, you're supposed to represent us and do regulations that Democratic voters want, they then turn around and support Buttigieg against Fox News and Republicans, just like the administration wanted. And meanwhile, you forgot that he's supposed to do regulations and he hasn't.

And guys, like, please spare me, like anyone who's upset at the reality that 95% of politics happens to be optics, I'm sorry, it's just the reality of the situation. So when they start calling on Pete Buttigieg to visit East Palestine, just do the decent thing and visit East Palestine and don't look for ridiculous excuses for why you couldn't do it. So yesterday, Donald Trump visited East Palestine. We know the truth about Donald Trump. We know that he deregulated the rail industry. As I said earlier, we've been covering that extensively. But do the people of East Palestine know it? I mean, probably not. And so when they see Trump show up and pass out water bottles, when they see Trump at the

local McDonald's ordering meals for the local fire department and the police officials there, they think, oh wow, Trump actually wants to do something to help us and Pete Buttigieg hasn't even been here yet. And then when Pete Buttigieg is confronted by reporters in this. case, yes, from the conservative outlet, the Daily Caller, he doesn't handle it well. So this was from yesterday, let's take a look at that interaction. What do you have to say to the folks in Ohio, East Palestine who are suffering right now? Well, I'd refer you to about a dozen interviews I've given today.

And if you'd like to arrange a conversation, make sure to reach out to my press office. But I've had that conversation with you. You don't have a message for them? I do, and I shared it with the press many times today. I'd refer you to those comments. Do you mind sharing it with us? No, I'm going to refer you to the comments that I made to the press because right now, I'm taking some personal time, man, I'm walking down the street.

Are you going down there? What's that? Are you going down there at all? Yep, I am. When are you going? I'll share that when I'm ready. Okay, thank you. Can I get a photo with me?

Yeah. I don't know why I wanted a photo with her. That was super weird. But nonetheless, I mean, it's just, I feel like, I feel like, there's been one mistake after another, after another, they keep compounding it, rather than just taking ownership. Stop looking for excuses and stop trying to pass the blame onto someone else. The other thing that really stood out to me in this political piece was that they were trying to throw the EPA administrator Michael Reagan under the bus, right?

Who, look, I don't know anything about the guy. I don't really care for him one way or the other. But nonetheless, again, trying to pass the blame onto someone else, even someone with in the administration, right? In order to kind of provide cover for Pete Buttigieg is insane. It's so transparent. In fact, I'm going to read you Graphic 9 because it's amazing. They say, as senior Democrats said, by the way, the senior Democrat could literally be Buttigieg himself.

I mean, the headline in the article even mentions Buttigieg world basically fighting back against these things. It's Buttigieg, okay? And if it's not Buttigieg, it's his top staffer with him overlooking the phone call. Anyway, that senior Democrat says, quote, there's a plume and there's a chemical spill. If anyone should have been there right away, it's Regan, but he's not a political target. And so what's happened here is they've picked a political target, and they're just beating the drum as often as they can despite facts. So that's him, Buttigieg's throwing another cabinet official under the bus, saying, oh, you know, I'm taking bulls for Biden.

And it should have been Reagan. He should be the one that's blamed. And yesterday we showed you the National Transportation Safety Board. I mean, it's really their job to do the safety, right? And Congress, Congress should be doing it. And the company should be doing it. Everyone but Pete Buttigieg should be doing their job. He's the only one that shouldn't be doing his job.

Hey, Pete, instead of blaming everyone for 20 days straight or actually 10 days straight, ignoring it for 10 days and then blaming everyone else, why don't you actually just push for safety regulations right now? So finally, let's get to that because I want to address that. Because even after all of this, even after all the criticism, all the demands for regulation, the rail workers looked at what Pete Buttigieg is doing in response in terms of regulation. They're like, what is this? This is, doesn't seem like he's really serious about this.

So why don't we actually listen to the rail workers, okay? Since everyone's so concerned about, oh, what's your political identity and won't trust your critique whether or not you're on the right side. Now, let's put all aside for a second, the rail workers, the individuals who are experts on whether or not what Pete Buttigieg is proposing in terms of regulation is enough, okay? As currently written, this is Graphic 10, as currently written, the proposed rule could allow for numerous instances of single crew operations in the coming years. Railroad Workers United tweeted. The alliance also shared a letter it had sent to the U.S. Department of Transportation last September, accusing the federal railroad administration of attempting to placate unions, community groups, and the general public, on the one hand, with a two-person train crew rule, while on the other

hand, signaling a green light to the industry to run trains with a single crew member. So that was one of the deregulations that the rail workers had been concerned about, had been voicing their concerns about for a while, and had been ignored, right? And so they're like, yo, we've We've been, we even contacted the Department of Transportation last September about this. And Pete Buttigieg is addressing it now. But even as it's being addressed by the federal government, they're trying to play both sides, which they're frustrated by. If he actually wanted to do something and protect American citizens, it's actually not that

hard. Right now what you would do is you know about four regulations that would make a big difference. The one Anna mentioned is one of them. modern breaks in the trains as another, rules on how you carry hazardous chemicals as another. So these are obvious and clear and almost all of them directly related to this accident. You can just come out and do a press conference. You and Biden could go together and go, I want these regulations passed. Republicans who are complaining, vote for this bill.

That's right. Why don't you do that? Why don't you do that? Hey, Trump, and he mentioned Trump Buttigieg today, but all the rest of you and all the Republican senators, Mitch McConnell and all your dear friends, Joe Biden, and by the way, your Democratic colleagues who are also corrupt and don't want to vote for it, I'm putting you on the line right now. Show me if you're going to vote for these regulations or you're going to betray the people of East Palestine, Ohio.

That would have been a far better way of responding to the criticism, right? Instead of trying to pass the buck, instead of trying to find cover or excuses, what would Republicans do in that situation, right? They would do that that strategy is exactly what they would do, right? They would do the press conferences, they would do the media tours, and they would incessantly discuss the fact that the rail industry was further deregulated by the Trump administration. And they would call for the specific lawmakers, people like Ted Cruz saying that, oh, can you believe what's happening?

I can't believe it. Call them out by name during the press conference and say, we want legislation right now. Go ahead. And once they vote against it, because we know the Republicans will vote against it, because they're in the pocket of the rail companies as well, then you do another press conference and you call them out by name. Instead, I mean, it's just embarrassing, guys. Anyone who provides cover for this nonsense, for this clownishness, like blows my mind. I don't get it.

So last thing, if you're wondering, well, why don't they do that? Really, there's not a single Democratic consultant or anyone in the administration that's got two brain cells that they could do that tactic you guys just said. You guys a bunch of talk, just a random talk show host, and you guys came up with something that makes perfect sense, right? Well, there's a reason why they don't do it. Because if you call out the Republicans on that, they're just going to turn around and go, hey, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, you guys have the same exact donors.

And by the way, you haven't passed any safety regulations. Not only you haven't passed them, you haven't even proposed them. That's why they don't do it because they're just as corrupt. All right. When we come back from the break, I'll show you how the media should probably avoid covering the story in East Palestine. ladies over at the view, in my opinion, didn't help the situation. That and more coming up. 41, who's a YouTube member with a hilarious point.

A thousand train derailments per year. If only they had a warning. All right, Anna. Well, I'm going to show you what the media shouldn't do in response to the train derailment in East Palestine. That's who you voted for in that district. Donald Trump, who reduces all safety, he did. He did.

Did they realize that? And this voters saw something on the ground that probably resonates in a way that they Yeah, but they need to look past the photo on these people and say who's doing the job here. Joy Behar and the ladies of the view decided that shaming the voting behavior of the residents of East Palestine was really the way to go when covering the story. Now, of course, there was a tragic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and now there are big concerns about whether or not the water is safe to consume in the town. Now, of course, Donald Trump deregulated the rail industry. And so Joy Behar is trying to draw attention to that and then basically blame the people of East Palestine for voting for him.

But I want to show you her comments with more context. Let's take a look at that. And then I want to hear your thoughts, Chink. I do think this was an unforced error by President Biden. It was 20 days before we had Secretary Buttigieg go down, 10 days before he put out a statement acknowledging it. This is Trump country. He won by 40 points. He is a president for all Americans. I believe that, but he needs to show that he is. But there was time for him. I don't know why they would ever vote for him for somebody who, by the way, he placed someone with deep ties to the chemical industry in charge of the EPA's chemical safety office. That's who you voted for in that district. Donald Trump, who reduces all safety. He did.

Does they show up at McDonald's and those voters saw something on the ground that probably resonates in a way that they need to look past the photo ops these people and say who's doing the job here. Forget about the photo op. Showing up is a big thing. Showing up I think this is Donald Trump's fault. I mean that's called it's his fault and then he shows up. So look, I want to note that while Trump absolutely did deregulate the rail industry, the deregulation that he did would not have impacted this train derailment. So even if he didn't reverse what Obama did, with the exception of the like the different breaks, that absolutely should have gone through. But my point is, look, you can talk about the deregulation. We've been talking about the

deregulation on the show, but making the assumption that the people of East Palestine, Ohio have all the information about deregulation in this current corporate media mess is naive to, at best, incredibly ignorant at worst, right? Because they don't have perfect information. You think, does the corporate media talk about the government deregulating things? Is that something they cover regularly? Or on the view. Look, that was an awful conversation.

There was only one fact given it. And funny enough, it was given by Joey Behar. before she made this so-called defensive comment. Was it offensive? Well, it was literally true. They did vote for Trump. Trump did deregulate, but it leaves out giant facts. Yes.

And so that context is really important. Now, what Joy Behar probably doesn't even know because she consumes mainstream media, and she probably hasn't read the great reporting that the lever is done on this, and has been doing from day one on this, which is that the Obama administration had one, small rule, the one that Anna mentioned, okay, there was a series of other regulations about modernizing their brakes, how you carry chemical hazards, how many staff you have, how many inspections you have so you can spot problems like the axle issue that this train

had, right? All those things, as usual with all Democrats, Obama did a light push. And golly, gee, the Republicans and other Democrats blocked them. And there was nothing he could do. So did Joy Behar criticize Obama for not trying hard on that? Did they criticize other Democrats for joining Republicans and blocking those regulations? Then Trump made it worse. He took away the one regulation that existed. He said he wouldn't do any regulation of the industry. So he definitely made it worse.

And then Biden came in and didn't even go back to the light nudging that Obama had. He hasn't proposed anything. Nothing. Okay, so let me also address that. Isn't it fascinating that Trump, comes into office and there's no debate. He unilaterally reverses what little regulation took place under the Obama administration, unilaterally. He didn't make a plea to the Republican controlled Congress to deregulate. He just did it on his own through the executive branch.

But when it comes to the Biden administration and the Department of Transportation under Pete Buttigieg's leadership, I call on Congress because he knows Congress is where legislation goes to die. He knows that. He knows that Congress isn't going to regulate the rail industry, but he has the power to do it. He just chose not to. And then after all of this controversy, he decides to put out some incredibly weak-sauce regulation proposals that rail workers responded to and said, this is, this is not enough. There are loopholes here, particularly loopholes that allow for the rail industry to operate the trains with one-person crews. Yeah. And by the way, they just had a near strike in this same industry. And who did Biden side with? He sided with the

companies and not the workers. He told the workers, I'm not even going to allow you to negotiate with them. I'm going to enforce a contract on you because he has that power in the executive branch. So funny enough, when he needed the power to crush the workers in the railroad industry, he found it. When he needs the power to regulate the railroad industry, oh, where where'd it go? Where'd it go? I just can't seem to find it. And so guys, this happens all the time on almost every issue. Republicans come in and get stuff done for the rich, they deregulate industries, and they pass tax cuts, right? Democrats come in and can't get anything done. And they go, oh, boy, I bungled it away again. Oh, golly, gee, one of the few things

I got passed was a semiconductor bill, which gives all of the money to the semiconductor industry, infrastructure bill, which gives all the money to infrastructure companies. Golly, gee, how did that happen? And the media can't tell. I mean, they complain about photo ops and stuff. You guys are the photo op. None of you discussed other than Joy Behan with that one little part, incomplete, talked about the actual problem.

Exactly. The regulations that aren't there under Republican and Democratic rule. But you guys are busy distracting the voters. Oh, blame Trump, blame Buttigieg. Blame Buttigieg. get into two different sides and have a fight that's over nonsense and photo ops, but don't ever actually talk about the regulations because corporations are not interested in that. By the way, the one other thing I'll just say, and look, I say this is someone who has probably

one of the cringiest videos of myself out there from the 2016 presidential election where I said horrible things about women who voted for Trump, okay? And I say this because I let my feelings, my emotions target voters. When in reality, there's all sorts of institutional issues here, especially when it comes to our media, something we talk about a lot. So like the optics of pointing your finger at ordinary people, which is what Joy Behar did in that video, is not good if you're trying to make a persuasive case to support, broadly speaking, the left, okay? So with that, go ahead, Jake. But Anna, so we take a slightly different stance on this. So Anna says don't blame the voters on the right wing or the left wing.

I say blame them both. Okay. And so, and I don't, is it mainly their fault? Of course not. It's the leaders that are deceiving them. And it's the media that is maybe the most at fault for covering up all those crimes, right? But yeah, the Republican voters vote for Trump who deregulates and gives, gave a $2 trillion tax cut to the rich. So what are you guys doing? You're voting for conmen. On the other hand, hold on. On the other hand, the part you're never, ever, ever going to see in mainstream media is Democratic voters are like, oh, Buttigieg in Biden aren't regulating. But the meetings at Fox News are attacking him. That's what we protect Buttigieg.

We protect Biden, right? Guys, do you know what's going on? If you watch mainstream media, you think you know what's going on? You don't know. The whole enterprise is built to maintain corporate rule. They're not giving you the actual news. You saw it in that segment, but you can see it in every segment. So yes, we all need to wake up together and realize we're not each other's enemies.

The guys in power are trying to get us to fight. That's right. So they could rob the place. But, okay, so my point though is, Jank, you know, this whole idea that, oh, Republican voters, they're voting against their best interest because they vote for Republicans. Okay, yeah, but I mean, we've been talking about the deregulation issue when it, when it comes to the rail industry. What's the difference between Democrats and Republicans?

Really? What's the difference? No, I know. There is no difference. No, no. In fact, not only is there no difference, guys, they're playing good cop, bad cop on you. And so is the media. Mainstream media goes, oh, we're the good cops and right wing media is more, you know,

brash and attacks people for their identity, etc. So they're the bad cops, right? But at the end of the day, they're on the same team. On any, here, watch, I'll tell you guys, we tell you all the time, if you're new to this, once we tell you, you can't unsee it. You'll see that on cultural war issues, there's nonstop fake fights, right? And real fights. But when it comes to economic issues, they always circle the wagons. Everybody in media, And everybody in politics. Somehow no one can find a way to regulate. Everybody can find ways to deregulate.

Somehow everybody's talking about Mr. Potato Head and M&M people, not people, cartoon characters. But they're not talking about regulating the railroad workers. They're all against lifting student debt. They're all against universal health care that every other country has. They're all against higher wages. It's causing inflation. Oh, well, look at that. MSNBC, Fox News and CNN, they agree all of a sudden.

It's all a game and it's being played against all of us. So there was another moment on the view that I think is worth discussing. But before we discuss that, I think it's important to understand the context. So Pete Buttigieg, 20 days after the train derailment, finally visits East Palestine, okay, seemingly begrudgingly. Now, he provided an excuse for why it took him so long to visit. So why don't we take a look at that? And then I'll give you the reaction from Sonny Hosten on the view. What I tried to do was balance two things.

My desire to be involved and engaged in and on the ground, which is how I am generally wired to act. And my desire to follow the norm of transportation secretaries, allowing NTSB to really lead the initial stages of the public facing work. I'll just some thinking about whether I got that balance right. No, no, you didn't get that balance right. So that's him, again, passing the buck to the National Transportation Safety Board. You know, that's the norm. I thought, you know, I can just sit back and have them take care of it. Then maybe I'll visit as long as, you know, there's enough pressure for me to do it.

But if there isn't any pressure, then I'm just not really going to, I'm just going to hope this is going to go away. Sunny Hosten responds to that. And, Jank, why do you take a guess? Do you think that she celebrates his excuse or do you think she accurately criticizes him? So this is a late writing story. So I haven't seen the clip and I don't know what's going to happen. Okay. So, but I can predict with great certainty. And if you watch the Young Turks, you could predict it with great certainty. You're gonna know ahead of time that she's gonna, I mean, it was an absurd thing to say. By the way, she says, oh, I'm just, I was just trying to follow the norms. Right. What is that? That's like the weakest excuse I've ever heard, right? And he's

He's blaming the National Transportation Safety Board, as Anna explained, but he's also blaming past secretaries. And that's a coordinated talking point, because then the press secretary came out of the White House and said, oh, Elaine Chao never went, right? So they're trying to pass the buck. Now if you're a journalist, these are easy to spot. But my guess is, we ain't find no journalist on television. So Sonny Hausson being a, the Democrat on the panel, is going to say, the Democrat is great. Let's find out.

Let's watch. Because I don't even think they know what's in the water, what's in the soil. I think they investigate, of course the investigation is still going on. And I think that that's an important point that Secretary Buttigieg made. You know, he's not there yet. He's received a lot of criticism for it. But he said, I want them to investigate it first rather than having me walk around doing what for a photo op.

And I actually appreciate that, especially because he was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, where I went to law school, small town. And he didn't do that type of, you know, photo op thing there. either. He did the work. So not showing up was the genius thing to do. It's admirable. It's admirable. Hey, look, what a weird thing that they chose a partisan side and decided did she talk about any of the regulations that a normal Democrat used to do back in the day, FDR, LBJ, et cetera? No, of course not. Because this isn't about actually protecting Democratic voters or Democratic citizens or any citizens. It's about protecting the elite.

on one side, and then the elite on the other side attacked them and attacked one another, but at the end of the day, no one gives a damn about you. Exactly, exactly. That's exactly right. Anyway, all right, we got to take another break. When we come back, why don't we switch over to some good news? Because there is good news for some of the rail workers for Norfolk Southern. We've got that and more. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. Right back on T.O.T. Jane can add it with you guys, but also Besequah just became a member.

And Lauren McCrae gifted 20 young Turks memberships on YouTube. Lauren, as usual, you're an American hero. Casper. Rail company, Norfolk Southern, has finally agreed to provide pay. sick leave to some 3,000 of its workers. Now the company has 19,000 workers, but this is a good start. And I'm sure the negative press attention they've been getting as of late has nothing to do with this decision. I'm sure it's all just a coincidence.

But nonetheless, this is a positive update for the workers who were actually about to strike over this particular issue, the lack of paid sick leave, until Congress decided to put their thumb on the scale and prevent them from doing so. Now here are the details. Around 3,000 of their unionized track maintenance workers will receive up to a week of paid sick leave. They will automatically get four days of paid sick leave every new year. So that's good. The deal will also allow employees to utilize up to a maximum of three paid personal leave days per year as paid sick leave. Now Tony Cardwell, who serves as the president of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division, says this. After 45 years of fighting for this issue, the carrier and union have accomplished what is needed for those who contribute the most to railroad profits, the workers on the ballast line. Now, David Dayan also made another point that I think we're all thinking, which is Norfolk Southern must be in the midst of some bad publicity.

for it to sign an agreement with around 3,000 unionized maintenance of way workers for seven paid sick days. And I think he's right about that. You know, yeah. So there's no question that Norfolk Southern is trying to get good press, and they're trying to distract you from the real problems. And when, again, since I run a company, I know how these things work. You do calculations on different costs and revenue lines, right? In this case, they, I guarantee you, they calculate the cost of those sick days versus how much they'd have to pay if they carried less cars in a train line, right? It used to be 80 to 90, which was already a lot. Now it's up to 150. That probably is a lot more money for them. Installing modern brakes instead of the brakes from the Civil War era,

containing chemical hazards better. All of them were probably more costly than the sick days. So they do run it through the spreadsheet, they get the answer, and they go, we will do a grand gesture and we'll hit two birds with one stone. People were complaining about their rail workers not having sick days before. And now they're complaining that we don't have enough of them on the trains. We'll do this smallest little change so that people will say that we did it and we could all move on. And by the way, usually the media and both parties will help us in our marketing efforts. That's right. And pretend that everything was addressed when we only addressed the smallest part of it.

I mean, the rail industry, which of course includes Norfolk Southern, has been lobbying hard to reduce the number of crew on each train from two to one. They want to cut labor costs. They have severely cut down on their workforce, specifically to save money and provide a larger return to their shareholders. They've been doing corporate stock buybacks. They have the resources to beef up security. They have the resources to treat their workers better. They just chose not to, specifically because their priority is to their investors. That's the way the system works.

So when, look, when people get frustrated with the corporations for doing what they do, understand that they're doing what they're supposed to do under this system. And if you're a big believer in capitalism, right, then you need to have the watchdogs. And you need to have oversight. You need to have a government that keeps corporations in check. So we don't have thousands of train derailments each year. But we don't have that. We don't have that when it comes to a Republican administration.

We don't have that when it comes to a Democratic administration. Okay. And for everything that we hear about how Pete Buttigieg and the transportation department can't unilaterally regulate, it's really interesting because the Obama administration did. And then Trump gets elected. and he unilaterally reverses that regulation without any involvement from Congress. So why is it that all of a sudden we're hearing about Congress again?

Yeah. So Buttigieg is literally using that excuse of, well, there's thousands of train derailments every day, every year. And so I didn't know I was supposed to respond to this one. That's not the defense you think it is. Yeah. And he's like, Elaine Chow also has thousands of derailments every year. when she was a transportation secretary under Trump, that's also not the defense you think it is. That means you both didn't do your job. That doesn't absolve you. It makes you both guilty. And so, and then he says, oh, you know, they've been lobbying so much against our safety regulations.

Well, first of all, Pete, you personally have offered none. So they don't have to lobby very hard since you didn't offer any. At least Obama, I thought what he did was super weak sauce we've discussed it before, but at least he offered a bunch of regulations, right, and then pretended he couldn't get them passed, right? Buttigieg, and Biden didn't even offer any. They didn't even try. So what, what are you talking about? Which lobbyists?

Doing what? The ones greasing you? And second of all, finish the thought. The lobbyists lobby so hard. And what do they do while they're lobbying? Is it that they roll up their sleeves and shine the floors or something? No, they pass out money. Who do they pass it out to?

Oh, right. your colleagues. You know, the criminals that take all those bribes. And that's why you can't pass the regulation because the Republicans and Democrats in Congress won't let you because they were bribed. Guys, please go to opensecrets.org and look at the lobbying that was spent specifically by Norfolk Southern in 2022. And then break it down percentage wise based on Democrats and Republicans, who did they give to more? It's about the same. I can't even remember, it's honestly a negligible percentage difference, right? But yeah, $1.8 million they spent on lobbying in 2022 alone. And they give to both sides because

they want to bribe both sides so they remain deregulated. This isn't a surprise. This isn't shocking. Everything is working the way that you should expect it to based on where the money's flowing. That's it. So they give 1.8 million and they cut costs so much that they make billions and profits. Buying American politicians is the best investment you could make. And remember, they're on the same team. They're just playing good, bad cop. So Republicans deregulate, Democrats can't find a way to regulate. Everybody gets distracted, fighting the partisan fights. Meanwhile, no one actually holds any of the companies accountable. So this is a small win for the workers, and I love that they fought for it. And I celebrate that part of it. But it was a calculated

concession that is meant to be the smallest possible concession that the company could give, and they're hoping that corporate politicians and corporate media cover their ass for the rest of it. Let's switch gears to talk about something completely different. Unfortunately, this is just as common as deregulated corporations in America. Twice in one day, the same Orlando neighborhood, the scene of murder and mayhem. Authorities say a gunman opened fire at the same location just hours apart, killing at least three people and leaving two others in critical condition. Authorities arrested 19-year-old Keith Melbourne Moses, a teen they say. had a troubled past.

Yet another tragic shooting, actually a string of shootings in one day, which left three individuals dead. 19-year-old Keith, Melvin Moses shot and killed three people in Orlando, Florida yesterday, including a 20-year-old woman, a spectrum journalist, and also a nine-year-old girl. The next video has more details on how the shootings unfolded. The deadly rampage began near a crime scene. where a woman was found shot in her car earlier in the day in the Pine Hills neighborhood. Police say for unknown reasons, the suspect returned to the scene.

Deputies located two men who had been shot in or near a vehicle. They are a News 13 reporter and photographer who were on the scene to cover the homicide from this morning. The gunman then allegedly went into a nearby home and shot a mother and her nine-year-old daughter, killing the child. Now, the Spectrum 13 journalist who was killed was a 24 year old by the name of Dylan Lyons. Jesse Walden was with him and he was also shot, but he survived the gunshot wound. Currently, he is hospitalized and in critical condition. The first shooting occurred at 11 a.m. local time. And then hours later at around 4 p.m. local time, the Spectrum journalists were at the scene in order to report about the shooting.

As they were in their news van, Moses approached them and shot them as they were in the vehicle. Immediately after that, he walked into a nearby home and opened fire shooting a woman and her nine-year-old daughter. The nine-year-old girl is dead, and the mother is also hospitalized in critical condition. Police say that he, the only person they think he knew was the initial victim, the 20-year-old woman who was shot earlier. during the day. They say that she's an acquaintance of his, but they don't believe that he was familiar with the others. Yeah, so this is the inception of shootings. It's a shooting within a shooting or like those, I don't know how to pronounce a matroshka dolls, the Russian dolls where there's a doll within the doll. There's a shooting within a shooting because that's how many

shootings we have. And soon there'll be massacres within massacres because there's so many mass shootings that we just can't keep up with them. In fact, in the last one, we told you there was a Sandy Hook victim too, and then she was also at Michigan State. And then one of our viewers told us about someone who had been in three mass shootings already because there's non-stop shootings. So they're trying to determine why he did it. Okay, I'm going to say something a little controversial. Who cares?

They all have different crazy reasons. There's one unifying theme, guns. They all have guns, they're all nuts, and they all shoot people for different nuts-o reasons. But it's the guns. Anyone telling you otherwise is 100% lying to you. In this particular case, so he had a reason apparently for what in his crazy sick find to shoot a 20 year old. Okay, the news crew shows up.

Maybe he knows there a news crew who doesn't want to get caught, you think. No, they're not acting rational. Turns out the mother and the nine year old, he doesn't know them at all. So he's just going around shooting random people. Because in a country of 330 million people, there are plenty of people who have violent mental health issues. If you give them all a gun, they will shoot us. And that's what we've done.

I want to go to the one graphic we have here. So the Orange County Sheriff, John Mina, said that Moses, quote, has a lengthy criminal history to include gun charges, aggravated battery and assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and grand theft charges. Why isn't he in prison? I don't know. That is like, that's a giant laundry list, okay? So I don't understand what's happening in this country.

And we've covered this a thousand times. There's a guy that was in prison until recently in Louisiana because he, you know, He stole garden clippers. And you know what his sentence was? A life sentence. Insane. Yeah. Insane. And then on the other hand, you have these guys who are like, oh, he butchered three people and decapitated that person and then ran over a little old lady.

But he's walking around in the streets. I just don't get it. Here's the only unifying theme of that that our government doesn't give a damn about us all across the country. They're so busy stealing money from, you know, from us that they can't be bothered to protect any of us. Let's take a break. I know we're ending the first hour. A few minutes early.

I could use the break. So let's do that. When we come back, we've got more news for you, including the light story about extremist killings increasing in the United States. Look forward to that one. Come right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more

by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.