The Young Turks - Bernie's BIG Victory And Fox News Is Panicking

Episode Date: April 17, 2019

Bernie’s message is resonating with conservative voters. Fox New can’t figure out why people like progressives. Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. 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. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Welcome to Young Turks. I'm Anna Kaspair, and I was pointing at you guys because I love you.

You guys live in that TV down there. John Iderola is very emotional about the fact that we get to host together again. It's not often that we get to do it just me and you. I know, right? It's like old times. It's gonna be a great show. We are going to do a little more analysis on Bernie Sanders Town Hall on Fox News yesterday, mostly because Donald Trump has reacted to it and his reaction is hilarious.

Later on in the show, we're going to discuss the tragic death of hip-hop artists. Nipsey Hustle and the reaction on Fox News, specifically from Laura Ingram. And I am also excited to talk about, what are the other stories? I'm excited to talk about it, I promise. You got some Nancy Pelosi, you got some Glenn Beck. No, the Neurotan story. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's so dromsy.

I love the drums. It's so good. So we're gonna get to that a little later. But I want to encourage you, if you're members, please go ahead and send us your comments, because we do look at them and we read some of them when we come back from our breaks. And if you are not a member, please join, go to t.t.com slash join or t.t.com slash Anna or John to sign up and become a member. That helps to keep us independent.

It helps to keep us afloat and we really do appreciate it. Yes. All right, so let's get started. Last night, the Democratic frontrunner for the 2020 election, Bernie Sanders, had a town hall on Fox News. Now, the town hall did not go in the way that Fox probably intended it to. Bernie did a great job in answering the questions, even some of the more combative questions coming from the host, Brett Baer, and McCollum, what was her first name again?

Martha. Yeah, Martha McCollum shows how much I watched Fox News. With that said, though, one of the people who did react to Bernie's performance during that town hall was Donald Trump. And so he tweeted the following, so weird to watch crazy Bernie on Fox News. Not surprisingly, Brett Baer and the audience, and audiences in quotation marks, I don't know why, was so smiley and nice, very strange, and now we have Donna Brazil. Okay, so one real quick, a side note, David Pakman noticed something about that tweet that

I thought was a good catch, and he tweeted about it. He says, interesting to refer to Fox News as we. But as we know, Donald Trump and Fox News have a very good relationship with one another. Fox is very complimentary in their coverage of Trump. But Trump's tweet about Bernie's performance, in my opinion, shows that he might be a little worried. And there's good reason for that. So we're gonna show you some examples. So first, I wanna share a headline from Vox.

And it says, Bernie Sanders' Fox News Town Hall wasn't a debate, Bernie won anyway. And it's because of the way he handled the more combative questions coming from the hosts and the awesome way in which he handled the questions coming from the audience members. So with that said, let's take a look at the first video. This specifically has to do with a topic that Fox loves to fearmonger about Medicare for all. I want to ask the audience a question. If you could raise your hand here, a show of hands of how many people get their insurance

from work, private insurance, right now. How many get it from private insurance? Okay. Now of those, how many are willing to transition to what the senator says, a government-run system? So it's clear that there were some Bernie fans in the audience. In fact, Vox writes about that as well, saying it's apparent that Fox didn't stack the town hall with conservatives or people who hated Bernie Sanders. The next line makes me laugh a little bit.

While the first questioner was a student organizer with the conservative youth organization, Hate Organization, Turning Point USA. Not a youth organization either. Yeah, the second was a progressive organizer who'd campaigned for Hillary Clinton. Yeah. So I don't know if those are, you know, the demographics that are usually friendly to Bernie, but I will say that it appeared there were some supporters in the audience, which was great. Or hypothetically, people who supported the idea.

Yes. I mean, we have to, I mean, he's there to persuade people. It would be sad if the only people who'd raise their hands were in one of his policy proposals where people who had already donated to his campaign. I mean, he's talking about a potentially massive change to American health care and health insurance, one that we believe would be much better for the people. Some people might simply agree. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's definitely the case.

But look, more importantly, based on the way the questions were framed and based on how combative the hosts were, it was clear that Brett Baer and Martha McCollum were hoping that some of their, you know, fear-mongering tactics would resonate with the audience that was there. And it didn't work, it actually backfired quite a bit. And I think that's what Trump was alluding to in his tweet. The fact that people were smiling and were nice. Yeah, that people were smiling and nice. I think he hated that, and I think he hated the fact that there were several moments

where Bernie's answers did receive applause. I want to give you another example. So the issue of Ilhan Omar came up, right? Of course, Fox News has helped to amplify this narrative that Ilhan Omar has minimized the severity of 9-11, that she's anti-Semitic, all of these allegations that are unfounded, untrue, nothing more than smear tactics. And so Bernie Sanders was asked about that, and here's how he handled it. You're also a staunch supporter of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who even...

Hold it, hold it, hold it, no. I've talked to Ilhan about twice in my life. So, I respect- But this is what I do support. I support. I support a Muslim member of Congress not to be attacked every single day in outrageous, racist remarks. That was strong. Yeah.

And his answer was great, but more importantly, the reaction from the audience as soon as Representative Ilhan Omar's name was mentioned on Fox News. Yeah, and do you think the way that it wasn't really a question, it was just you are a staunch defender of Ilan Homer, do you believe that that was intended to harm him? I mean, obviously, we don't think that that's an insult or anything like that. Yeah, but yeah. Of course I think that was intended to harm him. And I say that because, first of all, he didn't even, he said that Bernie Sanders is a staunch

supporter, making it appear that they have this close relationship. And so I appreciate that Bernie clarified it. And he's like, yeah, you know, in essence, I support her, but I've had two conversations with her. I was actually surprised to find out they've only talked twice. Me too, to be honest. It makes me wonder how much any of them are talking to each other. Well, based on what comes out of Congress, not much.

That's what I would guess. And that is a problem. But at the same time, I'm honestly impressed by the reaction from the audience. Because based on what we've seen online and based on how successful the right wing is in Spreading a hateful message in solidarity, I really thought that unfortunately these smears were sticking. And look, it's one audience, I think that it's anecdotal and you can't really draw a real conclusion about what the American people overall think about the Ilhan Omar story.

But more importantly, to see an audience applaud Representative Omar on this channel that has consistently helped in the efforts to smear her was amazing. Including last night, after the town hall actually. And there are a couple of things I think are worth mentioning. You might have seen Ilhan Omar's small donor fundraising that she, I think, raised the most or close to the most in Congress, like more than AOC did, which is pretty amazing. One way that I think that it was not a failure for them last night was that it got better ratings than any of the other town hall so far, including Bernie Sanders' other town hall.

Right. So are you comparing Fox to the other cable outlets? Yeah, to all the other town halls. Okay, so I'm glad that you brought that up. So when we originally covered the story about how Tom Perez and the DNC decided not to allow any of the Democratic debates to happen on Fox, I thought it was a good decision. I thought that it was a terrible idea to do anything on Fox because we all know what Fox is about. More importantly, I was concerned that they would use the opportunity, the host would use it as an opportunity to further their talking points or their smears against the candidates. But then I looked at the actual numbers. What does the viewership for town halls on debates on CNN versus Fox and Fox has a far bigger audience? And so I think for someone like Bernie Sanders who has this incredible ability to talk to the other

side and get them to understand his perspective in a noncombative way makes him a perfect fit for that audience, right? So I'm not saying they're all gonna like him, I'm not saying most of them are gonna like him. But I do think he has this ability to break through. that's difficult for other candidates. Yeah, I don't know how many others I would expect that would fare as well. Although it's interesting that last night we were, I think at the end, we were predicting that others would try now after that went so well for Bernie.

And indeed, I forget exactly which, I think Inslee, Buttigieg, and I think one other are saying that they're expressing interest in possibly having their own Fox Town Hall. But again, I still don't think it's a bad idea for the DNC to not have Fox News conduct one of the actual mandatory sort of debates. If people want to go on there, then sure. Yeah. Yeah, I think I mostly agree with you. I'm just glad that I reconsidered based on ratings, exposure, viewership.

Again, I'm still a little fearful that Fox is, they're not honest actors, and that's what makes me worry. And remember, the argument that Fox will hit the DNC back with is, well, we have some serious non-opinionated reporters like Brett Bear and Martha McCollum. Well, we saw what Brett Bear and Martha McCollum were like during this town hall. They certainly do have an agenda and they were very, very, the way that they frame the questions toward Bernie Sanders were charged and that was obvious. And I remember, I mean, we've seen debates that Fox has run and I remember Maria

Barteromo lying about the unemployment rate and things like that. You can't necessarily trust them just because they're not Sean Hannity. They still have a perspective. They're still advancing the corporations, the Fox News Corporation's sort of mission. So I want to show you one more video, and this has to do with the recent disclosure of Bernie Sanders Taxes, a story that we will get into in depth later in the show. And the fact that he had made a significant amount of money through writing a book. Take a look.

Back on the taxes briefly, when you wrote the book and you made the money, isn't that the definition of capitalism, the American dream? No. I mean, you know, what we want is a country where everybody has opportunity. You know, I have a college degree. Like, I'm a United States Senator, but a lot of people don't have a college degree. A lot of people are not United States senators. I want everybody in this country to be able to have health care, to have education,

to when they turn on the water, have drinkable water. Not toxic water. So what we are fighting for, Brett, is a society not where just a few people can make a whole lot of money, but a society where everybody in this country has the opportunity to live in security and dignity. Strong. I like what Bernie said, but again, I mean, look, we went through this multiple times last night.

I don't know if, I don't know if Brett, I don't know anything about Brett Bear. I don't watch Brett Bear. I know his name and I know he has a very unique shape for a human. So that's about it that I know for Brett Baer. But he's either not a very intelligent person or he plays one on TV. You wrote a book and you made a lot of money, isn't that the definition of capitalism? And under democratic socialism, what exactly would stop you from writing a book and making money?

Everything. No, nothing, nothing that Bernie has said. They talk about these terms socialism, capitalism, like they're kids who learned about them in a picture book, like that they've read a sum total of 30 words on them. that they've only absorbed the most obvious elementary school level propaganda about our nation's history. But the way that they talk about these issues does reflect that, and I don't think that it's an accident.

I think it's done on purpose, and I think that it unfortunately transfers on, that lack of nuance and that ridiculous black and white simplicity transfers to the American people and their consciousness. The way that you hear average Americans talk about economic systems, that, you know, and what Bernie Sanders stands for, what communism is, what socialism is, their inability to articulate the differences between communism and socialism. Those two words are used interchangeably in America constantly, and it drives me crazy, but it's again, because of the failure of the media, I think also the failure of education in

America, the fact that it's been dismantled, underfunded. And there are real consequences to that. Yeah, I just, sorry, as you were talking, I just thought, I want to write the most boring but possibly most necessary book ever. I want to write a book called What Words Mean. And I want to have a page that defines communism and a page that defines fascism and explains why when Brett Easton Ellis, inside of one paragraph, switches back and forth between calling the same group of opponents, those two things.

That doesn't actually make sense historically or politically. You should include neoliberal in there as well. There's a million. I mean, the issue is that words are used in a specific context, generally by responsible people who work in that context. And then it's released out of the wild, and everybody latches onto it. And they shred the meat from its bones like a pack of piranha until there's nothing left. That's exactly right.

And I had, I'm blanking on her name, I apologize. But I had one of the candidates running in Queens DA race on the show this morning. And she took issue with me referring to her and some of the others in the race as being progressive DAs or progressive prospective DAs. Because she said, and I think she was 100% right, everybody is calling themselves a progressive reformer that's running in a day race now, whether they are or not. Yeah, Nancy Pelosi was attacking ABC and Rashida to leave and all that and then saying that she's the actual progressive. Just words don't mean anything anymore. You can't trust words to people. That's the issue with humanity, I think.

I don't know if it's humanity. So expect that really boring book to come out. a couple of years. Well, and look, I think there are two different things happening right now. I think that there is, you know, the ignorance surrounding what these words really mean. And I don't really think that's a failure of the American people. I think part of it, a huge part of it is a failure of our media and the fact that education has been underfunded and dismantled.

The other part though is politicians exploiting something that is exploiting an ideology and labeling themselves as progressives because it's the popular thing to do. And that has certainly gotten under my skin because it's very easy for anyone to say I'm a progressive, but what's the evidence behind it? How have you voted? What have you done in your political career that really proves that you're a progressive? And I think for Nancy Pelosi, maybe early on in her career, maybe she was more idealistic. I have no idea, but right now, the way that she is treating freshman Democrats,

and the way that she undercuts them does not show that she's a progressive. Yeah. Yeah. So one other part of this that I just want to quickly share, and I love this. Again, this is from Vox. They write, by the end of the town hall, audience members were booing the occasional bear and McCollum follow up, even doing call and response with Bernie Sanders. I would love to know, like if you could poll, who did that crowd vote for in 2016?

In the primary of the Democrats and in the general election overall, it would be very interesting to find out because there are multiple ways that you could explain the response that he got there. I prefer to think that he won over a bunch of people. It's possible many of them were supporters of his. I mean, he does have a lot of supporters. I imagine Pennsylvania is not exactly the worst country for him. But it's very interesting, and it's also going to be interesting. Let's say that Jay Inslee might not end up getting a Fox News town hall, but Buttigieg probably

would. He's like the golden boy in the media right now. Is he going to be as successful? Yeah, I'm very curious to see. Maybe. I mean, we haven't seen Buttigieg debate yet. I covered his town hall. How was it?

He was good. He was good, but he wasn't debating and it wasn't combative. Yeah. I forget who exactly was asked him the questions. It might have been Jake Tapper, but in any event it was not a combative town hall. Interesting. Okay, so there are going to be many town halls and many debates, so you can look forward to that. Let's move on to another Fox-related story.

Fox-related story that I thought was great. After the break. I was actually wondering, too, but I was like, I'm not going to cut her off. I know, I know. No, we're going to do the story. We won't take too long. I want to make sure we get it done. Okay.

So, recently a Fox reporter, his name is Todd Piro, went to a diner in Pennsylvania and asked about various issues. And this is after the Bernie Sanders town hall that took place on Fox. And the answers from the respondents was interesting. So there's a man named Seth and his daughter at this diner, and they're answering. Let's hear what they have to say. Seth, you say you're worried about how to pay for all of Bernie's ideas. Why?

Well, I think that as a country here, we have founded ourselves on principles of smaller government. And to increase the government's size when we have a debt, the size that we already have, it's going to be very difficult. One of my favorite topics, though, is education. I think everybody getting a better education, further education, would be good for our country. If you look at right after World War II, we had the GI Bill, and it shot our economy to the moon. And I think if we could figure out a way to do it, it would be a really good thing for us. Seth, speaking to education, your daughter, Kristen, is a student. And she says when you're talking to your friends about an issue, the number one issue that you guys focus on is climate change.

Why? Ultimately, the other issues are all solvable, but if the planet starts catching on fire and we're all dead, it doesn't do us any good to see how much money we can make. She goes back to Eaton. A lot to unpack there. Young people give me hope, and I love seeing her answer there. But I wanna just go back to what her father said, Seth, because he starts off with some strong critique of Bernie Sanders and his policy, because he's very much worried about big government

and how to pay for big government. And then he immediately pivots to what government has done right, like the GI Bill, which ended up helping the economy, right? Anyway, thoughts on that. Yeah, I, yeah, he critiqued it. I wouldn't particularly say it's a strong critique, saying I'm not- No, it's a terrible critique. Okay, good.

Yeah, it's a terrible critique. You were playing that very straight-faced. Just saying, I don't like big government, okay, that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't. It means what fiscal conservative means. It means I like what I like and I don't like what I don't like. All of the things that I like don't count as big government and the things that I don't like or make me feel uncomfortable, that's big government.

That's all it means. That's a good way. I'm not attacking him, I am, and everyone else who says big government or small government. Yeah, I don't know if it's attack on him. It's attack on how he's unable to see that the GI Bill was government. It was government. That was taxpayer money that gave our soldiers the ability to get higher education. Right, and it was a smart idea.

It cost money, it costs resources, something that you hear the right wing whine about constantly. But at the same time, it didn't just benefit our soldiers, it benefited the US economy. And I think the same goes for the other policies that we're seeing proposed by someone like Bernie Sanders. So again, I want to go back to healthcare for a second, imagine a world in which your healthcare is not provided by your employer, where you would have the ability to quit your job and start your own small business, and you don't have that worry about not having health coverage. See, like, think about how many small businesses could start up in a system like that.

And so no one ever talks about it, it's always, how much is it going to cost? How are you going to pay for it? You'll answer that question a million times, you'll cite the various studies that show that Medicare for all would actually save the American people $2 trillion over the course of 10 years, right? And I think it would actually save more because we would have more power to negotiate things like pharmaceutical prices and things like that. But nonetheless, like it's always, yeah, I hate big government when it's regarding policies that I just don't like or I'm too afraid of. And I love big government when it benefits me specifically.

Yeah, we've all seen the sign back in, was it 2008, the get your government hands off my Medicaid, was it? Yeah, that may have been it. And look, I think the thing that is to blame is the media and probably in general the Democratic Party going back a half century. Because they have not, although at various points, the New Deal, you know, great society, the ACA, all these big plans that are quite popular, in decreasing amounts as you move towards recent history are great plans, you know, and they do actually improve the lives of people. The Democratic Party has never done a good job of actually getting any credit for any of it or making it clear that this is the government in action.

This is the government doing what the government is supposed to do, and the media doesn't do that either. And so when you have both of them sort of best case scenario working behind the scenes to pass good legislation but never making the case to the American people, while at the same time for, you know, since, I guess, oh, well, I think we're still going. Yeah, hey, how's it going? Yeah, Fox News and the right and their team of think tanks and all of that going back decades making the case that government is always in every case a bad thing, the American people pick that up. And they might still like certain plans, but they at the same time have to hold

in their head that they hate the government. Yeah, it's really frustrating. And so you get people like that saying, you know what, I hate the government, don't want the big government, hey, can we have trillions in government spending to get people to school? Which I agree. be great, but it would also be a big example of big government the way that you hate to define it. Exactly. We have to find solutions for this. I don't know what we can do.

More responsible media, I guess. I know, but I mean, we've been fighting that battle for, I've been here for 12 years. And I remember, hey, the reason why we cover these Fox News segments is because if we don't, if we don't debunk the lies, then no one will. Yeah. Yeah. We've been debunking the lies. I think it's up to little.

Media Matters has done some great work. Media Matters has done a great job in just holding a mirror up to Fox's face. But anyway, we got to take a break. When we come back, we are going to do a deep dive into Bernie Sanders' taxes. And it turns out he was correct. We're going to be bored. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-The Republic or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media,

and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional

and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training, or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. We'll be right back. Welcome back to TYT. Jank is on vacation, but John Ida Rola, hosted the... damage report is here with me.

So I'm gonna read a few member comments, and I also wanna just let you guys know that for our two of the show today, we're gonna have Alonzo Bowden and Brooke Thomas on. John will finally get to go home and get some rest because you have that early morning show. Oh yeah, yeah, I slept at my desk again after lunch today. Yeah, just briefly. Taking Benadryl, which is a terrible idea. Yeah, it's fun. Anyway, that's a story for another day.

All right, alarm clock fever, I really appreciate your comment. I love when you guys can relate to the stories and you share your input. This member writes, I am a veteran and the GI Bill did put me through college. Now I have my degree and I'm employable to some good job. So yes, government assistance does help. Cloyd says Fox News doesn't have what it takes to take down Bernie because Sanders' policies have universal appeal. You put that in, you articulated that way better than I did when I was trying to make the point about how someone like Bernie can do a Fox News town hall and, you know, swerve his way out of their

attacks, you know, he's just really good at it. And it's because his policies do have universal appeal. I think regardless of what your political ideology is, we all want healthcare, we all want a good economy, we all want to feel financially stable and put food on the table for our families. And he focuses on that, and it's important. And I think you can sort of see a case study of how powerful his rhetoric and his argument and the political philosophy is, as you see over the last two years, Tucker Carlson trying to rebrand himself, I think 100% dishonestly, as agreeing with many of the structural

critiques of American capitalism that Bernie Sanders makes. Yes. He wants to get that same sort of like youth appeal or whatever, even though fundamental he still wants you to vote for every Republican candidate and in reality make no systemic long-term changes to American capitalism. One more comment from our members, Matthew says it's my firm belief that Bernie's Town Hall look like it was packed with Bernie supporters because his policies have always spoken to that demographic, and winning that crowd would be extremely easy for him.

Yeah. Yeah, again, I mean, it's a similar point. And I think it is important to, for any candidate to focus on the issues that unite all of us, and those are economic issues. Yeah. All right, so just a few announcements. First off, John Iderola and Jank Yugar will be hosting a special for Earth Day. Which is exciting.

Along with Mark Thompson. Oh, Mark Thompson said yes. Yeah, he's the other co-host. Cool, he wasn't confirmed yesterday, so I wasn't sure. Maybe he's not. Okay. It would be great. I'm just putting it out there.

It's like a vision board, but with my mouth. Okay. Please stop talking. You ruined it. Hey, Mark, it would be great if you would sign on now. All right. I don't know for sure who's hosting. I know Jank and John are going to be part of this special.

It's Earth Day special. And yes, it will be available for ever. available for everyone up to a point, but there is some portion of the show that will only be available to our members. We want to make sure that we provide our members exclusive content. So please go to t.t.com slash join if you're not a member and you are interested in both supporting the show and checking out this exclusive content. And really fast on that, it's we're going to be in studio, us three, but we're also going

to be doing. We have a few pre-recorded interviews that we're going to be doing. We also have some Skypes. We have environmental activists, including Bill. MacKibbon, organizers around the Green New Deal, scientists, authors, and other people around environmental issues who are going to be taking part in this special. One other announcement I have is about aspiration. So aspiration is not a bank.

It's not a big bank. It is a financial institution that has an incentive to carry out its progressivism. And I love that. So for instance, you get to decide if they charge you a fee and if they do, how much they charge you. So if you decide, no, I don't want to be charged fees, they will not charge you fees. They also do not invest any money in any type of questionable industry, including the fossil fuel industry.

And another thing that they do that I absolutely love is they donate 10% of the money to charity. And so they want to give back to the community. They want to make sure that they support progressive causes. And I absolutely love it. Please check them out. Go to aspiration.com slash t-y-t, aspiration.com slash t-y-t, and sign up for a checkings account. They also pay interest, which is pretty nice. They pay interest on checkings.

It's like being a kid again. Is it? Kids get interest in there. I used to, yeah, I invested as part of like elementary school. And I remember you'd get like 4% or something. And so like decades later, I was like, you know what? I'm going to check to see how much I'm making. And then I realized, oh, no, that's not a thing anymore.

You don't actually make any money in your savings. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, when I was young in the 40s or whatever, you could actually make a little bit of money. Oh yeah, definitely, definitely. There are still some good CDs out there, we'll talk later. Yeah. Anyway, moving on to the news. After much pressure from the mainstream press, Bernie Sanders has finally released 10 years' worth

of his taxes. Now, I felt that it was important for him to do this. I don't believe in having a double standard where you pressure some candidates to release their taxes while easing the pressure off of others. But I'm glad that he did this, and he did not lie when he said that his tax returns would be boring. We already knew, based on his financial filings, that he made a significant amount of money from the sale of his book following the 2016 election.

But we do have some more details, so let me share them with you. The returns show that Sanders' earnings shot up after his first presidential bid in 2016, When he built up a vast national following, he and his wife, Jane Sanders, reported income that topped $1 million in 2016 and 2017, lifted by proceeds from his book. So again, this is proceeds from his book. It's a book that he wrote. He earned the money. There wasn't any type of business with an unsavory, you know, foreign leader or anything like

that. It was just proceeds from his book. The couple had an adjusted gross income of $561,293 in 2018. Sanders had about $393,000 in book income last year, and he and his wife reported giving nearly $19,000 to charity. Also their federal taxes, this is an important part of the story. The federal taxes came to about $145,840 for an effective federal tax rate of 26%. Why do I say this is important?

Well, there are mainstream media figures who keep making the argument that, and by the way, some non-mainstream media figures like Think Progress, who are making the argument that, oh, would you look at that? He's a millionaire now, so he's a complete hypocrite. Except he's not a hypocrite because he's paying his fair share in taxes, and he has not changed his policy on taxing the rich. Had he changed his policy, and had he found ways to take advantage of deductions and skirt paying his taxes, that would be a different story.

But according to his tax filings, he is paying his fair share and he continues to spread the message of income and wealth equality. Yeah. Or equity. He's paying what he's supposed to pay now, and he would be willing to pay more if his tax philosophy actually determines tax policy going forward. That is the only important thing. And of course, it's either lost or missed on people whose goal is not to have a serious

conversation about what American taxation should look like, but just want to take down Bernie Sanders during what looks like it's going to be a really combative primary. Exactly. So I- The whole conversation is so dumb. Well, as I mentioned, Bernie Sanders has been smeared by outlets like think progress, which is why he- What I normally like. Yeah, me too.

I mean, sometimes they cover stories that are important and aren't getting much attention. And they do come from a progressive standpoint. But when it comes to Bernie Sanders, I think it's clear that there's a bias there. And it's not just think progress. I mean, we've seen it from many of the mainstream organizations. And let me just give you the headline from the New York Times. It says Bernie Sanders released his taxes, he's part of the 1%. Look, he's part of the 1%.

What does Bernie do on the campaign trail over and over again? I've also seen analyses that show that he's not actually technically part of the 1%. Yeah, I think it really depends on a lot of things. But anyway, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And one other thing that I want to quickly mention is Stuart Barney had some strong feelings and some strong thoughts about Bernie's, oh, about his taxes. Now remember, he's a host on Fox Business, so that should already give you a little bit

of a prediction. But let's take a look at the first video. Here is a guy who is, he's a one percenter, he's a millionaire, and he's a socialist. I've got a problem with that. He's trying to make sure that we, the rest of us, on our way up, don't accumulate the kind of pile that he's already- And on the way out. 77. He's 77 years old and he's a millionaire for the first time in his life, right?

So look, they're making it seem like he's Jamie Diamond. He's not Jamie Diamond, all right? Homeboy didn't crash the economy and then later cash in with a giant bonus. And you know what I'm saying? Like the way that he framed it there is so ridiculous. And again, you can become successful. He became a millionaire while paying his fair share in taxes, 26% tax rate, right? Yeah, look, obviously we don't go to Stuart Varney for serious, honest analysis of what's going on.

But he said, he's a one percenter. He wants to take what we have as we're working our way up. Stewart Varney, not a millionaire? Or is that we're supposed to believe that the hosts at Fox business are scraping by paycheck The paycheck. Really struggling. Really struggling. There's more.

There's more from farming. Okay, okay. Where is the fairness in confiscating our money when we've saved all our lives for that money to pass on to our children and our grandchildren? Where's the fairness in confiscating that? Or where's the fairness? If you don't work, if you don't work, but I work really hard, where's the fairness in taking half of my paycheck to give it to you who's not working at all?

It's a different concept of fairness, is it not? People watch this willingly. Like, I know a lot of people in Media Matters now, it's their job to suffer through it. Where is the fairness? Yeah, and look, we choose to play some, generally to make fun of them. There are people who just willingly watch that. Yeah, Stuart Varney, he's a fan of capitalism because he puts fairness above everything else in society.

That's what he's a fan of. Okay, look, we could go through this and so many different, where's the fairness in a person working multiple full-time jobs and barely, you know, squeaking by above the poverty level. Where is the fairness in, you know, people like losing their job getting kicked off their health insurance and then dying because they're not insured anymore because we decide as a country that we're gonna put health insurance and tied together with employment? Yeah. Where's the fairness in a million different things?

Maybe you could tweet us in. Hashtag where's the fairness under current American capitalism? Where's the fairness in, you know, nonviolent drug offenders who got caught with possession of marijuana getting arrested and put in prison with insanely long sentences. Where's the fairness and civil asset forfeiture? Where someone can just be accused or suspected of something like drug trafficking with absolutely no evidence? And the law enforcement agencies in this country can easily confiscate their personal property

and never give it back. Where's the fairness in that? They never talk about those issues. The only time they talk about how unfair things are is when it comes to paying taxes. And the reality is the middle class and the working class pays a higher percentage of their income in federal taxes, whereas the wealthy and the biggest corporations in the country get away with paying absolutely nothing in taxes because of corporate tax loopholes. Where's the fairness in that?

Where's the fairness in corporate welfare that continues on in this country? Where's the fairness in subsidies for oil companies? I mean, why are we giving oil companies subsidies? Why? They're not wealthy enough. they wouldn't survive. Where's the fairness in those 60 companies that we talked about on yesterday's show paying absolutely no taxes whatsoever?

Where's the fairness in Amazon paying less in taxes last year that it costs for you to be a member of TYT for one month? Where's the fairness in that? Where's the fairness in people's purchasing power not going up over the last 40 plus years? Yes. Where's the fairness in the fact that as our productivity as a workforce is constantly going up, we don't actually make any more for it? Where's the fairness of CEOs working with the board of directors of corporations to make

sure that both the CEOs and the board's salaries keep going up. And even if the company fails and they have to fire someone, they get millions and millions of dollars as a golden parachute, while if you're a person working for that corporation and it goes under, you're gonna be on your ass with nothing. Where is the fairness in that when you were the one actually doing the work and producing the products and services? Where's the fairness in literally anything? You could wander in any direction across our great country and look under any rock.

You will find no fairness whatsoever because our system is not designed to produce fairness. It's designed to produce profits for a very small group of people. And where's the fairness in the fact that John Iderola took a Benadryl today and he's still on fire? Yeah, I'm gonna- Still on fire. I'm gonna take a nap after this. But yeah, there's no fair- where is the fairness that on that video that you were watching, Steve Deucey makes more money than any of us.

I know, I know, it's amazing. The guy didn't finish third grade. He can't be left alone in a room with crayons, but he makes millions every year. As we all know, the most lucrative... I won't say what he does with the crans, but we don't, not anymore. No more crans with Steve Ducey. We all know that the most lucrative job title in America is useful idiot. And we see it in the media all the time.

Yeah. Moving on. After the break, we will come back and do a story about how some of Trump's cronies were caught on audio saying disparaging things about him. Who are they? What did they say? You'll find out when you come back. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech.

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What's her favorite pie, John Adirola? Banana cream? Oh, that is really good. Yeah, you might be right. Coconut cream is good too though. Any cream, really? No, no, I like it. I love lemon meringue or keloin.

Yeah, no, probably like a banana cream or something like that. I'm into it, yeah. We should get some pie. Yeah. Yeah, okay, we'll see you guys later. All right, a few member comments for you, say it girl, writes in and says, Already cable is behind Mayor Pete and minimizing Bernie, I'm telling you, I'm seeing that too, right?

I'm seeing that too. Yeah, but I don't think it's really about him. That happened the last time on the Republican side. They elevate someone, then they knock him down, they elevate the next person to knock him down, they need something exciting. They love Beto a couple weeks ago. We'll see. It's like the first actual primary is not for 10 months, I think.

Like, they can't just be like, hey, Mayor Pete's great for 10 months, that's boring. Like, they have to create storylines. Possibly. I think they will cast him aside and we'll be on the Hickenlooper train, the hyperlooper. Vicky says, I love this comment. Oh my God, he should use that. That's pretty good, actually. Sorry.

Sorry, anyway. Vicky writes in and says, John, write your new book. Where's the fairness? Which would make a lot of sense. That was an epic rant and I really enjoyed it. I don't think about that. Okay. And then I want to read a T.Y.T. Live comment as well, I'm mi Papito, writes in and says.

Oh, my God. What? He says that's how you pronounce it. Anna just pre-filed for divorce when she read that screen name. I did not. Fine. I'll stop saying it like that. It's better than how Jake says it. How does he say it? I'm my papito. Yours is better. Yeah. Okay. So where's the fairness when Anna plugs t-y-t.com? I'm not going to read your comment. Never mind. This is the fairness when Anna plugs t-y-t.com slash Anna when Jank isn't even there to plug his URL. There is no fairness.

I never said I was fair, especially when it comes to Jank. Where's the Jank? Where's the Jank? Where's the Jank? All right, I want to tell you guys about Squarespace. Squarespace is a great resource if you're looking to create your website, but you have absolutely no idea how to create a website. That's where I created anacasparian.com.

And that is where Jank was able to create a website. It's kind of amazing. So squarespace.com slash TYT, you should certainly look into it. It's very easy, lots of different templates to choose from. And I really appreciate the service. All right, moving on to other news. Larry Cudlow is one of Donald Trump's economic advisors. And there's one other person, Stephen Moore, I'm sure you've heard his name recently because

Trump is thinking about nominating him for the Federal Reserve. Now, it turns out that some audio from a 2015 radio show has reemerged, and in the audio, they're saying some disparaging things about Donald Trump. Now, remember, this is 2015. It's before Trump has been elected, and here's what they said. Stephen Moore once criticized Trump's position on immigration as extreme nativist, crazy and dangerous. Here's more in 2015.

I think it's a crazy policy. I think it's bad economics, and I think it's even worse politics. At the time, Trump endorsed a plan to revoke citizenship rights for children of immigrants born in the U.S. He wanted to restrict legal immigration. He repeatedly called for deporting illegal immigrants from the U.S. Oh, look at Stephen Moore. Yeah, actually, I support him now. No, I don't.

But he was right on this one issue. And yeah, and the reality of Trump's immigration policies have been in some ways even worse. There was one other position, policy, I don't know if you call it policy, but one other political opinion he had in regard to the Federal Reserve, he felt that the Federal Reserve was useless. It needs to be abolished. Now remember, Trump is now considering nominating him for the Federal Reserve. And so he has changed course, and he says, oh, did I, did I say abolish? The Federal Reserve?

No. Love the Federal Reserve. I'm all about the Federal Reserve. So that's Stephen Moore. I've lost all my reservations about the Fed. Yeah. So let's go to what Larry Kudlow had said about Trump back in 2015. Today, Larry Kudlow is the president's chief economic advisor.

Here's what he said back then when asking Stephen Moore about Trump's then plans of mass deportations. Shocked a lot of people, you know, going house to house and deportations. House to House and deporting illegals, repealing the 14th Amendment. And the Republican Party is very much against what Trump wants. In a statement to CNN, Cudlow said now he never should have made those comments, calling it speculative radio chatter that turned out to be wildly inaccurate. Moore, who was once a contributor to CNN, acknowledged he has said a lot of negative things about Trump before he met him.

Morris' positions under scrutiny here, guys, as the president's pick for an open seat on the Fed board. Okay, so it was hard to pay attention to that clip. Luckily, I watched it earlier. Sorry. But the picture that they used of Lurie Gunn was amazing. I don't know why he would let them do that, but... Anyway, yeah, so they were both critical of him before they... That one's fine, that's fine.

It's when they have a little inset graphic with the quote. I don't know if you can see it. It's gonna come up soon. Some of those are okay. Trump's just awful in all of them though. Yeah. That's fine. So look, it could be, yeah.

Right there. Right there. Why? Why? That looks like it was a photo shoot and he decided to make that face. Oh, your shirt is the same color as your collar. Hmm. Hmm.

Anyway, sorry. I've had bad pictures of meet you so I understand it. They're all bad. It could be pragmatism. You can offer me a job now, so cool. I don't have any of my reservations with you. They would probably say, well yeah, I had those just disagreements about immigration, but I'm not moving into an immigration focused position.

I feel like I could serve my country. Or it could be that this is the same thing that he did with HUD and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the EPA. It's like, wait, why are you putting someone who hates this department in charge of it to destroy it? Well, remember. Because Trump doesn't like an independent Fed. He doesn't like when the Fed doesn't go along with what he wants.

So he either gets a loyalist who will change the policy to suit him or just, you know, just effectively shut it down, grind it to a halt, and stop it from fulfilling its independent function that historically has had. Yes, you're absolutely right about that, but remember, Trump loves people who are loyal to him and absolutely hate the government agency that he is appointing them to. In this case, it appeared that they were very critical of Trump. Yeah. And he doesn't do well with criticism.

He's obsessed with loyalty, even though he's never demonstrated loyalty for anyone other than maybe his daughter in his life. Yeah. So it's just something to keep in mind. I'm curious to see whether he goes ahead and nominates Stephen Moore for the Federal Reserve. I'm guessing that given this audio coming up, it's unlikely. But who knows? They don't do their homework.

Trump doesn't do his homework, so he might not even see it. But the important thing to keep in mind is that these are all people who were critical of Trump. And as soon as he comes into power and has the ability to give them, you know, job opportunities, they tuck, not only tuck tail, they start, you know, brown-nosing, kissing his butt, all of that stuff. It'll be interesting to see. Like, let's say we get through this primary season and Bernie is the candidate, will some of those same equivalents on our side start to reach out? Rather than punching, maybe they'll reach out to handshake.

To us or to Bernie? Not a Bernie. Yeah, I think it's probably likely. Look, one of the reasons why Neera Tandon hates Bernie as much as she hates Bernie is because she was going to get a great job working for the Hillary administration. I get that. And yeah, but it's so self-serving as opposed to looking out for the best interests of Americans.

Now, she probably thinks Hillary Clinton would have been better in her mind. But nonetheless, I mean, undermining a candidate because you have your own job. prospects in mind is pretty sad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's attacking Bernie because of what it can do for her career. I would set myself as the opposite example. I support Bernie, even though he has no idea who I am, will never give me a job. And in fact, if he became president, my show would either be canceled or fundamentally

have to change because he would fix a lot of the problems that we break down on a daily basis. So it's actually in my economic interest for him to fail. Well, I'm sure there will still be news to cover, including the fights that will occur. in Congress and stuff. But anyway, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. No, not Mayor Pete. Okay, let's move on.

Did you see Beto jump up on a countertop? He's like a gazelle. That's right. He would be a great president. Yeah. Or Polalter. Lots of fake charisma, which I love. Anyway.

He has some real charisma. Come on. Really? Beto? Yeah, he's charismatic enough at times. He went viral for- Do you don't remember the debate with Ted Cruz? Oh, no, I remember that.

That's true. Yeah. There was no charisma in either debate. Well, you can be charismatic in a week. Yeah. Yeah. Moving on, since we're speaking of, about Nira Tandon, we actually have a specific Nira Tandon story that I'm sure you guys are

going to love. The New York Times recently covered a story involving Nira Tandon, who is of course the president of the Center for American Progress. She was a staunch Hillary supporter and actually worked for Hillary Clinton. And Faz Shakir, who is now working for the Bernie Sanders campaign. In 2008, they apparently had a little tiff, let me give you the description. So in 2008, Fas Shakir, the chief editor of the think tank's think progress website at the time, asked Clinton, Hillary Clinton, a question about the Iraq war, an issue dogging her candidacy

because she had supported it. Tandon responded by circling back to Shakir after the interview, and according to a person in the room punching him in the chest, she punched him in the chest. And he died. No, he did not. No, I already died. No, but hold on. Okay, he didn't die. That is unacceptable. Yeah, you get, you can't punch someone to death, no. John, stop, stop. Stop watching now, just assuming he died. Okay, yes. No, of course you can't punch the one. Okay, so. So, she was asked about it and here's how she reacted. I didn't slug him. This is how she responded.

I didn't slug him. I pushed him, a still angry Tandon corrected in a recent interview. And then punched the interviewer. You got any other, you got producers, you got any editors, I can throw the punches around. So she's fiery. And I appreciate fire in other women. It resonates with me. But you gotta have the fire in doing the right thing and punching someone in the chest, punching

a journalist in the chest for asking a question, a totally legitimate question is not the right kind of fire. Yeah. I mean, can you imagine any circumstances where you would punch someone for asking a question? No, I can't. And you get fired up. I do get fired up, but I, look, I have very, very strong feelings about putting your hands on another individual, right?

So we did the story about Joe Biden, and there was a lot of disagreement about what his intentions were and all that, but for me, you just do not put your hands on anyone else, whether it's in a moment of affection or in a moment of rage. It's just, for me, your body should not be touched unless there's consent regarding the touching. So, I mean, what do you think? Do you think that she punched him? I don't know, but it appears that she's owning up to putting her hands on him.

Yeah. And so even if she pushed him, first of all, unacceptable to put your hands on someone simply because you don't like the question they're asking. Yes. Well, you can't push someone because you don't like the question. You can't do any of that, yeah. That's what I'm saying. So even if we give her the benefit of the doubt and all she did was, all she did was push him,

that's still serious in my eyes. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So let me give you more details. The Times spoke to Neera Tandon's mother, Maya, and her comments are fascinating. Tandon's mother Maya Tandon says that her daughter can be very aggressive. Oh, you think. Okay.

She continues to say, she's not going to let anyone rule over her, and she has loyalty to Hillary because Hillary is the one who made her. Those Bernie brothers are attacking her all the time, but she lets them have it too. Sanders got a pass in 2016, but he's not getting a pass this time. That's all well and good. Why are they talking to her mom? Hold on, hold. I would be mortified if anyone talk to my mom?

Because my mom. Come on, tell us about Anna, what was she like as a kid? My mom is, you think I'm fiery, you think my mom would be a million times. You think she's bunched someone to death? A hundred percent. Yeah. My mom does not care. They need to not, but like, okay, there's more.

Is that, we're really, okay, okay. You go first. No, no, go ahead, share your comments. It's just a surreal moment. Like, how many times have we read a quote from the New York Times and then gone to their mom? I know. I've never done that before.

I know, it is weird. Yeah, yeah, and here's Nancy Pelosi's uncle. I've never done that. Okay, so the think tank, the Center for American Progress, according to the Times, has taken in millions from interests, often criticized by liberals, including Wall Street financiers, big banks, Silicon Valley Titans, foreign governments, defense contractors, and the healthcare industry, individual donors can ask to remain anonymous. So I want to get a little more specific in regard to where they get some of their funding

from and why people on the left, and I would argue progressives, not liberals, have an issue with this. So last year, the center got $1 million from the Family Foundation of Jonathan Levine, a managing partner at Bain Capital, and at least $1 million from the tech industry's Silicon Valley Community Foundation. It also received $225,000 from a private foundation of a Walmart Air, Sam Walton. And then finally, I want to give you just one more quote from her mother, Maya Tandon, in regard to this funding. That's what she does.

She shows up at rich people's places because she needs funds from them. That place runs on near a tandon. Okay, come to me. I would be mortified if my mom spoke to the press and said things like that. But yeah, it's not a good look. And it does appear that Tandon is still very upset over what happened in 2016. You think? Very bitter about Bernie Sanders and that whole campaign.

And there was a different story in the Times, which unfortunately we didn't get to today. But it seems like they're starting to scheme and find ways to undermine his campaign again. And that's something that I want everyone to be aware of because that is unacceptable on so many different levels. They do not care about the will of the people. They do not care about what Democratic voters actually want. I would- The important thing is that they're not in charge this time.

They're not. Like they, you know, there will be ads and there will be bot networks. But they'll be articles and well-funded, so- Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And I mean, there's no need to totally relitigate Narotan. And I think everybody who watches this show has heard us talk about it before. She represents, she's from the Clinton wing of the party. That's what she is.

That's what your cap is now. I know she, like everyone, wants to be considered a true progressive. Nobody's like, you know what I am? I'm a centrist. Amy Klobuchar. Maybe Howard Schultz. But nobody, like people can't necessarily be honest with themselves. She comes from that wing of the party.

And that's what anything that think that she runs is going to represent that wing of the party. That's fine. The important thing is that we don't punch each other. What exactly? And one final part of this just to close this segment, Tandon acknowledged tensions with with what she called millennial agitators in her party, but blamed Trump, who made crazy radical ideas seem more normal. Yeah, he actually sort of normalized assaulting people.

And look, even people like New York Tannen are taking it up. Yeah, but she assaulted Fas Shakir in 2008. I'm joking, obviously, yeah, yeah. And more importantly. It's the future of the Democratic Party, and they're not crazy ideas, they're just ideas that you're not comfortable with. Learn the difference between those two things. If you want to continue to have a role in the party going forward.

And it's more than that. There are ideas that jeopardize the, you know, the bacon she's been eaten over the last however long she's been working in politics. That's what it's really about. I mean, what Bernie Sanders stands for is the antithesis of a system that she's profited off of handsomely. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, I just want to read one more time, I'm not 100% sure that she punched him. I have seen those sorts of things be exaggerated in the past. with Maxine Waters, you may remember. So I don't know 100% for that. And I do think it's weird to talk to someone's mom. Unless that's a new thing that we're going to do from now on, we're going to talk to people's mom and dad every time they're involved in a story. It seems weird to do it in one case.

I'm going to walk my mom up in the basement. Okay. Yeah, she used to threaten me with that when I was young and now I'm threatening her with that after reading the story. Anyway, all right, guys. We will be back after the break. Thank you, John. Please check out his show, Damage Report.

and Brooke Thomas and Alonzo Bowden will be joining us for the next hour. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.