The Young Turks - Berning the Media

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

Biden went to Ukraine to announce more military aid for Zelensky. Marianne Williamson joins the program. East Palestine residents were told water was safe after 'sloppy' testing paid for by Norfolk Southern. Sen. Sanders calls out corporate media to their faces. Trump is absolutely losing it over the New York Post praising Ron DeSantis in a new profile they wrote about him. To increase equity, school districts are eliminating honors classes. Florida state officials are weighing 'classical and Christian' alternative to the SAT. Marjorie Taylor Greene calls for red states and blue states to have a "national divorce," separate into two countries. Marjorie Taylor Greene says, “I know a ton of white people that are a lazy and sorry and probably worse than Black people I know.” Don Lemon taking Monday off at CNN following Nikki Haley 'prime' comment. 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. Thank you. All right, welcome to the Young Turks. Thank you, Granite, I'm sparing with you guys. We got the usual. We got Republican fights, Trump versus DeSantis.

That one's a doozy. We got criticism for both parties, as usual, right? And we have Ukraine. So let's do it. All right, let's do it. Together, we've committed nearly 700 tanks and thousands of armored vehicles, 1,000 artillery systems, more than 2 million rounds of artillery ammunition, more than 50 advanced launch rocket systems, anti-ship and air defense systems, all defend Ukraine, and that doesn't count

The other half a billion dollars are going to be announcing with you today and tomorrow. That's going to be coming your way. President Joe Biden announced yet another round of military aid to Ukraine, this time to the tune of half a billion dollars. Now, in the video that you just watched, he described all the different ways in which the United States has provided military weaponry to Ukraine in its effort to defend itself against Russia's invasion. Now, Biden in this next clip talks about what he plans to provide in the coming weeks. Let's watch. Just today, that announcement includes artillery ammunition for high mars and howitzers, more javelins, and the armor systems, air surveillance radars. They'll protect Ukrainian people from aerial bombardments.

Later this week, we will announce additional sanctions against elites and companies that are trying to evade sanctions and backfill Russia's war machine. The United States has already allocated a whopping $113 billion in military aid to Ukraine, and it doesn't appear that they intend to stop providing military aid. So that is, the 113 billion is what was already provided. The half a billion is what was just announced by Biden during the Munich Security Conference. Anthony Blinken also has some pretty serious accusations against China. We'll get to that in just a moment. But, Jank, what are your thoughts? Yeah, so we have the usual absurdities from all sides.

So right wingers now saying he went on President's Day, our President's Day, he spent it a foreign country. Oh, shut up. No one cares. That's not the real criticism you want to do here. It's not like there isn't real criticism. We spend $113 billion. Are you sure that we should spend more? I'm not positive. We're going to get to our hypocrisy in regards to China in a second. And guys, the easy answer isn't, that's it, withdraw all support from Ukraine, or that's it, pour in another $113 billion to Ukraine. No, the question is what's in our best interest and what is going to bring this conflict to a, hopefully a peaceful, resolution as quickly as possible. And the answers are almost never in the extremes. Right. Well, okay, so this story, as with any news story, is far more nuanced than what

you're likely seeing in other news outlets. Okay, first let me just note. So that speech was given by President Joe Biden in Kiev. He visited Ukraine for the first time. So that is the reason why Republicans are attacking him, arguing that he shouldn't be in Ukraine during President's Day, which is a ridiculous critique, to say the least. But over the weekend, the Munich Security Conference took place. And during the Munich Security Conference, we heard from a spokesperson from China's foreign ministry, respond to accusations from the United States State Department in regard to China potentially offering lethal weapons to Russia in its invasion in Ukraine. Now, here is a statement from U.S. Secretary of State,

Anthony Blinken. He made the rounds on the Sunday morning news shows. Here's one example of that. And you talk about this lethal aid. What evidence do you have of that? What makes you think they're about to send lethal aid to the Russians for the war in Ukraine? Martha, what I can tell you is this. First of all, from day one, almost quite literally, because President Biden spoke to President Xi a couple of weeks into the Russian aggression back last March and said to him that it would be a deep concern to us if China provided lethal support to Russia or helped in the systematic evasion of sanctions. And part of the reason for that conversation going back to last March was just a few weeks

before President Putin and President Xi had met and they talked about a partnership with no limits. And we were very concerned that no limits might include significant support to Russia in its aggression. We've been watching this very, very closely. For the most part, China has been engaged in providing rhetorical, political, diplomatic support to Russia. But we have information that gives us concern that they are considering providing lethal support to Russia. There were no details about the alleged information that the U.S. State Department has in regard to China.

But make no mistake, I mean, he mentions the rhetorical support. And that's what certainly bothers the U.S. State Department. China has not taken a stance against Russia. China is also looking to its own self-interest, as any country would. And they're considering basically their relationship with the West, particularly Germany and France. They want to rebuild their relationship with those two countries. And at the same time, they see Russia as an important ally to serve as a counterbalance to Western power, to the United States. So it's a far more complicated situation. I'm not going to believe that China's thinking about providing lethal weapons to Russia, unless there's actual

evidence to back that up. The State Department loves to throw out some pretty antagonizing statements against China, and I don't think that's smart. Okay, so come on, let's talk about our hypocrisy. Don't be ridiculous. China is considering providing lethal aid. All of a sudden, aid is called lethal when referring to China. But when we spent 100 cent, $113 billion worth of missiles and ammunition and all sorts of weapons, that was not lethal aid. And by the way, the dutiful press corps as always bow their heads to the people in power and do their propaganda. Our aid is never called lethal aid. Remember, China has has set the dime yet.

We're not even the warmongers at the, basically the Biden administration have not said that China has sent a dime. But they're considering contemplating lethal aid. Who are you guys kidding, right? So is China going to consider their own interest? What do you want them to do? Consider our interest first. Would we do that for them? Could you imagine if our leader was like, we should consider China first?

Of course China is going to consider their interests first. Do they have interest in protecting their alliance with Russia? Of course they do. Now, look, what Russia did was terrible. It invaded a sovereign country. and that is a war of aggression, it is 100% Russia's fault. So I'm not in favor of that war. I hate that Russia started it. But am I a realist that I know that China is going to consider, hey, maybe if we're going to do some action in Taiwan, we might want to have Russia on ourselves.

Hey, you know what? If the rest of the world is rejecting Russian oil and gas, and we can get it for cheap, maybe we should consider Russian oil and gas. Of course they're going to consider those things. So, and then if Blinken and the corporate media, of course, going along with it, if they all come back with, well, did you know that Russia started out war of aggression? Yeah, I just told you that, right? Did you know we started the war of aggression in Iraq? And so would we have been like, can you believe countries sending lethal aid to America as they did the invasion of Iraq for no goddamn reason? So our hypocrisy is screaming so loud as, by the way, not just politicians, but the media tries to protect the American people from seeing and hearing that obvious hypocrisy.

So let's talk about that a little bit, because during the Munich Security Conference, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry responded to the accusations coming from the U.S. State Department. Asked about the accusations from Blinken and other U.S. officials, Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, suggested that on the contrary, it was the United States. states that was implicated in bloodshed in Ukraine, he continues to say, quote, it's the U.S. and not China that has been incessantly supplying weapons to the battlefield, and the U.S. is not qualified to issue any orders to China. Show me the lie.

Right, there is no lie. That statement is actually pretty accurate. In fact, I want to go to a quick shot, a video featuring the spokesperson for China's foreign ministry and some of the more, some of the other statements that he issued. It is the U.S. not China that is providing a steady stream of weapons on the battlefield. The United States is in no position to make demands of China. We will never accept the U.S. pointing fingers at Cino-Russian relations or even coercing us. He also said, quote, Washington should stop shirking responsibility and disseminating fake news.

China will continue firmly standing on the side of dialogue. and on the side of peace. And I should note, look, there's something that's kind of been bothering me about the US strategy, right? Because while I've said a million times before, the United States made security guarantees to Ukraine after Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. That was what was negotiated with the United States back in the 1990s. Okay, that doesn't mean that there should be a blank military aid check provided to Ukraine.

And there should be more of an effort to pursue peace negotiations. Now, I'm starting to think that the U.S. is actually, their actions are counter to pressuring peace negotiations. I'll tell you why. In April of 2022, Lloyd Austin, who is the defense secretary, specifically said, candidly said that he wants, the U.S. wants the Russian military weakened from the Ukraine invasion, okay? They want Russia to deplete all of their military capability and have a difficult time rebuilding their military capability once this war is over. Now, if you strike a peace deal early on in the war, is the U.S. going to get what it wants in regard to weakening Russia? No. Yeah, there's more to that too. So guys, again, nuance here.

A lot on the right and the left make it seem like Ukraine's the bad guys. Like, oh, did you do you hear about that Nazi division inside the Ukrainian? Oh, they're poor Russians are being attacked by the Ukrainian civilians. What the hell do you want them to do? They invaded their country. Of course, Ukraine is going to fight back. So my heart's with the Ukrainian people and I'm glad that we helped them. Now, having said that, do we also have nefarious interests in America? Of course we do. Definitely. Of course. So guys, look, think about two things. Why don't we want peace negotiations or why are we not pushing more aggressively in that direction? You could say, hey, Ukraine has a battlefield advantage and we want to press that. Maybe that's true,

that's up to the Ukrainians, right? But mainly for us, there's two things. One is we want Russia depleted because we realized after our debacle in Iraq and Afghanistan, it turns out invading these countries is a real pain in the ass and syphers away a ton of money. Now we remember our elites, the people in power did not mind that at all because the power, the money that was drained away from American coffers went straight to their donors, the defense contractors, et cetera. So they loved that we lost trillions of dollars there. But they also want Russia to lose trillions of dollars to even up the odds a little bit. But there's a second component.

The longer the war goes on, the more Russia becomes alienated from the rest of the world. And that's why they're furious of China for not alienating Russia. Why do we care about that? Yeah, geopolitical interests, military interests. But more importantly, energy interests. Okay? Russia used to supply energy to Germany and to a lot of Europe through the pipelines, North Stream 1, and they were going to open up North Stream 2.

There is excellent evidence to indicate that America bombed North Stream 1 in the middle of this war. And so that is, by the way, that's a war crime. By the way, that's an attack against arguably not only Russia, but Germany, okay, and Germany was investigating it, then all of a sudden decided to end there is investigation instantly. Gee, I wonder why if they found out it was Russia who did it. They would not have ended it. If they find out it's their ally that did it, they end it. What is the U.S. doing?

They're playing with fire. Of course they are, but why are they doing it guys? Again, this is not a partisan issue, Republican Democrat in reality doesn't matter. The reason why the people in power do it is because they're funded by the energy companies. So those energy companies are going to make billions of dollars, maybe even trillions, because now Europe and other parts of the world are forced to buy from our energy companies. The money doesn't go to us, it doesn't go to the US taxpayers. It goes only to the executives and the shareholders of those companies, which then share a tiny

percentage with the corrupt, corrupt politicians who use it as campaign contributions. That's the number one reason why we're dragging our feet and don't want to get the peace in Ukraine. Meanwhile, China figures, hey, listen, the quicker I wrap this thing up, their economic interests are better served, but I don't give a damn, I want peace. So I don't care about their economic interests, and I certainly don't care about Exxon mobile and the other guy's economic interests. get the goddamn peace already, but our guys won't do it because they're warmongers.

And the last thing is, our guys are also picking a fight with China. Yes. So not only are we saying, oh, I can't believe you would consider lethal aid as we pour lethal aid not only into Ukraine, but this is the most important part. We just did a multi-billion dollar deal where we sent weapons to Taiwan, which would be characterized by us as lethal aid, okay? So China could turn around, oh my God, don't those guys, we might be in a war with them at some point. And that could kill Chinese civilians, all of your lethal aid.

We're picking a fight and picking a fight. And why, defense contractor industry, energy company industry, and by the way, bankers too that speculate on all of this, et cetera. Because our politicians don't work for us, they work for those donors. Absolutely. All right, we do have to take a quick break when we come back. Mary Ann Williamson will be joining us for a conversation. We're going to be talking about the presidential election in 2024 and more on what's happening in the country. So stick around. We have that conversation more coming right up.

All right, back on TYT, Jencanana with you guys. We're going to talk to Marianne Williamson a little bit and get her thoughts about a very interesting topic that's in the news. But I wanted to thank Walter Romero, Jeffrey Hendricks, and Marshall Travis, who all just became new members by hitting the join button below the video on YouTube. You guys are amazing. Thank you for helping to make this show possible. Everybody can do it at t.com slash join. Casper. All right, well, let's give you all an update on East Palestine, Ohio. Last Wednesday, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine told the residents of East Palestine, Ohio,

that their water had been tested and is safe to drink. Of course, this follows a terrible train derailment in the area, which led to what was referred to as a controlled burn of toxic chemicals that the train was carrying. Those toxic chemicals are thought to have seeped into groundwater, potentially harming the water source in the area. But of course, the authorities have said repeatedly that they've tested the water. The water is safe. Now we find out, thanks to an investigation by Huffington Post or Huff Post, that those tests were actually done by a consulting firm that was on Norfolk Southern's payroll, which is a clear

conflict of interest here. And not only that, we're also learning that the samples that they utilized in order to carry out these tests were deeply flawed. So let's give you the details. So the reporting is by Chris DeAngelo, just want to give him credit for this. Now Norfolk Southern contracted a company known as ACOM in order to carry out these tests of the water. They sampled treated, they sampled water both from municipal water and untreated water from five municipal wells for their tests. And here's where the issues come in, okay? Five of the six collected samples had pH or acidity levels that exceeded the two pH limit

allowed under the EPA method listed in the analysis for detecting volatile organic compounds, rendering them inappropriately preserved, or improperly, I should say, preserved. One sample also contained a large air bubble in its vial, while the EPA method requires that the sample bottles should not have any, trapped air bubbles when sealed, the report states. Now, some experts have weighed in on this. David Erickson, hydrogeologist and the founder of water and environmental technologies and environmental consulting firm in Montana called the sampling sloppy and amateur. Due to improper sampling protocols, there could have been more contaminants in the sample

than what showed on the analytical Erickson said. Jank, I do not begrudge anyone for lacking trust toward government statements, local government statements about how safe the water is. I mean, my mind goes back to what happened in Flint, Michigan, when the people of Flint Michigan were told that their water was safe, even though it was just contaminated with lead. Even Obama pretended to drink a glass of water from Flint during a press conference. And testing indicated that the water was not in fact safe. It had lead in it.

And so look, the way that they did the testing here is a huge problem. And again, I think that the people of East Palestine should be incredibly careful. So the theme of this segment will be similar to you guys. It's corporate Republicans and Democrats protecting corporations, which is what they always do. So why would you, and by the way, oftentimes corporate media going along with it, of course. So why would you humor these guys and go, oh, yeah, why don't you hire your own amateur testers and have them test the water and go, oh, the water that you might have contaminated you tell us is perfectly fine in order to avoid lawsuits. Okay, that sounds pretty. Come on, guys, don't you know anything about business?

Of course, you're going to try to avoid liability. They're facing tons and tons of liability from civil lawsuits. Right, exactly. There's no chance. There's a 0% chance that they would have hired a firm that said the water was contaminated and toxic and that they were at fault. Anyone who knows business knows that. Come on. So what do they're both the DeWine, the Republican, corporate Republican, and Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg used to corporate Democrats do.

They're in a giant cover your ass operation, not even for anything they did wrong. Although you could argue that and we will, but for what the company did wrong. 1000% because all the beloved companies must be protected at all costs. And guys, get a load of this. Okay, so Norfolk Southern was asked to comment about the, you know, this revelation that the water samples were not properly, you know, gathered and tested. And so in response to that, the rail company stated that ACOM ran a second test.

They did. They ran a second test with samples that did comply with EPA standards. But the test was not recorded correctly. Oops. Oh yeah, golly gee. I mean, unbelievable. So by the way, an expert called them amateurs. That's why I use that word.

But I don't care if they're the most professional company in the world. I don't test these things for a living. I'm not positive. You can't have the guy responsible for the accident, test the water. Exactly. There's no way in the world.

They wouldn't be obsessed with liability litigation costs. There's no way, no corporate executive in their right mind would hire a company and have them say it's your fault and you owe people hundreds of millions of dollars. This is what I'm talking about. The fiction that corporations have your best interest in mind. It's absurd. It really is. Now, I should also note that the Columbiana County General Health District also sampled and tested water around East Palestine.

They're saying that their tests ended up matching ACOM's results, but they also told HuffPost that they only got the results of their test back until after DeWine had announced that the water was in fact safe. But look, we should also judge with our own eyes. The authorities may agree that the water is safe, but it's hard to take their word for it when the creek looks like this. Okay, so there's the creek. It does not typically look like that according to residents in the area. The Ohio State EPA has stated that they're still testing the water, the water tests are ongoing, and if they find that the water, the iridescent water is contaminated, then they'll let the people of East Palestine know.

For now, from what I've read, the residents in the area are not taking the official's word for, you know, at face value. They're using bottled water. Some of the residents who have showered using the water have developed some rashes, some Some are complaining about headaches. We've shown you video of some of the creeks that have dead frogs and dead fish within them. So again, it's understandable why people would be distrusting toward the statements coming from both the local EPA and also from this, you know, contractor that Norfolk Southern has hired to do the water testing. And the Biden administration, which has generally been full of crap on this, which we're going to get to in a second.

Look, I've read that the, it's possible with these chemicals that you could have the nausea, the headaches, the dizziness, et cetera, but not have it be long-term negative health consequences. I hope so. I hope so. Is that for sure? No, it's definitely not for sure. Is the water contaminated? Well, obviously it is. We've seen all the dead fish. But yet, corporate media and corporate politicians, they say, no, don't believe you're lying eyes. And why have we eroded faith in our government, in our systems and in our institutions? Because they never represent us. So now it's so bad that, you know, I vote Democratic, but a Democratic administration tells me that the water's fine. I don't believe them. I don't believe them at all. I believe, Buttigieg has not regulated them 1%. It looks like he would regulate them only under, like you can't get him to do it.

Well, so now he pretends he's going to urge. There's a lot of urging coming. So this is a headline, literally this is the headline coming from Reuters, Buttigieg urges urges U.S. railroads to boost safety, not oppose reforms. Who's in charge here? What do you mean? you're urging them to improve their safety protocols, you have the ability to regulate them and force them to beef up their safety. Are you going to do it? So let's talk about that a little bit. Now Buttigieg, of course, has been getting a lot of backlash from people who are actually paying attention and wanting to hold government officials accountable for their unwillingness to hold rail companies accountable and regulate rail companies. Now this is what we're finding. So

The White House announced this last week on Friday. The Department of Transportation is working on numerous fronts to improve rail safety, including managing over $4 billion in discretionary grant programs designed to improve rail safety and eliminate at-grade rail crossings. Department of Transportation is also working on rulemaking to improve rail safety, including proposing a rule that would require a minimum of a two-person train crew size for safety reasons, a major priority for rail workers. Also, the Department of Transportation is developing a notice of proposed rulemaking that

will require railroads to provide real-time information on the contents of tank cars to authorized emergency response officials responding to or investigating an incident involving the transportation of hazardous materials by rail. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, what are you guys going to do in regard to improving or updating the train's breaking system? That's point number one. What are you going to do to reclassify some of the toxic chemicals that are not considered toxic enough, I guess, to have the beefed up safety protocols during transportation? I mean, there's a lot here that they're not talking about, and it's concerning to say the least, because it makes me think they're just

issuing a statement to make it appear as though they're going to regulate. But once everyone's focused on a different story, once everyone's moved on, they're going to move. move on. That's what I'm concerned about here. The number one reason establishment Democrats and the elites love Buttigieg is because they think he's really smart. Oh, it turns them on so much. He went to Harvard. He learned Norwegian just to read a book. No, he didn't. That's such an obvious lie. Jesus Christ, guys. But okay, I want to ask them, do you really think Pete Buttigieg is this dumb? I'm going to get to why in a second. Okay, so he says, and I'm going to quote from a different article than

The Reuters explains he would call on major railroads to improve say, oh, he's calling on them to do it. Wow, I'm sure they'll take the call. Okay. He says they also explain he would also urge Congress to raise the cap on fines, et cetera. Oh, he's urging Congress. There's a lot of urging going on. They say Buttigieg said he would soon outline specific safety improvements that they should take. Okay, I can go like literally a whole article. I don't want to take up the whole show. It should, could, maybe considering thinking about deeply ruminating. Come on, I mean, it's ridiculous. So guys, okay, so this is my question to the establishment Democrats who think he's such a genius.

Do you think corporations work that way? They also said that he did a strongly worded letter to them. Yeah. That they go, hey, you know, this provision could cost me $28 million. which by the way I should pay because I make billions and this is safety precautions so people in Ohio don't die, et cetera. But it's going to cost me $28 million. On the other hand, I've been urged by the Department of Transportation and do them. Listen. Come on, really. Is Sputajic that stupid that you think corporations are human beings

and if he urges them that they'll do the right thing? Please don't tell me you're that stupid. Okay, and by the way, that applies to everyone in media. Yes, they are. They're definitely that dumb. Norfolk Southern spent $1.8 million on lobbying in 2022 alone. Just on the 22 midterm elections, they spent $1.8 million on lobbying. Do you think they did that out of the kindness of their own hearts? They just wanted to do charity for politicians? or did it have to do with the fact that they do not want to be regulated,

which is why when it comes to political affiliation, they don't really discriminate. Democrat, Republican, they don't care. They give and they give generously to prevent these politicians from regulating them. So when Pete Buttigieg urges these rail companies to beef up their safety measures, urging is the exact word that communicates to all of us that he ain't going to do anything. Okay, he's going to leave it to the rail companies, which of course have a profit motive and have a fiduciary responsibility to return on investment for their shareholders. He's going to urge them to do the right thing.

For corporations, the only thing they are built to do is to increase profits. And safety measures cuts into those profits. That's the way it works. Buttigieg knows it. He's actually not stupid. He thinks we're stupid. And that's the problem. By the way, corporate media very much obliges him.

Oh, yeah, Buttigieg has been so strong in all of his urgings. Okay, let me give you two more things. He, Buttigieg said, rather than support these efforts to improve rail safety, Norfolk Southern and other rail companies spent millions of dollars in courts and lobbying members of Congress to oppose common sense safety regulations. Okay, all right, you got the point. Wait, you thought they were going to voluntarily support their own regulation and having to pay millions of dollars costs during the Obama administration, that's what he's referring to. That's what you thought they were going to do.

And you, golly, gee, you are a guest to find out they didn't for the 2,000th time in a row, right? Okay, but wait a minute, you sent, oh, they spent all this money on lobbying. Who'd they spend it on? That was during the Obama administration. Oh, right, they spent it on your Democratic colleagues. You make it sound like it's a problem that exists out floating out there in the sky somewhere, right?

No, why don't you talk about the other end of corruption? Right wingers and Republicans never talk about the business end. They're like, oh, big, bad government, can you believe I corrupt they are? They never tell you who corrupted them, okay? Who corrupted them are the people who gave them campaign donations like all these companies, right? The left wing on the other hand is like, can you believe the corruption? And then they never explained who took the money. Well, you all took the bribes.

You took thousands of dollars for thousands. That was hilarious. Hundreds of millions of dollars, I believe in your campaign, if not certainly tens of millions of dollars in legalized bribes from all these different kinds of companies. Why do you think they gave you the money, Pete? You think it was for the general welfare? No, it was a legal bribe. And you never call on anybody. By the way, the Trump administration, as always, was worse.

Obama was considering the rules. Trump just tore them up and said, hell no, I would never regulate any company. I'm going to let them ruin you. And one more thing, Buttigieg wrote in his letter to the companies, this must change. Well, dude, you're the regulator. Your job is to change it, not ask them and beseech them to change it. It's like telling a robber, you must stop breaking and entering. Well, is there any law against it?

Oh, no, there's no law at all. You can just go take anybody's stuff you like. Well, I strongly urge you to cease and desist at once. No, pass the goddamn law, making them do it. That's literally your job. When we come back from the break, Marianne Williamson will be joining us for an interview. Stick around.

All right, back on T.T. Changana with you guys. All right. Joining us now is author, spiritual leader, and political activist Marianne Williamson. Marianne, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thank you so much for having me. So I'm going to get started with something that caught my attention recently. So it was reported that you have formed an exploratory committee for a potential run for president in 2024. You also had noted that you have a big announcement coming up on March 4th.

You want to maybe speed up that announcement and say something about it on this show? Well, when you kind of say I'm announcing that I'm going to have an announcement on March 4th, you're sort of, you know, winking. And I think everybody realizes that. I, and it's certainly been out there that I was going to, you know, that I've had the exploratory. And I've done this sort of due diligence of figuring out whether or not it would be fullhearted to the extent of futile or whether there is a compelling reason for me to run. And I feel that I've come up with the answer as far as my own heart, my own gut register. And I'll be talking about that. And I'll be on live stream. I'll be in Washington, D.C., and I'll let people know how I'm feeling

where I think the country has been, where I think the country is, and where I think the country needs to go. Well, speaking of that, you recently published a piece in your substack titled, A New America is struggling to be born, but it won't be birthed unless we birth it. And you touch on so many issues that we have in the country. But what really struck me was your emphasis on how corruption has really hurt this country in many ways. You write, we don't need any more evidence that the system has become deeply, intrinsically corrupt. We can see it in the broken windows, shuttered factories and violent crime in our once thriving communities. We can see it in the hollowed eyes and addiction rattled brokenness of our fellow citizens. You also write,

quote, we can see it in the mass despair of millions of Americans who work hard all day, yet cannot afford a one bedroom apartment, who were holding on but now find themselves homeless, who are struggling with anxiety born of constant economic uncertainty, who tried their best to get into the game, but have found the game so rigged against them. Mary Ann, if you had a magic wand, and there was one main issue that you could really focus on and solve, what would that issue be? If I could only do one, it would be universal health care. We have 500,000 Americans who go into medical debt every year. We have 68,000 Americans who die every year for lack of health care. We have 85 Americans who are either underinsured or uninsured. We have an $88 billion total

medical debt. And I think when you consider the fact that that produces so much economic anxiety and so many people's lives, we have 64% of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, 60% of Americans who could not absorb a $400 unexpected expenditure. Health care alone would really take that level of despair and drop it quite a bit. You know what we all need to realize is exactly what you were saying before about East Palestine. What happened in East Palestine is a feature. It's not a bug of the way the current system works. And it's exactly the corruption.

What I was talking about in that article is exactly the corruption that you and Shank were talking about over the last few minutes. The deregulation, the fact that for the sake of short-term profits, it's not just the railroad companies, it's the insurance companies, it's big oil, it's the pharmaceutical companies, it's big agricultural companies, it's big chemical companies, it's big food companies, it's a military industrial complex. It's the system itself. It's not just one industry and it's not just one incident. And as long as you put short-term economic profits before the health and safety and well-being of people and animals and planets, We are going to get more and more East Palestinians. But you know, this is the thing. It's not like one particular institution. You know, slavery was one institution. You gotta end it with institutionalized oppression of women. We need suffrage, one institution that needs to be removed.

Segregation, one institution. Today it's more like an atomizer spray. An atomizer spray of injustice. It's the racial inequality in our criminal justice system here. It's infiltration of white supremacists into our police there. It is lack of health care over here. It is the fact that people don't have healthy food over there. It is the East Palestinians. It is the economic, it is the environmental injustice of it all. It is the fact that we have some such high rates of chronic

illness in this country. And of course, the war machine in the United States. So at this point, we need to recognize that the system is so deeply corrupt that the corruption is baked into the cake. And at this point, I don't think the system is going to disrupt itself. That's really what you've been talking about here. Pete Buttigieg is a Democrat. So if you, we know how the Republicans feel, they're just a kind of like nose dive for our, for our democracy and our society. But the Democrats are kind of a managed decline at this point.

So when you ask me what one thing, yeah, the one thing would be health care, but really it's the issue underlying all those issues, and that is neoliberalism itself. It's the fact that we've had a 50 year aberrational chapter of American society where, trickle down economics, unregulated capitalism, whatever you want to call it has led to this decimation of the American middle class. We've had, I think Grand Corporation said we've had 48, no, over the last 48 years, we've had 50 trillion dollars of resources of money that has gone from the bottom 90% to the 1%. So we need genuine economic reform at this point. It's more than just health care. It's more than that. It's also a livable wage. It's also maternity leave. It's also

free college. It's all those things that we know and that you talk about all the time. So Marianne, you just laid out a really important case against corporate Democrats, corporate Republicans, and basically corporate rule in America. And I think that would probably resonate with a lot of Americans. But that is not what you will get from 90% of the media coverage of this room. They will ask you, aren't you helping Republicans by doing a primary? Aren't you helping Trump by doing a primary? It's almost an effort to paint you as a right-winger when you're doing a left-wing challenge to Biden, if you announce on March 4th. So how do you plan to combat what will be an enormous industry of misleading statements

about why you're running? You know, I think there's an ameliorative quality to saying the truth is you understand it. All those things that you just talked about will happen. And one might say it's a ridiculous thing to think that this could get anywhere. But to that, Jack, I remind people that Trump became president, and he didn't become president by strategizing anything. He became president by hitting a nerve. And I think the nerve we need to hit at this point is the American realization that the American people had been played.

We've been played for the last 50 years. And I think that more Americans are waking up to this. The kinds of things we talk about, whether it has to do with universal health care, tuition-free college, free child care, maternity leave, paternity leave, sick pay. These are considered moderate issues to any advanced democracy in Europe and elsewhere. And they should be considered moderate issues here. And if I get the chance on mainstream media, that's exactly what I will say. Okay, and following up on that, so they will go back to 1976 to try to find an example of a primary hurting a sitting president. Now, you can go to many contemporary examples of primaries helping, whether it was the very contentious primary in 2016 for the Republicans or the contentious primary in 2020 for the Democrats, et cetera.

There's tons of recent examples, but they will all, all of them in media, not even in politics, but in media, go back to 1970, I'm sorry, 1980, when- 1980 and Teddy Kennedy and when Kennedy primaried Jimmy Carter, and they say that that, hurt Carter's chances of winning. So what is your battle plan for for fighting back against basically a misleading idea that we know for a fact they will throw at you 200 times? I'm not interested in fighting back against them. You know this is the the fighting back thing is really what's what's the problem at this point. The Republicans are going to be fighting the Democrats. The Democrats are going to be fighting the Republicans. The Democratic candidate needs to say I will fight poverty. I will fight lack of health care. I will fight the fact that your children have asthma because of

the factories that should not be in your neighborhood. I will we will fight the fact that people are sick because of fossil fuel extraction what it's doing to the environment and what it's doing to the planet. I'm not interested in the football game and I don't think the American people are that interested in the kind of conversation that you were just talking about and Gen Z isn't even watching mainstream media. I think a lot of the conversation that mainstream media has is less and less interesting to people who know that they're hurting and are less interested in the football game because they figured out

what's going on in this country and it's it's not they're not interested in the spectator sport they're interested in their own lives and capitalism has been weaponized against the american people and unfettered deregulated capitalism it's almost a dialogue a diabolical force at this point it is sociopathic it is pathological it literally does not matter care if people drop dead that's what you see in situations like East Palestine. Marianne, I agree with you in regard to corporate media, certainly cable news. If you look at the demographics that consume that content, it's certainly not young individuals who are watching.

But what do you do? What is your game plan in regard to reaching out to the individuals that you want to get your message out to, right? Those who actually want to hear about an economic plan that would benefit them as opposed to benefiting corporate insurance. You know, last time when I did this, Anna, I was saying a lot of these things last time. But there were two issues. First of all, there was Bernie Sanders, which I totally understand. But a lot of people, because they were so involved with Bernie, and believe me, I endorsed Bernie.

When I left, I adore Bernie. This is, I adore Bernie. And it is true that because of Bernie taking up so much oxygen, some people were not listening to me at the same time in a way they might. Secondly, all this ridiculousness about me, the fairy dust that was thrown in people's eyes that I'm anti-science and that I'm the crystal lady and then I told people they didn't pray enough and that's why they got sick and all that ridiculousness. I think I will have a greater capacity this time to counterpunch, which last time I don't think I knew how to do. You know, when I actually talked to audiences, people got it, people got it, people hear it.

So what I'm going to do is to go out and speak to voters and also speak on the Internet, speak on social media, and do all the things that you do during a campaign. And hope that this time, and I think that part of the due diligence that I did was finding out, will there be enough people this time who are willing to give me a listen. And I have a sense that there will be. I have a sense more and more people know, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump, that's great. Much, you know, we're very grateful that we didn't go off that cliff, but we're still six inches away from the cliff. We're still, you know, Eleanor Roosevelt said to Franklin Roosevelt,

we need more than the amelioration of suffering. We need genuine economic reform. For Joe Biden to go out in 2024 and to say to the American people that his message is that the economy is doing better. When you have people suffering with the economic despair and anxiety that the majority of Americans are suffering through every day, people are open to the message now, why should it be so hard to survive? Joe Biden's going to help you survive. Why should it be so hard to survive in the richest country of the world? So we need to do more than hang out six inches away from the cliff. We need everyone to have a livable wage. We have a third of America's workforce who live for on less than $15 an hour.

That's not a livable wage. Yep. So. All right, it looks like on Friday, people might have a second alternative other than Joe Biden to vote in the Democratic primaries, and that is an exciting development. And we will certainly follow that very thoroughly here on TYT. Mary Ann Williams, and thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.

God loves you, honey. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So why don't we get to our next story? Because speaking of Bernie Sanders, he has been promoting his book on a book tour. And over the weekend, he had an interview with Face Nation that I want to talk about. So let's watch. We have more income and wealth and equality today than we have that.

We have more concentration of ownership in sector after separate than we have ever had. We have a political system which is increasingly corrupt because as a result of Citizens United, billion-ask and put enormous amounts of money into it to elect their candidates. And as you may know, I try to get the Democratic Party to pass a resolution that in Democratic primaries, super PAC money should not be allowed to be used. Bottom light is what constrains any president is we have a corrupt political system in which big money plays an enormous role. It's okay to be angry about capitalism. That's the message and title of Senator Sanders' new book, which is why he was on Face the Nation over the weekend. But his discussion with Margaret Brennan really focused on corruption and the impact that it has had, both in the media and also in the political decisions that are

by elected lawmakers. Now, in the next clip, he's going to call out corporate media while on corporate media. But before we get to that, Jank, you have been urging progressive lawmakers to specifically speak about corruption. And I wanted to get your thoughts on Bernie's comments there. I have two critiques of what he said that I'm going to save for a little bit later. But I have to say there about three or four times in this 26 minute interview. Bernie did a great job of calling out corruption, which almost never happens on TV.

And you could tell Margaret Brennan's reaction was not good. Like she was like, she was so uncomfortable. So uncomfortable. And that's great. That's what you want. You don't want them feeling perfectly. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

A little Medicare for all you're going to pay for that. And feeling comfortable saying weirdo things like that to protect their advertisers, et cetera. And she was combative throughout the entire interview. She would say, no, no, every, she didn't yell or anything like that. No, every question was framed from a corporate perspective. Yes. Everyone, right? So, oh, you say universal health care, but how about Finland with their 56% tax rates?

Yes, yes. Right, and so, and on and on it went. So Bernie, thank you for having the courage to call out corporate media to its face. Right. And almost never happens in American politics. It's an excellent start. So great. In fact, this next clip is where he specifically talks about the corporate influence of

our media, so let's watch that. We have eight major media conglomerates, corporate media conglomerates that control about what 90% of the American people see here and read. Those are really issues that we need to discuss. That's what the book does. Do you worry when you talk about the corporate media that you are targeting journalists when you say that? No, Donald Trump talks about fake news, and that's simply to deflect attention.

from the fact that he's a pathological liar. My experience, one-on-one with media, they work hard. They very rarely, in mind, misquoted. But what I am talking about, Margaret, is that corporate media limits the kind of debate that we have in this country. You tell me, you know more about it than I do. How often do we talk about income and wealth inequality? We're talking about right now, Senator.

Yeah, but how often, not everybody is Bernie Sanders on your show? How often do you talk about concentration of ownership? How often do you talk about the fact that we are the only major country on Earth, not to guarantee health care at all, and yet we spend twice as much money. Oh, God, I love that so, so much. And I especially love, you're right, Jank, how uncomfortable market bread it is. Yeah. Right?

Are you attacking journalists? Yeah. I'd love to see a journalist first. Drawing a false equivalency between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump would point out the media in the back rows during his rallies, call them fake news and enemy of the people, whereas Bernie Sanders is stating facts about how our media has been completely captured by corporate interests, these major conglomerates essentially having all this influence over the content and news that we watch, read, consume.

That was fantastic. He called on about eight multi-billion dollar corporations that control 90% of the news in America, right? And she says, are you calling out journalists? No, he just literally called out the owners, right? And that are interested in profit. And she makes it sound conspirator. Are you saying multi-billion dollar corporations would be interested in profits? Yeah, no, that's exactly what I'm saying.

And would they be interested in protecting their advertisers that give them those profits? Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what they would be. Okay. So, but man, she's caught so many feelings over. What I think is a very normal, like when Bertie was saying, don't get us wrong, like, we're watching and we're going, yes, right? So it's so refreshing to see on mainstream media, which you never see. Because we're not corporate media. She's part of corporate media. Yeah, but the reality is what he's saying is actually elementary. Like, like, if you ask people under 45 that didn't grow up on the drivel that is television news, they're all going to tell you the same thing.

But the reason, part of the reason I'm pointing out is because she's so outraged. You get that in Washington, they live in a bubble where they've never heard anybody say, hey, you guys work for multi-billion dollar corporations that care about their profits and you're not presenting the news accurate. They're like, what? They've only heard a right-wing critique, an insane right-wing critique of media. They've never heard the left-wing critique because they never allowed on air. And if they didn't like what Bernie was going to say, wait, do they get a load of my new book? They're going to hate it.

Well, they're not going to have you on. Let's just keep it real. You think Margaret Brennan's going to have you on to talk about your book? Look, chapter five is called The Matrix and it's about how corporate media is the most important part of the puzzle for corporate rule because it puts you back to sleep, okay? It tells you there's nothing wrong with the system at all. So you can check it out, we can pre-order t.com slash justice, but back to Bernie. So my favorite part of the conversation with Margaret Brennan had to do with how he delicately, handled questions pertaining to Republican voters. And I think that this is instructive.

I think this is the right way to talk to voters, specifically ordinary people who vote for the other side. Let's watch. You say in the book that Democrats are wrong to suggest that former President Trump supporters are racists, sexists, and homophos that they're deplorable. You point out these so-called racist, many of them voted for Barack Obama, but their lives didn't improve. Do you think that the Democratic Party messaging is just entirely wrongheaded to frame this as a broader moral issue. Look, are there supporters of Trump who are racist, sexist, homophobes? Absolutely.

But to paint a broad brush and say, well, that's the reason that they don't vote for the Democrats. That is really wrong. Look, I've been all over this country. I have worked with trade unionists, people on strike, people had the courage to stand up for economic injustice, great people. And I talk to the union leads, oh, 70% of our people are Republican. Why is that? Because I think they have lost faith that the Democratic Party is going to stand up and fight for them. He's a thousand percent right about that. A thousand percent, right?

And the Democratic Party's inability to take ownership of their flaws and to take note of the accurate and valid concerns of the electorate is pretty gross. And instead of, by the way, focusing on that and focusing on improving, they've decided, no, we're going to go on the offense and call anyone who votes for the other side racist. Because that's the winning strategy, right? To just brush people off as racist, bigots, who cares? We don't need them. They're deplorable. No, these are Americans. And as he accurately mentioned, Florida voted for Obama twice. So what happened? Did the demographics change so much that all of a sudden Florida went from voting for the country's first biracial president twice to all of a sudden being the biggest racist

and bigots in the country? Well, so the funny thing is that's not why she's even asking the question. She asked in again about like three or four different instances, at least, it might have been even more than that about do you disagree with the Democrats, huh Bernie? Okay, that was the main point of that question. So the funny thing is I actually think Bernie's not harsh enough on Republican voters. Believe it or not, my position is closer to Hillary Clinton's in that I think she was exactly right that half of the Republican voters are deplorables. Yeah, they love the racism, sex, and some of them. But the other half, yeah, they voted for Obama. Yeah, not all of them did, but a lot of them did. And the other half of the same exact

problems as we do. So on that, I completely joined Bernie. The problem with Hillary Clinton's statement wasn't that she's called half of them racist and sexist. It says she had no answer for the other half. She couldn't then say, but hey, guys, don't worry, I'm going to raise your wages. I'm going to give you health care. I'm going to help you with your life. Instead, she gave him the corporate Democratic position, which is there's no hope coming. I'm not going to help you. I'm just going to help my donors, right? So why is Brennan trying to set him up for this? Because if he dares run against Biden, everyone will use these quotes. It's time to get the game plan ready, right?

Preemptive strikes on Bernie, should he consider primarying Biden? I don't think he's going to primary Biden, okay? No, you could see from the interview he's not going to do it, but she's her job is to make sure they can get dirt on him. So later they could run segments going, Bernie Sanders was opposed to Democrats. Can you believe he's so against Democrats? He's not really a Democrat at all, as if he's a right winger. And that's the fundamental deception they do in regards to progressives in corporate media. No, but like, okay, let's just, I'm just going to say it, okay?

What is the redeeming quality of the Democratic Party right now? Really? No, stop and think about it. When they campaign, they campaign on some economic issues that are appealing to voters. But do they actually follow through on those promises? No, they don't. What's the other thing the Democratic Party is known for? Incessant, endless scolding.

Endless scolding. Culture war related scolding all day every day. Okay, think about ordinary people. You think they want to associate themselves with individuals who spend the majority of their time scolding over culture war issues because they have nothing else to offer to the American people because they're captured by corporate interests. It doesn't take much to see what's really going on. Okay, let's just be clear about that.

And so all of this like, oh my God, are you against the Democratic Party? Hell yeah, I am. The Democratic Party as it stands today is not serving the best interest of the very people who elected them in positions of power in the first place. Okay, the Democrats are not God. No party is. Are they delivering or are they not delivering? And so far, all I've seen from the Democratic Party for decades now is a lot of talk about how they're going to accomplish, you know, policy that benefits blue collar workers, working class people. But again, once they're in positions of power, they don't deliver. Because again, they're funded by the same individuals, the same corporate interests that Republicans are, which is why, look, there's a lot of bipartisan

activity happening in the halls of Congress. We see it all the time. When it comes to raising the debt ceiling, they'll, you know, they'll make that carve out so they don't have to deal with the legislative filibuster that requires 60 senators to vote in favor of legislation to get it passed. When it comes to tax cuts, usually tax cuts pass pretty easily. When it comes to defense spending, no debate when it comes to defense spending. How many hundreds of billions of dollars were appropriated already for the war in Ukraine? No debate about it. So when it comes to issues that would funnel money from the bottom to the top, there's a lot of bipartisanship. When it comes to ordinary Americans and their economic needs, all of a sudden, legislative filibuster, one

excuse after another coming from the Democratic Party, and we're supposed to celebrate them, please. So that gets to my critique of Bernie. So Anna's, of course, right. Like when Republicans say they're the party of Lincoln, that's a hilarious joke. They switch signs after the Civil Rights Act and voting rights act was passed. The Republicans did the Southern Strategy actively chose to be the party that embraced racist in the South. Let's be honest about that. That's the 50% that I think Hillary Clinton is right about, right?

But are we still pretending the Democrats are the party of FDR? I mean, if you are, if you are, you're either. incredibly naive or you're just not paying attention. No, you just don't, you've been brainwashed by corporate media. Oh, it's the same Democrats, it's the same, no, it's not, it's, they're diametrically opposed to FDA, FDRs to the left of Bernie Sanders, read history, please read a book, okay? So now that's what, then way, you said, why is that a critique of Bernie? Because there's two problems here.

One is a lot of his commentary is diffuse, it hits corporate media in general, it hits corruption in general, which I love. All those are good. And those are the best parts, right? Hey, we need to have income inequality is terrible. But in order to get change, you have to laser, you have to focus like a laser beat, right? And Bernie knows how to do that. He did that with Moderna and got great results. He did that with $15 minimum wage at Amazon and he got great results. He even named the bill Bezos to go after Bezos personally. But whenever it comes to the second issue for Bernie, his other Achilles heel, which is Democratic colleagues, all of a sudden he can't be specific. So if you say this guy is corrupt, it will make tons of news.

And people will talk about why he's corrupt. Name a Democratic senator, it doesn't matter. You can't swing a baton in the Senate without hitting a corrupt corporate Democrat. And not physically and literally, guys. Again, we're not right wingers. Okay. But Bernie won't ever call them out because that. Then people would catch feelings and they would say Bernie was being impolite and etc.

But until you start calling them out by name, you're never going to get changed because the media will not focus on it. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back for the second hour of the show, we'll talk about Trump's latest meltdown in response to a puff piece that the New York Post wrote about Ron DeSantis. And later in the show, we'll talk about the tyranny of extremes when it comes to education. That and more coming right up. But not everybody is Bernie Sanders on your show. 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.

apple.co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon