The Young Turks - Biden Backpedals

Episode Date: June 29, 2021

Biden does an insanely pathetic backpedal to suck up to whiny Republicans on the infrastructure deal. The bipartisan senate infrastructure plan is a stalking horse for privatization. GOP Senator Bill Cassidy: Infrastructure is a “woman’s problem” because they “do the shopping.” A possible failure point emerges in Miami-area building collapse. Chris Wallace accuses the GOP of defunding police in a testy Fox interview. A “heroic” man who fatally shot a gunman was himself killed by a responding officer, Colorado police say. Trump is treating Bill Barr like Jeff Sessions after some of his quotes about his opposition to the big lie come out in Jonathan Karl’s book. As Ron DeSantis’ political value rises with racist Republicans, he’s worried about and trying to avoid angering Trump by getting too popular. Dan Crenshaw calls for Gwen Berry to be removed from the Olympic team: This is what happens when you teach critical race theory. Pastor Greg Locke says Biden is “demon-possessed,” and insists that Trump is the “legitimate president. 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. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jake Huger and a Kasparian with you guys. Guess what we do? News. Okay, so that's what we're going to do today. We make a lot of big ones We're making a lot of little ones. So Democrats, Republicans, as usual, always buckle up because what we do on this program is the truth.

Not a big deal. Not a big deal. Like and share the stream. That is a big deal. Helps algorithmically. Yes. I like that you were mouthing it as I was struggling to say. Oh, really?

That's what I always said. Apparently I mouth everything, which is kind of dangerous, right? All right, anyways, so let's get after it. Let's go after the Democrats first. All right, let's do it. So, GOP lawmakers took issue with President Joe Biden, arguing that he would not, in fact, sign a bipartisan infrastructure deal unless there was a separate bill that actually included all of the human infrastructure components of his previous infrastructure proposal, which would pass. through reconciliation, meaning a simple majority in the Senate. Now, he wanted to sign these bills in tandem, and then the GOP started whining.

Now, when the GOP winds, unfortunately, feckless Democrats cave into their demands, which means it's time for another episode of The Dumb and the Feckless. One of my prayers is that the Republicans will take back their party. Things keep dripping out, drip, drip, drip, and the truth comes out. Joe Biden is now backpedaling. He initially said that he would not sign a bipartisan infrastructure bill unless that second bill was also provided in tandem. Now he's saying, no, no, did I upset Republicans?

Did I upset Republicans? I didn't mean to do that. Actually, I will sign the slim watered down awful bipartisan infrastructure bill, even if I don't see the reconciliation bill with the human infrastructure proposals in it. Now, the human infrastructure that I'm referring to has to do with funding for child care, elder care, and also the climate related infrastructure projects. All of that stuff has been stripped away from the bipartisan infrastructure bill. So Biden made it clear during a press conference that he, again, would not sign that unless he got what he wanted in a separate bill. Let's hear exactly

what he had to say. I'm going to fight like heck to get them the rest of what I think has to be done. On education, for example. My proposal was in the family plan, early education and free community college. I'm going to fight like the devil to get that done. But it's not going to be with Republican help. I'm going to have to get every Democrat and do it through reconciliation if it gets done. If you said you want both of these measures to come to you in tandem,

Did you receive any assurances that that will happen? And how do you anticipate, what will you do? I can tell that. If they don't come, I'm not signing. Real simple. No, but if only one comes to me, I'm not, if this is the only thing that comes to me, I'm not signing it. It's in tandem.

Do you support the Speaker Pelosi's stated plan to hold the bipartisan deal in the House until the Senate also passed reconciliation? Do you support that sequence of saying, underpart? Yes. The bipartisan bill from the very beginning was understood. There's going to have to be the second part of it. I'm not just signing the bipartisan bill. I'm forgetting about the rest that I proposed.

I propose a significant piece of legislation in three parts. And all three parts are equally important. And then Republicans started to cry about it. Let's watch that. The president's other agenda was never linked to the infrastructure. effort. We were assured that the two would not be linked. Yes, the human infrastructure, if you will, as they call it, would be pursued, but the two would not be linked. We were all blindsided by the comments the previous day. And there was no discussion during our negotiations

whatsoever of tying those things together. It was a surprise to say the least that those two got linked. There was no discussion of any linkage between infrastructure and the subsequent reconciliation package that the administration has in mind. Now he didn't like the president throwing the wrench in there saying listen the two are tied together. That's not what we were told and so of course that caused a little bit of a hmm let's think about this. It's true that there was a miscommunication there in terms of linking the two but that was never part of our discussion. According to the ten Republicans I can assure you who were in the discussion there was no agreement that they would be linked. So within a few days, Joe Biden immediately like backpedals to what Republicans want and this is what he says.

He says at a press conference after announcing the bipartisan agreement, I indicated that I would refuse to sign the infrastructure bill if it was sent to me without the family's plan and other priorities, including clean energy. My comments created the impression that I was issuing a veto threat on the very plan. I had just agreed to, which was certainly not my intent. And then he continues to say, our bipartisan agreement does not preclude Republicans from attempting to defeat my family's plan. Likewise, they should have no objections to my devoted efforts to pass the family's plan

and other proposals in tandem. We will let the American people and the Congress decide. The bottom line is, I gave my word to support the infrastructure plan, and that's what I intend to do. I fully stand behind it without reservation or hesitation, Meaning, he will in fact sign this awful water down infrastructure bill, which by the way, also has components that would privatize public infrastructure without really committing

to the second portion of it, which is the reconciliation bill that includes the stuff that we actually want. Jake. Okay, there are two huge parts of this and then more layered on top of that. One is the huge incompetence involved in this. And usually that's a Trump trait, but here the Democrats did it in a way that I found to be stunning from minute one, right? And that led to even confusion on my part.

I'm gonna explain all this in a second. The second part is, is, you know, what's actually going to happen? Who's gonna win? Which bill are they gonna actually pass? All right, so first on their incompetence. So I read, okay, they have bipartisan agreement, and I think this is a disaster. Okay, that's the GOP version of the bill. It's got a terrible provision in there that we're going to talk about later in the show that Anna referenced.

I would vote no on that by itself without any reservation, right? And then they put out a statement both from Biden and very importantly from Pelosi saying, no, we're actually going to do both. We're going to do the bipartisan one and then we're going to do the reconciliation one. The one that you just watched Biden saying it initially, right? Which he backpedaled from. Okay, well, that leads to two questions. That leads to two questions. Do you think the Republicans are going to go, oh, we just did a bipartisan deal,

and then you're squashing it by passing every other provision without our help? Oh, if that's fine, we have no problems. No, they're immediately going to say anyone would know, should have known. They're immediately going to rebel and go, no, that's not the deal we agreed to. Of course we're not going to agree to that, and they're going to bail on the original package. So I thought that on second one of the announcement, how did they not know that was coming? That is shocking incompetence from the White House and from Democratic leadership. Look, I got a lot of issues with Democratic leadership, but it usually deals with their corruption

and their mendacity, et cetera. It doesn't usually deal with it. Usually they're pretty competent in how they helped Republicans rob us blind. But in this case, I was like, what is going on? And then Pelosi says, we're not going to vote on either one of them until they both. pass the Senate. Now if that was true, I would be very happy, right? Because that means they're going to pass the larger infrastructure bill that has the green energy stuff in it, the good stuff, right? And then we could talk about whether to compromise on the bipartisan one that has

some terrible provisions, right? Okay, but the Republicans in the Senate and Manchin is cinema in the Senate aren't going to pass the bipartisan one and then let you do the reconciliation one and not vote and wait to vote on both. Exactly. That's- It's never gonna happen, right? So I'm like, wait, this doesn't make any sense at all. So then we were right, it didn't make any sense. And Biden goes back, back, back, back, I meant, I mean I love Republicans. I'm gonna do whatever Republicans tell me to do.

I got confused for a second, I thought I was a Democrat. No, no, no, no, of course. No, no, we'll vote on the just the GOP version, the so-called bipartisan one that the Republicans wrote. Of course, and then maybe we'll do the other one. Now that makes more sense, that's corporate Democratic 101, right? So we're gonna promise to vote on good things later. Of course we're never gonna vote on it. Don't be ridiculous, it has no chance of passing.

Instead, we're just gonna do whatever Mitch McConnell told us to do, right? So we're back on track, that's where we are today. So an easy question is what should progressives in Congress too? If they don't send you the reconciliation version from the Senate, the larger one, the one that you actually want, of course don't vote. in the House on the weak bipartisan one that has Republican priorities in it. Vote no, vote hell no. This is not even close.

It's not within a mile of close, right? I don't care what Mama Bear says, but Mama Bear still swears up and down right now. Nancy Pelosi says, no, no, no, I'm gonna get both and we're gonna vote on both. I'll believe it when I see it. I don't think there's any chance of that. I totally agree with your prediction.

I would argue that, I mean, we've seen how, other bills have been negotiated in the past, whatever happened to the so called poison pills, right? The reason why you include some of the provisions, if you genuinely care about passing legislation in a bipartisan way, the way that you do it, the way that you ensure that you get some of the members of the other party to vote in favor of your legislation

is if you, sure, include some of the provisions that they may want, but the whole point is to include your real agenda. I mean, that should be front and center in the legislation and what entices members of the other party to vote in favor of the legislation are the provisions that they like that you've included. The fact of the matter is, Americans across the board see the value in infrastructure spending. They want to see these infrastructure projects in their hometowns.

It's a highly popular bill, the way that it was initially written by Joe Biden, and Republicans basically want to cherry pick the goodies that will do well with their constituents. while tossing aside any of the other provisions that are actually far more beneficial to the American people. Now, the bipartisan bill only approves $579 billion in new spending. And by the way, 100 billion of that would come from literally, I'm not exaggerating, privatizing public infrastructure. So we have corporate overlords deciding how much we pay every time we use particular highways

or roads. And we'll get into a detailed discussion about that in a later story, because I think that's actually a really important part of this bipartisan bill. But to take all of the stuff that actually matters out and then say you're going to pass it through reconciliation, when you still have issues with cinema, with Mansion, with Warner, with all these other corporate Democrats, Jake, he knows it's not going to pass, right? So I think, I think honestly, this story is far worse than we, I mean, at least I initially thought, because Biden thinks we're dumb enough to not understand what's going on. I think they're going to try to spin this as, no, no, no, but we tried real hard. Look at how hard we tried. No, no, they knew that this

was going to fail. They know that that reconciliation bill is going to fail. They know it. Yeah, well, so this is where the rubber is going to hit the road, guys. This is super interesting. Now, nine out of ten times at least, we know exactly what's going to happen ahead of time. And we tell you, and we're right, especially when it comes to legislative matters. And it's super easy, you can just follow the money. Whatever chamber of commerce wants, they get, period. It doesn't matter if a Republican or a Democrat is in charge. We've shown it to a thousand times over, right?

And that's why we tell you things ahead of time. This one is interesting because progressives would have to be nuts to vote for just a bipartisan one, right? And so AOC and Bowman doing great, joining a protest outside the White House, demanding that the green energy stuff be in there. On the other hand, when I saw AOC say, I think today, that, hey, you know, Biden should know that on the infrastructure bill and all this, we, we of course have his back. No, not of course, not at all, of course.

Biden would sell you out in one second. He's planning to sell you out. He just told you he's going to sell you out, right? So no, why would you promise to have his back? That doesn't make any sense at all. And I'll tell you why, by the way. Because in Washington, there is tremendous pressure on progressives to, oh, you guys are going to, you guys are going to disobey, aren't you? You're going to disobey and destroy Biden in the Democratic Party.

You better obey right away. So that's why they say weird things like, oh, we will agree with Biden no matter what. No, no. Now, she didn't say no matter what, to be clear. And she's joining the protest. That's why I'm telling you it's mixed. But if they get tricked into voting yes on this without. getting the larger bill?

It'd be, yeah. It would be devastating. Absolutely. Devastating. It would crush all hope. Then we think, okay, that's it. And not we, but honestly, you would be right. The grassroots would be right in their conclusion.

Oh my, they're gonna get rolled every single time. So there's some chance, there's a better chance that progressives will realize, oh no, no, we will reap the world wind if we vote yes on this GOP version, right? And I hope they realize that. And so I hope to God that they vote, no, I still have that as more likely, okay? So now if they vote no on the GOP version, and then the Republicans and cinema and the rest of them vote no on the reconciliation version, well, there's a really good chance you're going to get nothing, no infrastructure bill at all. It's not a must pass. It could easily fail. So I mean, by the way,

The genius who orchestrated this for you guys is Steve Riketti. He's a giant lobbyist and one of Biden's top advisors. Progressives lobbied to make sure Ron Clayne became chief of staff, not Riketti. Riketti was in line to get it. Why? Because Riketti's a clown. He's a corporate clown who put a terrible provision in the GOP version, right? And he totally bungled this.

Well, that's trick progressives with tricks from the 1990s and hope that the Internet doesn't work. Right? That is not a good strategy. And then Biden can't help himself. And by the way, let me be fair to the Republicans. They're right to be mad. Why are we having a nonsense negotiations with Republicans if we're going to pass the whole bill anyway? What is it for?

Just optics, right? Because think about it. Yeah, it is. Yeah, the reconciliation bill would have all the things that the Republicans object to. So it would be the full Biden bill. Then why did we bother negotiating with Republicans? It's just theater. It's a total theater.

It's absurd. Okay, and so I know everybody's in partisan camps, but we tell you the truth. The Republicans should be mad about the theater, right? And progressives should vote, hell no, on just the Republican version. All right, and the last thing for me is, for the Republicans, Joe Biden has nothing but love as always. But he goes further because he can't help himself. So he says, so to be clear, our bipartisan agreement does not preclude Republicans from attempting to defeat my family's plan. Yay, Republicans go, come defeat me.

me. Remember when Trump used to say that all the time? And then he told Republicans that they had quote, I'm now quoting Politico, had every right to try defeating a Democrat only spending package. Imagine Trump coming out and saying, now remember, Democrats have every right to defeat me. I mean, I am really, go get him Democrats and defeating me. I'm rude for you guys, right? Why do this gratuitously? Because they can't help themselves. Corporate Democrats on economic issues are Republicans? Yes, they are, because they're funded by the same corporate donors, which is why the end result, like rhetorically, they might sound different, but the end result is always the same, which is why we get a ton of theater, and at the end of the day,

it appears that the GOP gets what it wants, not because the GOP specifically gets what it wants, but because corporate donors specifically get what they want, right? So I think that all of this theater that we're seeing is just meant to attempt to fool the American people and make it seem like Democrats were allegedly fighting on our behalf. But think about this. I mean, if the Democratic Party were genuine in their game plan here, and it wasn't just theater meant to trick us into thinking that they really tried to do this, but it didn't work out, they have a majority, they have a slim majority of the Senate. You think if the tables were turned and it was a 50-50 Senate with a Republican administration.

You think that they would waste any time having negotiations with Democrats to try to pass something in a bipartisan way? No, end of story, this conversation would be over already. They would have already passed their version of the infrastructure bill with a Republican vice president breaking the Senate tie, and they'd do it through reconciliation, it wouldn't be a problem. Democrats are doing what they're doing again, because at the end of the day, they want the same things that Republicans want because they're literally paid to want the same things

that Republicans want. And then one final thing, I just wanted to add that there are two senators at least who have come forward saying that they would not in fact vote in favor of the infrastructure bill without the reconciliation bill as well. Warren, Senator Warren is one of them who says, understand this, we're not leaving child care behind, we're not leaving green energy behind and we're not going to make America's middle class families pick up the ticket for this package, which by the way, we will in the bipartisan version of the package, it's time for billionaires and big corporations to step up. And Bernie Sanders also said, let me be clear. There will be, there will not be a bipartisan infrastructure deal without a reconciliation

bill that substantially improves the lives of working families and combats the existential threat of climate change. No reconciliation bill, no deal. We need transformative change now. So we'll see what happens once the rubber does hit the road. But so far, you have two progressive senators saying that they will not, in fact, vote for the bipartisan deal unless the reconciliation deal is part of this package. Okay, so given those last two tweets, there's three options, right? One is they pass both, which would be great. Okay, so I have that at 2% likelihood. The other options are they pass nothing, which is right now probably leading.

They will, at this point, likely passed nothing. Okay, now close second is the one that I would have said was the favor from the beginning, which is they're going to pass the Republican version. That's what they always do, right? But if they do, now both progressives in the Senate and the House are going to take the biggest L of their lives. After drawing a red line and saying there's no way we're going to vote for this, if there is no reconciliation bill, if they say yes, and then on promises that they'll vote on it later, and then cinema ambushes them or whoever, it doesn't really matter,

it'll be the biggest loss for progressives in Congress in modern history. They will look like utter, utter fools. Okay, I'm just being realistic with you guys. We'll end on a fun note from one of you guys, one of our members wrote in, recovering Pagan said, fight like heck, holy heck and fudge. He ain't horsing around, Jack. I know, I know. Fight like heck is such a funny line.

What are they? Are they doing a YouTube show where they can't curse? Like what's going? I'm in a fight like heck. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off. But here's the good news. This doesn't have to be the story of your next chapter. Hormone Harmony by Happy Mammoth is an herbal formula made with science-backed ingredients, designed to fine-tune your hormones by balancing estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and even stress hormones like cortisol. It helps with common issues such as hot flashes, poor sleep, low energy, bloating, and more. With over 40,000 reviews and a bottle sold every 24 seconds, the results speak for themselves.

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Totally. Totally. All right. We got to take a break. When we come back, there's an important part of this bipartisan infrastructure bill that you must know about because you might be paying more money on your commute to work. Come right back. All right, back on TYT.

I'm going to read one YouTube super chat. It's from Jemmo Semetti. She was at the town hall and corrected me that I sometimes say he when I refer to her. It's a she, okay? She's lovely and she wrote in, here's a little help for better mics for the next town hall. P.S. Jank, meeting you this weekend was the absolute highlight of my year. Keep up the good work. Jemmo, you're wonderful for saying that.

And guys, I got a funny story about why some of the mics weren't working at the town hall. I'll save it for the bonus episode for the members. It's not that important. It's just a fun story. All right, Casper. All right, well, while Joe Biden is touting his bipartisan agreement on an infrastructure bill, which of course is a watered down version of what this infrastructure bill could have been, The fact of the matter is, it has devolved into nothing more than a scheme to privatize huge portions of our public infrastructure.

Now why do I say that? Well, if you look at the possible pay-for's for the $579 billion in new infrastructure spending, there is a proposal to ensure that at least $100 billion of that new spending comes from private capital. Now why would private capital want to invest in infrastructure? Well, it's part of this public private partnership. It's also known as P3, it's also known as asset recycling, where these private companies essentially give the federal government a massive loan. And throughout about 30 years, as the government is paying that money back, the private corporation gets to manage the infrastructure.

that they essentially privatized. So if it's a road or a highway, they get to implement a poll tax or a road tax, whatever you wanna call it, right? All sorts of fees, and it ends up being regressive taxation, except the money doesn't go to the federal government, the money goes to the private corporation that is, of course, implementing those fees to make a profit.

Private capital doesn't invest in anything unless they see a potential return on their investment. So I wanna give you the details on this. Bloomberg reported on it and they refer to it as asset recycling. Asset recycling, which is said to have been first introduced in Australia, allows the government to sell and lease infrastructure, public infrastructure, such as roads, airports, and utilities to private companies,

and use the profits to develop infrastructure without incurring new debt. Now, the federal government is not, It's not getting profits, right? It gets a loan from private companies, and then it's supposed to take that money and invested in other infrastructure projects. Now, as that Bloomberg excerpt noted,

this was something that was first introduced in Australia, and guess what, two years after they introduced it, they actually repealed the law because it ended up being such a complete disaster. All of this public infrastructure was being sold off to private companies, and then the government wasn't actually investing money that it received from private capital into new infrastructure projects.

So they scrapped it about two years after they passed it. Now, at the time, an Australian Senate committee said it was, quote, concerned about the possibility that incentives under the asset recycling initiative may encourage privatization without effective public consultation and communication strategies and without appropriate consideration or analysis of future costs. And the costs were pretty brutal for people who needed to use these roads and highways and all of a sudden we're slapped with these tolls. Now with that said, we have done some privatization

of public infrastructure in this country already, and I want to show you how it's worked out for people. Virginia is a big believer in public-private partnerships and points to successes like the express lanes here along the beltway where a driver can choose to pay a toll to get around congestion. They say it's been a big success, but those successes have come with some costly mistakes.

Every time you get into your car, it's like ka-ching, ka-ching. Totally. Linda Dyer's daily commute is taking a toll. Whenever she leaves home, she's paying to use tunnels that used to be free. Now she's thinking about moving elsewhere. We're spending $1,200 a year in tolls. Yeah, and my biggest concern is it going to affect how easy it is for me to sell my house. Virginia agreed to a 58-year deal with a private company to modernize and expand the tunnels linking Portsmouth

in Norfolk, two military towns separated by the Elizabeth River. The tolls to cross can run a driver 525 each way. Do you just get mad when you're driving to that tunnel? Yes, I do. I have so many other examples to share with you all. But this is a complete and utter disaster, jank, because Biden said, no, no, no, I am not going to implement a gas tax. I'm not going to implement any type of financial burden for working people. When the fact of the matter is this bipartisan bill does just that. Yeah, no, I would vote no on the bill at all, period, because of this. So there's two components that struck me.

One is the money that they let us borrow, right? And so first of all, they charge a 10% margin, and they want a company tax breaks. This was cooked up by Peter Navarro and Wilbur Ross, two of the worst. people in the Trump administration, they cooked this up before Trump even won, they wrote a report about it. It was meant as a gift to Wall Street, because that's free money. The government can just print money. We do it all the time, right? And by the way, that's the normal course of things. I'm not saying, oh, wow, go print money to give in some sort of bailout. No, we can raise money and not pay a 10% margin. Why are we giving away a 10% margin for no reason, and

tax breaks and all these other things? That's just literally highway robbery, right? And anyone who agrees to that is just saying take taxpayer money in billions of dollars and just give it to Wall Street for no reason at all. So now it's and they all, that's why the right wing donors in that tape that was leaked said our best shot here is an under the dome strategy because their proposals are so deeply unpopular with both Democratic and Republican voters that they have to get their corrupt henchmen under the dome of the capital to commit this robbery for them, okay? So now the second part is the asset recycling that Anna referred to.

They can barely contain their disdain at us, right? I mean, even asset recycling sounds like it's, you know, something terrible. And they're like, who cares, just say it. We own Congress anyway. Okay, fun trivia in regard to that. So public-private partnership does not pull well. It's actually pretty unpopular. Of course, because it's awful.

So they initially changed it to P3. And I'm not just talking about America. This has been done in other countries like Australia. And that's why they have to keep like rebranding it because it's been such a failure. So then they're like, okay, public private partnership, they don't like let's just call it P3. That way they don't know what the P's stand for. And then people, people aren't stupid, they're not stupid, they know. And so then they change it to asset recycling as if asset recycling sounds any better, right?

I don't think the human capital likes asset recycling either. human capital. They are the worst. Okay. So now three horrific parts of asset recycling. So number one, when they privatize public things, it turns into a disaster. You got the numbers on Chicago, because I can give it. Go ahead. Okay, so in Chicago, they privatized the paid meters. Oh, epic debacle. So now that some of the meters are charging 800% more than they used to. That's eight times more than you used to pay. Why? Because we gave it to a private company. And they're like, What do we care how much pain it causes, especially poor and middle class people, which is a much bigger percentage of their income.

So what? Charge them eight times more. We make more money. The government gave us a monopoly. There's literally nothing they could do about it. They got, this is of course idiot, Rahm Emanuel. I actually corrupt Rahm Emanuel who did this deal. They got a little over a billion dollars immediately in cash to fill a budget hole so that

Ron could say, oh, I'm so good at balancing a budget, right? You know how much it costs a little over a billion they got? Now, granted, it's over 75 years. But in return, they're going to get at least $11 billion. Would you do a deal like that? Okay, you get a dollar now, and then you have to pay me $11 afterwards. Why would I do that deal? That doesn't make any sense, right?

Unless you're working for the guy who just robbed the taxpayers, okay? But it gets worse. It does. Okay, and there's other examples of this. But in Chicago, they can't build bike lanes because the private companies own the meters, and they go, you can't mess with our meters, so we're going to ban you. from doing something that will help your city. And they're like, we have a contract.

We have a contract. Did you know, and it's also true in this bill, that sometimes they say if we build a road and we're charging your tolls like you just saw in Virginia, you're not allowed to improve any other roads nearby because it would compete with our monopoly. No, it gets, it gets. That's insane! That's insane!

And I haven't even gotten to the other two bad parts. Right. Well, okay, so I have to mention one of the other downsides of this, and there are many. The other downside is, okay, take a step back and think about what the whole point of this infrastructure bill is allegedly supposed to be. We have crumbling infrastructure, we need to improve it, it's been decades and decades since we've invested the necessary money into this. Okay, great, but what would a private company want to do if they're investing their capital into our public infrastructure? They want to return

on that investment? How do you get a return on your investment, Jake? I don't know. I'm not like some economist, I'm not an expert, but I think it's that they'd like to cut the costs, maximize profits. And so you think a private company is going to do the necessary repairs to our infrastructure? No, this is just another corporate handout. It's another redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top, as if these guys haven't had enough money and haven't ripped off the American people enough. They're not even going to do what the whole point of this infrastructure bill is meant to do, which is improve our infrastructure. They're just looking at this as an opportunity to make more money for themselves. That's it. That's it.

There's two brilliant points in there. Number one, not only do they forbid you from improving roads nearby, but they don't have to improve their road at all after they build it. And all it would do is add to their costs. So why would they do that? In fact, we saw it already happened in Texas. They have the pipelines. It's a monopoly. So why would I improve it? Weatherize it so it can survive a winter storm or the very beginning of summer? No, I'm not going to do that. That adds costs. You suckers have to pay me no matter what. In fact, in the middle of the emergency, I'm going to charge you 10 times more. So we already saw what a debacle it is in Texas. Now, Biden and Mansion and Cinema want to help the

Republicans bring that debacle to the rest of us, okay? So to Anna's point there, guys, Do you think Wall Street's fighting tooth and nail for this because they're going to lose money on it? No, they're fighting tooth and nail for this. And why it has the Republican version of this bill, what they're calling bipartisan version of the bill, has a very good chance of passing because they're going to make tons and tons of money off of it off the American taxpayer. Okay, now last point of why this is disastrous is the most important, if you ask me. And now all of these were horrible, right? But guys, they basically, the original idea for the infrastructure bill, the so-called democratic

idea was, we're going to raise corporate taxes to pay for most of it, right? So corporations were going to pay for better infrastructure, which they then use. They use it in trucking and shipping and all the different things that they use get to use for free because of the taxpayers paying for those roads and bridges, right? Okay, they have now replaced that with, no, corporations aren't going to pay anything, not a dollar, not a dollar, okay? Instead, we're going to charge you tolls and fees for the rest of your life. What do they just do?

They just move the tax burden from the largest corporations in the world. A lot of them are paying no taxes anyway, right? On to you who can least afford it, onto the poor, middle class, et cetera, in America. And that is a giant percentage of your income, whereas it would be a minimal percentage of the corporate income, right? It's even worse, though, because it's not even a tax where the most, money that you're paying goes to the federal government. The money that you pay in those tolls goes in the pockets of corporate executives who then buy shares of their own stock

to inflate the value of that. It has no benefit to you as an American citizen, as a taxpayer, as an individual who's forced to pay these tolls. It is a lose-lose all the way around for the American people. It's a lose-lose in regard to actually improving our infrastructure, it's a lose-lose when it comes to the amount of money you're going to have to spend. And it's a lose-lose when it comes to resources for the federal government, because as Jenk mentioned, the federal government pays that money back to the private companies with interest, with interest. So that's what the reality of this situation is. And I don't think that progressive should vote in favor of this bipartisan bill under any circumstance. Because

what this is, it's reminiscent of what Obama passed after the 2008 economic collective. lapse. What he did was essentially provide a massive giveaway to hedge funds and private equity firms who then went off. I mean, there was a fire sale. They went off and they got the best deals on a massive amount of real estate, which they then turned to rental property and priced ordinary Americans completely out of the housing market. It all started under Obama. Now with Biden in this infrastructure bill, you have corporate interests with their eyes set on Really draining what they can out of the few resources we have left in our public infrastructure Yeah, so last couple points here that are so important and number one, did you know that Trump had the same exact proposal? Yeah, he did yeah

And so when when Trump proposed it Democrats in the media were like oh, this is outrageous Biden proposed the same exact thing. They're like bravo bipartisan compromise Biden is such a great leader and It's amazing, it's sickening. By the way, have you heard any of these facts in mainstream media? Have you heard them talking about asset recycling? Did they tell you that you're going to pay tolls and fees the rest of your life? That that's what we're celebrating with this bipartisan compromise? How funny, they didn't tell you any of that, right?

It's interesting, I wonder who the corporate media is working for. Now, we work for you guys, so I'm going to read a member comment because I hadn't thought of this point, and it's further devastating. A kid tested, Pulip Bureau approved. That's their handle on our website. TYT.com slash join. You literally join the show. We read your comments on these stories.

This person wrote in, my favorite part of driving is having a corporation intentionally create traffic congestion and they give me the option to pay them to avoid the mess they made. And honestly, I had not thought of it that way. It's not just that you're paying tolls. It's not just that they're not going to upgrade the roads.

They have an incentive to create a terrible road that forces you to take the toll version which then charges you so much more. The worst they make the road, the more money they make. Are we insane? This is what our government is giving to us, and we're supposed to celebrate it, and then the media cheers on. Look, they've done this in other countries.

It's not just Australia where they privatized the roads and bridges and turned around, as I told you. And I made a great point in our production meeting. This is exactly what they did in Russia, where the oligarchs just, they privatized everything. The oligarchs grabbed everything. They made all the money and made gazillions of dollars, and the Russian people got totally screwed. They did it in Bolivia, where they privatized the water.

It nearly led to a revolution. The only good side of that is that they've been electing progressives almost ever since, right, with the exception of our coups from time to time. Okay, but they told the Bolivians, you cannot collect rainwater because we gave the water to a private company. And so this is where we're headed, guys. They're selling off the country bit by bit while pretending to build it. We got to take a break, but when we come back, GOP Senator Bill Cassidy would have us believe that the only people who really care about the infrastructure is women because they need the roads to go shopping. We'll be back with that story and more. Jank Anna News Forward.

GOP Senator Chuck Todd, not Chuck Todd, my bad. Although that's kind of fitting. That's true. GOP Senator Bill Cassidy was asked by Chuck Todd how he plans on selling the bipartisan infrastructure bill to other Republican lawmakers who may not want to give the Biden administration a win on any of his legislative agenda.

Let's hear how we frame the question and how responded. What's your case to some skeptical Republicans who on one hand, I think want to go home and say, hey, I did get some work done. I was able to secure funding for this bridge over here or this restoration project over there. But somehow the political chattering class tells them, hey, you're going to give Joe Biden a win, right? Because you're supporting a bill he supports. And I know we're so politically cynical in this town. But sadly, there's quite a few senators that stick their finger in the wind with the political base and make a decision on it. How do you, how do you walk that line? What's your message to those Republican senators?

If you go home and talk to constituents who are stuck in traffic for an hour and a half getting to work and an hour and a half getting home, three hours a day that they don't spend with their family, they want these, they want a bridge coming to a town near them. Of course, Bill Cassidy doesn't bring up the fact that the bipartisan infrastructure bill is actually a giveaway to private corporations, which would privatize public infrastructure, meaning that Americans are likely to still experience that awful traffic. It's just that now there will be tolls involved that private companies get to take advantage of.

Now, aside from that though, Cassidy then gives, I think, one of the most ridiculous examples of how he can sell this to the Republican Party, let's watch. My wife says that roads and bridges are a woman's problem, if you will, because oftentimes it is the woman, aside from commuting to work, who's also taking children to school or doing the shopping. And the more time she spends on that road, the less time she spends doing things of higher value. So if you speak to her, she's going to say, this is a good bill.

You know, I do often feel that way when I'm on the road. I think to myself, wow, this infrastructure that's crumbling and all this traffic that I'm stuck in. Seems like a woman's problem. Seems like, you know, I look around and I see all these male drivers and I'm like, nah, I'm just seeing things. I'm just one of the many women, you know, who's experiencing this. And it really is a woman's problem, you know, as I'm on my way to go shopping. Yeah, man, there were so many things packed into that little segment right there. Okay, first of all, I like his assumption that Republican men are bums. But he's like, Now, women, they go to the shopping and stuff and they got to go to work.

I mean, the men aren't going to go to work. You got to drop out the kids. Don't men get stuck in rush hour driving too, or do you guys not have any jobs? Okay. Then secondly, you know, the women with their shopping and the dropping off of the kids. I mean, really, really in the year 2021, we're having that conversation. For the record, I drop off to kids to school, okay? Are you a woman?

I know, right? Right now, there's a lot of, right? where he was like, oh, I knew it bad. He looks like the kind of the guy that cares about his kids. Weak, weak, weak, beta. Okay, so, and then thirdly, I love this, like, little random thing. And, you know, they could be at home doing things of higher value, like making new white babies. No, or making dinner, right?

Like, the household duties, right? Like, the women's, like, they don't want to be, they don't want to be in that rush hour traffic. No, but honestly, there's actually, this is my theory. Obviously I'm speculating here, okay, but I have reason to believe that the reason why Cassidy is so hyper-focused on ordinary people, whether it's women or working people, whatever it is, is because Republicans are good at messaging. They might not seem like the brightest sometimes, but when it comes to protecting their corporate donors and ensuring, that their taxes don't go up, they know how to do the appropriate messaging because their donors tell them what the appropriate messaging is. So the reason why he's hyper focused on women or ordinary people is because he's trying to like

paint this picture that the individuals who are going to benefit the most from this infrastructure bill, which does privatize some of our public infrastructure, are, you know, sorry, I lost my sharing thought, the people who are going to benefit the most are ordinary people. Therefore, we shouldn't have corporations pay their fair share of taxes to fund the infrastructure projects. That is really the message that you're seeing from Republicans. And the fact of the matter is, in every single facet of life, our infrastructure is utilized by private corporations in order to maximize their profits. You're talking about ordinary workers stuck in rush hour traffic. They're stuck in rush hour traffic, yes, to earn a paycheck.

Oftentimes, they're underpaid for the work that they're doing. But at the end of the day, they're rushing to work to make profit for executives and for these private companies. Obviously, these private companies also stand to benefit after they privatize public infrastructure and implement all sorts of tolls. And of course, he doesn't even mention that the very people who benefit the most tend to, you know, take advantage of these programs, but not pay their fair share. in funding them.

That's all it is. Yeah, let me pick it back off for Anacombs. So first of all, we're supposed to raise the corporate tax rate to pay for this, and of course we're not going to because guys like Bill Cassidy, they're a little less concerned about the woman's, as Anna's dad says, okay, then they are about their corporate donors. So Cassidy's basically like, don't worry, I got your ass covered, okay? You're not going to pay a single dollar more. And so the irony here is that he's arguing in favor of an infrastructure bill.

It makes it, it's a little ironic because he's saying, I'm pro women. That is why I want to do this infrastructure bill, because I care so much about women's ability to shop, which is mainly what they do. You can see how pro women he is, right? But he's using that as a cover to help his corporate donors. Exactly. Oh, look, squirrel, I mean women, they're shopping, they need to shop, and then they got to get back in the kitchen. We're doing it for them, the poor women, they gotta drop the kids off at school.

No, don't look at my corporate donors, or they're gonna charge tolls on those same women for the rest of their lives and rob them of that, of their, you know, well-being and their income that they're driving to work too, so I can protect my corporate donors and make sure they pay no taxes at all, and that they profit off the scheme. Exactly, and like, think about commerce. Commerce stands to benefit from improved infrastructure. So again, it's a way of communicating. to the American people that you need this, okay?

You need this infrastructure bill, even though it might actually make your life a lot more expensive and a lot more difficult. And the very people who are skirting their taxes for these projects are not in any way the ones who actually benefit from this infrastructure the most. That's what this is really about. And yes, he's out of touch. That's the point that everyone else is going to make, which I think is an obvious point and a boring point, we just want to add a little more to it.

All right, so let's get to our next story. Oof, the building collapse. So we're now getting more details about the tragic condominium building collapse in Miami. This was a 13 story building and its south tower collapsed last week. So far 151 people are unaccounted for. And as we speak at this very moment, the death toll is at 10 people. number is likely to increase as the recovery effort continues. But for the sake of this discussion, I felt that it was important to talk about something

that I keep hearing people say about how this never happens in America and how it's actually important to focus on some of the flaws in our regulations and our building codes. And by the way, why it's so important to have strong building codes to begin with. So this is the Champlain Tower. It was undergoing an inspection back in 2018 because every 40 years, buildings in this area need to be recertified. So in order to be recertified, you have inspectors come in and take a look at the structural integrity of the building.

And so here's what we know based on this inspection that took place in 2018. A consultant found alarming evidence of, quote, major structural damage, end quote, to the concrete slab below the pool deck and abundant cracking and crumbling of the columns, beams and walls of the parking garage under the building. So the 2018 report from the consultant and engineer hired by the condo owners association to examine the building helped set in motion plans for a $12 million repair project that had been set to start soon, more than two and a half years after the building managers were warned about the

structural damage. But it was pretty clear. that the structural damage was so bad and the repairs needed to start immediately. They clearly didn't start immediately. And Greg Schlesinger, a contractor and lawyer in Florida, said that the cracks and a kind of crumbling in the concrete known as spalling also identified in the 2018 report should have been a red flag if it seemed serious at the time. Now there are other theories that I'll get to in just a second, but why are they recertifying the buildings every 40 years. And when you consider what was going down in Miami in the 1980s

when this building was built, when you had, you know, drug money laundered through real estate development, pretty sure you should be concerned about some shoddy work, right? So anyway, just some things I wanted to kind of discuss. Yeah, so I lived in Miami and when I first moved there, I lived literally two blocks from that apartment building. I lived at what used to be a crack hotel. If you haven't heard that story, I'll tell the members in the bonus episode today. It's kind of a fun slash disastrous story. TYT.com slash join.

Do you become a member or hit the join button below on YouTube? Now on the important stuff here, when I was there, I had an overwhelming sense that things were not done by the book in Miami. In fact, there was a guy who, I remember, we held a debate for the people running for mayor of Miami because I worked in news back then, Ben Manquist and I did. And one of the guys was Marty, not for sale, Shapiro. In Miami, they have to clarify. He literally changed his name to that. That was his not for sale was his middle name because it was assumed that all the politicians were for sale.

Yeah. Okay. And by the way, it still should be. Yes, unfortunately, that's true. Yeah. And Miami is an amazing place. They, there's, I've told another story in the bonus episode about how a guy had clogged up the whole highway once, but then when I went back, it's just a couple of years back, there was a sign on the highway saying, please do not stop in the middle of the highway. You don't need that sign unless people keep stopping in the middle of the highway.

So it's a strange land, Miami. I love it, and but it's got significant issues. So if you said to me, where is a building going to collapse and name a major American city, I would have said Miami. Okay. And so one is deregulation leads to situations like this. Now we don't know if that's the case in this situation. We'll have to get a lot more evidence in, right? But deregulation causes problems one after another after another. Look at Texas. They deregulate the energy and instantly everything is crumbling, right? There's regulations is just another word for laws. What are laws for? They're meant to protect you so that a building doesn't collapse. I remember my dad, back when we, we were Republicans because he was a small business owner in New Jersey. Even then, though, he was like, look, they're doing six inspections of the elevator. It's too much. I said, okay, so you want no inspections of the elevator? He said, no, no, no, no, no. In Turkey they do no inspections of the elevators, you know what happens? Elevators fall, right? I want

two inspections a year because I want to make sure nobody falls. I go in the elevator. You go in the elevator, we all go in the elevator, right? There's a reason why they have the regulations. Now there's a second potential problem here, which is Miami's And we've also told you this on the show many times. The water level keeps rising. I visit Miami more often because I know it's not going to last very long. And so that's very depressing for a city that I love. But so we don't know that it's the sinkhole.

But if it's not the sinkhole in this one, it could be in another one. You know why? The water is constantly, every year it's rising. So I don't know the science well enough to know if that's part of why you might have sinkholes. But if you do, and it's a, and if you never seen Miami beach, it's a tiny sliver of land nearly engulfed by water, right? So any, like, and now it has started to flood without raining. Yep. Yep. Okay. So those are the issues at hand. So I'm really, really worried that this is not the last disaster we're going to see in Miami.

So I want to show the surveillance video that's been making its rounds online because it has provided some clues to engineers and architects in regard to where the building might have had its vulnerability. And they're guessing that at the moment, obviously we don't know for sure yet. There needs to be a ton of investigation into this. But they're right now suspecting that there was a structural issue where the parking garage was, like at the bottom, right? So let's take a look at the surveillance video that I'm talking about. You can kind of see how the building collapsed. It appears that the collapse began at the bottom. And so let me also just kind of describe what some of the reporters covering this had talked about.

So the New York Times, for instance, says, while no definitive conclusions could be drawn from the surveillance video, which was shot from a distance and reveals only one perspective of the disaster, some of the engineers reviewing it last week said it seemed to suggest that the failure began at a specific point near the bottom of the structure, perhaps as far down as the parking garage beneath the building or on the first few floors. And if that is, in fact, the case, I mean, it is consistent with what the 2018 inspection is. indicated, right? Because they're talking about the cracks in the slab, the concrete slab. They're talking about the columns that literally hold up the entire building and how that seemed to be compromised. And then there's this whole thing about progressive collapse. As the New York Times reports, called progressive collapse, the gradual spread of failures could have occurred for a variety of reasons, including design flaws, or the less robust construction allowed under the building codes of four decades ago when the complex was built. And that's the other thing, right?

When we talk about laxed regulations, these buildings don't need to be inspected until like 40 years is up. So every 40 years, they do the inspection, so they recertify the buildings. I would argue maybe do that a little sooner. Maybe 40 years is a little too long, especially if building codes have improved significantly since then. And then the one other thing I wanted to bring up, you know, I'm seeing a little bit of lot of progressives online talk about, oh, it's the owner's fault, it's the owner's fault.

You guys, this is a condominium building, meaning that each unit has an owner, right? And usually what happens in these situations, I would know unfortunately, because I've experienced it, is there's a homeowners association or an HOA. And this is a group oftentimes of volunteering individuals who manage the building, right? They literally volunteer their time to do it, and oftentimes they're kind of in the the dark about things, HOAs are actually pretty incompetent and pretty awful. So I say that because it's different from a private owner who has like malicious intent or selfish reasons, let's say to cut costs, they don't spend money on the repairs.

It doesn't appear that that's the case here, right? Yeah, no, it's important to get the facts right. And I thought progressive collapse meant what they did with the $15 minimum wage. You can call it that too. Yes, but in this case it's referring to, of course, the building collapse. Guys watching the video, that is super scary. Yeah. And obviously this is a very, very serious issue.

Nine dead so far confirmed 150 missing. It's just devastating. Yeah, absolutely devastating. And so we need to make sure our buildings and bridges don't collapse. and they're collapsing all across the country. And so appropriately, we're discussing an infrastructure bill right now. And the one thing that's looked like it might pass is one that corporations are in favor of, and they would put tolls on you for the rest of your lives, et cetera, and perhaps

not even improve the roads and bridges that much. We need to pass an actual infrastructure bill so that we don't have our loved ones getting killed in disasters like this. all right uh that does it for our first hour come back for hour two where chris wallace flipping the script man he keeps doing it he has a republican lawmaker on and he asks him hey isn't it your party that wants to defund the police come right back i'll give you that story and more thanks for listening to the full episode of the young turks support our work listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcast

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