The Young Turks - Bioweapon Birds

Episode Date: March 12, 2022

Russia has widened its offensive in Ukraine, striking airfields in the west and a major industrial city in the east, while the huge armored column that had been stalled for over a week outside Kyiv was on the move again, spreading out into forests and towns near the capital. Russia is also claiming that the U.S. has trained birds to deliver Ukrainian bioweapons. An accused Russian double Agent donated to only one U.S. politician, Tulsi Gabbard. Sidney Powell has secretly been funding the legal defense of the Oath Keepers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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look at this. We're all the studio, Jake Yugger, John, I know, Helen Hogg, everybody. Okay. So we got as usual fun stories, disastrous stories, all the above. We're gonna start with disaster, although big time silver lining. I'm seeing silver linings in Ukraine, okay? I'm seeing sunflowers, I'm seeing silver linings. So we're gonna give you all the deets on that.

We've exciting announcements. We have a super exciting announcement. We're in the announcement business. Okay, that is true. Okay, that's gonna happen a little bit later in today's But now, of course, unfortunately, war. So John, take it away. I will do that then.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has suffered a number of setbacks, but despite that, it does still continue. And we wanna make sure that you know the latest and what's going on. First, we're gonna go to this map and you're gonna see a number of different cities being surrounded there. I understand it's incredibly abstract. It is so removed from the experience of people in these cities. But what you're effectively seeing is that the Russian forces which have dealt with logistic issues and training issues and morale issues and far fiercer resistance by the Ukrainians, the Russians are still making gains despite that, pushing into smaller cities and encircling

the larger ones. Troops have been nearing Kiev, the capital, and also closing it on key cities in the south and the northeast of Ukraine as well. The Ukrainians have managed to hold front lines outside of the major cities. They have not yet been breached, despite initial predictions that they would fall within a matter of just days. And perhaps because of that, the Russian tactics have shifted somewhat. They are still moving to push into these cities, but they're also conducting far more fairly indiscriminate long range bombardments of the cities too. Now, one in particular we want to focus on is the ongoing siege of Maripal.

Ukrainian officials say that the death toll so far is 1552, but an advice, to the city's mayor warned earlier today that it was impossible to count the actual number, including bodies in the streets, because the bombing hasn't let up. And it's, I think, important to bear in mind as we discuss this, that it is happening right now. Right now, they don't have access to water and electricity, they literally cannot bury their dead. Many cities in Ukraine are using mass graves because there is simply no time, there's no resources. And so there is good information coming, there are silver linings as we will talk about. But the siege continues the convoy, by the way, the 40 mile long convoy.

Mixed news on that, it appears to have broken up. There's satellite footage showing different sections of it dispersing into forests. Other sections have been destroyed. But the belief is that they are hiding themselves in the woods to disguise themselves avoid Ukrainian armed drones and javelin anti-tank weapons. Okay, so there's a giant question mark here that no one has the answer to, which I'll get to in a second. But first, the good news.

So Latimer Putin saying that peace talks have, quote, certain positive developments, that is very interesting. So analysts say, and look, analysts differ, of course, but I think these guys make sense that the Russians would not be talking about positive developments in the peace process or talks at all if they were winning. And so that that's an interesting sign. Zelensky has said that they have, quote, reached a strategic turning point. Okay, that's super interesting. And he said it's impossible to say how many days we will still need to free our life. land, but it is possible to say that we will do it.

So look, there's a lot of bravada, of course, it is war. And so, but those quotes seemed positive. For example, when Russia was devastating Chechnya and Syria, there wasn't a lot of talk of like Putin saying, well, I mean, we gotta go to the peace talks. No, there's no talk of peace talks. And the other side wasn't like, hey, we're on the edge of winning. No, they were devastated throughout. So that is super interesting.

Now to the point that John made about the tanks, and by the way, we have incredible stories of heroism, both on the Ukrainian side and on the Russian citizen side, okay? Hold for that in a second. But on the tanks, there's a huge question mark as to whether they're going to encircle Kiev, and that's why they're splitting up, or if they're hiding in the woods. On that one, based on the evidence that I have read,

I have read, it looks more like they're hiding in the woods. Like I don't, like so far it is unclear that they're encircling that they're more like trying to get under the trees because they're getting picked off left and right. So that appears to be a good sign for the Ukrainians. But the siege of Kiev presumably is coming at some point. And the biggest question mark is, is Putin gonna dig in and just bomb Kiev into oblivion, as he's doing in some of these other cities that we showed you the pictures of. Or is there a point at which he goes, yeah, this isn't working because they're hurt real bad financially.

And by the way, militarily, I mean, the courage of the Ukrainians is unlimited. All right, Helen. As soon as that picture of Zelensky came up, I'm not gonna lie, I got a little lady boner. And, and I read a great tweet by, I wish I could remember the name of the female tweeter, but she said, you know, there's something that Putin can't take away, which is that every woman on earth has a crush on Zelensky right now. I mean, this, he is so heroic, so courageous. He could have just high-tailed it out of there the second the war started.

And he was like, oh no, I'm staying and I'm fighting. And he's just been so inspiring. And every woman has a lady boner, including myself for him, because he's just, you know, the Ukrainian people in general, headed by Zelensky, are just so courageous. It's everything you want to be when you're backed into a corner that you imagine that you would be heroic backed into a corner. And he's doing it. He is just people, he's survived assassination attempts.

And he's like, oh no, we're staying and we're fighting. So let me say two quick things about that. Number one, let me just put it this way. I have heard others say the same thing, okay? So you are not alone, Helen. So but of course more to the point, the courage of the Ukrainian people universally, not just Zelenskyy is, well look, it's partly because the media is covering it.

There was tremendous, tremendous courage in Yemen as they fight back against the Saudis. We just don't see it, right? But we can see this one and it is amazing to average citizens just grabbing their weapons going out, Molotov Carters, we'll talk more about that later, it's just universal. Now I'm, I fear even saying it and everybody go knock on wood 2-2, 2, 2, 2, even during COVID. But my God, if they take out Zelensky, because of how much courage he's shown and because of how much people across the world have related to him, the anger will be unreal, unprecedented, right? I mean, we all know him now. If he dies,

it'll be martyr of martyrs. So that, you know, they might, Putin's Putin, he might do it anyway, but if he does, there could be a reckoning about that as well. Yeah, and I get that. I get symbols and everything, it is weird though. Like leaders are important, incredibly courageous and everything, but like, there's thousands of people like desperately trying to survive, either like soldiers fighting, civilians joining the military, people desperately trying to just live in besieged cities. I just, I want us to be able to acknowledge and care about all of it. I understand that we do, I want to make sure that everyone does.

That symbols are incredibly important, but they're important. because they can draw our attention to things that we should otherwise already be interested in. I don't get you wrong, I have a lady boner for like all the Ukrainian people. Like I saw, I always have. I mean, I saw images of like women, young women just like suited up for battle. They're carrying, you know, assault white rifles and they have like sunflowers in their hair, in their buns just going out and they're like, I don't care if I die, I am defending my country. These are young women who were like out there on the front lines and man, kudos to them.

And I think that, you know, these symbols is what is rallying the rest of the world for Ukraine. It is, yeah. Yeah, those symbols are tremendously important. Every one of those, and you could say that it's war propaganda and there's war propaganda on all sides. But if you frame it that way, okay, fine, the Ukrainians are winning that war a thousand times more than they're winning on the ground, on which they're doing okay on the ground, right? Because now you see story after story. Now it looks like there's literally Ukrainians trying to bribe the military to allow them to join.

Yeah, I've never seen that. Yeah, let's start like, because we have way more details where that came from. But we are gonna start off with some pretty amazing footage. Let's take a look at this. So yeah, if it's not immediately clear when that clip begins, when they zoom out, you realize they're diffusing a bomb. I have my doubts about whether it's 100% authentic, but it is definitely representative. bombs are being dropped and need to be diffused. It is an incredibly courageous thing to try to make these areas, whether it's massive

bombs like this falling off literally planes that have been shot down or cluster munitions that haven't exploded, but are still littering residential areas. Amazing to think of the people that are going in there willingly to try to disarm those to save people's lives. Yeah, look, there's bombs everywhere and I get it, there's fog of war and there's, you know, misinformation on all sides. So you it's near impossible to confirm that. But how would they have found a fake bomb to do that? Right. Right. It's just the fact that the cameraman's right there. To me, it's like zoom in to go away and zoom a bit. Like yeah, that's definitely possible.

But but whether that is or not, it is happening. Yeah. And if it's real, those guys are incredibly brave. That thing blows up, they're dead, dead, dead. There's no question about it. And guys, look, on who has a track record of being real and not real in these type of things? Russia dropped the, well, actually chemical weapons on Syria, and it would look like that they were a little smaller than that. And then the Russians would say, no, the Syrians dropped that on themselves. But the farmers in that area or the people that live in that city or even the fighters in that area had no planes. How would they drop it from a plane on themselves when they don't have any planes? Right? So the Russian history on propaganda is about as bad as it gets, almost everything they say is a lie. And by the way, any propagandists here working on behalf of, or volunteering to do propaganda for Putin and the Russian government, you can assume that every single thing they're telling you is a lie. They have a history of lying, both on the right wing and the fake left wing, and they're in the middle of lying on behalf of Putin all over the internet. And you, you know,

You shouldn't believe a word they say go look up actual legitimate news sources. I can't, I was watching that clip of that bomb being diffused and my butthole was so tired. I was like, yeah, yeah. But I mean, you know, like you said, it's where would they find a fake bomb to do this fake shot? I understand, I'm just being super cautious. No, no, that's good John. I'm a cynic.

The last two years have been a little bit rough. Yeah, no, no, it's look, John's right, we, it's impossible for us to confirm. So we're just giving you the facts as we know it, and so you can judge. And we're not on the either side as in, like our perspective is that, yeah, we're with the Ukrainian people, Russia clearly, clearly invaded here, but I'm not going to tell you things that aren't true from the Ukrainian side. I know that we're so used to, in America throughout the world now, news being just the front for propaganda, but we don't do that here.

So if the Ukrainians do something wrong or we can't confirm something, of course we're going to tell you that. So we don't know it for sure, but we'll leave it at what you can see as well, it sure looks like it. Yeah, I mean, it's, and I'm, I'm just, I'm willing to believe anything about Ukrainian heroism at this point. Because I, you know, I used to make this joke about how Russians were the most badass of badasses, you know, like Ivan Drago from Rocky 4, like you fuck he dies, he dies, thank you. But now I'm like, it's the Ukrainians that have ice in their veins. I mean, they're just, they are outgunned like a thousand to one. They are out man, there's a 40 mile caravan of tanks headed towards Kiev. And they're like, you know, there's grandmothers making Molotov cocktails in their kitchen,

like so badass and so just like not willing to back down. Now we got more stories just like that that John's going to tell you. But we'd hang on for a Russian hero too, so that's super interesting. That's true. So a demonstration of what you were talking about, the ice in the veins. And again, grains of salt liberally sprinkled. But according to reporters operating inside of Ukraine for vice, talking with potential volunteers for the Ukrainian armed forces, less than two weeks since the attack began, tens of thousands

of Ukrainians of flock to defense centers around the nation to join the armed resistance, outstripping munitions to the point where many are now being turned away. Some people are even trying to bribe military officials in a desperate bid to be considered for duty according to several would-be volunteers. And they spoke with some, including Yevhen Berdnikov, a 32-year-old freelance designer who's become an informal coordinator of Defense Center in Kiev, said he personally heard of two people's attempted bribes getting declined. And he goes on to say, for those who can't make it in, those who can't join the

territorial resistance, make masking nets at home or Molotovs, homeless people started collecting bottles and bringing them for Malatavs. Basically, everyone is either in the shelter or is preparing to fight. And as you will find out in a couple of minutes, slightly different situation on the other side, but we've seen this. I mean, we know they're Ukrainians and others going from countries around the world, including the US, to try to go and fight. Sometimes that's not necessarily the best idea. There are legitimate ways to help from abroad, but clearly they do need the manpower and they've been getting it. All right, I'm gonna give you some more amazing quotes.

So citizens are volunteering, as John said, and they're trying to get in. One citizen like that is Sub-Chuk. He's a 32-year-old, he's a professional PR consultant. He also does LARPing on the weekends, but now LARPing has turned real, and he's like ready to stand a post. And he says, basically, you need to give bribes in order to join the army in Ukraine. because they're they're out of weapons, et cetera, to hand over and they're reluctant. I mean, meanwhile, Russians have conscription in their military, and they keep swearing up and down that they're not going to take the ones that Russian troops that did not volunteer, but were

conscripted into the army, that they're not sending them to the front, although there are some reports that they are, right? But if you have to swear that you're not sending in people in your military to the border, that's a pretty good indication that it's not very popular at home. The Ukrainians don't have to turn anyone away, like are having to turn people away because they're volunteered too much, which leads me to two more points by someone else who volunteer. Explaining the Kiev situation, this gentleman Bernikov said, this is not some bravada. The city is open to leave by car or train and whoever wanted to has left already. So we're fighting till the end and we're gonna win this. Volunteers without guns will have pitchforks,

kitchen knives and Molotovs. So part of the reason I read you that is because we're back at pitchforks and they're not playing. The other reason is there's a logical certainty to what he's saying. At least 2.3 million people have left Ukraine already. So if you wanted to leave Kiv, you would have left. The people who have stayed, partly some of course can. There's different extenuating circumstances, health, et cetera, right?

But a lot that have stayed said, we're here for it. We got the sunflower seeds and we're ready. And last quote on from Berdnikov, he said, those who can't join the territorial resistance making, oh, you read this, making the masquenettes and Molotovs. But the one that really got me is he said, homeless people started collecting bottles and bringing them for Molotovs. That's how a country comes together. And that is an amazing sight to behold for the whole world.

Yeah. That one really, that one hit me too when I read that line about the homeless people being like, oh, I'm doing my part. You know, literally everyone in the country is mobilizing. And on the Russian side, you know, I feel like the sense that I'm getting is the average Russian soldier is like, what are we even doing here? You know, it feels like probably how our soldiers felt in Afghanistan after 20 years of Afghanistan being like, what are we even doing here? like what is this war about like I don't even get it actually you're absolutely right but it certainly didn't take 20 years because Pat Tillman said it pretty much right away he was the NFL player that signed up to go defend the country after 9-11 goes to afghanistan and he's like wait these are

not the guys who bombed us what are we doing here right yeah and then he was killed yes the russian hero yeah why don't we get to the russian hero because we've been trying to make sure throughout this, that you are not one of the people who, you know, your part in this whole thing is growing to despise everything Russian, every product, every, like, Russian who owns a bakery in Sacramento, don't do that. They're not Putin. As a demonstration, one of like the greatest heroes of Russia has denounced what's happening right now. This is a highly decorated former Russian test pilot, Alexander Garniav, flew for the Air Force, the Soviet Union, was a test pilot for experimental prototypes of the MiG-29M fighter jet.

Back in 1998, he was made a hero of the Russian Federation, one of the country's highest honors. So he wrote a letter criticizing Vladimir Putin. He also resigned as chairman of the board of the Club of Heroes. This is an organization for creators and testers of aviation space equipment. He wrote, in part, due to newly arisen force major or unforeseen circumstances of the ongoing slaughter of the brotherly Slavic people, I do not have a vision of how to proceed forward. with operations in these conditions. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what.

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low energy, bloating, and more. With over 40,000 reviews and a bottle sold every 24 seconds, the results speak for themselves. A survey found 86% of women lost weight, 77% saw an improved mood, and 100% felt like themselves again. Start your next chapter feeling balanced and in control. For a limited time, get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. Let me read one more quote that's a little similar or a little different from the same badass. And mind you, he's not just in the club of heroes. He's the chairman of the club of heroes in Russia. So when the chairman of the club of heroes goes, this is not heroic, this is slaughter

and I'm not here for it. He said this. A few questions have arisen. Is it true that I would abandon all of my positions and all of the Russian companies, organizations, legal entities, because I can't continue my role in the current expanding conditions of the slaughter of the Slavic brothers? I am answering, it is true. Okay, so there's a guy who's not just talking to talk, he's walking the walk. So not just resigning from this, but everything, Russian companies, I don't want this money, I don't want any association with this. This is a slaughter. And we didn't sign up for this. If this keeps going and Putin can't get it under control, he's gonna have significant problems at home.

Because guys, look at this, right? Europe still hasn't cut off Russian oil because they're worried about their population, how they're gonna react if they don't have enough energy. America took a long time to cut off Russian oil, and we don't even get that much Russian oil. And we're worried about 50 cents at the pump, et cetera. Now imagine how the Russian people are feeling as their economy has been done. decimated. And what are they going to get out of conquering Ukraine? Maybe a little national pride if they're right wingers, right? But overall, they're getting a lot of misery, death, you know, bankruptcy, destruction. And for what? For the glory of Vladimir Putin? And guys,

it's also, look, this is super important. Two things that are important. One is that it's a different world. In the old days, only the governments could do propaganda, and then you would have major media outlets. That's why in a revolution, you would first capture the radio station, and if there was a TV station, TV station, right? Now, who cares about them? Because everything's online anyway, right? So all of that information is pouring into Russia about how this ain't for the glory of Russia, this is for the glory of Putin. And so the Russian people are seeing that almost as much as we are. And of course, the propaganda there is way thicker, and there's the issue of patriotism and all that.

So don't assume that all the Russian people are on our side. But can Putin lose the Russian people? Yes, he can. Is he in the middle of doing that? It certainly looks like it. I love this guy. This guy is like, he's Maverick from Top Gun, right? That's what he was like a MiG fighter, like a top like fighter pilot.

He's, he's, I just rewatch Top Gun. It just came out on Netflix, rewatch it. We're primed for this story. It's so jingoistic, it's ridiculous. but it's it's hilariously good. So Maverick, the Tom Cruise character from Top Gun who's like gone on to just have all this glory and accolades and he's a hero of his country is like, this is baloney. This is baloney and this is slaughter. And so that does take a lot of pride, a lot of courage, especially considering how scary Putin is.

I mean, this is a man who regularly like poisons his enemies with plutonium if you go against him. And there's more and more oligarchs and people in high levels, not to mention the Russian mothers who are sending their sons to die in Ukraine that are like, nah, this is not cool. And we are not standing by this. And I feel like, you know, the fact that we all the way over here, even with the information censorship that's going on over there, are hearing about these cracks in Putin's support, I think it's a really good sign. Yeah.

By the way, of course, Maverick didn't fly. Miggs, Migs are Russian. But it's a metaphor. You know what I mean. And if Maverick or Rambo was real, it'd be this guy for the Russian version, right? And you're right, that is a very powerful symbol of Russian heroes saying this is not heroic. And I think he closed it by saying, am I dangerous? You're right, I'm dangerous.

I blew that line completely. I like the bite though. I like the biting. It was, I'm here for it. Ow. Okay. With that, we're gonna go to our first break. We're gonna check the full script of top gum.

We're gonna cut gun, we're gonna come back with way better comprehension. But there is a lot more to talk about, including new bird-based conspiracy theories after this. with you guys. John's got the news. I do and it's pretty amazing actually. We've barely had time to come to grips with the ongoing conversation rapidly developing throughout the week of the biological research laboratories in Ukraine. But the conspiracy theories are already way beyond that. They can't even see the laboratories from where they're at and they involve birds actually. The Kremlin's latest claim, and we're gonna give you specific quotes, is that the US has trained an army of migratory

birds to carry bio weapons developed by the Ukrainian army, and that said birds are preparing to fly into Russia and deploy those bio weapons. This message was boosted by Major General Igor Konesnikov, the chief spokesman for the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Just to be clear, outside of cartoons and some video games I can remember, birds generally are not trained for warfare, nor do they carry bio weapons. But he had more on this. Again, chief spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense of the country invading Ukraine. It says, according to the documents in Ukraine in 2022, the American side plan to conduct works on bird, bat, and reptile pathogens, then subsequently proceeding to researching the

possibility of them transmitting African swine flu and anthrax. So you take these horrible things, swine flu anthrax, you put it into the birds, you put it into the reptiles, you put it into the bats and then you have at them like Jurassic World or something and we're supposed to take this seriously. Bearing in mind that a spokesperson for Russia in the last day or so said, we didn't attack Ukraine. That makes about as much sense as the bird stuff, I think. What do you all think? Yeah, these guys are reminding me of Baghdad Bob more and more every day. I don't know if you guys remember him, we've referenced them a couple times in our coverage.

When we invaded Iraq, there was a spokesperson for Saddam Hussein. And he would constantly say the Americans are not here. And you'd see the American tanks behind him. He would say they are not pens. They are dropping pens, but they are not pens. They are bombs. No, we were actually dropping bombs. We weren't dropping pens at all.

I don't, what a bizarre needless lie, right? So, and this is one of those. And where does it come from? What a weird, weird lie. I mean, only a right-winger in America would believe that. By the way, they have. Of course! I mean, it's made for idiots in America, i.e. the right wing, right?

So they're like, it doesn't matter what you say. Dumbasses in the right wing in America will believe anything we say. Say that it's the butterflies. Okay, what difference does it make? So they went back to, this is an old school tale from the World Wars, right? I don't even know if it's World War I or two. And so it's so lazy on their part. The reason why they tried pigeons in a bomb, in a missile or whatever back down,

was because they didn't have smart bombs because it was the 19, either 1918 or 1939, right? So why would they go back to pigeons? They're smart bombs. It's like, and then you want to distribute like pathogens, drones? Just like a million ways to do it. Yeah, but they can trace that random pigeon. Oh, no, they couldn't possibly trace that. trace a pigeon too

you know what I love about this is that I you know I I work in Hollywood I live in Hollywood and I engage in Hollywood I'm trying I've been trying to write these like Hollywood scripts to sell and it's like you know the storylines are so

ridiculous that nobody in Hollywood would buy this script like no one they will never make a movie about like killer pigeons carrying swine flu and then fly and then distributing it and people are suddenly can. No, if it's too stupid to make a movie about, it's probably not true.

Yeah. You know, if it's too dumb that people watching this in a movie through and be like, that's dumb, probably, you know, not true. Like, I disagree. I think you could do a farce, a workplace comedy at a lab trying to weaponize birds. I can see that actually being pretty fun. You should work on that. I think you could make it work. Writing it down. It's said the right room wouldn't think that it's a comedy. They'd be like, aha, we have it. evidence. Yeah. Okay, Michael Scott is training the pigeons. We have evidence. We do. Anyway, I want to make sure, we're running low on time. I want to make sure that you know about some of the other misinformation that's coming out. I'm sure that you've seen this. So throughout the

week, there have been more and more health facilities in Ukraine that have been bombed. So much so that it almost seems like it's not a coincidence that it's happening. Something like at least 26 have been attacked, including full on hospitals, maternity wards, those sorts of things. Now, earlier this week, the official Twitter account for the UK's Russian embassy accused a pregnant Ukrainian woman seen in photos of a maternity hospital blast in Maripal on Wednesday of being an actor placed in the scene by propagandists in support of Ukraine. So the idea being she's a crisis actor, she wasn't actually there, nobody was there. Turns out, what do you know, not to be the case, although they say, they tried to claim that

the hospital itself didn't I don't I don't know what their idea is she is an actress it turns out that was the element of truth to the conspiracy theory here's the thing about actresses they sometimes get pregnant and after a certain period like three months to a year or so they need to give birth and they do that in maternity awards so I get the idea of crisis actors it's very seductive but have you considered acting They have sex too sometimes. What? Anyway, in the theory, they said, well, it's not just that she's a crisis actor.

They used her in multiple places, they had two. And like in Hyra's photos of the second woman, it didn't look anything like her. And again, to your point, the conspiracy theories are not just ridiculous, but they're not, they're lazy. Yeah. But to my other point, if I will, it doesn't matter. Kieran, right wingers, they love these theories. They love these theories, so it's like growing in popularity here in America. And once you say crisis actors, that triggers every Alex Jones fan to be like, everything is always crisis actors.

It doesn't matter what the reality is. Everything is crisis actors, right? So they started instantly believing. And now you, of course, have Tucker Carlson spreading conspiracy theories on Fox News about how they're weaponizing the Ukrainian labs. And I don't know if the pigeons have gotten on Fox News yet. But I mean, Carlson has become Baghdad Bob. But it doesn't matter. His audience will believe in hook, line and sinker.

You cannot come up with something stupid enough that a Fox News audience wouldn't believe. So in fact, if you're, there's some chance they will bring back literal lines from Baghdad Bob. So I'm going to have fun and read just two to you, okay? He said, they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad, referring to the American troops. We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly. Okay, so watch for the suicide conspiracy theory, okay? And then I love this one. We have them surrounded in their tanks.

So what are you going to do? It's the same propaganda, but for some reason in this case, it has a welcome audience in the right wing in America. As an actual actor, I can tell you, there is no acting gig that other actors don't hear about. because it's a very small community and actors always trying to get like, like, how'd you get that? Where'd you get that? How'd you get that? How can I sign up for that? A, I want to know how much crisis acting pays and if there's residuals in crisis acting. And like, do you post in like actors access? Haven't we, haven't the only people that have actually been caught posting trying to get actors,

be the Trump campaigns to hire like actors of color to be, their rallies so it doesn't just look like a sea of white faces. I've seen those ads. I don't know where I've seen any ads for like hiring Ukrainian crisis actors to pretend like they're pregnant in a pretend bombed maternity hospital. No, but Helen's point is very literal. So the reason why people found out that Trump hired actors on his very first announcement, remember when he went down the escalator, he hired a bunch of actors to pretend to be his fan.

Because otherwise, who the hell was going to show up to, at that point, side show Bob declaring he was going to be president. They didn't, we all didn't know, of course, at the time that he was going to come out and be over the top racist. Then Republican voters were going to love it. And they were like, oh my God, he just called Mexica's rapists and criminals. Yes, right? And that's how sideshow Bob won. And we know that history. But that on that day, before any of that had started, he hired actors.

How did we find out? Because actors talk. Actors were like, oh, this is a good job. He's paying 50 bucks. Also, I think some of the ads were on Craigslist. Yeah, yeah. If you're seeing an ad on Craigslist, oh, not a great gig. And by the way, that's the last thing.

All the right wing ever does is projection. So whatever insane thing that they're thinking, they're like, I bet the Democrats are going to hire actors. Massive projection. Are we taking a break or are we going on to our, I think we should probably take our second break. All right. All right. We still have the massive announcement coming up, so you don't want to miss that. We'll be right back. All right, back on T.I.D. Jank, John, and Helen with you guys. Oh, real quick, Helen, podcast. It's about your dad, the Koreans. Go ahead. Old Korean dad stories on YouTube. I interview my dad and sometimes my mom, who's a little bit more camera shy, about these insane stories from his childhood. You know, they both survived the Korean war.

Yeah, so it's like these incredible stories and, you know, like they're probably watching this Ukrainian thing being like, eh, in there. So check that out. I was sure that it was who's your Korean daddy, but okay, I got you, I mean, okay, so that's awesome and of course damage report. All right, now I have the next story for you guys. We have a bit of a major in us, but who's that next to me? smashing young man.

Michael Shore running for Congress. So there you go. Michael Shore, a long time TYT guest host. In fact, the whole time since the beginning for over 20 years now, how cool would it be to have a TYD host in Congress? So he's running here in LA and Karen Bass's old seat, Karen Bass was a really good progressive and now is running for mayor of LA.

So that seat is now open and Michael is throwing his hat into the ring. And so first of all, sure for Congress.com, sure for Congress.com. That's where you'll see that stunning picture of Michael. Okay, I thought they did a good job with that. It's just a splash page that gives you a rough sense of who Michael is. And of course, you can donate through there. He does not take corporate PAC contributions. Okay, so he needs real people, grassroots donations, et cetera.

And historically, you might have seen me and Michael have a lot of discussions on air and sometimes disagreements, right? So this is important guys, Michael has historically been to the left of me. And if you've seen us sometimes battle on air, you might say, really? No, it's we mainly disagree on strategy from time to time, right? So I'm a little bit more wild-eyed, I know that comes as a surprise to you guys. But if you're running for Congress, his way of doing things might be a little bit more helpful. So he's got an excellent shot at this thing, sure for congress.com.

I'm super proud of him and it's totally winnable. And it would be an amazing pickup for progressives if he wins that seat. I'll be voting for him because he's in, I'm in his district. Yeah, I love that you said that, Helen, because I'm in his district. So Michael sure would be our congressperson. And that's just incredible. Yeah. Have like a friend who's actually your congressman would be.

just unheard of. Who's legit? Who's legit? Like, not a bandwagon person, but someone who's been talking to talk and walking the walk for 20 years, like you said. Yeah. Yeah, but I'm totally voting for him. I won't be voting for him because I'm pretty sure I'm not in his district. I wouldn't anyway, but I'm kidding. I looked at the map. I don't, I believe that I'm a bit south of it. But yeah, it's like Smackdad. That is the heart of L.A. Like that is a no messing around district, but Michael's awesome. Like many, many of you might be new to the channel, you might have seen Michael as much, although he's appeared on the damage report with me a little bit recently. But, but what would you say? He's, he's come on, TYT, 500 times, a thousand

times. So like, there's a lot of candidates, they're total wildcards. You have no idea what they think about, the most important consequential issues. Michael has put it out there for literally decades about everything he thinks about everything he cares about, what his priorities are. And so there's basically, there's few candidates that have been vetted as much as Michael Shore. And he's an all around great guy too. Yeah. And we bragged about how AOC was on TYT, featured on TYT 34 times before she won her primary. Now the general election, when no one was covering her 34 times, we can't do the math I thought Michael.

You know, Michael was on 712 times before he won his primary. So, but it would be amazing, you know, you've got a wide range of folks who've been on TYT within the Democratic Party, all people with, most importantly, a lot of heart. They care. They care. That's why they were on TYT. That's why they care about the news and they care about changing the country. And now, and guys, this is the district, you know, you might wonder LA, it's got some incredibly

wealthy parts. It's got some not so wealthy parts. And so this district is actually not so wealthy. That's why Helen and I live in. Yeah, check, I can attest not so wealthy. Yeah, which makes it a little bit more progressive. So that's good news. Okay, that's among the reasons why it's winnable. Yeah. I can't wait to see. Is he coming on the conversation? Oh yes, thank you. Yes, the next week, Michael Shore, of course, will be on the conversation. Tuesday. So make sure you check that out. That's at 5.30 p.m. Eastern. The conversation is always before the Young Turks right here on the same channel. So you'll make sure you're catching that live and Michael will be on. And we'll get to talk about the issues and his strategy

as well. So make sure you're supporting him right now. Sure for Congress.com. And already the comments are coming in. Mary Annemal and Twitch said, we're donating and we don't even live in this state. Congress impacts us all. That is definitely true. So this is not like, hey, that's a city council, but I don't live in that city. No, they go to the federal government and every vote matters. And so that's a great idea and you should definitely support them throughout the country, no question. And if you live anywhere near around here, volunteer as well.

Yeah. Just briefly, I'd like to make this about me because in recent months, Gary Chambers, Nina Turner, Michael Shore, some of my favorite co-hosts, all running for office now. And that's making my job a lot harder because they can't co-host anymore. So, Sabrina, Viviana, Adrian, Ida, Brett, don't even think about filing to run for any office runs, okay? I need to have a show too. Anyway, with that said, let's jump into some more news.

Recently exposed FEC records show that an alleged Russian agent operating for political influence inside of the U.S., in the end, donated to only one campaign for president in the 2020 election, that is Tulsi Gabbard, with some interesting wrinkles that we're going to get into. So this agent is a dual Russian American national Elena Branson. She stands accused of illegally pushing pro-Russian policies in the U.S. for nearly a decade at the direction of top Kremlin officials without registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Like, you can do that, but you do have to actually register. It makes it a little bit easier to understand where you're coming from, which is why many have not. This is not the only agent who has operated.

and not just for Russia, but understand that. Now, her work, the complaint about her said her work on behalf of the Russian government, including arranged meetings for herself and other Russian officials with U.S. government officials and executives at businesses based in the U.S. Authorities say that she received funding and direction from the Russian government, including the country's embassy in Washington and received tasks from high-level Russian government officials and government-run organizations. Now, as we said, one donation in 2020, it was to Tulsi Gabbard, but we were,

with the potentially interesting and important caveat that it was for $60. And not even in one $60 lump. I mean, you can see there it comes across in two separate $50 and $10. Why? Yeah, what like if the goal is influence, based on my experience of donations, that doesn't buy you much directly. So yeah, so why? I have a theory.

So first, those are the facts. When we get into theories, of course, it's by definitions, a little bit of speculation, right? So we're always clear about that. Now, it's so curious why. Anybody reading the story has to think, why? Why $49.95 and $10? What the hell? Like, that's not going to matter at all.

So there's a bunch of other possibilities. So one is that it's a signal. When she donates, it signals others to donate, right? because otherwise, why give a comically low number? And did Tulsi get donations from other people that are known not as Russian spies, but decidedly pro-Russian in their commentary publicly, et cetera? Yes, she did. She got thousands from them, okay?

But even so, it wasn't a spectacular number. So then you have to wonder, and look, Tulsi now is. pretty much given up the game. Like before there was a lot of subterfuge. There was, oh, I'm a progressive. But God, if you're killing Muslims in Syria, I'm kind of here for it, right? And we were like, whoa, she likes the torture. She likes the drone bombs and the special forces and anything where you attack Muslims. She's totally in. So there was warning signs. We picked up on those warning signs. We were the first tell you about it. Now she's at the point where she's just like, I can't believe what the Ukrainians are doing to poor Putin, right?

So there's no subtlety left anymore at all. And anyone who isn't brain dead knows that she's obviously partial to Putin's government. So $60 isn't what led to that. And so I don't know if there was dark money. I don't know in terms of her campaigns. I don't know if there's just flat out money. Now, the money we do know about, it comes through some legitimate, quote unquote, legitimate This horse says, and it's not illegal, like, so when she goes on Tucker Carlson says,

oh, my daddy Putin is just the best of the best. And Tucker Carlson agrees, oh, with you a high five on Putin, then she gets a lot of right wing grassroots donors to her different ventures that she's doing on right wing websites, right? So that's a lot, a lot of people play that game, the Jimmy Doors, the gray zones, et cetera, and they're getting presumably organic money from right wingers for liking Putin so much, but this was during her, when she was in office, man, I don't, this part I don't know at all, but if there was, somebody should keep digging because there could be more money

that we're not seeing, because Tulsi and the others are not a little like, oh, well, you know what, NATO expansion was too much, that's a legitimate point, right? Oh, I don't know that we should have pushed so hard in before the war. No, Zelensky said we don't have to be in NATO. He basically conceded in that regard, and it was right to. I think it was content-wise substantively it was right. Strategically, it was right. But at that point, there was no reason for Putin to go in, and he went in anyway.

He clearly had planned to do this invasion all along. Those facts are not in dispute. And the Tulsies of the world are like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think the Ukrainians made him do it, and America made him do it. Putin's, you know, it is, so that is, that's so not subtle that it's impossible not to inquire further into what in the world would make you say such outrageous and patently false things. First of all, I have to say it's not 60 bucks. It's 59.95. Let's get it. News, news. We're clear. Hashtag news right there. 5995. And I love that you're saying that the 5995.

is a signal because it's like, pst, 59.95, that way, that way, which I think it's kind of cute. Like, hey, everybody, 5995 to this, this woman here. And then everyone's like, oh, I got to, where's my checkbook? Where's my checkbook? Yeah. Like I said, by the way, on that part, is it being a signal speculation. I don't know. What is 49.95, is 49.95 a different signal and 10 bucks is another signal?

10 bucks says go all in or not so much. We're putting on the brakes. I don't know, right? The 10 bucks is that, no, I'm serious. Anyway. But seriously, the reason why I say that is because I want people not to get colored by what she's saying now. She's now an obvious propagandist for the Russians. But back then it was not obvious. And that's why it might have required a signal, but I don't know that 49.95 was in. Devil's advocate to be Buzz Killington. What if you were this unregistered Russian agent and you were just watching the election go?

If you were going to donate, who would you donate to? Yeah, yeah. Oh, totally. And by the way, that is very possible that there's no coordination, et cetera, except there's a one huge caveat there. Okay. So in a normal situation, yeah, sure. She might have been like, oh man, she's weirdly pro-Russian, I'm gonna give her money, right?

And Russia's spies don't pay that well, so she only had 60 bucks. I don't know, that's possible, totally possible. We're giving you the facts and we're telling you what are the other possibilities as to why this happened, right? And so, but the caveat to that though is, it looks like this one is this talk of representative one in some legal documents, so it doesn't say Tulsi Gabbard, but this park was in Tolsey Gabbard, but this park was in Tolsey, district in Hawaii, and they were going to rename a park there. It had some Russian name, and so this Russian spy jumped into that Russian Fort Elizabeth, right, is what it's called. And apparently the Russians care about parks in Hawaii, so this literal Russian spy got involved and tried to make sure they didn't rename it, and was working with a representative one that is still unidentified in the, that's according to an FBI agent's sworn statements. So it is possible that that a certain representative from Hawaii was working with her in that regard.

But ain't no politician, no matter how craven, that's going to say, oh, I'm going to work with a Russian spy on a park for 60 bucks. Okay. That's a weird mad libs. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I speculate maybe the 60 bucks is the tip of the iceberg and we haven't found the iceberg yet. I was about to get really excited, like, oh, I'd like to name a park. I got $59.95.

Where's my credit card? So, but that's what leases of speculation because who, even politicians aren't that cheap. I'd like to rename it to Jane Huger Park. You got $59.95. With Tulsi, maybe. I did, however, just get a text from Michael. You can basically buy him out for $59.99. If you want, he'll name parks for you, he'll name mountains.

He'll name pretty much anything, 59.95. All right, so either way guys, one last thing, it doesn't really matter, okay? I mean, look, if they find actual illicit money, that would matter, okay? But for now, proof's in the Putin. So she's advocating for Putin basically out in the open. So her proclivities are obvious, no matter what the reason is. for them is. Yeah.

But if I was the FBI, I'd keep digging. Okay. All right, guys, we gotta go. Everybody check out Helen Hung's awesome channel on YouTube. Everybody check out Damage Report. We're gonna come back with more amazing stories, including the Justi Smollett story. That one has more twists and turns than I anticipated. Interesting when we return.

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