The Young Turks - Boom Baby Boom

Episode Date: December 11, 2021

President Biden and the Democratic Congress are set to preside over the strongest two-year performance on growth, jobs, and income in decades—so long as the current cycle of inflation eases, and the Omicron variant does not trigger another round of shutdowns. Kellogg's says it will permanently replace striking workers after their offer of 3% annual raises was rejected. A divided Supreme Court refused to block the Texas law that has banned most abortions but narrowly opened the door for abortion providers to challenge it before a federal judge. Hosts: John Iadarola, Nina Turner, Francesca Fiorentini 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. Bexie! Free-My-Dee, Dream-Machee, Free-LIN, Street, Street-R-M-A-D,

Dream-A-D, Dream-A-D. Drop it. Welcome to the show, everyone. I'm John O'Rola. That's not the important part, but we got out of the way. More importantly, joined on the first hour of the power panel by Francesca Fiorentini, who's always on Mondays with the Damage War with me.

Great to have you here. Hey. And Nina Turner as well, who joins me on Tuesdays on The Damage Report. It's like the beginning of a week here on the power panel today. Thanks for being here, Nina. Yeah, it's good to be with both you and Francesca. Glad to have you here. I like saying that, John, Francesca.

It is a cool name. I've considered changing mine. That is now my new ringtone. Got it. Nina Turner saying the name. Done and done. When you hear the beep, leave a message for Francesca. Okay, I think we're going to have some fun.

I was a little bit worried. This is a little bit of a rough week, but you know what we're going to do? We're going to treat it like a Christmas tree and burn it down. Okay, we're going to set this thing on fire. Talk about a lot of stuff. Through the course of this hour, we're going to talk about how the economy is actually doing. People are frustrated, should they be? The Biden White House doesn't think so.

We'll give their case. We've got updates on some major unionization efforts. arguments about whether the rich should face higher taxation being conducted entirely within the widen household, so that'll be fun. And how bad was the burning down of that tree? Some think it was a historic evil, we'll describe that a little bit later on. But that said, we should get started. You two ready to do this thing?

That's rock and roll, baby. Okay, let's have a little bit of fun. You can't turn on the news without hearing about how inflation is up and certainly people are feeling frustrated about the state of the economy, the state of Biden's first term. He made many promises and doesn't really seem to be coming through on them. Well, the Biden White House thinks that this is unfair and he changed your tune a little bit. So they've dispatched Ron Clayne as well as some new advertisements to try to convince you that things are actually going a little bit better.

Turn those polls around. First, here is the White House Chief of Staff. There's a lot of talk about how the economy is doing. Here are a few key facts that show the economy is growing and recovering under President Biden. Last week, the government reported that the unemployment rates down to 4.2%. That's three years faster than experts predicted it would happen before we passed the rescue plan back in March. How many jobs? We've created 6 million jobs this year.

That's more than any president in history has created in his first year in office. One reason we've created so many jobs. Last year at this time, no Americans were fully vaccinated. Today, over 70% of all adults in this country are fully vaccinated. Getting America vaccinated is getting America back to work. A year ago, there were over 21 million people on unemployment. Today, that number's down to just over 2 million. Amazing progress in a year.

And the recovery goes beyond jobs. Look at this chart on retail sales. Up $90 billion since last year. That's an economy that's humming. Okay, that is an economy that's humming. It's not just humming, it's also clapping, and I think it's tap dancing, actually. The economy is doing a lot of moving and making a lot of noise. So there were a lot of noises, a lot of noises there, a lot of facts there. And I think we all know that nothing changes the mind of the American people than a politician

standing next to charts that they're moving through. But he brought up a couple of good points. Let's start with you, Nina. What did you think about that? Is this going to get through to people? Do you think that that was a fair assessment of their performance in this first year of Biden's term? We're not going to argue the numbers, John. But if you ask me, is that going to get through to the people? Hell, no.

First of all, don't just tell me, I got to feel it. There was nothing there. And my question would be, is humming for whom becomes the, question. We know that within this economy, the people who are reaping the biggest benefit is certainly the people who always reap the biggest benefit, and that is the ultra wealthy. When you have to pay more for gas, when you have jobs that you've got to fight to just get a living wage, when there's nowhere in this country where minimum wage can, where somebody who's being paid minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment. Houston, or let me just say, D.C., we have a problem.

last point. Pandemic, pandemic, pandemic. Francesca? I mean, I have to say, as someone who's been like really wondering why the Biden administration hasn't been singing their own victories and really trying to like, you know, talk about the wins in the face of bad polling, et cetera, I'm like A for effort, but like D plus for execution, you know, I think this is that like everyone trying to bite on. Bernie Sanders style, where it's like, all we got to do is, you know, be straightforward and have a little flip chart. And it's like, yeah, Bernie does that because he's like, that's

why we have to tax billionaires out of existence. You know, like, it's good because it's actually real. But it's him. Exactly. And it's Bernie. And he's like a legit grump. Whereas like Ron Klein being like, this is Robert Reich, but not as good. But like worse animations, you know, like get Olivia Rodriguez in there, you know, or even better. Screw the celebrities, get an actual worker, get someone who was able to stay afloat, who was able to go back to work, who got vaccinated, who feels safe. You know, let's talk to real people. You don't have to completely gussy it up and make it, you know, super slick. Real people exist and they're out there. Talk to them.

Yeah. Yeah. And then I think you could also, maybe you could appeal to Nina there a little bit by, sure, run through your numbers. And that's true. And those are good. We do have more vaccination. Although when you compare the numbers now to the numbers a year ago, literally everyone in the room I'm in right now said, but there was no vaccine last year. So that's obviously dishonest. You could still talk about the numbers, but be clear about it and be truthful about it. And so talk about all of what you've done. But you also have to acknowledge all of what remains to be done. And if you do that, then you can talk about those who are standing in the way of some of the aid. That's certainly true. You can point out the Republicans in the Senate. You should also probably cast a little. little bit of a light on some of the Democratic senators are making it so difficult to actually accomplish anything. But then you would probably also have to acknowledge that, look, if people are suffering, you could make a chart out of like student loan debt, the bar would be really high. It could be lower. I wonder who's stopping it from getting lower. So. Yeah. And that's why they're not really answering all of the concerns. A few of the macroeconomic concerns are there,

but not really getting down into the granular experience of working people's lives that Nina that you were talking about a moment ago. Yeah, John, I mean, you really do have to fill it. And as we are saying, the numbers are exactly what they are. We get it. Okay, got that checked off the box. But that is that in and of itself is not going to move the people who are suffering the most. They need to feel it. And to the extent that they are not feeling it, John, to your point, it is a much better story to tell to say,

but I still get, you know, even with all of these games, I am working as hard as I can and I'm going to continue to work even harder because I know that some of you are not feeling this at all. This is why I want to tax the ultra wealthy. This is why I want to get more shots than arms. This is why I want to, you know, save the environment. I mean, that's the kind of stuff. They just, come on, tell the truth now. Yes, this is why we need to pass the buildback better act, right? It is, it feels like an explainer video directed at like only the New York Times editorial board. Like, it's like just for op-ed writers of the Washington Post and nobody else.

Like, why? So it's, it's, and you're totally right. Like, it doesn't lay blame at the feet of Republicans for stalling and yet claiming, claiming victory on, let's say, the American Rescue Plan, right? And trying to tout that around. It, again, and look, I don't mean, you know, reducing yourself to Trumpian tactics, but man, when it's a win, it's a win. And when you've got adversaries working against the American people, you've got adversaries working against the American people.

And yes, Democrats have a lot of that blame. But, like, you're doing a political propaganda ad, man. Like, talk about who's actually in the way. Yes. That's a great point. Call them out. What's that? Name them.

Call them out. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's not their style in the Biden White House. Barely naming and calling out the Republicans, let alone the Democrats. And I also want to acknowledge. Let's say progressive. Right, right, right, right. Let's say progressive, then they get called out and change and everything.

You do, yes, you do certainly see that. They definitely, it is a difficult task to, to, I don't know, to communicate about this. Like, there's no, like, I'm thinking, okay, how does, how did Trump and the Republicans back when he was in charge? How do they communicate with their base? They never had to do a version of this because they didn't get into office. with anything having to do with the economy, they never had a plan to improve people's lives. So they never were actually called to answer for it. It's really one of the benefits of the modern day Republican Party. They get put into office to stop kids from reading about like

Martin Luther King Jr. or whatever, that's it to protect Dr. Seuss. There's no expectation that there's going to be more jobs. So when jobs don't come and wages don't go up, they never really promised those things anyway. I never saw Trump having to give it like a desperate press conference to get through to them or dispatch Steve Bannon or something with charts about jobs because that's so like the gap between what they were elected to do and the expectations for them. It just hasn't, it has nothing to do with it. So but but it's not impossible. Bernie Sanders does do stuff like that. I think Katie, Katie Porter does, you know, get through in these sorts of things. So it's not impossible if you have the right people on your side. Yeah, but it's very natural

for them. And John, I'm going to push back a little bit. Difficult, you know, when you're the president of the United States of America, when you have the privilege to work in this cabinet, when you have the privilege to be on his team, difficult is not being able to afford a two-bear-room apartment on minimum wage. Difficult is not having paid family leave. Difficult is not having Medicare for all. Difficult is not knowing where your next meal is going to come from. Difficult is trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents because gas prices are so damn high that you can't afford to fill up your tank. That's difficult.

Difficult is knowing that the moratorium on student loan repayments might go away. That's difficult. They don't live in difficult. I'm going to have to push back into you. I feel worse for Ron Clayne. I'm kidding. Anyway, you're 100% right, obviously. Let's go to one more video, though.

So this is the Democrats organized Twitter account. So they wanted to get something social going. And so you're going to see the job growth there. Man, that does not make George W. look very good. Okay, so look, as I don't know, maybe I'm just an ass. Sure, those numbers are true, but you're also coming out of most of the pandemic. So I hate when, I don't like when when presidents try to take too much unilateral credit for major moves in the economy. And I also don't generally think it makes much sense to blame them too much for large scale moves in the economy.

It's just sort of a game that they play where I think the media's time and people's attention would be better spent are in direct areas where they've made promises and that they have power. Like if you want to give him some credit for, you know, the stimulus that they did at the beginning of the year, I think that that makes sense. They did that. You could also justifiably criticize him for cutting it in half, basically, at the last minute. You could give them credit for doing the child tax credit. Or you could criticize them for seemingly being ready in about a month or two weeks at this point to see it lapse. And you can certainly criticize him for not unilaterally doing what he said he would do on student loan debt. So they like to zoom way out into an area where, trying to link the president to the economy in either directions feels really unfair, but that also conveniently absolves them of the areas where they can have a direct impact. 100%. And also it is without context, which is exactly what you're saying. It's like within the context of that job creation, it isn't really fair to compare it to other presidents, but also your context is unprecedented and unique in that you inherited a pandemic that had killed half a million people at that time and a president who was showing disbelief and doubt

in a vaccine in in the COVID-19 virus in and of itself who may or may not have had COVID when he debated you on stage and you've got nothing to say to that you can't say and you're not even claiming again something that handed to you that the other the former president has blood on his hands that you're taking the pandemic seriously you're taking the economic impact of the pandemic seriously instead it is a Without context graph, again, designed for like, I don't know, Thomas Friedman to be like, no, I guess there's jobs all right of, you know, a positive op-ed, and whatever he does. And you're not actually speaking to what is on all of our minds, which is how are we going into the future?

We almost lost our democracy and our livelihoods and our lives, right? So what is the future of public health care? What does that look like, given that our country has been so unprepared, so clearly unprepared for something like a pandemic? Yeah. Right? Answer these questions. Instead, it's like, oh, hey, look, I patched up the hole in this Titanic and you're

like, I guess. That's a start. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, you referenced some of what has come out recently about their plans to just dispense with the last vestiges of democracy. We will be talking about that in the second hour of the Young Turks. So there will be a little bit of that. Nina, any final comments on their

attempt to reshape public opinion around the performance of the economy? They need to do it better. I send out the messengers that really can get the message out. And then it's what we all, all three of us have been saying. They really have to acknowledge that pain is still there, but they're trying their hardest to make progress. that people can feel. You gotta give them something they can feel. You know, I want to ask one final quick question. So I always am curious about areas where I have a blind spot or I exist in a big bubble. And I feel like both of you are both willing to and might delight in pointing out my naivete. So it feels like if you were to make a list of the five or maybe even 10 best

communicators on the Democratic side, I feel like all of them are progressives that they don't really want to have anything to do with? Yes. Is that unfair? Or like people really like fired up by Amy Klobuchar's speeches and things like that? Wow. Whoa. That's cold.

That's cold. She tells good speeches about the snow occasionally. She does. No. You're right. No, they're all on the best communicators are on the progressive side because they really communicate from an area, I think, of passion, compassion and lived experience. And the best people to tell those types of stories like a congresswoman Corey Bush, for example, who was homeless, who had to sleep in their car, you know, who understands domestic violence by lived experience, all of those things.

Those tend to be the better messengers, those people who are still connected to a lived experience that is not just one of being in wine caves with both people. Well, you don't you don't like the Nancy and Chuck sort of like side by sides and just like sort of competing on who is like paler and staler, you know, as they sort of do a duo act. I love it. I want a T-shirt. I didn't bring in your freezer, you know. Oh, God. Yeah.

We got to get the pale and stale 24 shirts going. Pale and stale. You're right. Like, I just want to say this is a week, obviously, where you saw the squad come out and it's very, in a robust way. defend Representative Ilhan Omar and condemn Lauren Boberts' Islamophobic comments. And I just, every time I see Representative Ayanna Presley speak, I am like, that's presidential. Like, she just has this gravitas that is like unmatched. And I, so yeah, I mean, and they're all effective communicators in different ways.

But like Ayanna Presley, and it's not just, you know, it's more than how you present yourself is more than how you talk. But honestly, the way she talks and presents herself is just like, damn, like you. It's the spirit, Francesca, I mean, it's a spirit that it, they're not just doing this to do it. They actually have an emotional connection to what they are putting down. Yeah. Yeah. And that is what was missing and what the chief of stab did. It was this, oh, my God, we got to get out here and enumerate for the people, all the great things that we're doing.

And it's just check the box, check the box. versus people coming up there saying, hey, this is what it is. This is what we're standing up for. This is why I'm standing up for this. This is why we are fighting and this is where we are going. Totally. I agree. Yeah, the difference.

Okay, I think on that note, we're going to take our first break. When we come back, we're going to give you a little bit of an update on the catalog attacks against their striking workers. Some success for unionization as well. We'll have that for you after this. Welcome back, everyone. It's me, John, and Nina and Francesca. And with that, why don't we jump back into the news? It's certainly a case of good news and bad news on the labor front recently. We're to start with the bad. And the bad is very much Kellogg's, which decided that after 1,400 of their striking workers turned down a proposed deal, they decided, yeah, this negotiation thing has been real and all, but let's just get rid of all of those people and hire on replacement workers. That apparently is what they're choosing to do.

Since October, these workers have been striking in four different cities. And largely, there's a number of different reasons, including being massively overworked during the pandemic. But in particular, for the last six years, there's been what's called a two-tier employment system where there's different levels of benefits for people who've been around for different periods of time. The proposed deal that came about after about two months of these employees striking would have revised that system but wouldn't actually have gotten rid of it, which is what these

employers were working towards. So the workers turned down the deal. I believe we have a little bit of video demonstrating this. That's why we are striking because we were the better pay pension for everybody. It's not for only one group. I have this job because people like my dad that worked here before me for 34 years didn't give up stuff coming in. Exactly. And so they want to continue to push. I mean this is the process of how strikes work. It's not you get one choice and then that's it one deal and then that's it. But that's what Kellogg's wants. They know that these workers are willing to strike for longer. They've got the durability to push for a better deal and they want to just end the process right now. Francesco, why don't we start

with you? What did you think about Kellogg's move to fire all these people? I mean, like it's not surprising to me at all. And it is a moment though, because to fire, to do, make this move in a time of increased worker power and increased consciousness among, you know, blue collar workers around this country and the jobs, the factory jobs that are left in this country, it's bold, right? And it shows that Kellogg's thinks that they can get away with it. They, it's, you know, it's no money, it's no sweat off their backs. They can take the heat. They can take the negative press because, you know, John Adderola needs his pop tarts. And so you got to Keep the ovens cracking.

I decided to get you there, buddy. You got a boycott. Well, what you don't know is I announced earlier this week that I was boycotting Pop-Tarts. So you're a little bit behind the news cycle there, Francesca. Now, people at my job have been taking the Pop-Tarts that were still around and leaving them around for me to try to break my resolve. But like the workers, I am going to be strong. You will not be broken. I'm going to try not to.

But yes, I mean, it is a heartless move and we'll see what happens, right? Like public opinion, and this is the thing. Our mainstream outlets are going to be covering this? Are they going to be talking to the workers? You know, more perfect union just hats off to them for covering strike after strike and just doing incredible work on the ground. I would like to see that from mainstream outlets, more of them, right? Nina?

Yeah, Francesca is right. It's definitely a heartless. I love the whole all for one and one for all mentality is what the workers at John Deere did as they held out that two tier, you know, workers with more seniority caring about the type of wages and benefits that the workers that are working by their side and who come right after them will have into the future. That is what true solidarity and leadership looks like. And you know, I want to see the federal government jump up in here. You know what? Them school breakfasts, Kellogg's, the products, the Tony the Tiger, the Crows. And all that, guess what? We will not be purchasing any more of your products until you do right by these workers. See, there's always more than one way, the skin of cat. Let's start taking the public contracts away from them. They want to treat workers like that. These workers have children in the schools, in the very schools that serve oftentimes these cereals for breakfast. So, yeah, let's deal with, let's deal with them. No more public contracts.

That's a great point. And you know, it's a we're during the break, we were like joking about like having an actual progressive president for once. Like imagine the effect it would have on the labor movement that like if Bernie Sanders was president, he would do what Obama said he was going to do was put on his marching shoes and stand on the picket line. But like Bernie does do that. And members of the squad do that. They're supportive right now of unionization efforts. That's it. I definitely have to jump. I mean, being with the senator for both. of his presidential candidacies, he definitely has been on the, even before he started running for president, let's be clear, check the receipts. He was on the picket lines with the workers. But certainly during 2016 and 2020, the senator never failed to be on the picket lines with workers. I've been on. I mean, the senator went down the best of Alabama, for example. So did I. People like Congresswoman Cory Bush, other members of the squad, people like our dear friend, Michael Render, Killer Mike, Mr. Glover, Dr. Cornell, West.

Y'all see the pattern? We're naming all either progressive activists or progressive thought leaders or progressive elected officials. That is the pattern. And yeah, hell yeah, the senator would be right there as president by their side. Nothing shaking. And, you know, Jink and I talked about this the other last night on the power, on the power hour, talking about the power panel, power hour. But, you know, some of the things that can be done. And one of the things is, hey, CEO Kellogg's. I'm about to have. a press conference. Now, either you will be there as the hero or the villain. You know, Jinky and I were talking about that last night about some other group of people. The same playbook. You call these folks up. You're hurting American workers. You're hurting the workers. You're hurting my, you're hurting my agenda. You're hurting the people that I was elected to serve. So I tell you what, about to have a press conference. Either you're going to be the hero, you're going to be the villain. Which one you want? I'm giving you a chance. Yeah. It's interesting too because I feel like on unions, you know, Biden is actually not

not as far to the right as he is on other issues, right, as he might be on student loan debt or he might be on, you know, raising corporate taxes. It seems like something like the pro act out of all the things we need to pass might have more of a chance. And I'm not holding my breath at all. But, you know, the president's statement when the Bessemer Alabama vote was coming down in the Amazon factory warehouse was was really surprising actually and and did make an impact. And I think, you know, we have to look for those openings, even though we're sort of greeted with a wall of status quo-ness right now. And I think that one of those openings could be around labor. And I think that the NLRB is starting to make calls that are much more

progressive. Looking at the head, Lauren McFerrin is the head of it right now. She's been promoted from within, but she was appointed by Obama and she's doing some good stuff. So it's like that's the kind of moves. Remember, these folks are all appointed by the president. That's I think where we could see some more progressive movement, hopefully from this president. Very good point. Yeah. Let's briefly move to a little bit of good news on this area. Yesterday workers in the Buffalo area successfully voted to unionize a Starbucks. They voted two to one to do so. And that is difficult, literally in almost any company in America, but particularly in Starbucks. Starbucks has not had an amazing track record in welcoming unionization efforts in the past. Back in 2019,

in fact, we have a write-up here about some of what they'd done to try to stop one of their stores in Philadelphia from unionizing, saying that the, that the, that, ALJ found that Starbucks closely monitored public social media activity, attempted to gauge employee's support for the employee's efforts, unlawfully spied on protected conversations, one of the employees initiated with coworkers. And so they've also used tactics like shutting down some stores so that employees have to change from working in one store to flooding into another, which can potentially upset months or possibly years of organizing in anticipation of unionization efforts. And we also want to talk about one thing. There's an individual,

Britney Harrison, a Starbucks worker in Arizona who was fired and says that she believes the reason she was fired was because she recorded a conversation, a company conversation that was critical of the unionization effort, specifically in Buffalo, the successful one from yesterday. Let's show you a little bit of that video. The meeting started with my district manager saying, let's talk about what's going on in Buffalo. It kind of all unraveled from there and they started talking about the union, why the union is bad, why the union doesn't align with Starbucks missions and values, why partners who want to be part of the union aren't true partners to Starbucks. So look, over the years, we've talked about a lot of different techniques

of these companies used. There was also recently, Francesco's going to get a kick of that. There was a great episode of John Oliver, like a month or two ago, where he talked about a few of the most common tactics that are used. And you see them cropping up in these recent attempts at unionization being used at Kellogg's being used by Starbucks. And so luckily, at least in this one store, it was successful. And the idea is that not only is that good for the employees working at the particular store, but might be inspirational for others in the area, perhaps around the country who are looking to unionize at Starbucks. We'll certainly have to see. But it is good news that, especially considering what happened with Kellogg's,

that we have a little bit of good news coming out of this one store. Very good news. And the spark is just beginning. I mean, this this workers are on fire right now. They totally understand. I think one good residual if there are good things we can find in the pandemic is that workers are starting to stand up and really demand what they deserve. They're mad as hell. They're not going to take it anymore. And so for every union that is created and for union workers who are striking right now, all of that makes the whole and we'll continue to push up wages. and work conditions for all, both unionized workers and non-unionized workers. So, yeah, I'm glad we got a little good news this evening. Take that, Howard Schultz. Ha, ha, ha. That'll teach you to run for president again, you unicorn Frappuccino of a man. No, it's such a weird guy.

That sounds kind of cool, actually. You know, for sure, yeah. I mean, again, I was saying about the National Labor Relations Board, I think this is an instance where they made a good judgment, good call, which is that one store could unionize not without the other stores in the city. And that's really good because it would have been way harder to get all of those workers in the other stores to agree, yes, we want a union. But it allows still that momentum to continue. So, of course, I do think that this will inspire other stores, not just in Buffalo, but around the country, to also unionize. And that's how it starts. And, you know, Starbucks is so interesting, right?

Because their whole brand, right? Like, how long has Fox News been? Like, you, Mocachino drinking, venty, blah, blah, blah. It's always like the elites, you know, of Starbucks. And they, you know, whether it's their lighting or their sort of soft jazz or the fact that they were like paying people, $9 an hour for the first time. And this was years ago, right? Now they're not even paying $15 yet.

But like they've always prized themselves on being kind of the liberal, cool employers. Hey, you get a free Spotify account when you become not a worker but a partner here at Starbucks. Like, no, bro, just pay us and allow us to form a union. Like don't make us work long hours. Don't like change up our schedules. basic things that service workers know, you know, how difficult it is, put someone in place so that we don't have to enforce mask regulations, you know, get someone who's like checking people at the door, et cetera. All these things that, you know, companies, not just in minimum

wage companies, but even big tech companies are like, you get free haircuts. No, you can't unionize. Like, no, you're not going to buy us off with some of these weirdo perks. Just let us form a union. Yeah, a little known fact, actually. If you pay people more, they, they, can then buy Spotify and or haircuts if that's what they want to spend their money on actually. Yeah, you're reading my mind on that one, John. I was about to say to and or he'll give us the Spotify haircut and the raise. We take it all. Yep. And some health care and child care. Thanks. Yes. Okay, well, let's talk about the opposite side of this. We're going to talk a little bit about taxation. Although it hasn't really gone anywhere.

there's been more of a conversation, at least a willingness to begin the conversation of higher taxes on the wealthy in the past couple of years, even a few whispers about wealth taxes that thus far haven't gone anywhere. But this debate is happening. And in fact, it's even happening inside of the houses of the wealthy and powerful. In this case, we're going to talk about the Wyden household. First of all, you have Senator Ron Wyden. You also have his son, Adam Wyden, who's a self-described libertarian and founder of the hedge fund, the ADW Capital Partners. And so they disagree about taxation. We're going to describe how that works in practice. ADW Capital Partners might seem like it would be one of the places that Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee would be looking to increase taxes a little bit. It's very small but growing fast, $330 million in assets. Its corporate address is in New York, but it's incorporated in Delaware, doing business in Florida, and has an offshore feeder corporation shielding some of its clients from U.S. taxation, so, you know, just normal

American capitalist stuff. Meanwhile, Ron Wyden, the father, he's the chairman of the Democratic Senate Finance Committee, and on some areas of taxation has been in support of doing a little bit more. As President Biden's $2.2 trillion social safety net and climate change bill has been languishing in the Senate, he's kept alive proposals his son has spoken out against. One would tax the annual wealth gains of about 700 American billionaires, some of whom were shown in a series of ProPublica reports to have paid a tiny fraction of their wealth in taxes, while some paid no income taxes at all. I want to let you know about how extreme some of these examples are. So according to Forbes, America's richest 25 people saw their worth rise, a collective $401 billion,

between 2014 and 2018. They paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years. That's about 3.4% as a true tax rate on income across multiple years. So clearly they're getting away with murder, but the son is not happy about his father supporting these sorts of things. Recently, Ron Wyden tweeted in response to Elon Musk pretending as if he was going to do a poll on selling Tesla stock and that was going to determine whether he did it or not, it was a total sham, it's not why he was doing it at all. Ron Wyden tweeted, whether or not the world's wealthiest

man pays any taxes at all shouldn't depend on the results of a Twitter poll. It's time for the billionaire's income tax. In response to that, his son tweeted, why does he hate us the American dream so much? Reality is most legislators have never built anything. except literally my body. So I guess it's easier to mindlessly and haphazardly try and tear stuff down. So yeah, and he apparently had no problem with Elon Musk. Bizarre comments that he was making on Twitter in reference to his father. So anyway, Adam Wyden notably is not a billionaire. He's a millionaire, but we know what America is like. We ignore our own economic interest because we always imagine someday we're going to be Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or whatever.

We're going to have billions of dollars. So screw everyone until we get there, get there. But anyway, I just thought that this is interesting that you could see these wealthy people duking it out over this issue in one family. What do you make of all this? Must be nice. I mean, really, that rare air up there. That's number one. Number two is how dare he talk down to his father on Twitter like that.

Senator Wyden is absolutely correct. Tax the rich. Go to your room. He's a brat. Why do they hate it so much? Go to your room. Probably his many rooms. I would guess.

How dare he can step up against his dad like that in public? Yep. I feel like, yeah, Adam Wyden just wants to say. like, oh, do you know who my father is? Oh, wait a minute, it's you. Never got me anything except for one hedge fund. Oh, God. You know, Johnny got like three hedge funds by the time he was dirty.

Like, you just, it's just so weird. It's so like, who's biting the hand that feeds them? It's very bizarre and so sad and very succession because I'm obsessed with that show. This is like Roman Roy, big Roman Roy. Roy energy, or maybe it's Connor Roy, big Connor Roy energy coming out of Adam Whiden. And also, like, yeah, your dad's, I don't even, I don't even know. And here's the thing about ProPublica. Every time I read those long articles, I have to just take like a half an hour, quick cry, just a little half an hour pillow cry, all the makeup into the pillow. It's great. And then

you're like, I come to the same conclusion every time. People like Adam Wyden or who earn less than that, but sort of like a couple million, a mill even, they should be so much angrier at the 700 billionaires than they are. Because they're paying far more in taxes proportional to their wealth than the billionaires are. And yet they identify more with billionaires when they're never going to be a billionaire. You're not going to get that much money. Oh yeah, yeah, you're going to crap on Starbucks workers and Kellogg's workers, call all the workers lazy, But you actually have more in common with them than you do with billionaires. Why?

Because you're paying more proportional your own tax rate. You're paying a fairer tax rate. I mean, look, it's a long shot to become a billionaire, but I think he has hope. He probably thinks if he can get his hands on one of those really cool NFTs of a cartoon monkey smoking a cigar or something, that could be worth billions someday. And honestly, I went to Adam Wyden's Twitter account. So we have one tweet. Let's bring this up. It's him not making the point that he thinks he's making in response to Ron Wyden's tax proposals. He tweeted, thankfully, I think I can compound faster than my dad and his cronies confiscate it. So you're literally saying that without any

actual labor on your part, the baked investments you have will generate wealth that no wealth tax could actually keep pace with, which does not make the anti-tax point that you think you're making. But if you go to his Twitter account, it's all this nonsense of cryptocurrency. currencies, and I didn't see any ape photos, but I'm sure he'll have one sooner or later. It's all of this stuff that is even more removed from any actual labor or anything even indirectly having to do with the actual economy than past generations of wealthy individuals who were themselves out of touch and had no idea what the real world was like. Now it's like even the real world was already vague for them.

Now it's hidden behind acronyms and hashtags. They have no idea what any of this means. They feel no actual obligation or attachment to our society, let alone our economy or the continued function of our government. And this is literally a guy who has grown up in one of the families, almost a dynasty. And so, I don't know, it makes me really worried about the future that these people are going to end up being very wealthy. And they're certainly tapped in to powerful individuals. Any final thoughts? Yeah.

Wealthy, selfish as hell. And John, you were making a point I want to bring up because I hope the folks who are joining us tonight. I got it when he said they've never built anything. And I think I heard you say that he gave him his very life. I mean, yeah, last time I checked, Ron, your dad had a hand in giving your life, building that. Hello. He's such an ingrate, you know, disrespectful. Go to your room.

Rooms. Some guys will do anything to get on the Elon Musk. I don't know, what is it, the Elysium tour, cyber truck, extravaganza. Space ship. SpaceX tour truck. I don't know. You know, the Elon Musk reply guy thirst is strong. And yes, it's Friday.

And you know who you are out there. And I'm talking to you. Give it up. Give it a rest. He doesn't love you. Let it go. You know, I used to think that like the worst guys were like guys who's whole person. personality is having a lot of Jordan Peterson's books or like agreeing with everything that Joe Rogan says, but the Elon Musk people, they're worse. It's more pathetic. Oh, yeah. Because first of all, he's never going to love you. You're never going to go to Mars with him. Never. And if you ever, yeah, if you stood like if you were in a room within five minutes, do you have any idea how boring he must be in person? Come on. How do you not see that? Anyway, we're going to take a short break. When we come back, we're going to talk about something that is, I wish was a little bit more boring. Unfortunately,

incredibly important. SCOTUS updates on Texas's anti-abortion law and more besides, so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Okay, everybody, we have just a little bit more time for this first hour, but don't worry after that. We do have a second hour. Jared Jackson is going to be here. I believe Ida Rodriguez as well as Ben Glebe. We're going to be joining him for that second hour. And then also later on tonight, Brett Erlick will be doing an episode of Game Busters. I think they're going to be playing Jack, Jackbox party games. So those are games that you can actually take part in. If you follow along on Twitch, you can actually play the game, you can influence what happens,

and they always have a lot of fun. So stay tuned for that. With that, Francesca, Nina, why don't we talk about a couple more things? Time she is wasting. The U.S. Supreme Court has once again kind of weighed in on the Texas anti-abortion law, their like so-called bounty hunting law, allowing it to stay in place. The ban is still there, but there are a few exceptions, a few details that we should know. So they ruled today that abortion providers in Texas can challenge a state law banning most abortions after six weeks, allowing them to sue at least some state officials in federal court, despite the procedural hurdles imposed by the law's unusual structure, which we've

talked about many times. But the Supreme Court refused to block the law in the meantime saying that lower courts should consider the matter. So sort of delaying things, they know what they're doing. We got more details, but just really fat. They know what they're doing. They know what Texas is doing. Texas is doing this like novel procedure of the whole bounty hunter thing, specifically to try to make it more difficult for courts to weigh in on this. But the end result is effectively nullifying more than a half century of Supreme Court precedent when it comes to reproductive rights. And there's not a single person in the country, and especially in the Supreme Court, that does not know that that is not just the effect, but the stated goal of this

effort in Texas. So allowing the ban to continue is not only, like in, at least in the short term, rewarding the people that did this in Texas, but it's also going to put some wind in the sales of those in other states, including in Ohio, who are considering a similar sort of law, that will outlaw abortion in a similar way or accomplish other means. If you can do the bounty hunting thing where it's not the state technically that's getting involved for abortion, you can do it for all sorts of other pet issues that they've had issues with the Supreme Court on. So I want to get both of your thoughts about this. The ban continues, but challenges can go forward, although we sort of also know what the Supreme Court would eventually end up saying

if it works its way all the way up to the top. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead, Frances. Oh, yeah, I was just going to say it's the Supreme Court's way of being like, fight amongst yourselves. You know, it's like the most like, I think we're already dismantling Roe. And it really basically is putting the onus on a lot of these abortion providers and women's health care providers to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, please, be mired in lawsuits for the rest of your existence.

So you basically don't have any money left to do the thing that you are trying to do, which is prevent women from dying and allowing them to have control over their own lives and bodies. No, no, no, please raise a bunch of money so you can fight this in court in that endless, endless source of money. Like, it's, that's all it is. And you know you're hampering organizations, clinics with this law. And you know you're hampering people, people's, I mean, the people who've been working on this issue for, decades who are day in and day out, like just completely exhausted as I think we all are exhausted over this issue, which is why you have a law of the land, which is why. And we were talking a little

bit of noise about Klobuchar, but I got to say, she's been out in front on the idea of passing a federal law and further enshrining Roe v. Wade and further preventing any kind of, any law from infringing on the right to have an abortion. And I think it is high time that we do that, however we do that. But this, again, is just the SCOTUS's way of being like states rights, states rights, slash we know exactly what they're going to do, which is take away the freedom to choose. Yeah.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Just wearing people down, they're trying to wear down the pro-choice side. And as Francesca laid out, just bleed them dry. Lawsuits are expensive, and they take a very long time, which is why the Supreme Court said, well, you know, you guys can sue them, but we're going to hold, we're going to uphold the decision. It is, I mean, allow the law to stand. It is ridiculous.

And as somebody who, when I was in the Ohio Senate, certainly a pro-choice champion in that, in that legislature, really standing up for women, was able to beat back the heartbeat bill, but which job you have laid out that Ohio probably will, 99.9% sure. that it's probably going to pass a bill like that. They've been angling. They've been itching rather to pass a bill like that for quite some time. And I really push back along with some other leaders in the legislature to really stand up for choice. This is all this is about choice.

And the people who are against women having this kind of choice, maybe not all of them, but especially the ones in power who hold elected office. And especially on the GOP side, when they claim to be against. big government, but they love government to be just the side to be able to fit into a woman's womb. That's, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, and, you know, there's, we, we've had cause over the past year, four years especially to talk a little bit more about the state and nature of American democracy than before, you know, you, you want to talk about something before it's finally gone. Um, and one of the, there's a lot of things where, uh, it's

seemingly irrelevant what the American people think. But in this particular case, they're doing something incredibly radical, which is taking away women's rights that they've had for more than 40 years. So you would imagine that the bar would be very high to be able to do that. But we've already won on this issue in terms of public opinion. Like, this is not, there's no debate about what the American people think about this. They don't support this. And the Democrats are in control. And yet, all around the country, more and more laws are infringing on women's rights. And we just sort of expect that a super majority of the Supreme Court, all of them want to strip away women's rights, despite the fact that that is not at all where the American people are.

So there's this massive, incredibly consequential life or death gap between what the American people think and have largely thought for literally decades and what seems like an inevitability in terms of who's actually made it into government. Meanwhile, the Democrats are in charge, they've got a president, they got control of the Senate, and they seem to be either completely ignorant of the fact that all this is happening, or they don't care at all. It's great that Amy Klobuchar wants to do the bill, that's great, they should do that. And then it's not going to actually pass because cinema and mansion, others will be like, oh yeah, no, I think that women not getting back alley abortions would be better, but I like the filibuster more than I like women having the ability to change.

having the ability to choose. They'll never have to actually go on TV and say that, but that is objectively, that is clearly what they are saying. I mean, let's remember. Yeah, and let's remember that only a few years ago, Nancy Pelosi said that you could be a Democrat and be anti-choice. Like, excuse me? What? And it's indicative of the ways that Democrats have been on their back heels on this issue for so long. They've been asleep at the wheel. Meanwhile, a Christian conservative Christian nationalist right, far right wing, obviously bastardizing the religion, have been slowly planting their attorneys to work their ways up thanks to think tanks, thanks to dark money to take over the Supreme Court. So what's our response? What knit a

at? I'm sorry, okay? They don't know, Democrats do not know what they're doing and they're not serious about the issue. And we've been talking about income inequality. This is an income inequality issue. the numbers of women who have lost their jobs under the pandemic, the number of women who cannot access abortion or disproportionately poor, black and brown, we understand that this is another piece of the class warfare. Yeah, definitely. Because wealthy women will continue and always have had access to reproductive health or abortion. Let's just go on the call it with legal, safe, and rare. That has been the position of this country, and it should continue to be the position of this country. And many of these people really don't care about life. They are pro-birth,

and then when the baby is birth, they don't give a damn. They won't give the parent paid family medical leave. They won't make sure that the parents have a minimum wage that they can, they don't, they don't give a damn. That's just it. This is all a facade. It's just all another measure of control. So again, those small government hypocrites and let's make government smaller, they are absolute hypocrites and do not care about that life once it's birthed into the world. Don't care. And there's some women who need this procedure, even just for strictly medical reasons, too. I mean, they, Jesus, to be able to, you know, in some states, the doctor will get a felony, locking up the woman, the mother. I mean, these is absolute insanity. And for Democrats to not

give a care about who runs and is elected to state legislatures. This is why we are in this. This is why we got this problem right now, partly, is because all Democrats, not all, some of the mainline Democrats seeing only care about who's in the Congress and who's

in the presidency. Meanwhile, getting our clocked clean on the state level of government. Yes. 100%. Unfortunately, we are out of time, but I want to thank both. No, John, say it is. I know. I thought we had another story. We do, but we're out of time and, you know, like Gerald punch me or something. You know how he is. He wants his whole hour. But I do know that both of you do other fine work. Francesca, what do you got on tap for Sunday's bituation room?

Yeah, Sunday at Franie Vio on YouTube. We're going to talk to you some progressive city council candidates here in Los Angeles. So super excited for that. And then comedian Gareth Reynolds, who is awesome, if you know. know his work from the Dullab podcast. But yeah, also check out the Tuition Room on Wednesdays from 1 to 3 Pacific, taking you all the way to the main show. It's been fun. Awesome. And Nina, you're seemingly everywhere on TYT. You're on the damage report. You're on indisputable power hour two. Power hour, yeah. Exactly. A lot of fun. Yes. Always awesome to talk politics with you. Thank you to both of you for joining us. And for those of you at home, second hour is coming up. We're going to take a short break, but don't go anywhere because J.R. will be leaving. leading you through another awesome hour of news right after this.

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 Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.