The Young Turks - Bye Bolsonaro

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Brazil will have a new President as of January 1 of next year, but what could this mean for the nation? The midterm campaign cash has doubled since 2018 with a whopping $7.5M in total. Twitter plans to charge $20 a month for the famous verification check. Ye (Kanye West) compared himself to George Floyd. Host: Ana Kasparian, Ben Gleib, Wosny Lambre 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. What's up, everyone, welcome to TYT, Anna Casparian and Ben Glebe with you in studio, in the flesh. Ben, how you doing? Good, how are you? I'm doing okay, I'm doing better. It was a little sick last weekend.

You were. You were anticipating Halloween and you couldn't be your head wrapped around. Yes, yes, happy Halloween. Yay, everybody loves it. Your favorite holiday. You can tell him Nana's voice. Yeah, it's just too much pressure. Okay, Halloween is for the creatives.

So like today during our production meeting, you've got Ben Glebe, comedian, creative. You've got one of our producers, Taylor Ellis, who's also very much a creative, talking about how much they love Halloween. For people like me, I'm creative in some ways. not creative in the whole like dressing up costume way. Saddest thing I've ever heard. As soon as we're off the air, I'm going home, firing up the fog machine to spook out the kids as they come for candy and then going to parties tonight.

What do people do with their Halloween costumes after spending too much money on their Halloween costumes, right? They just like hoard Halloween costumes. I have a box or two of the shed. Of course. No, this is the American way. I call it the American dream. We love clutter.

We love to buy stuff. We're never going to use again. That's true. What a waste. Yeah, you're right. I was going to wear a costume on air today. And then in the production meeting, you made your views on the holiday very clear. I put my devil horns back into the closet.

Dude, it's so funny that you say that because I had this temptation to, like, hit you up and just let you know. Listen, we're a professional establishment here, okay? We're going to do a professional show. Please don't come in, wear it a costume. You guys should have told me that years ago. It's a little late for that now for me. But yes, everyone else obviously enjoy your Halloween after you watch the full show today because we've got a lot prepared for you, including some international news. We're going to give you the election results out of Brazil, lots of good news there, although Republicans here in the United States are trying to screw that up.

We're going to talk about why there seems to be a disconnect among voters who, A, accept that democracy in America is at risk. And B, don't think it's the most important election issue to vote on. So we'll have a discussion about that. In the second hour, Wazni Lombre will be joining to talk about a lot of other news, including a pretty tragic story out of Seoul, South Korea over the weekend involving some of the Halloween celebrations there. So we'll fill you in on that. And bonus episode, probably my favorite part of the show today, where we will read you

creepy quotes from children. All right. I've heard them twice and I get the chills every time. So stick around for that for sure. I love them. They crack me up. I won't be there. I'll be hiding under the desk. All right. Well, before we get to any of that, why don't we start off with a lot of good news coming out of Brazil.

Celebration on the streets of San Paulo and a sense of relief. They predicted a tight race and it was a nail biter to the very end. I feel free, relieved, not only for the Brazilian people, but for the whole planet, for the Amazon, for the democracy, for the human rights. So we are very happy. Leftists in Brazil are certainly celebrating following the ouster of right-wing authoritarian president, Jair Bolsonaro, the so-called Trump of Brazil, and the election of leftist former president, Luis Inacio Lula de Silva, he was elected to replace Bolsonaro, meaning that he gets

to serve as president second time around. And this is after he was made a political prisoner by Lula de Silva conspiring with a judge in Brazil in the last presidential election. Now, this was the runoff election. So they had the first round that indicated that neither one of them had the majority necessary to win outright. So they went off to the runoffs, and Lula de Silva luckily did win. Now, he won 50.90% of the votes versus Bolsonaro's 49.10%, with 99.98% of the vote counted by Sunday night. It was the first time an incumbent president failed to win reelection in the 34 years of Brazil's modern democracy. So that's really a testament to how unpopular Bolsonaro really was for a number

of different reasons. His handling of COVID happened to be one of them. They had upward of 700,000 people who died from the virus under his leadership. What he did in decimating the Amazon rainforest also infuriated people. Lula's victory was in part thanks to a broad coalition, though, from communist to centrist, something unheard of here in the United States, as the Brazilian electorate sought stability after Bolsonaro's volatile term, which was marked by clashes with the courts and a pandemic that killed more people than anywhere but the United States. So we're still number one, Ben. Yes, thank goodness. Yeah. We finally are on top again. What a sad statistic to be able to to be on top of. I mean, it is so interesting, this story and so

hopeful in many ways for the world that we can at least see a chance to come back from the brink of these authoritarian, far right, very dangerous to the future of the world and to democracies everywhere kind of governments. I mean, the parallels between Bolsonaro and Trump, he's not just called that for jokes, and because that's the best his hair has ever looked off and it is combed down Trump style, but it's just in so many parallels, the number of accusations that he was able to avoid because he classified documents for up to 100 years while he was president, the fact that he was able to squelch a lot of calls for investigations into him because he appointed his own attorney general in Brazil, which always in the past had been done just by the federal

prosecutors choosing their top chief, and he just changed that precedent and was able to change all of that. The fact that he was able to mismanage COVID so much like Trump did here and lead to the number two number of deaths for any country in the planet, the fact that he, like you said, is decimating, has been decimating the future of our planet just straight up. There's an incredible system in place in Brazil that gives alerts when trees are burned down and he just chose to wholesale ignore. And finally, there's a chance and it shows you how weird the world is and how weird things are in Brazil, that while it does seem that largely Lula might have been framed.

Yeah. And still, a former president who was in prison sentenced to 20 plus years and only served about two years of them before having the conviction thrown out because the judge was apparently colluding with the prosecutors. But that's their best hope. And many people across Brazil are like, thank goodness we have somebody back who's not great also, but at least better on the issues. Maybe not more. Yeah, I mean, Lula de Silva was the leader who was essentially responsible for like children in Brazil being lifted out of poverty, millions of Brazilians being lifted out of poverty. I mean, he has and had an economic plan that really spoke to indigenous people in Brazil, people who had been living in poverty in Brazil. He actually decreased deforestation

considerably under his first stint as president of Brazil, and he's planning on doing the same in his new stint, although it's going to be a lot more difficult because the government in Brazil is much more divided today than it was during his previous presidency. And I want to get to that in just a moment. But before we finish kind of summing up Bolsonaro's leadership, if you can call it that. One of the other similarities that Bolsonaro has with Donald Trump is election denialism. He, as far as I've read so far, he has yet to concede. There are members of his right-wing party who have essentially noted that Lula has in fact won and Bolsonaro has in fact lost, but

But Bolsonaro himself, as we talk about the story at this very moment, has yet to concede. Now, without any evidence, by the way, the president, meaning Bolsonaro, has criticized the nation's electronic voting machines, sound familiar, as rife with fraud and suggested he might not accept loss, much like former President Donald Trump, many of his supporters vowed to take to the streets at his command. And that just shows that there are some pretty devastating similarities, not only with Bolsonaro and Trump, but the right-wing electorate in Brazil with the right-wing electorate here in the United States. And if I can chime in on that really quickly, one may be notable difference we're seeing just in the first 24 hours since this.

That also has maybe hopeful for a way that the planet can start rejecting these election deniers and these truth deniers that are complete cancer on the world. I mean, there's, is no way to have any sense of order, no matter where you are politically, if we don't honor results, if we don't honor facts that come out of elections. And it seems as though, even though they were talking a big game, a lot of his supporters on the right in Brazil leading up to the election, as soon as it was called, most of the detractors, even those who were questioning the truth leading up to it and saying they might not accept the results, are saying they're accepting the results. And so it's looking like Bolsonaro may not have the

support to even contest it, which hopefully will lead to him, in the days to come. Yeah, and it's concerning that the election was as close as it was. Now, politicians in America should take note of Lula's campaign message, particularly Democratic politicians who wait till the final hour, if that, to like dive into discussions about what they would do for the economy, how they're different from Republicans. Lula's stump speech revolved around expanding services for the poor,

which he did deliver on in his first term as president. including more social welfare payments, a higher minimum wage and programs to feed and house more people. To pay for it, he said he would raise taxes on the rich, but also simply increase government spending. And I wanted to go to this final video of Lula during his acceptance speech. Let's take the lower third down for this thought. Let's watch. Because I consider a

citizen who had a process of resum in a political Brazilian because

they're trying to me to and I I'm here I'm

here I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm to govern

this country in a situation are very difficult, but I have faith in God that with the help of the people, we will find out of a side for that this country

will be to live democratically, harmonically, and we can, even restablish a peace between the families and those divergent for that we can build the world that we need and the Brazil.

Now he has the right policy ideas. At the same time, he's referencing how difficult it will be to accomplish some of those goals, considering the divisive nature of politics in Brazil. Very similar. There are parallels to what we're seeing here in the United States as well. For instance, while Bolsonaro has been oustered, it's important to remind you that his party, members of his right-wing party, hold the most seats in Congress, and a powerful centrist

block controls both the House and the Senate. So that is likely going to be an obstacle for for Lula de Silva, but he did accomplish some pretty incredible things under his leadership before, including reducing deforestation under his watch by 80%. And what Bolsonaro had done to the rainforest, the Amazon rainforest under his leadership, was pretty devastating as much as 17% of the rainforests gone. Bolsonaro gutted regulations pertaining to illegal logging. He did all sorts of things that essentially loosened environmental protections for the Amazon rainforest.

So in terms of anyone living in another country who thinks like, why do I care about the elections in Brazil? You should care because the leader of Brazil has a pretty significant say over what happens to the Amazon rainforest at a time when the climate emergency is really front and center. We're already seeing the consequences of the climate emergency and the impact that right-wing authoritarian leaders have had on the Amazon rainforest. Absolutely, and how it more directly affects us here. I mean, most of our rainwater comes from the Amazon rainforest. Obviously, it travels over, and the amount of trees in Brazil are twice the amount of trees in all of America, not to mention it's the ecosystem for so many of the essential species that create the ecosystem that makes life on Earth possible.

You never know the consequences when more and more species die out, as opposed to when the rainforest was on fire and burning at an insane rate during Bolsonaro's turn. He turned down aid from the international community. Macron and France put together, not even a huge package, but it was like $15 million to try to help stop it. And he turned it down and said, oh, it's because they want to own a piece of the rainforests from themselves. It's literally just aid during a crisis time. No one said, if you take this, we get a little swath of land as well. It was just to help planet Earth.

And this person would rather stir up conspiracy theories about colonialism from a country. from a country. France isn't taking anybody over, okay? France is not doing anything to take anybody's land. They're just trying to be arrogant and maybe help stop the rainforest being on fire. And this is the kind of person that you have. And instead, it's so nice to see somebody like Lula that comes in, and even in that clip that we just showed says that, or the quote that you read, I think, rather, that says that instead, that you'll be raising taxes on the rich, but also we'll just be spending more. And we always see here in America,

we don't have the money to help our social programs to expand spending there when needed, to help people in need. But when we need any unlimited amount of defense spending, we just generate the money out of nowhere. It's about time we generate some money out of nowhere to help the common person in this world that needs it much more than defense contractors.

No, 100%. I mean, there was already tens of billions of dollars in military aid sent over to Ukraine, with no debate, right? Yeah, over $50 billion now. Already, already. And there, Congress is considering yet another $50 billion military aid package to Ukraine in January.

So we'll see where it goes with that money. But I don't bring that up to engage in a debate about whether or not we should help Ukraine. I bring that up because clearly when our government wants to spend the money, they have no problem doing it. There's no debate. There's no talk about a Senate legislative fill. legislative filibuster. No, we got a funnel taxpayer money over to military contractors. And it's, every single time, every time that there's an expense for something that makes rich people richer, it's never brought up. And every time it's to help people in need,

the right says, I would love in theory to help, but we just don't have the money. We don't have the money. We're giving it all elsewhere to our rich friends. That's the hypocrisy we're living under in this world. Exactly. All right. Well, Well, I'm going to save the next story for the next segment after we take a break. We're going to talk a little bit about what voters are saying about the risks to our democracy and whether or not those risks really motivate them to vote in one way or the other. It's an important story, a good discussion that we're going to have when we come back. And then later we'll also talk about Elon Musk using his newly purchased social media platform

to spread insane conspiracy theories about a man who was just hit in the head with a hammer by a crazy person. So yes, we're going to talk about Elon Musk's crazy claims about Paul Pelosi when we return. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and Ben Glebe with you. Let's talk a little bit about democracy and whether or not Americans truly cherish it. Most Americans do in fact believe that our democracy is at risk. But a small fraction of them are basing their midterm votes on the fact that they feel that democracy is being dismantled. Now, in a New York Times Sienna College poll, which was released this

month, 71% of voters said they believe democracy is at risk, but only 7% said they view it as the most important issue facing the country. Now, are there fears about democracy being dismantled or being at risk? Valid? Yes. It turns out that about 60% of Americans will have an election denier on their midterm ballot. And that's, of course, people, candidates who completely bought Trump's lies about the election being stolen from him, some of those candidates are running for offices such as governor, secretary of state, and attorney general, which would give them significant power over how elections are conducted in their states if they were to win. Now, we can talk about a lot of the reasons why voters might be feeling this way. So there's

going to be a little bit of speculation here. But before we get to that, let me just note that the priorities for these voters were inflation, crime, gas prices. So some of the more immediate issues that they're dealing with, whereas our democracy being at risk is not necessarily an immediate issue to them that's impacting their lives negatively at this moment. So that's one of the potential reasons, right? It's just wanting to deal with what's in front of you right now. But I think there are other reasons as well. So, Ben, I'm going to go over to you and ask you what you think. I think this is the absolutely most pressing issue we are facing right now.

This is, I'm so glad we're talking about it today because we have just a few days until the midterms on November 8th. And there are a lot of different reasons. And so many of the reasons people still are not prioritizing it are just missing the forest for the trees here. Of course, the immediate issues are very important. But if you don't have a democracy, if you have literally just authoritarian rule take, over and leaders that do not listen to the will of the people and fuel conspiracy theories. It leads to violence. It leads to chaos. You see what happened to Paul Pelosi. You see what's happening people shooting up outside of FBI offices. You see what's happening everywhere where

people attack the capital building of this nation and then claim that's not a problem and they are patriots. So quickly, everything turns upside down if you do not prioritize protecting what we have left of our democracy. So a lot of people are also saying they don't care about the risks to our democracy because our democracy is already so broken. Yeah, that is of course true. We have so much dark money and so much influence of corrupt people, corrupting corrupt politicians. Absolutely. But at least we still have the vote.

At least we still have the ability to kick them out sometimes even. We at least still have the ability to say that is not going to stand and bring in new leaders and at least as fast as we can change and save literally the future of the country. And as America goes goes the world, you see it now happening in Brazil, you see it happening in places all over the world. And if we don't step up right now in these midterm elections and have historic turnout, if we don't outdo the midterm turnout from 2018, from 2018, if we don't step up and say enough is enough and we will not support any election deniers, 60% of the country, and already the statistic, has an election denier on their ballot right now

that will not agree to your vote, will not agree to the will of the people. You think it's bad enough that rights are being overturned? The right to reproductive health is being overturned. They're talking about turning over gay rights, talking about turning over any basic right in this country that we hold dear is up for grabs. Once you have people that are not beholden to the will of the people at all, and are now just beholden only 100% to their corporate backers, to whatever job they want to get when they leave Congress soon as the revolving door can speak. been around once. You have to step up right now and tell all of your friends, until all of your

Republican friends, this is not the time to vote for wedge issues. It's not the time to vote for the things that traditionally divide the parties. It's the time to step up for truth. That's why groups like the Lincoln Project and others are standing up and saying, we still believe in Republican principles, but not now. Now is the chance we have the first time and Maybe the last time we get to go on record at the ballot box after Jan 6 and say anyone who does not believe in the free and fair elections of the United States will be pushed to the dustbin, not even of history, because they won't even be a footnote. There'll be a joke that ran and lost horribly. It's right now only. November 8th. Yeah, look, I have a lot of thoughts on this. Number one, it seems as though, Democrats have used the risk to our democracy as a campaign messaging tactic and nothing more than that.

And I think when you use something as serious as a political tool, rather than actually following it up with what it needs to be followed up with, people are less likely to take it as seriously as they should. So let me explain what I mean. The January 6th hearings, I mean, Trump is still not being investigated. Do you get what I'm saying? Like he still has not been charged by the DOJ for his very clear involvement in what transpired, not only on January 6th, but everything that was taking place behind the scenes with all the planning and all the plotting that was going on. The fact that the DOJ hasn't charged him with anything, okay, well, I mean, is our democracy really are at risk? Because if it were at risk, wouldn't the Democrats, wouldn't

the DOJ want to charge Trump after we've seen all these hearings and we've seen all that evidence? I think that the Democrats really hurt themselves, A, by doing like a billion investigations of the Trump that lead to nothing, okay? Different issues, not just like the election denialism. And I also think that when people are hurting economically, yeah, that is going to be like the most important thing that they're going to be thinking about, the most important thing that they're going to want to solve, right? They want politicians and they want political leaders who can speak to that economic instability. And Democrats haven't really done a great job on that either. We've heard a ton of excuses for why they weren't able to accomplish the things

that they said they would accomplish as long as they got that majority in Congress. Remember, leading up to those two Senate runoff races in Georgia, what did we hear over and over again from Democrats? We need to win, because if we win, we'll have the majority, if we can get the majority, we can get you voting rights. They failed in that. They didn't even try with voting rights. They didn't even try. And so I think that is part of the problem. Like, it's hard for people to take the fears of our democracy being dismantled seriously. Like, if we don't real action. Do you get what I'm saying? 100%. So much I want to respond to there because you're so right that people aren't seeing the change. And it's again because Democrats do not ever

message strongly and properly. And they make false promises that are not accurate to the letter of what the truth is. So you're totally right. They were saying those two spots in Georgia would make all the difference and we're going to pass it and we got those two spots, nothing passed because they were not talking about real math. They were saying we need to get to 50. And then plus Kamala Harris is 51, just ignoring you got Mansion and Cinema and sometimes others that just refuse to go along with the party's platform that can change the future. So the real number is 52 plus Kamala Harris's vote. And that's sadly was not message now, so you're going to lose a lot of people. Millions are going to say you lied last time. But the truth is we need 52

for most of these issues to pass. And then it is mansion and cinema proof. For some of these, like cannabis legislation, we need about five more in the Senate. And we need to, of course, hold the House as well. That's the real math. And so it sucks. We have to change it, but it still doesn't change the fact that on November 8th, if we get just two more Democratic senators and hold the House, then all these things will pass. Because the House took action. The House did pass voting rights, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, but it won't be taken up by a Senate that won't allow it. And we don't have a filibuster-proof majority. And we don't have even enough to make a carve-out of the filibuster because you need the vote that you won't get for Manchin's

cinema on that. You get two more and you get all those carve outs and that change truly can happen. I wish they were messaging that better, pushing that out better, 100%. That's a real shame that they did not. But at the same time, when you're talking about the threats to our democracy more broadly, that is true. That is a giant problem that people don't believe it to be true just because these investigations aren't leading to things 100%. The Jan 6 committee should not have done all these trials, come to a conclusion, then said, oh, but now we may we'll support. to Trump and see what happens. Yeah, exactly.

They just weaken themselves and they let go at the end. But I'm hopeful. Because when they do that, it looks like it's just political. Just for show, yes. Just for show and something to do, something for Democrats to kind of hang their hat on as we approach the midterm elections. Yes. And when it appears politically motivated like that, Americans are not going to take it as seriously, especially when there are other issues that are front and center in their lives, impacting them day and day out.

But there is, I still hold out hope that, I mean, we do know that the DOJ is investigating Trump. They have not brought charges yet. I'm hoping it's because they were trying to hold to the old, I guess, respect for not interfering with midterms. I don't know how truth would interfere, but maybe right after the midterms, there will be charges coming soon. Let's hope because it is not just all the things that you mentioned that Trump did leading up to January 6th, all of the planning. But the worst thing is that he is currently still undermining our democracy every day, calling these election deniers saying, the more you double down on the big lie, the more you're going to win. And that is the, he's currently still trying to tear down our democracy. He's committing crimes every day.

By the definition of sedition, of treason against this country, it's giving aid and comfort to our enemies. What would give any enemy of the United States more comfort than a former president that controls the minds of 40, 50 percent of the country to say, we don't have democracy anymore, you can make up your own facts. That destroys America. That is treason by definition. And in the Constitution, treason can be punished by up to a punishment of death. So we need to start taking so much more seriously in this country the consequences that we purport to stand by. And if you care so much about the the Constitution, start standing up for it, not just being able to keep your gun based on the one sentence and the Second Amendment, but the whole thing in its totality and what it stands for in this country. Then maybe you can save the future. We don't let our country fall by the wayside. Or don't, or don't, just stay home and keep those two hours to binge Netflix more and

let American democracy go bye, bye, bye, bye. I don't know why I didn't sync by, bye, bye at the end. I don't know, I'm into it though. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm sweating. All right. No, I love the passion.

It's just, it's so hard at this point to have any faith in the Democratic Party doing anything that would turn this ship in the right direction, really. Republicans tell you who they are. They're candid, they're transparent. They tell you exactly what they're planning to do, and more often than not, they actually do it. And they've messaged so hard on lies, they're relentless. On lies, and we should message as hard on the truth. They are taking away your country, your freedom, your democracy, all of that. And why I'm so glad we're talking about this a lot here at TYT is because the mainstream media keeps making false equivalencies on this issue that determines the future of the country on both sides. This is not a both sides issue. There is no way that you can say, oh, it's an equally valid opinion to say democracy doesn't matter and elections don't matter. That's crazy. And there's mainstream news networks saying, I'm sorry, Trump supporters, if you're offended by this story. No.

That's no longer a valid opinion. If you support Trump now, today, in the face of his ongoing torching of our democracy, you are a traitor as well. You don't get to support somebody's policies when they're not in power, when the thing they are still doing being out of power is destroying the democracy. That is all he's doing. And that's a huge danger. Well, speaking of huge danger, let's go to Elon Musk,

who is now spreading all sorts of disinformation on the platform. So fun. who of course was attacked by a lunatic with a hammer. Now, this came again after a man by the name of Paul Depepe, I don't know how you say his name. I've heard it pronounced both ways, so that's why I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, he broke into the Pelosi's home with a hammer and then literally cracked Paul Pelosi's skull by hitting him in the head with the hammer. Musk tweeted a link to a Santa Monica Observer article, by the way, not a credible source at all,

a right wing publication that apparently publishes all sorts of fake news and conspiracy theories. And the article that Elon Musk shared in his tweet claimed that Paul Pelosi was involved with a male sex worker. In the tweet, Musk writes, there's a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye. Now, it's unclear why he decided to delete that tweet later. It could be because he's, you know, spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation on a platform that's supposed to attract advertisers. And maybe advertisers wouldn't be as interested advertising on that platform. If the owner of that platform is putting out these gross, homophobic conspiracy theories about a man who's just viciously attacked. Say what you will about the Pelosi's.

No one deserves to be attacked like that, okay, period. But you have right wingers egging it on. You have this misinformation being spread by Elon Musk because he wants to outdo Trump and being the number one social media troll. And he did respond to a tweet from Hillary Clinton. So the tweet that I read you was a response to Hillary Clinton's tweet where she had said that the Republican Party and its mouthpieces now regularly spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories.

It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result. As citizens, we must hold them accountable for their words and the actions that follow. Now, the perpetrator here, De Pape, was charged today, which is just really unacceptable behavior. I mean, the fact that we would have a violent criminal who violently assaulted someone, get criminally charged, and possibly spend time behind bars, is just completely unacceptable, right? Anyway, so during a Mirandized and recorded interview at the San Francisco Police Department, De Pape was very clear about what he wanted to do to Nancy Pelosi in particular. He told the San Francisco Police Department he was going to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage. If Nancy were to tell DePape the truth, he would let her go.

And if she lied, he was going to break her kneecaps. He's officially been charged with assault of an immediate family member of a U.S. official and also attempted kidnapping of a U.S. official on account of the performance of official duties. That's a lot, but I'm curious what you think about all of this, Ben. By the way, I'm being sarcastic about charging him criminally. He should be behind bars. That's what sane people think. Yes, 100%. And the fact that we've allowed in any respect, the false perception that we on the left do not believe also in law and order is insane. Agreed. Any person. person with a reasonable mind realizes that there are people that need to be removed from society

and rehabilitated and cannot be allowed to commit crime, let alone violent crime on people. That is categorically false, that impression. And we've again lost the messaging war on that. Yes. But that message about De Papay saying during his interrogation by the police that he was going to kneecap Nancy Pelosi, he went on to say that if she lied, but she expected her too, that he would kneecap her so she would have to be wheeled in a wheelchair into Congress as a message to other lawmakers that there are consequences for their lies, which as a reminder is the

truth. And the lies are what he believes due to these right wing Q&on conspiracy theories that the former president is reposting on his private social media network constantly and may soon be allowed back onto Twitter, which, and again, by the way, the Sanamonic Observer, this organization that Alon Musk retweeted and added a comment giving credence to is the same organization that published during the Hillary Clinton campaign that she had died and had been replaced by a body double. And that's the credibility of the source of the person who's going to come back onto Twitter and run it now. He's one of the most powerful people on the planet now in addition to being the richest person on the planet. And his foray into fulfilling what he promised his advertisers

just two days ago, which was this will not be a free for all for crazy theories and hate speech. He himself just did something that will lead to more political violence that excuses it, that makes it okay to push disinformation without the tiniest bit of research or even common sense. And it led to a great example of how fast it escalates. Not only by the time he deleted it, was it retweeted like 25,000 times and liked to hunt. hundred thousand times, but Donald Trump Jr. posted now, now it's okay to make light of this, posted a Halloween costume, Paul Pelosi Halloween costume. It's a pair of underwear and a hammer. And that is something you can make light of now. Literally political violence, this disgusting person

you see on your screen right now dares make light of a hammer, excuse me, attack to the brain of an elderly man is so disgusting. And if he can make that joke, of course. course it means that people out there that don't have the public scrutiny and the money and the position in life that feel desperate and feel lied to and feel marginalized through these lies will commit political violence again. That tweet about the hammer costume should be illegal and should be punished. And how do you put that back in the bag? Certainly not by allowing Alon Musk who proved himself already to be so irresponsible

to be in charge of our public square. You know, they're never going to stop doing this. This is what they do, right? They, first of all, they live for the trolling. They love to incite violence toward their political opponents. They do it all day on social media. It's what they live for. So I'm not surprised at conspiracy theories being shared about Paul Pelosi.

I'm not surprised that the incitements for violence or toward violence continue. I don't know what the solution is, right? What do we do? We need consequences. We need consequences for inciting violence at the very least. It's just not going to happen. It's not. I don't know what the solution is because there won't be any consequences.

They're going to keep inciting violence. I mean, how many examples do we have to provide to show that they incite violence? This is what they do. And then they turn around, by the way. This is the thing about the right wing. Then they turn around and claim that culturally, some groups of people, people tend to be more violent than others, culturally, and that's usually when they want to make a disgusting racist point. And by culturally, I guess he means under his breath, co-addicted white people, in my opinion, not proven, but co-cadicted white people like Don Jr.?

I mean, we're speculating that he likes to do. My opinion. Yeah, it is also. We're all out opinions, I guess. It's also my opinion. He does look a little strung out, just saying. Opinion, not fact, because we don't know for sure. But nonetheless, look, it's a scary time right now for politicians, Democratic politicians.

It's a scary time for members of the media who are targeted by various right-wing commentators and goons like Tucker Carlson, for instance. And we're living in a country that is dealing with, I don't even know, just a massive population of people who have severe mental health issues, but don't have the health care necessary to get the care that they need, to get things under control. And they are being exploited by right wingers who want to incite violence toward their political opponents. This is why we keep seeing more and more mass shootings. Also, yes, we have laxed gun laws and we're swimming in a country of guns. All of these things are a recipe for disaster. And so in this case, luckily this guy didn't have a gun, but he did some serious damage. with a hammer. And the real question is, what are we going to do to keep people safe?

What are we going to do to maybe ensure that everyone has access to the mental health care they need? Like, this guy, just reading about him and reading about his past and some of the things that he wrote in his blog, he was disturbed, to say the least. And people who have that mindset or might have an undiagnosed, untreated mental health issue, they get played by these right wingers inciting violence. And it's terrifying. And it's crazy that he was able to get into the Pelosi's home and do what he did. I don't know what else to say about it because I don't think the right wing is ever going to stop. They have already tested, you know, the boundaries. They've tested our legal system. They've tested the Democratic Party and how far the Democratic

Party is willing to go in terms of accountability. And the message that they've received over and over again is that they can do what they're doing, they can keep doing what they're doing with no consequences. So why wouldn't they? They don't care. You think they're worried about us talking about how they're bad people? They love it. They live for that too. So yeah, this is just the situation we're dealing with. It's very dire and I don't know what the answer is. It is an incredibly complex question and the answer certainly is not clear yet, but we do know for sure the way that the answer will not come is through loosening moderation of hate speech and disinformation. and the incitement of violence on these platforms.

And so there's a little tiny bit of hope that Alon Musk is not instantly reinstating everybody and is saying he's going to have a content moderation council of wildly different opinions that will hopefully be vetting things. And maybe he'll be backing off, let's hope at least, somewhat and give them power to moderate his own tweets as well. But it certainly won't happen with this free-for-all of treating violent and hateful rhetoric as though that is equally permissible free speech. That is not, that is dangerous to both people's lives and to the future of the country.

And I know our Congress is certainly not known for its ability to get a lot of very effective change done. But there is a spate of legislation that is on the table that is being discussed where they, and that's maybe what could come out of the hearings they had been holding with these social media companies, that they might put restrictions on these platforms as to what kind of moderation they must implement. on their platforms, and that would be a very good thing, again, never to take away the free open exchange of ideas or free speech that we hold so dear in this country, but absolutely to stop disinformation that leads to violence and death, even the death of our democracy. When we come back from the break, we have yet another Elon Musk-related story, this time

having to do with some of the changes that are coming to Twitter, which hopefully will encourage more people to not use Twitter. So we've got that story more coming right up. Stick around. What's up, welcome back to TYT. Let's get right to TYT. Let's get right to our next story because there is, you know what, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to, me, know him? Okay, we're going to get to the next story right now. And it still has to do with Elon Musk, but more importantly, it has to do with what he wants to change about the platform he just purchased. So let's talk about it. Twitter users might have to start paying to maintain their verified status. And that's according to a new report from the verge. Apparently Elon Musk has given employees

an ultimatum. Meet his deadline to introduce paid verification on Twitter or get fired. So here are the details. The directive is to change Twitter blue the company's optional $4.99 a $4.99 a month subscription that unlocks additional features into a more expensive subscription that also verifies users, according to people familiar with the matter and internal correspondence seen by The Verge. Twitter is currently planning to increase the price of that Twitter blue to 1999. For the new Twitter blue subscription, under the current plan verified users would have 90 days to subscribe or lose their blue checkmark.

Employees working on the project were told on Sunday that they need to meet a deadline of November 7th to launch the feature or they will be fired. So here's what I can't stand. People I know, people I like, who responded to that story with like, why $20, maybe like a couple dollars? You said it too, Ben. I did say it. I'm calling you out. I did say it. No, don't put money in that guy's pocket just to maintain a blue check mark. You're right. I was just saying if it's going to be an amount, it's an absurd billionaire arbitrarily chosen $20 a month that nobody can afford. Yeah. That was my main point. Yeah. It's absurd on its face because.

If you're buying a platform to try to get rid of bots and fake users and you're trying to make it a much more true, honest public square, your first initiative should be enabling everyone to get a free blue check mark, not just public figures that currently can get them, and verify people maybe with uploading a picture of your ID and there's obviously privacy concerns there, but figuring out a way where you can verify someone's identity and stop these anonymous trolls, that would be of course what he should do and not charge anything, making it more even. this more difficult, more out of the reach of people, and just actually taking the current blue check marks, like I have one, and just letting us drop those off to make it less verified and less trustworthy is insane. All I was saying was $3 a better than $20. No, I get it. I get it. Yeah, I just don't want, it's like the typical way things develop in the country, right? Some rabid right winger will frame the issue or frame like how the discussion should go and it's like the typical negotiating tactic where you go in wanting to charge like let's say a hundred bucks knowing that that's insane and then the person you're negotiating with

comes in with like a lower no how about nothing how about no you're not charging us anything to use this hellscape social media platform that like much many of us are just forced to use because our careers literally rely on it. Hey Siri Anna made a good point please cancel my Twitter blue subscription. I just, do you think any, do you think we'll ever get to a point in the country where there's just mass disinterest in using Twitter? Like, it kind of like what happened with Facebook, honestly. Like Facebook turned into the middle age mom conspiracy theory hub. And I never log on to Facebook anymore. I don't even know why I have an account at this point, right? But with Twitter, I feel like, regardless of how terrible, I've never gone

on to Twitter and felt good. Has anyone ever gone onto Twitter and thought like, nailed it? This is bringing much joy to my life. I mean, sometimes my replies make me feel good. People have watched my special and whatnot. But generally speaking, when you look at the timeline, it ain't a good situation. No. That is true. And with regards to Facebook, that is true too. I had my Facebook hacked now three months ago, right before my special came out, the most important time for me to be able to promote my work, and I can't get it back. And I even have friends who are high up at Facebook who have been unable to help me get it back. Imagine someone without that connection that can't get it back. I've just given up on it

completely. And I'm happier that I have one less social network to worry about in a very big way. But that's why another thing that I've always talked about and fought for that I think is insane that all these platforms just started doing a handful of years ago, maybe five, eight years ago is when they started making your feed, no longer a real-time feed. It's now an algorithm-based feed. And so we don't even get the information that we sign up for in this supposed open public square. And it's only the tweets and the Instagram posts and all of that that are the most controversial than the first five seconds after it posts that it gets a million people to instantly engage with it. And it just pushes extremism and gets rid of rational

thought, intelligent conversation, any thought that might be more trying to bring people together, it gets squelched and shadow banned and you get completely destroyed. And so Instagram actually rolled out a real time feed option a few months ago very quietly. And it's like a really weird way that you got to like double click on your profile picture. It doesn't even tell you you activated it. So much better. Yeah, I don't I don't go on Instagram nearly enough. But every time I do, it's like, wait a minute, these are all the people in my personal life and I really like them. Look at all that. Look at how happy they are. And then I feel good, right? But even there, Even there, it's still a challenge to get true real-time feeds.

And to answer your question about will people ever give up on Twitter, why I don't think they will and why it's so important that we try to get it right as best we can. Because it's the only, what's so beautiful about it is it's so simplistically, it's a quick bullhorn. Each of us gets a way to get our thoughts into the world. Yeah. And if that can be moderated in a way that's fair and just filters out dangerous speech, then we each have a voice. And it has also been so instrumental in things like the Arab Spring,

and revolutions and protests being able to collate and coalesce and get the masses on board. And so that's very important. We do need that in society. It's a shame that somebody irresponsible is in charge of it. And so we'll see how it shakes down. And maybe there can be a role for Congress to help fix this because that's the point of our government. It's the only company that we elect the leaders of. And so it's our only chance to make change that can maybe combat some of these greedy billionaires that think,

Yes, $20 a month, no problem at all. Yeah. Oh, you're going to have only like powerful people verified and no more common man whatsoever way to create a real public square. How insane. Yeah, I mean, look, if it's truly thought of as a public square, having one billionaire have complete control over it, not a good idea. Not a good idea, obviously. The thing I will say is right now, the bulk of the revenue that Twitter makes comes from advertising. Elon Musk notoriously wants to free up some of the unsavory speech that people want to engage in on Twitter,

which might turn advertisers away. We know he overpaid for Twitter. He overpaid as much as $20 million for Twitter, which, you know, he's probably hurting over that a little bit. And so he wants to find a billion, I think. Was it billion? We bought it for 44 billion dollars. That's right. That's right.

It's so hard to wrap your mind around that number. It's crazy. You're right, 20 billion. You paid like way more than the stock was currently trading at and then realize, uh-oh, and tried to back out, talk trash about the platforms of months, then got stuck with it. Now he's like, all right, let's just retweet conspiracy theories and then hope for the best. But the point I'm trying to make is he wants to loosen up some of the terms of service rules, right? He wants people to be able to say pretty much whatever they want. That's gonna really hurt his revenue with advertisers.

So how is he going to make up for that lost revenue? Let me just charge these Twitter blue subscribers more money and people care so much about their verified status that to entice them to pay that $20 a month, I'm going to threaten to take their verified status away. Take my verified status away, bro. I don't care. Take it away today, I don't take it away today. I won't cry about it, I don't care, okay?

It's just the idea of supporting him financially disgust me. And I have no problem losing a freaking blue check mark to avoid helping him out in that way. Anyway, all right. Well, that does it for that story. We're out of time. We are, huh? We are. I'm going to have to do the Kanye story in the next segment, unfortunately.

I don't get to talk about Kanye again? Darn it. I know, I know. I love talking about that. I wish I could cuss during this part of the show. Me too. Me too. Anyway, everyone check out Ben. Check out his work over at Rebel HQ.

Also check him out on the Friday Power Panels where he's a regular. Where else can they find your work, Ben? My stand-up comedy special, my second ever, The Mad King. It's on YouTube so everybody can watch for free. I speak out on every hot button issue and I think I try to find a way to amplify a lot of progressive ideas in jokes that still make you laugh out loud and show that you can be kind and more. moral and still be funny. And so if you like it, please leave comments and share it many times on your social so we can beat the algorithms there because I'm being a bit shadow band with that as well. But I'm very proud of it. All right, everyone. Thank you, Ben. That's awesome.

We're going to take a break. When we come back, Wasney-Lombay joins me for the second hour of the show. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.