The Young Turks - Capitol Hill Copium (12/5/23)

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

"No!" Democratic guest recoils in disgust after Jake Tapper asks if her party "should have a new candidate." AGs fed up with NYT, CNN Hamas coverage issue stern warning: "Follow the law." CNN Gaza reporter’s relatives killed and childhood home destroyed in two separate strikes. Billionaires to transfer $5 trillion to their children. Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE FACEBOOK TWITTER INSTAGRAM Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Woo! It's up! Welcome to TYT. I'm your host Anna Kasparian, and we have a fantastic show ahead for you all today. We will be getting into some lighter topics in the second hour of the show, which I'm really looking forward to. Donald Trump has some new merch that we'll be sharing with you all, not to promote it, but really to make fun of it, because there's a lot to make fun of there. But before we actually get to the fun stuff, we got to get to the meat and potatoes of the show. We're going to give you some updates on the Biden campaign right at the top of the program.

Before we get to that, though, I just want to encourage you to help support the show. Like and share the stream if you're watching us online on YouTube. You can also help and support us by becoming a member by going to t-y-t.com slash join or clicking on that join button as well. Later in the show, we'll also talk about, I guess Jake Tapper wants to go back to the potential redemption arc that we were seeing from him in the very beginning of the war in Gaza. He had someone on from Israel who was making some claims about how they're going out of their way to minimize civilian casualties. Tapper's not buying it. It was an incredible moment on CNN that, to be quite frank, I did not expect.

So we're gonna get to that story in the second segment where Jank will be joining me as well. But for now, why don't we talk about what Biden's been up to? And more importantly, what Biden's ardent supporters are saying about the possibility of him not running for reelection. Let's go. I mean, I know incumbents in general are not popular right now, but do you ever think maybe we should have a new candidate? No. A former Obama administration official that you just heard from there. Her name is Naria Naira Haq, or Huck I should say, just could not believe that anyone

would even propose that the Democratic Party have a nominee other than Joe Biden for the 2024 presidential election. And her reaction there was a little surprising. It's one thing to disagree, but she seemed almost like repulsed by the notion that anyone would even suggest that and we'll hear more from Huck in a moment. But before we do, I think it's important to understand her background because she was very much involved in the Obama administration. That likely has something to do with her loyalty to Biden, even given how incredibly risky it is for him to run for reelection against Donald Trump. And hold on for later

in this story where we will talk about how Biden actually thinks that he is in fact the best candidate to beat Donald Trump. But before we get to that, who is Huck? Well, she previously served as the senior director in the White House and senior advisor at the State Department under the Obama administration. She was also the media advisor for Nancy Pelosi, when Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House. She now serves as the advisory in the advisory board of the foreign policy for America organization. And she's a producer and host of a Sirius XM show. So with that background information, now that you've gotten to know her a little bit, by the way, she used to also be a guest time to time on damage report here at TYT Network.

So that's what we know about her. And now that we know her a little better, why don't we hear more of what she has to say? Let me ask you, just does the Democrat at the table here, I mean, your guy's losing to him. By voters, right? And by polls. I'm not sure what more Joe Biden can do. to remind people what is at stake, right? That's the state of the union theme, soul of democracy, constantly talking about the battle for the soul of the country on the world stage, there is a responsibility for everybody else to also take the challenge just as seriously as the Democratic Party is in the White

House right now. I always think it's fascinating when you hear from Biden supporters and when you hear the argument that the Democratic Party and Joe Biden in particular want to protect our democracy, that really the one thing keeping America safe from the evil Donald Trump dismantling our democratic process is President Joe Biden. And see, I would be more willing to maybe agree with that opinion. I'd be more receptive to that opinion if Joe Biden actually allowed for a robust primary, Democratic primary, but it is abundantly clear that the DNC, which by the way, the DNC is littered by people who have been handpicked by Joe Biden, the DNC does not want

a primary. That is incredibly undemocratic. Say what you will about any of the other contenders for the Democratic nomination. Whether you support them or not is really not that important. What's important is giving the American people an opportunity to voice their opinion, have their say in regard to who they believe would be the absolute best nominee for the Democratic ticket. Now, it's usually a given that the incumbent president will run for reelection. But the situation with Joe Biden, as we all know, is very different because when Joe Biden ran in 2020, he made it clear to everyone that he had no intentions of running for a second

term. He clearly lied about that. And now that he insists on running for a second term, that's totally fine. Go ahead and do that, even though you're not keeping your own promise to the American people and Democratic voters. But you have to at least, at least allow for a robust primary election. And it's clear that he's not interested in that, and the DNC is not really allowing that to happen. So the argument that the Republican Party is anti-democracy, and it's really Democrats who are pro-democracy, they're actually both anti-democracy when it suits them. Sure, in slightly different ways. I know, I should be fair. It's more than slight. As we know Trump tried to overturn the results of our democratic process. That's far worse. And now he's

facing criminal charges as a result of that. But the fact that both parties wanted to silence the voices of voters in America is what I'm referring to here. That is undemocratic. That is against my core values and I feel that it's unfair. So with that said, I want to go back to Huck because she and Tapper are right about one thing that you heard in that exchange. And it's the fact that President Joe Biden is losing in the polls and he's losing largely among the very individuals that he leaned on heavily to win in 2020. And by the way, it's not one poll, it's not two polls.

The polls have been terrible for Biden for months now. So let's take a look at this graph that was put together by real clear politics. What they do is they look at the average of polls and they put this data together. And as you can see, while Trump has been experiencing a rise in the polling, Biden has not. And so Trump, according to an average of the polls, has 46.7% while Biden has 44.7%. That is too close for comfort. What's amazing to me is that his popularity is at record low levels, but again, Biden really does think he is the best candidate to beat Donald Trump.

So let's get to some more data here. So three day, there's a three day opinion poll which closed on Sunday and it showed that 40% of respondents approved of Biden's performance as president, which is a marginal increase from 39% in November. The poll had a margin of error of about three percentage points. This was a Reuters Ipsos poll, but we've got some more from this poll. Biden's public approval rating has held below 50% since August of 2021. And this month's rating remained close to the lowest levels of his presidency, 36% seen in mid-2020. But Huck then explains why she thinks it should, in fact, be Biden running for the 2024 ticket. And so she's going to make her case in this next video. Let's give her a chance. Let's hear her case.

And then we'll analyze whether or not it makes sense. I know incumbents in general are not popular right now, but do you ever think maybe we should have a, new candidate? No. A new candidate would not have the bully pulpit of the White House, right? Would not have a core of reporters that are covering his every move, which I would ask, as we discuss this here and just let slide that Trump is close enough in age to Biden. And also that Trump's speeches are largely incoherent and have been from the jump.

But like somehow that narrative is the Biden narrative here. I do think that the benefit that he has is as we get close. closer to the day and as you said, people pay attention that the difference will become clear. But I'm hanging on to hope here. Does that make any sense? But really, okay, let's let's be fair and let's be real. Does it make sense to, on one hand, talk about the threat that Donald Trump poses to democracy while also simultaneously acknowledging how poorly Biden has been performing in the polls and say, I'm holding on to hope that Biden does better.

Okay, so you can't fearmonger about Trump while you're still promoting the weakest possible candidate to run against Trump in the general election. And that is what the Democratic Party is doing. And what's amazing to me is how delusional Biden is. This story literally just broke. It blew my mind. I can't even believe he thinks this. But apparently, according to CNN, Biden told Democratic donors today, Tuesday.

He wasn't confident he'd be seeking another term if his predecessor Donald Trump wasn't himself running for the White House. Quote, if Trump wasn't running, I'm not sure I'd be running, he said, saying Democrats cannot let him win. Okay, so look, there is a possibility that they're not sharing the polling with Biden. Is that what's happening? Why would he be under the impression that he would be the best candidate to beat Donald Trump? When poll after poll for months now have made it very clear that he is a political liability for the Democratic Party and for anyone who is hoping that Trump does not serve a second term. Biden has long viewed himself as the best shot at protecting the country from another Trump administration

and has framed the upcoming election as a defense of democracy. By the way, one other thing that, I guess is a piece of advice to Biden defenders. Listen, I get that you guys don't like that people are pointing to the fact that Biden is older. He seems to be in mental decline. He has many moments in public that don't look good for him. The fact that he was on the world stage recently and just kind of trailed off in the middle of a speech and announced that it was his bedtime is not a good look. And so I get that they don't like that anyone points to that reality, right? If I loved a politician, I would

also get a little salty when people keep pointing out his age, even though pointing out his age is totally legitimate in this context. However, if you're going to do the comparison of Biden and Trump, please just understand that it insults the intelligence of people who can hear, who can see, and who can analyze things that are happening right before them. Because yes, Trump is also up there in age. But you would be mistaken if you think that Trump and Biden carry themselves similarly when they're addressing the public. As much as I hate to admit it, Trump is a little more charismatic. He's a little more energetic. And while he's up there in age, it doesn't show the same way that it does for Joe Biden. This is the reality of the situation, guys. Okay, look,

I'm going to be 100% honest with you. I really can't think of a single Democrat right now that I'm excited about. So it's not like I'm sitting here fantasizing about a Bernie Sanders presidency and I'm just speaking out against Joe Biden because I don't like him and I want my guy to be the nominee instead. That is not what's happening here. Okay, Bernie Sanders is up there in age as well. I'm not even calling on him to run for president. He's not even considering it. So let's get that out of the way completely. But again, if they genuinely see Donald Trump is a threat, they should run their best candidates and they should allow for a robust primary election. And that's not going to happen because it's clear that Biden is very much serious about

running for reelection and he's engaging in the fundraising to prove it. So for instance, today alone, he's holding three fundraisers. Between Monday and today, total of seven fundraisers. Democratic officials are looking ahead to what some believe could be a billion dollar campaign. And singer-songwriter James Taylor will headline a later event in Boston's theater district. Tickets for the You've Got a Friend in Joe event ran between $50 and $7,500. Like he's in it. He's definitely running. So anyone who thinks like, nah, he's eventually going to drop out and he's going to announce that Gavin Newsom's going to be the nominee. That's not going to happen. It doesn't appear that that's the case. But I want to finally wrap this up by discussing

where young voters are, because young voters did carry Biden through in 2020. When you look at the swing states that he needed to win, it was young voters, people of color who showed up and got the job done. So how is Biden polling among young people? Well, it's not looking so great. Just 49% of 18 to 29 year olds definitely plan on voting for president in 2024. And that's down from 57% who said the same during the fall of 2019, according to the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School. That is the poll, the institute that did the poll. And so things are different today compared to where we were in 2019 and 2020,

Especially in 2020, there was a lot more motivation to get Trump out of office. I'm not sure that same motivation is here, and I think we're seeing that in the polls. And those numbers also get a lot worse once you break it down by demographic. Younger black Americans saw a sharp decline with 38% saying they will definitely vote next year compared to 50% in 2019. And Hispanic Americans also had a steep drop with 40% saying they will definitely vote in 2024 compared to 56% in 2019. So not only is Biden doing poorly in the polling, you have smaller percentages of his core base saying that they plan to definitely vote for president in 2024. So he's got a lot of work to do if he's going to be persuasive enough to get people not only on his side, but to get people to the polls.

And by the way, again, that's a 16 point drop, you know, the number of or the percentage of Hispanic voters who say that they're planning on voting for. for sure in 2024. And let's take a look at this graph. It shows the share of young Americans who say they trust in Biden, Trump, or neither to handle select issues. So the plurality of young people do not trust either Biden or Trump when it comes to the Israel Hamas war. I think they're correct to be distrustful toward these individuals on that issue.

Climate change. I think Biden's definitely better on climate change than Trump, but certainly not. not good enough to adequately respond to the climate emergency. Gun violence, there was some executive orders from Biden, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. What matters is what public opinion is, and young people don't trust either candidate when it comes to these issues. There's also Ukraine, and then finally, clearly my favorite area here, crime and public safety. I also don't trust either one of them on that issue in particular.

So it's not looking good for Biden, and again, I know I keep repeating this, but But it's worth repeating, if you're going to run a campaign that latches on to the notion that people must vote for you because if they fail to do so, our democracy will be dismantled by a second Trump term, it's hard to make that argument if you're not allowing for a primary election and you're not allowing for the best possible candidate to run against Trump in the 2024 presidential election. So we'll see how this all plays out. But Democrats, It ain't looking good. And you guys are making your bed.

The question is, do you want to lay in it? I don't. I think that we should have a robust primary, something the DNC is working hard to prevent. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, Jank Uger will be joining me to give us updates on what's currently going down in Gaza. Incredible interview on CNN featuring Jake Tapper,

never in my wildest dreams that I think I would say that. But here we are. Stick around. I don't know about you, but I'm going to go to bed. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off.

But here's the good news. This doesn't have to be the story of your next chapter. Hormone Harmony by Happy Mammoth is an herbal formula made with science. backed ingredients designed to fine-tune your hormones by balancing estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and even stress hormones like cortisol. It helps with common issues such as hot flashes, poor sleep, low energy, bloating, and more. With over 40,000 reviews and a bottle sold every 24 seconds, the results speak for themselves. A survey found 86% of women lost weight, 77% saw an improved mood, and 100% felt like themselves again. Start your next chapter feeling balanced and in control. For a

limited time, get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. Thank God. Thank God, Jank, that you're back on TYT. Okay, because who better to read audience comments than Jake Yugar. Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. Speaking of which, Benjamin Moral, gift of a young tourist membership. We appreciate you, Benjamin. And 420, J.R. May, gift to 20, boo, as my grandma used to say. All right, thank you guys. We appreciate you.

Hit the join button below. We do need you. And members make this show possible. And we do the show with the members, as Anna just alluded to. I rather enjoy that. All right, and t.com slash join, no matter where you're watching, to become one of us and help us bring an honest reporting out into the world. All right, Casper. All right, let's talk about attorneys general basically threatening journalists in America over how they're covering the war in Gaza. This story is incredible. It's not getting much attention. And it is shocking that it took Fox News of all places to break this story. But let's talk about it. More than a dozen attorneys general have signed onto a threatening

letter against journalists covering the war in Gaza. Now, Fox News Digital says that the prosecutors signed on to a letter that was sent to media outlets, including the New York Times, Reuters, CNN, and AP News, and basically put them on notice that providing material support to Hamas is illegal. Now, none of these organizations have, there's been no indication that any of these news organizations have provided material support to Hamas. What does that even mean? But the letter was sent to these four organizations, and I'm going to read you a few excerpts from it. So this was sent to them on Monday afternoon, and it included 14 state attorneys general. And they stated that, look, if your reporting appears to be providing any support for a terrorist group like Hamas, well, you could face prosecution.

Think about it. They write, quote, we will continue to follow your reporting to ensure that your organizations do not violate any federal or state laws by giving material support to terrorists abroad. Now your organizations are on notice. Follow the law. Wow. So the AGs continue to define what material support would mean. And that would include any property, tangible or intangible or service, including

currency or monetary instruments, expert advice or assistance, communications equipment, facilities and transportation, except medicine or religious materials. So what if, let's say, the New York Times is trying to do reporting from Gaza, they're not allowed to be on the ground in Gaza, but they want to interview, I don't know, a Hamas militant, because Hamas is part of this story. Hamas is part of this ongoing war. What if in an effort to do, let's say, an on-air interview, they send them a camera? Would they be prosecuted for doing that? I mean, that would be communications equipment, no, Jake?

Yeah, no, it's, this law is crazy in so many different ways. Not only equipment, they say if you get advice from someone we will later call Hamas or affiliated with Amas or even once took a picture with someone who's in Hamas, then we're going to criminalize. prosecute you. That's insane. Advice. What does that even mean? Like that means basically don't talk to them. But wait, that triggers a second problem.

Now they say you have to vet everyone that you're hiring meticulously. They clarify that in the letter many times. And they say if they have any connection to anyone associated with Hamas, we're gonna put you in prison, okay? But how do you vet them without talking to them? Because if you talk to them, they say, well, you just got his advice and counsel, okay, that's it. Now you're under. In other words, guys, there's look, there's three things here that I want to draw your attention. Number one, they're criminalizing freedom of the press.

And so it castle culture, anti-freedom and going after the press, if you dare criticize Israel, we might put you in jail in America. This is crazy. It really is. Because think about it, the United States government can declare, look, I believe that Hamas is a terrorist organization, but it also happens to be the governing body, unfortunately, in Gaza. So that makes the situation a lot more complicated. It isn't the same as, you know, talking about ISIS as a terrorist group. ISIS never had any governance over any group of people. You get what

I'm saying? But in this case, I mean, this is a story involving a literal war in which Hamas is the governing body of one side of this war. Yeah, so I'll give a quick example of that. I can make an argument that the government of Iran is terrorist organization. Certainly there, some of their military factions could be considered a terrorist organization. So our reporter is not allowed to talk to anyone in the Iranian government? Well, how are you going to get updates on negotiations we have with them over uranium, et cetera, whether we're going to be part of a deal that the United States government made with Iran? This standard is insane.

And it's the most un-American thing you've ever heard. So don't you dare criticize a foreign country, by the way, let alone our country, a foreign country, otherwise we're gonna put you in prison. But number two, they make it so onerous that you even talk to anyone who's Arab, they're gonna say, well, I wanna see all his pictures. Did he ever take a picture with someone associated with Hamas? Did he ever talk to anyone associated with Hamas? Did he ever know anything ahead of time?

Well, a journalist's job is to try to figure things out and sometimes ahead of time, right? So they're basically making it so hard to hire any Arabs so that their voice doesn't get out. So then you have Israeli propaganda 24-7, but you have no reporters on the ground to give you any other perspective, Muslim, Arab, or otherwise, okay? And there's a third giant problem, but go ahead. And I'm also curious about what this would mean for ordinary Americans, right? Let's say they're ordinary Americans who are on social media, they come across certain content that they want to share, but that content is, you know, labeled or considered propaganda from

Hamas and disseminating it or sharing it would amount to providing support for Hamas. Does that mean that ordinary citizens would get prosecuted or investigated? I'm serious, like I know that sounds hyperbolic and crazy, but this is such a vague law. And the fact that you have 14 attorneys general signing on to this, and it's essentially a threat to journalists, I think says a lot about how far they're willing to go. And by the way, the letter was signed by Republican Attorneys General in Iowa, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Texas, Louisiana, Utah, Montana, Virginia, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Tennessee.

I should also note, by the way, that today Congress voted on a resolution to say that being anti-Zionist is the same as being anti-Semitic, which is a lie. Okay, being anti-Zionist does not mean you're anti-Semitic. But that is another effort to, you know, basically attempt to silence anyone who is critical of Zionism. Yeah, so look, we get into a long debate about Zionism and I have on many occasions over the last 40 years, and sometimes people online use Zionists as a code word for Jewish. And I hate the way that it sounds.

I agree, yeah. So, oh, the damn Zionists or something. No, don't do that. If you make it about race, religion, et cetera, that's, we're never going to win that battle. And that's the wrong battle. And besides which as progressives, the most important point overall is we never make it about race or religion. If you're trying to discriminate against our Jewish brothers and sisters, you've got no business here. We're not interested in it at all, okay?

And that defeats the whole point. But Zionism is a political movement. So what, you're not allowed to criticize a political movement? That's insane. Our Congress has lost its mind. Our Congress is totally and utterly corrupt. So everyone who signed on to that bill is a total disaster. Well, a lot of people did.

The House voted in favor of the resolution and it passed 311 to 14. Only 14 members of Congress voted against it. All 311 people of those are corrupt. They are. That's an outrageous, ridiculous, un-American, unconstitutional bill to pass. the way, Supreme Court should strike that down. So now you're not allowed to criticize political movements because, by the way, you can criticize any political movement you're like in America, but you're not allowed to criticize

a political movement in another country. It's insane, guys. And by the way, this helps the cause of anti-semitism because then it allows people to go, well, I guess they control the United States Congress, I guess they control all the media and they control all the attorneys general. It's actually not true, it's not true, but this doesn't help, this doesn't help. An A-PAC and Democratic majority for Israel going around threatening everybody. We'll spend millions of dollars in your primaries unless you listen to us in Israel.

That doesn't help the cause of fighting anti-Semitism. That makes it 10,000 times worse. Stop hurting our Jewish brothers and sisters by doing that. But no, they're so corrupted. They can't see straight, those lobbyists and those particular politicians. Okay, but back to this insane law that these Republicans want to push forward. Guys, okay, so their standard is, okay, if any reporter knew about a Hamas attack ahead of time, okay, that triggers all of these things that you should be put to prison if you worked with that reporter.

But wait a minute, Benjamin Netanyahu and the entire Israeli government knew a year ahead of time about October 7th. So does anybody who gets a quote from Netanyahu, should they be arrested? Because then Yahoo knew, he knew way more than that one allegation of one reporter who was allegedly embedded with Hamas. Yeah, that was the allegation. And the reporter I read the story, they're like, Gaza Strip is minuscule, it's tiny, it's smaller than Las Vegas. So when something's about to happen, you hear it instantly, and I followed to see where

the news story was going, and then it happened instantly, right? It's not like I had days or weeks or anything like that. So this is already a made up thing. But that guy knew for about a couple of minutes before it happened. Nanyahu knew for a year before it happened. Are we prosecuting? Are we prosecuted? Oh no, no, no, no.

Israel can do anything they like. They could know ahead of time that that attack is going to happen against their own people. Do nothing about it. They could work with reporters. They could give stories to reporters nonstop. But if you dare work with an Arab or a Muslim and they're actually a good reporter, Or they ever took a picture or said the wrong thing about anyone at any time. We're going to put you in an American prison.

These are, if they ever do this, they will be, obviously these people will be political prisoners. And guys, super dark times are ahead. Trump reposted an article claiming he's going to be dictator, positively. He shared it like, yeah. It was an op-ed that warned about Trump dismantling our democracy and serving as a dictator in the United States. It was an op-ed written by him, not by him, about him, and he posted that. He posted it, like, yeah. Like, bragged about it, yeah. Yeah, it's not like I didn't tell you. Here's an article about me being a dictator, and I'm telling you that's what I'm going to do.

And today, Steve Bannon and Koch Patel, who worked in the Trump administration, did a show together where they said, oh, yeah, we're going to start arresting everybody. Joe Scarborough, you should be on notice, people in politics and media. They didn't know specific charges, just political prisoners. And they're telling you, we're definitely going to do it. Steve Bannon was talking about Kachmetel's an absolute deranged lunatic. He's like, well, you're going to be the head of the CIA. Is that true?

Are they planning to put Kaj Patel as ahead of the CIA? Oh my God, guys, the dictatorship is coming and they're announcing it ahead of time. And so will they start locking up people for disagreeing with Trump or Israel? They just told you they're going to. So this is the sorry state that America finds itself. It's scary stuff for sure. All right. All right.

Let's, let's move on to a pretty stunning interview that took place on CNN last night. And it features Jake Tapper doing his job appropriately. Let's go into it. There are a lot of innocent people being killed by bombs that Israel is raining down upon Gaza. I think it will be seen that the IDF really has done everything that is humanly possible to try to safeguard innocent civilians. It's very hard to believe that, especially on a day when one of our producers lost nine members of his family, nine members of his family who are not members of Hamas, not members of the Palestinian Islamic jihad, members of any group, just nine people just trying to live their lives.

Who is that man and what has he done with Jake Tapper? Because that is not something that I've come, I've become accustomed to seeing on his show or from Jake Tapper. But CNN had Israel's Mark Regev on and he, you know, spewed the usual talking points that we've heard from most individuals representing Israel on our cable news channels. And he said that, you know, we're doing what we can to prevent civilian casualties, even as the number of civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip continues to rise day after day as a result of Israel's aerial bombardment of the region. Now, clearly, Jake Tapper wasn't buying his argument. And maybe the fact that the story is now much closer to him due to the loss of

family that one of his producers experienced is what's kind of informing his reactions to what Regev is saying here. But I just want to zoom in on Tapper for a second because look at the skepticism on his face. It is pretty amazing. I think it will be seen that the IDF really has done everything that is humanly possible to try to safeguard innocent civilians. It's very hard to believe that, especially on a day when one of our producers lost nine members of his family, nine members of his family who are not members of Hamas, not members of the Palestinian Islamic jihad, not members of any group, just nine people just trying to live their lives.

So, Jank, I'm real curious what you think about the exchange so far. There's a lot more to get to, but what do you think? Yeah, so this Mark Regup guys, his job is to do propaganda. That's okay, he's from, you know, a different government, a foreign government, and he's here to justify killing overwhelmingly civilians, over 15,000. They haven't been able to show any Hamas fighters that were killed. The Hamas fighters are in the tunnels, the tunnels are perfectly intact, and even the IDF says at most 1 to 2,000.

An outrageous ridiculous number that isn't close to true. But even if you take it at face value, that means at least 13,000 civilians bombed to death. Their heads crushed, their bodies lit up, you know. Dismembered as a result. That's right, all of these things. And we've now seen a lot of it, I mean, I hate to point you to it and I don't want you to it because it's hard to recover from it. But whether you see the Hamas atrocities that happen in Israel, or you see, you see, see the kids that are crushed to death from the Israeli bombs in Gaza, it's hard to recover

from that. And so 13,000 civilians murdered, killed with almost no hope of actually getting the Hamas terrorists inside the tunnels. And so his job is to excuse that barbarism. Okay, so that's his job. Jake Tapper doing a really good job, and he has been throughout. Now, like he saw that Israel tape on what Hamas did, and that shook him from. for a while and that any human being would be shaken by that. And I understand that and there's nothing wrong with reporting that side. You should report both sides, right? So Tapper's on a terrific job and that's coming from us who's criticized Tapper many times in the past.

Yes, especially on this issue in the past. On this issue and many other issues. So thank you for doing good journalism. So credit where credit is do always. And guys, I want to say one more thing. You see that anti-Semitic stereotypes are not true, they are not true. So Jake Tapper happens to be Jewish, Wolf Blitzer, not was not only Jewish but worked for APAC at a point, but they're asking some of the toughest

questions on television of the Israeli government. So they're not controlling the media and they're not protecting Israel. They're doing their jobs as American journalists and doing a really good job. Because now hatred is spreading all across against Jews, against Muslims, against Palestinians, and we're trying to bring all of that down. Okay, now, and remember, this is not about race or religion, it is about governments. And what the government of Israel, the right-wing government of Israel is done, is atrocious and Reggev is about to try to justify it. So in this next clip, you're going to understand why Jake Tapper, especially in this exchange, is super skeptical of the usual talking points and seems to reject it.

So let's take a look. First of all, I extend my sorrow to him and my sympathies. But if I saw your report correctly, and please, correct me if I says something wrong, That happened in northern Gaza, in Gaza City, where a month ago, we already asked all the civilians to leave. And most of them did. If there was like 1,200,000 people there, there was only a couple of tens of thousands left. And one has to ask, yes, they had ample opportunity to leave. I don't know what happened. I don't have the specific circumstances. I know there's deadly combat going on now in the north, still between these IDF and Hamas terrorists, yes? And we don't want to see anyone caught up in the crossfire, but why didn't they heed the advice and leave the area?

You can't blame them. I don't blame them. But you can't, there's fighting in the South now. You know, where are, I mean, I've been asking this since October 7th, where are these people supposed to go? Jake Tapper's a thousand percent right and Mark Regev absolutely did blame them. Why didn't they evacuate the North? I don't know, they were reportedly trapped in the North. And even if they had tried to make that journey to the South,

as we all know, as we've shared evidence of, Israel had no problem, the IDF had no problem, continuing their aerial bombardment in the south as well as the north. Okay, it was more intense in the north, but they were still doing bombings in the south. And so some Palestinians were like, what is the point of risking our lives on this journey to the south when there's a good chance that we can be harmed on that journey or suffer from airstrikes once we get there? And so he was blaming them. Why didn't they evacuate to the south? So why did you guys make the decision to engage in indiscriminate bombing, okay? More than half of the residential buildings in Gaza gone, wiped away.

Millions of people displaced, 80% of people living in Gaza have been displaced. And I want to give you some more information about the producer who lost nine family members in Gaza, nine family members with one Israeli drone strike, air strike, not drone strike, air strike, So CNN reports that Ibrahim Dahman, that's the producer, luckily escaped to Egypt with his young family nearly a month ago. But on Sunday, he heard news that at least nine relatives trapped in northern Gaza had been killed in a strike on his, in his aunt's house. Now, his childhood home in Gaza City was also obliterated in a separate strike on an adjacent building the same day. So that strike actually happened before the strike that strike that ended up

killing nine of his family members. An Israeli strike had directly hit the building where his relatives were living in Bet Lahia, killing his uncle and uncle's wife, daughter and two grandchildren, as well as his aunt, her husband, and two children. At least two other relatives are in critical condition and still others are still buried under that rubble. So imagine knowing that not only have you lost nine family members, some of them are just under rubble right now, rubble that people can't take bodies out of because they don't

have the fuel to operate the machines necessary to get through that rubble and get to the bodies. It's just an incredibly devastating story. And I think the callous nature in which Mark Regev handled that moment was important for people to see. Because it's just like this complete disregard and brazen attitude toward human lives or the loss of human lives. Yeah. So we've used Armenian genocide as an example many times, but you could do it with any of the forced marches in genocides throughout the history of the world. So the baton death march, the Trail of Tears, et cetera, to have a representative of the government that committed that genocide come out and go, well, why didn't they do the baton death march? Well, if they stayed, of course we're going to kill them. They're civilians and they're a family and they got kids. Well, of course we're going to murder them unless they did the death march.

And when they got to the end of the death march, we're going to kill them there. So why didn't they move? But okay, so it's intensely callous, it's inhumane, it's disgusting. Now I'm going to give the most ironic defense of Mark Regev. What's he supposed to say? That's what his government did do. And there's no defense of it. Like, well, how do you defend killing that family?

You can't. You can't. You just can't. So there is no defense of the Israeli government's actions. And so, except for this insane, it's all, every time point is insane. They're, oh, well, they hate, the Palestinians hate us. When were they supposed to love you in the middle of a 50 year occupation? Like, oh, the Armenians hate the Turks.

So the Armenians had a coming. The Turks had a right, the Ottoman Empire had a right to defend itself. It would be absurd, right? absurd. Whenever any giant government or empire says, well, those minorities or those people that have no power, they dare to rise up against my empire. And of course, I kill them all because the empire had a right to defend itself. But yet we treat it seriously here in America and those talking points are everywhere. And Greg gives job is to come out here and to do propaganda on behalf of genocide. So thank you to Jake Tapper and CNN for holding him accountable.

Yep, and I have to go to one last video of their exchange because I really do think Jake Tapper deserves credit for how he handled this conversation. Let's take a look. Now we're being more specific because it is more complicated in the South. We've actually designated areas in the South which are safer areas, which are especially there's a number of them. We've shared the maps with the United States. It's been shared also with the UN and the other humanitarian organizations. Listen, we have to hit Hamas in Khan Yunus. They've got a strong military infrastructure there. They've got a network of tunnels. If we want to destroy Hamas' military machine, and we must, we have to act in the South as well. So that heavy sigh, even though he's not verbalizing anything in that clip that I just showed you, the heavy sigh is a clear indication that he is not buying what Regev is selling.

And he had counterpoints throughout that segment. So shout out to Jake Tapper and how he handled that segment. He did well, and I hope that that continues. Because, by the way, you should be a thousand percent skeptical of any claims coming out of Hamas. But the same is true when you're hearing talking points coming out of the Israeli government as well. And there have been moments, okay, to be fair, where I think Jake Tapper slipped a little and just kind of took what the IDF. and the Israeli government had to say at face value without challenging anything. But you should as a journalist, as someone who works in news media, be skeptical of all claims

and do the best you can in figuring out whether the claims being made are truthful claims. And I think it's pretty clear, given the high civilian death toll, given the fact that you have, you know, 1.8 million Palestinians displaced. You have more than half of the buildings completely demolished in the Gaza Strip. It's pretty clear that they are not actually doing what they claim, which is taking measures to minimize civilian casualties. Yeah. And last thing is, if you noticed from what Regan was saying in that interview, he said, well, we told him to go March South. That's why we dropped a bomb and killed the family of your producer. So they had a coming. And then later, he said, well, obviously we have to bomb the South. There's some Hamas fighters there and some tunnels.

Okay, so they wouldn't have been safe if they went to the south. According to your own admission, within the same interview, doesn't care. He's like, because they're not trying to get Hamas. They're trying to do maximum damage. Netanyahu talking about thinning the herd. That's referring to Palestinians as animals and admitting, yeah, we're doing ethnic cleansing. And so, and tons of cabinet ministers that we've given you direct quotes from saying, yeah, we were going to retake Gaza, just going to take it. And so that's what the objective here is.

Have you guys seen, and one of our members wrote this and I'm sorry I don't have your name right now, but I love that we do the show with you guys because they made a great point that, wait, have you seen any IDF videos of fighting inside the tunnels or even heard of fighting inside the tunnels? No, Hamas is in the tunnels, but they won't go in the tunnels because they're not trying to get Hamas. I know it's dangerous in the tunnels, but the fighters are in the tunnels, killing the civilians above ground. does you no good if you're trying to get Hamas, and you saying, oh, well, the hostages and the fighters are in the tunnels, but I'm too scared to go in, so I'm just killing civilians instead. That's not the defense you think it is. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, I'm going to share with you just how much wealth is going to be transferred over to the children of billionaires in this country.

The numbers are insane, they're shocking, and it gives you a sense of really how wealth is accumulated in the U.S. Come right back. I really appreciate it by hitting the join button below and Quantum Dragon upgraded. We appreciate that so much. It helps a lot and that you could also do that through the join button and box. You're back, gifting five memberships. We appreciate you so much, brother. Big box.

There you go. All right, Anna, you're up. This report is banana. So strap on, strap up, strap up. Okay, let's just move on. Let's move on. Let's move on immediately. Okay.

Anyway, a new report from investment banking company UBS highlights the obscene levels of wealth that billionaires and their heirs are accumulating through inheritance alone. So we're not talking about innovation, we're not talking about job creation, we're just talking about the transfer of wealth, which allows for these heirs to accumulate more wealth. That's how it's done. And it's been done like that for quite some time in this country, but capitalism has become more and more unfettered, and the cronyism is incredible. And so you've got to keep in mind how some of that wealth was made to begin with,

but we'll get to all of that later. Now, in recent months, the world's new billionaires made more of their fortunes through inheritance rather than through entrepreneurship. And it's important to keep that in mind because one of the arguments that you hear in regard to low taxes, whether it's estate taxes, income taxes, capital gains taxes, no, No, no, no, no, we can't raise taxes because the wealthy people are the job creators here. They're the innovators, they're the ones who take the most risk. But in this context, ain't nobody taking any risk.

These are heirs accumulating wealth through their inheritance. It also marked the first time in the nine-year history of this report that newly minted billionaires accumulated more wealth from inheritance than from starting a business. Now, 53 heirs inherited a total of $150.8 billion in the 12 months ending in April, exceeding the total of 140.7 billion accumulated by 84 new self-made billionaires. Okay, and then hold on to your butts for this. The report said more than 1,000 billionaires are expected to pass 5.2 trillion dollars to their children over the next 20 or 30 years. Yes, that is trillion with a T. And John Matthews, who is the head of UBS's private wealth management division,

says, the great wealth transfer, which we've all been talking about for the last 10 years, is underway. The average age of the world's billionaires is almost 69 years old right now. So this whole transition or wealth handover will start to accelerate. And the class of ultra wealthy people is growing again after a very brief dip. So according to the same report, the number of billionaires rose by 7% globally over the 12 months ending in April. The population of billionaires in the world increased to 2,544 from 2,376. Their total wealth grew by 9% from $11 trillion to $12. trillion dollars. That is a lot of money. So there are some more insane stats to get into. But, Jank, you know, we've been talking about estate taxes on this show for well over a decade.

The arguments against estate taxes don't really make much sense to me. The problem just keeps getting worse, really. Yeah. So it's not that people who inherit money are bad people, and you don't know them at all. Some of them are terrible people. Some of them are perfectly great people who use the money for good causes. So it's not about judging them. We don't even know them, right? But when Republicans say that, oh, no, you can't tax this money because of how hard these good Americans work to earn it.

No, wait a minute. For the errors, they didn't do, they literally did nothing to earn it. Nothing. Now, if they worked in their parents' company or something along those lines, well, good, They make money for that, they have income from that, and they might get wealth from that. But we're not talking about that. We're talking about inheritance where the air literally did absolutely nothing. They had the incredible gumption to let their parents die, and then they collect their money.

So this whole idea that, oh, my God, you're taxing these poor job creators and earners, totally untrue, okay? So, and it's $5.2 trillion. So, guys, the reason the estate tax exists is that it doesn't take, all of the money, it takes a certain percentage above certain thresholds, right? And the reason for that is so that everyone can have opportunity. So hey, you did a great job of earning $5 trillion or whatever. Now you could pass it on to like 50 people that are your heirs, or you could pass it on, you could pass on trillions of those 50 people and then still have enough money left over

for providing, for example, free college education. So the next generation can create wealth and have heirs and do all those things that are not only morally right for the American dream, but economically makes sense for the country, because then that creates a lot more businesses and a lot more opportunity rather than the same 50 people. And you know people who are super rich that inherit money, generally not the hardest working folks in the world. Well, okay, so let's talk about that briefly, because what are they planning to do with their inheritance, right? Are they planning on starting new businesses? Because you never know, you come across some money as a result of this inheritance,

and you have this big idea and finally you have the funding to actually make it happen. But more than two thirds of the billionaires with inherited wealth in this UBS survey said that they plan to continue and grow what their parents or grandparents achieved, whether it's in a business, a brand or assets, but the report makes sure to note that their priorities are likely to be different than their parents' priorities with more aggressive investing targets and a focus on AI, clean energy, which could be good, and electric vehicle transition. Now, John Matthews, who's the head of UBS's private wealth management division, says this. The wealth management industry needs to focus on those industries that can help

accelerate the ability to invest in these areas. A lot of that falls in the area of private equity, direct private deals and private placements as opposed to the traditional mix of fixed income and public markets. So do you guys understand what that means? That means that one of the bigger issues that we have impacting almost every facet of life right now, which is private equity, that problem is going to get worse. Because that is where they're going to park their money. They're going to want to make more money from the money that they've inherited, which I have

no gripe with that. It is what it is. I think that's what smart people do. Smart people aren't like Donald Trump where they inherit $400 million and then they squander it, okay? Most people want their money to make more money. However, the way in which they're likely to do it isn't actually going to benefit society, it's going to be parked in private equity firms, which have played a role in destroying

our housing market and destroying our healthcare industry. I mean, I've done so many stories on these issues. So this isn't just about people inheriting money and not paying, you know, their fair share of taxes on it. This is also about how this system continues to deteriorate our own country. Yeah. So let me break this down for you guys because look, I'm in the business community. I went to Wharton business schools. I know exactly what they're talking about here. So when they say, oh, well, they're going to work hard investing their parents, the money that their parents left them. And that's another way of, you know, adding to the economy.

Guys, no, no, no, when you have money, you have to invest it. There's literally no one, I mean, maybe there's two randos, but overall, no one just lets the money sit there. I mean, at a bare minimum, we have to put it as something that it gets interest, right? So, and then you live off that interest, and if you're, you know, crazy, you'll spend the principal, et cetera, but the bottom line is, you have to invest it, and there's wealth managers, and they do the investing for you. They make it seem like it's like a tough job, it's not a job at all.

You just hire someone to do it and every once on maybe you're active in it and you make decisions like buy, sell. That's it. It's not, I know you have to, you know, if you're really rolled up your sleeves and you're going to company by company, maybe you've got to do some research. I hope you're doing some research. But this is not, they're making it seem like this is a really hard job that they're doing. No, they're just parking their money somewhere. That's all. And hold on.

And when you, and where do they mainly park it these days is in private equity. When we talk about private equity venture capital, what do you think the money comes from? The money actually usually comes from very large families. And so they take those family funds and put it into private equity. What does private equity do with it? Well, one of the things that it does is it guts different American industries. So they'll buy Sears and other retail stores, Toys R Us, and they'll just gut it. And they'll take all the money out and then let it go bankrupt.

That way they make more money. And then another thing that private equity does is now they're going around buying residential real estate as Anna referred to. So now that makes all of our housing prices go up. Then we can't afford housing. But this is all the heirs of the rich working really hard by putting their money into a private equity company. None of it helps the American people. Look, the final thing that I'll mention is this survey also touched on something that should be a little surprising, Which is to say that the parents who are passing this wealth over to their heirs were actually far more interested in some philanthropic work compared to the very individuals who are now inheriting their wealth.

While more than two-thirds, 68% of first generation billionaires stated that following their philanthropic goals and making an impact on the world was a main objective of their legacy, less than a third, 32% of the inheriting generations did so. That's pretty depressing. It's really depressing. Yeah. So look, you have Bernie Sanders with a policy or his policy advisor. His name is Warren Gunnells. He's very active on Twitter or X. He responded to a CNBC article about this survey by pointing out the trillions of dollars that heirs.

Trillions of dollars that heirs receive from their billionaire parents or they inherit over the next few decades. is, well, let's take a look at his tweet. I think it's better to just read it than summarize it. So the GOP bill to repeal the estate tax would give, and that's what he's referring to. The GOP has proposed legislation that would repeal the estate tax. It would give $1.8 trillion to billionaires, $98 billion to Elon Musk's family, $66 billion to the Bezos family, $47 billion to the Zuckerberg family, and $0 to 99.9% of U.S. families.

So it's just, the system is already incredibly unfair for ordinary Americans, but what Republicans want to do is make it even less fair, if you can believe it, and good on Warren Gunnells for calling this out, and putting Republicans on blast for what they're proposing here. Because this kind of stuff does not poll well, but this isn't the kind of stuff that you see a lot of coverage of either. Yeah, let me clarify one quick thing that I said. I said, look, none of it helps, but that's what I want to be clear. So private equity or venture capital, etc.

could make good investments that could help the economy and could help Americans. But that's not their job. Their job is to maximize profit. And so unfortunately, a lot of the things that they do, not all but a lot, don't help any average American at all. It's just to make more money for the heirs. So what Warren Gunnells is pointing out is that the Republicans have proposed this bill. It's a real bill. And if, for example, if Donald Trump wins and they have majorities in the House and the Senate,

and they will pass this bill to repeal the state tax entirely. Do you know what the limit is right now for their state tax? Right now, parents can leave up to $25 million untaxed. So what the Republicans are saying is these poor kids whose parents want to leave them more than $25 million. They shouldn't pay any taxes on the extra. It'll be double taxation. Wait a minute, when did they get tax the first time? Never. Their parents were taxed, but they were never taxed.

So the Republicans are saying we have to protect the ultra, ultra rich heirs who did not earn the money and who've never been taxed on the money. You have to work your ass off and we're gonna take the taxes. If you're a middle class, we're gonna take taxes and more and more and more. But if you are a spectacularly wealthy heir, we're not gonna take any taxes for money you didn't earn and never paid a dime of taxes on. Yeah, that's the thing that really gets to me, because when it comes to the working class, especially those in the middle, oh, they don't hesitate to tax the hell out of us. They'll double tax, okay? They'll tax you in the state of California, right?

You do your federal taxes. Can't escape that. But if you're living in a state like California, you've got your state taxes. Then the money that's left behind from that, you have to pay sales taxes every time you buy something. It's just, it's infuriating because keep in mind. that the lack of revenue that the government makes as a result of the low taxes on the rich, they make that up by taxing the hell out of you. Yes, there's fines, fees, sales tax, gas tax.

Those are all regressive taxes on the middle class in America. But when it comes to the super rich, the populist party, the Republican Party, goes, no, no, no taxes on the richest people for all those trillions of dollars, Don't you dare touch our beloved, beloved rich donors. That's these sick Republicans. And what are the Democrats? There was nothing we could do. There was nothing we can do.

Always. You know that the estate taxes limit used to be $5 million. The Democrats helped the Republicans raise it all the way up to $25 million while singing. There was nothing we could do. There was nothing we could do. My ass. You all take money from these guys. They're all bribes.

Legalized bribes. Our system is sick. It's intensely corrupt. and the number one corrupt party is the Republican Party serving the rich completely and utterly while pretending to be populace. When we come back, Democratic Senator John Federman has some thoughts on corruption and how he feels about a Democratic colleague of his in the Senate engaged in corruption schemes. A little ironic when you consider what he's influenced by.

We've got that and more coming up. Don't miss it. Thank you.