The Young Turks - Caught In Lies

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

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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. We're going to be able to be. Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Casparian, and we have a giant show ahead for you today. Of course, John Iderola, host of the damage report, will be joining me for the second hour of the program. But in the first hour, we are going to discuss the latest leaked audio coming

from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy following the January 6th riots. What he was talking to Republican leadership about is very different from what we hear from him publicly. And so while he was willing to essentially rip Congress members like Matt Gates and Marjorie Taylor Green behind the scenes, publicly he went out of his way to defend them. You do not want to miss that leaked audio. We'll talk about that in more detail in just a few minutes. We're also going to talk about some pretty interesting fluctuations in follower counts for people on the left. versus people on the right and these, this is of course having to do with Twitter and some of the changes that we're noticing what's behind it. Well, Twitter has released a statement about it. But I do want to just let you guys know that I want to talk about that story in a more hopeful tone because I think there's a lot of panic happening right now in regard to Elon Musk buying Twitter. And I don't think that that panic needs to exist. And I'll explain in a little bit. In the second hour, we're going to lighten things up. Unfortunately, we will be talking about Marjorie Taylor Green and her attacks against the Catholic Church. Was she attacking the Catholic Church over, you know,

fondling little boys or raping little boys? No, she's mad at the Catholic Church for helping migrants. So we'll give you the details on that. But as always, just want to encourage you guys to like and share the stream if you're watching us online or hit the join button. If you're watching us on YouTube, become a member so you can check out all of the exclusive content that's available to our members and our members only. Our bonus episode today will be lots of fun. is. Now without further ado, let's get to the big story of the day, the latest Kevin McCarthy tapes. New audio recordings featuring House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy indicate that he was really worried about members of his own party engaging in discourse and public rhetoric that incited

violence. And those were certainly credible concerns, legitimate concerns, especially since many of the conversations that we're about to share with you took place after the January 6th Capitol riots. Now, while he was worried about his own party inciting violence behind the scenes, publicly he went out of his way to defend members of the Republican caucus. And I want to go give you a little bit of context before we get to the first audio tape. Now, McCarthy talked to other congressional Republicans about wanting to reign in multiple hardliners who were were deeply involved in Donald Trump's efforts to contest the 2020 election and undermine the peaceful transfer of power.

McCarthy did not follow through on the sterner steps that some Republicans encouraged him to take, opting instead to seek a political accommodation with the most extreme members of the GOP in the interests of advancing his own career. And that is a trend, a pattern really, that we've seen over and over again with Republican leadership. Behind the scenes, they're concerned about what's happening to the Republican Party. They want to purge the Republican Party of these more extreme elements. But publicly, they will bow their heads and go along with what the extreme elements want because turns out that the Republican voters favor those extreme elements. Now, I'm going to share the first tape with

you. This is audio from January 10th, 2021. McCarthy is having a conference call with Republican leadership, and here's what he had to say about his own concerns. The other thing that we have to do is these members on either, whatever position are calling out other members, that stuff's got to stop, especially in this nature. So I'm gonna get up right here, I'm gonna call gate, but anything else we see, don't assume I see everything, don't assume I know everything, but we gotta have one central point. So, I mean, if you can bring this stuff to Dan, not Lee Leganski, so you could have it. But, I mean, don't sit back around. It's going to be, you guys personally.

Tension is too high. The country is too crazy. I do not want to look back and think we caused something or we miss something and someone got hurt. I don't want to play politics with any of that. Tension is crazy. He's worried about the climate in the country. He's worried about people getting hurt as a result of members of his own party using rhetoric that incites violence. We got to do something about it. Now, again, this audio is from January 10th, 2021. This is just a few days after the riots took place. And the two members of Congress that he's specifically referring to in this context are Mo Brooks and Matt Gates. And so Brooks and Gates were the prime offenders in the eyes of GOP leaders. Brooks addressed the January 6th rally on the National Mall, which of course preceded the Capitol riot using incendiary language.

After January 6th, Gates went on television to attack multiple Republicans who had criticized Trump, including Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a member of the leadership team. In fact, if you can remember, following Liz Cheney's criticisms toward members of her own party, following the January 6th riots, you had people like Representative Matt Gates, Representative Marjorie Taylor Green, essentially go to Liz Cheney's home state to do rallies, essentially calling her out and trying to work against her. And so nothing that McCarthy was concerned about actually ended up leading to positive changes or positive results. Like I said, like any other coward, he just kind of bowed his head and went along with what the extreme elements wanted.

Because at the end of the day, he's looking out for his own political career. He knows, he acknowledges that these are people who incite violence in the country. They lead to toxic divisions, even within the Republican Party. But what can he do? He can't speak out against them too aggressively. He would face political consequences and really all he genuinely cares about. What takes priority over people's lives, over people's safety, over the, you know, our own democratic process is where he stands in this political system. What kind of leadership roles he can maintain as someone who is part of the Republican Party?

Now, Representative Kevin McCarthy and Representative Steve Scalise, along with a number of aides, engaged in basically criticizing Matt Gates and the behavior that he engaged in. In fact, they wanted some action taken against him. So in this next audio recording, you'll get a little sense of how concerned they were about Matt Gates specifically. Let's watch. I just got something sent now about Newsmax, something Matt Gates said, where he's calling people's names out saying an anti-Trump in this type of atmosphere and some of the other places. This is serious stuff people are doing that has to stop. If I'm getting briefing, I'm going to get another one from the FBI tomorrow.

This is serious to cut this out. Yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's, I mean, it's potential. illegal. What he's doing? Well, he's putting people in jeopardy. And he doesn't need to be doing this. We saw what people would do in the Capitol, you know, and these people became prepared and wrote with everything else. What Matt Gates is engaging in is potentially illegal. Really interesting commentary there. because again, this is a, what they think, a private conference call with Republican leadership, so they don't think that any of this is ever going to get out. But the New York Times obtained audio of this conference call from someone who provided that audio to them,

by the way. And turns out that now we know for sure that you have Republican leadership saying one thing privately and then defending the problem publicly. On January 10th, during this call, McCarthy said he planned to speak with Gates and ask him not to attack other lawmakers by name. The following day, in a larger meeting for all House Republicans, McCarthy pleaded with lawmakers not to incite, but rather to respect one another. So we've got one more piece of audio to get to. Let's take a listen to that and then I'll fill in the blanks. The briefings that I'm getting, you can incite something else. The country is going to. very divided as we know this, let's not put any member. I don't care who they are, Republican Democrat, or any person not even in Congress. Watch our words closely. I get these reports on a

weekly basis. I've seen something I haven't seen before. So I'm asking all of you, I've called some of you personally, and I want you to know what I'm hearing. Be careful. I know you want to defend your vote. You want to defend your position. And sometimes we get emotional about that and part of our defense is that we explain where somebody else was at. That brings damage. Do not raise another member's name on a television. So again, this is this is a call that happens with like the broader Republican caucus. And you can tell that his rhetoric is a little different. He's a little softer. Like I can understand. Sometimes we get emotional. You know, we just just be careful. It's really interesting to kind of notice that difference, that distinction in tone

between the earlier call that happened on January 10th versus a late, I'm sorry, the earlier call that happened versus the call that happens with a broader group of Republican lawmakers. And by the way, there are other interesting examples that were talked about in the previous call that I want to share with you. For instance, Representative Barry Moore, who's a far right Alabama conservative tweeted on the weekend after January 6th about the fatal shooting of rioter Ashley Babbitt by a member of the Capitol Police Force noting that it was a black police officer who shot the white female veteran and added, you know that doesn't fit the narrative. Essentially implying that as long as it's a black cop shooting a white person,

no one cares. That's the point that he was trying to make, completely discarding of the argument that she was one of the rioters, she's trying to crawl through a broken window on a door in order to get to where members of Congress were. And this is, she's part of a group of people who were chanting things like hang Mike Pence. So she posed a threat to members of Congress who were trying to escape that room as she was trying to crawl into it. I wish she hadn't have gotten shot. It's a tragic story. I hate that all of these individuals were tricked into thinking that the election was somehow stolen from their favored candidate. And you know, people lost their lives as a result of that, both literally in the case of Ashley Babbitt,

and also when you look at the number of people who are now going to spend time in prison after being duped by Donald Trump and his cronies. But nonetheless, immediately after that comment was read aloud on the call, McCarthy expressed a wish that the big social media companies would ban some members of the Republican conference as they had done with Trump after the insurrection. Can't they take their Twitter accounts away too, McCarthy asked? Can't they just take their accounts away too? Please Twitter, please, please, please ban these extreme right wingers from our party. Please do it.

But publicly, the message is very different. Publicly, the message is, oh, the left. The left is trying to silence and censor. They're so censorious. The left, the left, the left. Behind the scenes, McCarthy's like, yo. Can we do something about these Twitter accounts? A little bit of a problem.

But publicly, and that's the point, publicly McCarthy does what he's told, like a good little boy. He does what he's told because he's willing to swallow his pride if that means he can maintain a position of power within the Republican Party. Is that what a leader does? Does a leader bow his head to individuals who threaten him? individuals who coerce him, individuals who he knows happen to be not only bad for the Republican party, but bad for the country. Is that what a leader does? I mean, we, this country is run

by a bunch of pathetic puppets, narcissistic, self-interested fools who have no interest in real leadership, but are willing to take orders from the worst people in this country just so they can maintain their position of power. And that's who Kevin McCarthy is. Again, in the end, McCarthy really did nothing to reprimand or censure or, you know, essentially serve consequences for people who he fears are inciting violence in the country. In his determination to become Speaker of the House after the 2022 elections, McCarthy has spent much of the last year forging a closer political partnership with the far right, showing little public concern that his most extreme colleagues could instigate bloodshed

with their overheated or hateful rhetoric. The Times continues to write that in recent months, they give specific examples. McCarthy has opposed punishing Republican members of Congress who have been accused of inciting violence, including Representative Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia and most recently Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona who posted an animated video on social media that depicted him killing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. McCarthy also ignored a remark by Brooks, Mo Brooks, of course, last year when after a man was arrested in connection with a bomb threat to the Capitol, the Alabama Republican said

he understood citizens' anger directed at dictatorial socialism and its threat to liberty, freedom, and the very fabric of American society. And really, that's the other thing I want to talk about, just briefly. Not only are these Republicans insanely weak, not only are they cowards, and you can tell I'm trying to hold back from using certain words that I can't use on the show. They're also just woefully stupid. To look at this country right now, a country that effectively has no real federal social safety net for people, and claim that it is a socialist country under the leadership of Joe Biden is laughable.

Joe Biden, the president who told the Wall Street donors who were funding his primary race, that nothing will fundamentally change. That guy is a socialist, really? So either Mo Brooks is just a liar, which is, I mean, that's certainly the case. But I think he's also incredibly stupid because so many Republicans are somehow convinced that we live in a socialist country. A socialist, a socialist country, by the way, that has tens of thousands of people living on the streets in Los Angeles alone, which is considered a democratic utopia. We have no real social safety net for people in this country.

We have no support for young couples who want to start a family. How is this a socialist country again? I just want one reporter to ask that question. Can you please define what socialism means to you? And then after they spout whatever nonsense they spout, ignorant garbage, I would like the journalist to maybe show them or tell them what socialism actually means. It is amazing that this country is run by people like this. But anyway, that's a little bit of a tangent.

Now some of the Republicans who were discussed in those audio recordings have responded, including Representative Matt Gates, who says, while I was protecting President Trump from impeachment, they were protecting Liz Cheney from criticism. I don't really think it was about Liz Cheney. I think it was really about what the rhetoric coming from people like Matt Gates leads to. What we saw on January 6th didn't just happen in a vacuum. There were people inciting it within the Republican Party for months, really. with all these accusations of mail-in voter fraud, all this garbage that we were hearing over

and over and over again, right-wing media colluding with these right-wing politicians to essentially spout a narrative that was not only inaccurate, but incredibly dangerous, which is why we now have 35% of this country that refuses to believe that the election was completely fair, that there was no voter fraud, and that Joe Biden, whether you like him or not, won that election, 35% of the country thinks that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. How are you supposed to unite a country like that? But dividing and conquering is the right wings bread and butter. This is what they have engaged in for a very long time.

They love to sell fear. That's what they do when it comes to various disenfranchised groups of people. They like to fear monger about them, and that's how they win elections. If they had anything else to offer, they would focus on that. Instead, they provide this illusion of governing by focusing on fear mongering about the others, fear mongering about the election, fear mongering about how rights are being taken away, guns are being taken away, transgender people are somehow taking your rights way. Just insane, insane fear mongering day and day out.

That is their bread and butter, and they'll continue to do it. And they'll lean into it harder in coming years because that's all they've got. What do you think they're going to do? They're going to try to make your life better. You think they're going to focus on policies that are going to help alleviate some of the economic anxiety that Americans are facing? That would mean they would go against their corporate donors and they got some fundraising to do.

Mo Brooks also released a statement. Kevin McCarthy spoke before knowing the facts, Brooks said, adding that he did not recall McCarthy ever speaking with him directly about his speech. Well, it's probably telling the truth. I would not be surprised of McCarthy was such a coward that he couldn't even get himself to hit Mo Brooks up and have a conversation with him about his rhetoric. Just like a real leader would do, right? Bow his head, take orders like a little boy because all he cares about is his political career.

Alpha males are not back. In fact, the one silver lining of the Trump era is it is abundantly. clear now that all these strong men have always been cowards and they always will be. The only thing that makes it sadder is that Republicans, they will continue to not only maintain their power, but grow their power, because who are the opponents? Democrats. Are they going to save us? So far, I haven't really seen much of that. We got to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about how many red states are moving money out of the public education system into private schools because

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All right, let's get to our next story. This is an issue that I want you guys to be focused on. because this is where I think the next war is at privatizing public education. That is what the right wing has its sights set on. There's currently a nationwide war against public education, and that war is being waged by the right wing. In fact, a new report indicates that there's a new effort to privatize education in several red states, and they're doing so through legislation that would undermine public schools and replace them, with voucher-supported public education.

At the end of the day, the real point here is to cut taxes for the rich, and more importantly, to essentially turn the grade school model into a profitable model, opening this up for all sorts of bad actors to get involved and make a quick buck, and it's going to cost you, it's going to cost your kids when it comes to their education, and we need to strategize to fight back against it. Now, let me give you the details on what's happening. In these times reports that many states are looking to install a new form of vouchers called education savings accounts, ESAs.

Like strategies to empower charter schools and introduce private school tax credits, ESA programs aim to remove local control of taxpayer dollars and redirect them to private interests with as little public oversight as possible, says public education advocate Amy Frog. Now, the end goal for this, again, is this privatization movement, and it's always been about that. When you see these attacks toward public school boards, when you see these attacks against teachers unions, understand that the specific attack that they're leveling against teachers' unions or public schools is not really what this is about. It's about slowly but surely dismantling the public education system and doing so by

manufacturing consent among the electorate, right? You fearmonger about how terrible these schools are, how they're indoctrinating your kids. Oh, wouldn't it be so much better if you had choice? If you had a way of taking your student or taking your kid and putting them in a private school instead, we can support you, we've got vouchers. But as soon as they dismantle the public education system, you think those vouchers are still going to be available for the, you know, underprivileged families that can't afford a private education for their kids? Just try to think two steps ahead and understand that what they're trying to do here is essentially make money off education, but also to keep education an exclusive thing that's only available to their privileged kids. Okay, so if you think inequality is bad now, this will certainly exacerbate it.

At least a dozen states, including Tennessee, have introduced legislation to create ESAs, heralded as the next generation of school choice by school privatization proponents. Instead of a traditional voucher program, which diverts public money to private schools, ESAs grant public money directly to parents. They send the money directly to parents. This maneuver could help avoid challenges due to state level Blaine amendments, which prohibits state money from funding religious schools. So they've found a loophole that allows for public money, this is taxpayer money, to be diverted into religious organizations and religious schools.

And when we talk about private schools, understand that they do not have to abide by certain standards. Private schools can go ahead and teach whatever they want, whereas public schools have oversight, they have certain standards they need to abide by, and if they don't meet those standards, they're going to be problems. That is not the case with private schools. And as you can tell, a lot of these private schools are also religious in nature. Now, it also removes accountability, parents in Arizona, where ESAs were first to pass, were the first to pass in 2011. spent more than $700,000 in ESA funds on purchases unrelated to education between July of 2017 and June of 2018. But if the goal is to blow a hole in the state's education budget,

that misspending may not matter. So let's talk about what this does to public schools as well. Remember, they're taking the funding that these public schools desperately need. They're taking the funding out, they're diverting it to private schools. And remember, private schools also have a profit motive in mind. Oftentimes the money goes toward religious schools. Remember, the government is not supposed to endorse one religion or the other. So funneling that money to religious schools has some issues when it comes to the constitution as well, which is why they're doing it through these ESA programs rather than the voucher program. And when you defund the public schools, what do you think happens to the public school? Does the public school perform as well as it would

if it was funded appropriately? No, the public school starts to fail. If it isn't failing already, because as we know, many of these red states have already defunded public education. So then it allows for the right wing to point to those failing public schools and say, you see, schools are failing, public schools are failing your kids. Of course, they won't take any ownership of the fact that they've led this charge of defunding the school in the first place, but it works every time. Because understandably, these parents want to make sure that their kids are getting the best possible education. When you see the schools failing, you know, most parents don't have time to read about the legislation that defunded these schools. They don't. They've got work to get

to, they've got kids to raise, they're busy. And so it is a perfect strategy by the right wing to defund, dismantle public education, and then just divert public funds to the institutions they favor. Now, there are, it's interesting because these were proposed, this strategy was proposed by right-wing lawmakers in Georgia, but it turns out that they turned this down in Georgia. Why? Well, remember, there are rural parts of the country where there are no private schools. So if they dismantle the public education system. And I have no doubt that they will succeed because the right wing knows how to strategize. They know how to stay united. They know how to work together and orchestrate the messaging necessary to carry out their strategy. So I have no doubt that they'll do this.

But the rural parts of the country that do not have private education available at all, there are no private institutions at all. All they can rely on is public schools. What did the students do there? What happens to those students? Are they just left to figure it out for themselves? Are their parents screwed? What happens? So states like Georgia actually turned down proposals for these, you know, ESA or voucher programs.

But I don't think that's going to stop them for long, okay? And other parts of the country have implemented this, like Tennessee. Now, there's also a clear money-making motive behind this. There's a profit motive. and any time there's a profit motive introduced, what ends up happening? Well, you're going to cut cost to maximize profits, right? You're maybe not going to invest much in ensuring that the students are getting the best possible education if that money can go to the shareholders or if that money can go to the

investors. Now, Amy Frog, who I had quoted earlier, she's the public education advocate, says this. If you can show that the public schools are failing, then there are opportunities to sell so-called solutions. Test prep, charter schools, vouchers, these are the for-profit solutions. In fact, if you look at the kind of technology that charter schools are spending money on, it is really interesting. Because a lot of the people who run those charter schools have these cozy little ties with various companies that provide educational solutions and educational technology. And so the money that ends up getting spent, oftentimes on things that the students don't even need, is pretty insane. Now, lobbyists in Tennessee work for the pro-privatization American Federation for Children.

Let's talk a little bit about who's funding these efforts. Funded by billionaire Betsy DeVos as well as the city fund backed by Netflix CEO Reid Hastings and hedge fund billionaire John Arnold. Hastings is also an investor in rocket ship charter schools, education software company Dreambox Learning, and Khan Academy, which publishes education videos. Bill Gates and the Walton family have also donated millions to education initiatives in Tennessee. So F that guy, okay, you know, when we talk about privatizing education, I know most of the focus is on the right wing people like Betsy DeVos, but let's not make a mistake and assume that the corporate Democrats are not in line with this. In fact, under the Obama administration, there was a pretty

significant push toward charter schools. And the one thing that stands out about charter schools that we should all know about, we should all be wary of, is that they do not employ unionized educators. They want to be able to do whatever they want to cut the costs, you know, not have to deal with certain labor, you know, agreements, labor rules pertaining to union contracts. I mean, that's what this is all about. And what's amazing is educators, even unionized educators, are still not treated well in this country. They're not paid well. Their working conditions are not so great. Oftentimes they need to take money out of their own accounts in order to provide supplies for their students. I mean, you really have to be passionate about being an educator

in America if you want to be a public school teacher. And a lot of people still do it. And these people are heroes. They really are, considering the abuse they deal with. But considering how powerless they are, the fact that the right wing makes them out to be like these nefarious, dangerous, super powerful people blows my mind. And some people fall for it. Time and time again, let's get to some of the other funders. You have Charles Siller, who is a former lobbyist for the conservative Goldwater Institute, who now works in public education advocacy. While gutting the education budget in a state reduces a huge tax liability for the wealthy

and generates business opportunities in for-profit education, according to Siller, there are other insidious reasons that corporations and other wealthy people encourage privatization. Public education creates more opportunities for social mobility, which means a lot more churn and less stability in social and economic class. That's the kind of thing that threatens people who fund these movements, says Siller. And it's what I referred to a little earlier in the show. What is their number one concern? Yes, make profit, pay less in taxes, but also, no, we don't want you to, we just, we don't want you to move up. in your social class.

We don't want you to, you know, we don't really want you to pick yourself up by the bootstraps. We want to make sure that we maintain this system of inequality. That's also part of this equation. ESAs were actually developed by the Goldwater Institute, Siller ads, as a shell game that launders public money through parents. These parents are then presented as the grassroots arm behind school privatization. But in truth, grassroots interests in the movement are negligible.

They don't really need a large grassroots movement. These politicians can enact policy and say they're doing it to give people other options. So finally, where are we seeing this kind of movement toward privatization? Outside of Tennessee, bills to adopt expanded ESAs have been in play this year in a number of states, including Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. By the way, Washington, I don't really think of Washington is a red state, but they're moving toward privatization as well.

And it's terrifying because I think they're going to succeed. The reason why I think they're going to succeed is because the left can't get its act together. Get off Twitter, stop with the infighting, strategize, work together, and figure out a way to counter what we're seeing right now. Because the right wing is winning on every front. They're winning when it comes to privatizing education. They're winning when it comes to taking over all these means of communicating on social media platforms. They're taking over. They control the narrative in many ways. And the reason why they're able to do it is because they think strategically. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket

to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now. And get a free tilly dog. Chili dog, not included. The naked guard. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. They might have some infighting behind the scenes, as we've shown you with Kevin McCarthy and what he's willing to say about members of his own Republican caucus privately.

But publicly, they go out of their way to appear united. And I think that's important because they put strategy and winning above all else. And that pays dividends clearly. Anyway, that took a long time to explain. So apologies for that. There was another story I wanted to get to in this segment, but have no fear. We're gonna take a brief break. And when we come back, I'll talk a little bit about what people have been experiencing

on Twitter with their follow counts. These stories are usually pretty dorky and I roll my eyes at them. But there are some significant shifts. I wanna talk a little bit about it, but it has a hopeful message as well. Stick around, we'll share that story and more. What's up everyone? Welcome back to the show. I've got two stories that I got to squeeze in the first hour before John joins us. So let's get right to it. Let's talk a little bit about what people have been noticing on Twitter. Following the announcement that Elon Musk had struck a deal with the Twitter board to purchase Twitter and make it private, all of a sudden people are noticing some strange shifts in their follower accounts.

Now, let me just preface this by saying that all of the alarmist stuff that you typically see on Twitter about like blacklisting people and, oh, follower accounts. It's like, I usually roll my eyes at those stories because it's, who cares? And it's usually a super dorky, like, argument. But there are some significant shifts here that are alarming people. And while you might think that Elon Musk is behind it, just want to warn you that the deal is going to take months to close. He's not officially in charge of Twitter, but there is something going on. I'm not sure what it is. Let me give you the details.

So it all started with people noticing that they're losing thousands of followers while right wing accounts are actually gaining in some cases hundreds of thousands of followers. So it was like what is going on here? The Twitter account by Carolyn or Bueno explains in detail what people have been noticing and she provides the receipts. So the first tweet is this. I'm looking at follower accounts among influential right wing and left wing Twitter accounts. And it appears that Matt Gates has gained more than 21,000 new followers since yesterday, far more than his daily average of 1,300. Now, you can see the date there.

She tweeted that on April 26th, so the numbers have changed since, meaning he's actually grown his following even more since then. But let me give you more from the thread, because I think that she illustrates what's going on really, really well. Ron DeSantis has gained more than 96,000 new followers since yesterday, nearly 18 times his daily average of 5,406 new followers. Okay, let's pause for a second. There aren't 96,000 people in the country that are like, ooh, in a single day thinking

like, Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, really want to, like 96,000 in one day. Like I don't, no, I'm not buying it. Like either these are fake accounts, there's something weird going on, but let me give you more. Lauren Bobert has gained more than 43,000 followers since yesterday. That's more than 16 times her daily average of 2,600 followers. I don't even believe that she has 2,600 organic, real people followers a day either. But really, 43,000 followers in a single day, new followers in a single day? Okay, Donald Trump Jr. has gained more than 87,000 followers since yesterday.

That's nearly 20 times his daily average of 4,500. Trump War Room has gained nearly 20,000 new followers since yesterday. That's more than 20 times its daily average of 968 new followers. I really appreciate that she shows the daily average, so you can kind of understand how insane this is. Now, Twitter did respond to questions about what's going on, and we'll give you their answer in just a minute. But before we do, why don't we compare it to what's happening to prominent left-wing accounts? Let's take a look at the left side of Twitter now, starting with Rachel Maddow. Who has lost more than 18,000 followers since yesterday?

That's compared to her daily average of 223 new followers. AOC has lost more than 11,000 followers since yesterday. that's compared to her daily average of 468. And then you have Kamala Harris, who lost more than 16,000 followers since yesterday. That's compared to her daily average of adding 5,124 new followers. And I also want to just quickly remind you guys or tell you guys, you might not know, Obama in a single day lost 300,000 followers. So there's a clear difference between right-wing accounts versus left-wing accounts.

I think it might be a coincidence, it's likely a coincidence that this all happened, you know, as soon as Elon Musk was announced to be the new, soon to be new owner of Twitter. And the reason why I say that is because again, like the deal is going to, it takes months to close. It's not like, all right, we struck a deal. And then like literally, immediately after that, he's in charge of everything. It doesn't work out that way. Now, there's something awry, like something is going on. I don't know what it is.

I'm not going to lie and tell you that I know what it. I don't know what it is, but these are the facts, this is what we're noticing. One thing that I do know for sure is that the excuse that Twitter gave makes no sense, and I'll tell you why. So Twitter did release a statement, while we continue to take action on accounts that violate our spam policy, no you don't, which can affect follower accounts, these fluctuations appear to largely be the result of an increase in new account creation and deactivation. Twitter said in a statement. So they argue that all of this is organic, that in a single day,

300,000 people who follow Obama were so disturbed about Elon Musk owning the company that they all deactivated their accounts in a single day. I just don't buy it. I don't believe it. And allegedly in a single day, you have all these prominent right wingers increasing their account significantly because all, like all of a sudden, all these people decided to create Twitter accounts to follow people like Ron DeSantis. I just, I don't believe it. I just don't believe it. Okay. But the reason why I'm bringing this all up is to say, who cares? Who Who cares? Elon Musk buying Twitter, yeah, it sucks. It sucks mostly because he's clearly not an advocate of free speech. He's an advocate of speech he likes. He's an advocate of

speech that he's neutral toward. As we provided evidence yesterday, he is not an advocate of any speech that might hurt his bottom line at Tesla. He has gone after reporters, journalists, bloggers, anyone who's been critical of Tesla. When there were reports on Chinese social media indicating that Tesla was producing cars with faulty brakes, he hit up the Chinese government to try to get them to censor those reports on social media platforms. So look, you don't even have to think he's a bad guy, okay? Take good guy, bad guy out of the equation completely. Just think about everything in terms of incentives and disincentives. People, human nature, you know, the things that motivate humans are incentives and disincentives.

We know this. And for Elon Musk, yeah, he loves speech as long as it's not hurting him. Because his incentive is to maximize profit for his businesses. So I don't believe the free speech argument at all. Like I said yesterday and I'll repeat it again, if you genuinely see Twitter as the public square, a place where free speech absolutely must be protected. The only way to ensure that the First Amendment to our Constitution applies to it, the only way to ensure that the courts would actually intervene to protect your speech is to make

Twitter a public utility, not to privatize it further with allowing one incredibly wealthy person to have complete control over it, or most of the control over it. It just doesn't make any sense. You have no actual protections. At the end of the day, it's a private company that can do whatever it wants. It could ban you, it could block you, it could take your tweets down. And you have no recourse, you have no way of fighting against that because it's a private company. It is not protected or your speech on that platform is not protected by our constitutional rights.

But no one is having a discussion about making it a public utility. Anyway, putting that aside, the reason why I say it doesn't really matter is because Twitter is not representative of the American population. We know this, we've talked about this before. In fact, the majority of Americans are not even active on Twitter in the first place. So while it seems like this is an apocalyptic update, it's the end of the world. We also have to be aware that we live in a little bit of a bubble, especially people who work in the industry I work in. Okay? You know what happens when I don't go on Twitter for a month?

Nothing. My life is great. In fact, my life is better. And what I find myself doing instead of wasting time on Twitter fighting with Randos is I have conversations with people in my community, which is what the left should be focusing on. And to be sure, there are members of the left who are focusing on that, have been focusing on that, and have been organizing their workplaces, they've been canvassing for the local candidates. They want to endorse and support.

they've been putting in work, and I'm talking about real groundwork. And maybe this is a good opportunity for the left to step back and try to figure out what their real priorities are. Is your priority to remain atomized, sitting behind a computer screen all day, fighting with random people who might even be bots on Twitter? Or should your priority be figuring out ways to get in touch with members of your community, members of your workplace, colleagues, co-workers, and figure out how you can organize, figure out how you can strategize and actually implement policies, strategies that accumulate real power.

So let's get into a little bit of the demos here when it comes to Twitter. Hopefully this gives you guys a little bit of hope because I don't think this is the end of the world. Twitter sucked to begin with. It might suck a little more, but who cares? You can get around that by finding other ways to communicate with people face to face, which is far more effective. So who uses Twitter? In February of 2021, it was found that 42% of adults in the United States aged between 18 and 29 use Twitter. So when it comes to young people, we don't even have 50% of them on Twitter.

Most people are not on Twitter. Okay, let me give you more. This age group was the micro blogging services biggest audience in the United States, followed by a 27% usage reach among 30 to 49 year olds. It ain't the end of the world. Look, it could Twitter be used as a positive tool for organizing? Maybe, yeah, might help to get your message out there. But again, I don't think it's the end of the world because a lot of people are not.

not on Twitter in the first place. According to Pew Research in November of 2021, 25% of U.S. adult Twitter users are responsible for 97% of posts in the country. And by the way, we had shared some interesting statistics recently from an Atlantic piece that I think is relevant to what I'm trying to say here, where they write that the furthest to the right, known as the devoted conservatives, comprise 6% of the U.S. population.

The group furthest to the left, the progressive activist, comprised 8% of the population. The progressive activists were by far the most prolific group on social media. 70% had shared political content over the previous year. The devoted conservatives followed at 56%. I give you that because when you look at social media, I think a lot of people are misled into thinking, no, this really is the public square. This is where everyone comes to engage in political discourse. This is it.

This is all we've got. But when you look at the demographics and the percentage of Americans who are active on Twitter, you get a completely different story. So all is not lost. In fact, we could use this as a positive thing. We could use this as an opportunity to, again, really recalibrate our approach, rethink what our priorities are. Stop wasting time fighting random people on social media and figure out ways to really connect with people.

Find that time to actually organize because that is the only thing that I've seen pay dividends in this country so far. All of these workplaces that have organized, all of these strikes that have happened to improve working conditions, to ensure that they get better pay, that's where I see hope in the country. But if we're going to rely on these private own, corporate backed social media platforms to change the world, we've got another thing coming. I mean, Twitter was insanely manipulated to begin with. It probably will be even worse moving forward. But again, it doesn't really matter if you find fruitful strategies to get what you want out of your community, out of your politicians, certainly local politicians. So it's a little

bit of a hopeful message. I think we can win and we can use this as a way to kind of fuel a different strategy that I think is just going to be far more effective. All right, let's move on to one more story. I want to make sure we get to. It's a bit of a local story, but I think that it's indicative of what we see across the country in terms of police coverups and things like that. So let's discuss. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has decided to launch an investigation into a reporter over at the Los Angeles Times for reporting stories that he doesn't like, reporting stories that accuse him of engaging in a cover-up involving one of his deputies using brutality or brutal force against an inmate at a San Fernando Valley detention facility. The reporter, Aline Chekmedian, published an article detailing a legal

claim filed by an officer who accused Sheriff Alex Villanueva of blocking an investigation into the alleged abuse and retaliating against whistleblowers. So there was a commander within in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department named Alan Castageno. And he is the whistleblower in this case. He is the one who provided the evidence to the reporter here. And he's actually pretty open about it. He's obviously not an anonymous whistleblower. And now that whistleblower, along with the reporter, are being targeted by Villanueva with an investigation that is very likely unlawful.

So real good to see law enforcement engage in unlawful. full behavior, including violations of a reporter's constitutional rights. Now, Chekmedian also published security video footage of a police deputy handcuffing the inmate who had punched him in the face. Once the inmate was on the floor, the officer kept his knee on the inmate's head for three minutes. So we're going to get to that video in a moment, but I want to give you some more context so you understand what's going on here. Now, the reporter who covers the sheriff's department broke the story on March 25th that Los Angeles County officials didn't charge the inmate who again punched the cop in the

face because the article said they were worried the deputy's action would generate negative publicity for its resemblance to the murder of George Floyd. Chekmedian's article implicated Sheriff Villanueva as the one directing the cover up. So typically, if you have an inmate who punches a cop in the face, you're going to want to refer that issue to prosecutors so they prosecute the inmate. But they didn't do that. Villanueva, according to the reporting, didn't want to do it because the video of the incident doesn't look so good for the sheriff's deputy. It looks pretty bad. It looks real, real bad.

And I want to get to that now. So I want to give you a warning. It's not easy to look at. It's going to remind you a lot of what happened to George Floyd. In this case, the inmate luckily did not die as a result of the brutal force. But nonetheless, let's take a look at the video and I'll narrate what's going on. All right, so there you see the inmate. Deputy Douglas Johnson ordered one of the men Enzo Escalante to stop and face the wall.

Escalante, of course, is the inmate. Security video obtained by the time shows Johnson walking closely behind Escalante through a hallway before ushering him toward a wall. Escalante turned around and of course punched him in the face multiple times. Johnson and other deputies then took Escalante to the ground, positioning him face down. And this is where you can see Johnson's knee on Escalante's head. And it remained there for three minutes straight. And so the reason why Villanueva allegedly didn't want to refer this to the prosecutors or draw any attention to this or to investigate this is because he wanted to cover up with

one of his deputies did. He didn't want his deputy to get in trouble for kneeling on the head of this inmate. Now look, I'm not in any way, you know, supporting what the inmate did and punching a deputy in the face several times, okay? But it is fascinating that, you know, rather than for immediately taking action after seeing that tape, rather than ensuring that, you know, hey, look, we can't be doing this. Obviously, Derek Chauvin is in a lot of trouble for what he did in murdering George Floyd. He decided, listen, let's not refer this to anyone. Let's not investigate this and brush it under the rug and move on. Let's do that. Okay. So we know about this through the reporting

that the Los Angeles Times did, and how did Villanueva respond to it? He held a press conference where he showed a picture of the Times reporter and talked about how he's launching an investigation against her. Now look, as someone who lives in Los Angeles, I just want to let you guys know, don't worry too much about the Times reporter or this alleged investigation, because we've got sheriff's deputies who refuse to investigate actual violent crimes that are taking place in our our county. So I mean, the idea of using resources to truly investigate a reporter, which by the way is a violation of her constitutional rights, is ridiculous. And I don't

believe him for a second. Via Nueva loves to engage in publicity stunts. And this is a perfect example of that. By the way, Villanueva should probably investigate members of his own department who are accused of being involved in gang activity themselves. But my guess is he probably would cover up for them as well. And by the way, he probably doesn't like the fact that Chech Median is actually very effective in her reporting and called Villanueva out on a specific lie as well. Let's go to graphic four here. Sheriff Villanueva said he learned that the deputy kneeled on handcuffed inmates' head

eight months after it happened. Today, commander filed claim saying Villanueva watched video five days after it happened and covered it up saying, we do not need bad media at this time. Yeah, it's interesting, right? Because rather than looking inward and figuring out what needs to be taken care of within the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, he decided to lash out against the journalist who's just simply doing her job. He decided to lash out against the whistleblower who's, by the way, protected. But that's what you see with people in positions of power in this country,

whether we're talking about the right wing or the left wing. I mean, left wing. Obama was brutal to whistleblowers, as we know. And so during this press conference, again, Villanueva announced that he would be investigating all parties involved. Let me give you a statement in, from that press conference where he said, what she receives illegally and the LA Times uses it, I'm pretty sure that's a huge complex area of law and freedom of the press and all that. Oh, is it? Is it a complex area of freedom of the press and all that? Yeah, I think it is. You can't investigate a journalist for doing her job. That would mean that the government is, you know, retaliating against press, which is against the Constitution. He knows that.

But he continues. However, when it's stolen material at some point, you actually become part of the story. The Los Angeles Times reporter has nothing to worry about here, except for one thing. When you have people in positions of power, whether it be Villanueva, Donald Trump, other members of the Republican Party, targeting someone specifically, showing pictures of the person they're targeting during their press conferences, they might not have to worry about legal repercussions, but they certainly do have to worry about unhinged lunatics coming in. after them. Private citizens who get all worked up coming after them. I am worried about that. And this is a form of intimidation. It's not just about this one reporter at the Los Angeles Times. This is about any reporter who dare cross the L.A. County Sheriff. That's what this is about. It's a form of intimidation. It's meant to hinder or squash any reporting that holds him accountable in his leadership role.

And we see this on a local level, we see this on a national level. It's terrifying because it goes unchecked. We've seen it happen so many times. And what are the consequences? Is Villanueva worried about Democrats in California coming after him for this? Of course not. Because even in a supposed blue utopia like California, it's not. You have weakness in the Democratic Party and they'll just let this kind of garbage stand

knowing full well that Villanueva, who has all sorts of problems within the sheriff's department, including gang affiliations, is violating the constitutional rights of a local reporter at the Los Angeles Times. It's pretty sick. And the executive editor at the Los Angeles Times is saying, we're going to protect her no matter what. I like that Kevin Marita is supporting her. He should absolutely do that and provide any type of security she might need for the time being. But we need to stick together on the left, especially when it comes to people who end up having targets on their backs because they dare to challenge power to speak up against authority.

All right, that does it for the first hour. We are super out of time. But when we come back, John Iderola will be joining me to talk a little bit about Marjorie Taylor Green and her vicious attack against the Catholic Church. What is that about? We've got that story and more. Don't miss it. and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash TYT. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.