The Young Turks - Cenk And AOC Show Who REAL Progressives Are

Episode Date: June 7, 2019

Cenk and AOC are real progressives! Ana Kasparian, Maytha Alhassen, and Nando Vila, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. What's up, everyone. Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm Anna Kasparian. Joining me today are Maita Alhassen and Nando Vila.

Thank you so much for coming in, guys. Thank you for having us. Of course, my pleasure. So as you know, Jank is out of town, but that doesn't stop him from weaseling his way into our show. In fact, he was on Cuomo show last night for the second time in a row. And so we're going to show you some of the highlights from that in just a minute. And we have so many great stories, including a TYT exclusive interview with Representative

Acacio Cortez. Emma is just killing it. She is such a great reporter and she asked some wonderful questions and we have those answers for you also later in the show. But before we get to all of that, look, I'm gonna keep it real with you. I just wanna talk about news. But there's a bunch of stuff that comes along with my job and I'm gonna get a lot of it out of the way right now.

Housekeeping, let's do it. Okay, number one. Ryan Grimm, who is our DC bureau chief at the Intercept or is the DC Bureau Chief at the Intercept and is also a TYT contributor is actually joining TYT on the second hour on Monday, and we'll actually stay for the conversation. He'll be talking about his new book, We've Got People. And if you want to tune in, it's easy to do so. Just do exactly what you're doing right now. Go to tyt.com slash live and check it out.

And also, you can join us for our special LGBT Pride coverage, which will take place on Tuesday, June 11th at 8 p.m. Eastern time. It's gonna be a really great show. If you remember Jason Carter and you miss him, I have good news for you. He's going to be hosting that special and we're gonna have lots of fun festivities in honor of Pride Months, so check that out. There's more good news. As we've talked about over and over again throughout the week, Jank is having a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, and that date is quickly approaching.

So there's the information. It'll take place at Franklin Jr. High, and it will take place on June 8th at 3 p.m. If you want more information, go to tyt.com slash rally. You'll get some more info on who will be there, who will be speaking, and it's super exciting. And finally, Zumo TV, we're on it. TYT is available as one of Zumo TV's premium news offerings. Fun. I look good in that picture. Jake does it. You do. No, I'm just kidding. Jake looks fine. He's talking, obviously. You just switch to channel 142 to watch the damage report and the young Turks live and

get 24-7 programming that includes, oh, this is good, no filter, happy half hour and more. Again, it's channel 142 to catch TYT on Zumo TV. Boom. Cool. Now let's get to the news. You guys ready? The news. All right.

As we've all seen, Donald Trump's immigration policy has been a complete and utter disaster. He has failed over and over again, and he has proven to his base that building that border wall will not be paid for by Mexico, and it wasn't even a priority of his when he had some political capital. Now, what's been frustrating is that no one in the mainstream media is calling it what it is, until Jank Yugar was allowed on cable news, and he called Trump out. Take a look. Why do we have this problem in the first place?

Because Trump said he was going to stop the flow of migration, and instead, what did he? you do. It's gone up 32% on the last month. And it's the most we've had both legal and illegal in 13 years. So Kaylee, I put it to you. Isn't Donald Trump a giant failure on his signature issue? No, he's not a giant failure. And first, I want to correct your fallacy that he puts kids in cages. A lot of those pictures were from the Obama administration. So nice try doesn't work. We have a crisis on our hands. Do you do acknowledge that at least, that we have a crisis when you have one million people set to come in this fiscal year, more than the population of Miami and Atlanta.

So the statistics that she mentioned in the very end were false. And she also lied about the photos featuring kids in cages. Those photos were taken by journalists after Donald Trump implemented his zero tolerance policy. We all know that. But she's Donald Trump's campaign manager. So of course, she's going to go out there and put complete. utter nonsense, actually press secretary for Trump's reelection campaign. Let me be clear about what she does.

Anyway, what do you guys think about that whole exchange? I mean, it's a lot for them to handle truth-telling. And so what do they respond with? It's usually more lies and more lies. Not only did she lie about the photos, you know, there was one revelation that there were images that were taken that resurfaced in the news that are sometimes used as B-roll photos from the children that were trapped during Obama era. Yeah, that happened a little bit, but most of those photos, as you were talking about,

did come from journalists going to the border in Texas, in other places along the southern border doing their job. And we can see them here. They're also being hit by tear gas, which is a violation of Geneva Convention standards in war, not even just a civilian population, but in war. So there are so many tragedies that are going on besides him failing on his signature policy. where people who I'm not a fan of, but people who are part of the Republican base like Ann Coulter have broken ranks with him because she's so disappointed about his failure

to follow through with the wall, to stymie migration as well. Right, and in fact, if you're concerned about U.S. taxpayer money going toward undocumented immigrants, the policies that Trump has implemented actually drains more of our resources because he has this policy of ensuring that everyone is detained rather than allowing people to, you know, maybe wear ankle bracelets and get released until they get their court date. And I'm specifically, of course, referring to individuals who are here seeking asylum. So I want to get your thoughts on the next video, Nando, because McEnany continues on with this notion that Trump has actually been awesome on immigration policy.

Under Obama, we had less undocumented immigrants than we do under Trump. Trump said, oh, I'm going to get tough and I'm such a tough guy and I'm going to separate the families. I'm going to put the kids in this place and the parents and the moms and the other place. I'm so tough. And what do we have? We have more undocumented immigrants, not less. It's a 13 year record. He's a miserable failure on this issue.

So if they voted for him thinking he was going to stop undocumented immigrants, he didn't even do that. And now we have an absolute disaster on our hands because he doesn't know how to address the core issue. Why are they coming in the first place? We have seen a steady incline in illegal immigration, starting under the Obama administration and continuing to now. The only person who has taken any interest in stopping this in the last four decades is President Trump, who secured money for 450 billion, a million miles of the wall. Excuse me, did it work?

It's going to work. It's going to be built the 450 miles by the end of next year. We've just got the funding for this. What if you done? Zero chance it's built by next year. I just, you know, I love the, you know, Trump is freaking out and trying to strong on Mexico into somehow preventing migrants from, yeah, from leaving. I mean, because I remember like, you know, the biggest criticism people had of the Cuban

regime and the Castro regime was that they wouldn't let people leave their country and coming to the United States. But when it's Central Americans, we want them to like build, you know, these sort of police states to keep their people in. I mean, Jack asks the absolute correct question, which is why are they coming in the first place? Yes. And it has nothing to do with border enforcement clearly, because as the border has gotten more

militarized and more violent, people keep coming, it just goes to show just how desperate their situation must be in Central America, especially in Honduras, which is the country that is driving the majority of the migrants through Mexico into the United States in the last year or two. A country that, you know, we supported a military coup in 2009. The party that's been in power on the back of the military coup is privatizing all social services, including education, pensions, all that, like fun stuff. There's huge protests throughout Honduras as a result.

And the social crisis caused by that is what's driving all these people to come over here. So it's, this is like the same story over and over and over again. You know, we screw up a region and then the people want to come over because they're are desperate and poor and fleeing violence, and then we shut the doors. Yeah, it's like if you break your leg and you're an excruciating pain and you're just taking painkillers, but you're not dealing with what the problem is, which is your broken leg. Yeah, and then you're getting addicted to Oxy and then you're dying. Exactly.

So, and we take this approach on pretty much every single issue, including domestic policy. For instance, when it comes to the issue of homelessness, all right, we can go ahead and build shelters, But why are all these people homeless? What's causing the homelessness? Could it be stagnant wages? Could it be the fact that wages haven't kept up with inflation? Could it be the developers are demolishing affordable housing to build these luxury apartments and condos?

Like let's talk about the root of the problem, but we never do that. We only talk about what can we do to alleviate some of the symptoms. Well, because people are obsessed with the simplified narrative of what's actually happening. So the narrative that the conservatives are trying to funnel out is that there are, there are So much migration into the U.S. that they're taking American jobs, and that's why there are depressed wages. That's why the middle class is bottoming out. But there's so much that is very complex about migratory patterns that are not incorporated into

this conversation. Yes, there's an increase right now in terms of migration stemming into the U.S. from other places in Central America. But Business Insider, just a week ago, reported that there's actually more Mexicans from the U.S. migrating back to Mexico. Oh, let me just tell you. This is something that I've been trying to, I've been yelling from the rooftops about, in fact, on CNN, the one and only time I was allowed on reliable sources.

Yeah, there is actually more Mexican immigrants leaving the United States than coming in. And as Nando pointed out, the majority of the migration is coming from these Central American countries that are fleeing violence. These are people who are desperate, so desperate that they're willing to risk their own lives, not just through the journey, but through the brutality that people are now experiencing at the border, at the hands of our immigration, you know, our border patrol agents. Now with that said, I want to go to the final video, and I love what Jake brings up here. Take a look.

Just last week, we had a six-month-old child who was taken across the Rio Grande River by a 55-year-old man who was not her father. Why? Because we have the TVPRA, which incentivizes is crossing with a child because you are allowed to stay in this country. That is a rule change that should be addressed. Of course it should. We must have a wall. Do you care about the 70,000 Americans who die of drug overdose, much of which crosses our southern border?

First of all, in the drug overdoses, it's largely oxycontin and heroin that's causing it. Those are the giant drug companies giving Donald Trump tons of money to pretend that it's Mexicans that are the problem when it's people in suits who pay off Republican Party one day after another after another and they make billions of dollars off of oxy content and you know that. And Trump said he was going to stop it and that was another lie. He didn't do that either, okay? And in terms of the kids coming from Guatemala, et cetera, do you think about those parents, how desperate they have to be to put those kids on that perilous track? And they do it anyway because the conditions are such deplorable situation. Part of the reason for that is our stupid

drug war that created total chaos in those Latin American countries, and that's a complete and utter failure. That's also on you. All right. I love how they pretend, and I'm specifically referring to Machinini here, that they care about the violence that they might face, the migrants might face at the hands of smugglers. You don't care. I mean, we have Border Patrol agents who literally go out there and they destroy, you know,

humanitarian efforts to leave food and water for these migrants, so they don't die. as they're trying to flee violence in their countries and find safety here in the United States. I mean, you really care about what the smugglers are doing? First of all, I mean, I genuinely do care, which is why it's important to have a better system put in place. So these people, first of all, again, root of the problem. Why are they fleeing?

And what can we as Americans do to help, you know, solve that problem? And secondly, if you care about these people's lives, why are you putting them in cages? You're ripping the kids away from their parents with the zero tolerance policy, which Trump had to abandon because it was so controversial. I mean, they don't care about these people's lives. And I'm so fed up with the disingenuous, oh, but what about these kids? What about these people? You don't care about these people.

And I love that Jenk brought up the issue of drugs, because that is another talking point that we see from the Trump administration over and over again. Oh, the drug smuggling, the drug smuggling. We have the drug smugglers here in the United States. And as Jenks says, they wear suits. Yeah, ending the war on drugs tomorrow would be the best way to curb, you know, unauthorized immigration from Central America and to the United States, right? You know, the demand for drugs in the United States has remained stagnant despite the efforts

of the drug war. Drugs are pure, more cheap than ever before, despite the efforts of the United States drug war. All it's done is create violence and misery in the drug. in the countries that are in the root of the drug smugglers. So that only creates more conditions for migrants to come. It doesn't address the problem of drugs. Drugs are just, I mean, I don't know, you want drugs, I can get you drugs today. You know, like it's not that hard.

It hasn't changed one bit. The only thing it's caused is all kinds of death, misery, and violence in Central America, which is leading to the migrant crisis we face now. Yeah, and the other thing that they're pretending about is that they care about people who are dying from drugs, right? They care when it enters white suburban households. That's when they care. A little bit.

A little bit. A little bit. A little bit to elevate it to a national emergency and to find alternative paths that don't include law enforcement, which was a stark, stark divergence from the Nixon administration calling it a war on drugs very intentionally to seize and attack the black community and to seize and attack anybody outside, including Central America. But also got kicked up with the Reagan administration as well. And we know the disastrous effects and we know the way that the media was also complicit

in elevating that narrative. And so they don't care and they're a part of it. And I love that Jenk pointed out that it is the guys from Big Pharma who are price gouging you all just so that they can have more expensive drugs to line their pockets and people get addicted. And they look for cheaper sources that are more dangerous and not. monitored by doctors. And just going back to the root of the problem and how we tend to only try to fix things

by alleviating symptoms, look, we're already creating a new root of the problem. And it is our inaction with climate change. What is the United States gonna do? What is the government gonna do when people are displaced? Massive amounts of people are gonna be displaced from their homes because the conditions in their countries will be unlivable because of what we're doing with climate change, or inaction, I should say, with climate change. So that's gonna be a huge issue, and the Trump administration is certainly contributing to that issue.

All right, we gotta take a break, but when we come back, we will have Emma's interview with Alexandria Acosio-Cortez, and by the way, for those of you who are curious about the rally that Jank is going to have in Iowa, we're about to toss to a video where Jank explains it in a little more detail. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional

wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school.

For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must not learn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. See you in a bit. Welcome back to TYT.

I have some member comments for you guys. Nando, I feel like you're gonna like this one. What am I, no. I'm scared. No, you're gonna like it. Eurofile 67 says, this has nothing to do with news, but Nando is a dream boat. Uh-oh, uh-oh, all right, Gabby Marito. I never got Dreamboat.

Never? I never got Dreamboat. You usually say Dreamboat to men. To men. Women don't usually get Dreamboat if you like, they get like other stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if TYT ungendered words like that. Like Dreamboat? Yeah.

Okay. Gabby Marita says if you want to find undocumented immigrants, you don't even need to go to the border. Just head over to any Trump property and you'll find plenty. Zinger. Definitely. Yes. Crazy Hawaiian says, I miss Johnny Pie. I hope he's having a great vacation, though.

It appears he is having a great vacation. Because like which vacation isn't a great vacation? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then let's see, eclectic miscellania. Since we're so worried about drugs coming over the border and the violence associated with the illegal drug trade, Trump is going to fully support legalization of marijuana nationwide, right? I doubt it. And a few TYT lives, Zappa fan says, is that- I love Zappa fan too.

Yeah? Yeah, love Zappa. Nice. Is Anna Kasparian's tribute to Mariguana the shirt she's wearing? No, I don't, I wouldn't tribute, but thanks. And Jeff Waldorf, Republicans never want to talk about causes because they would never have to admit their policies are absolute failures. Absolutely. And it's so nice to see someone actually get confronted about that on TV, because you never see that.

You never see that. No. Yeah. All right, let's move on to Emma and her bomb interview with AOC. I don't know where bomb came from, it just happened. All right. Who says bomb? It's like 2001.

I do. I do. It's the bomb. It's the bomb. Okay. Our very own Emma Bigland had a sit down interview with Representative Acacio Cortez and looks like there's a little bit of breaking news here, Accio Cortez made it pretty clear. that there is one candidate that she will not endorse.

Take a look. I'm going to put my mainstream media hat on for a second. I know you're not going to endorse right now, and you're holding off. But what kind of presidential candidate would you want to endorse? What kind of values, what kind of policy positions would be in the forefront of your mind? Listen, I think we need a progressive president. I think a progressive president can A, beat Trump as much as people think that that's not possible. I think it's the only way, I really believe the only way that we're going to be able to beat

this president is with a progressive candidate. So we need candidates that are committed to Medicare for All, to tuition-free public colleges and universities. We need a candidate that is dedicated to passing at least a $15 minimum wage, ideally one that's pegged to inflation. We need, I mean, there's so much that we need in a progressive candidate, and we need one that isn't bought by corporations. I mean, I think that's the huge thing.

We need one that isn't beholden to Wall Street. And that to me narrows the field significantly from the 20 odd people that are in there right now. It's no secret that I kind of called for eliminations last week. So she will not be endorsing Joe Biden. I think that's pretty clear. In fact, it's even more clear once you watch the next video. That's how you define progressive.

That's how I would define progressive, but then Joe Biden goes, I'm the most progressive candidate in the race. I have the most progressive record. It's just patently- Right, right. And I think record is important because it shows a consistency in values and beliefs, but the term progressive is getting hijacked so much that people just think it means Democrat now. And not all Democrats are progressive, and I'm sorry, but if you're going to come out, and saying that you support the Hyde Amendment, which prevents us from funding clinics like

Planned Parenthood, that's not progressive. That's not a progressive position. And you know what? If your pride is being a moderate centrist candidate, then go out and say that. Say I'm proud to be a centrist. I'm proud to be funded by Wall Street. I'm proud to not push as hard as I can on women's rights. Say it, own it, be it.

But don't kind of come out here and then say you're a progressive candidate, but at the same time, not support repealing something as basic as the Hyde Amendment. So I wanna just quickly give you some information about what's happening with the Hyde Amendment and what Democrats are currently doing. There is a bill in Congress right now known as the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage and Health Insurance, and it's the, you can shorten it for each woman. And the legislation has a ton of co-sponsors, including Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar.

I mean, we're talking about people who aren't progressives, but whatever, at least they're signing on to this. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Eric Swalwell, and Seth Moulton. Man, there are some names in here where I'm like, heavy hitter. Heavy hitters, Seth Moulton. Yeah, in other words, almost every serving member, every currently serving member of Congress who's running for president with the exception of Michael Bennett, Tulsi Gabbard, and Tim Ryan. So I think that the Hyde Amendment is a really interesting issue that's being tackled right now.

I'm glad it's being discussed. But I wanted to just give you that information and then also get your thoughts on what she had to say there. I thought one of the most interesting things she brought up was the term progressive is getting hijacked. What are your thoughts? Well, I mean, I guess in a way that's progress, right? Because for a long time, I mean, you know, in the late 90s, early 2000s, Democrats ran away from that kind of label. They ran away from, you know, the word liberal or the word progressive.

You know, they said other things that, you know, I'm strong or I'm blah, blah, blah, whatever. So in a way, in some sort of twisted ways of progress that Joe, a guy like Joe Biden, who, you know, in 1995 would have absolutely been like, I'm not a liberal, is now being, you know, feels that he needs to embrace that term. So I guess it's foggaret. Does anyone believe him? No. No, of course.

You don't believe. Especially when he talks about climate change and says, I want to take a middle ground approach. Middle ground, too. You know, we're only going to sacrifice Bangladesh. We can go, we can just get rid of Bangladesh. Yeah, who cares about it. Middle ground. We're going to save Miami.

Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, sorry Puerto Rico, right, exactly. I love that she did focus on I want the most progressive person to win versus a conversation that we see now that is very much out in the media trying to support Biden's run, which is electability. Right. And so she is opposing this idea that the progressive person is not electable.

And it's really ironic to hear this from the Democratic camp, because guess who wasn't electable was Trump? Trump all the way in the primaries was a laughing stock. And then he made it through the primaries. And then it was inevitable that he was going to lose because he wasn't electable. Yeah, he didn't, he lost by 3 million votes. But I think the thing that we don't understand is there was a strategy and the strategy was winning the electoral college.

And so I think this is what AOC is pointing to is that we can think about progressivism and looking at true progressives as a package strategy of addressing student loans, as addressing healthcare as addressing everything that most Americans care about. And you know, we're gonna talk about Elizabeth Warren later. I think she also emphasizes not only strategy but grassroots movement work that needs to be done. And that's usually at the heart of progressivism is to be and have to be in a grassroots space and have your ear to the ground. Exactly, yes.

And you know, just going back to the issue of, you know, progressivism and electability, the conventional wisdom would tell you that if you are a progressive, you are not as electable, right? That's what we keep hearing over and over again. But if that's really the case, why is it that we keep hearing centrist Democrats refer to themselves as progressives? With the exception of Amy Klobuchar and Hickenlooper, everyone else seems to want to take on that label. Well, why?

Why would you do that if progressives are not electable? Yeah, and it's not like the Klobuchar and Hickenlooper campaigns are catching fire. Their latest polling, I think, is at or near 1 or 0%. Listen, the most progressive president, arguably in the history of the United States, was a guy named FDR. FDR won four elections. Americans would have elected in president for life had he not died after his fourth election win. So this idea that you have to be this kind of like amorphous centrist candidate to win elections

is just completely bonkers and a historical. Well, let's move on to a different topic that they discussed in this interview. Recently, Ted Cruz bragged about the fact that he was working with Representative Ocasio Cortez on the issue of politicians who later become lobbyists. So he says that they want to pass regulations that would essentially restrict that from happening in the future. But AOC didn't really speak too much about it until now. In an interview with our very own Emma Viglin, she answered questions.

about it, here's what she had to say. Our legislative teams are meeting, so we're gonna see how far we can push this. This whole conversation started by finding out that the vast majority of members that left their seats last year have gone on to lobbying. But what we found is that out of all of those members, only two are actual registered lobbyists. So the real question here that we're trying to kind of figure out in this collaboration is is how far he's willing to go.

Is this just about the letter of the law, or is he serious about really banning lobbying in spirit? Okay, thoughts. Yeah, I mean, I don't believe Ted Cruz cares about this issue at all. I mean, the issue of lobbyists is obviously very unpopular, whether you're a Republican voter or a Democratic voter. Nobody likes the idea of lobbyists going to Washington and influencing their politicians. So Ted Cruz is definitely grandstanding here.

He doesn't actually want to fix the issue. That little caveat of that only two of them registered as lobbyists is the key, because what they do is they peddle their influence in other ways. For example, our good friend, friend of the show, Rahm Emanuel just took a job on Wall Street this week. Yeah. By the way, not a good friend. Yeah, exactly.

No, he doesn't watch all the time? I don't know if he watches, but we're not very friendly to him, so definitely not a friend of the show. But I do want to go to the next clip. She elaborates a little more on this possible relationship on doing something about politicians lobbying. Take a look. It's super bizarre, really weird, never thought in my life that one of my first pushes would be alongside

Ted Cruz. Right. But I think it really shows what the true spirit of not being partisan is. And that bipartisanship doesn't mean let's come together to go to war and lower taxes on the rich. But bipartisanship means, okay, I will swallow all of my distaste in this situation because we have found a common interest. I love the distinction she made there because bipartisanship isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Usually when I hear bipartisanship from some Democrats, it's a huge red flag. It usually indicates there's some pretty terrible legislation coming. But when it comes to a specific issue like this, when it comes to corruption in our political system, bipartisanship does make sense because as you mentioned Nando, when it comes to voters, when it comes to the electorate, there is frustration and anger on both sides. And they want real action. So I'm willing to support this type of bipartisanship. But in any other issue, whether it's fixing our healthcare system or tax cuts, anything

that involves the welfare reform issue, I don't want by partisanship. Because you know where Republicans stand and you know that they are unwilling to concede or bend at all. Right, right, or trying to slip in some sort of amendment within the legislation. I love that she's being really transparent about the process with her constituency and with viewers and saying, you know what, we're talking to him, we're talking to his team, we're vetting him out to see if there is a genuine interest in being involved. in anti-lobbyist bills or some sort of movement in Congress and in Senate to really attack

this issue. And I think it's prime right now because, you know, we see people like Manafort and Roger Stone, who were part of this carousel of people entering the government, working on the outside to influence other campaigns and do PR work, and even also work in other countries. And that's where they get, you know, kind of, in trouble. Yeah, some legal trouble, you know, Manafort and Ukraine and whatnot. But I think that if they can tie it into an overall narrative of concern, that, you know, that Cruz could be concerned of those sort of examples too, then I would find that they are both

genuinely working together. But again, like Cruz is a really hard one for me. He's just very, he's a little weasley. He's super weasley. And he, I think he sees the, like the name power behind someone like AOC, and he knows that he's unpopular, he knows that he just barely won his relationship. That's what I was just gonna, that's what I was just gonna ask, do you think that because he just barely won that he's looking for strategies to make himself a little bit more popular?

Absolutely, okay. 100%. Well, he's been out of the news for a while, and this is like a good way to like just, AOC is a great way to get back in the headlines. Well yeah, and Beto's in the news because he's running. So who knows if, you know, Beto doesn't win? And then he runs again for the same Senate position that, you know, Cruz is going to lose it. Right, exactly.

And by the way, I mean, this corruption is not a new issue. This has been around and all of a sudden Cruz cares about it. All of a sudden Cruz actually wants to focus on legislation to do something about it. It just, I don't trust him. I'm just being clear on that. But with that said, I do trust AOC and I do trust that she, you know, is going to work with him with one goal in mind. And if he tries to exploit her for personal gain and isn't genuine about this legislation, I think she's smart enough to get herself out of it and not develop any type of relationship

here. This was an issue that, like, in the early 2000s, there were a significant chunk of Republicans that were sincere, kind of anti-corruption Republicans. There was the McCain-Feingold bill, I think it was 2004, was a pretty genuine attempt to get money out of politics and had some Republican backing. Ever since then, ever since Citizens United, ever since Mitch McConnell has become the head of the Republican Party in the Senate, there's so much money sloshing around, so much dark money sloshing around from the Koch brothers and from, you know, Gulf states and things

like that, that I mean, as soon as like any Republican kind of tries to speak about this, I'm sure that they're putting the squeeze on behind the scenes in a big way. Well, we're gonna take a break. And when we come back, we have some more AOC related news. She actually grilled an official at the FBI over their handling of white nationalist extremism here in the U.S., and Rashida Talib is also involved in that story. Her heartbreaking transparency in that hearing is incredible. So we have that story for you and more when we read.

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reporting independent media become a member at t yt.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. Welcome back to TYT. We're going to get right into the next story. The House Oversight Subcommittee had a hearing with the FBI's assistant director of counterterrorism. And during this hearing, AOC asked a question that many on the left have been wondering. Are white terrorists being treated differently by the FBI than Muslim terrorists? And do white extremists even get the label of terrorists after they commit serious crimes, including shooting up a black church or shooting up a synagogue?

Well, here is AOC's opportunity to ask a member of the FBI. And I love this line of questioning. Take a look. We've seen white supremacist attacks that were clearly domestic terrorism. experts. In fact, the acting AG, Jeff Sessions even called some of these instance domestic terrorism is an incident. The Emanuel AME church shooting of black Americans in Charleston and the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh of Jewish people, that those were only designated and charged as hate crimes, not domestic terrorist incidents. Mr. McGarity, why did the FBI

I not believe that these incidents were domestic terrorist incidents? That's not correct. I don't know who told you that we didn't, but we certainly had cases open on them in both those cases. But the actual charge, was it was the actual charge domestic terrorism? You're not going to find an actual charge of domestic terrorism out there. If you look at Title 18, right? If you're looking for it. Well, it says here, but at the San Bernardino shooting or the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting,

they were designated and charged as domestic terrorist incidents. So she's right, and what you're about to hear from Michael McGarrity is a lie, and she calls him out later on Twitter. But look, we've seen this over and over again, and it's just regurgitated in the mainstream media. Like, the mainstream media also exacerbates this issue by immediately referring to one group as terrorists, and it's fine. I mean, if someone carries out these acts of violence, whether they're Muslim or their

white and non-Muslim, it's terrorism. You should call it what it is. But for some reason, there is this double standard where the white perpetrators of very similar crimes do not get the same label and they get prosecuted very differently. But with that said, let's take a look at what McGarrity has to say in response to AOC's questions. Doesn't it seem that because the perpetrator is Muslim, that the designation would say it's a foreign organization?

That's not correct. If you, that is not correct. Okay. Can you explain why? Homegrown bond extremists who we are most of the people we arrest in the United States. Homegrown bond extremists, self-radicalized, born in the U.S. Doesn't matter what religion. But the Orlando Pulse Club shooter meets those qualifications.

And he is, you're implying. It worked as an international terrorist. He was following under the definition. But he was homegrown and self-radicalized. How we work. Homegrown, Von extremist cases. under the global jihad, we worked under international terrorism. That is correct.

Is white supremacy not a global issue? It is a global issue. So why are they not charged with foreign? Because the United States Congress doesn't have a statute for us for domestic terrorism like we do on a foreign terrorist organization like ISIS, al-Qaeda al-Shabaab. So in the United States, the KKK is not designated as a terrorist group, even though it is organized group and they have a very clear message, they have a very clear agenda. And AOC did call McGarity out on Twitter.

She says this hearing was wild and she also shared a video of the hearing. First the FBI witness tried to say I was wrong, I tried to be generous and give the benefit of the doubt, but then we checked, I wasn't wrong, okay? Violence by Muslims is routinely treated as terrorism, white supremacist violence isn't, neo-Nazis are getting off the hook. So, someone's calling it what it is, and it's rare, we don't see this often. It's really nice to see someone actually fighting for what's right in Congress. Matha, do you want to jump in?

Yeah, there's so much here that is political that we have to pull the veil behind to expose it. So in October 2006, the FBI released a bulletin that literally the title is white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement. Now subsequently, so many other outlets like The Intercept, even PBS, have reported on this story. So the FBI then with DHS goes on to produce a joint assessment that they delivered to Congress about the growing threat of white supremacists in our law enforcement and even LA Sheriff's Department

formed a neo-Nazi gang, right? So in 1991, clear examples. There was so much pushback from the Tea Party that was nascent at this moment, but really growing strong across the nation in terms of their vigor for trying to oppose the Obama administration, that the secretary of DHS ended up disavowing that report. That's right. And so this is where we are, because we didn't take it seriously, and because we were too concerned with pacifying the outrage of right-wing extremists, we decided to not follow through

on credible threats. And you know what, white supremacist, Christian fundamentalists, right-wing extremists, make up and constitute the majority of domestic homegrown. own terrorism. And I love that she is pointing that out here and globally. So it should not be disconnected. And I do wanna also add that the Obama administration produced a allocated money for something called countering violent extremism that was targeted only towards the Muslim community because

they were afraid of Muslim community in the US radicalizing themselves. Now again, how many stories have we heard of that? And most of the stories of quote unquote radicalizing the Muslim community, and I hate that language have almost always turned up to be cases of entrapment that were for political ends like Chris Christie running on a case of entrapment to get reelected as governor of New Jersey. So I have a lot to say about this, but we don't have that much time and I don't want to take up too much. No, go ahead.

Yeah. Do you have more say? Well, I mean, I do want to say too that we also, again, terrorism and this idea of terror laws are very politicized. Back in 1927, there was a revolt in Austria. It was a put down of a labor strike and 89 people killed, that's when the first anti-terror laws were put on the books in a nation state. And that was to suppress any action against the state or that they felt would be, would oppose

whatever state action was, or the state in general. So we have to understand what is constituted as terror and what isn't, and law enforcement being heavily filled with white supremacist is a part of the state. Yeah. I've said it before on here, I think that, you know, terrorism has become a word that is like a catch-all word. Yeah, well, it just means violence perpetrated by Muslims, and it's a political term that is used with the intent to suspend these Muslim alleged criminals, civil liberties.

So I think it's, but the thing that I would want to say is that while we have to recognize this double standard, I think that it would be a mistake to now treat, say, quote unquote, white terrorism with the same, the same way we treat Muslim terrorism. We should treat, quote unquote, Muslim terrorism the same way we treat white terrorism. Does that make sense? Like we shouldn't now suspend the civil liberties of, you know, the white terrorists. That doesn't make sense. We shouldn't, like, throw them in Guantanamo for, you know, forever without any charge,

you know, all that stuff. Like the things that we do to Muslims routinely, bomb their countries, throw them in Guantanamo, rendition, all that stuff that we do, justified in the name of fighting terrorism, is a huge problem that we should stop doing. Right, I agree. We should expand the net to include other people. Yeah, definitely. And look, we gotta move on, but I agree with you in that, you know, it's important.

We've moved so far away from understanding and wanting to protect the civil liberties of humans, right? And because we've seen that happen to the Muslim community, I am certainly not advocating that that happens to the white community or any other community. But I do think that if we're going to prosecute individuals under this, you know, label of terrorism, you can't do it for one group of people and then simultaneously avoid using that type of, you know, prosecution for a different group of people. There is a definition for terrorism.

If a white individual falls under that definition based on the actions that they've taken, the violent actions that they've taken, they shouldn't be. treated with kid gloves, you know, especially in comparison to how people of color are treated in this country, specifically Muslims. All right, but with that said, I do want to move on to one other component of this story that really caught my attention. During a House Oversight Subcommittee meeting with an FBI official, Congresswoman Rashida Talib brought up the issue of death threats and how she has been targeted specifically

because of her Muslim background. And this video was really difficult to watch as a woman who knows what it's like to constantly be attacked and deal with specific threats of violence. And just the inaction that we've seen on a federal level, the inaction that we've seen with the FBI is really frustrating. And here she is kind of calling that out during the hearing. Take a look. I've been in office for about six months.

And when you get something like this attention, Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and ragheads, Rashida Tlebe, and Alhan Omar, I was totally excited and pleased when I heard about 49 Muslims were killed in many. Many more were wanted in New Zealand. Let's hope and pray that it continues. continues here in the good old USA, the only good Muslim is a dead one. How is that enough, not enough, to fall under domestic terrorism if they're targeting solely based on my faith and others in saying that a good Muslim is a dead one, obviously directed

to me. By the way, they copied in this threat to my office. They copied the U.S. Department of Justice, the President, Department of Homeland Security, and so forth. And we get so many of them, And I keep asking, what happens? What happens to these individuals? Are they, you know, I want, I'm being sincere. I'm not trying to, I'm really sincere. I'm a mother. So I want to go home to my two boys.

The FBI official that she's speaking to is Michael McGarity. He is the assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division. So he is the exact person that you'd want to ask these questions to. And I give her a lot of credit because it takes a lot of courage to call these people out and put yourself out there, especially when you're in a very vulnerable state. But I think a lot of people in this country right now can relate to what she just said. Knowing that you're a target of violence, watching all of these hate crimes happen, and feeling like there's no real justice.

Right, right. And as an Arab Muslim, this also hits really close to home, hearing her and hearing so many stories of my fellow colleagues that are just unbelievably identical. When I was interning for a congressman, literally when 9-11 had happened from September 2001 to December 2001, the threat of anthrax was in the office. So the mail had to be processed in another room. I remember another constituent calling in and finding out about my Arab Muslim background and accusing me of potentially about to send anthrax to her.

Wow. And lo and behold, what do we find out? It was white men who were behind it, and the first thing that we thought on our minds was that Muslims and Arabs were behind this. And so there was an aggressive attack, there were Patriot acts that were passed. And again, we find time and time again that the real threat is not being addressed. And we have to go on, and women like Rashida Taleb and AOC and Ilhan Omar are going to be the recipients of these death threats.

And it's remarkable to even think that they've been there for six months. because it seems like they've done so much more to elevate narratives that were so long suppressed, and I'm just really concerned of how they're going to be protected. So let's take a look at how McGarity responded to Leap's questions. So first, my empathy. I'm in charge of domestic terrorism and international terrorism. I don't differentiate either when the threat comes in, nor does the FBI. We work them both the same.

I appreciate that, and I hear that throughout your testimony is very consistent, Mr. But how come we don't have enough tools right now to pull these people in because this is a format? And you can see there's a pattern. Well, there's two parts of that. So I can tell you the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, we are working hard, as we said earlier. We are working hard. If there's another statute that you think is needed, come talk to the Department of Justice. Absolutely.

I mean, I think they've said that during the last testimony back in May. Yeah, go talk to the Department of Justice. You know, with William Barr's leadership, I'm sure that'll be great. I'm sure that they're really going to do something about this immediately. There are no answers because this country has really failed in protecting certain groups of people. In fact, this administration has made a point to avoid protecting certain groups of people and demonize and antagonize certain groups of people simultaneously. So it's just, it's, we need better, we need better, we need to elect the right.

leadership in this country, because we're not seeing it with the Trump administration. We haven't seen it with previous Democratic administrations, and so we can't have more of the same. That's my only answer to this. Yeah, I mean, especially, it's fascinating to see this testimony from a guy at the FBI. I mean, the FBI was, you know, built by a guy named Jay Edgar Hoover, who was in power for decades, who more or less built the, the bureau as an instrument to suppress, uh, domestic dissidents, most of them, black, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Muslim,

through all kinds of underhanded tactics. It continues right on to this day. They're surveilling Black Lives Matter groups, they're entrapping young Muslim kids. It's just the FBI is such a profoundly corrupt organization at its very core, from the very beginning, that it's It's just, it's almost impossible to imagine them sort of behaving in any way that it would be anything close to being just. We got to move on to a story that I, like, we're going to go over a little bit, but we have to cover the story and switch gears because I'm curious to hear what you have to say about

it. So a little bit of foreign policy news. The Washington Post, the Washington Post obtained audio, and it's secretly recorded audio of Mike Pompeo talking about his proposed regime change war in Venezuela. Now the mainstream media hasn't been covering what's going on in Venezuela much, but the quotes that I'm about to read you from this leaked audio gives you a sense of where Pompeo's head is at and the issues that he sees as issues that he thinks need to be manipulated further in order to push for this regime

change war. He says, quote, our conundrum, which is to keep the opposition, which means opposition to Maduro united, has proven devilishly difficult. The moment Maduro leaves, everybody's going to raise their hand and say, take me, I'm the next president of Venezuela. It would be 40 plus people who believe they're the rightful heir to Maduro. So he sees that as the issue, right? Like we need to unify the opposition in order to get Maduro out.

He continues to say, we were trying to support various religious institutions to get the opposition to come together. So let's get religion involved to see if we can get some unity with the opposition. Well, there's more. He expressed regret that during the failed April 30th bid to incite a military uprising, competing Interests among Maduro's enemies and rivals prevented the socialist dictator's swift exit. Now that is not a quote from Maduro. That is what the Washington Post wrote, but that's what he's frustrated about, that there

was a failed military coup that the United States was behind. So let's be absolutely clear, the United States was behind that military coup, and part of the reason why it failed, according to Pompeo, is because the opposition would not unite. And now let me give you more from what Mike Pompeo said in that recording. You should know Maduro is mostly surrounded by Cubans. He doesn't trust Venezuela's a lick. I don't blame him, he shouldn't. Jesus Christ, they were all plotting against him, sadly they were all plotting for themselves.

No, what's sad is that you're plotting for yourself, right? That's what's sad, that the United States is so interested in the profit motive, in the potential business interests that they don't care about what happens to Venezuelans. They don't care what Venezuelans want. Look, I get that there are issues with Maduro. I am not taking away from that. But at the same time, it is up to the Venezuelans to do what they think is right for them, not to have the United States get involved so they can go ahead and take advantage of the

oil and the business opportunities in the country. I have a little bit more. Cubans are at the heart of the economic woes in Venezuela. I think we've got to find a way to disconnect them from Venezuela. We're working our tail off to try to deliver that. Again, this is a quote from Mike Pompeo. And they did that. They enforced harsher restrictions against Cuba and any Americans visiting Cuba.

I just love the idea that Cuba, which is a tiny, poor island nation, is somehow thwarting the plans of the mightiest empire in the history of mankind in the United States. It's kind of hilarious that they would actually believe any of that. The situation in Venezuela is catastrophic, but also farcical. Like, if it wasn't so sad, it would be hilarious. Like, you could write, like, a funny VEP episode about it or something. The opposition is divided for a very simple reason. And that's that the, forever, the opposition to Chavismo in Venezuela has been driven by the tiny, ultra-rich white elite, which exists in Venezuela.

like it exists in every single Latin American country. That, the leader of that opposition was a guy named Leopoldo Lopez. And recently there was a big article in the New Yorker about Venezuela, and there was a great quote from a U.S. official in which they said that like, you know, we couldn't use Leopoldo Lopez as the face of this new opposition. We had to use Juan Guaido because Leopoldo Lopez looks like he's a member of the Caracas Polo Club, which he probably is. And so now that now that there are this big economic crisis in Venezuela, there has been defectors from Chavismo from Maduro into the opposition, but they're mostly middle class. But they don't trust these people either. Right.

You know, they don't trust the sort of oligarchs that terrorize Venezuela, you know, for hundreds of years. So that's the fundamental reason why the opposition is divided. And they basically played this administration, the opposition, they've oversold their own support internally and with the military. So the United States keeps on biting, keeps on sort of trusting these people in like, oh, not Now it's gonna happen, now it's gonna happen, and what they realize is that they don't have any support from the military and they don't really have as much support on the streets as the media will like to tell you. And if this wasn't terrifying enough, and I'm specifically referring to Mike Pompeo's comments, he also says this, Maduro's departure is important and necessary, but completely insufficient, which gives you a sense that the United States is interested in more than a regime change war in Venezuela.

Yeah, and they also haven't set up for what they actually want to do. And I think this is also a classic case of American exceptionalism, which is that the US has no morals it has to abide by when overseeing their interests. And so what's insufficient is the pipeline that they need, and I'm talking figuratively, directly into their financial interests in Venezuela that will be so secure that there will be no sort of overthrow to a Guido presidency. So that again is not a guarantee for them. So they're sitting and twiddling their thumbs when something that they came up with,

which clearly was in the works within Defense Department ranks for years, but now something they want to seize on, it's been thought of in a short period of time, and they thought that they could do it. But clearly they underestimated the will of people. That's right. They underestimated the opposition in terms of somebody that they thought was popular because he was supported by leaders of countries and not necessarily people. within Venezuela, they underestimated how much American imperial military might doesn't always win.

Right, and Pompeo also said that he was confident that Maduro would eventually be forced out, but I couldn't tell you the timing, he says, in the recording. So keep in mind that you have John Bolton with his site set on Iran and a potential war with Iran. You have Mike Pompeo with his sights set on a regime change war in Venezuela. And this is exactly the reason why, in addition to a host of terrible domestic policies, we need to get these people elected out, right? I mean, of course we didn't elect Pompeo and Bolton, but I'm talking about the Trump

administration, we need to elect about. If you care about stopping regime change wars, Trump's got to get out. And I'm just happy that they've failed so far. It's been a, I mean, I honestly was, I thought it was 50-50 that they were, that they were gonna, you know, maybe do something rash and do some sort of military intervention, which would be absolutely disastrous. I mean, the Venezuelan military is very large. The Venezuelan people are one of the most armed peoples in the world.

There is probably two or three million Venezuelans who form part of these like kind of unofficial militias who are very ready to fight any sort of, in any sort of potential But Nando, it's weird. I thought that if you, you know, armed the citizens, then, you know, the government won't get too powerful. You know, it'll prevent tyranny. No, it's teachers. Oh, you have to arm teachers.

Armed toddlers, that's what I say. Yeah. Anyway, thank you so much. Mata al-Hasson, Nando Vila. Please check them out on social media. They're fantastic. Thank you for doing the show with me. And when we come back from the break, Brooke Thomas will join me for hour two.

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