The Young Turks - Cenk Goes BALLISTIC (Part 2)

Episode Date: August 6, 2019

The New York Times is terrified of upsetting the GOP. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, 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

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Young Turks, a huge day ahead for you guys. There's a couple of stories in this show that are the Rosetta Stone of Politics, okay? So there's a Democrat taking action against donors and the Republican Party's head has exploded. Hated it. Okay, and so that's the story of the day and how, amongst a million amazing stories and And how the Democratic Party is going to react to that will be so telling. So I can't wait, can't wait. And of course, there's a lot of foreign policy news with Hong Kong and Iran and everything going

being volatile there. And then Mitch McConnell is a disaster. Hell of a show. So let's get started. Yep. Show the goddamn paper right here, okay? What is it saying? Safer, Bush says.

Picture headline. USA safer Bush says. Okay. USA today, you suck balls. That's Jank Yugar from 2006, saying then what many are saying today in regard to the way headlines are written in the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets. In fact, the New York Times caught a little heat yesterday when it previewed what its front page would look like online, I'll tell you exactly what the front page said, there was a story

with the headline, Trump urges unity versus racism. So I'm assuming that was a story about Trump's speech in response to the two mass shootings that took place over the weekend. And it got a lot of negative feedback, including one reporter at the New York Times who said, quote, I write for the New York Times, this is a terrible headline. Then you have Cory Booker saying lives literally depend on you doing better, New York Times, please do. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as always, hits the nail on the head by saying, let this front page serve as a reminder of how white supremacy is aided by and often relies upon the cowardice of mainstream institutions.

Now, if some of you are wondering, well, what's the issue with the headline? I mean, I can't imagine that many of you are. But if you are thinking this, let's go back to that video. of Jank from 2006, where he's criticizing a headline with a different context, but it has the same issue as this New York Times headline. Take a look. USA Today, Bush says he's made America. That's where I...

That's the headline. Okay. Okay. James, you're talking about one story. Our never goddamn nation in the goddamn headline. All right. You know, it's impossible to talk to you about a... No, because...

Yeah, I'll show it to you. Whoa. Today, you're not talking about USA today. You're talking about one... Show the goddamn paper right here, okay? What is that saying? USA safer, Bush says. Picture headline.

USA safer, Bush says. Okay. USA today, you suck balls. You are terrible newspaper. You know what he did in that press conference yesterday and how we covered it? He lied over and over about how this is a war between al-Qaeda and Iraq.

It's not a war between al-Qaeda and Iraq. It's a war between Shi'iq and the Sunni's civil war that we're stuck in. And what is the USA today? Incompetent losers say, USA safer, Bush says. That is a lie. They've done a terrible job. Every one of these editors in every major newspaper, in every major magazine, and every major

television organization should be fired today. So that was 13 years ago. And I think that I was well within my rights to be angry about this situation. And what started that conversation is so related to what's happening today. What started that conversation was all the way in 2006, five years after 9-11, 43% of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein had personally attacked us on 9-11. In fact, when we went to war against Iraq, that number was 69%. So 7 out of 10 Americans thought that Saddam had personally attacked us.

And I kept saying, if I thought Saddam had attacked us, I'd be in favor of Iraq war, too. But that's not what the reality is, and the mainstream media is doing a terrible job. Why? They do false equivalency. They say he said, she said. The Democrats are generally mutes anyway. They usually never even fight back. So then all they do is print what the Republicans say.

And that is why I was focused on that USA Today headline. I feel bad for Michael there because obviously that was, I was not exactly in control. But it was built up rage and frustration from all of the media falling down at the job and no one recognizing it. So I'm like, look, if you put a headline like USA safer, Bush, says, it makes it sound like the USA is actually safer, because it's the main headline. Now, the Bush says people see, but they don't absorb that, nearly as much as they absorb USA safer. Besides which, it doesn't really matter.

You're supposed to as a journalist say what the reality is, not what Bush says. And so here we are, and New York Times 13 years later, does the same exact thing. this time about Trump, but with a different reaction. So when I get to the different reaction, obviously Anna gave you some of it in a second ago, and it's a little bit more in a minute, but so their headline was Trump urges unity versus racism. Now technically correct, in a portion of that speech, he spoke out against white nationalism almost for the first time, right?

So, but the full context is this was an exception for the president, his actions show that he has supported a lot of these people, including saying there are good people on the Nazi side in Charlottesville, and you know all the stories, we can go on and on and and demonize minorities, especially Hispanics and Latinos, and the shooting in El Paso targeted Hispanics, Latinos, immigrants, etc., just like, so for, if you put in the article that at some point Donald Trump spoke out against white nationalism, that would be good. It's not just accurate. You need that on the article because he did say that. But if you make that the headline, it makes it appear like Donald Trump is busy fighting racism, which is

definitely misleading context. Now, the reason I was in a rage back then is because no one would agree with me. Everyone in the media and every one of the Democratic politicians were like, well, I don't get it. What do you mean? USA safer, Bush says, it's totally fine. Jake, you're the crazy one. Right? Now, because of Trump, there's this fascinating moment where people like, oh yeah, that wasn't really the thrust of Trump's speech, was it? Right.

Wait a minute, maybe these headlines are a little misleading. Maybe the mainstream media goes out of their way to bend over backwards to aid and abet Republicans with their talking points by highlighting their talking points and making it appear that that is the thrust of what they're saying, when in reality it's an exception to the rule. Exactly, so the 2006 clip that we showed you guys featuring Jank going ballistic is a video that I like to use in my journalism classes. Really?

Yeah, 100%. I've used it in every single one because first of all, it's entertaining. It's an entertaining way to get an important journalistic point across, which is that you don't have the luxury of providing context in a headline. And so when someone sees a headline, especially now online, that is literally all they'll see. Because most Americans don't live in this hyper politically informed bubble where they live, breathe, eat politics all day long, right?

So they're busy, they gotta provide for their families. Most Americans now have to work two jobs just to make ends meet. So they're gonna read the headline, maybe if you're lucky, they might read the first paragraph, and that's it. That's how they become informed on these political issues. And so you want to make sure you don't regurgitate the lies by the political elite. And that headline by the New York Times and back in the day by USA Today regurgitated talking points and lies by the political elite.

Yeah, so for example, we know that Iraq did not have ties to al-Qaeda. So if the giant headline said, Bush says Iraq has ties to al-Qaeda, technically correct, a terrible, awful, misleading headline. So, and they did that over it, over and over again. I'm so thrilled that the battle is now joined. Even establishment figures now, of course, in the Democratic Party, because they're so opposed to Trump, but even guys like Nate Silver are like, ooh, I'm not sure I would have framed it that way.

Okay, like, wow, you're on the edge, dude, bring it back. So the New York Times responded. Now, of course, the Republicans are upset that the New York Times responded. They're like, how dare you be more accurate? Remember, you're supposed to be politically correct. So then they changed the headline to assailing hate but not guns. Well, okay, marginally better, but again, not the thrust of the speech. So the thrust of the speech, by the way, one of the things that Trump did in the speech

was attack the media. And in his tweets afterwards, he said it's the media's fault that there was this attack. And what did the media do? Because they are cowed by the Republicans, they're like, oh, sorry, sorry, he has assailed hate, he is against hate, he's against racism. No, no, do your job. And what the New York Times has been doing, and if you notice, so back then I was in a rage over a lot of the media, now I specifically talk about the New York Times a lot, and if you

watch the show, you'll have seen me do that for over, for a year now. Why the New York Times? They are the most cowed. So it doesn't mean that they don't have great journalism, they do. From time to time, they'll have wonderful journalism. But they're the most intimidated, the most pro-status quo, and pro-establishment. So when an official, especially from the Republican Party, even Donald Trump, who's now the establishment doesn't even like, doesn't like at all, but still the New York Times, like, can I say anything

against the Republican? Can I say the truth about a Republican? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. So the reality is stop doing the political correctness. Do your job, do objective reporting. Objective reporting would tell you the headline should be after years of promoting, and you don't have to say racism, but after years of promoting division, I mean, has that for a really benign word, Trump finally mentions white nationalism.

Okay, you're beginning to get there. That's a headline that gives you a much better context for what the story is. Why don't they do it? Because they're afraid, they're afraid. And political correctness is literally changing the facts for political reasons. And that is what the New York Times, the mainstream media has done for decades in America, because they're afraid of the Republicans. So one more thing, now many people are calling for, hey, all the people who write the headlines

should be fired. If you go back and watch Jenko's Ballistic, the whole video, and my editorials back then, I said, fire all the editors, okay, because it's not the reporter on the beat who's doing the bad job, it's the editors that are choosing the headlines and what to focus on and what to put on page A1 and what to put on page A17. And it's those same editors that are constantly bullied by the Republicans and do political correctness. Right, but I think, look, sure, you can make the argument that the editors need to go,

But the editors are a problem of, in my opinion, systemic negligence within this profession, right? And this desire for access, the desire to be politically correct toward politicians, especially on the right in order to get that access, in order to get those interviews. And also, so you don't deal with, I mean, we've seen how the right wing fights. And they are very persistent, they will harass you to no end. And they will rally the troops, and by troops I mean their followers and their supporters to join in on the harassment.

Look, journalism is not supposed to be like some cushy job. It's not a cushy job. Journalism actually sucks if you're doing it right. Because everyone hates you if you're doing it right. People hate you on the left, people hate you on the right, because the whole point is to tell the truth. And so if you're uncomfortable with that, then don't work in the profession. You know what, then we must be great journalists.

I mean, look, let's keep it real. Everyone hates us, and that's fine, right? You know why you're supposed to be watchdogs? So here, equal opportunity, because it's reality. If they wrote a scathing headline about Nancy Pelosi, do you know what kind of hate the New York Times would get? Oh, done. They'd get more hate than this.

100%. Okay, then all the establishment is way more pro Nancy Pelosi than they are Donald Trump. They don't think, how dare you? That is the beloved knighted Nancy Pelosi, Madison. They're legislator bow your head, right? And then they do political correctness and they need access, et cetera. Now it is the Republicans who intimidate the press way more, that's absolute fact, calling them the liberal media for decade after decade.

Now Donald Trump actually going, I would argue threatening their lives by calling them enemy of the people, et cetera. But the Democratic establishment is brilliant at using access and pressure and intimidation to get the media to be pro establishment, pro status quo. That is why the media have great disdain for challengers, non-politicians, outsiders. They always treat them as if they're not worthy. But real democratic politicians and Republican politicians and incumbents are wonderful and amazing, et cetera.

So that's why, look, I don't feel good about criticizing the New York Times. I want the New York Times to be great at journalism, and from time to time they are. But most of the time, they're so biased that they can't see their bias. Because if they could see their bias, the first headline immediately, someone in the building would have said, you guys sure that's the right headline? That seems like that's really helping Donald Trump and not at all giving the context of the full story, right? But they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You have to make sure that you give the Republicans credit, et cetera, et cetera. And they gotta snap out of it. I don't attack the New York Times or criticize the New York Times because I hate them. I do it because I want them to be better and I believe they can be better. But they gotta go back to being watch dogs instead of most of the time being lap dogs. All right, with that said, we have some more news. Bush ever condemn President Obama after Sandy Hook? Wait, wait, wait, wait, are you crying Brian Kilmead?

Are you telling me, oh my God, Obama. Oh my God, Obama has condemned Trump's racism. Democrats attacking Republicans, oh, they're so mean. Are you serious, dude? Are you serious? All Republicans ever do is viciously intact Democrats. How about Trump attacking Obama? Has that ever happened?

Only a billion times. So let me give you the context of what happened. Following the two mass shootings that occurred over the weekend, and by the way, the death toll has jumped from 29 to 31 people. people, Obama put out a statement, and he didn't mention Trump by name, but he certainly did mention certain characteristics that we see in Trump and his supporters. Obama put out a statement saying, quote, we should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist

sentiments. Leaders to demonize us that don't look like us or immigrants threaten our way of life or refer to people as subhuman or America, this is a bad sentence, to be honest with you, or America belongs to one certain type of people, it hails no place in our politics or our public life, and it's time for the overwhelming majority of Americans of goodwill of every race and faith and political party to say as much clearly and unequivocally. So he's saying, look, Americans need to reject hate, because as we know, the shooting that took place in El Paso, Texas was motivated by a hatred for immigrants.

Now, Fox and Friends didn't like that. They really didn't like that. They don't like it. And so not only did they address Obama's statements, they also fed Trump talking points, which we'll get to in just a second. Take a look. I guess he's talking about the President Trump. You think?

I think so. I'm just wondering where did George Bush ever condemn President Obama after Sandy Hook? Did President Bush ever come after? He had 32 shootings of four and more mass shootings during. his reign. Now many people said, wow, it's this president, President Obama is out of control. 17 so far of President Trump. It's way too high. But I have news for you. Mass shootings were happening before the President even thought about running for President of the United States. Right. It's a political season and the elections around the corner. But he's not running anymore.

But they want to, the President is. And they want to continue to push that racist narrative. So, I mean. Okay. Can I just jump in for a second? Sure. Yeah, so we're gonna get the Trump parroting them in a second, but first let's do math, and then let's address the misdirection. So they said, you know, Obama had 32 mass shootings, and Trump's only had 17 so far. Obama was president for eight years, Trump's been president for about two and a half years. Do the math on that one.

You'll see 17 is much worse per year, yes, they have a war on math, that's true. But really, that still misses the point. It isn't how many mass shootings you've had on your watch, it's what do you do about it? Obama wanted more gun control. I would argue Obama should have pushed for even greater gun control, but it didn't really matter at the end of the day because the Republicans blocked every measure that there was. Every piece of gun control that he argued for got blocked. Even if he'd pushed for more, in this case, it wouldn't have made a difference.

And so gun control is the number one issue there in that context. But in this context, Obama's talking about white nationalism, white supremacy, and how that is getting people angry and then grabbing their guns and doing the shootings. And so when you say there was 32 mass shootings under Obama, but they were largely not driven by white nationalism. They certainly were not encouraged to be white nationalist by Barack Obama. So it is a massive misdirection to try to make that comparison. And that's why Fox News does it.

And I just want to provide evidence to the point that you're making, right? Because, look, of course, people who want to defend Trump are going to continue defending him no matter what. But for anyone who actually is interested in evidence to what Jench just said, the fact that Donald Trump does push white nationalism and fear and hatred toward immigrants, which again, that fear and hatred toward immigrants is what fueled the shooting in El Paso, Texas. Well, here's a quick compilation. We've shown you this before, we're gonna show it to you again. Bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. You know what they are? They're thugs. Build that wall. You're right. I think there's blame on both sides. You look at both sides. I think there's blame on both sides. You know what? We're not letting these people invade our country. If you look at the border and you look at the hundreds of thousands of people that are invading, or at least trying to invade, our country. It is an invasion. You know that. I say invasion, they see, isn't that terrible?

I don't care what the fake media says, that's an invasion of our country. But how do you stop these people? You can't. There's no. That's only in the panhandle you can get away with that statement. So while mass shootings certainly did happen under Obama's watch, they weren't fueled by the same hatred and fear toward immigrants and people of color, that is what we're seeing now under the Trump administration because of the fact that he's exploited racial tensions, racial division for his own political purposes. That's what he campaigns on. That's the only thing he can fall back on when he's talking to his supporters in his base

because he hasn't delivered anything else. So he's gonna continue doing it guys. He can give as many speeches following mass shootings, claiming that he won't wants to denounce white nationalism or racism or hatred, but in reality, that is his bread and butter. That is what got him to the White House. So look, you can criticize Obama by saying that he actually deported more people than Trump in the beginning of his term.

He absolutely did, both in removals and other ways of deporting people not only near the border, but inside the country as well. That's a fair criticism of Obama, but he did not demonize them. Right. As he did that, he didn't go around saying they're criminals and rapists and it's an infestation and they're disgusting and filthy and it's an invasion. Now those are the same words that the guy who did the shooting in Al Paso used. He said it was an invasion and that somebody had to do something about it and he was gonna step

up and do it. And he targeted, he drove from a suburb of Dallas all the way down to El Paso to shoot more Latinos. So Obama didn't do any of that and you'd have to be crazy to say that he did. Exactly. And Trump clearly, 100%, you just saw it with your own eyes, and that's just the fraction of the things that he has said, clearly did do that. He does stoke that division.

By the way, Obama didn't say Trump. Now we all know that he means Trump, nobody's hiding that, right? But if Trump hadn't actually sown division or hatred, why would he take it personally? Exactly, exactly. So now I'd like to get to my final point, right? In the exact same episode, exact same episode, kill me. decided to do exactly what Trump does, which is fearmonger about immigrants and stoke tensions toward immigrants. And he also defended Donald Trump's language, which has fueled all of this

violence that we've seen in the country. Take a look. When you have over 110,000 people coming a month, over a million last year, and then well over a million this year, if you use the term as an invasion, that's not anti-Hispanic, It's a fact. If the Russians were coming through Alaska, through Canada, the president will be using the same language. But it's the fact that's happening at the border. If you talk to people who are apolitical at the border, people want to look at the words, defense infested or figure out back and look at what the president's saying. So essentially doing exactly what Trump does, making excuses for him. And again, it's all in the same episode in the same segment. On one hand, you're going after Obama for pointing out the obvious about Donald Trump, and you're denying that Donald Trump is part of the problem.

And then you just copy exactly what Donald Trump does to stoke all this fear toward immigrants. And look, first of all, if the Russians were coming over the border, that would be their military. That's why it's different. That's why it would be an invasion, right? As opposed to people seeking asylum, which is not an invasion, that's people running for their lives. It's like saying when the boat full of Jews landed in Florida running from the Nazis.

It's a real story. They landed in Florida. They were not allowed into the country. If at the time the president had said that's an invasion, the Jews are trying to invade us. Let's send them back to the Nazis. Now they did send them back, which was a terrible stain in our history, but at least they had the decency not to call it an invasion, which is exactly what Trump is doing.

But Kilme is not just parroting Trump. Remember, he's also parroting the El Paso shooter. Yes. The Al Paso shooter said in his manifesto, he was going to stop the Hispanic invasion. That's exactly right. Now, we all know that Donald Trump watches Fox News and Fox News, I mean, I think that this is now just this vicious cycle where they feed him talking points, he regurgitates it, and the latest example is this story because he quoted both Kilmead and Ainsley in his tweets.

I'm not gonna read the tweets, I just wanna show them to you real quick. The first one quotes Kill Mead on Fox and Friends, and the second quotes Ainslie, Ainsley. And so, yes, and it's a cycle where he takes propaganda from them, puts it out there, and they take propaganda for him, put it out there, and create this cycle. And you think like, well, it's silly, and if you watch the young church, it's easy to dismantle. But remember, when people will watch Fox News are just in that bubble. Right. They almost never watch anything else.

So when they see that, they're like, oh, it's so true, everybody agrees. Trump agrees, Fox and Friends agrees. The Hispanic, the guy who called it an Hispanic invasion, the El Paso shooter, he agrees, oops, right? But in their mind, that validates it. And so this is how you do propaganda. We gotta take a quick break. When we come back, we have more news and more updates on the shootings that took.

took place over the weekend. Later on in the show, we're also going to talk about how protesters are going to Mitch McConnell's house. We'll give you the details on that and more. Come right back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-Bing 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-B-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic

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get informed, angered, and entertained, all at the same time. All right, back on a young Turks, lots of comments here. First of the member section, as always, t.yt.com slash join to become a member. Cerberus Alpha says, jank, could you adopt me? I'll be the black son you never had. How old are you? Well, not quite. I actually have a black godson, so kind of close, but sure.

Well, aren't we all family in a sense? So thank you for saying that, though. I appreciate it. That's very, very sweet of you. Vicki continues the sweetness by saying, this is why I love you, Jank. Cozies in the mail tomorrow. Brett's are arriving on Thursday. Wait, what?

Coosies. Coosies, you mean? I don't know. It says coosies, maybe coosies. I don't know. Do I know the difference between a kuzzi and a cozy? Not really. Okay, I know we were selling kuzis at shopt, dot com.

I remember that. Yes, I think we still are. Miles says, Jank, it's like you've been yelling for the last four weeks. Can you focus on Bernie and show some of the rallies? I know Rebel Headquarters does this, but lately I haven't been seeing enough pro-democratic coverage, all reactions to Republican talking points. I think that's a fair point. And look, to be fair, Jank is, jank really doesn't have as much of a say in the content.

I do, and so does our team. So that's a great, that's great feedback. Thank you for that. And I'll be more cognizant of it moving forward. By the way, if you want to see the Bernie rallies and anybody else who's a progressive wants to participate, we're happy to have them, Facebook.com slash Rebel HQ. So it's a great gathering round for progressives. Make sure you're checking that out.

Gabby Marita says if the New York Times were covering world events in September 1939, their headline would read, German troops vigorously urge Polish response to Hitler's request. That's exactly right. I mean, that's, wow. It's devastating. I know, and I can go on and on about that. It would actually be interesting to go back and read some of those archives. I actually read an article about that, and some of the headlines were pretty bad in the New York Times.

So unfortunately there's been a lot of equivocation for a long, long time. Anyway, the math magician says one day, decades from now, when Anna is in her 90s and one of the giants of journalism on the left, many of them will be telling this story about how it influenced them. Thank you. That's very, very nice. I like that vision. I didn't like the part about being in my 90s.

No, that's great, are you kidding me? That would be my favorite part. favorite part. I made it into my 90s. That would be amazing. I'll take that in a second. I know. But you're very different than me when it comes to death and getting old and all that stuff.

Yeah, you know what? Anna and I are going to do old school together with John I'd roll it tonight. So it's going to be great. Tuesday nights now for old school for at least the summer. So t.t.com slash join to check it out because tonight I actually want to talk a little bit about how, you know, the end of six feet under. Oh, it's such a macab but fascinating thing about all of us. And who'll be the last one left?

All right, save it for the show. Save it for the show. Okay, all right. All right. But I do have a few other announcements. First of all, you need to protect your online activity by using a VPN. Lucky for you, we've partnered up with NordVPN. PC magazine says it is da bomb.

And so all you need to do is go to NordvPN.com slash TYT to get a giant 75% off discount discount for three years, and you get your first month free. Also, I'm super excited about this. Ida Rodriguez's Netflix special is set to premiere very soon, August 13th. So make sure you check it out, mark your calendars and watch. She is one of a few comedians who are part of this special. It is the Tiffany Haddish presents, they ready. And you have to say it just like that.

But that's how she says it. I want to make sure that I do it right. 100%. It was awesome. We got to watch the taping of it. You don't want to miss it. That's exactly a week from now. So check it out on Netflix. Okay. All right. This is why, from my perspective, he is not welcome here. He should not come here while we are in mourning. That is Democratic Representative Escobar from Texas, El Paso, Texas, to be specific. And she is incredibly critical toward Donald Trump, who says that he will visit El Paso, Texas,

even though various city leaders have begged him not to as they mourn. But one other thing that was making news today was the fact that the Trump campaign still has not paid the city of El Paso the money it owes for Trump's rally. According to the Texas Tribune, the city attempted to charge Trump $470,000, over $470,000 for services related to his February rally, and they even tacked on late fees after he didn't pay. He was supposed to pay by May of this year, but failed to do so. Now, according to a communications manager in El Paso, the city staff have followed this process, the process and procedures as it relates to any invoicing that we provide, and we will continue

to do so accordingly as per city and state policies. Since he was late, they tacked on a 21% late fee, which is steep, I will admit that, but he He needs to pay. And I wanna give you some more information about it. So there was an El Paso notice to Trump, basically like, you know, if you don't pay your bill, you get a notice in the mail saying, yo, you're late, you gotta pay your bill. And they sent the same thing to Donald Trump, and I wanna read you what it said. This was immediately after he failed to pay back in May.

We are contacting you regarding the invoices listed above, we realize this may be an oversight on your part. However, your account with the city of El Paso is extremely past due. Your obligation to pay the invoice listed will remain on the city's books indefinitely until the debt is paid in full. Furthermore, the city may choose to not enter into a contract with an individual that is indebted to the city for more than $100. Well, considering the late fees, he now owes over $500,000.

So important context. If you are a government official on government duty basically, it's different rules than if you're doing a campaign event. And so he was doing it specifically doing a campaign event in El Paso. And so by the way, Beto also did a campaign event. If you remember about six months ago, they had dueling campaign events. And Beto is not a deadbeat like Trump, so he paid his bill. So it's not like, hey, none of the politicians pay their bills or like, wow, what an outrage.

to charge the president for coming to town, no, it is a very normal standard operating procedure. And for Trump, not paying your debts is also a standard operating procedure. It's not like his campaign doesn't have enough money, they're swimming in money. They reported, they reported about $24 to $25 million in one quarter that they had raised. So now, you know, Trump talked about, oh, I'm gonna finance my own campaign back in 2016. He didn't know such thing, he did the opposite. He had more small donors back then, but he also had large donors, and he take their money and pay himself exorbitant rent above market prices for using Trump Tower as his headquarters.

He was always a scam artist. But now, because he's the president and has that power, the corruption is kicked into high year. So he now has huge donors, massive multinational corporations that are giving him tons of money. So he has easily enough money to pay the bill. He's just a deadbeat by nature, it's in his DNA. So they just don't want to pay, so they don't pay until you absolutely force him to pay. So it's not just about him being a deadbeat.

I think that what this shows is who he really is as a person. And I mean, we already know when it comes to his bigotry, his racism, all of that. But it's about how he treats other people, even if other people help him out, right? So the city of El Paso provides the police and the security he needs to do this rally. They did write for him, on him, and they provided what he needed. And he doesn't care. Even if you play by his so-called rules and give him what he needs, he will turn his back on you. He is incredibly disloyal and disrespectful toward anyone and everyone, including people in his

own cabinet. He has no loyalty or respect for any human being, the only person that matters to Donald. Trump is Donald Trump? 100%. And so, look, I gotta say, normally after a tragedy like this, I don't think it's right, no matter how much you don't like the president. In this case, I think he partly fueled what happened. But even so, if the president comes to town to do mourning, you gotta let him come, right?

And this is not a campaign event, but at the same time when the president owes you, his campaign owes you a half a million dollars, and he just won't give it to you. I don't know what you do with a deadbeat like that. So, Jake, it's not just about that, though. I mean, look, maybe I'd buy that argument if Donald Trump wasn't spouting the anti-immigrant rhetoric that fueled the violence at El Paso, but he is, there's a correlation there, right? The shooter put out a manifesto that used the exact same language that we hear from Donald Trump in regard to immigrants.

I'm sorry, but if I were a politician in that area, I would not want Donald Trump there. Yeah, I know why the politicians say it. It's very popular to say it there, and I get the logic of it. I think at the end of the day, you gotta let the president, because then if we start, the red states start banning for, you know, Democratic presidents, the blue states ban, Republican presidents, it's an absolute mess. But I'll tell you this, one last thing on this story. It's also hugely disrespectful to the cops of El Paso, not to pay them for their

work. 100%. So when he pretends that he's in favor of law enforcement, that's a joke. He tells people all the time never work with law enforcement. He's proud that he never rated to law enforcement. And when he gets a chance to, he screws them over at the first opportunity. So let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about how the public has been responding to Mitch.

As we reported yesterday, he has a new nickname, Massacre Mitch, for his unwillingness to do anything about gun violence. Now protesters are taking matters into their own hands and demanding change. We'll come right back. I'm not sure I'm in favor of that either. All right, we'll see. All right, let's hash it out after we return. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers.

ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to expressvpn.com slash t-y-t, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans.

That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free. segment. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Young Turks.

Why, hello there. What brings you here? All right, no, seriously, let me read some comments for you guys. Kirsten writes in, I saw the live taping of Ida on the Tiffany Haddish. They read, and she was awesome. I was trying to do it, Anna. She was as awesome as what was expected. I hope everyone watches.

It's been really hard refraining from sports. Spoilers. Yeah, totally. Right. So until it comes out, as my daughter says, don't spoil the beans, okay? But afterwards we could talk it through it. All right, Eric Rafford says, Jenkins is 90s in a retirement home yelling at the staff over the lunch menu, headline reads soups, this is hot water.

Okay, I like that. I mean, from your mouth to God's ears. I think what's far more likely to happen is I'm losing my concentration. I need a snack, I need a snack, right? Oh, totally. And it'll be like right after breakfast. Again, as long as I'm in my 90s, I'm all good. Yeah, no, when you're in your 90s, you get to be free.

Yeah. Like you've paid your dues. That's right, you can be cranky all day long. The Restless Progressive says, I think Beto did a good job calling out the media for parodying Donald Trump's talking points. Totally agreed, great job by Beto O'Rourke on that one. Hangary Skywalker says Trump is basically every stereotype that he projects on African Americans. Great point, lazy, violent, doesn't pay their bills, always guilty.

I mean, every single nonsense, insane racist stereotype, it's actually Donald Trump. Oh my god, we should do racism against the orange people. I mean, I'm already there. Right? I mean, there's the two that we know. There are many in Hollywood. Trump and Boehner? Oh, but Snooky too.

Anyway, all right, here we go. Last two here are from Twitter. Not that, Donald writes in, I owed a $65 occupancy tax in the town I used to live in, and a bench warrant was issued. I could have been put in jail until the judge was available for $65. But Trump owes over 400 grand, actually now over 500 grand, and jerks El Paso around with no consequence. Exactly.

Hashtag dead beat Don, and Thomas Shipman has a solution. He writes in, Al Paso police should put a boot on. on Air Force One until Trump pays the money's owed. Damn. How awesome would that be? That would agitate him. Speaking of which, what is agit prop? I always want to say adjut pop, but it's adjut prop.

Yes, nor is it agit pie. Okay, anyway, adjut prop's a new show that's got a summer run here on the network. And it's a Hassan's post-capitalist show. And we had our first edition of it today, if you remember, you can check it out. A little audio hiccup, if you watch live, but it's fully clean in the member section. And we got into it for two hours. I defended capitalism. He defended the commies.

Kidding, largely. Anyway, check it out, tyt.com slash adjutop. For the people who did already watch it, they were super happy, I think, from the comments, based on the comments, on how it went really interesting conversation. Obviously, you've got to be a member to do it at this point, but make sure you sign up through TYTD.com slash AgitProp so we know that it was that show that got you interested so that we know which shows work better, et cetera, so we can serve you better, okay? All right, thanks.

Anna, what's next? All right. I'm sorry, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has proven himself to be trash, and we're going to continue talking about his trashiness as he carries out his trashy actions in the Senate. Now, the latest controversy has to do with a group of young men wearing Team Mitch shirts, groping a cardboard cutout of Representative Ocasio-Cortez. So there it is. And the Team Mitch T-shirts, it's an important thing to mention because Team Mitch, if you go to Twitter,

is the specific Twitter account for Mitch McConnell's reelection campaign, right? So these are people who are wearing the shirts, which indicates that they're affiliated with the campaign. So it's not cute to pretend like you're groping someone. Not only that, if you notice one of them was choking her. Yeah, it's bad, it's bad. So now following this, Alexandria Acosio-Cortez, understandably put out a statement via Twitter saying, hey, Senate Majority Leader, these young men look like they work for you. Just wanted to clarify, are you paying for young men to practice groping and choking?

choking members of Congress with your payroll, or is this just the standard culture of Team Mitch? Thanks. She had it because she's polite. Now there was a statement issued by a campaign spokesperson representing Mitch McConnell. These young men are not campaign staff, they're high schoolers, and it's incredible that the national media has sought to once again paint a target on their backs rather than report real and significant news in our country.

I would argue that the various actions we've seen from the Republican Party, I mean historically, but certainly under Trump's leadership, that's the real story. Like their disrespect toward women, I mean, Trump's presidency started essentially a few weeks before his election with a tape talking about groping women, grabbing them by their genitals, right? And then you have Brett Kavanaugh, you have all of this. dismissive behavior toward the Me Too movement. It's not cute, it's not funny to make light of sexual assault, ever, ever. So that is a story, whether you like it or not.

Look, it's not actually super easy to deal with. And you don't need to go full Democrat. A full Democrat would be to profusely apologize, right? And in this context, that could certainly make sense. But just say, hey, you know what, they had the team Mitch shirts on and they're teenagers, but we talked to them and told them that's totally unacceptable. And that does not represent our campaign. They wouldn't even do that.

No, they wouldn't. And they made excuses for them. But to the credit of, I mean, it's crazy because the juvenile behavior that we saw in that photo included people who actually did apologize. So they took it upon themselves to apologize. and I want to share that apology with you in just a second. So one of the young men put an apology up on his Instagram account. It was a photo of a note that says, I was wrong, I'm sorry.

And the caption also says, my friends and I sincerely apologize to Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Mitch McConnell to our school and our community for insensitive actions at Fancy Farm this past weekend. Fancy Farm is this political event that takes place in Kentucky. It sounds crazy, and I, yeah, I mean, I don't want to get into it. No, I think fancy farm sounds fun. I want to go to a fancy farm, but apparently not fun because that's what they're doing. Look, even the kids had the decency to apologize. Exactly.

And Mitch McConnell didn't. Yeah. That's amazing. You were supposed to be the grown up. And so instead he made it seem like, oh, I'm the victim. I'm the victim of AOC in the national media. They don't, you know, my campaign volunteers are just choking and groping her. Oh, no, I'm criticized for it.

Look guys, this isn't hard at all. So when Trump was in the panhandle and they said about the immigrants shoot him, instead of laughing along with the crowd, you just say, hey, no, no, no, don't do that, don't say that, that's not right. And then you move on. They don't have it in it. Right, because they love it, right? So in that situation, Trump loved it.

So why would he denounce it? Why would he condemn it? I mean, he uses inflammatory rhetoric and language toward migrants all the time. By the way, Mitch McConnell, of course, not only refuses to apologize or take responsibility, he doubles down. So I want to give you another statement, and this is from the Team Mitch Twitter account. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and liberal Twitter personalities are trying to docks some underage kids for taking a photo with a cutout at the fancy farm political picnic. and are cheering on thousands of counts calling for Senator McConnell to, quote, break his neck, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so look, two things about that. Number one, just the last part of it, they're always like, find one random dude on Twitter who said something. And they're like, that's it. All the liberals are saying that Mitch McConnell should break his neck. No, no actual elected official or any personality said that. You just picked a random ass. And by the way, how do I know it wasn't an ally of yours that said that?

you could then pretend to be the victim, right? But overall, like, to turn it around and to say, like, oh, poor Mitch McConnell is actually the victim here, they just have no sense of decency at all. Look, if one of you guys took a Republican woman or a Democratic woman that I didn't agree with, just pick a name out of a hat, Susan Collins or Diane Feinstein, and you guys or it's a cardboard pin, by choking them or groping them, I would definitely, don't do that. Hey, don't do that. That's not cool.

That's not what this is about. They can't do the bare goddamn minimum. They can't. I mean, look, just to give you a specific example, and we get some heat, not a lot, but some heat from people on the left when we condemn any type of violence carried out by Antifa. You know why? Because condemning the violence is the right thing to do. You don't win by carrying out violence.

And I get the frustration and the anger because we want change so badly. But the strategic thing to do is to change the system, to join together in solidarity and push for systemic changes. When you do violence, the focus is on the violence that you just committed, and that's it. They just exploit that to paint a very grim picture of everyone in the left, so why give them that. And by the way, one other thing I wanted to mention, so look, this is something we might disagree on, but there were protesters who showed up to Mitch McConnell's house.

Yeah, before we get to that, I actually wanted to say one more thing here. If you notice, they went to a new Republican talking point, which is any time you mention that they did something wrong on their side, they go, oh, you're doxing me, you're doxing me. No, no, the kids I'm being generous by calling them kids. The teenagers that were his volunteers made the picture public. It's not like AOC went and found their phone, took it from their phone and made it public. No, they made it public. And then when you criticize a picture that they made public, they go, oh, you're doxing me,

you're doxing me, right? By the way, sometimes the corporate Democrats do the same thing. Anytime you touch them in terms of saying, hey, you did this wrong, they go, how dare you say that I did something wrong in public, I'm doxed? You're not doxed. Nobody put the address of those kids out, that's totally wrong. It's a way of shielding yourself in a cheap, stupid way that a lot of the establishment does, both on the Republican and the Democratic side, because real doxing is a huge problem.

And now if you, so now you cheapen it and you cry wolf over it just to protect your trashy ass. And I'm referring specifically to Mitch McConnell. And one other thing I want to add, you know, when we read the apology from the young men who put out that photo, we took the extra step of taking their high school's name out, right? So like, we're on the left. No one on the left has any interest in carrying out violence against these guys, but again, like they have this very wide definition of doxing. Yeah, you know, I just partly figured out, 90% of the reason is because they want an excuse

to be the victims, but 10% I just figured out as you were talking, because they think, oh, if it was liberals who were choking a picture of material. McConnell, we would go to commit violence against them. 100%. So they project on and they think, oh, well, obviously then they're gonna come and try to do violence on the kids. No, we're not, why would we go do violence against them, right? We're just saying, hey, cut it out, that's all.

And you don't have enough decency to say, oh, you're right, they should cut it out. So, and they do it all the time, project what's in their heads on us. We gotta remember Republicans, we're not anywhere near as much of a, and I'm being polite here, jerk as you guys are. We're not anywhere near as bad guys as you are. So please stop putting your trash on us. So let's move on to the protesters. His Dayton shooter has been confirmed as having a Twitter feed.

Sorry, guys. That's our miscommunication. Yeah. So there's another part of the Mitch McConnell story that I want to get to. A group of protesters went to Mitch McConnell's house to essentially protest his inaction when when it comes to gun regulation and changes that would actually keep Americans safe. Now, Jake and I might disagree with this, but quick, let's just look at a quick video featuring these protesters.

All right, so those are the protesters. They're standing there on the sidewalk. I don't want to give you any type of misinformation. There were some problematic components of this protest. I'm gonna give you the details. Demonstrators chanted, rang cowbells, banged pots and pans, and scraped a plastic shovel across the concrete sidewalk as they called for an end to white supremacy and gun violence in the Kentucky Republicans Louisville district.

Now here's where it becomes a little problematic. One woman appears to jokingly urge another protester just stab McConnell using an obscenity instead of his name in the heart. So look, that is unacceptable. You don't call for violence, I don't care. I don't care if you think that this is what's going to get the job done. Calling for violence leads to people using that call for violence as the main story. Look at them, they're violent, they want to hurt a member of Congress.

It's just, it's not going to help the situation. It's going to be the main focus of every report, every story that comes out about that protest. Yeah, before we get to the heart of most of what they did, it's also not strategically smart either. It's morally wrong, obviously, if you mean it. It appears she was joking, of course. But even if you're joking, and I get it, you're a frustrated citizen. But even if you're joking, you're gonna misdirect the whole point of your protest.

So it's a really bad idea. Don't do it in private, don't do it when there's reporters around, just keep it to what the politics of the protest is about. Even so, I don't agree with going to his house, but that's where we might do it. disagree. So, look, I don't, I don't strongly believe you should show up to his house. I don't. I, but at the same time, I feel as though we've made things far too easy for politicians, right? Because they feel like they have abs, they don't have to be accountable to us ever. Mitch McConnell has done so many disastrous and damaging things as the, you know, head of

Senate, as the Senate majority leader. I mean, he has blocked legislation that has to do with gun regulation. He won't even allow it for a vote. And that's a problem if you believe in democracy, right? Why won't he even allow a vote on this legislation? By the way, Republicans control the Senate. What is he afraid of, right? So if he's got the majority and he thinks he's right, and it's because he doesn't want

Republicans to be on the record voting against gun legislation following all these mass shootings. And then finally, I mean, he blocked legislation to protect U.S. elections from foreign meddling. So he's an issue and he's so arrogant about it. He was like bragging about how he blocked the confirmation of Merrick Garland, right? Of course, of course. He calls himself the Grim Reaper. So look.

So I don't know what the answer is. I do know that if I were to put myself in anyone's shoes, I don't want people showing up to my house. because that is terrifying. It really, it does, it puts a lot of fear in you and it's scary. But at the same time, we need to find a way to hold them accountable, which is why I was not against people approaching them in public spaces and holding them accountable for their actions. So look, this was against gun violence, this is a protest against gun violence.

So they are very unlikely to actually do violence, no matter what one joke that was said with the near shot of apparently a reporter, and they're against white supremacy. This is like the most unlikely group to do violence. Having said that, still I'm not in favor of it. Imagine 25 MAGA guys show up at your house. I mean, stuff's gonna go really, really wrong. And people got kids in their houses, McConnell's older, and so he doesn't. But still, it's just a bad idea overall.

I was against it when they went to Tucker Carlson's house. I'm against it in all those instances. Now having said that, because it's gonna devolve, guys, it's gonna develop. Having said that, I'll say that I do agree with Anna that politicians are not giving anybody an outlet. And so it's leading to great frustration, which is boiling over to this. So ironically, it's Mitch McConnell's fault. And that I'm absolutely clear about.

If you don't want people coming to your house, let democracy happen. Allow for votes, right? Because when you don't allow for votes and 97% of Americans want federal background checks, and you won't even allow a vote, well, what do you think is going to happen? is going to build and build and build. And I don't want it to build and I don't want it to boil over. That's why I'm giving you a warning. It's not a warning like a threat, it's the exact opposite.

I'm telling you, I don't want people coming to your house or anybody's house. So God damn it, allow for votes. Otherwise, you don't know what you're messing with. Look guys, here's another thing that the mainstream media and the establishment doesn't see it all, but I do see. I told you guys about the rise of the crazy right wing before it happened, because we can can see it online, we're connected to online. We saw them rise up way before, years before anybody else did, right?

Well, now I'm telling you about there's going to be a rise of the left wing that is not kosher, okay? And if you're in the left wing and you want to get angry at me, fine, no problem, but this whole punching Nazis thing, right? Well, it sounds good, it's a Nazi, right? I wish I could go back in time and punch a Nazi, but are you sure you know who the Nazis are? And once things start to devolve, it's not a good look. And the establishment, also on the Democratic side, but mainly on the Republican side, have no idea

the frustration that is brewing and brewing in the country. So not only, now you've seen the young right wing do this, but the young left wing is coming, and then you won't be able to stop them. And so I'm, I wanna fix the system before it gets really, really bad. And if enough frustration builds, it will get really, really bad. And so there's only so much you could bottle up and give everything to the richest and most powerful people in the country and kill democracy in the middle of the night and then say like, what, what, I don't expect any consequences.

I don't want there to be, I want there to be political consequences, not physical or violent. That's why we do non-training, non-violence training, every time we do a rally. That's why we emphasize it every day on the air. But at some point, I'm telling you, it's gonna blow. And we've got to fix democracy before it does. Let's take a break. When we come back, we have the right wing deflecting when it comes to the racist manifesto, the shooter put out before carrying out his act of terrorism in El Paso.

And then later on, we're gonna give you a few updates on international news. including North Korea, Hong Kong, lots of great stories. Come right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple. .com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.