The Young Turks - Chauvin Sentenced

Episode Date: June 26, 2021

Group of Senators comes out boasting of their bipartisan agreement on infrastructure – now all they have to do is convince the rest of the skeptical Senators to vote for it. Tucker Carlson’s got everyone pissed off at him after he attacked Gen. Milley, calling him a pig, stupid, and unimpressive over his CRT comments. Mark Levin isn’t very happy that Tucker Carlson has been squealing to the enemy media about all of them. Donald Trump reportedly wanted the military to “beat the f**k out of George Floyd protestors.” Sheldon Whitehouse’s private beach club in Rhode Island just might be “white’s only.” Derek Chauvin to be sentenced in the death of George Floyd. Supreme Court rules against union recruiting on California farms. They seemed like Democratic activists – they were secretly conservative spies. A New Jersey valedictorian was cut off during a graduation speech on LGBTQ identity and mental health. Rudy Giuliani says he was suspended from practicing law in New York because he was so effective at arguing Trump’s election fraud claims. 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. On July 18th, get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited.

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Big-R-R-T, Big-R-R-T, Big-R-D-T, Drop it. Hello everyone and welcome to TYT. It's a power panel with Adrian Lawrence of Overruled and David Schuster as well. Hello to both of you. Hello, good grief, let it open. Thank you, I'm trying. Jank has his particular type lockdown.

I've got to find some lane for myself. But Jank, of course, isn't here, but I think that we're going to be okay. I'm very excited to have both of you on the show, particularly considering some of the news, including the news that we're going to be starting off with. I think that both of your backgrounds and expertise are going to come quite in handy today. Well, I should let you know, though, that Jank isn't here for a very good reason. Jank is off getting ready for our town hall that he is going to be co-hosting with Killer Mike. Senator Nina Turner is going to be there. It's happening in Cleveland tomorrow.

We've been talking about it throughout the week. But if you would like more information about it, you can go to t.com slash events and get the info there. It is much anticipated. Can't wait to watch it myself. Everyone should definitely tune into that. But with that said, are you two ready to talk about the big breaking news of the day? We're ready. I'm right, John, did I miss a, do we miss a queue there?

Do we leave you hanging? There's a sort of a pregnant closet. I thought, was I supposed to say something and validate that? Yes, we're going to provide some great information for you this hour. You don't need to worry, because if it's me that's left hanging, people will just assume, oh, that guy's so socially awkward. It's definitely something he did. But anyway, no, that's the nature of this Skype connection.

someday we'll set near each other. But anyway, with that, why don't we jump into the news? All right. Today saw the sentencing of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who last year murdered George Floyd going into it. Nobody was really sure exactly what sentence he would get, considering the stance of the criminal justice system on police officers who kill while on duty. That said, here is what was announced. As sentence for count one, the court commits you to the custody of the Commissioner of Corrections for a period of 270 months. That's 270. That is a 10-year addition to the presumptive sentence of 150 months. This is based on your abuse of a position of trust and authority and also the particular cruelty shown to George Floyd.

You're granted credit for $199 days already served. Pay the mandatory surcharge of $78 to be paid from prison wages. You're prohibited from possessing firearms, ammunition, or explosives for the remainder of your life. Provide a DNA sample as required by law. Register as a predatory offender as required by law. And then you will receive a copy of the order and also the attached memorandum explaining the court's analysis. So that is the big news, 22 and a half years of which he will have to serve at least two thirds, meaning that in theory within 15 years he could be released from prison.

And so there's a lot else going on here that I want us to talk about. But I do want to get your responses to what the sentence ended up being, bearing in mind, of course, that he is not done with his time in the legal system. There's other federal charges, other cops who are involved in the situation, we'll be going through their own process as well. But Adriena, I wanted to start with you. When you, when you heard the numbers, what was your response? Well, you know, the reality is that no amount of time is going to be sufficient to give justice here for George Floyd and his murder. At the same time, I do fully appreciate that Judge Cahill did give an additional 10 years on top of essentially what the sentencing guidelines set that bar to be as 12 and a half years.

So now making that 22 and a half, I think that that was a strong showing as much as the prosecution wanted 30 years and also that the Floyd family wanted 40 years, 22 and a half is, it's pretty significant, especially when we're looking at a situation where a police officer has murdered a citizen in the line of duty. But still, it wouldn't really matter in terms of actual justice as nothing will compensate the loss of George Floyd. Yeah. David? Yeah, I agree 100% with Adrian. I mean, based on other murder trials that I've covered, it seems like this was about right 22 and a half months. I was really glad that the judge mentioned that he had Chauvin had abused his authority as a police officer. That was very important. I was also glad to see that he recognized the cruelty of those nine minutes and 29 seconds. I mean, so look, to Adrian's point, nothing's going to bring back George Floyd. Nothing's going to satisfy his now seven-year-old daughter who keeps wondering what happened to her father. But I'm glad that the, I'm glad this wasn't a light sentence and I'm glad that it was, you know, it was fairly significant and fairly heavy in the grand scheme of things. Yeah. You know, I was doing some research and I was looking at people had compiled all of the cops who have actually successfully been sentenced for this sort of activity. And the list is not long. It's 11 cops in the last 16 years. out of all of those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of killings, 11 have been convicted for murder for on-duty killings. What's interesting is that the average sentence is 21.7 years,

almost exactly what he ended up getting. Going back 16 years, this is about where they end up, which is interesting. There's been variants, of course. There was one individual who got 40 years, some have had less. And so I guess this is comparable. It's just such a rare occurrence. it's hard to even remember when they happen. But I agree with you, Adrian, too.

The extra 10 years definitely makes us more significant. Assuming that that two-thirds ratio is going to end up coming into play, without that, it would have been a very short sentence indeed. I mean, certainly long for any of us to be spending in prison, but the idea that he would potentially be out, you know, two Avatar sequels from now seems hard to imagine. Now at least it is a good chunk of the remainder of his life, even if, you know, he will be out during the lifetimes of the surviving family members of George Floyd. Yes, most certainly. The thing I think that we will have to see how it plays out is those

existing federal charges, those indictments against him for that assault on the teenager who he was conducting an arrest and ended up hurting that child. And then in addition to that, also the federal charges for taking the life of George Floyd, you know, deprivation of life charge cannot come with significant penalties as well. And so we will really see how this plays out, but we do know that at least the people there in Minneapolis are throwing the book at Derek Chauvin, and they will likely continue to do so when they get to federal court and are facing those federal charges unless he accepts some type of plea deal. Yeah. You know, I want to just mentioned, though, I've been, like a lot of people, you know, I was processing what I thought

about, but also trying to get an impression of what a lot of other people think about the sentence. And I watched a clip of Van Jones talking about how frustrated he was. He says he knows of many people with, who've gotten 15 years for nonviolent victimless drug possession crimes and things like that, which is certainly true. And the thing for me that's really influence, I think, my evaluation of this, which I assume is playing subconsciously or consciously for a lot of people is there's been so much that's happened since Chauvin murdered George Floyd, and yet so little of it other than maybe this sentence really feels like it's been affected by what happened. Like most of the conversation about the future of police is a backlash to any attempt

to change their funding levels. That feels like the dominant like cultural narrative is how dare you could all be so mean to the cops coming out of last year. We had any number of different instances of police brutality, including lethal police brutality that we've been witnessed to over the past few months. So it doesn't seem at least anecdotally, perhaps statistically, that it's really, like that the case is influencing cops' behavior. It just doesn't necessarily feel like after so much energy and passion and outrage was on display over the last year in response to this, that it's had anything proportional that in terms of progress. I don't know, maybe this since it's so rare that cops actually get convicted at all,

maybe this is something, but it still feels like it's coming up so short compared to all of that. I don't know, any thoughts? Well, part of the emptiness that, part of the emptiness that I feel is, is look, I'm glad that whenever a police officer is brought to justice and it's happened so rarely that accountability is a good thing, but that's only a small step, right? I mean, even a basic step that has been talked about in several state legislatures and in Congress, of creating a national database of cops who violate their own procedures, get suspended, or fired from their own departments so they can't get another job in law enforcement.

We don't have that database. So there's, I mean, there was just an example of a terrible cop in Florida who's lost the job, something like 10 times. How is that possible in this day and age? Well, I know that if I've got a driver's license that is somehow suspended or I've got points on it, it's going to be difficult for me to go to a new state and transfer my driver's license. Why is it that a police officer who gets fired from his department, a reprimand is able to go to another state, another county, and get his job that doesn't make any sense. And I think until some of those concrete steps are taken to try to weed out, the officers that we can predict are the ones who may be engaged in something like this, there will be an empty feeling and a feeling that not much has really happened to assure progress. Yeah.

Any last thoughts, Adrian? No, I absolutely agree. The fact is that the needle hasn't moved much since last summer. Yes, we had a lot of protests. Yes, we got issues coming out. There was some change in the private sector, but when it comes to the public sector and it comes to law enforcement in particular, yeah, a little bit of the budget may have shifted, but really nothing has changed significantly. If not, there just seems to be more, more use of video cameras in recording police interactions, but nothing that really impacts policing when it comes to reform and whatnot. And we're seeing kind of this distraction and focus on critical race theory when all of these things, when we package them up from the voting rights restriction, a filibuster and policing reform, this all is one big ball of white supremacy and the desire to keep it going. You're 100% right.

And I should have, I should have, of course, mentioned that. Like, the biggest thing that seems to be coming out of all of this after everything is don't teach kids about racism. What a sick response. Like, sick for the movement that's pushing that and the media, you know, empire that's pushing for that and the politicians that are cynically using it. But just to be a part of a country where that has any chance of working and indeed appears to be working, it's just a sick, sick thing.

Now that said, I want to turn to another aspect of this case. Before we had the sentencing for Derek Chauvin, we did have impact statements from some of those affected by the crime. And I want to give you a few portions of those. Obviously, these are going to be very emotional, so bear that in mind. But I want to show you first some of Gianna, a George Floyd's daughter, which she had to say today. Well, I ask about him all the time. And this kind of it. Do you wish that he was still here with us?

Yeah, but he is. Through his spirit? Yes. Yes. And when you see your daddy again one day, what do you want to do when you see him? We used to have dinner meals every single night before we went to bed. My daddy always used to help me brush my teeth. Yeah. If you could say anything to your daddy right now, what would it be? It would be I miss you and I love you. I'm obviously that's devastating. I don't know, maybe there's something wrong with me that while I'm watching it, I'm obviously being affected by what Gianna is saying, but like I can't help but keep looking at Derek Chauvin. And there is something about that look that he always has on his face. And you can only see his eyes there obviously because of the mask. But he, every single time I see him in the videos today, you know, months ago, he never seems to be affected by literally.

any of this. Like, there's nothing behind his eyes. It is a dead, cold gaze. I don't know if that matters. Maybe I'm projecting that all into him. I don't know, David, what do you think? No, I don't think you're projecting at all. And the thing is, is there was one time where he showed just a little bit of emotion. It was only when his mother was speaking. But, you know, and the crummy part really seems to be is that when you had people pouring out their heart and really just having these emotive, just reactions and sharing how George Floyd's murder impacted them, including being his child, you know, talk about it. You'd think that a normal person would feel something. But Chauvin's not responding in any way. And I really think that that continues

to reiterate the point that I don't think he thinks he's done anything wrong. And based on what his mother's impact statement, it seems that his family thinks that he is the victim here. Can I ask you a quick, David, just a quick follow up on that. It's very similar to the guilty verdict, right? I mean, there was no emotion from him there when the jury found him guilty. So yeah, I think there is something empty inside and maybe that's sort of coldness, the lack of empathy, the lack of passion towards victims. Maybe that's what somehow there's a, I'm sure the psychologist would weigh and say

that was probably part of his psyche that enabled him to do this horrible act to begin with. That certainly seems possible. I'm curious, Adrian, is maybe this is something. I heard on TV, I don't know. Are they trained to do this to not give away how effect, like assuming he is affected, assuming he has the capacity to be affected by what he's done in the suffering that he's seeing? Are they told or trained by lawyers to not display that in court because that might be interpreted as some showing of guilt or something like that? No, not particularly. People respond in an innate response, that is very natural and normal,

especially to hear that a nice amount of years of your life is going to be taken from you. It's best, of course, you know, you don't want to yell anything out or speak in any way that could be used against you. But to show some semblance of humanity is what he, Derek Chauvin doesn't seem to be able to muster. And that is something that it just seems that it really continues to reinforce the thought that this man is callous. Yeah. And so good luck to him. Yeah. Well, we also have some video of George Floyd's brother, Terrence.

So let's go to that. I wanted to know from the man himself, why. What were you thinking? What was going through your head when you had your knee on my brother's neck? Why? When you knew that he posed no threat anymore, he was hands. handcuffed, why you didn't at least get up? And what half of me and my family, we seek the maximum penalty.

We don't want to see no more slaps on the wrist. We've been through that already. In my community, in my culture, we've been through that already, smacked on the wrist. No, no, no, no, no. Because if it was us, if it was the rose was reversed, there wouldn't be no case. It would have been open and shut. We'd have been under the jail for murdering somebody. So we asked for that same penalty for Derek Chauvin.

Thank you. Yeah, and he's asking the question there that I think millions and millions of people have asked about Derek Chauvin in particular, asked in so many cases that looks so similar, including the multiple cops who since that became one of the biggest news stories of last year have themselves decided, I'm going to kneel on someone's neck for as long as I want. For a rational human, it just does not make any sense that you would do something like that. And you can hear it in his voice. We can't conceive of such needless cruelty. And something that really impacted me that I found out, you know, during this statement,

during these statements is that they're shown that this was his day off. Like he didn't even need to be there. He didn't, you know, he decided to work to fill in for somebody and to come in on his day off and the fact that he was so callous and that he really wanted to essentially oppress Mr. Floyd to the point of death over what was allegedly a $20 counterfeit bill on his day off of all things. Like it's just, I think it just really speaks to the calism. Yeah. Yeah, and Adrian's right. I think there's a culture within policing that enables people with a chip on their shoulder with an ego who are prone to violence to become police officers. And so many of them think, oh, well,

there's no camera that's rolling, or we're going to move that group of spectators or the crowd away, or there couldn't possibly be a surveillance camera on this house. When I taser a teenager after 30 seconds, and he's on the back porch of his girlfriend's house, which is another story that happen this week. I mean, time and time again, there are police officers who are taking shortcuts, who are not following procedures, were taking matters into their own hands because they don't think they will get caught. And the only regret they seem to have is that they did get caught, that there was a camera, that there was a body camera that was on instead of law. And to me, until that changes, until that part of policing changes, no matter how many

officers are held accountable for breaking the law, for killing people, for excess force, you're never really going to change the culture of police in the United States. Well, finally, let's turn to this. There was potentially nothing that Derek Chauvin himself could say, and certainly were going to say, that would make the situation any better, considering what he did. That said, what he chose to say was odd at the very least. Let's show you a bit of his comments from today. This is your opportunity if you wish to give any input to the court.

And so I turn it over to you and your attorney. Thank you, Your Honor. At this time, due to some additional legal matters at hand, I'm not able to give a full formal statement at this time. But briefly, though, I do want to give my condolences of the Floyd family. There's going to be some other information in the future that would be of interest.

And I hope things will give you some peace of mind. Thank you. So I'm assuming that the first portion of that was potentially because he has pending other legal proceedings that are happening. There's certain things that he doesn't want to say that might influence that. But the second part about there's going to be some other information in the future that would be of interest. and I hope things will give you some peace of mind. Maybe there's something I'm missing. Adrian, do you have any idea what he's referring to there?

I do not specifically, but what I speculate that he's talking about is with the federal charges, he may just take a plea deal so that they don't have to go through the trial and everything again to go through these things. So I wouldn't be surprised if that is it. But it is also interesting that he decided not to necessarily speak here in any way, because he doesn't want it to be used against him in those future prosecutions. But it makes sense. I think that the one thing he did that was wise is to acknowledge the Floyd family by providing his condolences.

Because even if he chose to completely respect his Fifth Amendment right at trial and in his future trial, to at least acknowledge the pain is so incredibly important. Yeah, David. Yeah, look, that's a perfectly valid theory. I think that you're probably on to something that in that case, I guess he's expressing a little bit more at least interest in their well-being than I would have expected. I hope that you're right potentially for their sake. I don't know what implications that would have on the amount of additional time he would

serve, but it's likely regardless of what it is to now add up to a significant amount. So potentially maybe that's it. Okay, with that, we do have a lot of the news that we want to get to, including some of the updates throughout the day on the likely course of the bipartisan infrastructure deal. So we're going to have our analysis on that and other news after this. Welcome back everyone to the power panel with me, John Arula, Adrian, and David as well. Why don't we mix it up? Let's talk about what is apparently going to consume the federal government's attention for at the very least the next three months. And that's

And that's if everything goes according to plan as we talk about infrastructure. Yesterday it was announced there is bipartisanship. Good news, everyone. They've got a deal. And it's going to be this infrastructure package that will be passed in the Senate and then apparently accompanied with something done via reconciliation. Those involved in the negotiations were very excited, as you'll see in this clip. An answer to a direct question, we have a deal. And I think it's really important. We've all agreed that none of us got what we all wanted. You know, there are many who say that bipartisanship is dead in Washington, D.C. and across this country.

I'm just proud to be part of a bipartisan group, which I know has always been there, always can be there, and always will be there if we work together like we did. But this reminds me of the days we used to get a awful lot done up in the United States Congress. We actually work with one. This historic agreement today between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and what the President of the United States shows that when a group of people who are committed with shared values to solving the problems and challenges our country faces, we can use bipartisanship to solve these challenges. And I think it's a tremendous opportunity for us to show the rest of the world that we can still get big things done in a bipartisan way and lead the rest of the world. You know, a lot of us go back a long way where we're used to doing one thing, give each other. our word and that's the end.

That video, man, they really got a bunch together there. Amazing diversity ideologically, pigmentally, a lot of diversity on display there. You know it's going to be a great process going forward when Carson Cinema is one of the first people they tried out to talk about it. But we have some reasons already to believe that it might not go as smoothly as Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, you said there's going to be another bill through reconciliation. Sure, this one's not great, but we're going to have this other one. It's

going to be super smooth. Well, there's reasons to believe that that's not necessarily the case. But before we even get to that, I want to talk to the panel and see what you think about the fact that this particular group of five Dems, five Republicans, have come together and come up with something. They can still do great things, they said. Let's start with you, David. What'd you think? Well, to me, it looked like theater. It looked like they were more interested in trying to grab the headlines for a day or two. And they say, oh, yes, bipartisanship, look at what we've accomplished.

And then in the fine print, it's, oh, well, it's going to take us three months to pass this. We're going to have to link this to a reconciliation bill that no Republican is going to support. And there's enormous pressure on cinema and mansion because of that linkage. So this might not cross the finish line anyway. And oh, by the way, the U.S. House is not going to take up this infrastructure bill until the reconciliation bill passes. So the fine print to most Americans is going to be like, they didn't reach a deal here. For one day, yes, they agreed on some principles about what should be in this infrastructure package, even though it wasn't what a lot of Democrats wanted.

But I'm still extremely skeptical that this ever becomes law, that they ever spend a dime from this bill, because I don't see how they get this thing across the finish line over the summer. Yeah. Adrian, more optimism, perhaps? What are you feeling? I know. I completely agree with David here. It just seems like a lot of appearances as opposed to actual purpose.

And the thought that Biden really wants to have this whole bipartisan, reaching across aisles, showmanship thing. The thing is, it's not going to bring about substantive change. So I really wish it would kind of just drop this. And we can be real about where things stand because as far as they stand right now, the Republicans are definitely going down their lane 100%. And we have people like Joe Manchin who are not opposed to that actually happening. Yeah. Yeah, and honestly, at this point, like I would love, as you're saying, let's keep it straight, say what's actually, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if anything is going to happen because today we found out that if everything goes according to the plan. So if they have this deal and everyone sticks to it and they don't filibustered or whatever, and the House picks up and the Senate picks up this bill that they'll go through via reconciliation. And the parliamentarian is in a particularly good mood, then this will take three months,

which brings us dangerously close to the point in which everyone in America will agree, the election is only a year away. Why should we be doing anything? That's assuming that things go to plan. And you'll be shocked to find out that things are very much already starting to unravel. You had Lindsey Graham, who said when he apparently discovered that there would be this reconciliation bill, if he's going to tie them together, Speaking of Biden, he can forget it. I'm not doing that. That's extortion. I'm not going to do that. The Dems are being told you can't get your bipartisan work product passed unless you sign on to what the left wants and I'm not playing that game. He added that most Republicans could not have known that Biden also planned to request a multi-trillion dollar budget resolution, which will likely include key elements of his family and climate change plans.

And you know, if we can queue up the third video, the McConnell video, this is going to become a great talking point. on the right, which is wait, there could be another bill that's being passed. I never knew. I certainly didn't know about that and am now using that to derail the bipartisanship. Here, let's go to the minority leader. I was initially optimistic, but you could best be described as a tale of two press conferences. After the first one, the president walks out with a bipartisan group and blesses an infrastructure bill that many of my members, are quite optimistic about. And then after all of those people depart the White House,

the president goes out for the second press conference and says, unless you pass my tax bill, I won't sign the infrastructure bill. So what it does is put my members, including myself, who were optimistic about doing a bipartisan infrastructure bill in the position of our Democratic friends having to guarantee that the 12th, 2017 tax bill is unwound. That's our one red line. We're not going to revisit the 2017 tax

bill, which is an enormous success for the country. Led us to the best economy in 50 years as of February 2020. And so I think we've gone from optimism to pessimism as a result of the president's second press conference. So I would say we need to keep talking here because I think the bill to be bipartisan is going to have to have Republican support. It's just so mean of Biden to have killed the optimism, the hope in his eyes, this young fresh-faced senator who just wanted to fix the problems of America. Yeah, he's definitely not lying there when he says that Biden has pulled the rug out from under the bipartisan negotiations, or we can throw Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy who said

he was blindsided by Biden's remarks. Well, will you be surprised to find out that Biden has been talking about the possibility of doing a narrowly tailored, tailored bipartisan bill with a wider bill via reconciliation for, at the very least two months openly, that nobody has discovered that this week. It wasn't news this week. They're just using it conveniently to get out of something that they've already agreed to because, again, they want to waste time. McConnell there said, we need to keep talking. Yeah, he'd love to. to keep talking for the rest of his natural life if it stops anything from being done. Certainly if it stops the tax bill from being taken back, almost entirely, the only thing that the Senate did for something like four years is cutting those taxes. No, of course he doesn't want that to be taken back no matter the cost. Anyway, this bit of hypocrisy is out there. Adrian, what do you think? Is it going to be successful? Will they end up turning on this bipartisan deal? Oh, I think that they will definitely turn on it because they have to put their own

needs and corporate greed first. And, you know, that's one of the most important things to them when it comes to the Republican agenda is to keep that class divide. And so if this infrastructure bill were in any way going to start to even move in the direction of leveling the playing field, I think it's very, very unlikely that the Republicans would allow that to happen. And as a result, this whole effort by Biden to, you know, get the bipartisan vote and reach across the aisle, it's just going to be a waste. Allegory, I mean, I do think it's going to be a waste. And I do think the Republicans are not going to come around for this. But there is something here about Joe Biden's two different

news conferences where I do think the White House made a mistake. The smart move in all this would have been, okay, sure, you made private assurances to progressives and to Nancy Pelosi that you're going to have this linkage to the reconciliation bill. There was no need for Joe Biden to come out and state that publicly. He could have waited for reporters or waited for word to seep out from the hill and then been cage him out for a couple of days, but to essentially be in their face and say, oh yeah, we're going to link this to the reconciliation bill. I mean, I thought that was a self-inflicted air on the part of Joe Biden, because it did enable the Republicans to then use that as a shield and to hammer Democrats and say, this is why we're

not going to support it, as opposed to making the Republicans at least sweat it for a couple days and forcing the media to have to chase this idea about, well, is there going to be linkage or not? And instead, Joe Biden essentially stepped on his own headlines within 24 hours, and that was a political mistake. Yeah, I'm a bit torn. You know, Nancy Pelosi had already talked about it earlier this week. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been calling for this process. I think that you are right in that if we take as a given, who Biden is, how he operates politically, the weak state of the Democratic Party, then I think that you're perhaps right. What I would love to see is a Biden who seems to get that he won the presidency, that the

Democrats took the Senate, that they control the House, that the American people are supportive of these various pieces of legislation, whether it's the infrastructure bill or the For the People Act. I would love for him to tell, like, the Republicans to go kick rocks, they didn't win. Like, you don't get to determine every single bit of what the government does and doesn't do. And regrettably, the reason they get to do that is because some senators, I guess I have to give at least credit the fact that they're somewhat bold enough that they'll identify themselves like Mansion and Cinema. But then also people like Tester was in the background of that video we showed you and probably a few others as well believe that they are in fact in charge and seem perfectly willing for if this bipartisan bill falls apart. In theory, you could do all of it via reconciliation, but they would probably kill that. Biden could pull a Trump, and he could put pressure on them.

He could put some sort of cost on Mansion and Cinema telling the American people, no, all of you want this, you don't get it because I'm not interested in it. He could call out their donors. He could start talking about supporting primary challenges against them. He could start rallying money for that or something. He's clearly not going to do that. I'm speaking about Fantasyland as much as I started as if I were to be. begin speculating about what's going to be in the Amazon Prime Lord of the Rings series.

But all of these are things that could happen. That is how Donald Trump ruled. It didn't generate much legislation for him because he didn't really have many goals. But in theory, you as the head of the Democratic Party could actually use that power for something, but he seems completely unwilling to do that. It's all negotiation. It's all entering from a position of weakness, whether it's speaking with the Republicans or even addressing the more conservative members of his own caucus. And it's just so frustrating, considering on the one hand, the challenges that we face. And on the other hand, the fact that he's spent the better part of his entire life trying to become president. And now he's just going to like, just like wander through

it. Like, could I get anything? No? Okay, I guess I'll wait a little bit. Maybe if we make it through the midterms with a Senate majority, then I'll get something. It's just, it's pathetic to watch. I don't know. What would have? And look, I think you've identified a key issue with Joe Biden, that is it's all carrots. There are no sticks, right? So with Mansion and Cinema, what pressure has Joe Biden put on them in terms of what punishment has Joe Biden threatened them with if they don't play ball with the Democrats? And I haven't heard of any. It's all, oh yeah, we can try to help me with infrastructure. Oh, yeah, sure, we're not going to go for the minimum wage. It's always appeasement to these centrist Democrats. And as a result, Joe Biden never

earns any respect of them because they don't fear the president of the United States. They don't fear that there's going to be any consequences for crossing him or crossing the rest of the Democratic Party. And until there is some sort of punishment, I think Joe Biden's going to get walked all over by these centrist Democrats and you're going to have this play out again and again. Yeah, what are my fear? Well, let me throw a couple of other names out there, saw earlier today. GOP Senator Jerry Moran is wavering in his support of the bipartisan infrastructure deal. He wants assurances from Joe Mansion and cursing cinema that they will oppose recognition. for him to stay on board. Now, he knows that at least if you take Nancy Pelosi at her word,

were they to do that, then the House would not approve of the bipartisan bill. We'll see about that. It's entirely possible that she will reverse on it. But that would mean that you'd get nothing, which Jerry Moran is clearly perfectly fine with. And even then, like, it's not just the Republicans. You have Representative Schrader who said, I'm not voting for reconciliation. I think the reconciliation process is completely unwarranted. I'm not going to vote for $5 trillion of spending. And when I saw that, I clicked on the link to go to that person and say, oh, which Republican congressman is this?

And it took quite a bit of digging. It's not a Republican, in fact. It's almost impossible to find out because on his social media, there's no reference to his party. When you even go to his website, the only way I could discover is looking at some of the subgroups within the Democrats that he's actually a part of. Is that fascinating that it would be that difficult to actually know what party an elected member of Congress is even a part of? And yet, I guess this is the middle ground that he wants to play, both in terms of identification and also in terms of trying to stop his party from accomplishing any of the actual things that they campaigned on.

Because he believes that like devil's advocate, like or being charitable, his position in the center and it needs to be respected or more likely the donor. that have been paying them off need to be respected. But in any event, this is what we have less than one day into this process. Multiple Republican senators saying it's not going to happen, or at the very least, it's not going to happen unless the Democrats torpedo a different part of it that would presumably make it not happen. And even now, you have at least one Democrat that's saying the process they've sketched out, I'm not going to be in favor of. Maybe Nancy Pelosi could afford to lose Schrader, but are there potentially others that could join up? I don't I don't know. I don't know. And so look, we've all talked about our concerns about whether this

process will work. So let's assume that it doesn't. Let's assume that the path that Joe Biden has sketched out is not what's going to happen. I want your final thoughts on this. What will happen? Is it nothing? Is it a limited reconciliation bill? Is it a more limited bipartisan bill? Let's start with you, Adrian. What do you think, six months from now, will there be any bill? And if so, what might it look like? I think it'll be in a half-fast effort that is really inept in various ways. It doesn't truly achieve the core things that Biden or the Democratic Party would want in any way. I honestly think it'll be a placid effort.

I don't know how many more ways I can say. I think it'll be a hot mess and nothing worth doing anything about, not the reason that they started this. I could definitely see that happening. David? Look, my thought on this is that some of the transportation funding bills expire at the end of the summer. So at the very least, I can see Congress saying, okay, well, we couldn't agree to this infrastructure bill of reconciliation. Let's just keep the funding levels at the exact same level they're at now, continuing those monies.

And it'll be something very narrow like that. There won't be anything new. There won't be any sort of increase in budgets for particular things that the Democrats want. And that'll be it. And they'll just keep them. They'll keep existing programs going. And that to me is not a success at all. In fact, that'll be incredibly frustrating, particularly to Democrats. When I think you've got control the Senate, you've got control the House, you've got the White House. There's got to be some way to get these centrist Democrats to play ball with you. And I still don't see what the

path is. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, to continue the metaphor, if your players won't play, kick them off the team. I mean, and you like to, well, no, but then they'll become Republicans. Okay, well, as of right now, today, how different is it, really? Honestly, I understand that it is in some ways, but it is incredibly frustrating. Anyway, we have some other news which we'll get to after this. Welcome back, everyone, to what remains of the first hour of the power panel. We're very lucky to be joined today by Adrian Lawrence and David Schuster. Thank you to both of you for being here.

Now, we've talked a bit about the truly definitionally powerful, the senators, the president, all of that. Let's talk about some people that regrettably our country has decided to make powerful, at least in the area of influencing the public discourse. Unfortunately, we're going to have to talk about Tucker Carlson, so let's do that. This week, General Millie's comments about the need for the military to understand ideologies that they might not themselves follow, went viral. A lot of people very much enjoyed that commentary,

regardless of Millie's other stances and actions and all of that. Tucker Carlson, though, not a big fan of what the general had to say. Here he is talking about it. Hard to believe that man wears a uniform. He's that unimpressive. Notice he never defined white rage, and we should know what it is. What is white rage? Well, like drapedomania, it's one of those diseases that only affect people with certain melanin levels.

It's a race-specific illness. That's what Mark Millie has learned from reading about it. That's why he's making his soldiers read about it too. They need to know. Watch. I've read Miles-Saiton. I've read Carl Marx. I've read Lenin. That doesn't make me a communist.

So what is wrong with understanding, having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend? And I personally find a defensive that we are accusing the United States. military, our general officers, are commissioned, non-commissioned officers, of being, quote, woke. He's not just a pig. He's stupid. So Mark Millie reads Mao to understand Maoism.

He reads communists to understand communism. But it's interesting that he doesn't read white supremacists to understand white supremacy. Why not? Go to the source. Well, because Mark Millie would be fired instantly if he read those books. And getting fired is the one thing he doesn't. want. So he reads about white rage as if it's totally real. It's a medical condition. And by the way, since it's a medical condition, at what age can you catch white rage,

by the way? Most of us assume that our two-year-olds were just teething. Now we know it's their whiteness that's making them so angry. Okay, like his biggest issue seems to be that this guy hasn't read about white supremacy, which I don't believe that he said he never has. And maybe he doesn't need to. Maybe he occasionally tunes into Tucker Carlson. Maybe he's getting all he needs to know about white rage and white supremacy in America. Anyway, there was a lot there, obviously. So I will throw it to our panel. Take it wherever you'd like to go based on what you saw.

David, what did you think about that? A couple of things as I always do. I just close that I worked with Tucker Carlson 10 years ago at MSNBC, substituted on his show. Back then, he was a very different person than he is now. Back then, that Tucker Carlson would never think of using the word pig to describe somebody who's in the US military or somebody who's in an administration. Tucker has changed and he has changed and has decided that, okay, he can be part of this

coarsening of the culture that Donald Trump seemed to embrace and that Tucker can go there as well. And to me, it's another regrettable step, regardless of whether Tucker has a strong opinion, and maybe he does about General Millie and what General Millie testified to. But the way that Tucker Carlson now coursesens people's language towards people like that and enables people to call other people names, it's just, it's so regrettable. And again, it's just like Donald Trump, and I suppose, you know, Donald Trump paved the way for all of us to go there. But it's another sign that our society, particularly, I think, on the right, has just totally lost its way. There's nothing classy, there's nothing sophisticated about what Tucker Carlson

has become. Even though classy and sophisticated were things that I know, Tucker aspired to at least 10 years ago. So he's failed. Adrian? Oh, well, I don't know Tucker Carlson and I didn't know him 10 years ago, but I would like to think that he's probably always the same person. He's just more. I'm bolden now. And, you know, when he gets up on his pulpit and he starts with these asthenine comments about whether they be leaders or about white supremacy, all he's doing is doubling down on propaganda. And he's not worth listening to, just like I don't think he was

worth listening to them. But I think we know who this man is and we know what his agenda is. And it's just a matter of hopefully divorcing him from having a position where he can actually influence large masses of people because the last thing we need is more white supremacists, whether they're in a bowtie, a tie, or in any position of power. I agree. And unfortunately, though, you are getting more and more and more of him because you had Tucker Carlson, who had his show, and then he spent the better part of last year trying to convince people to open themselves up to COVID-19 and get sick and die. and Fox decided they were going to reward him by beginning to take clips from his show and just use that during their straight news programming in the morning.

Then they gave him programming on Fox Nation, and they gave him his daily, during the day show now, where, for instance, he recently had on the bell curve guy, so that was fun. and he is just taking over the entirety of their network. And I agree with Adrian, he's certainly emboldened, but he's emboldened on basically everything. Like the anti-VAC stuff, there's no hiding that. He's just openly spreading the great replacement theory. He had a sidebar that was just anti-white mania. I talked on the pre-show before the damage report this morning about the fact that, like, I don't know what gap there is between him now and Alex Jones a couple of years.

years ago. And maybe that seems, I don't know, is that weird to say? Like, he's even started to take up some of the mannerisms of Alex Jones, the weird laughs, the, he's not just a pig, he's an idiot. Like, he's become increasingly weird. He did a segment this week about how to fight climate change, Democrats want to genetically engineer humans to be smaller and make them unable to process meat. And he did all of that because six years ago, there was was a scientist at a convention that threw out some wild hypotheticals that he didn't even agree of about like insane things that in theory could be considered. He doesn't believe any of that.

Tucker Carlson this week picked up those comments from six years ago and said that's what Democrats and scientists want. And that is, I think indistinguishable from Alex Jones doing a segment about how they're putting stuff in the water that's going to make the frogs gay because he read something in a thesis statement once. But he's not Alex Jones, he's on Fox News, he's got an audience of millions, an ever-expanding audience. He's making millions of dollars per year, and he is very much a thought leader, whether it's

on the military becoming effeminate as it becomes woke, or the fact that white people are the most aggrieved and victimized people in our society, he is unfortunately perhaps now driving more of what conservatives think on a daily basis than even Donald Trump, at the very least until Donald Trump starts to do his weekly rallies. Tucker Carlson has very much picked up that mantle. I don't know. Any thoughts? Any statements? No, I think the comparison with Alex Jones is actually a wise one. I mean, the GOP has long been the anti-intellectual party. Tucker Carlson knows that he can pull a fast one over on most of his audience. And somehow, some Republicans find this kind of behavior is entertaining or sort of funny. I guarantee that Tucker wrote in on his

script, smile and laugh out of that clip. So he would be able to be theatrical and laugh at the audience. I mean, this is a game for him. And it almost seems like he's been given some cover by Fox News legal department, because when Tucker Carlson's been sued, they said, oh, you don't really need to believe Tucker Carlson. He's not a journalist. You shouldn't believe him. This is just entertainment. And so Tucker's like, okay, if I'm just entertainment, I'm going to, I'm going to take this to whatever extreme I feel like I want to take it, whatever the audience might desire. And again, it's a dangerous place. It's dangerous not just for Fox News and for Republicans, but it's dangerous for the whole country.

Yep, I agree with David. It's incredibly dangerous, particularly because our population seems to really invest in keeping people ignorant and dumb. So people don't have the analytical ability. They don't have the knowledge base. They don't hunger for more information. So they're willing to just accept what Tucker Carlson is willing to divvy out. And because he's giving out propaganda, he is essentially pushing a bunch of adults. that are systems of oppression. And hey, people like to be led, a lot of sheep. So he's

sitting here in a position of power, giggling when he can. So as David has acknowledged, it gives his legal team pretty much puts him in a position. They can say, oh, he's not even taking himself seriously. He was just joking. He's laughing. It's vampire. And the thing is, it's really just our downfall. They're a little trickle bits of democracy that tip away every time there's a Tucker Carlson show. Yeah. Yeah. And you're really, You're right. There's sheep who want to be lead. And unfortunately, one of the best ways to lead people is to point them at something that they're supposed to hate or disdain, feel some sort of condescension towards or whatever. And I get it, surface level, shallow glass houses. I'm talking about Tucker Carlson. I clearly don't anticipate that you'll come out of this discussion liking him more. But at the very least, he is a powerful, rich member of the media. Tucker Carlson, every day, just gives these broad categories. of sorts of people that you're not supposed to care about. You're not supposed to feel any empathy for.

So much of right wing media just seems to be now designed to both distract people while their economic agenda is pursued. And they got what they wanted. They got their tax cuts. Every time a Republican president comes in, they're going to get their massive tax cuts. And then they're going to just basically plop there for a few years and stop the government from functioning. And so they distract, but they also get you to hate. To hate and to fear.

And there's always going to be some group, whether it's, youth trans athletes or whether it's teachers who want you to know about the accurate history of the United States or now even if it's the military or the cops, not for substantive reasons, not for the war crimes or for the brutality, but if they have like a racial sensitivity training or if they acknowledge that they read about white domestic terrorists, it's this, it's just such a corrosive thing and I can't help but feel quite powerless just watching it grow ever larger. Tucker Carlson every year seems to have more influence over Fox News, more influence over right wing media, more influence potentially over politicians. He had an influence over Donald Trump

during the pandemic and I just don't know what we're supposed to do about it considering all of the damage that it's clearly going to do to America. Anyway, final thought? I was just going to say Look, it's always been the Fox News playbook and that is to get their base riled up and angry at something and then say, oh, but we're on your side. In this case, oh, be very afraid. Be very afraid of General Millie, but I'm Tucker Carlson. I'm on your side and we're going to have a little secret. You and I together, we know what's really going on. Well, and it brings the audience in to Tucker Carlson's show and they feel a great affinity to Tucker. That's always been the playbook. The difference now is that they're so extreme in the language and so coarse in the approach. And they've thrown whatever standards they, that even Fox News had 20 years ago right out the window. And I guess that's the way society is going in the right wing of the United States these days. And Donald Trump gets some credit. Tucker Carlson could have stopped it, I suppose.

You could have said, no, I'm going to take the high road. But he's playing right along. And it's sickening. Yeah. Well, we unfortunately don't have. Oh, sorry, Adrian, continue. It's okay. I was just thinking, you know, if the Lord decides to snatch Tucker Carlson's larynx, I wouldn't be disappointed. I'd pray for that. Yeah, well, look, the Lord The Lord might not intervene. One would hope some of the other still powerful, right wagers might, you know, it was revealed this week, we don't have time to get to it, unfortunately, that he's spreading gossip about all these people, openly mocking Sean Hannity, spreading negative stories about Donald Trump.

Hey, Republican alphas, you're just going to let him punch you in the face like that? You're not going to do anything about it? Sean Hannity, he's spit in your face. Donald Trump, he's trying to make you out to be a laughing stock so that he can run and win in 2024. Do something about it, you fake alphas. But I don't think that they're going to, unfortunately. And that is unfortunately all the time that we have. I want to let both of you give you a chance to let people know where they can watch the great content that you make. Adrian, where can they watch your content, your commentary, your expertise?

You can catch me on Rebel HQ, T.YT. Overruled. Also Twitter at Adrian Law, Instagram at Adrian Lawrence. And David? Right there. Rebel HQ, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, at David Chuster, everything that we post at Facebook and Twitter and YouTube. I also post there. So any one of those will do. Nice. This was a Rebel HQ takeover of the power panel today. Thank you to both of you, both for your work here today and all that you do every day. For those of you watching home, thank you for continuing to watch because we've got another awesome hour for you. You've got Francesca Fierentini's going to be taking over and a great panel as well. So stick around after this.

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