The Young Turks - Climate Killers

Episode Date: January 14, 2023

Donald Trump’s organization has been fined $1.6 million for tax evasion. Joe Mansion is now the chief lobbyist for big oil. A New York firefighter has accused her Chief of raping her as a birthday gift. A study finds that ExxonMobil actually predicted the state of our climate today. A republican’s wife has been arrested for casting 23 fraudulent votes for her husband. Host: John Iadarola, Francesca Fiorentini, Maz Jobrani 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. Woo! It's up! Three-by-T, Three-My-D, Three-My-D, Three-A-T, Three-A-T, Three-A-T, Three-A-D-W-T, Three-A-D-W-T. Drop it like it's a sorely-needed three-day weekend. Welcome one and all to the power panel with me, Johnny Rolla and a tag team of comedy powerhouses.

First, on joining, well, I was going to say joining me. I guess I'm much more literally joining her at San Francisco Sketchfest. Francesca Fierantini, how's going? Good, super excited for that show, which is sold out. I'm sorry. I warned people, they didn't listen. And now they're going to have to wait until next year or something. But anyway, it's great to have you here. And Maz Jobrani, I hear that you're going to be heading all over the place. You're back on tour? Back on tour. I'm going to be in Dallas next weekend. I'm going to be in Chicago the following weekend.

And like Francesca, I love the word sold out. That's the best phrase in life. We want everything in my life should be sold out. Yeah, like generally obviously as progressives, we hate sellouts, but like as comics, we want to sell out. Like crazy. Yeah, optimally. If we go to my website, Maziobrani.com and buy those tickets so I too can say I'm sold out.

Yes. Exactly. We're gonna check back in on a future power panel and make sure that it's happened. So he's heading all over the place so you can check it out there. Great to have both of you here. Thank you. I am like trying to evaluate in real time. How ripe for comedy is today's rundown.

And there are some spots where I'm not sure we're going to be able to get there. But I think mocking Trump for losing another court battle is something we can probably find a few juicy tidbits in. So anyway, we're going to be talking about that, the tax fraud cases, giving you our thoughts on that. Some of the corruption happening amongst Joe Manchin's closest staff is just, it would be hilarious if it wasn't helping to lead towards climate apocalypse. So we're going to be touching base with that actual voter fraud. Someone was harvesting ballots. I'm gonna give you until our last segment of the first hour to guess which party that person identifies with and a whole lot more besides. We got basically a block about oil that I am totally here for. So thank you everyone for joining us. Please like the stream so the people know

we're live. And with that said, are you guys ready to jump into things? Yes. Okay, let's have a little bit of fun starting with this. Donald Trump's real estate business has been hit with what is being called the maximum possible fine for a number of different crimes that they've now been convicted on. 1.1.61 million dollars that they're being penalized for tax fraud amongst many other crimes. And I want to give you all of the details. So back in December, they were convicted of handing out off the book gifts and compensation to their top executive. So this is a sort of an update to what had been going on not that long ago. One of the executives involved in that scheme, Alan Weisselberg, who I'm sure you've heard a lot about over the last year or two, pleaded guilty and testified at the company's trial.

He was sentenced earlier this week to serve five months at the Rikers Island jail complex. So he individually is going to be spending time in jail. Spoiler alert, Donald Trump, as always, will not be, despite however involved in this, he might well have been. just Alan Weisselberg on the actual time spent behind bars. But that doesn't mean that there aren't some consequences. The tax fraud trial, which ended with the company's conviction on 17 counts of tax fraud, a scheme that a fraud, conspiracy, falsifying business records hinged on whether the executives

at the Trump organization, who collected the off-the-books perks did so to help the company. And that's really where when you talk about New York law, it really matters. Did you do this just to benefit you? or was this scheme to benefit the company, which has broader ramifications? So in the case of Allen Weisselberg, he received an array of lucrative under the table benefits, including a rent-free apartment, how nice, free Mercedes-Benzes and private school tuition for his grandchildren. And it's always good to see perks being given to multi-millionaires who definitely don't need them. But anyway, in his testimony, he made clear that the Trump organization had also been,

benefited from this because in exchange effectively for the perks that he was being given, they didn't have to pay him as much in salary. And because they weren't paying as much, they didn't have to pay as much on taxes on that as well. So he benefited, the Trump organization benefited. They tried to make the case in court that they had not intended any of this. They didn't benefit. It was all Weisselberg, being Weisselberg, but the judge and the jury appear not to have bought that. And so Weisselberg is certainly going to pay, but the Trump organization will as well. Francesca, what do you make of this? I mean, 1.6 million is a drop in the bucket. And we all know, Don Trump Jr. just ups his cameo rate every time the organization

or the family is in any kind of financial trouble. So, you know, they're going to find their way out of this. It's really, the reporting on this is interesting because they're like, it's a stunning penalty. And then it's like 1.6 million, which is so little. And also you have to Imagine, I mean, on that, so let's put that aside. But also, I am happy that another Trump stooge is actually seeing the inside of a jail cell. That is Rikers. This is the second time someone from the Trump team has gone to Rikers. Remember Paul Manafort? Again, we're getting closer within striking distance to the big Kahuna. But like, I am curious because it's five months, it probably would have been a lot more had he not been cooperating on this, or and

or what is he cooperating in terms of the other cases, the other charges that are currently still out against Trump and the Trump organization. So I'm, I'm interested to see how it all this plays into that. Yeah. Mass. Yeah, I think as you both alluded to, it's Trump keeps getting away with stuff. He's kind of like a Batman villain. He's like the Joker. He's like, he won't get me again next time, Batman, and he's off and someone else is paying the penalty. So first of all, Wieselberg is he's got, I think, five or six months in Rikers, which is a pretty serious place. So for a man of, you know, his age and all, that's going to be tough. The 1.6 is, you can't even say slapped with a fine. They got flicked. I mean, that's all. They should,

they need to raise that amount, you know? Because, for example, like, TYT could be paying me in pens. I'm not saying they are, but they could pay me in pens to avoid paying taxes, and they won't be slapped with much more of a fine. Right. So the point is, there needs to be more, they need to be more than $1.6 million. That's, that's nothing at all. And it's clear, of course, the guy didn't get a Mercedes-Benz.

He got Mercedes-Benz-Z. I don't remember where the last time was I used. Benziz. Okay, so that's, these people are corrupt. You understand? They were paying for his child and grandchildren's private school tuition. I was somebody would pay for my kids private school tuition. Can I offer T.T. Can we talk here? Um, my point being, you settle with the pens, maz. You just pens is your pens. You keep your pens. I get pens. Yeah, they get banses. I get penses. That's the problem. That is definitely a problem. We're going to work on it. So really fast. I'll stop for a second. And I want your quick reactions specifically for Weisselberg.

So five months, whenever you hear a jail sentence like this, I instantly think, okay, is that satisfying? So they were doing this for years and years and years. They knew what they were doing. They were defrauding people. That said, you know, if you told me I was going to be spending one night in Rikers, I would be like, I would really prefer not to. So five months for a guy that age seems like a lot.

gut reaction, starting with you, Francesca, is this commensurate to the crime? No, white collar crime is never commensurate with the measure it with the if and when there are any penalties, right? It's like, I mean, for all I know, we are often told this stuff is legal. Oh yeah, you can totally buy Mercedes-Benz's and give, you know, college tuition or tuition to someone else's kid in order to evade paying, avoid paying your taxes, like all these, like, again, the amount of other tax schemes that are legal, we, knows no bounds. So there's that. On the sentence for Rikers, look, I believe Rikers jail should be shut down. And I don't think it should be replaced by smaller jails, which is now a push in New York City.

No, it should be closed unless you worked for the Trump organization. That is the only case in which I believe Rikers should stay open only for Trump officials, maybe expanded to be like only white collar criminals. And I love it. I think, I don't know if you guys heard, but also after the, it came time to sentence, they'd revealed in the process in between the sentencing and when they found him guilty, that he'd been paying his wife some money so she could get social security benefits. She didn't work, but they basically scammed the American people to give the wife social security benefits.

And the judge said I would have been giving you more time, but I found out about that later, which again, I'm like, is that a thing? Can't you just be like, yo, we found out you committed more crimes. He's like, I found out about the murder afterwards. So I said, I'm only going to give you a jaywalking ticket. If I'd known about the murder earlier, I would have given you penalty for the murder as well. So I think he should pay more. First of all, I think it should take a lot of his money.

And secondly, as for Rikers, look, like you said, John, I'm with you. I don't want to spend one night in Rikers and Wieselberg being Trump's accountant. He needs to find, like, he needs to stay away from the gang, the Democratic gang. There's Democrats there might attack him. him. Like, if he finds like an NPR gang, he needs to stay away from the NPR gang. He needs to punch the first NPR guy in the nose to show him he's tough to last these five months. The NPR guy can't really throw a punch back, however. So it's not really a fair fight. NPR guys are, they're soft. J.K., I love NPR. Sometimes.

Yeah, avoid anyone with like a Nancy Pelosi neck tattoo or anything like that. Okay, let's let's return to something we were talking about earlier. Let's talk about. Let's talk about Let's talk about $1.61 million and what that represents. So as Francesca has said, that's what the Trump organization has to pay. And it's obviously a tiny drop in the bucket. Although, as I talked about earlier today on the damage report, everybody's saying that's a tiny portion of what the Trump organization takes in. But according to Trump's taxes, it loses money literally every single year. So maybe that's why it can't, won't be able to break even.

But when people read this story, they read that it's $1.61 million, and the first thought is, well, that's clearly not enough money. And then you read, well, that's the maximum the judge could do. And when I read that, I think, oh, we've identified a crime, the one that the Trump organization did. And then there's this other thing that should be a crime, but isn't, which is to write the law that produces this system. Totally legal. Nobody broke any laws, but it's not like, it's not like an AI chatbot generated that maximum

penalty. People did, people who live in New York, who probably go to dinners with people like Alan Weisselberg and maybe serving the board of corporations. And so whatever you hear that like there was a big like insider trading thing. And as a result of it, we finally got them and now they need to pay 1% of what they made from the insider trading. It's like, oops, we goofed. No, you didn't goof, you guys did this. And so there are people pushing for the law to be changed. Alvin Bragg is the Manhattan district attorney. He called in a statement for the state to change the law quotes so that we can impose more

significant penalties and sanctions on corporations that commit crimes in New York. But again, it's not like it was a mistake. And it's New York, by the way, which means it's not like that it was likely, it was just Republicans who did this. This is a Democrat scheme basically that they set up preemptively. years or decades or hell, I don't know, 150 years ago to make sure that if you ever through a combination of like unending media attention and pressure from regular people and how indisputable the crime is that finally you get to charges and a conviction even then

the slap on the wrist. Okay, we should be tracking down the people who voted for this, putting pressure on people in office right now to change the law to make sure that nothing like this happens in the future. What do you all think? It could also be, sorry to jump in real quick, It could also be, John, that back when they passed this law, 1.6.1 million was a lot. That could be the case too. This could be like 1929. They're like, we'll get that guy. 1.6.1 million will ruin them. You guys like, let me see what I got in my pocket. Here you go. Absolutely. And look, he's going to be alongside people. Rikers is a jail.

There are people being held for like minor drug possession at Rikers, nonviolent, offenses who cannot make bail. And that's the reason they're still being held. And we know like the incredible, horrible conditions at that jail. So again, I don't, again, with the January six rioters and how they're like, the prison system's terrible. It's like, oh yeah, buddy, it is bad. So I don't know, maybe Weisselberg will turn a new leaf and dedicate the rest of his life to, you know, abolishing the prison industrial complex. Yeah. I wouldn't hold my breath, but I just want to put it out into the universe. Francesca, there is precedent. I mean, we don't go. one day without Marjorie Green once again pushing for her vote on her bill to get rid of solitary

confinement across America because she's seen what happened to these political prisoners and it has it has melted her icy heart no they don't they don't actually care it's convenient talking point they don't want any systemic change because it doesn't actually really bother them anyway it is frustrating that Donald Trump continues to effectively escape I know that there are some consequences in this for Donald Trump the fact that his organization has been convicted of a whole bunch of felonies and all that, you know, that's not great for him. In theory, maybe it'll sway like one voter in Georgia in 2024. But if, but if you are out there and you think that Trump had no hand in this, that it was Weisselberg and some

other rando executive or whatever, Trump never pushed for any kind of tax fraud or insurance fraud or anything, like you are one of the most gullible people in the world. And you might well have voted for Trump in the past. But anyway, it is frustrating. There's progress, but not nearly enough. Okay, any final thoughts before we take our first break? I guess I just want to say that I think that this kind of tax scheme is really common, right? Like, again, like I'm saying, these are illegal tax schemes in the state of New York. You cannot give gifts in order to reduce the tax, what you're liable for as a company. But how many corporations are doing exactly this. So again, the Trump administration has opened our eyes to so many things that

we're already undemocratic about our political system and our economic system. So don't just stop at Trump officials. Let's use this as an opening to go out for everyone else who's collecting Mercedes Benzizzizzizz so that their company can avoid paying more taxes. And I will also piggyback that with this whole hiring of new IRS agents. I never thought I'd be rooting for more IRS agents. But unless if they're really doing some grand scheme where they're going to pull the wool over our eyes and come and take taxes from everyday folks, I believe the goal is to do precisely what you were just talking about, Francesco, which is to go after these corporations. Because right now they don't have enough manpower to go after all these rich folks who've got

enough of their own manpower to be able to run these schemes. So hopefully these new agents will be able to collect on some of this money and we can start going after them. That's sorry, I just have to jump in. That's such a good point because everyone's like, oh, the tax returns, where's Trump's tax returns? Yeah, it's in the hands of one sad, sorry IRS agent who has mountains of documents has no way to get through them all. And it's like, oh, right, we forgot how, you know, this all works. And so yes, we will, I do not think the Senate will vote to actually defund the IRS in the ways that Republicans in the House want to. But that's a really important point that Maz brings up. Yeah. And to tie those two things

together, like the fact that up until like last year, you had three people working at the IRS or whatever. And the only thing they had time for was to audit people with incredibly simple things. That was a goof in the same way that a $1.61 million limits, a goof. It was set up that way by Democrats and Republicans to make it impossible to actually get the rich for their crimes. John, actually, IRS was the initials of the three people that were there. It was Ingrid, Ralph, and Steve. I was wondering what that was about. Anyway, with that said, we're going to take our first break.

When we come back, what did ExxonMobil know and when did they know it? And what are the consequences of them knowing it when they knew it? We'll break that down after this. Welcome back one and all to the young Turks. That's Francesca Fierintini, that's Mazhovrani. It's good to have both of you here. Thank you for not leaving during the break. Anyway, who wants to talk about some oil?

I'm begging you to let me talk about some oil, so let's jump into that. We've already known for many years that Exxon Mobile knew that burning the fuel that they produce and make tons of money off of is going to have a very predictable effect on the environment, lead to overall heat of the environment, the climate change that we're currently dealing with. I'm not here to talk about that today. What I'm here to talk about is new research showing that not only did they know that there was going to be an effect, but they were shockingly accurate at the rate and amount of the effect. Way back in the 70s, we're talking about a half a century ago. They kind of

kind of nailed it on how bad things would get if we continued business as usual, literally business as usual. And so despite that, they still claim that they haven't done literally anything wrong. We're gonna run through these facts and I'm gonna let you decide for yourself. First, here are the details of the study that we're gonna be discussing. Jeffrey Suprin is a historian of science at Harvard University. And what he did was he looked at internal company documents that have been discovered at Exxon back in 2015. And whereas past reports that we have covered on this channel, feel free to look for those on YouTube, focused on textual evidence of the company's knowledge.

Supran and his two co-authors, a climate scientist at Potsdam University and a Harvard science historian, present the first quantitative review of their actual early numerical and graphical data on climate scientists. So not just quotes about what they know or an acknowledgement that they were running a study, diving into the actual studies. What did they find when they put real scientists on it? And so it started with a tweet from Romstorff, who back in 2019 took an ExxonMobil, 1982 climate projection graph, and then mapped it over the actual data that we've seen, and they are highly similar. So once they saw that, they thought, oh, there is actually something to this way back in the early 80s. This is like pre-stranger things era.

They knew kind of what they were looking at. Let's dive in and see how accurate they were. And here's what they found. Our results show that in private private and academic circle since the late 1970s and early 1980s, ExxonMobil predicted global warming correctly and skillfully. Using established statistical techniques, we find that 63 to 83% of the climate projections reported by ExxonMobil scientists were accurate in predicting subsequent global warming. Their average projected warming was 0.2 degrees plus or minus 0.04 degrees Celsius per decade, which is, with an uncertainty, the same as that of independent academic and government projections published between 1970 and 2007, and the documents that they looked

into from ExxonMobil were labeled the CO2 greenhouse effect. So we have more to talk about, but and this is where I guess you kind of have to laugh to not cry. The idea that in 2023 we still live in a country where a significant portion of regular people and virtually every single elected Republican and right wing pundit in the country insists that it is not happening, that if it is happening, it has nothing to do with human activity, when Exxon Mobile not only said it was going to happen decades ago, but mapped out exactly how it was going to happen and at what rate, and we're proven to be right up until the present day. That is a weird situation to be in. Maz, what do you make of this?

Well, you know, it's the woke left trying to convince you that there's global warming. Meanwhile, the world is falling apart. Come on. First of all, it's so obvious. The oil industry is like the, like the tobacco industry. They've known for the longest time, like the gun industry. They know that they cause damage. They know that they are not good for the environment.

They're not good for the world. And yet they keep sending out their executives to say, no, we're not causing any problems. Remember Lex, was it Lex Tillerson? What was his name? Rex Tillerson. Rex Tillerson. Rex Tillerson. Like Lex Lillard, whatever, yeah.

Rex Tillerson. Remember that guy when he first became the first Secretary of State under Trump? And we were like, oh, no, he's putting an Exxon executive as a Secretary of State. And then he ended up being like the best guy they had as they got worse and worse as the time went on. But seriously, it's ridiculous in this day and A's that they continue to deny it. But unfortunately, I think it's one of the issues with social media. That's one of the issues with the world that we have. We have a lot more access to knowledge.

But unfortunately, there's a lot more access to misinformation and disinformation. And there's a lot of people who are going, oh, look at the agenda. They just want you to buy electric cars because they want their stocks to go up. And what about the electricity? It's like, yo, oil is bad. Doesn't take that, doesn't take a genius scientist to tell you oil. Just go near a gas station and just take a deep breath. It's not good for you.

So that's all you need to know. And yeah, this is kind of like the no duh kind of news, you know. I think that's a really interesting point, Maz, and like the comparison with the tobacco industry is a really apt one. And you could think about like the automotive industry more generally before we had seatbelts, right? And what did it take? It took actual people who, yeah, didn't didn't have a choice is whether they were inhaling those fumes, you know, were subjected to what a secondhand smoke were died in car accidents. And in this case, if they live in toxic waste zones, if they are, you know, they're victims of effectively climate racism, environmental racism. And it's sad because obviously rivers and streams and forests, they don't have legal representation.

I believe it was Bolivia that said maybe they are people. They granted finally personhood to like forests and lakes and things because they need protecting and they need some legal counsel. But it might take that for us to actually rein this thing in is like class action lawsuits, one after another after another, the entire planet against the powerful. I don't know, so I guess the second thing I'm just going to say is, look, they're good scientists who work at oil companies. It's a shame that they went to go work for a friggin' oil company instead of, you know, I don't know, some kind of nonprofit or working for the U.S. government that was actually trying to do something. something, but these folks knew what they were doing and they kept on doing it because they could

and because there was money in it. And that's what they're here for. Somehow they got a plan to take all their money with them, bury themselves in hundreds in their little, like beautiful coffins. I don't like, yeah. That'll be a comfort when it comes. Yes, that'll be their comfort. Exactly. Yeah, I want to add on to what you said. But first, to be fair, we have to give Exxon a chance to respond. So after this newest report was released, Todd Spittler, senior advisor of corporate media relations at ExxonMobil Corporation. I'm just going to say, it is impossible to be a good person and be the senior advisor of corporate media relations at ExxonMobil. That's a rough one. Anyway, here is what he had to say. And before I read this, and I don't want to get this out

while you're still conscious because your eyes are going to glaze over one or two sentences into this, bear in mind, the paragraph I'm about to read for you is supposed to reassure you that they didn't know anything that should have led them to do anything different. And regardless of that, bear in mind, they're still doing the same thing now, even though we know everything that we know in the modern day. So here is what Todd Spittler had to say. This issue has come up several times in recent years. And in each case, our answer is the same. Those who talk about how Exxon knew are wrong in their conclusions. In 2019, see, this sounds like he's citing a fact that's going to be persuasive. In 2019, Judge Barry Ostriger of

the New York State Supreme Court listened to all the facts in a related case before him and wrote, quote, what the evidence at trial revealed is that Exxon Mobil executives and employees were uniformly committed to rigorously discharging their duties in the most comprehensive and meticulous manner possible. None of that has anything to do with acknowledging that they knew their product upon being used in the only way that it can be used, the way that they tell us to use it, would wreck our environment. They did not promptly shut down their business, did they? The fact that they followed what they were supposed to do as executives at a company, which is maximize profits, damn the cost to the environment or people. Yeah, no,

I get that they were meticulous in that. I get that they were meticulous in hiding all of this data that they had for literally decades. I totally get that. That doesn't make me feel any better about the fact that you let a half century go by before we were able to find out how accurately you knew the pace of climate change and how it would go. And that's the last one that I want to make about this is, I've been doing this for in like a week. It's going to be 11 years. And we've had to cover a lot of news. And we've had to be exposed to a lot of really terrible people doing terrible things.

And yet, as cynical as I can be about a lot of things, I think that I'm still very much naive. Because I cannot conceive of like finding out indisputably that your product is going to wreck the planet you live on. And then be like, yeah, but I'll have a pool. I do not understand that. Like you presumably wants to continue to live on this planet. You have a good chance of having children or grandchildren to damn them to a foreseeable, avoidable apocalypse so that you can have like a study or like multiple benzes to take it back to the earlier topic. It's madness. And again, I don't know why I'm being so naive. I mean, we are still living

through a period of many right wing pundits and politicians knowingly lying about COVID and about the vaccine, even though they can see literally the number of people dying as a result of those lies on a daily basis. And they still did it for clout and for money. So maybe I shouldn't be as naive as I am. Greed is a major motivator. Greed is a major motivator. And going back to what I was saying about the cigarette industry, et cetera, this gentleman, the guy who gave that statement that the hullabaloo, it's ridiculous. As a kid, I used to drink Coca-Cola and have junk food. And one day I looked at it and the feelings I would get afterwards, I was like, this can't be good for me. Similarly, when you see a car and you see the exhaust coming out of the pipe and you see all

the stuff going in the sky, doesn't think a genius to be like, that's not good for the environment. I mean, I don't need to do a study to tell you that oil, the oil industry is bad for the environment. And yet this guy's going, you know, hullabaloo, hullabaloo, hullabaloo, hullabaloo, due diligence. I'm like, what? It's bad. Just say it's bad. And just go, we're greedy. We're making good money.

It takes too much time and effort to try and change things. So we're sticking with it for now until we can figure out, like the cigarette industry did, how to get our version of the vape pen to oil. That'll be our next thing. So just hang tight. We got more bad stuff coming, but wait till we're ready. I mean, just say at least I would, I would respect the guy for being honest. Yeah, it's really disgusting with the energy industry that we're relying on the idea that these corporations are going to just naturally shift because there's going to be more opportunity in wind than solar. And so that's what the Biden administration has been, you know, sort of hedging on and betting on.

And that is not a safe bet. You cannot be like, there's more money over here. There's more places to pillage over here. No, you have to bring the corporations to heal. You have to regulate them. The only way we're actually going to stop global warming and climate change and climate chaos is when the power of the government, sorry Republicans, power of the government is going to have to be used. It's the only way. You can't just sort of appeal to their better angels and be like, we're going to give you a discount on making solar. Oh, there's going to be electric charging stations. We're going to give you subsidies. So you make even. more electric cars. We don't have time people. Yeah, 100%. And by the way, I always go back and forth on whether it's a good thing to be focused or to acknowledge, you know, a lot of aspects of something. Like when we talk about the environment, one of the big things that we're focusing on, I think I understand why, is climate change. Overall average heating and the effect of it, which is very important when you do something about it. But bear in mind that that is not the only issue here. Like, you want to have fun, here's something fun you can do. I want you to go and

Google how many people die of respiratory illnesses every year worldwide due to the pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels, factories, and those sorts of things. When I say fun, I mean the exact opposite of fun, like the fundamental diametric opposite of fun, millions and millions of people die every single year, totally needlessly because of the pollution we put out there. And I know that we have to focus on climate change, because we have to desperately get our politicians to do something about it. But it is not just weird that conservatives don't care to stop the climate change.

It is super weird that they have been trained over the last few decades to not care at all about the world being polluted, the air and the water and the ground, to just constantly be bombarded by toxins. It's super weird that that doesn't bother them. They say save the children, but only from drag queens, not from the chemicals that are wrecking their bodies and killing them prematurely. Anyway, with that said, why don't we move on to our next topic? It's still about oil, but we're going to get a little bit more personal here.

Soon, former chief of staff, Lance West has a new job. And I just want to congratulate him on his new position with the American Petroleum Institute as vice president of federal affairs. Well, that's very cool and not at all distressing that the chief of staff to one of the most influential senators barely waited a couple of months after the climate bill debate ended to go work as a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. And I want to talk about some aspects of this. And I'm going to focus on Axios, their coverage of this, because sometimes the way they choose to cover things and word things, I find to be amazing. So they said, why this matters. As mentions top aid for the last two years, West knows the politics and the players of the energy and climate change debates. His hiring indicates that API is preparing to play offense and defense in the new

Congress. And then they just move on to the next paragraph. Is that the only reason that this matters this story? Nothing else. It doesn't say anything about, you know, what he was doing as chief of staff of Joe Manchin. We're supposed to believe, by the way, that he got through the legislative session last year. And then he was hanging out at Christmas and he was like, you know, I have literally never thought about where else I might get paid. I'm going to reach out to these people who've never heard of me. We certainly never talked. And, hey, What do you know? They're going to hire me as one of their VPs of BS. Like the idea that Axios doesn't think that this means anything, that there's certainly no

corruption going on. Or when you say that the American Petroleum Institute is preparing to play offense, would you care to define what that means and what the consequences of that might be for the American people for humanity broadly or for our planet? Because it feels consequential. There's a lot more here to dive into, but Francesca, I could go on for a long time. What are your thoughts about this new opportunity for Lance West? No, I mean, it's important to critique the reporting because it's surprising that they even reported on it. But yeah, this is the revolving door of Washington between, you know, industry and the halls of power. And it is as natural to them as trading stock. And owning and trading stock is to Nancy

Pelosi and everybody else who has an own stock and could be doing straight up insider trading. So it makes total sense. And again, it's like this is the guy, this is the guy that we're making overtures too. And they are drenched in coal money and oil money. And of course, the American Petroleum Institute, they've been behind the scenes for decades, right? They cheered on the war in Iraq, right? They were very, very happy about, and they still are happy about our relationship with Saudi Arabia, Yemen be damned. Wars started abroad be damned. They want to drill, baby drill. And they're sort of, this is like, again, old Sarah Palin stuff, right? And it's like, oh, that was cute back when we had, you know, like 20 years to save the planet. Now we've got

three. So I don't know what to do with a mansion. He's just like a, he's again, he's just like a bad piece of meat lodged in America's windpipe and we can't cough him out. We're just going to, you know, and so I guess we coughed part of him out, which is this dude, glance. It's all very disheartening because every time you feel like there's somebody who's, you know, the connections are so quick and so easy, right? This guy goes, it's so clear, right? I mean, we knew Mansion was getting money from the lobbyists, the oil lobbyists and coal industry.

And now this guy's working for them. And I just, we need principal membership. We need principal leaders. We need more, I guess, I'm guessing, I don't know, I haven't done the research, but I'm guessing Bernie maybe, Bernie Sanders, 10% of the 100% are definitely corrupt. I am not corrupt, 90% of the 10%. That's my little impression of Bernie. But the point being, we need more people that possibly are not corrupted by their connections

to these industries. We need more term limits. we need people to be able to get kicked out. You shouldn't be able to stay in these positions for 30, 40 years to get these connections to be able to just wheel and deal. There should be consequences. And unfortunately, there isn't. And as Francesca said, when you go to the bigger picture, obviously the oil industry enjoys

all of the chaos, similar to the weapons industry. Right now, like if you think about it, the weapons industry has an interest in the war continuing in Ukraine and Russia. The weapons industry has an interest in Iran being an enemy of America because they can sell weapons to the Middle East. So all of these industries that are making a ton of money off of destroying the earth, we need to find ways. And hopefully there are members trying to hold them accountable. But the unfortunate thing is the way they spin things and they get the ordinary American to, like we were all saying at the beginning, to go back and defend the industry. by saying like, oh, you know, global warming is a left wing hoax.

Well, it's not, and it's affecting you, you average American person who's now trying to defend this industry. It's all, it's all very disheartening. I would love to be fact-checked on this, but when was the last time you heard? Senator So-and-so's chief of staff has resigned to go take a position as VP of Blankety Blank at the Sierra Club or 350 or whatever. Like, why is it that that's never the way it goes? I mean, after all, they're following their interests, not money.

It's not about a payday or whatever. Really fast. And I know that I wish we could spend the rest of the hour on this. I just want to critique a few more sentences in this piece. Through the on again and off again, build back better negotiations, he developed a reputation as a fierce advocate for mansions positions. Hans Nichols, I am begging you to consider the possibility that it wasn't mansions, positions, that he was a fierce advocate for, now that you know he was setting up a job with the American

Petroleum Institute. Is it possible that Mansion was fighting for something else's positions? Is that conceivable? To write a sentence like that, you just have, it has to be like baked into your DNA that, yes, there's a revolving door. There is nothing wrong with that. Why would we ever question that? That's just the way it is. And if you think that it's weird, that people in influential positions amongst the most powerful senator's offices, then go to work for the industries that we literally just legislated on while those negotiations were happening. If you think that that's weird, then you're a radical. I guess I haven't been in D.C. long enough to understand that.

I'm just gonna read the beginning of this next paragraph. A former division one golfer, West worked, I'm stopping there because what the hell and who cares? No. He's gonna be lobbying for the oil industry as we're As we catapult towards climate apocalypse, I don't care about his short game. What is the difference there? This is like this reads like variety magazine of DC. Like this is like a variety of Beltway of Beltway politics. Like that's how much like ass they're kissing.

It's amazing. Like formerly worked on this project anyway, also helped with a couple of attempted coups in Venezuela, no big deal. Nobody cares. I just want to quickly say, John, I know you're in the middle of something, but look, this makes me respect George Santos, all right? You guys make fun of him. You think he's a big liar, but at least he didn't work in the oil sector before. He might have lied about it, but he didn't actually work for them. Why are we getting on him when he didn't work in like real estate? Don't we have enough former real estate people in office now? Good on George Santos. Do nothing.

It's the first thing, do no harm, and he's doing it. And by the way, John, you think that the golf, the golf fact is not a big deal. To me, it is because that's why I stay off the golf course, because I think everybody who golf is ruining the planet. There's always discussions like Francesca just said. They're probably talking about oil deals. They're talking about overthrowing Venezuelans. I just feel people that go to golf, something bad is always happening. It's too long of a game for something bad not to happen.

You know what I'm saying? Like they can start with good intentions, but by whole 18, they're like, listen, we're going to storm the capital. That's what happens. You're halfway through a day of it. You're just like, I feel like Lula needs to be taken out or something. Yeah. Yeah, good point.

Okay, everyone, go to the Axios piece if you want to like lose your mind and or just read it and accept what it says and forget the fact that an Exxon lobbyist bragged on video about having daily access to Joe Manchin. And when the piece credits Lance West for helping us get that IRA climate deal, ignore the fact that oil company executives were coming out and saying how much they loved Mansions role in that and helping to limit how effective it actually was. And then think about the long term cost of the effect that Joe Mansion had on that entire debate last year. Anyway, we're gonna take a break. When we come back, we have other news. Don't go anywhere.

Joey baby. Welcome back to what remains of this hour, everyone. I'm John Dorilla and I have been very lucky to be joined by Maz and Francesca. We would have it a lot of fun and I think making some good points too. Thank you to both of you for being here. I want to talk about one more topic before we close things out. Oh, and I do want to say J.R. Jackson is going to be taking over the show for the second hour and leading you through another amazing hour of news.

So buckle up, that's coming soon. For now, though, let's jump into this. The wife of an Iowa Republican has been arrested and now charged with committing voter fraud. Over 20 times, in fact, and that may not be a coincidental number. It was in the 2020 election. I don't know if that's a numerology thing, but court documents say that Kim Taylor submitted or caused others to submit dozens of voter registration, absentee ballot request forms, and absentee ballots containing false information. She is alleged to have visited numerous households within the Vietnamese community in Woodbury County, where she collected absentee ballots for people who are not present at the time. She then filled those out, cast the ballots herself, the indictment alleges, quote, causing the casting of votes in the names of residents.

who had no knowledge of and had not consented to the casting of their ballots. Taylor is also accused of signing voter registration forms on behalf of residents who were not present. I don't know if that's like a long-term thing where you plan to then return and get their ballots when they come, just registering. There doesn't necessarily help you out in the election. But anyway, in all, she was charged with 26 counts of providing false information and registering and voting, three counts of fraudulent registration, and 23 counts of fraudulent voting, each charge carries a maximum five year prison sentence, which I'm just going to get out in front of this. Voter fraud is a serious thing, and I think that it should be taken seriously while

also acknowledging that it is very, very rare and has basically never ever influenced an election ever. If she gets like 120 years in prison for what she did, that is utter madness and it cannot be allowed. If Alan Weisselberg is spending five months in prison for a decade and a half of tax fraud, she cannot go to prison for that long. But that said, her motive seems clear she was trying to help her husband, Republican politician Jeremy Taylor, in his race at that point. But again, it's a couple of dozen votes, it doesn't seem like the sort of thing that could necessarily matter.

But anyway, what do you both think about this? Starting with you, Francesca. I mean, look, she did it for love. And I just feel like that, that's a good woman. You know what I mean? You keep her and you hold on tight. If your partner is willing to commit voter fraud for you, I mean, soulmates, truly, especially if you're Republican, soulmates, oh my God, no, this is so egregious, I'm glad she got caught.

It's random that it was in Iowa, I'm wondering if it was a primary or not, because I'm like, it certainly wasn't up against Democrat, and it seems, it's interesting because if who she targeted, that she seems to have targeted the Vietnamese community and she herself is Vietnamese. And so that's sort of, I think a little insidious to be like, oh yeah, as a member of this community, you don't have a voice or ballot or you're not going to vote. Here's, I'm going to just vote for you. And I think that's, that's an interesting little tinge of this that I'm sure we're going to hear about on Fox News tonight. Tucker will dedicate a very long segment to it and not about, you know, your regularly scheduled why the Charmin bears are woke now.

To Francesca's point, if you got to cheat in Iowa to get a Republican elected, this is not a good candidate. You know, if it were California or somewhere else, like New York, okay, the ladies, like I got to cheat, I got to get you in. But to go in Iowa and cheat to get you in. But to go in Iowa and cheat to get I think in Iowa, you just got to say, I'm Republican, and you just get the, and you win. I mean, there's no, I don't, I think that's how easy it. So I mean, you just, you just go, I'm Republican, um, LGBTQ community is bad and, and, uh, and, you know, Lord, hallelujah, whatever. And then you get elected. I think that's how you do it.

You don't, you don't send your wife out to, uh, get the ballots from her community. And as you said, by the way, John, 20 ballot. I mean, it's like, if you're going to do it, you got to do it big. Come on. 20 is like, I wonder what, I wonder if she started out going like, I'm going to want, I'm going to get a thousand, 2,000 and like 20 inch. He's like, this is, this is exhausting. I'm just going to call it a day. That volunteer work is difficult. I appreciate it. But seriously, to Kim Taylor, if you want Dinesh to Susa to make a documentary about you, it's not going to happen with 20 balance. You've got a, you've got a mule way more than that. But anyway, it was in the GOP primary. He ended up coming in third place getting about 6,400 votes.

So third place, 6,400, the 20 didn't seem to have helped very much. But the point that I want to make about this is, and this to some extent maybe is disagreeing a little bit with you, Francesca. I do agree with you that I don't think Tucker Carlson is going to talk about it. But I do think that he could. I think that he could. And actually, I'm going to explain why in explaining why I don't generally love talking about topics like this.

I know if you're a right winger, you're thinking, you're a lie, you love it because it makes Republicans look bad. No, I don't for two different reasons. One is substantive. It didn't matter. You're not swaying elections by stuff like this. So is it newsworthy? We can have a debate about that. Also, she was caught by the way. So if your belief is that insidious voter fraud is swaying elections, they catch even petty little ones like this. You think they're not catching someone who's doing 10,000 votes? So that's number two. But number three is this. So there's been a million stories like this, where it was the Republicans who were actually doing voter fraud. And you might think, well, that makes the Republicans look bad, maybe.

But you know what narrative it also advances? That there's voter fraud. Like Tucker Carlson could do this. He's not going to. But he could do this and say, look at what I've been saying. If you mail people ballots or you mail them registration, someone can wander up and take it. I mean, ignore the fact that they got caught. It had no effect. It was only 20 ballots. is impossible to sway an election like that, he could use this to advance his narrative. I don't think they've yet been savvy enough to do that, but it's not impossible. What do you think? I think that's a really good point, that it's mostly a distraction from broader narratives

that are actually happening, which are voter suppression, right? The fact that people have to wait in incredibly long lines to even exercise their right to vote, Right? The fact that Ronda Santis can single-handedly revoke that state's allowing of former felons to finally vote, right? And he's just like, no, we're not going to a ballot initiative. Oh, democracy? No, no, no. See, we don't believe in that this state because we're anti-woke, i.e. anti-democracy. So I agree these these stories are meant to grab headlines. It is not, it's definitely not indicative of a broader pattern. But it is funny that it's always the Republicans who fall into that pattern. And also, hello, who have like multiple

residences, you know, rich people, how they have multiple residences, and they all vote in Florida, funny. Last thing I'll say, though, Kim Taylor's definitely going to be on Trump, 2024 campaign team like that. Like, I would hire her, like, all they need is 11,780 votes. You guys, that's a quote from the former president. I know. Also, also Tucker Carlson could talk about her and allude to the fact that she's originally from Vietnam, thus probably was a communist, thus Antifa. It was the Democrats who did the vote of fraud. He got us. At last, he got us. That is unfortunately all the time that we have, but I know that both of you, very busy with events happening and shows happening.

Starting with you, Maz, where can people see more of your amazing work? People can go to mazjobrani.com for all of my tour dates. They can follow me at Maz Jobrani. I continue to talk about the people of Iran fighting for their freedom. So support the women and the people of Iran, woman life, freedom. Peace. Yes. And Francesca. Oh, just follow me at Franny Fio on all the things and listen to the Bituation Room podcast. Live every Tuesday, 1 p.m. Pacific, 4 p.m. Eastern on YouTube and Twitch. Nice. Everyone, I need you to buckle up and also at the same time, hold on to your butts because

Jared Jackson is going to be in here after this break. Yasmin Aaliyah Khan is going to be on the power panel for the first time ever, so I want to see you in the comments. Wazni Lombre is going to be here as well. It is going to be an amazing hour, J.R. Yaz and Waz. You're not going to want to miss it. Thank you for watching. I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.