The Young Turks - Cori Bush vs Biden

Episode Date: August 3, 2021

The White House and Democrats are scrambling to come up with a way to do something about the eviction moratorium expiring. Meanwhile, Dems scored real estate cash before letting the eviction ban expire. A lawsuit initiated against Trump for “illegal” deportations resumes against Biden. Lindsey Graham tests positive for COVID, a breakthrough case that has some Senators shook. Biden’s vaccine requirement for government employees sparks lawsuits and challenges. Officials say the Amazon union vote at the Alabama warehouse should be redone. The New York Attorney General says that Governor Cuomo violated federal and state laws as he sexually harassed multiple women. Palestinians reject the Israeli court’s deal that would put them at the “mercy of settlers” in Sheikh Jarrah. The Islamic State has infiltrated GETTR with loads of violent content, and the pro-Trump app can’t/won’t control it sufficiently. Meet the couples who spent lockdown doing drugs together as “therapy.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm a little nervous as we start the show today. You should be. Oh, I should. No, I don't know, I just wanted to make it worse. I just wanted to make it worse. Okay, I got you. All right, well, I'm mission accomplished. No, it's game day.

We got an election in Ohio's 11th District. So we're going to do the show today, and then the polls will close, and then we will go right into election coverage. And so Nina Turner versus the world. I'm betting on Nina Turner, but it could be a close contest. Nina Turner could blow away the field. The polls have it as close. I don't know if it's true.

And I'm not too nervous. And now I'm more nervous about how not nervous enough I am. So you've got all of that. We should do an entire segment on how nervous you are. I think so. I think I want to keep this going. Okay. Anyways, well, on the off chance that you live on Ohio's 11th district and you've got 90 minutes

left to go vote. Okay, go grab family and friends do it. Okay, we got a lot of show before that though, so let's get started. We do have a lot of show, I'm not gonna lie, it's another one of those slow news days, right? It's one of those days where like, it's a lot of continuation of stories that we've already covered, important news, but always like to be honest with the audience. No, I got you. It's August. I got you, no, no, but there's massive stories in here like Andrew Cuomo.

Yes. I've got very strong opinions. And we've got some international news as well. But let's start off with an update on the expired moratorium. The CDC extended the moratorium not once, but three times. We made clear when we did the last extension that that would likely be the last extension because of the legal limitations. That's White House Press Secretary Jen Saki lying to the American people about the so-called

limitations of the federal government in regard to extending the now expired moratorium on evictions. Now since that press conference was held, the Biden administration has released yet a another statement indicating that they will in fact extend the moratorium, but in a more measured way. So let me give you those details. An official familiar with the matter says the announcement will not be another nationwide eviction freeze, but something more limited and targeted in places with high COVID spread, meaning the entire country. I mean, obviously COVID is spreading more rapidly in places like Florida or Arkansas, but we all live in one country, and as we know,

this is a virus that spreads pretty rapidly. But nonetheless, they claim that this is going to be a more targeted approach. A source familiar with the effort said the announcement would be a 60-day moratorium for counties with high or substantial transmission covering 80% of U.S. counties and 90% of the U.S. population. Now, why are they doing this? Why is this a more targeted approach, even though this is going to cover 90% of Americans? Well, they're concerned about this being challenged in the Supreme Court. Brett Kavanaugh, in a recent Supreme Court decision related to moratoriums, said that he would allow the moratoriums to continue through July 31st. But after that, his opinion, it was his opinion, right?

He didn't rule on this. But in that opinion, he wrote, but the federal government probably shouldn't extend the moratorium further. Now, because of that opinion from Brett Kavanaugh, the executive branch, the Biden administration, decided, oh, no, then that means we can't do it. I mean, our hands are tied. We can't extend the moratorium. But in this case, obviously, they have extended the moratorium. Their argument is, since they're doing it in a more targeted way, citing the pandemic as the reason, it's less likely than it'll get struck down in the Supreme Court. Okay, so lots to go over here.

First of all, just thank Cory Bush, she did it. Just break down what actually happened here. And at the end of one of the mainstream media articles about it, they say there's some chances that the Biden administration acted because of the quote, extreme pressure put on by other Democrats. There you go, why do we fight? We fight so that it has a result. So Cory Bush being out there for day after day, sleeping outside on the steps of the Capitol

and going through all that personal pain and other just Democrats and other progressives coming to help her. It just saved hundreds of thousands of families, if not millions of families across the country from being evicted. That is a gigantic difference in people's lives. And I can tell you, having covered politics for a very long time, that if Cory Bush hadn't done that and the progressives in Congress hadn't put pressure on both Pelosi and Biden, there would have been a zero percent chance that the Biden administration would have acted.

You're absolutely right about that. I mean, think about it. It's not a good look for the White House to have a member of their own party sleeping on the steps of the Capitol to raise awareness about the fact that it's just unjust to let the moratorium expire like that. It's embarrassing for the Biden administration. So it shows you that if progressives are willing to fight, and if they're willing to hold their own accountable within the Democratic Party, they could actually make some pretty significant gains.

And they should take this momentum, they should take this, I guess, newfound power, all the way to the infrastructure fight and ensure that they get the reconciliation bill passed. So mainstream media tells you that progressives should never fight is pointless and they're stupid to fight. And sophisticated people just give up instantly and do whatever corporate rule tells you to do. In fact, as I've said now on many occasions, the LA Times in their endorsement of my opponent

in the race that I ran, said that they agreed with me on the policies, but that I wasn't civil enough. They like a Congress that's more civil. Well, Cory Bush went in and started good trouble, and she wasn't civil, and guess what? It made all the difference. And that's why they want you to be civil because they don't want to change anything. So the mainstream media and corporate Democrats are 100% wrong. Okay, now by the way, on the other side, there are crazies on the alt-left who told you just attack Cory Bush and attack all the Justice Democrats.

They're never going to do anything. They never did anything. And in the middle of her doing it, they're still attacking her, right? And guess what? You were wrong too. It turns out there is hope. There is something you could do. And when progressives do fight back strategically on an issue they can win on, then it makes a giant difference.

No, I want to destroy everything one side says. The other side says, don't ever touch anything. It's beautiful as it is. It isn't beautiful as it is. Millions of people could have been evicted if Cory Bush and the other progressives didn't step in. All right, now, on to Genesaki. Look, let's be honest about it. When she said earlier, oh, Biden administration is doing everything we can, oh, yeah, yeah.

Now, that was not true. And in fact, in that first set of answers, she actually did tremendous damage to the cause. when she said that there was no legal basis for them to have a moratorium on evictions. Now, when you do the moratorium, you just told the Supreme Court they should rule against you because you said there was no legal basis for it. And why did they punch themselves in the face like that? Number one, because they had never intended to take action. They were lying from day one.

They only did it because of the extreme pressure put on by just Democrats like Cory Bush. Okay. And number two is that they, it's a, if it does go to the Supreme Court, they don't want to win. They want to lose. It's for the same exact reason why they never want to take action in the first place. Because they've had millions of dollars from real estate interests poured into their campaign coffers. Exactly. There are no mainstream media reporters. David Sorota, along with Ryan Graham, are probably two best reporters in the country. and Sarota again at Daily Poster broke the story of millions upon millions of dollars,

including one, including a million dollars that just came in last, I was going to say last month, we're in August, it came in in June by a giant real estate interest to say, be cool, Democrats, be cool. And yet none of the mainstream media reporters apparently have any idea what's going on. There's, they just, you read the articles and I've read so many of them now. They're all so credulous. They're like, oh, the Biden administration's working around the clock to find a legal avenue for this. Are you serious?

No, and look, what the media does in withholding critical information from the American people is they're the ones who end up losing trust, right? People don't believe anything they have to say, anything that they're reporting, which is why, you know, as problematic as, some of the behavior from Q and on conspiracy theorists might be, we need to understand why it is that they're so willing to reject anything coming from legacy media outlets or corporate media, and instead they'll believe some of the charlatans that you see online, because the charlatans don't have the long track record of withholding this critical information from the American people. So I think it's always important to keep that in mind, right? It's very easy to be overly judgmental toward your fellow Americans, and I've been there.

I've made those mistakes quite a bit, but at the same time, we need to understand what's broken institutionally in order to, you know, fix things moving forward. But with that said, I do want to also give you one other statement coming from the White House. This is a Biden administration official in regard to the moratorium. The official says, quote, the CDC determined that the Supreme Court banned an extension of the existing moratorium, but what they will issue today is an entirely new one, different in form and structure. So the argument here is, no, no, no, since this is a targeted moratorium, it's different and is unlikely to be struck down by the Supreme Court. But let me also make sure that you guys understand something. The Supreme Court has not ruled on the notion of an extension for the moratorium. They haven't.

Brett Kavanaugh, a single Supreme Court justice, just wrote a quick little opinion related to a different case. So let me give you the background. And I want everyone to understand this. So every time the federal government lies to you, every time a Biden administration official lies to you, you'll know what really went on behind the scenes. So there was a Supreme Court ruling pertaining to landlords who actually wanted the moratorium to end early. Now it expired on July 31st, but these landlords are like, oh, we don't want to wait that long. Can you just like get rid of it now so we can evict people who aren't able to pay their rent? Supreme Court ruled on that.

The case was Alabama Association of Realtors versus HHS. Although the moratorium was set to expire on July 31st, a group of landlords and realtors asked the Supreme Court to lift the moratorium early, effectively allowing landlords to start evicting many of their tenants right away. Now, in a 5-4 decision with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh crossing over to vote

with the three liberal justices, the court denied this request, leaving the protections in place for another month. However, wrote a very brief opinion warning the Biden administration not to extend the moratorium beyond July. All right, I mean, Biden could have just called his bluff and extended it anyway. Let it play out through the courts, which of course buys time for tenants who are in a tough spot. But he was unwilling to do that until there was enough pressure by Cory Bush, by progressive Democrats to act. And so they come out with this, I mean, I want to say it's a half-man.

measure, but it's not. It covers 90% of Americans. But I think that they did this not because they're afraid of the Supreme Court. I think they did this because they got caught lying to the American people. 100%. And in fact, look, I don't know, there's several progressives who were calling them out on, just what you're saying is not remotely true. And when people started agitating about, hey, how about the real estate money, all of a sudden, in the middle of the day, The administration comes and goes, oh, well, it turns out, we thought we had no legal basis,

but we just magically found legal basis. Oh, funny how that works, right? And look, I'm going to read something from our members, because I love you guys when we do this show together. Make you see the Silver Dragon said, looking over the comments, it looks like the chat room is sizzling with electricity. Amazing what hope can do. And so that's exactly right.

You fight, you win, all of a sudden you got hope, and at least some more and more victories. Then we go and fight on $15 minimum wage. fight on Medicare for all, and we do this one step at a time, and we do it strategically and smart, just like Cory Bush did. And I told you that Cory Bush would make a difference, and here's Cory Bush making a difference. So look at people's track records. Did they get things accomplished, et cetera? And, but part of the reason I read that, another member of Math and Magician wrote in talking about, look at today's what's happening today.

Corey Bush gets an amazing victory that would not have otherwise happened, and we know for that for sure. Nina Turner's elections tonight. If she wins oh my God, massive hope. And Andrew Cuomo, probably the worst neoliberal in the country. The worst corporate Democrat in the country

very likely is done. So that is tremendous hope all in one day. And a lot of that brought to you by you guys, the audience that made it happen. And these progressives that fought against unbelievable

odds and through a lot of adversity. And I can't say it enough. Cory Bush is an American hero. Please, in our Twitch community asks, is that blue I see? Indeed. It is blue you see. All right, well, since we're talking about that real estate cash, why don't we get to the next story?

Because these are the details that the corporate media will not tell you. But these are the details you need to know when it comes to the influencing factors behind the scenes. So, while Democrats claim that they've, been fighting relentlessly to extend the eviction moratorium. The fact of the matter is, behind the scenes, there's been quite a bit of money pouring into their campaigns in regard to real estate interests and how they certainly did not want an extension of the eviction moratorium.

Now, this report by the Daily Poster looks into some pretty wealthy people related or involved in the real estate industry, and here's what they found. George Marcus, for instance. He's the chairman of both the massive real estate brokerage, Marcus and Millicamp, and the Real Estate Investment Trust, Essex Property Trust. And they donated $1 million on June 1st. I think that dates very relevant. June 1st to House Majority Pack, a super PAC that works to elect Democratic lawmakers. The donation amounted to nearly 7% of the total funding the committee has raised so far this year. It's a huge portion of their funding.

So I'm sure, I'm sure that money comes with no strings attached. And I'm sure that that June 1st date of the campaign donations, or some of the campaign donations, these are just legalized bribes to various Democratic organizations, sure has nothing to do with the looming expiration on the eviction moratorium. Marcus also donated $263,400 in June to a $1,000. joint fundraising committee benefiting Pelosi's campaign, her leadership pack, and the Democratic

Congressional Campaign Committee. And of course, he donated quite a bit of money during the election cycle as well. In fact, during 2020, during that election cycle, Marcus donated a combined $1 million to the D-Triple C and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. He contributed $3.5 million to Senate Majority Pack and $3 million to House Majority Pack. And what Biden? Well, he donated handsomely to Joe Biden as well. Mark has donated $4 million to super PACs that supported Biden, including Priorities USA, $2 million for them. Unite the country, $1 million for them. And American Bridge Pack, $1 million for them. He also hosted a Biden fundraiser back in 2019 and donated half a million dollars to the Biden Victory Fund.

So this is a guy who's thrown around quite a bit of money, who has a stake in the game in regard to the eviction moratorium, and I'm sure has no sway over the decisions that Democrats made in allowing the moratorium to expire. Now Biden, in a story that broke just before we went on air, has decided to extend the moratorium up to 60 days in targeted areas of the country where we're seeing spikes in coronavirus. But we'll see how this all plays out. It's important to understand what the real influencing factors are behind the scenes. It's not about like, oh, we just didn't, it's the Supreme Court.

We're so afraid of the Supreme Court striking this moratorium down in the end. And that's why we're not doing anything about it. Nonsense. They're influenced by the money. Yeah. So look, I think the Daily Poster, The Intercept and TYT cover money in politics probably more than the rest of the media combined. And American Prospect does a good job too, and there's some others like sludge, et cetera,

That does a good job. But for the mainstream media, it's humiliating how little journalism they do. So are you saying that those millions upon millions of dollars that we just laid out for you guys, if you're a mainstream media reporter or an editor, more importantly, or a publisher, are you saying that that has no influence on politicians? I mean, like the most gullible people in the country wouldn't say that. And you guys are supposed to be what, investigative journalists, and you're supposed to look in to figure out what's happening in politics and why it's happening.

Yet none of you, none of you notice the giant amounts of money from real estate interest going to Democrats, right before the Democrats say, oh, well, we gotta start evicting people. There's nothing we could do about the moratorium. And they only turn that position around after extreme pressure from progressives, right? So you didn't, none of you even thought, hey, maybe that's a possibility, maybe it's the money, right? And you guys call yourselves reporters? Absolutely embarrassing. But you guys should all check out the interview I did with Dave Wigle,

the Washington Post last week. You know, check it out on the conversation. And you can go to it through t.com or through YouTube or any other way that you access us. And there, Dave is honest about it. And he basically explains that there's certain narratives among the press, and there's certain group think in the press. And no, they don't actually consider it. There's no memo, they're not evil, they don't get together and go, let's make sure that we don't cover money in politics.

It just never even occurs to them. They're so, now I'm getting past Dave, Dave's not blaming them, he's just stating in a conversation what his honest opinion is, right? My opinion is that they're generally really, really bad at their jobs, especially the editors. And so they just go with group thing. And it never, no, nobody ever talks about the money, so it never comes up, so they never cover it. Well, I think, you know, it's interesting because when we talk about biases in the media and how, oh, journalists need to be objective, like, I, that's true, journalists need to be objective with the facts. Like, you can't change what the facts of a story are, right?

But the one thing that I've been thinking more and more about is, are journalists allowed to have guiding principles, right? Because if you, if you have a framework in which you see the world around you, you're able to see certain things that others might not be aware of. So for you, you're hyper sensitive to corruption, to money in politics. That is a framework. That is a principle that you, I think, has a lot to do with the way that you analyze the news stories or analyze politics, analyze anything that's happening in the world. I think that journalists in this like pressure to be as objective as possible are discouraged from seeing the world through any framework.

I think that they're encouraged to see things like robots, right? Do you get what I'm saying? Yes and no. So I agree with you and in the sense that where you say they view their job as being quote unquote objective, but the money is objective. It is millions of dollars and objectively everyone knows that human beings are influenced by millions of dollars that they receive, right? But in their framework, they, for whatever reason, and I think I know the reason, it's protection

of the status quo, et cetera, because of the hiring decisions that start at the top and trickle down, they're led to believe that no, like, objective means centrist, and it means neutral, and it means you trust valid sources, legitimate, incredible sources, and those are the politicians themselves. And so when they ask their sources, as they've been taught, their sources say, oh, no, the money doesn't affect me at all. So they're like, okay, I guess that's not it. So let's go to something else.

Oh, come on, man. Okay, now, and I want to explain, though, I'm not driven by ideology or philosophy on money in politics. I didn't start thinking when we used to, when we started the Young Tourist 19 years ago, I didn't think it was money in politics. I knew something about it, but I didn't know a lot about it. It took 10 years of coverage for every story to come back to, it was the money. And so it was not that hard a puzzle to figure out.

you could, you know, began to figure it out as soon as I started covering the news in depth and we're doing the news for three hours a day and we're doing 10, 20 stories a day, you know, back in the day. And I'm like, oh, it's the money there. Oh, that's interesting. No, oh, it's the money here. Oh, it's the money here. And then I realized, no, on electoral issues in elections, until recently, 95% of the time, the person with more money won. And it didn't matter if they were a Democrat or Republican, liberal, conservative. Their ideology didn't matter at all. If you had more money you won, 19 out of 20 times. And then on legislative issues, it is nearly 100%. And so it's actually not a hard puzzle to figure out. I'm not driven by

that ideology. I arrive there based on the data, right? And I don't think that the mainstream media reporters are allowed to arrive at conclusions, which goes back to your point. Yeah, exactly. Because listen, I mean, we see the money, and then we see the decisions that members of Congress make. We see the decision that Biden made in initially pretending as if he didn't have the power to extend the moratorium. And we put those dots, like we're able to connect those dots. I don't think that corporate journalists are encouraged to connect those dots. A 100%. Like, so what happens is they see the murder weapon, right? And they see that there is a gun there. And they see the guy has a bullet in him. And they see that the guy, the other guy is

holding the gun, but their editors tell them it would be biased to report the gun. That's right. Because they, and what's their justification for that? Well, they say, you are leading your readers or your viewers to assume that the guy with the gun shot the guy with a bullet hole in his body. And you should not, you should not have people assume that. That's why don't mention the gun. No, no, no, no, no, no. You have to say the gun is there. Otherwise, you're They're not doing journalism. So in, and obviously you can see where this analogy goes, the gun in politics is money.

And so when you have realtors, I mean, it's not just a group that Anna talked about. There's more. I actually want to share the Blackstone data. Okay, before you do, I mean, we're going to give you the more data. As David Strata points out of the Daily Post, it's all of these groups pouring in millions of millions of dollars into the Democratic Party. And then you see that the Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, say, well, it's a lot. There was nothing we could do.

We had a month to do something, but on the last two days, we said, hey, Biden, you want to do something? And I said, oh, I don't want to do anything. Oh, my God, golly gee, I guess there's nothing we could do. We're going to go on a seven-week vacation. Then after we press and press and press, young Turks daily poster, et cetera, then finally the mainstream media goes, oh, right. On the, like, the fifth day of coverage, 20 House Democrats said that they would not vote to extend the more term. That's what we said. Well, it was obvious from day one that the corporate Democrats.

Democrats weren't going to go for it. And that's why Nancy Pelosi adjourned. If she wanted to actually fight on this, she would have held a vote. These things are obvious, but they're not allowed to talk about the murder weapon. They're not allowed to talk about the money. They're not allowed to question why Nancy Pelosi took a seven week break and chose not to do anything for a month. They're not allowed to question the Biden administration when they say, oh, we've done everything we can. And there's absolutely nothing we can do.

And they think journalists principles are don't question the government. They don't frame it that way, but that is exactly what they do. And they speak in code words with, that's a credible source. Someone challenging the government is not a credible source. And that's how media got polluted. Now look at all these facts. So before I get to Blackstone, which we've done a lot of coverage of recently, I want to focus on just how much is at stake for people like George Marcus.

because he's throwing around tens of millions of dollars on the Democratic Party alone. So he's trying to protect something, right? And here's what it is. As of last year, Essex Property Trust, which of course he's involved in, had an ownership interest in 60,272 apartment units in California and Washington State. Over the last two election cycles, Essex Properties Trust donated $23.5 million dollars to committees that opposed ballot initiatives that would have allowed rent control measures in California. So when we talk about our democratic system and the importance of democracy in any given country, including our own, understand that all of that is just completely undermined. By the tens of millions of dollars, goons like George Marcus can give members of Congress

or to presidential candidates to essentially drown out the will of the American people. Now, going to Blackstone, a Blackstone group during the 2020 election cycle, had executives from their group, Blackstone, donate $2.3 million to Senate Majority Pack, a quarter million dollars to House Majority Pack, and $350,000 to unite the country, a pro-Biden super PAC. In June, Blackstone announced that it was buying Home Partners of America, a single family home rental business that owns more than 17,000 homes. Remember, Blackstone is the private equity firm that we've talked about

because they're literally snatching up single family residents, not to even flip them, but to turn homes that typically middle class Americans are able to buy and build wealth, and they're just turning them into rental. So they can become, you know, they can monopolize the rental market and essentially become the top slumlords in the country. And guys, George Marcus might have had massive issues with Donald Trump and be worried about the country. And that's why he poured millions into Joe Biden's campaign. If it was just that, I would tell you that and say, well, you don't know.

It's, we'll give you the facts. And then, but we're not going to tell you he shot the other guy, right, in that analogy that we were using earlier. And I don't mean to use a violent analogy. But so he could have good intent as well, right? But when he gives another million dollars, when there's no election anywhere coming up on June, right before he knows they're about to vote on the most important real estate issue, that's where you go, oh, maybe it's not just because he's a good person who agrees with the Democrats on social issues. It's possibly he's got an economic interest here worth tons and tons of money.

And then when Blackstone comes in, and there ain't no moral champions at Blackstone. It doesn't mean that every person who worked at Blackstone is a bad person. Of course not, right? But can Blackstone as an entity do things for charity? No, they must maximize profit. They are obviously giving money to the Democratic Party for a specific purpose. And in this case, it appears to be real estate interests that they have giant amounts of money tied into. If you're a reporter, we're not telling you to say that person A in that, again, questionable analogy, sorry that it involves islands.

But it's an obvious way of thinking about it, that person A shot person B, but you must report that there was a gun, right? So in this case, you must at least report that it is possible that whether it's Marcus and Milchap, Blackstone, or the other real estate interests poured in tons of money into the Democratic Party. And that might have been a factor in the Democratic Party deciding until today, maybe we don't need to extend the eviction moratorium. And by the way, if their real opinion is, hey, no, we don't want to extend it. Well, then make that case instead of coming out and saying, oh, no, we are. Well, we love to extend it. But golly, gee, there was nothing we can do. And if you watch the Young Turks, how many times did I tell you that the Democrats' number one go-to excuses, there's nothing we can do?

And in this case, until Cory Bush forced action, what was the top thing that Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden were saying? Oh, there's nothing we can do. Well, it was something you could do when you took all the millions of dollars, right? And those corporate Democrats in the House, they're the ones who blocked every single action in favor of the average American. And they block those actions and they work on behalf of these donors who they serve. And now I will connect the dots and tell you, yes, that's why. It's obvious that they're corrupt and it doesn't take a genius to connect those dots. And by the way, you would really want to unite this country.

There's one thing that the right wing and the left wing agree on. And in fact, over 90% of Americans agree on. It's that politicians are corrupt. And the only people who tell you that they're not are the people who work in corporate media. All right, well, when we come back from the break, we'll talk about how the ACLU is planning on suing the Biden administration, because it turns out that the executive branch has a lot of power and can do a lot of things unilaterally, including deporting. immigrants and refusing to accept asylum seekers during the pandemic. We've got that story for you and more when we return. Stick around. All right, back on TYT. Look, we're still talking about corruption within corporate Democrats, corporate media,

and obviously Republicans. But there's tons of hope today. Later in the program, there's even a story about how Republicans might have found sanity. What a shocking day of hope. Okay, all right, so we'll talk about that a little bit later. That one's so hidden Anna's not sure about it. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out which story that is. Anyway, we'll get to it, I'm sure. Anyway, but let's talk about what the ACLU is doing,

because this is an important lawsuit. The American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations are now resuming a lawsuit that they had initially filed against the Trump administration, but now they're using this lawsuit against the Biden administration in regard to the White House's decision to reject asylum seekers, citing coronavirus as the reason for doing so. So the Biden administration said that it would indefinitely continue the Trump-era policy of swiftly expelling migrants and asylum seekers from the United States, citing the rapidly spreading COVID-19 delta variant. Now, I want to stop for a second, because remember, the Biden administration also initially said that they didn't.

not have the power to unilaterally extend the expired eviction moratorium. Now they turned around and changed their tune on that after they got enough backlash from progressive Democrats like Cory Bush. But this is very clear, this makes it very clear that the executive branch, the White House, they have a lot of power, they have many tools in their toolbox, especially during not just a national emergency, but a global emergency like the coronavirus. virus pandemic. Now Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, issued a new order supporting the continued enforcement of the Title 42 Public Health Authority, which was first invoked

by the Trump administration in March of 2020 to shutter U.S. borders to migrants. By citing Title 42, U.S. officials at the southern border are able to expel migrants to Mexico or their home countries without even allowing them to apply for humanitarian refuge. Now understand that there are like serious consequences to that, because people who are seeking asylum in the United States aren't just doing it for fun. They're not doing it to entertain themselves, they're not doing it for a little trip, they're doing it because they're facing violence in their own home countries, they're worried about their own lives, they're worried about the lives of their children, and they're seeking safety.

So I understand the importance of getting the coronavirus pandemic under control, but when you're dealing with life and death situations with asylum seekers. I think it's important to at least hear their case and make decisions accordingly. In fact, Human Rights First has compiled 3,276 reports of kidnappings, rape and assaults against migrants and asylum seekers stranded in Mexico as a result of the Title 42 rule since President Biden took office in January. And going Back to what this lawsuit is attempting to do, the ACLU races and Oxfan are among the groups who said that they are returning to court with the lawsuit first initiated against the Trump administration for its use of a provision known as Title 42 in order to carry out expedited

deportations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, they were in talks with the Biden administration hoping that there would be some progress on the matter. But clearly with this extension of this ban on asylum seekers and this aggressive treatment of deportations, it's clear that they had to continue with the lawsuit that they had initially filed against the Trump administration. Yeah, so, you know, a lot of this is framed by the ACLU and the press says, well, there was well, an ACLU was put in a corner and there was nothing they could do, so they're going to have to do something about the Biden administration. There's no need for that framing. I don't care if it's Trump or Biden. It's the same exact policy. So the ACLU should be just as aggressive against

Biden as they are against Trump. You don't have to be apologetic about it. In fact, you probably give them too much of an opportunity to change, right? And we know with the Biden administration, they shift with the political wins. And so if you don't put pressure on them, they will definitely do whatever is more conservative. It's just in Biden's nature. It's in his entire political history, if you watched cable news, you never would have known that during the primaries, but we told you, we explained his entire conservative track record. So when he goes into office, he reflexively goes to the conservative position. And he adapts Trump's policies, even though he said he wouldn't. You shouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt. He hasn't earned it. And so FDR

2.0, don't be ridiculous. I also don't think Biden wants to deal with the backlash from the GOP. I mean, we knew early on in his administration, one of the things that they really latched on to was the increased number of migrants seeking asylum at the border. And Biden really did continue with Trump's policies. The only thing that was different under Biden in the beginning was that he was accepting unaccompanied minors into the country. But that wasn't his own decision. That was because three federal judges had ruled that the federal government had to accept unaccompanied minors at the border. Yeah, I mean, it's damning with faint praise to say that, okay, fine, he listened to federal

judge's orders. But look, I'm happy to give him credit on things he deserves. I mean, yes, that's marginally better than Trump's policy. Again, it's such little credit because the judges told him he had to do it. He was forced to do it. Yeah. But on other issues, like net neutrality, he reversed Trump's position on net neutrality, and it's back. That's great.

I just give you that as a random example. So I'm happy to give him credit if he's earned it, but he hasn't earned it in this case. And so, but I don't want you to mistake what I'm saying. And everything has nuanced. The ACLU, for example, is terrible on money in politics. One of the worst, right? They consider it speech, yeah. Yeah, it's absurd.

It's absurd. By the way, they also get speech. And so that's a complicated equation at the ACLU. But on this issue, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, they took action, an aggressive action, and they're holding Biden accountable. So whether it took a little longer than I would have wanted, okay, it's not important. What's important is they took action, and if it wasn't for them, nobody would be holding the Biden administration accountable. So great credit to the ACLU on this issue.

And then to Anna's earlier point, earlier in the show, now the Biden administration, when they don't want to do extend the eviction moratorium, they're like, oh, well, there was nothing. we could do. We couldn't find any legal reasons and oh, golly gee and stuff. And when they want to do Trump's, continue Trump's ban, all of a sudden, they find all the legal opinions that they need. Now, in this case, it's more brazen. ACLU's right. The Biden administration is breaking the law to follow Trump policy, right? Yeah. So they don't mind breaking the law here. But when it comes to the eviction more term, well, I mean, the Supreme Court might rule this way. Kavanaugh had an opinion over brunch that said this. So all of a sudden, I have to do the other thing. Come on, be consistent. And they're not going to be. They're hypocritical

as usual because of the money. And keep in mind that the Biden administration argues that the reason why they're rejecting asylum seekers at the border and the reason why they've become more aggressive with deportations is because they're concerned about rising COVID numbers. They want to make sure that they have a handle on the pandemic. They want to stop the spread within the United States borders. But you also have to keep in mind that, that by not extending the eviction moratorium, there's actual data, there are studies indicating that it has a direct link to an increase in COVID numbers

because people are displaced when they're evicted. So I wanna just give you this quick data from various universities who did this study. So the researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, San Francisco, Johns Hopkins University, Boston University, and Wake Forest University, School of Law. found that lifting state moratoriums and allowing eviction proceedings to continue

caused as many as 433,700 excess cases of COVID-19 and 10,700 additional deaths in the United States between March and September of last year, obviously, right? So that data is important in, you know, informing the decisions that the executive branch makes. And they decided against extending the moratorium initially. But then after the backlash from Cory Bush and progressives, they decided, okay, fine, sure, we'll extend it for 60 days. We'll be a little more targeted, even though the extension would impact 90% of Americans. And so there you have it. I mean, they can't use reasoning regarding COVID when it comes to deportations and rejecting asylum seekers, and then reject that same reasoning when it comes

to the eviction moratorium. 100%. On an eviction moratorium, as we proved amply earlier on, it's about the money. It's about the campaign donations. Absolutely, right? On the border issue, it's more complicated. I think it's more because they're worried about conservative reaction. Yes.

Right? And so on that, though, Biden has completely miscalculated. Now his polling is going straight down, right? It's been going down for weeks. Kamala Harris is now underwater. She's under 50% in dropping. And Biden thinks, oh, it's because of the conservatives attacking us about the border. No, you schmuck.

It's because in the beginning you were super popular. Why? What was the first thing you did? COVID relief package. What did it do? It gave direct aid to average Americans. Hence, you were popular. It's not complicated.

It's really not complicated. And now, ever since then, you've been stalling and filibustering and parliamentarianing to make up a word. Okay. and, oh, excuses, oh, I had to do what real estate guys wanted. What could I do? There's nothing I could do. Oh, I had to do what Ted Cruz wanted and Mitch McConnell wanted and Donald Trump wanted. And now your numbers are tanking.

You can't figure that out? Yeah. So my guess is they're going to begin to figure it out once Biden is worried about his own self-preservation. And then maybe he might be a little bit more motivated to pass just a couple more bills, enough to try to win without actually doing too much for the average American. We'll see. We've got to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about Lindsey Graham, getting infected with COVID. Turns out that there was a boat party involved. You want the details. Trust me. Come right back.

All right. Back on TYT, Jen and Anna with you guys. Casper, more news. Well, a member of the Senate has tested positive for COVID. Senator Lindsay Graham, who is fully vaccinated, has tested positive for coronavirus. As we know, even if you're vaccinated, you can still have a breakthrough infection. However, as Lindsay Graham himself has put it, he feels lucky to have been vaccinated because it's prevented him from getting incredibly sick. Now, he said, quote, I started having flu-like symptoms Saturday night and went to the doctor this morning, I feel like I have a sinus infection and at present time I have mild symptoms.

I will be quarantining for 10 days. Now again, since he's vaccinated, he is not insanely sick, which means that the vaccination is in fact working. He says, quote, I'm very glad I was vaccinated because without vaccination, I am certain I would not feel as well as I do now. And just to give you guys some background info about why the vaccine works and how effective it is, an analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that less than 1% of fully vaccinated people got a breakthrough case in every state reporting data. The highest rate of hospitalization among vaccinated people was just 0.06% in Arkansas. The rate of death among vaccinated people was at a high of just 0.01%. So it's wonderful the vaccine is working the way that it's

supposed to work. I wish that everyone went and got vaccinated because it definitely saves lives and would get us out of this unbelievably frustrating pandemic. But I'm glad that Lindsey Graham, even with all of our political disagreements, is doing well and is quarantining. But he did hang out with other members of the Senate in a boat party. And so those members of the Senate have to get tested. Some of them have already. They said they tested negative. I'll give you more details on them in just a minute, but jank thoughts. Yeah, earlier one of our members had said that the CDC issued new guidelines warning about not kissing Trump's butt, you might be able to get COVID that way.

And obviously because of Lindsey Graham and Peter Hamby writes in a super chat. Yacht, Lindsay boarded the Joe's C Mansion and gave to South Carolina Senator a gram of COVID. I guess there's some bipartisan shipped. Okay, those are dad jokes after my own heart. Thank you, Peter. We do this show together. Now, I say all that kiddingly, because Lindsay Graham is vaccinated. You just saw the number. 0.01% of chance of death. That means very, very likely he's going to be okay. Great, wonderful. We don't wish ill health or on anyone here, right? So I'm glad that he didn't listen to some of the, I mean, Hannah and I talked earlier in the day about I don't want to call people idiots, but. Right. But some of the knuckleheads in his own parties are, oh, I don't need to be vaccinated. I'm a tough guy. Look, Lizzie Graham, like almost all the politicians these days, is quite elderly. And so if he was not vaccinated, he might be in a world of trouble right now.

Let's also share with the audience just how many of the senators are fully vaccinated. Out of the 100 senators, only two are not confirmed yet to be fully vaccinated. So they might be vaccinated, we just don't know. But 98 of the 100 senators in the U.S. Senate are vaccinated. It is fascinating, right? Because while people in positions of power are fully vaccinated, while the right-wing members of the media who are putting disinformation about the vaccine are very likely fully vaccinated, you know, it's strange that such a huge portion of the American people are under the assumption that the vaccine is somehow dangerous or somehow leads to government control of your life. That's the latest thing, right? Oh, it's all about compliance. It's all about the government forcing you to comply. I got news for you. Every morning you wake up

and go to a job that you hate, it's compliance. Every moment that you're worried about your livelihood if you don't do exactly what your boss wants you to do, compliance. Like, we live in a system of compliance. I'm sorry. Like if this is where you draw your line, You've got issues, because this isn't about compliance. Honestly, it's actually the exact opposite of that. We want to stop having to comply with mask mandates, right? Best way to do that is to get as many people vaccinated as possible to reach hurt immunity. But we're just, I feel like we're never going to get there.

Look, it's so simple. Just take out COVID, put in the word plague or black death, right? Would it be reasonable to say, well, I just wanted to, you know, take the chance of spreading plague on to your family. What's the big deal? I got freedom, brother. I don't need to comply. No, if you're going to spread plague to our families,

yeah, the government can make you comply. You know why? The core job of the government is to protect the citizens. And by the way, conservatives agree with that. That's why they support police and military. And that's the one thing where they say, well, socialism's not so bad. We want the government to run the military, the police, the fire department, etc. Well, part of protecting your life is protecting your life against different plagues.

And COVID happens to be one of those. Now, Black Death killed 75 million people at least. But COVID worldwide has killed over 4 million people. It's killed over 630,000 Americans. What else do you need? So that's one part of the story. I want to give Tommy too strong credit here because I hadn't thought of this either. This is one of our members.

Join up for membership and do this. show with us. He'll be part of the show. He wrote in, I'd like to know which lobbyists were on Manson's yacht along with the senators. Ah, Tommy, I hadn't thought of that. And I should, and that I would normally think of that, right? So that's a great question. So there's some lobbyists probably panic taking COVID tests right now to see if they're positive. Yeah. And of course the press has not asked Mansion or Lindsay Graham if they're a lobbyist on that boat. No, of course they haven't. No, I want to shift over to something that needs to be addressed though in regard to vaccinations. Look, I'm so happy that

Lindsay Graham made that statement about how he's happy he's vaccinated. It shows the efficacy of the vaccine. And lately I've been seeing some people go well-meaning people, right? People on the left who do news shows, who tweet about it, you know, they're pushing back against people like me, let's keep it real, for coming across as too judgmental. toward individuals who are refusing to get vaccinated. And I just wanted to say that it's true, yes, I am coming across as judgmental because I'm judging them. And I don't think I'm better than them, but I want people to understand why the frustration

among fully vaccinated people exist, right? It's because when we're told that we need to wear masks while indoors, it's not because we're trying to protect ourselves or other fully vaccinated people from getting coronavirus and dying from it, it's because people who refuse to get vaccinated are the ones who need protection. They're the one, we're wearing masks for them on their, like for their behalf. And yeah, that's frustrating. It's frustrating when you don't get to reap the benefits. One of, in my opinion, one of the benefits of convenience, right, you don't have to wear the mask.

You're not able to reap that benefit because people won't do their part. Yeah, yeah, it's frustrating. Yeah, that leads to hostility. That leads to hostility, and I wish that wasn't the case, but it's just the fact of the matter. It sucks when you do everything, you're a team player, you're doing everything you're supposed to do, and because other people don't carry out what's in their best interests, your life has to be inconvenienced by it. I'm sorry, I guess that comes across as judgmental. Fine, you can call me judgmental, but it is what it is. But no, look, this is really important decision, and I think the rest of the media doesn't clarify this and I need to do it now.

So look, the right wing will judge you on things that only affect you, right? So smoking marijuana, what kind of sex you're having, what partner you have, whether to get an abortion or not. Now, they would claim that doesn't just affect you. But we think it does. So you get it, though. On all the rest of it, all the religious tests they have for you, it's all about things you're doing in your private life that doesn't affect anyone else. But they're willing to judge you on that. But when we turn around and say, but your actions here actually affect us, because not only

are we inconvenienced by having to wear masks. Other people die because of what you're doing. Much more importantly, people die over it, right? Especially when the vaccine wasn't here yet. But even now, look, there's a woman who's getting chemo comes out of a hospital. One of these right wing lunatics starts yelling at her because she has a mask up. She's immunocompromised because she's undergoing chemo. And then he punches her.

Oh my God. No, you don't have a right. to punch people. Yeah, are we allowed to judge that guy or is that being too, are we taking it too far? But you are allowed, we are allowed to say we can judge you when your actions affect us. And in this case, because it is a virus that is highly contagious. The delta variant is enormously contagious. It's one of the most contagious things the world has ever seen, right?

If that affects us, of course we have a right to say, hey, don't do that, because it isn't just about you. Right. But the right wing, as usual, is being incredibly selfish. No, me, me, me, me, I don't want to inconvenience myself 1% based on lunatic conspiracy theories I heard online, right? And hence, I'll endanger your life or the life of your loved ones. No, that is not acceptable. All right, that does it for our first hour. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll discuss what private businesses and even the federal government is doing in regard to pushing people to get vaccinated or even making it mandatory. So don't miss that story.

We've got that and more when we return. 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.