The Young Turks - Corrupt Influence

Starting point is 00:00:00 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. What's up, what's up, everyone, I'm your host, Anna Casparian, and joining us today, because Jank Ugers away, is Farron Cousins, host of Ring of Fire, friend of the show, and just an all-around awesome person. Farron, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. It's been quite a fun week here.

Starting point is 00:01:14 Well, you're gonna be with us for the entirety of the show today, and I just want to thank you publicly for that because the original plan was for me to do a solo first hour, but I didn't know if I had the energy to do it thanks to my COVID issue. But you're going to be great. You have a lot of strong opinions on a lot of the stories that we have on the show today. And I'm really looking forward to it. Before we get started, though, everyone, just want to encourage you to like and share the stream if you're watching us online and become a member. If you haven't become one yet, you can do so on YouTube if that's where you're watching us by just clicking on that join button and you'll be given various membership options.

Starting point is 00:01:53 And if you're not watching us on YouTube, maybe you're watching us on some other platform. You can always go to tyt.com slash join where today we're going to have an excellent bonus episode. We're going to talk about crazy moments in American history. It's actually pretty recent history, but there's still issues. There's stories that I actually knew nothing about and they're mind blowing. So again, you can become a member by going to tyt.com slash join. Now before we get to any of the fun stuff, though, we got to talk about this creep who just got indicted in Virginia. And authorities have just found fetal remains in her basement.

Starting point is 00:02:31 So let's give you the details. D.C. police have found five fetuses in the home of an anti-abortion activist named Lauren Handy. Now, Lauren Handy is based in Virginia, but she has gotten in trouble with the law quite a few times previously because of her illegal anti-choice activism. We'll detail that for you in just a moment, but before we do, let's get to the issue at hand, shall we? The fact that this woman had fetal remains in her home. Well, officers responded to the home of this anti-choice activist, Lauren Handy, to investigate a tip about potential biohazard material in the residence. Once inside, they located the fetuses. The remains were collected by the DC office of the chief medical examiner.

Starting point is 00:03:25 So the authorities were given some sort of tip, they decided to follow through with that tip, follow up on it and see if there was any truth to it. And all of a sudden we find out that this woman did in fact have five different fetuses stored in her home in Virginia. Now she has gotten in trouble with the law fairly recently back in 2020. She and eight other anti-choice activists were terrorizing women at an abortion clinic. And we'll give you the details on that in just a moment. But what I found fascinating is in some areas, she's actually quite honest. So here's a tweet from a reporter who tried to get some statement from her after this story broke. When I asked anti-abortion activist Lauren Handy, what homicide detectives pulled out of her house Wednesday, she only said, quote, people will freak out when they hear. And guess what? She was right. people are freaking out because this is incredibly creepy and of course everyone is wondering where

Starting point is 00:04:28 did these fetuses come from. Now the authorities haven't clarified that. They're not answering any questions about where the fetuses came from. We don't know if they belong to her. We don't know if it belongs to some other medical facility that she might have broken into. But something that you should know about is the fact that she had bragged on Facebook about gaining access to the University of Washington in Seattle and essentially having access to the refrigerators there. So there's some belief that maybe she could have stolen the fetal remains from that facility. It's really unclear what the truth is. So it was a deep walk-in freezer that she was bragging about gaining access to on March 23rd. So Farron, as we know, right wingers are

Starting point is 00:05:21 are incredibly obsessed with doing away with a woman's right to choose, doing away with a woman's agency, liberty, ability to make decisions about her own body. And there's always been a creepy component to that, you know, this component of control. But this kind of takes things to a whole new level. Right. I mean, I'm still trying to wrap my head around any capacity where she would need these fetal remains. I still can't quite, you know, make sense of any of this yet because it is just so disturbing. And like you said, everything is still breaking here. But, you know, we do have something throughout the United States. Each state is a little bit different, but we have abuse of corpse laws that basically say that you cannot have any human remains

Starting point is 00:06:10 in your home, like on your property, anything of that sort. So there's all kinds of laws. here that she very easily, you know, could could be prosecuted for depending on, you know, maybe there's a legitimate scientific reason here. I highly doubt that that is the case whatsoever. But assuming there's not one, yeah, she is facing all sorts of different state and potentially federal charges for just having these in her possession. And if it is tied to her gaining access to these, you know, university refrigerators, then that's a very serious crime. And so I think based on everything that's happened and everything with her history, you know, multiple instances of, you know, getting in trouble with the law, let's say,

Starting point is 00:06:59 because a lot of them weren't prosecuted. But yeah, she has a history. It's going to work against her in this. And she's probably going away for a very long time. I hope so. Yeah, pretty much what I think is going to happen here. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, look, who knows what is likely to happen. She's gotten in trouble with some pretty serious charges as a result of her so-called activism. And every single time the charges have been lessened or they've been dropped. But there's one exception. And it has to do with what she and her fellow anti-choice zealots did in October of 2020. I want to get to those details right now. So Handy was indicted along with nine. others on Wednesday by a federal grand jury. So she's facing federal charges, but not for the fetuses. We don't know what the charges for the fetuses will be yet. But Handy is accused of felony conspiracy against rights for a blockade inside a DC abortion clinic in October of 2020. What she did breaks federal laws. So she essentially, she along with her friends,

Starting point is 00:08:05 essentially blocked women from being able to gain access to the clinic that they were targeting. Prosecutors say that Handy called the clinic pretending to be a woman named Hazel Jenkins who needed an abortion and made an appointment for the morning of October 22nd, 2020. That morning, Handy allegedly approached a clinic employee and said she was Hazel Jenkins, there for an appointment. When the employee opened the door, the indictment says, Handy and her other co-defendants, you know, forced their way into the clinic. In the process, they allegedly knocked a clinic employee over, causing her to injure her ankle. And then once inside, the defendants allegedly moved chairs to block the entrance to the clinic's treatment area and use chains and rope to tie them together. Now, back in the 1990s, this was actually a pretty common tactic used by right wing anti-choice

Starting point is 00:09:02 zealots who loved having control over women's bodies. And so hundreds of them would get together and they would block the entrance to these clinics. And at that point, luckily when Congress apparently still was managing to accomplish something, passed a law that would prevent that from happening. They're able to protest outside the clinic. We see that happening all the time. That's something that's protected by the First Amendment. But blocking entry, blocking access to a woman to these clinics is against the law,

Starting point is 00:09:32 which is why these individuals have now been indicted. But again, I want to reiterate, that indictment is for what happened in October of 2020. We still don't know what the consequences will be or what the charges will be for the fetuses that she was storing in her basement in Virginia. You know, when we have stories like this and we see what these, you know, so-called activists they do here. And you know, thank goodness this wasn't a more extreme instance that they, you know, got arrested for because we've seen that far too many times. But what gets me about all of this is that there's no actual concern for children in this country among these Republicans. We have children right now that are going hungry. And they're going hungry, partly because there's not any Republicans in D.C. that want to do the free school lunches. They're still trying to cut back on that.

Starting point is 00:10:26 You know, they're blocking it at the state level. They're not doing anything about the extended child tax credit that we know lifted tens of millions of kids out of poverty in the last few months of last year. There are kids suffering in this country right now. And they're only suffering more and more thanks to these right wing crazies that are running these states. They're targeting the LGBTQ youth. Kids are suffering. And if Republicans actually cared like they claim to, we've got to protect the children. We're out here protecting them. No, you're not. You're letting them die because they can't get medication. You're making them orphans because their parents can't afford the insulin. There's all sorts of things these people could be putting their

Starting point is 00:11:09 bodies and their minds to doing to actually create some good in this country to better the lives of children. They're refusing to do it because they're hung up on this one issue that quite frankly is none of their damn business at all. But they want to shove themselves into it when we have kids on the street right now that don't know if they're going to get another meal ever. And that's what it is. I mean, we deal with that hypocrisy on a daily basis. I mean, this woman, Handy, actually was interviewed by a reporter for human rights watch. And she was encouraging young people, minors, to break federal laws in an effort to prevent women from being able to go to an abortion clinic.

Starting point is 00:11:58 And when the reporter asked her about that, like, are you? Are you encouraging them to break the law? She's just flat out admitted. By the way, I tweeted that story. I highly recommend you guys check it out. It's by Human Rights Watch. And she just flat out transparently admits to encouraging minors to break the law, okay? Which would mean what?

Starting point is 00:12:19 Which could mean that they would face prosecution. They could potentially be locked up for what they're doing. That could ruin their lives. But she doesn't really care about the lives of these kids. She doesn't really care. For her, look, I don't really know fully what's motivating her. She seems unhinged. Anyone who would steal fetal remains or have fetal remains from anywhere in their home clearly

Starting point is 00:12:43 has some issues and needs to be, you know, I think she needs to be evaluated aside from prosecuted for what she's done. But if you look at the right wing movement in this country overall, I mean, you gave perfect examples, this effort to do away with any type of social program that would make children living in poverty whole that would ensure that they have a roof over their heads, food on their table, and you know, their basic needs met. It's always the right wing that fights back against it. And once you confront them about this hypocrisy, they immediately go to the argument of, well, why should we be funding the deadbeat lifestyles of the parents? Well, what about the

Starting point is 00:13:27 What about the kids? What about the kids? You just want to abandon the kids that you claim to want to protect so much? I mean, look what's happening in Texas, where transgender youth are being prevented from getting the medical treatment that they need, including mental health treatment, okay? We know that suicide ideation is something that's prevalent among young transgender individuals. It doesn't matter, they don't care. For them, for politicians, and I know this without a shadow of a doubt, these are you.

Starting point is 00:13:57 These types of issues, these types of culture war issues are nothing more than props for their political campaigns, that's it, they couldn't care less about anyone's life. I think we see that play out in places like Texas where there isn't like a school shooting they don't love. They take the school shooting and use it as an opportunity to politicize how we need more guns in the country, which usually translates to more children getting shot up in their own damn schools, okay? That's who the right wing is. And then they turn around and they They try to make us seem like the creeps when we want women to have freedom to choose what to do with their own bodies.

Starting point is 00:14:33 They should have agency, they should have the ability to make these types of decisions with themselves and their doctors and that's it. But they want to get involved. Politicians for political purposes, the right wing specifically for control. If you look at how abortion or how evangelicals came to be so obsessed with abortion in this country, take a look at how they used it as a political prop during the Reagan administration in order to rally support to the evangelical right. That's all it's ever been about. It's about control, it's about power. And we need to fight back against this

Starting point is 00:15:08 aggressively, not only in the context of reproductive rights, but also in the context of our transgender brother and sisters, brothers and sisters who are being targeted right now for political purposes. Other members of the LGBTQ community who we thought, oh, gay marriage is legalized, things are headed in the right direction. You see right wingers like Charlie Kirk, for instance, doing a full on assault on those rights as we speak. We need to fight back against it. These are not people who love freedom. These are people who love control. These are people who love to force their religious ideology on everyone else in a country that's supposed to believe in a separation of church and state. And we have, you know, or at least for the moment, Roe versus Wade, that should

Starting point is 00:15:53 have solidified this. And unfortunately, because of this, you know, now hugely partisan Supreme Court and Republicans getting crafty with the way they, you know, draft these anti-choice laws, they're whittling that away. And there's no backup for that, by the way. And I hope people understand that kind of a ramification. Once this thing gets whittled down and whittled down to where it's virtually useless throughout this country, it's going to be almost impossible to get back to where we were. This is going to lead to dead women. And Republicans are okay with that. I mean, they've made it clear that they're okay with that, you know, toying with the idea of maybe if you seek an abortion, maybe we should give you the death penalty. Maybe we should

Starting point is 00:16:41 kill you. So they have no absolute regard for any living creature. in this country. It's either for political gain or as you say, it's just this control issue because they have these deep seated problems, which is what they are with themselves, that they feel the need to do this. This doesn't benefit anybody, right? This doesn't make anybody's life any better. It puts lives in danger and they could not care less about it because it's a wonderful political issue because it gets the stupidest people out here engaged and out to the polls. And that's what it's always been about. How can we convince these people who don't think for themselves to come out and vote for us? Oh, we'll use these wedge issues. We'll use the culture wars. We'll do all of

Starting point is 00:17:30 the stupidest talking points that have no bearing on their life, but they'll vote about it. And then we get to screw them over financially. And any other way we can because that's what they always do. Yeah, you're so right about that. I see that as the primary driver of the culture war issues that the right wing engages in. It's a perfect way to politicize people while distracting them from the fact that the very people politicizing them are robbing them blind. That's the Republican Party. That is what they do. They want tax cuts for the rich. They want to empower and emboldened corporations to mistreat their workers. They love that system. They see that more and more Americans, both on the left and the right, are fired up about the economic insecurity that they're

Starting point is 00:18:18 feeling. And that would require politicians to do something about it, right? It would require them to address it. But they can't address it. Their corporate donors don't want them to address it. So what do they do instead? They target the most powerless people in our society, direct hatred toward them, direct terrible policy toward them or against them. And we all suffer as a consequence of that. The country becomes less and less free as a result of that. And so this is something that really fires me up. We'll definitely keep track of this story and see where it goes as it develops. But for now, we got to take a brief break. When we come back, we're going to dig into the housing market and what the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has to say about a possible housing

Starting point is 00:19:03 market crash. Come right back. with you. We just finished a segment on a creepy anti-abortion activist who was found to have fetal remains in her basement. But she's actually pretty lucky to have a basement and a house to live in. Many Americans don't have that. And there is an ongoing housing crisis. I wanted to talk about that a little bit because it turns out that now some so-called experts are concerned about a housing market crash. Let's get into it. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas is warning about the increased likelihood that the housing market could collapse. Now, they're worried because it seems like for the first time ever, they realize that housing prices seem

Starting point is 00:20:02 a little detached from other economic fundamentals, including the amount of money people are able to make, the expenses that they have. And I just think it's so fast. that this has been going on for years and years, and now they're like, oh, it looks like these homes might be overvalued. What's at play here? Well, we'll get into the details of what they're saying, but I think it's also important to dig into what their proposed solutions are, or at least what they're hinting at in regard to proposed solutions. They write, our evidence points to abnormal U.S. housing market behavior for the first time since the boom of the early 2000s. Let's pause, I already have to pause. Really? For the first time since the early 2000s?

Starting point is 00:20:46 Okay, these are the experts, by the way. Reasons for concern are clear in certain economic indicators, which show signs that 2021 house prices appear increasingly out of step with fundamentals. Prices may be rising to a point that they call exuberance in which prices become increasingly out of sync with the economic fundamentals underpinning the market. The consequences of housing market exuberance can include overpriced homes, investments based on distorted expectations of returns, and reduced economic growth and employment. So what are the causes? Like what would likely cause this bubble to burst? And this is what I want you guys to focus on. The cycle is interrupted when policymakers intervene,

Starting point is 00:21:33 spurring investors to become cautious and causing the flow of money into housing to dry up. Let me read that again, causing the flow of money into houses to dry up. This could cause a housing correction or possibly even a bust. Now, there has already been a little bit of intervention recently by the Federal Reserve. What did the Federal Reserve do? They agreed to finally increase interest rates because private equity firms, financial institutions, major banks have been getting cheap money, Zero interest money from the Federal Reserve. And what do they do with that money?

Starting point is 00:22:11 They take it and they snatch up the limited inventory of homes on the market. And while you might be a renter and you might not think that's such a big deal, it translates into higher rental prices as well because they don't flip those homes. What they end up doing is they keep the homes as rentals and they become these slumlords that get to charge higher rent and people who get priced out of the market that maybe they were interested in living in or have been living in for their entire lives, they end up going to other parts of the country to rent. And that drives up the rental prices in those areas as well. It has a domino effect that's been incredibly destructive and damaging to working Americans.

Starting point is 00:22:55 So they talk about investing and how investors have actually been a huge component. But they don't really talk about, hey, maybe there should there should be a policy that prevents this type of speculation within the housing industry. Maybe there needs to be a policy that prevents these investors from taking cheap money from the Federal Reserve and then pouring it into the housing market. They don't make that point. They seem to focus more on the need to, you know, take a look at what kind of intervention might happen on a governmental level and how that could spur some sort of housing market collapse. And let me just be clear about something. Yes, there are many housing markets that are overvalued right now as a result of this speculative behavior. We'll talk about the possible correction in just a moment. But Farron, so far, I'm curious to hear what you have to say. Well, right now you have investors buying 33% of the homes that are currently being sold in the United States right now.

Starting point is 00:23:55 33% are going to investors, not to people who are, hey, we got to buy a house. We're starting a family. We just got married or we're retiring. 33% of third of them are going to investors because they look at real estate, not as we need a roof over our head, but as a money making opportunity. And once you turn the housing market into a commodity like that, that's when things always go haywire. And of course, as you pointed out, the same thing was happening in the early 2000s. Everybody was going to get into the house flipping business, right? We're going to buy these cheap properties.

Starting point is 00:24:34 We're going to dump $20,000 into it. We're going to sell them for $100,000 more than what we paid for it. Boom, huge profit. And it happened all over the place. And that's actually a big part, maybe not the biggest part, obviously. But that's a huge part of what was happening in the early 2000s that always gets overlooked. You know, all these up and coming house flippers and things like that. We glorify it.

Starting point is 00:25:00 We put reality shows on TV talking about. how great this is and what a great investment it can be for people. And what they do is they price the market way above what anybody in these areas can even afford at this point. Here in Florida, I actually found this out today. We have 1.6 million vacant homes. 1.6 million homes sitting empty in this state. And of course, this comes at a time when we have rents increasing throughout the state of Florida by 30 to 50% and kind of harking back to what we talked about earlier, what is our governor doing? Is he talking about these economic problems? Is he talking about the fact that we can't afford houses? No, he's not. He's not talking about the rent going up 30%.

Starting point is 00:25:47 He's talking about we got to prevent transgender women from playing in women's sports. We've got to focus on these culture war issues because our economy here in Florida is going straight to hell. And it's going there very, very quickly. We are seeing job growth, but it's in the service industry where if you don't get a tip, you're only making $2.13 per hour to roll silverware. Okay, we are not doing well here. And this is, of course, happening all over the country. But it's because of the investors. I mean, that is a huge, huge driver of what is happening now when they buy up these cheap properties and then sell it back to the people who could have bought it at the cheaper price for 25, 35, 50% more than what they just paid for it a month ago,

Starting point is 00:26:35 because that's how fast they're turning them around around here. And also keep in mind that, you know, the one remaining area for working Americans to build wealth in this country was the housing market. And I'm not talking about, you know, engaging in the housing market as speculators, but more importantly, purchasing a home that they want to live in, right? And then throughout, you know, decades, the value of that home goes up and they build wealth that way. Many people relied on that as their retirement plan, for instance. And so that one remaining, you know, facet of building wealth in America has been ripped away from people

Starting point is 00:27:12 because, of course, the very individuals who are already incredibly privileged, already living affluent lives, and people were already millionaires and billionaires, they just didn't have enough. They didn't have enough. They had to do away with, By the way, not just an avenue in which people built wealth, but more importantly, do away with a basic necessity to survive, which is housing. Again, it's not just impacting those who are looking to buy. It's also impacting those who are looking to rent. And to your point, Farron, Florida has been one of the targets for these massive financial institutions and equity firms. For instance, Tampa, Florida is where a lot of these investors are pouring in, they're buying up the single family homes.

Starting point is 00:27:56 And when you see them sitting empty, it's not because no one owns them. More often than not, they're owned by these speculators. And either they're using it as some sort of tax write off, you know, claiming that they're taking a loss as a result of it sitting empty. Or they end up renting it. And the community changes as a result of that. because there have been stories about various neighborhoods, mostly black and brown neighborhoods across the country where most of the homes have now turned into rentals. And the corporations that are renting them out don't do the necessary vetting or don't keep up the property. And so it

Starting point is 00:28:34 ends up becoming a complete another disaster within the community. And people are upset about it, right? People end up having parties. There's issues with violence and crime, but they don't care. You think the investors care about that as long as they're collecting their rent or as long as they've got their tax right off, that's all they care about. And one other thing I want to mention, you know, you talk about Ron DeSantis and his failure to address this issue. He'll never address this issue. This is not a priority for Republicans. This is the type of corruption and greed that they love. It's their bread and butter. But I'm going to say the same thing about Democrats, both on a state level, because we're experiencing this in California as well.

Starting point is 00:29:11 But more importantly, on a federal level, this isn't even on Joe Biden's radar. I don't even hear anyone in Congress talking about this issue. And this is a huge, huge problem. The Washington Post, for instance, just reported that last year investors bought nearly one in seven homes sold in the nation's top metropolitan areas, the most in two decades of record keeping, according to the Washington Post analysis. And I want to look at this map real quick because it shows you Charlotte. Charlotte is one of the major metropolitan areas where this is becoming more and more of a problem.

Starting point is 00:29:45 And if you look at the, like the darker the area on the map is, the more speculative behavior you see in the housing market there. So you're seeing huge chunks of Charlotte being snatched up by these investors who, again, are just looking to hoard more wealth for themselves. And it's absolutely sick behavior. And you know, we always see these Republicans telling people that are out of work, just go get a job, contribute to society. Now, why are you not saying this to people who just buy homes and sell them as a job? That's not a job. Right. Like that's not a thing that you should be able to do here in the United States. Like real estate investment, I'm sorry, I just feel like that shouldn't be an industry that exists. Housing should be a human right. That is where we need to be and we need to start pushing the politicians who are willing to come out and say that, but also do something about it, right? We've seen too many times where they say something and maybe not follow through with it.

Starting point is 00:30:50 But we need that codified into law here in the United States. If you want to own rental properties, you know, down in sunny Florida or anywhere along the beach, go ahead and do that as long as the needs of the communities are being met and people who need houses. can still get them. You know, if we have extra, go ahead, make your money off that. I'm okay with that. But at a time when we have rampant homelessness and we have more empty homes than homeless people, not okay. Absolutely no excuse for this as a country.

Starting point is 00:31:27 And we need federal laws, like you said, federal to address this because the states aren't going to do it. The states don't care. This has to come from D.C. or it's not going to work. Absolutely. Well, you're unlikely to hear this kind of perspective on most legacy news outlets. And there's a reason for that. It turns out that they have more interest in access journalism than ensuring that real information gets to their audiences and to their readers. I want to give you a prime example of that. Let's move over to CBS, where,

Starting point is 00:32:05 they decided to hire one of Trump's goons and looks like their employees aren't happy about it, but there's a very specific reason why they did it. It turns out that CBS's decision to hire former Trump acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was to basically ensure that they have access to the Republican Party. In fact, their co-president said as much recently, let me give you his quote, if you look at some of the people that we've been hiring on a contributor basis, being able to make sure that we are getting access to both sides of the aisle is a priority because we know the Republicans are going to take over, most likely in the midterms. A lot of the people that we're bringing in are helping us in terms of access

Starting point is 00:32:56 to that side of the equation. And while it's clear that they're engaging in access journalism, because literally their co-president of news made that very, very clear in this leaked audio. They are, you know, denying that they're doing this for any type of nefarious purpose. A senior CBS news producer addressed the backlash to the Mulvaney hiring on Tuesday by pointing to the 74.2 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2020. So what? I mean, it's one thing to provide the perspective. or report on the perspective of right wing voters in the country, no one's saying to prevent that from happening. But it's something entirely different to have ideologues hired as contributors who do analysis and are expected to give the news to your audience. And that's exactly what

Starting point is 00:33:50 happened when CBS introduced Mick Mulvaney as their recent hire. Let me remind you of what that look like. Biden has announced a $5.8 trillion budget proposal for the 2023 fiscal year, which includes a wealth tax for the richest people in the country. Households with assets of more than $100 million would face a minimum tax of 20%. So here to discuss is Mick Mulvaney. He's a former Office of Management and Budget Director, and today I am pleased to welcome him as a CBS News contributor.

Starting point is 00:34:24 So happy to have you here. Thank you so much. You're the guy to ask about this. No, he's not the guy to ask about it. In fact, he was asked to detail what the proposal was, which is the job of a journalist, which is the job of a reporter, not the job of a former Trump White House official and an ideologue who gutted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That is not news. That's garbage. That's essentially uplifting right. wing propaganda and repackaging it and laundering it as news. Barron. You know, it it drives me insane when we see these networks do this. Like, oh, we're gonna hire this person because we need access to Republicans.

Starting point is 00:35:09 We need access to members of Congress. You know, I spent many years as the producer on Ring of Fire Radio, some of them when I was still waiting tables in the evening. I never had any problem reaching out to Congress, you know, it's fairly easy. Their phone numbers are actually public and I'm sure saying I'm with CBS news, probably pretty easy to get access to really anybody you want. So I think it's total BS when they try to say like, oh, this is all about access. No, it's about ideology. You're trying to cater to this group of people for a specific reason. You know, it's just like with John Brennan, when he got hired by by NBC, MSNBC a couple years ago, they allow these some of the most horrid people we have seen throughout recent American

Starting point is 00:35:54 history to go on there and effectively remake their image. You know, Mick Mulvaney is now not the guy that destroyed, you know, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He's just the guy out there giving you the news. He's not the guy who said, oh, Trump's phone call with Zelensky was bad, but the media is overblowing it. No, he's the guy just telling you what's happening in the country today. He's on a trustworthy source.

Starting point is 00:36:19 So maybe he's a trustworthy guy. That's what happens with these people and they get paid the big bucks to go out there and pretend like all the horrible things they've ever done never happened. And the public buys into it too. And that's that's really the worst part of it. You know, six months from now, Mulvaney's not going to be remembered for any of the horrible things he did. He's just going to be the friendly guy that comes on and tells us what's really happening with the Biden administration on CBS. That's what this is going to turn into because they want a piece of that right wing audience. That's the access they really want. They can get anybody from

Starting point is 00:36:54 DC to come on their program that they want. I guarantee they got no problems with that. They want access to those hardcore Republicans. They want to take the Fox News, the Newsmax people and turn them into regular CBS Sunday morning viewers. That's the access they're after. I mean, they're so delusional about that because why would Trump supporters or any like rabid right winger turn his or her back on Newsmax OAN, Fox News, to go listen to CBS? CBS willing to stoop to the level of the outlets I just listed? I don't think they are, although who knows? These days, I don't know what they're capable of. And remember, during the Trump administration, there was, well, during the 2016 election, there was a video that was leaked

Starting point is 00:37:43 audio actually that was leaked of the former head of CBS, Les Moonves. And he was actually very clear about how at the end of the day, profit, ratings, that's the only thing they genuinely care about. Take a listen. Who would have thought that this circus would come to town, but, you know, it may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS. That's all I got to say. So what can I say? It's, you know, the money's rolling in and this is, this is, this is fun. I've never see anything like this. And, you know, this is going to be a very good year for us. It's going to be a very good year for them, Farron. I mean, it's, it's fun. It's fun. I mean,

Starting point is 00:38:27 it's bad for America, but it's good for ratings. Am I right? Like, that is what their number one priority is. And what I find so fascinating is, look, I get it. I totally understand the pressures that come along with creating programming that is sustainable, right? Like, you still have have to make money in order to survive. But I've found that places like TYT, places like Ring of Fire, all of these independent news sources are still able to cover the news fairly, accurately, without laundering the reputations of all sorts of terrible people. We're not millionaires, we're not making a ton of money, but I think we're in it for the right reasons. We're making a living. I'm happy about that, right? But we're able to share,

Starting point is 00:39:16 information, share the news with the audience. We're open about our own personal biases, of course, and we're not helping to clear up the reputation of individuals who do not deserve to have their reputations laundered in any way. And we're not afraid to call out either side either. You know, as you mentioned, yes, we all have biases. I mention it all the time on ring of fire. But I'm also not afraid to shy away when Biden screws up just as you're not and TYP isn't. Like, hey, the Democrats did something really horrible here. Let's talk about it.

Starting point is 00:39:48 You're not going to get that from any of these Republican folks. They absolutely refuse to admit it, unless, of course, it's Madison Cawthorne this week. You know, that set them off. But for the most part, we are fair and we do have a lot of fun with it. We're not trying to cater to any specific groups. We're not trying to change who we are as individuals. We're out there telling how we feel, we're telling what is happening and we're giving people a better explainer than they can get from these corporate shills in the mainstream media. And that is exactly what they are.

Starting point is 00:40:26 And for a long time, believe it or not, CBS was the best out of all the worst. They actually had the least corporate influence than all of the other outlets. And then yeah, like you said with that MoonVez clip there, that was a huge turning point. And that is when things at CBS really started to kind of get, you know, upside down. And they're still going down that path because, yeah, hiring a former Trump official, oh my God, we can absolutely market that. Maybe we can steal a little bit of that audience or maybe at the very least get some of the middling Republicans who maybe aren't quite sure like, oh, okay, well, there's a friend of ours on the TV.

Starting point is 00:41:08 Now, this is a friendly outlet that we can start watching, you know, whatever their motivation is, at the end of the day, it's always money. And they're gonna make a ton of it off this decision, I guarantee you. Well, we gotta take a break. But when we come back, looks like the private healthcare industry has now set its targets on John Fetterman, who's running for Senate out of Pennsylvania. We'll tell you about the pack that's going after him, what their plan is, and how they're pretending to be progressives to trip people up. We've got that story and more when we come back. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and Farron Cousins with you. Most of our audience is familiar with you, Farron. You're the host of Ring of Fire,

Starting point is 00:41:59 but for those of you who might be seeing you for the first time, where can they find out more about you and the work you do? The best place, obviously, the Ring of Fire YouTube channel YouTube channel, YouTube.com slash the ring of fire. I've been doing this, you know, since 2004, I guess, very long time. I'm very tired, but, you know, it's a ton of fun. But also, you know, find me social media across all of them. I'm at Farron Balanced, which is a lot less funny now that Fox News has changed their slogan a couple years ago.

Starting point is 00:42:32 So, you know, I still got it. I had already registered all the names. So I'm not changing it. So I am fair and balanced. No, I love it. I think it's a super clever name. I love that. All right, well, why don't we talk a little bit about how, you know,

Starting point is 00:42:48 the private insurance companies realize that a politician or a candidate, actually, who's not so friendly to them is likely to win in Pennsylvania. So now they're funding efforts to destroy his candidacy. So corporations, are ready to attack now that John Fetterman is performing extremely well in his Senate race in the state of Pennsylvania. Now, since he supports a single payer health care system, you can imagine that private insurance companies like Sigma are not too, Cigna are not too happy about him. And so it turns out that they have basically created this political action

Starting point is 00:43:30 committee that is led by one of their consultants to put out all sorts of smears and propaganda against Fetterman while also ensuring that they raise enough money for his political opponent in the primary, of course, Connor Lamb. Connor Lamb is the conservative Democrat in that race. Now the super PAC, Penn Progress, and we'll get back to the name of this political action committee in just a moment, says it is supporting conservative Democrat representative Connor Lamb in the Pennsylvania race because he represents the party's strongest chance to flip the seat, which is not true, despite the group's own polling that finds that Fetterman, the lieutenant governor is trouncing Lamb in the primary and performing better than Lamb against at least one top

Starting point is 00:44:19 Republican candidate. And that's by the way, according to Politico. And the numbers really do speak for themselves. Not only is Fetterman, I mean, doing way better. than Connor Lamb in the polling, he's also doing much better than him in regard to campaign donations. So Federman's campaign ended last year with $5.3 million on hand, while Lamb had raised $3 million. Penn Progress recently warned donors that Federman is leading Lamb by 30 points, and even winning among Democrats who want a moderate candidate. So on one hand, they're like, no, we're supporting, listen, homies, we're definitely supporting. Connor Lamb, he's got the best shot, okay? We got to support him. And then they talk about their

Starting point is 00:45:06 own data that shows how well Federman is doing compared to Connor Lamb, because it turns out that voters, whether we're talking about moderate voters, whether we're talking about conservatives, whether we're talking about progressives, see that we are living under a broken economic system, a healthcare system that doesn't work. And Federman, of course, is very vocal about that. And before I get to you and hear your thoughts, Farron. I thought I would share this video with the audience because it shows you just the kind of politician Fetterman really is. Let's watch. One cold hard fact is that John Fetterman is a blunt talking, self-described progressive, intent on also breaking through with swing voters in the Rust Belt. His pet issues include a higher

Starting point is 00:45:51 minimum wage. If you believe that a human being should toil for 725 an hour, vote for the other person. And legal marijuana, which he says is a winner for either party. You called a political bazooka. Yeah, they're arguing over these small wedge issues when they're leaving the bazooka of legal weed. You know, they're on the table for the other side to grab. Like South Dakota, arguably the most conservative state in our country, voted for legal weed, straight up and down on the ballot. And a state that has, you know, a severe opioid problem, why you're talking about legalizing another drug? Because it's not a drug. It's a plant. It's a gateway to finding a completely natural alternative to the kind of relief that had

Starting point is 00:46:34 brought so many people into this toxic spiral with opioids in the first place. And of course, it shouldn't come as any surprise that private health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies don't want the federal legalization of marijuana, something that people can rely on for medicinal uses rather than pharmaceutical drugs. Farron, this is so par for the course, it reminds me of what they did to Nina Turner in her congressional race. Yeah, it's just, it's the same blueprint. I mean, we see this happen all the time when you have this, you know, good progressive candidate that's actually talking about issues that matter, proposing solutions that work and actually benefit people. So, oh my God, we got to go out there and we got to stop him because the latest poll from the Hill in Emerson College out today, he's beating Connor. Lamb by 23 points right now. I mean, Lamb is getting destroyed right now. So of course, they pull out all the

Starting point is 00:47:34 stops. We got to go crying to the corporate masters and say, please do something. We don't want any of this good stuff. And it just, it makes no sense to me, right? We're going to propose an $813 billion military budget at a time when the U.S. is allegedly not involved in war for the first time ever. We still are. We know that. But there's always money for that. And then Fetterman and some other sitting politicians too, they propose these real things that have real impacts on people's lives. And immediately these corporations come out guns blazing, trying to hide what it is they're doing. Who is doing what behind the scenes? Who is funding this even? And, you know, like you said, trying to switch it up with the name, like, pin progress.

Starting point is 00:48:23 Right. No. We, we, we've, first of all, we got to have more transparency in this country with regard to these super PACs, which God knows we'll never get, but they don't want things to change because as much as they're terrible for every one of us, things could not be better right now if you're a corporation in the United States. You're making money hand over fist, your profits in 2021, off the charts, we're getting hit with inflation. We're getting hit with gas prices. Oil companies are making more money than they

Starting point is 00:48:53 know what to do with. And all the politicians want us to do is blame the other people. You know, Republicans are blaming Democrats. Democrats are blaming Republicans. It's the corporations, right? Those are the people that we need to be directing our anger at and we need to be supporting the politicians who aren't afraid to stand up to them, which isn't a lot of them. So we need to protect the ones that do. Yeah. And the thing that I really appreciate about Fetterman is, dare I say, a quality that Trump had that appealed to the right wing, which was how relatable. I mean, it sounds ridiculous because of who Trump really is as a person. But his form of communication, which can come across

Starting point is 00:49:36 is pretty idiotic to people like us, resonated with his constituents because he seemed accessible. He seemed like a real person as opposed to some fake polished politician who doesn't really believe in anything. And so what exactly is the plan here? What is Penn Progress planning on doing? Well, as you can imagine, they see that the voters in Pennsylvania don't really like Lamb. They're not donating to him. They want the silence of the Lamb. But instead, Penn Progress is like, well, maybe we can get some outside funding and not rely on voters in the state. So Penn Progress has set a fundraising goal of $8 million. While the group only raised $35,000 last year, Super PACs can raise money quickly, as we know, because they're permitted

Starting point is 00:50:25 to accept donations of any size. Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville, of course, is making an appearance here. He has started promoting Penn Progress, according to Politico. In an email from Carville to potential donors, he said that Lamb was set to join a call, with super PAC supporters. And by the way, they're also trying to paint Fetterman as some dangerous, like socialist. They say, while Fetterman might actually be Democrats' best chance to take the seat, Politico obtained a slide deck prepared for donors showing that Penn Progress is preparing to attack him as a socialist who supports a government takeover of health care. And listen, for people like us, that doesn't sound scary. I want nothing more than to have a single payer health care

Starting point is 00:51:12 system, words like socialist doesn't scare young voters, doesn't scare us. But it is unfortunately still scary for some of the older voters, maybe even some of the independent voters that, of course, the Democratic candidate would need in order to win the Senate race. And so we'll see how this plays out. I mean, Federman has such a strong lead. But it isn't far fetched for him to experience the same fate that Nina Turner did. And we got to prevent that from happening. We got to fight back and we got to apply, you know, pressure to anyone we might know in Pennsylvania to do what they can to support Fetterman because he would be far better for the state of Pennsylvania and for the country if he got that Senate seat. He really would. And I almost feel sometimes when you talk about Carville wants to get involved to derail Fetterman, I feel like Democrats, you know, these old school Carville type people, they would rather actually lose a seat. than have a good real progressive traditional Democrat.

Starting point is 00:52:17 I mean, you know, 60 years ago what Federman's talking about, that was just a regular old Democrat. It wasn't radical, it wasn't extreme. But they would rather lose than see somebody like him succeed. Because of course it would mean that they're outdated, that their views, their ideas, their, you know, concepts are no longer accurate. Carville's still working off the same playbook he's been using for 30 years. years. It won you two elections because, you know, Ross Perrault siphoned off enough voters for

Starting point is 00:52:48 Bill Clinton to win, which is something that does not get talked about enough had it not been for Perot. Oh, wouldn't have won. But Carville still takes credit. Look what I did. I got this guy in there for two terms. Clearly I'm the best. I'm the smartest. Everybody listen to me. No, you're an old has been who hasn't had a good idea in years. And people need to stop paying attention to him and he just needs to retire at this point. Well, I couldn't agree more. My favorite thing about Carville is when he whines about wokeism in the Democratic Party. And it's like, why do you think democratic politicians mostly focus all of their energy on

Starting point is 00:53:26 so-called virtue signaling or culture war stuff? It's the same reason why we see it on the right wing. They pretend like they want to represent the best interests of disenfranchised communities. They claim they want to protect people's rights if they're part of the LGBTQ community. But when push comes to shove, once they're in a position of power, they do very little to actually protect these groups. They, just like Republicans use those very issues from a right wing perspective, I see Democrats doing the same thing. And of course, yes, I'm talking about corporate Democrats, like Nancy Pelosi, kneeling in a kente cloth to pretend like she actually cares about

Starting point is 00:54:01 police reform, but then they don't actually do a damn thing about police reform. That's what the Democratic Party, the mainstream corporate Democratic Party has become. They want to keep the status quo. They're funded by the same corporations that Republicans are funded by. Let's keep it real. So we got to end the first hour, unfortunately. But after our break, we've got more stories for you, including a surprisingly good moment for Juan Williams on Fox News. We'll show you that video and more. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young support our work listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon

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The Young Turks - Corrupt Influence

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