The Young Turks - Corruption Hijacks Democracy

Episode Date: September 4, 2024

Protesters flood Israel’s streets as pressure builds on Netanyahu to strike a deal for hostages. David Sirota joins Ana and Cenk to discuss The Lever's new podcastMaster Plan: The True Crime of Stolen Democracy. U.S. Marines attacked by mob on street in Turkey. " HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right, live from the Polymarket Studios in L.A. It's the Young Turks, Chink Hugh Grant and Casparin with you guys. So a little bit later in the program, Donald Trump tells us he's not rambling. He's doing something else, which is hilarious. So we'll save that for a little bit later in the program.

find out what he's doing when he makes no sense at all. So, but we do of course have a significant news out of Israel, as is the case usually these days. So let's get started on that. All right, let's do it. Tons of thousands raising their voices. Demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strike a deal to bring home the hostages alive. This outpouring of grief, anger, and frustration prompted by the deaths of six Israeli hostages whose bodies were recovered over the weekend. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets over the weekend in Israel, fueled by rage over the deaths of hostages and the Israeli government's unwillingness to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas. Now, the Israeli military said it had located and recovered the six bodies of the Israeli hostages

from an underground tunnel in the Rafa area in the Gaza Strip and return them to the Israeli territory. Israel's health ministry said the six abductees were murdered by Hamas terrorists in a number of short-range shots and that forensic examination indicated that they had been killed in the last few days. But just as the press is urged to not take what the Palestinian health ministry has to say at face value, I would say that you should also do the same when it comes to the Israeli side. They have been caught in lies before. We don't know for sure. And we are unable to confirm what

they're saying about how these six individuals were killed. Now, protesters insisted a ceasefire deal could have saved their lives. And I happen to agree with them on that. In fact, three of these six murdered hostages were supposed to be freed during the first round of a ceasefire deal that Hamas agreed to, even without a permanent ceasefire, they had agreed to it. But Netanyahu rejected it after suddenly adding new provisions, including full control of the Philadelphia corridor. At that point, Hamas rejected the deal. Only four American hostages are believed to still be alive in Gaza.

23-year-old Israeli-American Hirsch Goldberg, Poland was among the bodies recovered from Gaza. His family fought pretty tirelessly to secure a ceasefire deal in order to save their son. But they spoke at last month's DNC, the Democratic National Convention. They did everything they could. But Netanyahu very clearly does not have an interest in going forward with a ceasefire deal. He wants the war to go on. He wants the war to spread to other parts of the Middle East. And that's the way that he's able to secure his position of power in Israel.

So he's going to keep doing this. He never engaged in good faith to begin with. Now, the remaining five hostages were identified as Carmel Gott, 40 years old. Eden, Yorashalmi, 24 years old, Alexander Lubanov, 32 years old, 37, and Ori Danino, 25 years old. Jake, go ahead. So, you know, you read the stories of the hostages and how they were shot in cold blonde. And it's impossible not to grieve for them and feel great sympathy for them. And that's good.

You should. You should. Any decent human being would grieve for these poor folks captured at a concert. You can imagine yourself at a concert. As I read their bios, it sounds a lot like, you know, people we know. I wish we had time to read you nearly 41,000 names and tell you all of their bios and all the parents that are grieving for them and the kids. that are grieving for them, but one, we don't have that time. Two, we don't have all the biographical information ready to go on dead

Palestinians because the Palestinians lives aren't that important here in America. So these six lives that are getting massive attention, as they should, how much attention should the 41,000 lives get? Well, it's getting a fraction of that. So, and for understandable reasons, hey, there's video of it, hey, that's their family member, we can have them as a guest, hey, that they sound not. talk like us and live like us. I get it. I want you to have, I don't want you to not have sympathy for those folks. I want you to have, at least is my sympathy for the 41,000 dead.

So for most of you, that's easy, super easy, you're a decent human being. That's not going to be a problem for you. For everybody in Washington, it's not even close. They'd kill 400,000 to get these six back. So, because certain lives are worth more than other lives in America. That's just a fact. Well, they're paid handsomely to feel that way, but let's just turn to Netanyahu and the other extremists within the Israeli government who also don't seem to care at all. I'm not even talking about the Palestinians, they don't seem to care at all about the hostages. No, that's so true.

The hostages have been nothing more than a massive inconvenience for people like Itamar Ben-Govir, for people like Benjamin Netanyahu. These are individuals who do not care at all about the hostages. If they cared about the hostages, they wouldn't have cut off food. and fuel to the Gaza Strip, which of course impacts the Palestinians, but also impacts the hundreds of hostages that were taken to Gaza. They wouldn't do aerial bombardments knowing full well that the Israeli hostages, much like the Palestinian civilians, could be killed and harmed by those aerial bombardments.

Bangavir is a terrorist, and they're both on the side of ethnic cleansing. He's literally adjudicated as supporting terrorism, and the Israelis elected a bunch of terrorists and put them in their cabinet, now we can't get them out. And even though almost all of, well, I shouldn't say almost all of Israel, but a huge chunk of Israel disagrees now with Netanyahu and wants to ceasefire deal. So a family member of one of the hostages made a series of great points on CNN. I'm glad they go out there. You need to understand that these are real people, et cetera.

We actually have video of him. So, yeah, let's show you the video first. And then I want to fill in some of the facts that he brought up in this segment and others. So this is Gil, Dickman. He is a relative of a hostage and is absolutely furious with Netanyahu's decision to put himself before the lives of the hostages. Let's take a look. We know that Hamas has agreed to a deal at some point, and Israel was the one putting on more and more terms and actually postponing the deal. And right now we know the decisions that our prime minister, Netanyahu, has made, made it impossible for Carmel and other hostages to return and put their lives in great danger. And that's what killed them.

So look, Dickman isn't wrong about what he just said there. And in fact, seasoned veteran war journalist Jeremy Scahill recently uncovered documents looking into the back and forth in regard to the ceasefire negotiations. And he found that Hamas was actually willing to let go of one of their so-called non-negotiables, which was a permanent ceasefire. They demanded a permanent ceasefire. Israel would not agree to that. Eventually, Hamas said, okay, fine. Then we'll take the demand for a permanent ceasefire out. And then take a look at what Israel, or specifically Benjamin Netanyahu

did after that. Take a look. President Joe Biden in May announced that that he was going to present a framework for a ceasefire that had actually been presented by Israel. And he said, you know, now the onus is on Hamas to accept this deal. Hamas then looks at it. it. They gave some notes on it within the next 10 days, and they said that they wanted to be able to negotiate a permanent ceasefire in the first phase of the deal. By July 2nd, Hamas had actually backed off of what it was one of their most important demands and made what they thought was a really big concession by taking that language out of what they were insisting on. And then Netanyahu bombards the process with a whole slew of new conditions, including an indefinite presence of

Israeli troops in the Philadelphia corridor. So anyone who claims that Hamas is not agreeing to the ceasefire is lying and intentionally covering up the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu has failed to engage in these ceasefire negotiations in good faith. He doesn't want a ceasefire. He wants this war to spread, which is, by the way, evident in the fact that he is having the IDF now attack or open up other war fronts in areas like Lebanon, for instance. They've bombed Syria.

Obviously, they've done bombings in Iran. I mean, he is so desperate, jank, for this war to escalate. And he is not in any way interested in a ceasefire deal, which is why you had the mass protests in Israel over the weekend to begin with. All right, so much to say. So first, they say, Iran's a huge regional danger. They could attack nearby countries. The country saying that is the one that just attacked three nearby countries. If you count Palestine, four nearby countries, and hit all three of them in their capitals.

Didn't care at all. Yeah, we'll bomb your capital. We'll kill people inside your capital. We don't care. Oh, you're the one agitating for war. No, Benjamin Netanyahu is definitively the one agitating for war. If it hurts your feelings that, oh, no, you have to blame Iran more every time. You have to blame Hamas more every time.

No, you don't. He's killed 40 times the number of people that Hamas has. He's bombed way more countries than any mullah in Iran. He's much of a more of a warmonger than any mullah in Iran. If you want to cry about it, go ahead. But you're crying about facts. Okay, so now let's turn to facts that another Israeli-American hostages father said on CNN. Same segment, a little bit later, Jonathan DeKul-Chain came out, and he pointed out, look, first of all, give the Israelis credit, that's the equivalent of 35 million Americans being in the streets this weekend.

So that's over 10% of the country, that's a giant number, and that's Israeli saying enough. Second of all, he pointed out, wait, Netanyahu and our negotiators, meaning in his case, the Israeli negotiators, never mentioned the Philadelphia corridor for eight months in these negotiations, never once mentioned it. And now eight months into the process, they're like, oh yeah, we need that corridor. It's absolutely important. It's vital. Well, then why didn't you mention it the entire time? Okay, then they go, then he explained, Jonathan did. Publicly, Israeli military and intelligence leaders have come out and said, we don't have any more military objectives here. We need to, we think we should accept a ceasefire.

We should get the hostages out. Netanyahu goes, I don't care about the stupid IDF and I don't care about military. I don't care. Certainly doesn't care about intelligence. He knew about October 7th, didn't do anything. The most incompetent, warmonger, disgusting leader right now, destroying his own country. having the entire world hate Israel, continuing this war when everyone wants it to end, including any enormous percentage of the Israelis.

But no, he's our roadblock and you can't get rid of him and he's obviously lying. But guys, there's one other person to blame here. And so we're gonna be honest with you guys in a way that most of media isn't. Joe Biden is massively to blame, massively. He's basically causing this, why? The answer is super simple. Threatened to cut Israel's funding. I know, again, if you grew up in America and you got brainwashed by American media,

but is that allowed? Isn't that some sort of violation of the Bible or sacrilege? Or is that a violation of our Constitution? Don't we have to give Israel everything they've ever asked for without ever saying any case saying, endangering a single dollar? Otherwise, isn't the whole country anti-Semites? No, no, there is no such rule. And by the way, guys, we're asking for the six.

simplest thing, not to even cut the funding, to threaten to cut the funding unless you do a ceasefire deal. And then if they don't do a ceasefire deal, why are we paying them to disagree with us, to create a war we have to fight, and that Israelis don't even want? So if you can't do the bare minimum, I mean, if you're the president of the United States and you don't use that leverage, you're screaming to the world. I don't care about a ceasefire at all, I don't care about any Palestinian lives, I just This man Netanyahu, I work for him, I worship him, so I'm never going to cut a single

dollar from him, and I'm a sellout liar. Okay, but media, go ahead and kiss Biden's ass and pretend that he's trying to do something. Aren't you guys sick of lying to your audiences? Doesn't one of you just want to say, well, obviously, if you threaten the funding, we'd get to the ceasefire and get all the hostages back and they wouldn't have to die, but Biden's a giant liar who supports the warmonger, genocidal Netanyahu. Well, we've seen what's happened to journalists who have been willing to tell the truth about what's currently going on in Israel and Gaza. So it doesn't surprise me that most of the media just kind of falls in line and goes along with the Israeli government's narrative on this whole matter.

But the truth is, the Israeli public seems to be a lot more knowledgeable than the American public about what the reality is in regard to these ceasefire negotiations. I want to give you a few more comments, including Tel Aviv resident Ori Elman, who told NPR. BB is the prime minister. He holds the key for the deal. He can keep on putting more and more obstacles and demands, but that's not relevant. Israel's courts, by the way, got involved in shutting down the general strike that was taking place in Israel following word of the six bodies that had been recovered. So Israel's labor court ordered the strike to come to an end by Monday afternoon at 2.30 p.m. local time. And at that point, the main trade union that was responsible for facilitating this general strike said that it will abide by that decision and

called off the strike. And so it is amazing. Like the Israeli courts are more concerned about Israelis speaking out against how Netanyahu is handling this as opposed to actually doing something about the fact that Netanyahu is not engaging in these ceasefire negotiations in good faith at all. But look, that's what the reality of the situation is. And even Biden, Jank, will have these moments of honesty. So what am I talking about? Well, take a look at the most recent example of Biden. On one hand, admitting the truth, but he never puts any action behind any of this.

Let's take a look. Do you think it's time for Prime Minister Netanyahu to do more on this issue? Do you think he's doing enough? No. He's not doing enough. And neither are you. No, but exactly, exactly. So I just love the reports where it's like, ooh,

Biden, who has been very reluctant to take any jabs at Netanyahu publicly is now saying that Netanyahu hasn't done enough. We all know that he hasn't done. Anyone paying close attention knows that he hasn't been doing enough. The problem is you have a United States government led by Biden refusing to use any of its leverage to essentially push Netanyahu in the Israeli government to agree to a ceasefire. And by the way, let's also just note for the record, based on Kamala Harris's DNC speech, it's very clear that she plans on continuing with the same Biden-era policies in response to Israel.

So we don't really have much to look forward to in terms of new leadership, you know, approaching this issue differently. Look, I like Kamala Harris for other reasons. And I think Donald Trump's a danger to the world. But Kamala Harris made it very clear in the interview that she will never dare to disagree with APEC. She said, oh, no, no, no, our beloved Israel, well, I will never withdraw any dollars. I mean, there's all this nonsense talk.

I mean, Rokana went on the Sunday show this weekend and said, oh, she might be open to a new policy. No, no, brother, sisters, you're either going to get the ceasefire now, or you're about to get a giant war in the Middle East when Iran counterbops, okay? And the, and America has said take it or leave it. And so if they leave it, we're going to a total, another war, and we're going to get no ceasefire. We're going to get a lot more dead hostages, a lot more dead Palestinians, etc. So I'm not interested in her maybe changing her policies six months or six years from now. It doesn't matter when you're interested in. I like Rokane at all a lot.

He comes on here. He's an honest guy, and I'm sure that he actually believes it. But Kamala Harris made it very clear in the interview. She will serve Israel as her top priority and will never change our policies. If you're going to change the policies, this would be the time when all these lives are on the line. So spare me your BS about, oh, yeah, I'm going to change it later. My ass you are. You will do exactly as your donor is ordered.

And it makes me lose faith that you will do anything on prices, housing, drug costs, et cetera, because you're completely and utterly controlled by donors, which is our number one problem in this country. So I know Trump is the same and worse. I know. So look, last couple of things here involved the media. So number one, good news about the media is that they don't, it's not the old days. They can't control information getting out. So as I see interviews with Israelis, they are saying things that I have never seen Israelis say in my entire lifetime,

where they're being honest about their own prime minister, they're almost asking America, for God's sake, use the leverage. You're still leverage. What the hell do you have it for, right? And so they, and they know that then Yahoo's lying. They're clearly calling out how he's lying, why he's lying. So they know. So for you out there that are young, you might not understand why that's a big deal.

In the old days, you basically just had one monolithic mainstream media, both in America, less so in Israel. Actually, Israel's press has been better overall historically. But they would put out the message. Israeli prime minister is 100% truthful about everything. And every dirty Palestinian is a goddamn liar. And everyone would believe that. Now, Israelis don't believe it. Israelis are going, no, no, no, no.

I saw it with my own eyes. Our leader is definitely lying. And that's an awesome development because that means the truth is getting out. And then finally, but I would ask our American media, almost to catch up to Israeli media. that is oftentimes done better job. So Israel tells you, oh, we found a bunch of dead bodies in a tunnel we were about to go into. Oh, what a coincidence.

Do you want to ask, why did you find them there? How did you find them there? Were you about to raid that tunnel? Because that's what it looks like, because the last time you raided a tunnel in June, you made a big deal about how you were such heroes and the military solution was the right solution, solution because you could always rescue them. Well, now it looks like you didn't rescue them, you botched it and you got them killed. So should, when we gave you enormous credit last time, shouldn't we now talk about how you,

the military solution was not the correct solution. And it got those hostages killed because of your dumb plan of doing a military, military, military solution instead of doing a ceasefire. U.S. media, where are you? No, every one of them. Oh, they found them shortly after they went into the tunnels. Oh, look at that. They were killed shortly before they went into the tunnels.

Gee, I wonder why. And by the way, if you don't know, there is some good press out there. And they explain, yeah, after the raid in June where they rescued some hostages, the IDF did. Hamas put out a new order. If the IDF is coming, kill the hostages. You didn't think that was going to happen? Okay, everybody condemn Hamas. Oh, you are terrible people.

Well, yes, of course, of course don't kill the hostages. Of course don't shoot them in the back of the head. But us yelling at Hamas isn't going to make any difference at all. What makes a difference in saving those lives is to get to a deal where we get them back instead of doing these dumb, dumb strategies of, oh, I'm so macho, I'm going to go rescue them. Well, you got him killed instead. All right, when we come back, we have an awesome interview with David Seroda about money in politics.

So he has an amazing new podcast series out. So we'll get to that and more when we return. Don't miss it. Colgate Total is more than just your favorite toothpaste. It's dedicated to advancing oral health. The new Colgate Total Active Prevention System features a reformulated toothpaste, innovative toothbrush, and a refreshing antibacterial mouthwash, all designed to work together to fight the root cause of common oral health issues. such as gingivitis, plaque, and tartar. Use the full routine twice daily and be dentist ready.

Shop the Colgate Total Active Prevention System now at walmart.ca. for becoming young turks members. They hit the join button below. So to Deborah 66, Andy Mion, 2300, and Jamie Zaga Zeta. And thank you for joining at the premium level. You guys make this show possible. Sam, Monica, thank you for gifting five memberships. All right, now we have a great interview for you guys about the real core problems in politics.

All right. Well, you know, something we talk about here at TYT often is the corrupting nature of money in politics. And if you look at the history of recent elections, you'll see election cycle after election cycle, more and more money is poured into campaign coffers with, of course, strings attached. Take a look at this chart that shows you how much money in politics has impacted our elections in recent years. In 2022, you see the amount of money that's been spent on congressional races. The yellow represents presidential races, and year after year, you'll see that the amount of money that pours into campaign coffers increases.

Let's take a look at the amount of money spent on lobbying each election cycle. In 2016, $3.16 billion spent on lobbying around the elections. By 2023, that number had already grown to $4.27 billion. And so sometimes it feels like we're alone here at TYT and constantly talking about this issue because this is really the root of every problem we have. But luckily, now we have a podcast series that's helping us out in spreading that message. It's an incredible podcast series. Here to talk to us about it is David Serota, editor-in-chief of the Lever, former speechwriter

for Bernie Sanders, and the man behind this new podcast series called Master Plan, which uncovers how corruption has absolutely destroyed America's democracy. David Strata, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks to both you. It's good to see you. Good to see you too. Well, let me start off with the first question. You know, I already love the podcast. I've already listened to the available episodes.

And you know, you kind of open up the series by discussing how all the way back in the 1970s, Americans were already pretty furious about the corrupting impact of money in politics. And Nixon pretended to do something about it, but it was really just a joke. So can you tell us a little more about that? Sure. So in the early 1970s, this was before Watergate, there was a scandal in which Richard Nixon was essentially trading government favors for campaign cash when it came to food policy, specifically keeping the price of milk high in order to raise money from milk producers,

the big dairy conglomerates. And this scandal helped fuel a push for the first anti-corruption federal election campaign act in 50 years. And it passed. Nixon signed it. Side note, Nixon tried to kill it before he signed it, although he pretended the whole way in public that he was for it. We found memos in which his White House was actually trying to kill it. He gets shamed into essentially signing it. And then very soon after, he and his henchmen are working furiously to go around it in order to use illegal campaign money, illegal secret campaign money, to fund the Watergate break-in.

Ultimately, they get obviously caught. I think a lot of people know about the break-in. I think not a lot of people understand that it was the first campaign finance scandal of the modern era in which major corporations, we're talking corporations like Americans. and airlines were prosecuted for illegal campaign donations that were, it's like the first dark money donations that were secret, that were kept secret. And out of that came the modern campaign finance laws, building off of those earlier campaign finance laws. But again, the process of trying to weaken and water them down and kill them was already set in motion. And it was set in motion in part by a guy who Nixon had appointed to the Supreme Court, a guy

named Lewis Powell, who had written a memo saying that corporations needed to, in the face of the rising tide of reforms of government policy, this is the time of Nader, of the creation of Medicare, Medicaid, the EPA, et cetera, et cetera. Powell writes this memo saying the corporate forces need to do everything they can to use their money to take over the political system, because essentially the government had become too democratically responsive to the people. And part of that plan was stacking the judiciary with conservative justices and a focus on deregulating the campaign finance system. And so what came out of that, even after the Watergate reforms, was an effort first to add loopholes to those reforms that allowed for the explosion of corporate

packs. And then soon after that, the two major cases that were at the time radical that created the idea that money is speech, not corruption, and that those constitutionally protected rights to free speech extend to corporations and their spending in elections. That came out of the Buckley case. That came out of the Bellotti case. Lewis Powell participating in both of those, essentially executing his memo. And fast forward, here we are in the era of corruption. Yeah. David, I want to talk more about that. It's obviously a huge part of my book, Justice, coming, that St. Powell memo, Buckley, Bellotti, and how they basically stole this country from us. But I want to ask a broader question first. So as I watched or listened to the first

couple of podcasts in the series, an interesting thing pops out. One is since in Nix's case, there's the tapes. You can hear with your own ears how much they lie. How you hear them in the Oval Office saying like, oh, we got to help the milk guys. They're giving us money and make sure we kill this legislation and then you see them in an it or you hear them in an interview that you guys found saying the next week on air, oh my God, we got to get these reforms to make sure that we protect the American people. So like the mendacity is so audacious that it makes you realize how like they have no conscious in line at all about they're just glorified actors. And then with the milk companies, big milk as you called it in the beginning of the of the series, and it

really is it to me it was like the minute you hear it it becomes obvious well of course the people with a lot of money in power and of course the companies with a lot of money in power are going to want to keep that money in power and add to it and if you wanted to do that you would obviously go capture the government and how would you do that by giving money to the politicians it's so I wonder if you're getting a reaction back and, you know, a question to you that in regards to the media, let's put it this way, okay, because I think a lot of Americans, they might, if you ask them, do you know that, they'd probably say like, yeah, yeah, I guess so. I guess I knew that.

And I hate corruption. But I don't think that it actually resonates with people on a visceral level until they hear it with their own ears and see it with their own eyes. And so has the finally get into the question, has the media here woven a tale for us over the last 40, 50 years of an act, a play that's being played in Washington, that isn't even close to reality. That reality is what they do in the White House talking brazenly about, and it's not just Nixon, it's all these politicians. Oh, yeah, let's get the money and then do the favors for the donors. And the only reason that the American people don't know that in its entirety is because the media has hid that. from them. Yeah, I think, look, I think that the, the, there is reporting on pay to play

corruption that periodically crops up in the headlines. But I think that over many years, the country has become desensitized in a sense to it. I think in the country becoming desensitized to corruption in essentially thinking that corruption now is just the way it's done. It's not, it's no longer scandalous. It's just what politics is. That, that in many, many cases, the media doesn't see the corruption, doesn't see money in politics as quote unquote news. It's just the way it is. And that really is the process of normalizing corruption. Now, I would also say this, that at times in our history, political leaders have said, no, I'm not going to accept the idea that this is normal and acceptable and not even

newsworthy. In our series, in later episodes, we get into an example of that. John McCain in his 2000 presidential run. John McCain, people, I think, forget about this part of his political career. John McCain's first major set of headlines in politics was in the Keating Five scandal, where he was one of five senators who was caught pressuring a federal banking regulator on behalf of a donor. And unlike most politicians, John McCain reacted to that not by pretending it didn't happen, not by retiring, but instead by joining the campaign finance reform crusade with the zeal of a convert. And he ultimately ran for president on an anti-corruption campaign finance reform message. And in the podcast, you'll hear his aides talking saying, you know, we told him we

didn't think it was going to be a very big resonant issue among voters. And he said, I think it's going to be. And it ended up being his entire brand. Now, he didn't win the Republican primary. But ultimately, he got George W. Bush, the personification of money in politics, to actually sign campaign finance reform legislation. And the Supreme Court actually upheld it. So now, you could say, well, the Supreme Court was then, they replaced Rehnquist and O'Connor, and they quickly then overturned it. That's true. But I think the point here is that clearly the public understands how corrupt the situation is, doesn't like it, and is waiting for. political leadership to actually raise the issue and say, this is not normal. We haven't really had

that political leadership. I mean, I think Bernie Sanders tried to raise that issue, that set of issues in his presidential campaigns. But I think the last time you can really say it was salient at the center of our politics as a political issue, you probably have to reach back about 25 years to John McCain's campaign. You know, I mean, look, I don't think anything positive has happened in this country with Americans just sitting by hoping that political leadership is going to do the right thing. So I think that's the number one mistake. But I also don't begrudge the American people in feeling a little bit hopeless in this particular issue. Because the very people who would have to change the laws and pass reforms are people who are enjoying the status quo, members of Congress,

who love the money pouring into their campaign coffers. And just real quick, going back to the brief discussion we had about the media and why journalists kind of refuse to put this story front and center, I don't think it's necessarily because they feel the American public is desensitized to this issue or that the journalists themselves are desensitized to this issue. The fact of the matter is our journalistic organizations and institutions have also been captured by the same money. I mean, you look at the legacy media outlets, and they're usually under this massive conglomerate, massive corporation that probably doesn't want a lot of in-depth reporting about how our democratic process and our democracy has been completely undermined

by money in politics. And so it's not just about passing laws to do something about campaign finance reform. I just think money has had a corrupting influence on a lot of our major institutions. Is that something that you touch on in your podcast? We do. Yeah, it's a really good point. And I would also add that I think it's actually worse when we talk about money and politics coverage because while I mentioned once in a while there are some scandals that come out and that are reported. Most of the money in politics coverage is celebrating the money in politics. We judge candidates based on who has raised the most money. And we we denigrate candidates who haven't raised enough money from, again, typically corporate special interest, billionaires

who want government favors. So the coverage is really in a sense Orwellian. And I think you're right. It does tie back to who's delivering the coverage. If you're a major corporation and you have a media brand outlet, you're not going to want your media brand to scandalize money in politics. If you, the giant corporate conglomerate is trying, it has business before the same government that's being elected with that money. That's absolutely true. And we get into this, this, what we're really talking about is going beyond the legislative debate to whether corruption is being normalized psychologically, culturally. And what I fear and what we get to at the very end of the series is that I fear it's like the David Foster Wallace speech about the two fish. one fish swims by another fish says, hey, how's the water today? And the other fish says,

what's water? That they're so used to, we're all so used to being immersed in corruption, that it almost seems like it's just the system. I mean, let's not forget. Bernie Sanders in 2020 felt compelled to apologize for an op-ed written by Zephyr Teachout in the presidential campaign pointing out Joe Biden's all too close relationship with corporate donors. She said he has a corruption problem. Bernie Sanders felt compelled to apologize for that. Katie Porter said after her loss in the Senate race said something to the effect of billionaire spending at that point was crypto billionaires. Billionaire spending ends up rigging elections. And she was vilified for saying that. And the reason I bring that up is because you start wondering, wait a minute,

the culture is now the political culture, the political class is sort of saying corruption isn't the problem. Calling out corruption is the problem. And if we get to that point, if we accept that level of normalization, then I think there really is no pendulum swing back to the era of reform. It means we've accepted this as just what American politics is. I don't accept it. I don't think we should accept it. David, one more question for me, at least on this. So, you know, as usual, I agree with so much of what you're saying. And media is such a huge portion of this.

That's partly why you started the lever. I started the young Turks to counter these media narratives that, as you point out, are just Orwellian. It's absurd to say, oh, the person who got bribed the most. Congratulations, you're the leading candidate. You're wonderful. Oh, my God, Katie Porter, you call that corruption? which is clearly there and definitely affected your race.

How dare you? You're so evil for a point. I mean, that's insanity. And by the way, McCain in 2000 was the last Republican I voted for, so I feel good about that vote too. But overall, look, as I wrote about Lewis Powell, your master plan podcast is about this memo. This unfortunately worked more brilliantly than any political memo in history

that he wrote in 1971, basically laying out a blueprint for corporate rule and how corporations can take over the U.S. government, take over our democracy and and rule us all. And they executed it pretty much perfectly. And one of the things he reminded them of is, hey, you knuckleheads, you've got more money than everybody else. Just start spending it.

And the politicians will do whatever you want. And of course, the two things you should capture are the media and the courts. So that leads to, again, David, I think we live under corporate rule. But since almost no one in corporate media, mainstream media, establishment media, whatever you want to call it, ever says that phrase, corporate rule. And if you said it, they would probably call you a conspiracy theorist, right?

That it doesn't wake the American people up to the fact that, oh right, almost everything we do. We can't even negotiate drug prices with drug companies because they're corporations and they control what we pay. what we pay. It's not a free market. There's no big contracts over and over in the government. And we can go on and on, right? In fact, let me jump in on this and kind of piggyback off your question, Jank, because the other thing that's been kind of fascinating to watch is how right wing media has managed to spin the corruption and like reshift the focus of, you know, Republican voters

toward corporations, but not over how they facilitate and engage in this corruption. But, but But over the influence they have culturally, right? These corporations are too woke, that's the real problem. No, the real problem is these corporations are really the ones who call the shots on how you're treated at work, what you're getting paid at work, what your neighborhood looks like. Every issue that touches you on a daily basis is impacted by money in politics. It has less to do with, you know, virtue signaling about cultural issues and more to do with the fact that these companies are looking out for their bottom line.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. speaks to the the democracy crisis like like i have been uh kind of shaken by the fact not surprised but but disturbed by the fact that we're supposedly having a conversation in this election about saving democracy right democracy we got to save democracy democracy's survival a lot of that talk by the way at the democratic convention a convention sponsored by the anti democratic forces in our politics corporations are

and their takeover of the government is that is the democracy crisis right i mean that is that is the long-term democracy crisis it is a crisis louis powell's memo is an outline for ending or certainly limiting democracy limiting the one-person one-vote paradigm of how power is supposed to be dispersed and distributed in this country uh to a point where money essentially short circuits that democratic idea. So what's really crazy to me is there's all this talk of democracy in election where there's more and more corporate money, more and more anonymous dark money that's actually buying the election. Like if you're worried about the democracy crisis right now, let me introduce you to the last 50 years of creating, as you call it, Jank, corporate rule in

America. David, it is increasingly difficult to find any journalist who is actually motivated by their principles, their values, and you have always stayed true to your principles and values. So thank you so much for everything you do. Thank you for putting this podcast series out. Again, everyone, it's called Master Plan. Please check it out wherever you get your podcasts. I listened on, you know, Apple podcasts. And thank you again, David. I hope you come back soon to talk to us about anything involving money in politics or the political landscape in general. Thanks to both you. Really appreciate it. Take care. Thank you, David. All right. We're going to take a quick break. Lots of your comments about David, money and politics, including some conservatives who went away. And so we'll come back for the social break in a minute.

Jenkin Anna back on the Young Turks, Angie Davis, thanks for hitting the join button below, becoming a member and these wonderful people that gave through t-y-t.com slash team. Eric Beckwith, triple B-16, think huge 91, server, U.S. Alpha Gaming. I appreciate all you guys, all you sign up through there and donate through there. That is ideal, t-y-t.com slash team. That's great, and triple B-16, you'll be getting a call from me to. Anyone who gives over $100, I call. All right, Anna.

Well, the ongoing war in Gaza is putting the lives of our service members at risk. And no story makes that clear than what you're about to watch. A mob captured on video holding one of the men and putting a sack over his head amid chance of Yankee go home. More than a dozen Turkish individuals who are part of a nationalist group attack two Americans. American Marines as they were on a break. Now, the attackers are allegedly members of a Turkish youth union, which is a secular nationalist group that opposes both U.S. and EU influence on Turkey. Now, the Turkish youth union posted a video of the attack on social media, which showed a group pushing two men and covering one of their heads in a white sack to chance

in English of Yankee go home. Here are more details on the attack itself. The group grabs hold of him and they put a bag over his head. Another US Marine rushes in to try to save him. He is also attacked. All this happening on the street in Izmir, which is a city in the west of the country. These two men were on shore leave from the USS Wasp, which is stationed in the Aegean. Fifteen people have been arrested as a result. According to local officials, a group of 15 people, including 13 men and two women,

attacked to the service members who have been dressed in civilian clothes. The mob, part of a nationalist anti-American youth group, were immediately apprehended. Officials say five other Marines were involved. The two Marines who were attacked are assigned to the 24th Expeditionary Unit on board the USS Wasp and were taken to a local hospital as a precaution but sustained no injuries, according to a Navy spokesperson. Now, the post featuring that video that was posted by this nationalist group also included the following message.

who carry the blood of our soldiers and thousands of Palestinians on their hands cannot defile our country. And I have more details on this, as was noted in that report. Everyone involved has been arrested. But you should also know that there has been an increased presence of U.S. military in that region over the ongoing war in Gaza. As we know, you have Houthi rebels who are retaliating over Israel's treatment and slaughter of Palestinians, same with Hezbollah and Lebanon. I mean, all of this is spreading and rather than doing what's necessary to ease tensions and end this war, the U.S. continues to enable Israel, things continue to escalate, and we keep sending more of our soldiers to the region in order to protect Israel from a potential Iranian attack. Jane.

Yeah, there's two parts of the story. First, I hate watching that video. It's kind of stomach training anytime somebody puts a bag over somebody's head and you know obviously I'm Turkish seeing Turks do that it bothers me greatly and if you don't know the reason they're doing that is because back in 2003 after the Iraq war Turkey did not support us going into Iraq that was because like France they were a true ally to America and tried to prevent us from doing something that they realized was a giant mistake and they were correct but After the war started, the Americans captured 11 Turks in northern Iraq, and they were commandos, and they put bags over their heads like that. And that enraged the Turkish citizens, because America and Turkey are supposed to be allies, and they thought, here we are.

It turns out we're not allies. They're just treating us like Muslims. And this is what they do to all Muslims, is humiliate them like this, even though those are our top commandos that are in alliance with America. Right? So that's why they do that. But it doesn't, number one, no one knows that outside of Turkey, right? So it looks terrible. It also paints Muslims in a bad light because it makes it look like, oh, look here is Muslims putting a bag over American Marines heads. I hate it in every way. The only thing is I know Turkish reaction to stuff like this, Turkish government's reaction, which is that they will regulate. So they will, those guys will get more than a talking to when they get taken in. And the reason that Turkish government will retaliate against the nationalists that did this is number one, yeah, we might huff and puff, but our alliance with America, Turkish alliance with America, is super important.

Those bases in Turkey are super important both militarily and economically. But most importantly, Turkey relies on tourism. And so they do not want to see any foreigners touched in any way. And so they will send a signal, don't you goddamn do this again, right? For economic reasons and alliance, military reasons, et cetera, you get it. Now the second part of it is, look, you have to be realistic. If you're wondering why secular Turks are mad at America, and you're wondering why Iran hates America, and you're wondering why Houthis in Yemen are attacking Western ships, and you're wondering

all these things. I have an answer for you. It's not at all complicated. All you have to do is ask them. They're jealous of our freedom? That's, but guys, I mean, that was literally what our government kept gaslighting us with over and over again. But not just our government. That was George Bush and Dick Cheney with those comical talking points about, oh, these dirty Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan that said they hate us for our freedoms. Oh, if we murder them enough, then they'll love us for our freedoms. Yeah, they don't hate Norway for their freedoms, right? Or any other Scandinavian country, which actually enjoys a lot more freedom than we do in a lot of different ways. But just America.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, but every one of these groups, whether they're bad guys or just normal, frustrated Muslims throughout the world, it says the same thing. It's not that they hate Israel. It's that they hate the occupation of Palestine. And so, and if you, look, easy for you to relate. If you're a Christian, for example, and you saw on the news.

every day at one country going, look at what we do these Christians and just humiliate them, beat them, occupy them, oppress them, kill them whenever they want, cut off their power and electricity, starve them and go, what are you going to do about it, Christians? You're too weak. You can't do anything. Now, what do you think that would do? At some point, a lot of Christians in the world would go, well, God damn it enough of this. What do I have to do to make sure you stop doing that, not just because we care about those people, but because you're humiliating the rest of us. So that's why this happened, that they state that that's because of the Israeli occupation

of Palestine. And every time there's an outburst against America like this from the Middle East, they all clearly say it's because of the humiliating occupation of Palestine that America funds. But our media doesn't report that. So they're like, oh, I don't know, I guess Muslims just randomly ate us. Oh, I guess we've been in all these wars randomly, not because we're unilaterally supporting and funding Israel, which is driving Muslims across the world to despise us because we're in favor of that oppression.

Now, there are some moments of clarity in the media. Usually it's in print journalism, and the Hill recently was willing to publish an op-ed written by writer K. Ward Cummings. The title of the piece is, is the U.S. relationship with Israel still worth it? And there are some excerpts in there that I think most Americans are probably unaware of, right? Not out of any wrongdoing or lack of intellectual curiosity, but because these are difficult truths that typically are not reported in our press. So I'm going to give you a few excerpts that I think are important. He writes that the U.S. has paid a heavy price for our relationship with Israel over the years, not just in treasure, but also in blood.

According to the 9-11 Commission, U.S. support for Israel was a key reason for the attacks on September 11th, 2001. By the way, our invasion of Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9-11, was also heavily influenced by the Israeli government. Going back to the piece, he also writes that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's animus toward the United States stemmed, not from his experiences in the United States as a student, but rather from this violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel, reads the 9-11 commission's report. Today, as tensions in the region escalate, experts are concerned that the chance of an assault on the U.S. is also growing. U.S. intelligence officials say that there's a rising risk, Lebanese Hezbollah militants will strike Americans in the Middle East, even potentially hit inside the United States.

So when the U.S. gets attacked, when our service members get attacked, it is important to understand that there is a motive, a reason for why that attack happened, or a motivation behind that attack. We need to understand those motivations in order to prevent those attacks from happening in the future. The problem is those motivations are usually buried so the American people are totally left in the dark about what's really going on. Yeah, and so look, that's why I get so frustrated in American media, because it's not

like this stuff is complicated, you could just take any statement on why any, whether it's a government group or individual, a Muslim, acts out against them. America. They all tell you it's because you guys support Israel's occupation of Palestine. And yet our media almost never reports that. Well, that's weird. Isn't that weird? Why are they not doing that? And so there's group think in in D.C. and in New York. And they, and until this last conflict, it was absolute sacrilege to ever criticize Israel or to ever say that something might be because of Israel. And so part of it is, This was understandable, hey, you don't want to revive anti-Semitic tropes about how Jews

control everything, et cetera. And those are awful, and that's not what's going on here, and I understand that hesitation. But what it led to was, whether that was the sole reason or only part of the reason, what it led to was this criticism free zone for Israel in America. Oh no, no, when Israel puts people in camps, five and a half million people in camps, that's totally great, that's wonderful. They had to, they had to. Hamas made them do it.

Well, how about before Hamas, the occupation has been around for 57 years. The goddamn Palestinians made them do it. It's all the Muslims hope. And as Morning Joe was famously said, so it's not just right wing media and it's not just the government. It's definitely mainstream media. He said, oh, the Muslims, they hate us because they hate us. They hate us because they hate us. Great explanation.

They hate us because they hate us. He said it three times, just to reassure you, don't worry, I am a full blown idiot or a total propagandists for the Israeli government, pretending the Muslims hate us for no apparent reason. Okay, oh, because they're against civilization and they're dark. Everything that people have said about Muslim people all across the world in American media has been a sick, disgusting lie. There's a real reason why they're upset and the reason is not complicated. It's the occupation of Palestine.

So, but at the end of the day, Turkey has to show that they're getting tough on these nationalists, because we can't have that. That's crazy. You can't attack Americans like that. You can't attack Marines like that. There's got to be consequences for that. And if the Turkish government doesn't regulate on these guys, then America should do some sort of disincentive to the Turkish government to make sure nothing like this happens again. All right, when we come back for the second hour of the show, we're going to talk a little bit about some efforts to crush American protesters. And this time it wasn't it in Nitya. Turns out that it was the Chinese government that did so.

That story is insane. It's incredible, really good piece of investigative reporting. Stick around, we'll share that story and more with you when we return.