The Young Turks - Crappy Campaigns

Episode Date: July 8, 2023

US plans to send controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine. Mike Pence mocked for saying "I don’t really buy into the rich need to pay their fair share." Casey DeSantis doubles down on husband’s anti-groomer rhetoric in new campaign ad: "They’re not yours." Ron DeSantis cooks up excuses for low poll numbers: "They're targeting me." HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur), Michael Shure (@michaelshure) & Rayyvana (@RayyvanaTTV) 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Three-by-Tee! Three-My-T! We're going to do a standard power panel in a minute. And I'm going to have some great guest hosts join me as we normally do. But before we do anything else today, I wanted to take a minute and out to talk to you guys about what kind of show and network.

we are because apparently that some people are questioning it. And so I have clear answers and then people can make their decisions based on that. Okay? So we've been doing this for 21 years and entire time we've been progressive and fighting very hard for progressive issues and done a lot of things. I'm not going to get into our resume of all the great things that mainly our audience has done because without them we don't have any power. And those folks have done amazing things in the world like launch just Democrats, etc. So we're not going to pop out of a cake. in a couple of days and go,

ta-da, right-wing pivot. We laid a 21-year bear trap for you guys so that at the end we could do a right-wing pivot and then lose our entire audience. The people are like, are you guys are grifters. You are denying your audience what they want. Wait, how would that be a grift? You guys want to go from an incredibly successful

progressive show that gets hundreds of millions of views every month to being right-wing. to get no views, if that was true, why would that be a grift? That's not a grift, that's just a disastrous decision. No, we're doing something radical on this network. And so I want you to understand it. We're allowing for discussion and debate and disagreements. Now, a lot of people don't want that.

Like tons of right wingers go, no, I don't want any of that. I just want Fox News or Newsmax or Tug Cross or whoever it is. I just want him to say the things that I want to hear. here and in fact Fox News got in trouble with them in the Dominion lawsuit because you see the internal emails, let's not tell people things that are true, let's just tell the audience what they want to hear. Now, I was proud that the left wing didn't do that for a long, long time. We are open-minded, we're reasonable, we have conversations. But unfortunately, at this point, there are some forces that say no, there should be no discussion, there is a

correct opinion, and everyone should be forced to have that correct opinion. Or there should be canceled or fired or no one should watch them or all these other consequences that flow from that. Well, God bless, you know, there's really good news because there's tons of leftist shows now that never disagree with a preset so-called leftist ideology. They agree with 100% of the issues, 100% of the time, and they almost all do it, right? You're sure they're honest with you, that they agree with the whatever is the trend of the day, 100% of the time. By the way, they could prove me wrong. They could say, oh, yeah, I don't agree with the left on this, this, this, and this.

See, nobody casts me. Everybody's fine. Now they're going to do tribe benign things like, oh, yeah, well, I like orange more than I like yellow. No, no, no, no. Give me real disagreements. You're not going to do it, are you? Because you're worried. Well, we are going to do it on this network.

So we do things like, hey, I do something that is almost on her. of in media. I hire people who disagree with me. And so some have disagreed on the right, some have disagreed on the left, and then they have come out and not only disagree with me massively on our air, and I'm totally okay with it. Totally okay with it. And then they will sometimes go over the edge and say vicious and crazy things, and we're still okay with it. And then they, okay, and then you guys know recently, someone who we'd liked and really supported, et cetera, decided to call me an evil person, a racist, a transful, pathetic, embarrassing, all these terrible, terrible, terrible things. And then they quit. And after they quit, they say, I quit because this

guy who runs the company won't agree with me. But sister, I platformed you. I said, here's a platform, go for it. And not only can you say anything you want, you can say something that totally and utterly disagrees with me. Not good enough. Is that a standard that everyone has to agree with just one of the hosts? Well, if that's the standard and two hosts disagree, what am I going to do? Well, I got to, I'm for, apparently the new standard is everyone must agree.

So who do I fire? Which are the two hosts that disagree do I fire? Do I go to Twitter and ask the left wing activists or the ones pretending to be activists for our side? Okay, guys, apparently no one voted, but apparently you guys are the arbiters of what's on the left, despite the fact that the polling shows that you are not. You're often very, very, very wrong. I'll give you the classic example, Latinx. I was told a hundred times.

Oh, you are being against, you're going against the Latino community. I don't think so. I've never seen a Latino person called themselves Latinx. I think you made that up. They're like, how dare you, right? And it turns out we did a poll or we didn't do it. Somebody did, 96% of Latinos don't want to be called Latinx. Did anyone learn from that, that maybe randos online don't actually know what they're talking about and that they don't actually speak for that community?

But even if they did or we were wrong, et cetera, the most important thing is, will we have disagreement and will that be allowed? And the answer definitively on the Young Turks is yes. And if you don't like that, like I said, there's a billion options, right wing, left wing, and they'll tell you whatever you want to hear. But if you want to have a real conversation, an honest conversation, there's one place in media. And by the way, it doesn't matter if people yell at me. I've been through it a hundred times. Everyone here knows we've been through it a hundred times, right?

And every time, oh, Jimmy Dorr is right. Oh, Sam Harris is right. And then later, oops. Yeah, they're totally wrong. Oh, Tulsi Gabbards. Oops, oops, young Turks were right again. Oops, but do they learn anything from that? No.

And do I change how we conduct things because of the pressure? No, I do not give into the pressure, but I also do not go in the other direction. Oh, you hurt my feelings. So from now on, I'm going to be against gay rights or trans rights. No, we will not do that under any circumstance. No, I'm still going to support trans community. I'm still going to support gay rights 100%. I'm going to support both those communities, 100% percent.

And as you'll see, likely be the toughest and strongest fighter for them. I don't care if some trans people or anyone in any leftist community yells at me. You think I'm going to like betray Latinos because somebody's telling me that I'm against Latinos because I said I don't believe that Latin X is a proper term? I'm never going to do that. No, I'm going to fight for Latinos. I'm going to fight for African Americans. I'm going to fight for all of these communities.

And you might have seen online, oh, here's a tweet there. Here's a video, like a five second clip or a 12 second clip over there. Okay, oh my God, oh I hear their right wingers now. Okay, and then you know what happens when people come watch the show, they're like, wait, I don't get it. They don't look anything like what I heard. They sound really progressive. My God, they seem like they're really fighting for us. You know why? Because we've been doing it for 21 years, okay? And that's exactly what we are, and we're not going to change it. So look, the last things I'll say is that we have, we have,

given a number of folks from all the different communities, a platform here when no one else did. And so we hired a number of trans hosts. I don't see a lot of other left wing shows hiring tons of trans hosts. So, okay, good, God bless. And then we have a disagreement. And then did I kick them out? No, I said, okay, continue to have a disagreement. And they said, no, because not everyone at the company agrees with me. You guys are transphobes, racist, et cetera. And how dare you disagree? That's it. We're out. And if, look, if you're in that camp and you say, hey, 5% disagreement, too much. I can't, I can't handle it. I need, I need something else. Again, all the power in the world to you. But it's, I'm telling you right now, I'm not saying

to you guys, oh, please stay. And I'm not saying, go, I don't care. And are there people? people with good intent in our audience who believe in these issues and disagree with me fervently out of good intent? Absolutely. And brothers, I'm not telling you to go or stay. If you're comfortable with disagreement, but we want to get to the same place, great, stay. If you say, no, I want something else. That's okay. I'm just being clear with you guys as to what we think. And so, and last thing I'll add is some people are convinced that they're political geniuses and they like to lean into fighting on the wrong grounds, right? And they say, oh, politics doesn't matter. Well, here's how it matters. When you lose elections, they pass 70

laws against the LGBTQ community. You want to win elections so they don't pass bills against you. Instead, we pass bills that give you 100% the same rights, not more rights, not less rights, the same exact rights as every U.S. citizen. And by the way, we get paid family leave, higher minimum wage, fight climate change, and all the wonderful things we want in the world. So if you say politics doesn't matter, then you're in the wrong business, okay, you're not understanding. If you say, hey, the maximalist position, so let's not use words like radical, extreme, et cetera, let's just say the maximalist. I think everybody would agree that people that are in the activist community are going for the maximalist position.

If you say the maximalist position, whether it's right wing or left wing, always gets your victories. Sorry, you don't know politics. That's just not true. It's not remotely true. And so, oh, the American people agree with us anyway on, let's say, for example, one of the disagreements that I have on the issue of trans people in sports. I think that, by the way, the American people don't agree with me either. 70% say that trans people should not participate in any sports that is not in the sex that they were born, right? Well, I think they should participate in high school, and I think we could win that argument.

And I think that the way you win that argument is to say, look, Republicans, which of your perverts is going to go do the genital check on these kids? And you know what that happens? Then the average American goes, whoa, yeah, that's not right. I don't want them doing that to the kids. Hey, let the kids play the sports, okay? But if you go into the teeth of the only ground that the LGBTQ community loses on, we went on everything else, right? We win on trans rights, gay rights, gay marriage, equality and housing, discrimination, etc.

They tried the trans bathroom thing. It didn't work. They tried to kick transgender people out of the military. It didn't work. We went on all these grounds. And the Republicans dug in and dug in and dug in and they found one thing that seven out of ten Americans agree with them and not us. And that's transports. So my opinion is let them play in high school, but when it comes to a professional league, let the league decide. If you think that is a hundred

percent disagreement, and that's trans erasure, et cetera, okay, we disagree. And that means, in my opinion, you were saying, I won't tolerate 1% disagreement, 2%, 5%, whatever number you want to put on. I won't tolerate it. I want people, I want to show that agrees with me all the time on everything, okay? Okay, okay. Well, there's nothing I could do again. But if you say, hey, you know what? I want to win and I want to frame things in the right way. So we protect our community. And I'm going to try to protect that community, whether the activists agree or not, and this is not about trans issues in specifics, it's about all of those communities. So look, I think the police in this country need massive, colossal reform. But if you go with

the slogan of defund the police, you get killed. the elections, you do. Well, I don't like that we losing the, well, I don't like it either. So we should have better framing. I don't want to do frame, better framing. I want to be maximalist. Okay, but you're not going to win that way. And if you say, hey, I don't like it. I don't like that you are saying things that are nearly indisputably correct on the politics of it. And I don't like that the country doesn't agree with us. And I don't like the idea of trying to convince them. I just want to call them transphobes, racist. I want to call them names. And I think that's a brilliant political strategy because that's going to win them over.

Sorry, but you're wrong. It doesn't win them over. Being able to empathize and say, you don't want to do that to kids. You don't want to do that to other human beings that are just like you, telling them, hey, guys, you have anybody who's trans in your life? And even if you don't, imagine that you feel you were born differently. And then you have the courage to come out. And you have the courage to change and transition.

And that is so incredibly hard. Can you not have empathy for that person? Can you not say, oh my God, that's another human being. And maybe I should root for them instead of rooting against them. That's how you reach out to people and win them over. So we went on all those issues. We went on all those policies. And we went on the elections.

And we get bills that help your life instead of hurting your life. But if you disagree for the billionth time, that's okay. This is a network where there is discussion and disagreement. And that is super clear and it is never going to change. All right. Now, having said that, we go on with the show, drop it. All right, now power panel by Revana, who's on Rebo Headquarters, Michael Schur, who is on a lot of our program. and talks to MAG on a regular basis, God help him, talking about difference of opinion.

And recently came back from a South Carolina trip. All right, great to have you guys here. Michael, take it away. Yeah, let's begin with this. The Biden administration expected to announce today that the U.S. will in fact provide Ukraine with cluster munitions. That's according to administration and defense officials as well. These weapons, right, they disperse small bombs over a wide area that risk harming civilian populations. More than 100 countries have signed a UN convention banning the use, by the way, are these types of munitions?

So cluster munitions that we probably didn't know very much about when we woke up today are weapons that can sort of scatter bombs and send out what are called like bomblets and, and, can cause massive damage. Ukraine has asked the United States to send them. They've been asking for them now for months. The United States, it seems, is finally ready to go ahead, Jank, and do that. And, you know, that clip showed us, though, that this has been, they've been used in this conflict already,

both by Russia and to a lesser extent, Ukraine. But here is in fact why they are so dangerous. An announcement expected today and the U.S. will supply Ukraine with cluster munitions, reportedly thousands of them as part of a new military assistance package worth $800 million. It comes as Ukraine tries to break through Russian lines in its counteroffensive. And these cluster munitions will apparently be very helpful to the Ukrainians in doing that. Now, why is this controversial? Well, cluster bombs break apart midair and scatter smaller munitions over a wide area.

Some of them do not explode initially, and they pose a deadly threat to civilians after the fighting, sometimes even years later. Now, the Pentagon claims that the cluster munitions the U.S. is considering sending have a very low dud rate, making that threat much lower. And a dud rate, to be clear, is when they launched these missiles, missiles and these munitions, when they, when they spread all of these clusters, these bombs in a cluster, some of them don't go off. They're duds like we just saw earlier this week.

Fireworks, July 4th, sometimes it just doesn't go off. Well, when these don't go off, they can cause massive damage and that damage can last for years and years. These are sort of akin to landmines that could be found later on and cause damage to civilians. So, you know, CNN has reported that they've been talking about this. Ukraine has been asking for these munitions as far back as December. In the first part of the war jank already, Russia used these cluster munitions already on their own.

Since the Russian invasion on February 24th, 2022, preliminary data compiled by the cluster munition monitor indicates that 689 casualties were reported during cluster munition attacks in Ukraine as of July of 2022. These reported casualties included 215 people killed and 474 injured. All of the casualties in Ukraine were civilians, where their status, when their status was reported. Ukraine, though, has also, as I mentioned, use these munitions. What is a little different about this and what Ukraine is saying makes these necessary is that they want, They want to use them in a defensive manner. They want to be able to hold the line to wipe out vehicles that are making encroachments into Ukraine,

even on the Russian side to a degree where they're lining up, they're going to small villages and towns. Well, that makes a lot of sense. The damage, though, of course, could get worse if there are that many duds, and people, civilians in these towns, come into contact with them. So Ukraine's use of these, again, they've used them already on a smaller scale. Cranean clustering munition rockets attacks in the city of EZium in 2022, killed at least eight civilians, wounded 15 more, according to human rights watch. Today, President Biden spoke on this, and he said that he is reluctant to supply these munitions, but that they will be going ahead with it, it seems. Yes.

The ammunition, they call them 155. millimeter weapons. This is a this is a war relating to munitions and the running out of those that ammunition and we're low on it but it was not an easy decision and it's not we're not signatories to that that agreement but I it took me a while to be convinced to do it. But the main thing is they either have the weapons to stop the Russians now from their keep them from stopping the Ukrainian offensive through these areas. or they don't. So the president's saying that they're not signatories to this deal.

There are 123 countries that are, 12 that have not ratified it, but have said that they want to do it. Russia's not on that list. Ukraine's not on that list. Of course, the United States is not on that list. Many countries are, most of Western Europe is, but of course, with a number like that, you're going to have small Caribbean nations that are not going to be ever having to worry, we hope, about cluster munitions.

The Pentagon spoke out about this. Pentagon Press Secretary, Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, told reporters Thursday that if a decision is made to send cluster munitions, the military would not give Ukraine cluster munitions with a dud rate or the percent that failed to explode, creating long-term hazards of more than 2.35 percent. Biden is barred by Congress from exporting cluster munitions with dud rates over 1%. However, the Washington Post reported the administration plans to bypass that restriction. using the Foreign Assistance Act, which lets the president provide aid regardless of limits if he notifies the Congress that is in the vital U.S. interest. Okay. Okay, so this is, on the

weapons is a little bit of complicated issue, but overall, it is not complicated, in my opinion. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off. But here's the good news. This doesn't have to be the story of your next chapter. Hormone Harmony by Happy Mammoth is an herbal formula made with science-backed ingredients designed to fine-tune your hormones by balancing estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and even stress hormones like cortisol. It helps with common issues such as hot flashes, poor sleep, low energy, bloating, and more. With over 40,000 reviews and a bottle sold every 24

seconds, the results speak for themselves. A survey found 86% of women lost weight, 77% saw an improved mood, and 100% felt like themselves again. Start your next chapter feeling balanced and in control. For a limited time, get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. How do I say it's complicated on the weapons issue? Well, they say this is going to be very effective weapon against the Russians because the Russians are dug in inside Ukrainian territory. When a cluster bomb goes off, it has 88 different explosive devices that create a ripple effect bomb, right? And it really digs people out from their trenches,

et cetera, and that's why it's going to be effective. Well, that's true. It's also true that chemical weapons would be very effective. They would totally run out of their trenches because they'd all be dying. And nuclear weapons would be very effective. But, They come with a massive downside. But we also then look at these weapons and go, okay, chemical weapons, nuclear weapons out of bounds. Thank God, right? Most of us do. But then we go, okay, but just dropping a bomb on someone, that's okay.

So now, so then you say, well, it's war, right? And then some on the right wing will go out, war is hell. So let's just drop bombs and then see what happens, right? No, so we've got to find a balance. We've got to find where we say, yes, that bomb kills the bejesies out of people. But we're going to use it in this context because we're in the middle of a war and those are combatants. And they've invaded this country, right? And we're trying to get back our sovereignty.

But here's a weapons we will not use, right? Whether you're Ukraine, U.S. or the world community, because they're over the line. Now good news, like we banned chemical weapons and I think we ended our last chemical weapon today, okay, in America. And so good. So apparently we can ban weapons. And apparently some weapons are too dangerous to non-combatants and civilians to use. like nukes, chemical, et cetera. So then the question becomes, are cluster bombs in that group?

Well, now we get to the relatively easy part of the conversation, which is, well, Jen Saki, which was a White House press secretary, said that when the Russians used cluster bombs, it was a war crime. So when the Russians use it, it's a war crime, but when the Ukrainians use it, it's not a war crime, that doesn't seem right. And a hundred different nations have said, do not use these weapons. They're too dangerous to civilians. So now we say, yeah, but we really want to.

And so, and when we use it or our allies use it, it's no longer a war crime. And they said, don't worry, don't worry. The dud rate's going to be tiny and then we're going to kill it. It'll only go off with one to 2.3%. And then Biden said, no, no, I'm overriding that. So there's no, now there's no bar on dud rates. So how many civilians are going to die later? No one knows, hundreds, thousands we don't know, right?

And so when the entire world community is telling you don't use these things, they're too dangerous for civilians. And you go, yeah, the other guys are awful and monsters are using it, but we're going to use it too. I think it becomes clear that this is not the right way to go. What do you think, Ray? Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more, especially when it comes to the statement from Jen Saki when she was then, the press secretary, that it was a war crime if Russia was using

it then. And I think it's a war crime if Ukraine is using them now. I mean, you know, in any sense of the word, maybe not legally, but at least morally. And also, I think it's a massive setback. Of course, we know that the United States was not a signatory to these treaties, but it massively sets back the progress that's being made to ban the use of these types of weapons within the international community, because the United States might not have fallen to the pressure that was being put on them to sign on.

But at this point, they're saying, you know, in no uncertain terms that we actually support the use of these kinds of weapons because so Biden can sit there and talk about how difficult it was to come to this decision and how we had to pray on it and use whatever other kind of therapy speak he wants to talk about to sort of elicit some sort of emotional sympathy for how difficult it was for him to decide to do this. But at the same time, he's sending these weapons. And he's, you know, bypassing the, the dud limit that is put in place legally and sending them weapons that have a higher dud rate and going past that. So, I mean, you know, no matter how he tries to frame it at the end of the day, they're showing their support for the use of these types of weapons, no matter how much cushy language they put around it.

Yeah, I mean, I think that the dud rate thing is the most compelling part of this, right? I mean, that they can control 1% to 2.35%. I that to me is that is the line that we said we would not cross 2.35% and now and and then we or that's the line that these munitions will not surpass we said 1%. The fact that they're able to fine tune this dud rate, why can't it be zero? I mean, I don't really understand that part of the argument. I also do think and this is not really counter to what you and Ray are saying, Jake, I do think that there is a bit of a difference when you are you, are you. using these as defense against the same type of munition. We have this conversation here at the United States about guns, weaponry. Whenever there is an advanced weapon, it's why the United States and most of the major superpowers are always so reluctant to go to the table on these treaties is because you're saying to them, all right, you have the gun, we'll take the knife.

Again, I don't, I think if we can both get down to knives, it's a whole lot better. But in this case, I see why there is that difference and why people are saying that that difference matters. The members of Democratic members of Congress, not all of them, Sarah Jacobs, a member from California saying that she's going to fight this as hard as she can to make sure that this doesn't happen. The president can't really do this. He has to report it to Congress. The tacit approval that Congress gives is going to be an interesting conversation now with Republicans in charge, but with Democrats voicing opposition to the White House. Okay, I'm going to say last couple things here for me. So number one, the reason they say

it's better for defense is because they're saying, look, we're not dropping in Russian territory, where it's going to kill Russian civilians later. We're dropping it in Ukrainian territory. So obviously after the war is over, we're going to be very careful because it's our own citizens. So I get the logic of that. But the problem is the Pentagon just put out a save and say, no, it's okay. The Ukrainians are going to drop these bombs in a quote, a very careful way. No, there's no dropping bombs in a very careful way, okay?

That's an absurd thing to say. And then they say, oh, no, don't worry, we're only going to use it inside. Ukraine, but how do we know? So the same thing with the American made jets that we had discussion about about a month ago that we gave them. They said, no, don't worry, they're not going to use it in Russian territory. Unless they're about to lose and they're really worried and they think a counter strike at the weapon systems coming down on them from inside Russia should be bombed using American made jets and cluster bombs. And then what are we going to say? Tut, tut, no, they're gone. Once you're giving them the bombs and the jets, they have them.

And they're not, and they're going to use them in a very careful way if they're winning. But if they're not winning, they're going to be a lot less careful because it's their lives on the line. I get it. I get their perspective, right? But don't be ridiculous with telling me that, no, don't worry. They'll only use it in the prescribed ways. Yeah. And war has an ugly balance sheet too, right? I mean, they look at these things and they say, okay, we're going to lose, if Russia comes in here, we're going to lose X number of people anyway. And if we can push them back or stop them when they cross the line into Ukraine, then we're actually saving lives rather than costing them. Those are the ugly justifications

of war. There is some good news today on the munitions and weapons front, which is, and Ray, if you wanted to say something else on this, go ahead, but I was going to spread a little, a cluster of good news, if you will, which is that we're reminded that in 2017, the United States ceased the procurement of these weapons, of these cluster weapons. And today, as Jank alluded to earlier, workers at the Bluegrass Army Depot in Kentucky will soon destroy the last of the United States chemical weapons. And the weapons date back to World War I, a 1997 treaty that the United States did sign on to with 193 other countries, which is just about every country you can name. And I would imagine North Korea did not sign on, as has until September

But instead the United States has till September 1st of this year doing it about six weeks early. Okay, last thing is you don't want to encourage escalation. And this tells the Russians we're escalating, you could escalate. Terrible idea. And why did I change my opinion on the death penalty? Because the Innocence Project proved that 4% of the people we had on death row on a consistent basis were innocent. And I was not okay with executing 4% of people who didn't. And here we're saying with the cluster bombs, now we're going over 2.5% of people that's going to kill that didn't have anything to do with the war. And that's deeply problematic. All right, we'll be right back.

All right, back on TYT, Jank, Rayvano, Michael's sure with you guys. New member is Linda Burns. Linda, welcome. We appreciate you. Everybody can join by hitting the join button below the video on YouTube or you go to tyt.com slash join. If you like honest reporting and good open discussions, obviously this is the place for you. Chris Birch gifted a membership on YouTube and detox nurse Wendy gifted five. You guys are all amazing.

We appreciate you. Michael's got more news. We do have more news. I mean, I don't know if it's news when you're talking about Mike Pence because it's tough for him to make news. But he made a little bit in Iowa, the former vice president out campaigning in Iowa. And, you know, what we learn about Mike Pence is that it's a mystery how he got this far in politics, how he got to vice president. He went from the house, went became governor, and then, of course, to being vice president. He was asked at a in front of an audience about the disproportionate rate of taxes, let's say,

that billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos pay, while ordinary people are, quote, stuck footing the bill. Here is what the former vice president had to say. I'm somebody that I don't really buy into the rich need to pay their fair share. I don't really buy into the rich need to pay their fair share. It's the only sound we have right now. Let's listen to one more thing and then we can have at this guy. Mike Pence said, and this is him talking, there's no question that the tax code today

creates a lot of different carve-outs for people who can shelter funds, keep dollars away. I'm somebody that I don't really buy into, and we heard that the rich need to pay their fair share. When you look at the statistics of where we actually get our funding from the government, the top 10% of earners in this country

pay about 90% of the money that goes into the federal treasury. Let's go just one more here. Pence likes to talk to that and mislead people with those talking points. A study by the center right tax foundation think tax indicated in 2018 that the richest 1% paid more than 40% of total federal income taxes. That's according to the tax foundation.

So what you're looking at there and what you're listening to is a man trying to be president who is so disconnected with running for the presidency that he thinks he's okay with rich people paying less in taxes proportion. and certainly in amounts. And I don't remember more of a tone deaf political speech in Iowa where you're not speaking to Wall Street than what Mike Pence just did there. Yeah, so we're gonna get to some of the stats that show how disastrously wrong he is in a second. But yes, we have some of the lowest marginal tax rates in the world. And he says it's too much, it's too much.

And then this is a common slide of hand that the right wing uses, right? Right? Did you know the richest and they'll fill in the blank 1%, 10%, etc? Pay a giant percentage of the taxes. Yeah, brother, I know that if someone has a billion dollars, they're going to pay a lot more in taxes than someone making $25,000. It's pretty obvious, isn't it? Right?

And that's why we don't, we say fair share. We're not saying, okay, give me 100% of what you have made. We're not saying, you know, it's Jesus crap. I mean, we're down to, like I said, some of the lowest rates in the world, the corporate tax rate is preposterous. It's down to 21%. By the time they put in all the loopholes, the Irish sandwich and the double dutch and all the different crazy things that they do and Cayman Islands and et cetera, they're down to effective tax rates that are nearly nothing. And often Amazon, it makes trillions who will pay nothing in taxes.

Effective tax rate for some of the wealthiest people in this country are now sometimes down to 3%. Right? And Mike Pence goes, nope, too much, too much. The poor rich. I mean, come on, come on. But they've lost touch with the reality because all they do is serve their donors. So what Mike Pence is doing there is an ad to the donors saying, please send me more money. Please clap.

Okay, Ray. Yeah, I mean, so first of all, I think that Michael's exactly right that the fact that Mike Pence has ever held elected office in this country is something he should consider a minor miracle because that man has no political instincts whatsoever. And to go in campaign in Iowa and quite explicitly say, I think the rich are paying too much and that, you know, try to break the narrative that they're not paying enough, which is, you know, I think very true, especially considering coming off the heels of watching here in Illinois, how to successfully actually do this messaging. And I'm referring to the fair tax amendment ballot measure that we had in 2020, where we had the opportunity to have a progressive income tax in Illinois opposed to our current. flat tax system and to see the massive amounts of money and advertising being spent in the actual way to frame this argument and to frame this issue to get people to vote against their own interests because you can't just go out there and say I actually don't think the rich are paying too much because the average person isn't going to be susceptible to that line of messaging. So I think Jank, you're spot on and saying that that's just explicitly a message

for his donors, although I can't imagine why anyone would donate to him. You're not going to get any kickbacks. This man's not going to even make it to Iowa, probably. But the actual, you know, messaging campaigns that happened, it's just massive amounts of disinformation and misinformation and telling you that you're not going to be able to keep your lights on because your taxes are going to be so high. And that's how in Illinois, we still have this, you know, regressive flat tax system. And despite the fact that more people would have been paying less than taxes if we had actually passed that initiative. So he's, you know, just not even capable of doing this messaging, Right. And let's not speed past the fact that the most Christian candidate is espousing what is almost the least Christian position on something like this. And he's selling himself as as the pure religious man going into Iowa, which is a pretty evangelical state, especially for the Midwest, and selling that and that it is a position that really does not mesh with what we think of as real Christian.

Let's go back to some of these numbers, though, and why not only is it not Christian, not only is it not politically savvy. It's also wrong. Data from a few years ago showed us that the 1% is taking in exponentially more money than those in lower income tiers. In 2019, the richest 1% of Americans will collect more than $1 in every $5 of income in the United States and will pay a slightly higher share of the nation's overall federal state and local taxes, 24.1%.

Meanwhile, the poor. 1st 5th Americans will receive only a small fraction of the nation's income 2.8% and as a result will pay a small fraction of the total federal state and local taxes. Also those calculations don't take other types of taxes into account because lower income earners are impacted disproportionately by regressive taxes, such as what Revana was talking about as payroll taxes and sales taxes. So you're running into that. When we look at effective rates, the wealthiest among us are the best at skirting taxes as well. They have the facility. They're able to pay for the best people. The 25 richest Americans paid an effective federal income tax rate of 3.4% between 2014 and 2018. And some of the country's wealthiest billionaires paid no federal income taxes in some years. ProPublica reported this in 2021. And finally, over time, our tax system has become more

and more favorable to the ultra-rich, surprise, surprise. The U.S. tax system has grown less progressive over the last few decades with tax legislation such as the 2017 tax cuts, which I'll point out many people in the Republican Party want to make permanent and Jobs Act enacting large cuts for the rich in corporations. The average top marginal tax rate for the rich stood at 81% between 1944 to 1981 compared with just 37% for the highest earners today. So you look at these numbers and you see that these talking points that they espouse about how it really isn't true. that they pay the lion's share of our taxes. Well, that's not really true.

Guys, 3.4%. And Penn says it's too much. It's too much. And all of you know this in your bones. Whether you're a Democrat, Republican and left, right, it doesn't matter. You know the rich use their accountants to try to avoid taxes as much as humanly possible. Nowadays, MAGA even brags about it, even though they're not rich necessarily at all, right? Because they're a huge percentage of the voting base.

And so they're probably most. Mostly just like us economically, right? But they go, yes, I want the rich to pay less than 3.4%. Really? So look, this is why Pence is a bad politician, as Ravanna and Michael have been saying, because Trump at least knows to pretend that he's for the average guy. That's why he goes into the McDonald's and says, hey, I'm buying everybody at Big Macs, right? He goes into another restaurant and says, everything's on me, then runs out and doesn't pay the bill.

Okay, he literally did that. Anyways, but he knows to pretend to be a populist. Whereas, I mean, here, I'm going to read a comment for one of our members is so smart. We can't just punish his honesty, I guess, right? I mean, you know, like he is so stupidly honest in this case. Yeah, throat goat dragon in our member section said, Mike Pence is a scarecrow, stuff with donor money that an RNC staffer found in an Indiana cornfield.

And that's about right. So, and look, yesterday we were giving Mike Pence credit for standing up to Trump. on January 6th and explaining what the Constitution actually says to a Republican voter. And today we're giving him discredit. And so most people then ask because they're used to American media. So wait, do you guys like Pence or don't like Pence? Which side are you biased on? No, we're not, no, we're telling you things that are true.

When Mike Pence says January 6th was a disaster and totally unconstitutional ask of Donald Trump, that is correct. When he says the rich are paying too much, the poor rich, we need to cut him another break. That is not true. So you need to use your judgment to figure out when they're saying things that are true and not true and not just go, okay, I'm 100% against or 100% for. All right. One thing I want to point out and add to this, I don't know if, Ray, you want to say something else. But, you know, these tax cuts that Pence alluded to in 2017, the Trump tax cuts, Pence wants to make these permanent.

So many Republicans, as I mentioned, want to make this permanent. They expire in 2025. 2025 is the second year or the first year of the next administration. So if you're not happy about this stuff, these people are out there saying, no, no, no, we want our money. We want our money. And that's the, that's an important, I don't think it's possible to overstate how important that is as a part of the next campaign. Ray, last word? Yeah, I was just going to say that Donald Trump is really, really lucky that all of these bozos and idiots are the ones running against him.

primary because we're not even that close to Iowa and he's already solidified the Republican nomination. Yeah, I'm worried about it. Yes. All right, guys, we've got to take a quick break. When we come back, the Santa's team, this time his wife, with an even more vicious ad against the LGBTQ community. We'll talk about it when we're talking. All right, back on TYT, Jank Uyghur, Michael Schur, Ray Vana with you guys. Make sure you're checking out Ray Vana on Rebel headquarters. And Kurt Vaughan is also with us because Kurt just joined and became a member. We appreciate it.

Everybody can do likewise at t.com slash join. Michael's got more news. Well, the first, the trivia question is, what was the first story? done when Kurt Von became a member. And that's this one. It's the Casey DeSantis story. The First Lady of Florida doubled down. I'd hate that term, but she did double down on what her husband had said and what is being talked about as an anti and undeniably quote undeniably homophobic ad. Just so you know, this is the ad that Ron DeSantis ran. I will do everything in my power to protect our LG BTQ citizens.

It's fake. Congratulations, Ronsett. It's mission accomplished. You win. I've watched a lot of political ads. I even used to review them here on The Young Turks. We did something called 2012, and we were reviewing the ads, political ads, on that segment back in 2012. So, which is why it was called 2012.

I've never seen one as bizarre as that, I don't think. It's probably not true. It's a little hyperbole, but Casey DeSantis, the governor's wife, she agreed. She had a chance to say this was extreme and this was strange, but no, she said this was right. And here is a little bit of the ad that she has out now supporting her husband Ron. In America, we've witnessed a lot and put up with enough. You guys got to go. He is arresting her for being on a public playground.

Her kids are here. We've been forced into silence. We've been told that we must deny truth, back down, and look the other way. Enough is enough is enough. is enough. When you come after our kids, we fight back because there's nothing we won't do to protect our children. They're not yours. These are our kids. Our nation's children are all our children. We will not allow you to exploit their innocence to advance your agenda. We are no longer silent. We are united.

we have finally found our fighter. It's July of 2023, the elections in November of 2024. Have fun, folks. This is a tweet that Casey DeSantis sent out along with this video. You saw the mothers being referenced. We will not allow you to exploit the innocence of our children to advance your agenda. When you come after our kids, we fight back. We are no longer silent. We are united.

We are mamas for DeSantis and we will elect Ron DeSantis. She had an event as well in Iowa and, you know, with mothers and grandmothers in Iowa for the election where she said this. A lot of bad things are going on. I can tell you what would what Governor DeSantis has done. He will lead the change charge, sorry, he will clean house and he will ensure that parents have the right to be able to make the decisions that they think are best for their family. This is a really strange one-two punch on an issue that is, you know, I would say galvanizing. a lot of Republican voters, but I think it is distancing themselves from independent voters who they will need if they want to win the nomination in the presidency.

Yeah, so what DeSantis is saying is I'm going to try to outright wing Trump and get, I think the base despises the LGBTQ community, and so I'm going to go straight into the teeth of that hatred and welcome it and try to build my campaign around it. So it's an interesting strategy, and I'm sorry Republicans, but it's not impossible that it'll work, right? His problem isn't that he's going to anti-gay for Republican voters, in my opinion, okay? I think his problem is that he does it in a ham-handed way, and it's not fun like Trump does it, et cetera. They both have the same policy issues, basically, right?

But DeSantis is planting his flag, if you will, and saying, no, I am the more hateful candidate. So for example, that first ad by DeSantis, it was both the most homophobic and the most homoerotic ad I have ever seen in politics. I don't know that it was the strangest. I do remember Mike Reveld throwing a rock into a lake for no reason. I corrected myself, yeah, but it didn't get homoerotic to me. Well, go ahead. Anyways, we'll get back into that in a second.

And by the way, I will say in that ad, they have a clip of me saying congratulations, Ron DeSantis, you win, mission accomplished. Of course, they didn't have the rest of that clip. right after that, I said, congratulations on being the most racist Republican in the race. Oh, you didn't put that in the ad. Oh, it's interesting how you deceive people. So, like, I don't know who that person was being arrested that was in the second ad in the playground. Who cares? It could have been a left winger. They just take things that are totally out of context and make it seem like they're arresting moms at playgrounds for what? Right, and the Biden administration is sending cops to playgrounds to arrest people for being

in the playground. Yeah, and so the Casey DeSantis ad is also horrifically homophobic. against the LGBTQ community overall, against trans people, et cetera. And so then if they, they say, oh, but they hide behind the kids. So that's their thing. They use the kids as shields, right? Oh, we care about the kids. Do you? Then why aren't you all doing ads about the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts?

The two largest organizations with the biggest case of pedophilia. Why aren't you doing ads about Donald Trump, who was really good friends with Jeffrey Epstein, and said that he knows that Jeffrey likes it young and laughed about him. Okay, so, oh, so you don't care about the kids. You just want to attack the LGBTQ community. And so now right wingers, last thing on this, now go to Rayvon on it, and then we'll come back around. Anyway, so when the Republicans say, no, no, we don't hate gay people.

We just, I mean, look, we're worried that our kids are going to be exposed to gay people. They're going to know that they exist in the world. So we're purging all the books. Now, if I told you, no, no, I don't hate broccoli. I just don't want our kids seeing broccoli. And I want to purge all the books that have broccoli in them. And if the kids are exposed to broccoli, oh my God, it'll be terrible. And then I told you, no, I love broccoli.

You'd be like, wait, what? No, you don't. You just told me how terrible and evil and sinful that it was. And that you're worried that your kids would be exposed to it for like a second, right? No, Republicans just say it. You don't like gay people and you want to discriminate against them. And you think there's something wrong with. them, that's why you keep saying, I don't want my kids exposed to them.

So sorry, I don't agree. I don't think there's anything wrong with anyone in the LGBTQ community. So like, oh yeah, I've got kids. Would you let them find out that there are gay people in the world? Yeah, you know who told them? Me, okay, because I'm an actual parent and I teach my kids about reality. And I'm not worried that they're going to turn into something. something. Everybody already has their own nature. It's just a matter of finding it.

Ray Vana. Yeah, Jenk, just quickly to your point about it being both homophobic and homoerotic. I always say that homophobes think about gay sex more than I do and I'm literally gay. I mean, come on now. It's all that's on their mind and running through their head every day. They're photoshopping Ron DeSantis to look oiled up and musselessly shirtless. Let's get real about what's going on here. But I think that what's particularly evil about constantly you framed it as using the kids as shields is that it promotes a level of violence. Because I think in a lot of people's minds, the worst crime someone can commit is a sexual crime against a child, sexual violence against a child. And I think a lot of people feel,

you know, rightfully angry at those situations. So if you can frame an entire community of people as just by existing committing sexual violence against children, then you can, you know, justify to your base as minds, doing violence against those people, which is why we've seen this uptick and hate crimes against the queer community. We covered last week, I believe it was a story on here about how more and more members of the queer community, myself included, have been feeling less safe in public, less safe in spaces we previously felt safe in. And you've seen literal violence. You're seeing the club cue shooting. You saw the stabbing in the gender class, gender studies classroom in Canada. So I think that

when we talk about these issues, it's important to call out just what the natural, I mean, not necessarily natural, but I mean, what they're trying to evoke in their base. I mean, it's fear, but it's fear to an extreme extent that literally leads to horrific violence. So, you know, and that's true. And the violence pervades and the Republicans keep stoking it. And the Republicans also still somehow have the log cabin Republicans. I don't understand it. is both oxymoronic and I would say moronic. Join CNN yesterday as well to argue against DeSantis in the ad saying the post-attacking former President Donald Trump's links to the LGBT community completely destroys the argument that DeSantis is more electable than Trump. Here's Moran. Well, just hearing his opening words talking about injecting gender ideology into the debate, the opening lines of that ad that his campaign retweeted have President Trump addressing the nation after the Pulse nightclub shooting.

I don't know how addressing a national tragedy just miles from Governor DeSantis's then congressional district is injecting gender ideology. Look, it's very clear, and we're seen it from across the conservative spectrum. Everyone agrees that this ad was misdirected, it was misplanned, and it was not setting the right tone. The Republican Party and the conservative movement have moved beyond a lot of some of these divisive social issues. And there are truly threats out there from the extreme left and elements of the LGBT community who's, trying to impose radical gender theory. But this video went in a totally different tranchetka.

Yeah, I don't, he talks about it's not setting the right tone. What tone is he expecting out of the DeSantis campaign or any of the Republican campaigns on gay rights issues? Yeah, he's basically saying, look, I mean, we started the fire of hatred against gay people, but then I didn't realize it was going to consume me. Right. I thought it was just going to affect other gay people and I was just going to

get tax cuts. Well, sad day for you, it didn't turn out that way. of course when you start a fire like this, it consumes everyone. And so I'm going to say one more thing on this, which is, look, guys, there's all these old tricks that have been around some of them for thousands of years. So you might say, hey, the donor's acting as puppeteers of the politicians is totally true, and it is, right? But if you say someone Jewish is acting as a puppeteer, that is a terrible history.

So that's what the fascist in Germany used, et cetera, before they massacred people. If you say, hey, black people on average are more athletic or larger, stronger, et cetera, that sounds like it might be good if you don't know the context. But the context is it used to be used to say, no, they're more animalistic and hence have less rights, et cetera. So it has an awful history. So now when you hear the talking points that they have about kids, now that has a very long history. So whenever an outside group was going to be attacked, the number one tool that the hateful people used, was kids. So what would they say about Jews for thousands of years? Before the pogroms,

the Holocaust, etc., they would say they're coming for your kids. And they drink the blood of Christian children, okay? And that's called blood libel. By the way, Q&N brought that back. Who do you think they mean when they say they drink the blood of the kids and et cetera, et cetera, right? So, but they have also historically used it against the LGBTQ community throughout history. Oh, no, I don't mind gay people. I'm just worried about the children. Now wait, which, who commits more pedophilia? Straight people are gay people?

Straight people do. How come you're not worried about straight people? I thought you were worried about the children. No, it's both a shield and a weapon against the gay community, against the entire LGBTQ community, is a trick as oldest time, so please don't fall for it. Okay, all right, Ray, you want to say one more thing? Yeah, I just want to say it's really funny to watch this man sit up there and literally do the meme of I'm voting for the leopards eating your face off party and then, oh, I never thought

the leopards would eat my face off. And it just immediately reminds me of Dave Rubin doing his far right grift. And then when he comes out and should be a happy moment in his life talking about how him and his husband are adopting their children, immediately his new audience starts calling them pedophiles. Because, you know, and I just want to say this as a member of the community to all of you queerers who think that because you are preaching this right wing message that you will be saved from their their fascism, you've got another thing coming and you should heed the warning that you're seeing right now and get away from it because you can say, oh, we're just, we're here to stand up, we're gays against grubers, we're log cabin Republicans. But as soon as they

accomplish, you know, excising trans people from the community, do you think they're not coming for you next? And how could you possibly think that? You'd have to be the most naive person in the world. So I hope that they're all getting their bag because something much worse is coming down the road. Yeah, we got to head that off. We got to win elections and we got to make sure that we get rights for everyone, 100% equal rights. All right, Rayvana, thank you. Everybody check her out on rebel headquarters where she does great videos. Michael, thank you for being on the road. Thank you for being in here. We appreciate it, brother. Check out his videos on the Young Turks channel. All the interviews that he does with MAGA. Unbelievable, YouTube.com

slash the Young Turks. You're gonna love it slash be horrified by it. Okay. When we come back, we have another amazing hour. And including, by the way, here we go again. In Virginia, Daily Wire complains that they're not hating the gay community enough. So the governor springs into action to make sure that they spread more hatred. All right. We'll talk about that and more when we come back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad-free. Access members only. bonus content and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.