The Young Turks - Crying To Mommy

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot in midtown Manhattan. Pete Hegseth’s mother defended her son during a segment on Fox & Friends. The Harris-Walz campaign quietly released a post-election survey while soliciting additional donations from supporters. Trump’s nominee for DEA administrator withdrew from consideration just days after being announced. The Supreme Court continues to wrestle with an internal debate over judicial ethics. HOSTS: Jordan Uhl,, Yasmin Khan SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞ https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER ☞ https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH ☞ https:/www.shoptyt.com 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. Live from the Polymarket Studio in L.A. It's the Young Turks. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Young Turks. This is Wednesday, and I'm Yasmin Khan. I'm in Burjank and Anna.

They're not here tonight. But I am here with Jordan. Jordan, how are you doing tonight? I'm doing well. Always great to do the show with you, yes. Of course. I know. I know you're also on the second hour.

I'll try to make this first hour a little bit easy on you. Let's get right into it because we have a lot of story to get into. Let's go with the first clip. This morning at 646 a.m. Patrol officers from Midtown North Precent responded to a 911 call of a person shot in front of the Hilton Hotel located at 1335 Avenue of the Americas. At 648 a.m., officers arrive and find the victim. Brian R. Thompson, a 50-year-old male on the sidewalk in front of the Hilton, with gunshot wounds to his back and leg. Mr. Thompson was removed by EMS to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 712 AM.

Mr. Thompson is the CEO of United Health Care and resides in Minnesota. A manhunt is currently underway after Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Health Care was fatally shot in Midtown Manhattan early this morning. And there is still a lot that we don't know about the shooting, including the motive. So before we speculate anything, let's go over the things that we do know

about this story. Thompson was shot while walking toward his company's annual investor conference shortly before 7 a.m. CNN obtained a short clip of the moments leading up to the shooting. It stops right before the shots are fired, but just be aware that it may still be a little bit disturbing. Take a look. Essentially, what we see in that video is the CEO, United Health Care, Brian Thompson walking toward the hotel here behind me and behind him comes the suspected gunmen that police are still searching for. So you could see how he approaches Thompson from the back before then where we freeze the video, he fires those shots at Thompson. What you do not see from these five seconds and I can tell you is that we also see someone sort of running the opposite

direction. So that is something of course that police are going to be looking into in this video, breaking it down frame by frame by frame. So as you can see in the video, the gunman's weapon seems to have had a silencer on it. The gun appeared to malfunction, but the assailant was able to clear the jam and continue shooting shell casings. The bullets were left behind at the scene, which officials will use to determine if this firearm had been used in a past crime. Now, despite not knowing the motive, police are confident that this was a targeted, premeditated attack. This does not appear to be a random act of violence. The victim was in New York City to speak at an investor conference.

It appears a suspect was lying in wait for several minutes. And as the victim was walking to the conference hotel, the suspect approached from behind and fired several rounds, striking the victim at least once in the back and at least once in the right calf. Many people passed the suspect, but he appeared to wait for his intended target. The suspect fled, first on foot, then on an e-bike, and was last seen in Central Park on Center Drive early this morning. The victim was removed to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced. The full investigative efforts of the New York City Police Department are well underway, and we will not rest until we identify and apprehend the shooter.

in this case. As of right now, the gunman is still at large, and the police are asking the public for help in identifying him. The only small hint we have as far as a motive goes came from Brian Thompson's wife, Alette Thompson, who told NBC News that he had been receiving threats. She said there had been some threats. Basically, I don't know, a lack of coverage. I don't know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him. So regarding lack of coverage, she's referring to health care coverage because it's a health care company that he works for. But that's pretty much all we know. Those alleged threats have not yet been connected to today's

shooting. So everything we say from this point on out is basically just conjecture. It's not proven fact. We will try to be respectful of the deceased and his family. And I hope you all will do the same. We're just going to give you a little bit of context regarding the company because naturally, many people are suspecting that the incident had to do with his role as the CEO of this health insurance company since 2021. And his wife mentioning a lack of coverage and the threats aimed at Thompson seems to support that theory. United Health Group is the nation's largest private health insurer and largest employer

of physicians. According to the Washington Post, the nearly $400 billion umbrella company whose businesses include the United Health Care subsidiary that was run by Brian Thompson, also helps run hospitals, has rapidly acquired outpatient surgery centers, and is expanding into home health services. United Health ranks as the nation's four, the largest company by revenue this year, just behind Apple, and ahead of Tech Giants, Alphabet, and Microsoft. Last year, they brought in $376.6 billion in revenue, and according to, to NPR, United Health Group is so dominant, in fact, that the U.S. Justice Department filed

a civil antitrust suit just last month to try to block its proposed $3.3 billion acquisition of rival home health care and hospice agencies. And last year, the DOJ launched a probe into whether United was unfairly restricting competitors and running a monopoly. They faced widespread criticism in addition to lawsuits for denying health care claims. And a recent Senate report slammed Medicare Advantage insurers, including United, for using predictive technology to deny claims. In those four years, United Health's post-acute services denial rate increased from 8.7% to 22.7% the report found. Meanwhile, United Health's skilled nursing home denial rate increased ninefold.

Speculation about motive aside, Brian Thompson was a real person with a real family. there is no motive that would justify something like this. And tragically, he leaves behind his wife and two children. Jordan, I know it's hard to comment because this is still very much a developing story. We don't know a whole lot. But what are your thoughts or questions or concerns that arise with this? Well, you talk about how there is speculation around this being motivated by claims being denied. Let's think about that for a second. What that means. Because people talk about this in aggregate or in abstract terms, why would they do that? Why would a health insurance company deny a claim?

Because they don't want to cover someone's care because that's more money out of their pocket, affects their bottom line and ultimately their profitability. And in the context of this meeting, their returns to shareholders. We have a system. We've been trying to change it for years. People on the progressive left, some Democrats support a system that, would eliminate this industry altogether. But the reality is, if you want to humanize this issue, and this isn't just united, it's all health insurance companies, they have an incentive to deny

coverage because it saves them money. In the reality is, that's people who need life-saving care in some cases. That's people who need essential treatment. That's someone who needs an essential life-saving prescription. They either don't get it, or if they're lucky enough, they have to pay out of pocket. And that's not even luck. That's just misfortune. So you have a system that's supposed to take care of people. It in many cases does not. United Healthcare is one of the worst in terms of claims denials, especially on plans like Medicare advantage that retirees and the elderly and the most vulnerable among us rely on for care. They routinely deny claims. So when I heard that this was the motive. You know, you talk about, okay, leaves behind wife and kids. That's tragic. Yeah,

no one wants to see a loved one deceased. At the same time, I had this response where you see this name and this title and this affiliation in the headlines. After it being like, did that happen? It's like, I'm not really surprised. At some point, it feels like an action like this was bound to happen because these companies have been so predatory, so callous, and so cruel. to millions of Americans. It's just you feel bad for the wife and the kids who had nothing to do with this. At the same time, I feel even worse for the many, many people that company has hung out to dry. Yeah, absolutely.

There's a lot of mixed feelings with things like this. Obviously, you never want anyone to be killed in this way. But at the same time, it does put a bit of a spotlight on the industry that he works for just by nature of his job and who he was and the fact that the police do suspect that this was a very targeted act. It, you know, I don't, again, we don't want to speculate. We don't want to assume too much, but that is the natural conclusion that a lot of people are going to come to. So with that, we're going to keep an eye on the story and we'll give you updates as we become

available. Let's get into our next story. Let's take a look at the tape. Let me make two statements first, and one is to President Trump. And I want to say thank you for your belief in my son. We all believe in him. We really believe that he is not that man he was seven years ago. I'm not that mother. The other thing I want to say is I am here to tell the truth, to tell the truth to the

American people and tell the truth to the senators on the hill, especially our female senators. I really hope that you will not listen to the media and that you will listen to Pete. So on today's episode of Fox and Friends, Penelope Hegeseth, the mother of Trump nominee Pete Hegeseth, personally asked Donald Trump and the Republican senators to look past her son's many controversies and confirm him for the role of Secretary of Defense. Penelope has been in the news lately ever since the New York Times published an email that she wrote to her son Pete in 2018. She addressed that email during the Fox and Friends interview, and we will get to her addressing that email in a little bit. But first, let's take a moment to review what the actual contents of the email were. She wrote to her son, on behalf of all women, and I know it's many, you have abused in some way. I say, get some help and take an honest look at yourself. I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego.

you are that man and have been for years. And as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth. It's time for someone. I wish it was a strong man to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out, especially against women. We still love you, but we are broken by your behavior and lack of character. For you to try to label your second wife, Samantha, as unstable for your own advantage is despicable and abusive. Is there, any sense of decency left in you. She did not deserve for, she did not ask for or deserve any of what has come to her by your hand. Neither did Meredith. And Meredith, by the way, was Hegset's first wife. So considering that much of the opposition Hegsa is facing, surrounds his alleged mistreatment of women. Let's see how Penelope tried to now explain that email on Fox and Friends this morning. Let's go back seven years, which if we all went back, seven years, we would see that maybe we were not the people we are today. But they were going through Pete and his wife at the time were going through a very difficult

divorce. It was a very emotional time. And I'm sure many of you across the country understand how difficult divorce is on a family. There's emotions. We say things. And I wrote that in haste. I wrote that with deep emotions. I wrote that as a parent and about two hours later, I should, my husband tells me I should

think through things a little bit more, but Pete and I are both very passionate people. I wrote that out of love. And about two hours later, I retracted it with an apology email, but nobody's seen that. So we're going to hear from some of headsets colleagues at Fox News in a bit, but first, Jordan, That is one hell of a walk back. What do you make of this? Yeah, I mean, I assume her son put her up to that. I assume she's facing a lot of pressure.

Maybe she truly believes it, but this isn't the only character flaw that we should be concerned about with him. And she's not the only person who has expressed concern about his ill-fittedness for this role. we've got a cabinet that Trump is assembling filled with TV personalities, Franks, Miracle Cure, doctors, billionaire donors, investors. It's just, it's a mockery of all of it. And for him to appoint Heggseth, who on top of this, has expressed support for further militarizing the border and using the military to crack down on domestic third. threats, which through his eyes, what could mean progressive groups, people who fight back

against oppression, who knows another Black Lives Matter movement. This is not somebody who should be in that position. So while she can say that, maybe she truly does believe that now, I don't think it should change the opinions of lawmakers who have already expressed reservations about this nomination. Yeah, and we're going to talk about that in a little bit too. But first, on that same installment of Fox and Friends, some of the panelists did claim that Heggseth was getting quote unquote Cabinod. That's a fun new verb that they came up with. Brian Kilmead also went on an odd tangent about Hegset's physical fitness. Let's watch this and then you can decide for yourself whether any of this is relevant

to anything. There's reports coming out there that we know for we've known it for years and we know it's just not true. And the fact that they're going out there would unnamed sources. When we sit on the couch with him almost every day, I think it's just, yeah, for over 10 years. Yeah, for over 10 years. It just, to me, that is the stunning part, especially when you don't reach out to his co-hosts of the show for comment to say, hey, what do you guys think about? No one has been contacted about that. I think that screams that it's a witcher. We can't allow them to Cavanae Pete because I feel like that's what they're trying to do right now. The notion that a grilling is somehow disqualifying.

The notion that heat on Capitol Hill is somehow exactly the roadblock to a nomination process to me is almost blasphemous because that's the entire thing that the American people voted into office, which is no, no, no, we will not succumb to the left's playbook. We will not succumb to Kavanaugh becoming a verb in that the left likes to wield the media and a very public witch hunt to thwart the possibility for actual success. And that's the whole point. physically, Pete is cut out of stone. He is a rock. The guy eats healthier, acts healthier, works harder, literally work on his ranch. He does, he has a lifestyle that reflects his discipline. Yeah, that was an interesting take over there. No one is asking their opinion because we already know what they're going to say. And all of that was a very predictable response to the backlash that Hex Seth has been getting. So the host are, of course, referencing the allegations of sexual assault against Hegseth, but they're also referring to a recent report by NBC News. And that report says Pete Hegseth drank in ways that concerned his

colleagues at Fox News, according to 10 current and former Fox employees who spoke with NBC News. Two of those people said that on more than a dozen occasions during Hegsett's time as a co-host on Fox and Friends weekend, which began in 2017, they smelled alcohol on him before. he went on air. Some of the sources said they smelled alcohol on him as recently as last month and heard him complain about being hung over this fall. One current and two former Fox employees said they felt like they needed to babysit Heggseth because of his drinking and late nights. We'd have to call him up to make sure he didn't oversleep because we knew that he would be out partying the night before, one of them said. So it would appear that all of this would be

enough for Trump to reconsider his nominee. Well, according to the Wall Street Journal, he might be doing just that, but don't celebrate just yet. Donald Trump is considering Florida governor Ron DeSantis as a possible replacement for Pete Heggseth, his pick to run the Pentagon, according to people familiar with the discussions. The discussions are in their early stages.

One of the people said, adding that Trump has floated DeSantis' name in casual conversations with Geth at Mar-Lago, another potential of defense secretary candidate who has been discussed by Trump allies, according to people familiar with the matter, is Elbridge Colby, a former Pentagon official and ally vice president elect J.D. Vance. Trump is also considering Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa for the job some of the other people said. What's interesting to me is that any of this even matters to the incoming Trump administration. They don't generally seem too concerned with public opinion now that

Trump has won the election. But specifically, this party of people has never put much value on accusations of sexual assault or drunken behavior or general misconduct. Friendly reminder that Trump himself was found guilty by a jury of raping a woman and his supporters still voted for him. That said, Matt Gates did drop out of the cabinet consideration because of his own sort of sexual past and all the backlash that that received. But Jordan, Heggseth never made any sense as the Secretary of Defense in the first place. He is like wildly, almost comically unqualified for the role. So there's got to be another reason why Trump chose him.

So do you think that he would actually choose someone like DeSantis over Heggseth, who he clearly wanted in that role for some reason that we currently are unaware of? Yeah, absolutely, because that opens up a spot for his daughter-in-law, who he wants in the Florida political system. She was rumored as a potential replacement for a couple different positions, sorry, in Florida. So with Rubio being picked as Secretary of State, that would open up a Senate seat. But if DeSantis is out of the governor's office, it could be her. That could be her next role.

So that's a motive for replacing Heg-Seth with DeSantis because it would further the political career. of someone in his family. I don't know if he'll do it. Joni Ernst certainly has an incentive to vote against Hegg Seth's nomination because she's on the short list to replace him. So there are a lot of factors of play here, but I do want to touch on the addiction substance abuse issues too. Of course, you don't want somebody in the department of running the Department of Defense, rather, with substance abuse issues. It seems to be a problem. It seems to be a problem that still persists with so many people validating it, but I did find funny his response to comments about his alcoholism

that he would quit drinking if he gets confirmed, if he gets the position, which if any of you have known an alcoholic, it's not happening. It's not happening. It's just an excuse. The guy probably needs help, and we should support him in that as a human being, but that is a serious vulnerability, especially for somebody up for Secretary of Defense. Yeah, and that context absolutely matters. Like, it's one thing if you're hosting Fox and Friends on the weekend and you come and smelling like alcohol, it's a very different thing if you're running the Department of Defense and you come in smelling like alcohol.

We're all at risk at that point. So with that, we're going to take our first break. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Young Turks. I'm Yasmin Khan in for Jank and Anna, and I'm here with Jordan. Let's get into our next story. It has been almost a month since election night, but Kamala Harris is still asking her supporters to give her more money. Just yesterday, the New York Post reported that Harris sent out a post-election survey with a plea attached at the end to donate to the Harris Fight Fund. The survey cajole's respondents to reaffirm their commitment to a strong Democratic Party and standing up to Trump by chipping in with another donation.

They suggest $50, but all amounts are welcome, promising contributors, their grassroots support powers our party, complete with an asterisk that has no correspondence. footnote. No corresponding footnote. That is embarrassing. Politico has reported that despite raising a massive $1.4 billion, the Harris campaign had $20 million in debt by the end of the election. Now, the Harris campaign officials have repeatedly insisted that that is not true, but the fundraising emails continue. More from Politico, even a quick donation of $50 is enough to help us in this fight said one email sent two weeks after Election Day. And with only hours left to hit our goal today, now is the best time to rush your support. The fundraising emails do not mention any outstanding debt. One Harris campaign official did concede the following,

however, saying some fundraising was necessary for costs associated with shutting down the campaign, including maintaining some staff, closing offices, and making sure remaining financial reports, are in compliance. Here's more on where that money could be going per Politico. The post-election fundraising emails from Harris have been raising money for one of the joint fundraising committees affiliated with her campaign. Her fundraising disclosures, money raised through the committee goes first to the DNC, then her campaign's recount account and then to state parties. It feels to me like they should have been able to look ahead a little bit and see that they would need money for all these, you know, post-election expenses and maybe manage their budget

a little bit better. But alas, here we are. RFK Jr. has also been fundraising after the election, but he has at least been openly admitting to his supporters that he needs the money to pay off his campaign debt. And you know what? We love the transparency. President-elect Donald Trump has been doing some fundraising as well, as I'm sure you can imagine. Recent fundraising messages have primarily hawked merchandise, including Christmas maga hats and holiday ornaments or other giveaways, like a chance to attend the inauguration in January. Oh, my God, as if the holidays aren't stressful enough for people,

let's throw in a maga hat at the Christmas dinner table. Trump has also mocked the Harris campaign for its massive spending, posting this on X just days after the election. He said, I am very surprised that the Democrats who fought a hard, and valiant fight in the 2020 presidential election raising a record amount of money didn't have lots of dollars left over. Now they are being squeezed by vendors and others. Whatever we can do to help them during this difficult period, I would strongly recommend we as a party and for the sake of desperately needed unity do. We have a lot of money left over in that our biggest asset

in the campaign was earned media. And that doesn't cost very much. Make America great. it again. Wow. The Harris campaign spent $551 million on digital and TV ads, aka paid media, and that's in comparison to Trump's earned media. I'll give my thoughts in a little bit, but I want to hear what you have to say first, Jordan. What are your thoughts on all this? This campaign was fueled and in many ways directed by the billionaire class. Where are they right now? you walked back your progressive economic messaging to appease them. Where are they to help? Did it work?

How'd that pan out in the election? I feel zero remorse. I feel zero sympathy for the Harris campaign, the situation that they are in right now. And I understand it's costly to run a campaign, and they had a short runway. But they knowingly, at the behest of people like Tony West or brother-in-law, who is a corporate executive at Uber,

cut back and walked back some of their progressive economic messaging because they wanted to win over CEOs and billionaire donors. And those same influential forces were pushing to fire Lena Kahn at the FTC because she's cracking down on antitrust.

She had a more regressive stance on the capital gains tax than Biden. And that is something that, purely benefits the rich, the investor class. All of these people led her to failure. All of these people had their hands in her blowing a wide open layup against Trump and losing the campaign, handing overpower to someone who is corrupt, someone who is anti-democratic, a potential and wannabe dictator.

This is not somebody that we are in great hands with. But because the campaign built their apparatus around appeasement for the billionaire class, they don't have any momentum afterward. People are frustrated. People are angry. People are pointing fingers. And to say that this campaign was fueled by the grassroots, get like, can't even, can't even accurate.

I can't fully say what I want to because it's, it's so insulting. No, it's not. And they know it's not. But they're looking to small dollar donors to cover this debt. because they're too scared to ask the billionaire donors. These are the people. You wanted to win them over where are they now? And they knew these people didn't care about the campaign.

They knew they didn't have the campaign's best interest at heart. They were trying to find a balancing act between getting voters to show up and keeping these people happy. And for years, cycle after cycle, we see Democrats continuing to cave and try to appease the billionaires with mixed results. In this case, it definitely and embarrassingly did not work. But they know these people don't care about the candidate or the campaign or the party. They just want to use them as a vehicle for further enriching themselves. Well, go hit them up. Yeah.

I mean, this feels like a nightmare that won't end, right? It used to be that once a candidate lost a race, they would just go away for a while, if not ever. Now it's like no one ever goes away. and our phones are constantly being blown up with people who, you know, are supposed to have a ton of money, but instead they're just asking us for all of our money. And a big part of the reason why people are upset about all of this, about this most recent round of fundraising, is that the Democrats still don't seem to understand why they lost the election in November.

We've been telling them why. I know we do it here on the show all the time. We told them for months leading up to the election that they were losing support and why they were losing support specifically and you know they kind of did they didn't adjust course right it was like what you said they adjusted but with the billionaires they worked to appease these specific people they wanted that big money donor they wanted to say oh we pulled in all this money but they didn't care about where that money was coming from as much as they really should have you know we gave them countless opportunities to do better and to solidify their base but instead of listening to critics

and responding accordingly they doubled down on their stances while again asking for more donations. And now the fear tactics aren't going to work anymore. The worst possible thing that could have happened, according to them, has already happened. Now they're trying to say, well, this is for the Kamala recount. Maybe that'll work because people are so desperate to not have Trump in office, but we'll have to see if it actually results in them getting all this money that they apparently need. And the pandering won't work anymore either. We see them choose time and time again to maintain a status quo that just does not work for most Americans, rather than push the issues that do actually matter to the American people. They were bad at their messaging. They admitted

that they were bad at messaging and then made no efforts to be better at it. And we saw them bet so big on celebrity endorsements that no one really asked for. The American people, especially Democratic voters right now are very disappointed. And now it's like it's not the time to be asking for more money. Kamala, just read the room. You know, that's how I feel. Any final thoughts there, Jordan, before we move on to our next story? I think you summed it up well.

It's insulting. And I think that the celebrity endorsement thing is a good encapsulation of how they misread the room. You had poll after poll with voters saying the economy is their number one concern.

She didn't break from Biden on the economy because she wanted to sell Bidenomics. And this is something that a lot of them party loyalists have insisted for the past few years was great. And inflation wasn't an issue. And still, voters, because they could see their own bank accounts, they can see their bills, they can see their own material circumstances, said, we're struggling, we need economic help. The Harris campaign was not delivering on that, was not charting a different course, and was not giving them any solutions than you have. course all these billionaire donors and like the showing up with mark cuban and read hastings

and liz cheney all of these people who are tremendously wealthy and powerful insisting well we need to you know we need to protect democracy and these abstract things that don't really affect people's everyday lives it's good that we have them but that's not what people are talking about at their kitchen table they're worried about how they keep the the lights on and instead they just said Oh, you're not really struggling. Inflation's not a big issue. You're being misled by TikTok and dumerous narratives around the economy. The biggest flaw here is that they didn't take people seriously.

They didn't care about their voters. And again, that's why this line, the grassroots powers our party, is disproven by the party's actions. Don't help them. Let them fend for themselves. cares. And a free piece of advice for them, if they really wanted to be successful in this effort, they would rebrand all of this messaging into something oppositional, not how can you can help us in this fight. Fight with what? What are you doing right now? So if you're going to support anything right now, support a progressive political organization that's actually putting

in the work on the ground to stop Trump and fight back against Trump. Don't put it into the DNC. Yeah, I thought it was funny how they, they called themselves like a grassroots campaign operation. I was like, I don't know about that. Anyway, we'll move on to our next story from there. Another Trump nominee has dropped out of the running after his nomination sparked public backlash, but it wasn't for the reasons that you might expect. Sheriff Chad Chronister of Florida was pegged by Trump to head up the Drug Enforcement Administration or the DEA, but Trump supporters were mad that Chronister, a Republican, was not conservative enough. Bronzer posted this on X, saying to have been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as administrator of the DEA is the honor of a lifetime. Over the past several days, as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in, I've concluded that I must respectfully withdraw from consideration.

There is more work to be done for the citizens of Hillsborough County and a lot of initiatives I am committed to fulfilling. I sincerely appreciate the nomination, the outpouring of support by the American people, and look forward to continuing my service as sheriff of Hillsborough County. All right, so why didn't they like him? Hillsborough County is one of the largest counties in Florida. It includes Tampa, and in 2019, Conister described himself to the Tampa Bay Times as, quote, the most Democratic of Republicans. So so far, it's not great.

But conservatives were particularly upset by his actions during the pandemic, during which his office arrested the pastor of a megachurch who held church services during the lockdown. Republican Representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky said of the nomination, I'm going to call him like I see him. Trump's nominee for head of DEA should be disqualified for ordering the arrest of a pastor who defied COVID lockdowns. Yikes, a pastor. and doesn't get much worse than that, but it does, as if that wasn't bad enough,

Pronister is also pro-LGBQ overseeing an LGBTQ liaison program in his county and becoming the first sheriff to attend the Tampa Pride Parade back in 2018. So double yikes. Apart from the partisan political aspect of this story, Conister has a documented history in law enforcement. According to the Hill, Conister's background is mostly in law. law enforcement. He graduated from the FBI National Academy's 260th session, was co-chair of the Regional Domestic Security Task Force for Region 4, Tampa Bay, and had a tenure as a council member of the Florida Attorney General's statewide counsel on human trafficking. So in a stunning turn of events, this guy might have actually been somewhat qualified for the

job that Trump wanted him for, which is something that we really haven't seen a whole lot of in this past month, but this is the guy that MAGA decided wasn't a good fit for the role. Jordan, he had a lot working against him. He was pro-LGBQ, and he arrested a pastor over the COVID lockdown. So no wonder they hate him. What do you think? Yes, you lay out all of these things that on paper would make anybody who is familiar with the Trump campaign and the MAG movement raise their eyebrows. So this guy. doesn't have a shot, which then leads to how did he get picked in the first

place? And when you consider all of these variables, all of these facts, it has to just be that he kisses up to Trump and he's nice to Trump and supports him. That's all that really matters. Qualifications like you lay out at the end doesn't matter, hasn't

mattered in most if not all appointments so far. It's loyalty to Trump and support of him. That's all. So when you see when you see all these things that he did, it's like, wow, none of this matters only because he's loyal. So it is, it does illustrate how ludicrous this cabinet selection process has been. And with the lack of experience and qualifications for all of these nominees so far,

I think the only person left that could replace him for the DEA, based on Trump's preference for TV personalities, I think we're going to see Dog the Bounty Hunter. So I support Dog the Bounty Hunter in his upcoming nomination and confirmation process for head of the DEA. Oh my God. I feel like this is a whole separate conversation. Maybe TYT should do a thing where like our viewers put together their own cabinet picks for Trump. That would be very interesting. I don't think I'd be good at it, but I'm sure our viewers would be quite good at it. But with that, let's go take a break. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Young Turks. I'm Yasman in for Jenk and Anna. They're both out tonight, and I'm here with Jordan. So last story for the first hour, there has been another Supreme Court leak. And this time,

it's about that code of ethics that it was shamed into drafting and adopting. The leak reveals that a few of the justices fought for a code that would not be enforceable. And they're exactly the Supreme Court justices that you are thinking of. First of all, Chief Justice John Roberts never wanted a code in the first place, and he had argued publicly against it over the years. But he finally caved to public pressure when stories of politically compromised and corrupt justices made headlines over and over again, notably Clarence Thomas, and to a lesser but still significant extent, Samuel Lido. Neil Gorsuch, according to the leak, made the argument that imposing a code of ethics on sitting members of the Supreme Court compromises their ability

to act independently. This from the New York Times, Justice Gorsuch was especially vocal in opposing any enforcement mechanism beyond voluntary compliance, arguing that additional measures could undermine the court. The justice's strength was their independence, he said, and he vowed to have no part in diminishing it. Thomas and Alito, unsurprisingly, agreed with Gorsuch that independence was one of the utmost importance, important things, and could not and should not be remotely compromised or impeded. Besides, according to Alito, the court's critics are politically motivated and impossible to appease anyway. So why bother? Conversely, the court's liberal bench argued that the code should be enforceable. What a concept by an external body. A slate of

federal judges was suggested, but the argument did not get very far, obviously. So now we have the highest court in the land with nothing holding the people sitting on it truly accountable for their conduct and ethics. The understanding is that they're supposed to be the most ethical and the most just people in the country. So they shouldn't even need that kind of governance. They should be able to self-govern. But we know that that is not the case. We'll talk a little bit more about how this conversation even came up in the first place in a bit. But first Jordan, this all just feels like an amazing waste of time because nothing was functionally or effectively accomplished with any of this. It's a whole lot of nothing. Or am I missing something? No, I think you're right.

It is a whole lot of nothing. They recognize there's a problem. They're trying to save face a little bit, but the solutions are, we'll just, you know, we'll just govern ourselves. Don't worry about it. We are worried about it. We can see what you do already. You're hiding luxury vacations. You are clearly corrupted. The whole court is a mockery. I don't know why we even have it anymore. And they're not going to disband voluntarily. And I don't think we have enough people in Congress. We certainly don't have enough Democrats that support packing it to make these people and their votes irrelevant. But it's just an extra meaningless procedural step if anybody wants to challenge anything because they're just going

to give a rubber stamp to everything Trump or the right ultimately wants to do. And they are easily corruptible. And we're just stuck with it. We're stuck with six unelected judges who have lifetime appointments determining that everything, for the most part, Republicans and corporations want to do, they just get to do, and we don't have a say in it. This idea that they're independent is laughable. They are purely motivated by partisanship.

That is something that in the past was what you could say about the Supreme Court, that they were independent or impartial jurors. So they had some ideological bent for sure, but there was more of a swing in how justices behaved, how their opinions were formed, or which side of an issue they took. Now it's just everything that goes before them you can expect, for the most part, six to three split along ideological lines. It's just, it is a mockery of what that court has been in the past, and it's disgusting. Yeah, you know, there really needs to be some kind of dynamism in our government. And checks and balances was supposed to be that that mechanism where we were able to kind of adapt as things change. But the reality is that all of our branches of government are now highly partisan. Some are compromised, you know, depending on how far down a rabbit hole you want to go. But it's like with this list of things that they're going to try and do better, it's like the Supreme Court really just tried to pull a be best moment. And, sell it to the American people. But I did say that we would talk about how we got here.

I did mention that Chief Justice Roberts, despite publicly arguing in the past that a code of ethics or conduct wasn't necessary or even recommended for the Supreme Court, he did finally decide to put something in place when headline after headline came out about how corrupt and obviously partisans some of the justices were. And as a result of those revelations, public trust in the Supreme Court has hit an all-time low. A Gallup poll from September of 2023 found that only 41% of Americans approved of the Supreme Court's dealings, which was just one point up from its all-time low of 40% in 2021. For comparison, over 60% of Americans approved of the court in 2021, so 23 years ago.

And that all-time low, by the way, coincided with the court's refusal to block a Texas abortion law in 2021, which led to the overturning, ultimately of Roe v. Wade. Also in 2022, the opinion that the court was too conservative hit an all-time high of 42%. And in the summer of this year, Pew Research found that over half of Americans, or 51%, hold an unfavorable view of the court. The court's favorable rating is 23 points lower than it was just four years ago. Jordan, this is a court that is full of appointees. They are never going to be up for re-election. They function as an entirely separate branch of government. As I said, the checks and balances that are supposed to prevent these egregious, like, overreaches of power and authority that we've been seeing are laughable,

especially the fact that they overreached and then they tried to hide it from the American people. It was all leaked to the public. They didn't disclose any of what they were doing. And especially now, we have a conservative executive coming in and a conservative Congress coming in next year. So things are not going to get better at this point. Why should the Supreme Court care about whether or not the public likes them, though? They're not elected. They're not going to lose power. A Supreme Court justice has never been removed from the bench. Do you think that this is anything that they're going to lose sleep over? I don't think so. No, they have nothing. The conservative justices have nothing to lose and everything to gain. And I think it was a difficult

conversation that some people had after the election about Sotomayor potentially retiring because she is, I think, one of the best ever on the court. She's fantastic. But I talked to Jay Willis, the editor of Balls and Strikes on my podcast about this a couple weeks ago. The time for that conversation was a couple years ago, right after Biden took office. Democrats don't think long term, but the courts and the right does. And that's why you're seeing, all of these favorable decisions all over the country that lead to a stacked Supreme Court because the Federalist Society has been scheming around completely shifting the judiciary for decades. Democrats had no organized operation on that front for years. They just tried

to start one during the Trump years with demand justice, but that's it. That's all we have. And they have been preparing shortlists when Trump came into office. Here's all. the judges you can confirm. And these are not people that they are picked based on their merits or qualifications. It's people who are, who know the assignment. They go in there to forward an ideological objective. And that is to totally transform this country. That is what Leonard Leo, who has been deeply part of the Federalist Society and a prominent right-wing operative has been pushing for years. Every aspect of our society, they want to remake in their conservative ideals.

And now we have this. We better hope that all three liberal justices can survive for four years, that we have elections again in four years, and that a Republican does not win. Otherwise, everyone watching this for the rest of our lives is never going to see a liberal majority court ever again. Yeah, that was such a great point that you made, too, about how the the right really understands the value of long-term thinking compared to the left. The left always feels very reactionary. Maybe that's their thing. That's how they motivate their voter base.

This whole time, they were saying, oh, you have to vote because we have to save democracy. And maybe that was a legitimate threat. But the thing is, it wasn't enough to get people to vote for them, right? And they should have learned that the last time they lost to Trump, right? Because we've been here before. This is all so repetitive. And we have Project 2025. That did not come out of nowhere.

That was in the works for decades. All this stuff with the Christian nationalist party, essentially, they didn't come out of nowhere. This has been a long time coming. We've had national prayer breakfast, right? And that doesn't, for whatever reason, raise enough eyebrows, I don't think. But anyway, yeah, just to your point that it is, you know, we're here for a reason. And it's going to be much, much more difficult to get out of the situation now that we are here. I live in Texas and everybody makes fun of us for just voting red all the time.

But the thing is, every time we lose an election, they make it more and more difficult for us to vote them out. That is a real, real, real thing. I can't account for Ted Peruse. I don't know what the deal is there. I did want to give a shout out real quick to Camp Corona Dad. That is the person that I mentioned during the social break who made the comment, a CEO of a health insurance company doesn't have a bodyguard. Frankly, I'm shocked. So I just want to give you that shout out there.

Any final thoughts there, Jordan, before we wrap this first hour? I know you're still on, on the second hour. Sticking around, I'll be lead anchoring the second hour, and John will be there. I'm very excited for it. Cool. All right. So with that, we're going to, are we going to wrap? Kate is like, we're going to wrap this first hour.

That's it for me. Thanks for joining us. Stay tuned for more Jordan and John Ida roll in the second hour. Bye. I don't know. Buhn't know. B. I don't know.

I don't know. Thank you.