The Young Turks - Crying Wolf

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

Voting rights advocates in Congress and across the United States reiterated the need for stronger federal voting rights laws after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed Alabama's GOP-drawn, racially gerrymandered congressional map to stay in place. President Joe Biden said Monday “it would be wise” for Americans other than essential diplomats to leave Ukraine amid the Russian military threat. A migrant encampment that has been a feature of the Tijuana-San Diego border since last February was cleared out Sunday morning during a raid conducted by over 100 police officers and Mexico's National Guard. Elderly Floridians speak out after Republicans secretly switched their voter registration. The posh California suburb that declared itself a mountain lion habitat to block affordable housing is backing down after backlash. Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur 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. All right, welcome to the Young Turks, Jake Eugger, Anna Kasparian with you guys on a lovely Tuesday evening. So are we going to have fun in today's show? Well, of course we are. Don't be ridiculous. Are we going to cover serious and important issues, obviously?

Are there going to be swingers on the program? Obviously. Are they going to be Republicans? Of course. Okay, so you have all that to look forward to. So without further ado, the Sault track. The Supreme Court has dealt a blow to whatever's left of the Voting Rights Act. And what they've done is essentially implement a stay in regard to the gerrymandered Alabama map.

That, of course, puts minorities at a significant disadvantage. Now, the gerrymandered map that's based on the latest census is not that different from the previous gerrymandered map. However, the outcome of this case could really determine whether or not the Voting Rights Act has the teeth necessary to prevent race-based gerrymandering. So let me give you the details on what has happened. After a panel of three federal judges last month throughout the map and ordered state lawmakers to redraw it, the High Court reversed the decision in a five to four ruling for which Chief Justice John Roberts joined the three liberal justices in dissent. Now, since the Supreme Court is insanely conservative, it doesn't matter that Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal justices here. Alabama has seven congressional districts and its voting age population is about 27% black.

In the challenged map, black voters are in the majority in only one district. The lower court relying on the Voting Rights Act had ordered the state legislature to create a second district in which black voters could elect a representative of their choice. Now that was of course challenged and the case made it all the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court didn't strike down the decision by the lower courts. They're still going to make a decision later. However, the Supreme Court's brief order, which included no reasoning, was provisional, staying a lower court's decision while the case moves forward. The justices said they would hear Alabama's appeal of the lower court's ruling, but they did not say when. Okay, so the way that this is being reported is, it sounds super panicky in regard to how this is going to impact Alabama specifically. It actually has much broader consequences. So let me show you the maps, how the districts were drawn both prior to the new census and now after the new census.

So you can see that this has always been a problem in Alabama where the districts are drawn in such a way where the black voters are just kind of condensed in one area, which means that they get one vote in terms of a representative. But depending on how this case comes out, it'll determine whether or not the Voting Rights Act will protect minority voters in other states when there's gerrymandering taking place specifically based on race. And I'll give you those details. I'll give you more details on that in a second. Okay, so it's a number of issues. First, that map should never look like that on two different grounds. Number one, since Alabama's about 27% black, out of the seven districts, clearly two of them should be majority black. That is about 28% of the population or out of the

28% of the districts, right? So it would match the population nearly perfectly. This is exactly what the Voting Rights Act is about, that you not gerrymander black voters out of existence. And they did in a second district. So they'll only have one representative instead of the two representatives that they should have in Alabama. Now, I wish we lived in a world where we didn't have to worry about white versus black representatives. But we do because white representatives don't represent black people in this country at all

if they're Republicans. So if the white representatives are Republicans, that's not at all an exaggeration. By the way, eviscerating the Voting Rights Act was brought to you by white Republican representatives. And they also don't agree with higher wages, better health care, more voting rights. They don't agree with any of those things that are enormous priorities for African Americas in this country. So this is discrimination 101. We're back to Jim Crow days. It's not at all an exaggeration. This is exactly what they did in Jim Crow. Okay. So no, we don't care. You're not a man. You're not a citizen. You're not equal to us. We're just going to wipe you

away. You're going to get one district, and that's half the representation. That's worse than three-fits rule that was originally in the Constitution. So you can cry about it, but that's a fact. And Republicans are racist, that's a fact. Now you can say, hey, no, there's a reason why they're racist. They just want power, right? So they wiped away those black voters' representation because they wanted more Republicans. That doesn't make it any better. I don't care why you're racist and I don't care why you don't believe in democracy. I just care that you are ending our democracy with moves like this or are against voting rights and against African Americans. All right, the second part of this, of course, is Democrats are losers.

So if they had passed voting rights, we wouldn't have any of these issues. If they had passed the for the People Act as it was originally constituted, but now it's broken into two sections. It doesn't matter if they'd pass those two sections. We would have ended gerrymandering completely. couldn't do this, but by the way, so that New York couldn't do it either for incumbent Democrats. So now they have, the Democrats have gerrymandered the hell out of their own states, in a sense you can say, hey, good, that strike back against the red states. But since they did, the incumbent Democrats who like their seats and don't want to lose them are like, oh, golly gee, did we not pass voting rights? It's just the Republicans' fault. You know the Supreme Court

6-3 and to the right of Attila the Hun, you knew they were going to do this. And so the Republicans are monsters in the first place. And as usual, Democrats are very happy to lose to them. Yeah, I mean, it helps them maintain their position of power in this regard with gerrymandering. But be careful what you wish for. I mean, the Voting Rights Act was incredibly, I'm sorry, the voting rights bill was important in other ways that do put Democrats at a disadvantage, especially when it comes to. to some of these states that have passed other voter suppression laws.

But I do want to get to what the justices wrote in this decision to stay the more gerrymandered map in Alabama. So Kavanaugh says a few things that are, of course, incredibly concerning, especially when it comes to the overall outcome of this case. Remember, this is just a temporary stay until they hear the case and make a decision. In a concurring opinion, Kavanaugh joined by Justice Samuel Alito said that the state order does not make or signal any change to voting rights law. It was necessary, he wrote, because the lower court had acted too soon before a coming election, which is a ridiculous excuse. But here are the quotes that concern me the most.

He also writes, when an election is close at hand, the rules of the road must be clear in. settled late judicial tinkering with election laws can lead to disruption and to unanticipated and unfair consequences for candidates, political parties and voters among others. It is one thing for a state on its own to toy with its election laws close to a state's elections, but it is quite another thing for a federal court to swoop in and redo a state's election laws in the period close to an election. To me, it's a foreshadowing statement. that the federal government shouldn't be meddling in this. And 100%, yeah.

So guys, the ramification of that is super important. So first of all, in this Alabama case, it's over. They're gonna go with those districts for 2022. By the time they make a decision, it might affect 2024, but they've already kind of signaled that they're not likely to go in the fair direction anyway. Even John Roberts, who voted with the so-called liberals, only voted with them in saying, hey, you should do fair districts for now, but I reserve

the right to go back to unfair districts when we rule on the case in its entirety, right? So, but so that Alabama, that goose is already cooked because the Democrats' incompetence. But much bigger story is, this is the justice is saying, well, you idiot Democrats. Since you didn't pass voting rights already, even if you pass it now, I'm going to say it's too And I'm going to let the Republicans keep their gerrymander districts, which then will lead them to almost certainly winning the House, which then they will then turn around and just undo your law. Exactly. Okay. And of course, Democrats are like, oh, what? What? Oh, okay. I guess there's nothing we could do. How's the stock market doing? Yeah. Yeah, goaters, don't worry. Nothing fundamentally changed. No, and the media will pretty it up. And they will do all the excuses.

And so will all the Democratic establishment trolls, which are the most pathetic people in the world. No, Jake, you don't understand. There's never anything Democrats can do. We have to win and then surrender. Win and surrender, right? And congratulations. You got your wish, moderate Democrats.

You have complete and utter surrender. The Republicans have erased voting rights for half the black people in Alabama. And there's not a goddamn thing the Democrats are going to do about it. That's right. All right, well, let's move on to some international news, because unfortunately, the United States continues to escalate tensions with Russia. So the latest has to do with Biden's statements. President Joe Biden is warning Americans in Ukraine that it would be wise for them to leave or they might be caught in the crossfire. He made these statements during a joint press conference with the Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Schultz.

Let's watch what he had to say. I know that he's in a position now to be able to invade, almost assuming that the ground is frozen above Kyiv. He has the capacity to do that. What he's going to do, I don't know. And I don't think anybody knows but him. Do the Americans who are currently in Ukraine? Should they leave the country?

I think it would be wise to leave the country. I don't mean our, I don't mean, I'm not talking about our diplomatic corps. I'm talking about Americans who are there. I hate to see them get caught in a crossfire if, in fact, they didn't make. So that statement is similar to what the State Department had put out earlier in this escalating conflict, where they said that, you know, certain diplomats should probably leave Ukraine. Biden stopped short of saying that diplomats should leave Ukraine. However, I just want to go back to the very beginning of his statement where he's like,

I don't, I mean, he's got, Putin's got all the troops necessary to do the invasion. It's interesting because the New York Times, which of course is not some like peace magazine, said that, yeah, they've amassed troops, but about 70% of the troops and personnel necessary to do an actual invasion into Ukraine. So there's a little conflict there and curious if anyone's going to help us decipher what's true and what's untrue. Also, I mean, juxtaposition of the beginning of his statement to the final thing that he said there, which is like, I don't know what he's going to do, but yeah, they'd be wise to leave Ukraine because they might be caught in the crossfire. Okay, so is there some truth to the nickname Sleepy Joe?

Okay. So look, most relevant thing here is that the solution to this is super simple. involved would be insane in the Ukraine to not resolve it, okay? So here's a solution. We don't admit Ukraine into NATO. Who cares? Because that's what Russia wants. What's the big deal? What does it cost us? It costs us absolutely. Well, that would be giving into Russia. So what? That's what it is, Jank. It's giving into Russia. It's all about ego, right? Because like, guys, I know I've said it a billion times before, and I'm sure you're super annoyed with me if you've already disagreed on our take, right? But come on, think about the United States in that same context, where you have a massive world power providing military weaponry, military capabilities,

you know, basically getting the entire NATO allied forces ready to go to war with Russia. And Ukraine is sharing that border with Russia. I think that it's legitimate to be concerned about security. And by the way, I'm not the only one saying that. You have this weird disconnect taking place as well among NATO allies, where you have the United States and, you know, the U.K. arguing like we're gung ho. This is an imminent threat. We, you know, all guns blazing, basically. Whereas you have Germany and France saying, hey, can we like handle this diplomatically first? We're escalating things very quickly. By the way, Ukraine saying, we're escalating things too quickly. Can we please calm down. We don't believe that this is an and threat. But let me give you some more details. Yeah, but I got it, look. So we're totally unbiased here. And you can see it with your own eyes because I've said every terrible thing in the world about Vladimir Putin and he's deserved all of it. Pretty much ended democracy in Russia. He has imperialist ambitions. He's an authoritarian right winger. I can go on and on.

But he's in this case, he's not wrong. He's like, you want to park all these missiles and this giant military alliance on my backyard, I don't I didn't put my military alliance in Mexico and the last time that the Russians back then when it was the Soviet Union did it in Cuba, we nearly started World War III. So now you're saying no, I can just park them right next to you. Well he I hate saying it but he's right and so and so people say oh you don't want to give into him. Well if someone's right why don't you want to give into them what a weird thing, right? Like, hey, this mug costs 20 bucks, right? Well, if I give you the 20 bucks, it'll be giving in to you.

Yeah, and then you'll get the mug. That's how it works. What do you just want the mug and you don't want to give me the 20 bucks? It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. And you could find a polite, diplomatic way of saying we're not going to expand NATO into Ukraine. We'll consider it later, blah, blah, blah. And luckily, the French are not morons like us.

And last time they tried to help us, they were warning us, don't go into Iraq. That's a terrible idea. And we're telling you as a friend, do not do that. And a lot of people here are like, oh, yeah, we're going to rename French fries to freedom fries, man. We hate the French. Well, now the French are dealing with Putin. Macron has talked to him. And luckily, it looks like they've got to, they're close to a deal.

So I hope Biden isn't an idiot, and he listens to our French allies, which, by the way, during the Iraq war, he was one of the people who didn't and who authorized that war. Yeah, what a shocker. Now, I do want to go to one more clip from this press conference featuring Joe Biden and the Chancellor of Germany, because it shows you just how haphazard a lot of the U.S. foreign policy really is. Okay, he makes a strong statement. There's a follow-up from a reporter, and it shows you that he hasn't really thought things through. Let's watch. If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine. again, then

there will be no longer North Stream 2. We will bring it into it. But how will you do that exactly since the project

and control of the project is within Germany's control? We will I promise you we'll be able to do it. Like we're talking about war here. Okay, we're talking about war.

And I feel like everything is just kind of happening on the fly, including these like strong statements about what the United States is going to do. So what they're referring to there, what the reporter was asking about is the Nord Stream 2. It's a pipeline that's going to deliver gas from Russia to Germany. And so Biden's saying, oh, if Russia invades, we're definitely going to put a stop to that project, which by the way, I think that that's where you actually do have some leverage over Russia. Russia wants that deal to go through. And I think that considering all of the economic interests that Russia has, those interests outweigh any benefit of invading Ukraine. So I do think

that that should be on the table and Biden should make it clear, hey, if you're going to do this, Nord Stream 2, that project's done. I'm totally fine with that statement. But there's like no preparation for this press conference? Yeah, what was that answer? No, no, it's amazing. And the written articles didn't do justice to what actually happened. So I'm really glad we showed you the video. Because, okay, they all say, oh, Biden says that project's going to be over. And I agree with Anna, that that's a real deterrence for Russia. I'm glad we're using deterrence so we don't get into an actual war.

Having said that, you watch the video and you're like, oh, my God, did he not clear it with the German chancellor? They're in the same press conference. The German Chancellor is right next to him. So when she asked the question, well, how would you do that? I was assuming that he was going to turn around and go, oh, we just talked about it. And the German Chancellor can tell you that that project's going to be over. But he didn't. He was like, uh-huh, yeah, you betcha, we will.

It's insane. And you're like, what? Did you guys not talk that through? That's massive. And you can't just say that on behalf of Germany. What the hell's going on here? And look, to be sure, as I mentioned earlier, you have Germany and France. France trying to pump the brakes, they want to approach this in the most diplomatic way possible,

that has caused some friction with the United States. For instance, ahead of this visit, the White House sought to play down Germany's refusal, gee, I wonder why, to supply lethal weapons to Ukraine, bolster its troops in Eastern Europe, or spell out which sanctions it would support against Russia, a cautious stand that has drawn criticism toward Germany, mostly from the U.S. government. And Macron, as Jank had mentioned earlier, did meet with Putin. I want to give you some details on that meeting because it's important. Macron, meanwhile, called for de-escalation as he began talks with President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. Dialogue is necessary because that's the only thing that will help in my views to build a context of a security and stability

on the European continent, Macron said, adding that he's ready to start building an effective response. And he also provided legitimacy to the concerns that Russia's having in regard to their own security, right? The security and sovereignty of Ukraine or any other European state cannot be subject for compromise, while it is also legitimate for Russia to pose the question of its own security. The geopolitical objective of Russia today is clearly not Ukraine, but to clarify the rules of cohabitation with NATO and the EU. So he's right. He is right. It's a legitimate issue that Russia is bringing up. And they brought up many illegitimate issues before, but this is not one of them. So look, there's one weird silver lining here. So the right wing has been

weirdly subservient to Russian interests ever since Trump said that he loves Russia and we're done with it, right? And Hillary Clinton said that we hate Russia and they're responsible for everything in the world. And that made the right wing doubly love Russia. Okay. Now, I think that has a bunch of downsides. But here we have an upside because if it was just us on the left saying what are you doing? Don't start World War III. This is insanity. The mainstream media would call us terrorists, right? And they would question our loyalty, our patriotism. If you're not in favor of World War III, are you really American? But since a lot of the right wing is on our side on this, there's press is scared of the right wing. And so. So they're like, oh, wait, it's now

apparently a legitimate point of view to be against World War III. Yeah, I mean, the fact that reporters are asking tough questions during these press conferences, for instance, when the United States floated this idea that Russia is going to do like a false flag, they're going to attack themselves to make it appear as though Ukraine attack them so they can invade Ukraine. Reporters were like, oh, cool, what evidence do you have that they're going to follow through on this kind of attack? And they had no answers. And I think that those questions are super important, you're right, I don't think those questions would be asked if it weren't for both

the right and the left kind of being unified on this issue and understanding that it's being escalated for no apparent reason. And by the way, there's a video that I want to get to after the break that helps you visualize how Ukrainian soldiers at the border are really feeling about this because I think that's important. So we'll get to that later. Okay, one last thing for now. So guys, This is actually a kind of a good moment for populism, both from the right and the left, because, look, I think right-wing populism has gone in a disastrous direction, and it's off on 80% of issues in a very serious and dangerous way, especially the anti-democratic ideas they're putting out there now of, hey, if we don't win, who cares, let's just have our guy be installed as president or whatever, et cetera. And we've talked about that endlessly. But now, finally, we're beginning to see an upside of like 20% of areas where the populist left and the populist right totally agree. And we're making an impact together. Now, the mainstream media will never note that because we're in opposition to them. And they hate that we're unified together. They would

portray it, rather portray us completely divided. But the reality is both on war and anti-corruption issues, two massive issues. Now the populist right and the populist left agree. And that is actually a pretty shockingly hopeful sign that perhaps we can expand upon that agreement and and maybe even one day end corporate rule and get back to democracy. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, I'm going to show you how Ukrainian soldiers are feeling about this entire situation, the very soldiers who are guarding the border. So we've got that and more when we come back. All right, back on TYT.

I'm going to read one quick comment because it's fun. Guillermo E wrote it on YouTube Super Chat. My favorite non-hogwash duo, P.S. Already, that's, it's already hilarious, okay? And Guillermo continues. P.S. Jake, there's a small piece of white lint on your right arm slash shoulder. It's stressing me out. Anna.

Oh, dude, for real. Okay. And then it says, Anna, you're perfect. Heart. Okay, right shoulder, right, okay, you know, I waited to see if you were right after I read your comment, but your TYT audience. Of course you're right. All right, much love, guys. Let's do the show. All right. While the United States government makes you think that there is an imminent threat to Ukraine, that Russian troops are ready to invade the country, I think it's worth taking a good hard look at how soldiers,

guarding the border in Ukraine are feeling. What are they feeling? Are they afraid? Do they see this as an imminent threat? Well, this video didn't get much attention, but I think you should probably watch it. Let's see. Here on the Ukrainian side, there's no sense at all that anyone is preparing for an invasion. The sergeant here asks we not give his name. He says he doesn't expect conflict, but he is prepared. Our commanders told us that we must be alert, he tells us, we are ready to meet guests from Russia. What kind of weapons do you have at this position? Do you have any heavy weaponry?

I don't see any, but I just want to make sure. You don't need to see, and the enemy doesn't need to see, he says, but we have everything. They look super worried. Yeah, no, it's funny because, you know, There's things we tell you about mainstream media. One is that they don't often just make up facts. They do sometimes, okay?

But oftentimes it's the framing that's the issue, right? And then sometimes they'll have a great story. They'll bury it on page A27 or they'll do what they're likely going to do here. They'll air it once and then never refer to it again. They'll have instant amnesia and forget about it. So credit to CNN for airing that segment where it looks like the Ukrainian soldiers are like, what potential war? I mean, I know you guys are doing propaganda in America about, oh my God, we need to beat the Russians, but we're just grabbing a burger. We're cool,

right? Dude showed up in a beanie, like in the beginning of that clip. He's like hanging out. He's like, yo, what's up, girl? How you doing? You know? She's like, where are you? Look at him. He's like, yeah, just taking a lovely little stroll. Not a big deal. We have big weapons. You cannot see. You cannot see it. But they are here. Okay. I show you a big weapon, okay, but look, okay, so we think that America is overhyping the threat. You know, we of course we should be careful. We think Russia makes a rare, valid point that the military alliance stretching to their backyard is confrontational and needlessly confrontational. And we've told you from day one, and Anna has done a great job of this, of saying, hey, the Ukrainian government does, It doesn't seem anywhere near as concerned as we are.

And one more piece of evidence that comes out of that video is that the Ukrainian government allowed CNN cameras to go into a trench where it looks like there are no weapons and they're not at all ready. And you would allow that most of the time if you want to send the message of, hey, stop freaking out, you're making war more likely, not less likely. And then obviously there's defense contractors in America going, yeah, we know, that's kind of the point. That's kind of like what we do. And you know, some have brought up the possibility that Germany and France are not impartial in their efforts to de-escalate the war. So you should

always be suspicious of those who are trying to de-escalate, right? So I think that's a really good concern. So let's address that. Now, of course, there's the Nord Stream pipeline. That sounds really weird. Yeah, Nord Stream pipeline that would transfer gas from Russia to Germany. That's a big deal, and so there are some economic interests at play, not just for Russia, but for Germany as well. That is a legitimate thing to bring up. However, there's also the issue of where these countries are geographically. The United States does not have to worry about a war spilling over within its borders. It doesn't have to worry about a refugee crisis, which will inevitably happen if this turns into a hot war. I think that it's legitimate that, hey, these European countries are thinking about, you know, maybe doing a cost-benefitment analysis here.

Maybe we need to approach this diplomatically, because if this does turn into a hot war, they have a lot more to lose than the United States would. And I want to shout out to Shereen Nauruze, who made a great point of super chat that I want to amplify. You know, there's one other potential downside to this. They have nukes, we have nukes, and we both have enough nukes to destroy the whole planet. a couple of times over. So in the movie, don't look up, the whole time I'm screaming, why are you taking any chance that the entire planet might be destroyed and we all lose our lives?

And that's what we're doing now with Russia. We're taking a certain percentage chance that we're going to get into a conflict and the conflict's going to get worse. And then conventional weapons would already be an unbelievable disaster. But on top of that, we're taking some percentage chance that will go to nukes and end the entire planet. That's insane. Do not take that chance, especially when the country involved, Ukraine is saying, we don't know why America is losing its mind, just chill out for a second, right? France, Germany, all of our allies are trying to get us under control

as well as the Russians. With the exception of the UK. The UK does not fall under the de-escalation camp at all. Very much aligned with what the United States wants in terms of escalating the situation. But you have to think about, I think it's okay. You should think about all the incentives and disincentives on both sides, even among NATO allies. But the fact of the matter is, so far, the very individuals who seem to be ignored throughout all of this are the Ukrainians and what Ukrainian officials are saying, which I think is problematic. Yep. All right. Let's switch gears here and move on.

to another international story, this time in Mexico. The government of Mexico has inhumanely destroyed a camp of about 380 migrants near the United States border. Now, while this action was taken by the Mexican government, there's a lot of blame for the United States government and the Biden administration on this issue. Now, this camp was set up over a year ago after Joe Biden won. the presidential election. And if you can recall, Biden made it abundantly clear in his campaigning on the debate stage that he would be very different from former President Donald Trump in

regard to immigration policy. He said that he would be far more humane, that he would process asylum seekers. So as a result of that messaging, you have migrants coming in from you know, South America, Central America, looking to seek asylum in the United States. But guess what happened during the Biden administration once he was able to obtain power? He didn't change the Trump era immigration policies, despite what the GOP would have you believe. So one of the things that Trump had done during the pandemic is he implemented something known as Title 42, which bans asylum seekers from entry into the country because of the pandemic. have asylum seekers, we can't process them. Biden said that he would do away with that.

He extended it, he has continued it. And he has also continued Trump's stay in Mexico policy until asylum seekers are processed. So you literally have hundreds of people, they're just kind of stranded on the border, they don't know what to do, so they set up this makeshift camp to wait and see what's going to happen if they're ever going to be processed as asylum seekers. Now, about a hundred members of the police, National Guard, and Army in Mexico on Sunday, evicted 381 migrants, mainly Central Americans, South Americans, and Mexicans from this makeship camp they had been staying at for almost a year in Tijuana. Now, the mayor in Tijuana has defended this decision saying, quote,

it was a relocation that had to be carried out carefully to avoid collapse. And she also said that the families were living in a state of insecurity and they needed to basically dismantle this camp for health reasons. And look, I don't deny that. Living in a makeshift camp is not safe. It's not sanitary. We're still dealing with a pandemic and not just in the United States and Mexico as well. So I think those are legitimate concerns. The real issue here is Biden reneging on every immigration-related promise he made.

Yes, and so I have a couple feelings about different parties here. First, the migrants in that camp, you know, I read some of their stories. And of course, they're always heartbreaking, right? So in one case, one of the kids is LGBTQ and he's terribly bullied, not just by the local gangs, but also by the local authorities. So the mom is saying, what do you want me to do if I go back? You know, I'm worried they're going to kill him. And he's going to, you know, and he's going to lead a miserable life.

if another one guy was shot in the neck and he can't go back because he didn't pay a tribute to the gangs or something along those lines. And and so they stayed for a year because they were so hopeful that they at least have a shot. They'd have a shot in getting into America. The guy who got shot in the neck almost certainly should be allowed in. Obviously it's a cursory look at the facts and you'd have to adjudicate it with real judges. But but Biden told him, Oh, yeah, I'm going to change everything. And he lied to them. I mean, now Biden's lied about so many things.

And, you know, the press was eventually willing to call Trump a liar. They broke their rule about kissing politicians as for Trump. But they haven't done the same for Biden. They'll criticize them on nonsense stuff. But when it comes to a real substantive issues like the student dead, removing marijuana from Schedule 1, all things he can do by himself. these rules that Trump adopted that he's now keeping, all things he could do unilaterally. Every one of them was a lie.

And he hasn't done any of those things. So probably the local Mexican authorities thought, oh, no, Biden's never going to do this. So they're going to make us take care of these people for years and years and years. And we're not going to do it. We're going to clear them out. Now, I don't agree with what Mexico did either. Agreed, yeah. But the real culprit here is Biden, who never meant anything he said.

And that and completely ruin their hopes and dreams. I mean, his Justice Department is defending Trump-era immigration policies. That is what the Biden Justice Department is doing as we speak. So you got to be honest about that. Anyone who tries to make Biden out to be this, you know, just this very kind, humane person in regard to the very people who were demonized by Trump, they're lying to you. They just are. And just going back to Mexico, I agree with you.

I don't agree with what they're doing. But this is a problem that Biden has created, right? Because again, these are people who really thought, like, all right, we're going to get our shot to make our case for asylum. The way that Mexico carried out this basically dismantling of the camp was also pretty terrible. They did it at four in the morning. So you have kids sleeping. Okay. They come in and basically take them out, tell them that they can't be there anymore.

They allegedly put the families and shelters. I would not take that at face value. That hasn't been confirmed. I'd want to see confirmation on that. And the other thing I wanted to note is, yeah, I mean, a lot of them do have legitimate concerns. These are life and death situations. They are worried about gang violence. They've been targeted by gang violence.

and they don't know what to do at this point. They've been completely stranded by the United States. Final thing I'll say about this, look, right now Biden and the State Department is pretending to care about the safety and well-being of Ukrainians, right? They are escalating a potential hot war with Russia because they allegedly care so much about Ukrainian lives. Let me just be clear about something, okay?

The United States government is all talk when it comes to humanitarian rights, when it comes to human lives. How about for once, instead of protecting sovereignty or protecting human rights through war, which doesn't tend to work, we actually clean up our own mess. We actually have a policy of diplomacy, a policy that brings people in who have been victimized thanks to our own policies, whether it be domestic policy like the drug war or foreign policies that have created refugee crises across the globe. Yeah, so last couple of things from me on this.

So when you look at what we've done, it gives you no faith that we're going to do anything differently, but I don't like to do just critique. That's really easy and a lot of shows, almost every other show just does that. I try to be constructive, right? So what can Biden do? Because mainstream media has trained Democratic voters to repeat, there's nothing we can do. There's nothing we can do. You've been trained and brainwashed into saying that when it isn't remotely true.

So in this case, here's what you could do. Biden can say, hey, we're getting rid of the Trump rule. They're going to come into this country. But they're not going to just be spread out across the country. We're going to adjudicate all these cases as we normally would for asylum, for example. And we're bringing in hundreds of judges there. And you know what? That's going to cost us money. And we're going to pay that money.

It's actually a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of name it, but certainly the defense bill, it wouldn't be 1% of 1% of 1% of the defense bill to pay for judges to actually do this in a humane way. But Biden doesn't want to do it in a humane way. He doesn't want to bring in the judges. He doesn't want to spend money on that. These are all active decisions. And why? One, honestly, Biden's record throughout his whole career has been pretty monstrous. And when we said that in the primaries, all the media was like, oh, yeah, you guys are biased.

We're not biased. Biden's a saint. But we showed fact after fact after fact. And so one possible reason why Biden's doing it is because he's a right winger and he's always been a right winger. The second reason is he thinks, oh, if I just appease the right wing, I'll get credit from them. How's that working out for you, Joe? So here you are, you follow Trump's policies, you're brutal, and now the Mexican government has been brutal because of your actions to these folks, and did you get a single Trump voter? Did you gain a single Republican voter?

Wake up, Sleepy, Joe. It ain't the 1970s and the 1990s. These Republicans are never going to vote for you, no matter how barbaric you are. And all you're doing is losing your base, because we are decent human beings. And you can't keep lying to us through mainstream media. It isn't working anymore. All right, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, turns out the party affiliation for Democratic voters in Florida was changed to Republican without their consent.

We've got the details on that story and more when we come back. All right, guys. on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys. During one of the social breaks today, I said Oxy Kingpain's the movie we made with Adam McKay, the director of Don't Look Up. It's an amazing movie is going to air tomorrow. I misspoke. It's the first ever screening of a public screening of it that you guys can attend is on Thursday. It's on Thursday at 8 o'clock Eastern. Make sure you check that out. And I'm going to do a Q&A with one of the stars of the movie afterwards. You can buy your tickets at t.t.com slash screening. TYT.com slash screening. Okay, Anna. All right. Democratic voters in Florida say that their party affiliation was changed to Republican without their knowledge or their consent. And this happened after people showed up to the public housing they live in to renew their voter registration. CNN did a pretty good video on this where they went to the public housing where most of these residents live. And they asked some important questions. Let's hear their stories. 77-year-old Juan Salazar is a Democrat, or at least he used to be.

In December, Salazar says someone wearing a bright red baseball cap approached him and switched his party affiliation without his consent. You were a lifelong Democrat. From 1978. And now all of a sudden you're a Republican. You don't want to be a Republican. I don't want to be. He says it all happened at his housing complex in Miami, Florida.

It's home to elderly low-income residents who speak little English. He says he now. believes it was a Republican who told him he needed to update his registration. But keep in mind, in Florida, once you register to vote, there is no reason to update that registration unless you want to make a change like your party affiliation. That was not the case with any of the people we spoke with. This is the old card. That's an old car.

And it says right here, Democratic Party. The new card says Republican Party of Florida. And that's not what you want. No. I want to be Democrat. So there are Democrat voters who are also Cuban in South Florida, which is exciting. Mainly younger voters, but look at our friend there hanging in. Much love.

So I hope you guys didn't miss this one important point there, which is in Florida, you don't need to renew your voter registration. Once you're registered, you're registered. The people who came to renew registration lied to them, right? So that's lie number one. And then there are now multiple cases of people saying, I'm a Democrat, they switched my party affiliation to Republican without my knowledge or consent. The report, by the way, comes after a similar finding in December in which an 84-year-old little Havana resident and lifelong Democrat was reportedly duped by a third party voter

registration group into switching her affiliation to Republican. And as far back as 2020, another Florida woman was investigated after allegedly switching multiple voters registrations to Republican ahead of the presidential primary against their will. It's also important to know that in the state of Florida, they do not have an open primary system, meaning if you're a registered Republican, you will not be able to participate in the Democratic primary election. So it does have some consequences. Other than that, though, I don't, what are they doing? Why are they doing this? And we do have some serious suspects here, which we'll get to in just a second, but Jake. Yeah, it's a little bit weird, but they do every kind of trick in the book.

So maybe it's to discourage the voters when they show up and find out that they can't vote in the primary. Maybe they think they can't vote in the general, general confusion. Maybe they get confused and think they're actually Republicans. Maybe they don't want them voting in Democratic primaries based on certain things like they would Republicans generally love running against corporate Democrats because the the conservative Democrat will come and say the Republicans are right about everything super easy to beat them. It's the easiest thing in the world. But I doubt that they're that sophisticated.

And there is some tiny, tiny percent chance that it could backfire. Probably not for DeSantis, but all those Democrats, if they go and actually vote in Republican primaries could vote against DeSantis. Think about it. I mean, if there were some Democrats who, you know, did some organizing and some actual work, they could find a way to use this to their advantage. Even, I mean, if they're not going to use it to their advantage in that way, how is this not a big deal? Like, how are they not? Can you imagine if Democrats were caught doing something like this? Oh, my election fraud, election fraud. Trump's actually president. We know it.

It would be the biggest, but aside from Trump, it would, Republicans would make this the biggest story in the country, not just today, not just for the rest of the week. We're talking Rogan level attention, okay? Whereas all anyone wants to talk about for weeks on end, if not months on end. Now with that said, who are the suspects here? Well, someone actually has a really important piece of evidence, which is also included in this next clip. Let's watch.

About 10 minutes from where Juan lives, We found another woman who says her voter registration was changed from Democrat to Republican. She lives here. She didn't want to go on camera but told us a woman had knocked on her door and told her that she needed to update her voter registration because it had expired. That woman's daughter sent us these pictures her mother took of the woman, she says, recently changed her voter registration. Look closely at her ID. It says R-P-O-F. That stands for Republican Party of Florida. The woman's daughter says her mother signed the form, but says after that, someone checked the box Republican Party under party affiliation.

And her daughter says there is no way her mother could have checked that box on her own since it's in English. And her mother doesn't speak or read English. It is not legal to fill out the form for people. Yet the woman's voter registration was still changed. That's her old card on the left. It reads Democratic Party. Her new card on the right shows she's now registered with the Republican Party of Florida. You know, one other thing is Governor Ron DeSantis has been bragging quite a bit about Republicans taking over the state of Florida. Yeah, there you go.

That's probably the best explanation, Anna. I was thinking that it could be at the local level where somebody's got to fill a quota, and they're like, well, it's super hard to switching Democrats to Republicans, but it isn't hard if you just check off the box yourself, right? And then I could brag about how many people I flipped to Republicans in this area. But you can get fired doing that, and that's a dangerous thing to do. But if the Republican Party of Florida wants to pretend that Florida is super red, because DeSantis is a genius and should run for president, then they would have a good incentive to flip a lot of Democrats into Republicans. Fraudulently.

Fraudulently. And then claim, you see how much Floridians love DeSantis? Right? So that is a potential explanation here. And one last thing for me, in 2012, there was a giant voter fraud scandal where Republicans had actually changed votes, right? And Nancy Pelosi said we should not emphasize it because it'll only help the Republican framing on voter fraud issues. Oh, my God, she's the worst. She's the worst. Like, my favorite thing in the world is when Republicans think attacking Nancy Pelosi will trigger us.

Let's throw a party, homeboy. I'm ready for it. Are you kidding me? She's embarrassing. Obviously, we dislike her for opposite reasons, but nonetheless, she is, I mean, leader. That's a leader, Democratic leader. So I bring that up because so whether it's this or remember they had to redo an election in North Carolina because, again, Republican congressman staff did the fraud, the voter fraud, right? So they had to redo the whole election.

But you barely ever hear about it because Democrats are the most. Democrats are the most incompetent party of all time. I mean, they got a fundraise, so. Yeah, so if, like Anna said, if it was Republicans, they'd be holy hell about it. Democrats have all these terrible things happen. They're like, don't say anything, don't say anything. They're constantly afraid of Republicans.

It's just so pathetic. It really is. All right, let's do one more story before we wrap up our first hour. And this is a housing story that has a comedic bent to it. So an affluent California suburb resorted to some pretty extreme measures in an effort to prevent the construction of affordable housing in their neighborhoods. Now, the leaders of this wealthy Silicon Valley town had met to basically discuss what they could do to mitigate something known as Senate Bill 9. Senate Bill 9, important state law that would essentially allow for the rezoning of areas that are for six. single family residents so they can build duplexes or even fourplexes, you know, to increase

inventory of housing so we can finally deal with this ongoing housing crisis in the state. Well, leaders of the town, Woodside California, declared the entire town a mountain lion habitat blocking such development. Two weeks after the announcement though, they drew so much outrage from affordable housing supporters, ridicule on social media, and the threat of legal action from the the state attorney general that the town council abandoned its approach. But we do have some funny statements from the town's leaders on this issue. So first, let's go to the California attorney general.

His name is Rob Bonta. He says there's no valid basis to claim that the entire town of Woodside is a habitat for mountain lions. Land that is already developed with, for example, a single family home is not By definition, a habitat. Yeah, how about your houses that are on there? How are they part of the lions have? You know what?

I would allow this town to do this rule. As long as everyone who owns a single family home in that town adopts a line. Okay, if you put a mountain lion inside your house, then I'll say that's totally fine. That's a crazy standard. Okay, good luck, good luck. See how it turns out for you. Yeah, no, I mean, look, obviously there was enough attention paid to this. story by the right people, including affordable housing advocates, that they had no choice

but to backtrack on this. And wow, would you look at that? There's actually a California official who's actually doing something in his position of power, the attorney general here. Now the Department of Fish and Wildlife advised that the entire town of Woodside cannot be considered a habitat, which obviously, right? But here's the statements that were being thrown around by the leaders of this town, right? So you have Dick Brown, app name, the mayor of Woodside, a town of about 5,500 people

near the billionaire homes and tech hubs of Redwood City in Palo Alto. He said that allowing construction of duplexes was quote, not the Woodside Way. We love animals. Oh yeah, animals are innocent. Where are they going to go? Pretty soon we'll have nothing but asphalt and no animals or birds. Okay, so look, the idea of freaking out and panicking this much over a lot that used to have a single family home turning into a lot that has a duplex

instead. It blows my mind that that's what they're freaking out about. I actually am understanding toward people who live in these neighborhoods and all of a sudden there's like a massive condo building next to your single family home. I do sympathize with that. I get it. That is not what's happening here. This is totally reasonable and it would definitely help in the housing crisis that we're experiencing. So this is NIMBY, right? Not in my backyard. And here the conservatives do have a point that a lot of times wealthy liberals aren't really any better when it comes to issues regarding both race and poverty. So when it comes to building affordable housing next to a billionaire's home, all of a sudden, even if that billionaire is theoretically on the left, they'll say, oh,

I didn't say mean in my backyard. I got mountain lines on my backyard. Okay. So, no, you have to go build this somewhere else near poor people or something like that, right? Well, that's what everybody says. And then there's no place to build affordable housing. So, no, not acceptable. And the other issue that this happens with all the time is schools. So, you know, people are like, oh, no, I'm on the left, et cetera. And then you say, okay, great, now let's do, back in the day, desegregation, and let's move people.

around, they go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no, I don't want black kids in my person. Yeah, like the busing program. The busing, which by the way, Biden was fervently against as a so-called liberal back in the day, right? Who really valued bipartisanship, so. Oh, yeah, yeah, he valued it when he was trying to keep black people out of his town. And so, and now there's different versions of that, hey, don't touch my private school, and no, I don't want to fund your public school, because my rich kids are already in that private school, and I don't give a damn what happens to your kids in the public school, that's got a racial component, a poverty component, et cetera.

So here we are in California and wealthy Californians all of a sudden are pretending to have mountain line habitats to make sure. They'd rather live next to lions than poor people. Yeah. All right. We're going to take a break. When we come back, the Air Force has been order to pay a whopping $230 million to the victims of a mass shooting that happened a few years ago. Why? We'll give you the details on that and more. And then later, nothing but fun. We're going to throw a party. We're going to talk about swingers. I'm not even kidding. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at

Apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you, soon.