The Young Turks - Crypto King Falls

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

Doctors visiting a Gaza hospital are stunned by the war’s toll on Palestinian children. Sam Bankman-Fried has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Slain officer remembered as a husband and father with a promising future. Families slip back into poverty after pandemic-era child tax credit expires. " HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Woo! It's up! Welcome to TYT, I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and today's a big day here at TYT, for me specifically, because Jake will not be joining me on the show. He is off today. Hopefully he's enjoying his break, which is definitely well earned.

And I will not be having a co-host for the entirety of the show, both hours. However, our producer, Kate Bettino, will be joining me in our members-only bonus episode to share some fun, lighthearted stories with our members. I'm really looking forward to that, and you can become a member by going to t-y-t.com slash join, or if you're watching us on YouTube, of course, you can also join by clicking on that join button. Later in the show, I mean, I really love the rundown today. We just have a great list of topics to get into later in the second hour.

We're going to talk about Stephen Crowder's mounting issues with former employees. He is, of course, going through an incredibly tumultuous divorce, which I don't really want to get into too many details about. I feel like those personal matters, they make me a little uncomfortable getting into. But I do think that some of the allegations made against him by former employees is important to talk about. So we'll be unpacking that in the second hour. In the first hour, there was an international team of doctors who went to Gaza to provide some medical aid to patients there. And that story, while heartbreaking, is important to cover. And we're going to do that at the top of the show. We'll get to that in just a few minutes.

Big news in regard to Sam Bankman-Fried. He has been sentenced today. We'll talk about that as well. For all of those people out there who think that I'm too tough on crime, I am going to make the case that his 25 year prison sentence is too lengthy. So we'll get to that. And then, you know, we just have a ton of stories that I'm really looking forward to sharing with you all. So thank you for watching. Thank you for supporting and special thanks to all of our members who help make this show happen. Without further ado, let's get to our first story. Experiencing in real time, entire family structures collapsing, entire families being wiped off the civil registry, having to tell a father or a mother.

that their entire family, their lifelong partner, and all of their children have just been killed and you weren't able to resuscitate them is something that was very difficult to experience and something that I hope I never have to experience again. That was pediatric intensive care doctor Tanya Hajj Hassan, who is part of an international team of doctors who recently treated patients at Alaksa Hospital in central gun. Gaza, which she and her colleagues witnessed was worse than what they had expected. They knew things were bad, they just didn't know how bad. And as we know, after nearly six months of war, Gaza's health sector has been absolutely

decimated. Roughly a dozen of Gaza's 36 hospitals are only partially functioning. The rest have either shut down completely or are barely functioning after they ran out of fuel and medicine were surrounded and raided by Israeli troops or were damaged in fighting. That leaves hospitals such as Alaksa caring for an overwhelming number of patients with limited supplies and staff. Before the war, the hospital had a capacity of around 160 beds, according to the World Health Organization. Now there are some 800 patients, yet many of the hospital's 120 staff members are no longer able to come to. work. The majority of its intensive care unit beds are occupied by children, including infants

wrapped in bandages and wearing oxygen masks. Hage Hassan and her team recounted some of the most harrowing scenes of young children and their families enduring gruesome injuries and often death. The Associated Press reports that one toddler died from a brain injury caused by an Israeli strike that fractured his skull. His cousin, an infant, is still. fighting for her life with part of her face blown off by the same strike. Tanya joined Amy Goodman on Democracy Now and described one particularly devastating story of a young child that she treated. It was a very common occurrence to have a child that we were resuscitating and not know

if any of their family were alive or be told that their family had been killed or be told that that other woman that were resuscitating simultaneously on the floor is the child's mother. I remember one incident where we received a young boy who this side of his face had been blown off. And we were providing care for him while providing care for his sister in the adjacent bed. His sister had 96% of her body burns. Their parents and all of their other siblings had been killed in the same attack. And he kept asking for his family and he had a distant cousin who was at his bedside who kept saying, they're fine, they're fine, they're injured, they're going to be fine. He kept saying, where is my sister? He could see the patient next to him. He just couldn't recognize her because she was so badly burned, but that was his sister.

She also said after a recent shift, quote, I spend most of my time here resuscitating children. What does that tell you about every other hospital in the Gaza Strip? Part of the challenge in getting accurate information about what's going on in Gaza, especially in the past few months, has been the refusal to allow journalists to enter and report on the ground. That, in addition to more than a hundred reporters getting killed, masks the true extent of the devastation Palestinians are suffering. After weeks of not being able to get into Gaza, CNN's Clarissa Ward also joined Emirati medical volunteers at a field hospital, where she was met with many of the same horrors these doctors described.

Even in that brief window, Gail, you really got a sense of the absolute horrors that have been taking place in Gaza. This hospital was filled with the youngest victims of this war, children who have been disfigured, who are in full body casts, who are covered in burns, according to the United Nations, some two-thirds of the deaths that have. happened since Israel retaliated after the horrific October 7th attacks with this massive bombardment. Two-thirds of the victims have been women and children. And we definitely saw that borne out in this hospital. The doctors simply don't have the resources or the space to provide adequate care for these patients. And that lack of resources brings us right back to the

debilitating shortage of aid, Gaza is still experiencing. So take a look at this graph. The deficit between the volume of all supplies that would have entered the Gaza strip if not for the war and what has actually been received has reached at least half a million tons of aid. The problem is not that Israel doesn't have the capacity to allow aid in. Israel's very large ports have enough capacity to meet Gaza's needs, according to Asaf Ashar. An Israeli American maritime expert who estimated that Palestinian aid requirements might make up 2% of Israeli port capacity.

Just 2%. But as Israel continues to stifle aid going into Gaza and funding to UNRWA has been slashed, the United States has resorted to air dropping aid, which of course has it's. its own deadly consequences. With Gaza teetering on the edge of famine aid agencies, say only about a fifth of required supplies are coming in by land. So more aid is delivered like this. It is in precise, and at times proves deadly. Yesterday, Palestinian health authorities said 12 people had drowned trying to recover packages from the sea. Between the scattered boxes designed to save, people,

covered from the sea. This man says he swam out 300 meters to get two boxes of food. Others didn't make it there and back. So while getting a consistent stream of reliable reporting from Gaza is difficult and is increasingly difficult because of the conditions on the ground and the dwindling number of reporters on the ground. These are the kinds of images, these are the kinds of reports, these are the kinds of videos that Americans are seeing the international community has been seeing themselves. And I believe this is the reason why there's been a growing number of Americans who went from supporting Israel's military actions in Gaza in the beginning to now either questioning it or full blown rejecting it, rejecting Israel's narrative, rejecting what Israel is carrying out, and rejecting the notion. that Israel's military, the IDF, is specifically going after Hamas militants. How can you make that argument when it's abundantly clear that there is growing starvation

in Gaza and growing suffering and devastation in Gaza due to the destruction of those hospitals? That is collective punishment. That is why the UN Special Rapporteur recently made some statements about how she believes that what's being carried out in Gaza is plausibly a genocide. And Matt Miller, a spokesperson for the State Department, responded to that by essentially smearing her as some sort of anti-Semite. But I think anyone who has a heart would look at these images and watch these videos and see what's happening to innocent people in Gaza and come out with the same, you know,

aggressive criticisms. What did those kids do to deserve what they're going through right now? And why are we so willing, when I say we, I mean the American government, so willing to continue supplying Israel with the weaponry that has caused so much destruction in Gaza? You know, I have no malice in my heart, no ill will in my heart toward Israel or the Israeli people, but I do have a great deal of rage growing within me in regard to the actions that are being carried out by Israel's far right government. What they're doing is counterproductive for the people of Israel and obviously deadly and devastating for Palestinian civilians. And so I can't help but be critical in what I see happening. How could you not be? What I'm more worried about is that we still have a sizable portion of Americans who think what Israel is doing is totally fine.

And I don't know if it's because they're in a media bubble where they're not seeing the same reports that we're seeing and sharing with you here on this show. or if it's just that they have a double standard in their mind in regard to human lives where one group's one group includes lives that are valuable and the other group not so valuable. It's just heartbreaking and I just, I want, I want the death and destruction to stop. That's it. That's all I want. That's what a lot of Americans want. And to say that what's being carried out right now is justified, that it's just, is just, it's just wrong. So we're going to keep covering this story and I'm going to keep doing my best to stay calm as I do so because I think getting this information out to the public in the clearest way possible is important. But that shame that I had expressed feeling as a result of what our government is supporting continues to grow within me.

And I think it continues to grow within a lot of Americans who just don't support this and feel that there needs to be more done to rein in. Netanyahu's far-right government. Unfortunately, there's a lot of talk from the Biden administration, but not a lot of action to use their leverage to reign Netanyahu and the IDF in. Until my 18th, get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants.

That's a little too excited. Sorry. Only the date is July 18th. Let's move on to a next. Let's move on to a next story. So big news, terrible news for Bankman Freed today that we should get into the details of. Former king of crypto, Sam Bankman Fried,

and of course the founder of FTX, has been sentenced today to a whopping 20 He's 25 years in prison. That is an insanely lengthy prison sentence, and I'm not quite sure I think that he needs to be in prison for a quarter century. Now let's get into the details. First, a refresher on what Sam Bankman-Fried was prosecuted for to begin with. So crypto exchange FTX was once valued at $32 billion before it all came crashing down

back in 2022. Bankman Freed and his top deputies, prosecutors said, took customers money out of FTX and put it into his investment fund, Alameda Research. At the trial, former Alameda CEO, Caroline Ellison, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges before cooperating with prosecutors, describe Bankman Fried telling her to use FTX funds. So understand what was happening here, right? You have FTX, which is, you know, a crypto exchange.

You have people buying crypto through the exchange. And then that money was illegally funneled to Alameda Research. They gambled with that money. They lost that money. And everything came crashing down. So jurors in November convicted Bankman Freed on charges related to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He was accused of misappropriating FTX customer funds to basically spend lavishly on luxury real estate, investments, and also political donations.

By the way, before everything came crashing down for Sam Beckman Fried, he certainly loved bragging about the campaign donations that he was pouring into the campaign coffers of politicians on both sides of the aisle. At first, he wasn't so honest about funding, you know, Republican politicians, but that information. came out later. Now, jurors reached their verdict only after only about three hours of deliberations, and Judge Lewis Kaplan found that FTX customers lost $8 billion. FtX's equity investors lost $1.7 billion, and that lenders to Alameda Research Hedge Fund, Bankman Fried founded, lost $1.3 billion. The judge also said Bankman Fried lied during his testimony when he said he doesn't. He did not know that his hedge fund had spent customer deposits taken from FTX. That was a lie.

And I think it was lies like that that really rubbed the judge the wrong way. The judge, not a fan of Sam Bankman-Fried, if you read into some of his statements during this trial. And he does not believe that Bankman-Fried is at all remorseful with what he has done. Now, he faced over 100 years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines. He didn't get 100 years, as we know. He was sentenced to 25 years. I personally think that's too lengthy for, yes, a crime that he should spend time in prison for, but 25 years, I feel like that is the kind of prison sentence that you would save or you would implement toward a violent criminal who's a, you know, threat to the public.

I think Sam Bankman-free deserves punishment. I don't know if he's a threat to the public. So again, I just feel like 25 years is too long. But nonetheless, prosecutors have asked for between 40 to 50 years. His lawyers asked for, you know, no more than six and a half years. And I agree with them on that. I think six and a half years is a super lengthy sentence for a crime that is serious to, you know, don't make no mistake about that.

But again, he's not the kind of person who's going to go around physically abusing people or raping people or murdering people. You get what I'm saying? I think the whole purpose of taking people out of the public is because they pose a actual risk to public safety. But that's not to say that I don't think he should spend any time in prison. Anyway, before Kaplan handed down the sentence, Bankman Freed gave a meandering, meandering account of events in an attempt to justify some of his actions, saying, quote, I made a series of bad decisions. And he said this as he spoke for roughly 20 minutes. They weren't selfish decisions. They were bad decisions. I don't know. I mean, I would venture

to say that if you're stealing money from people who are, you know, buying crypto on FTX, if you're taking their money to spend lavishly on yourself and do these ridiculous, risky investments, it's a pretty selfish thing to do. That is theft. I want to pause for a second and just talk about why theft is a big deal, right? I think a lot of people minimize it, but it shouldn't be minimized. The reason why theft is a big deal is because people work really, really hard to earn money in this country. Okay? We spend so much time working away from our families away from things that we love, doing things that we love in order to make a living for ourselves. When someone comes in and steals that from us, they're not just stealing material

goods, they're not just stealing currency, they're not just stealing money. They are stealing the time that we poured into our work to earn that money, okay, as we were away from our family, our loved ones, and everything else that we love. That is, that is the reality. Like, really stop and think about what theft means. So yeah, it was freaking selfish. Now I'm working myself up. Maybe he did deserve 25 years in prison. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. But theft is very selfish, period, point blank. Now with that said, there are some more details. Here's more on what Bankman Freed faces and how the judge came to his decision to send him away for 25 years. The judge recommending a medium or low security prison because he said he doesn't think Sam Bankman-Fried is a risk of any violence, but he did say that Bankman-Fried is a risk to commit another fraud.

And so he said part of the reason for the lengthy sentence was to disable, as the judge put it, Bankman-Freed's ability to commit another crime, at least for the foreseeable future. He rejected, though, the notion that he needed to go away for 40 to 50 years, as prosecutors have said the judge found that to be excessive. The judge did seem to be influenced by Sam Bankman-Fried's own remarks because Bankman-Fried acknowledged that he had failed, that he had made some mistakes. But the judge said he did not find Bankman-Fried to be remorseful. He said, he heard a lot of things, but not a word of remorse for this. this very serious crime. Yeah, the judge was not a fan of Bankman Freed at all. And again, did not find him remorseful.

Although, Freed did say, my coworkers at FTX built something really beautiful, and I threw all of that away. It haunts me every day. A lot of people feel really let down, and they were very let down. And I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry about what happened at every stage. Customers don't deserve this level of pain. Bankman Freed has vowed to appeal this case, his conviction and sentence.

In addition to the prison sentence, Judge Kaplan also ordered a forfeiture of $11.02 billion. He ruled Bankman Freed's forfeited assets can be used to help fund the repayment of victims of the FTX collapse. But in a letter to the Department of Justice, an FTX customer who lost $4 million when the exchange filed for bankruptcy in 2022, express disgust at the narrative that clients of the crypto exchange would be made whole. And look, I actually agree with him. I think it is unlikely that the victims here will be made whole even with the forfeiture of Bankman Freed's assets. But going back to that customer and going back to the letter that this individual had written to the DOJ, my whole life had been destroyed. I have two young children, one born right before the collapse, beyond the

the money, I lost my happiness, my ability to get out of bed, my desire to continue living. My wife is suicidal and depressed. So there are, there are victims in this case, like severe victimhood here, where someone loses $4 million and their family suffers as a result of that. Meanwhile, billionaire investor Kevin O'Leary, who he himself is invested in cryptocurrencies, has taken a different approach to this case and has decided to refer to. to Sam Benk-Midfried as a pioneer who sacrificed himself for the larger cause of crypto. Finances are gone and the FTXs are gone and the Luna guys in jail and la-da-da-da-da. It's great. I mean, it's sad for them.

But these pioneers sacrificed their lives and they're gone and they did the things they did. It was unnecessary to do that stuff. But the promise of crypto remains by the fact that as we speak, we've got a $70,000 Bitcoin. Obviously, Homeboy has a vested interest in making the kind of statements that he just made. But I'm going to go ahead and say hard disagree. Calling Sam Bankman-Fried a freaking pioneer when he destroyed the lives of people who trusted his crypto exchange is ridiculous, absolutely insane. So that's all I have to say about that. But one thing that I know for sure is that in America, when you steal from other wealthy people,

oh, the law will come down hard. And that's exactly what happened to Sam Begman-Fried. We got to take a break when we come back. We've got more news, including a big story out of New York involving a slain NYPD officer. Come right back. Apologies for the organ music that we're all hearing. I'm just kidding, Bart. But let's get the EDM, let's get the EDM ready, okay?

Let's see how Earth responds to that. DJ Bart Kyle on the ones and twos. Anyway, welcome back to TYT. I'm your host, Naty Casparian. And, well, this next story is a bit of a doozy. So buckle up for this because it involves, I think something that some people might disagree with in terms of my commentary about it, but none of the

I think it's important to cover. So a New York police officer named Jonathan Diller was fatally shot during a somewhat of a traffic stop, although the car wasn't moving in Queens on Monday evening. And as we've seen with many other violent incidents as of late, the people involved in the shooting both had multiple prior arrests, including one for attempted murder. The 31 year old officer joined the police force in February of 2021 and tragically leaves behind a wife and a son under the age of one. The police said the episode had begun shortly before 6 p.m. on Monday when Officer Diller

and his partner from the police department's community response team approached the car because it was illegally parked at a bus stop on Mott Avenue. Investigators currently believe that the suspects were parked illegally while casing a T-Mobile store when Diller and another cop asked them to move. Their vehicle, their vehicle, their vehicle was illegally parked in a bus area. Here's more on the crime. An NYPD source identified the shooter as 34 year old Guy Rivera and the driver of the vehicle as 41 year old Lindy Jones. The NYPD says Rivera shot officer Diller after the two men refused numerous requests to get out of the car. So I mean it just escalated

immediately. He refused to get out of the car. Officer Diller, uh, I mean, he refused to move the car. At that point, Officer Diller asks him to get out of the car, and that's when things devolved. The suspected gunman, Guy Rivera, who's 34 years old, who was sitting in the passenger seat was also wounded, the police said. He was the first to fire his gun during the evening encounter in Far Rockaway, striking the officer, Jonathan Diller, in the torso below his protective vest. The officer's partner returned fire, striking the man who was also taken to Jamaica Hospital where he is being treated for his injuries. The driver, Lindy Jones, 41, was taken into police custody. Police said Wednesday that the gun Rivera used was found to have jammed after it fired a single shot that killed the officer.

Prosecutors obtained a search warrant for the SUV the men were driving, which is when a second gun was found with the serial number filed. off, meaning they were in possession of a ghost gun. Here's more on the men behind the tragic shooting. Sources tell us both suspects have long criminal records. Rivera, the shooter, has at least four prior arrests, including for armed robbery and drug dealing. Jones has at least a dozen arrests, including as recently as April 2023 for a loaded firearm. New York City Mayor Eric Adams had this to say. This is what you call not a crime problem, a recidivist problem.

Same bad people doing bad things to good people. Less than a year. It's back on the streets with another gun. Look, I want to be clear about something. I think people who have been arrested multiple times for violent crimes should be behind bars. However, you're going to keep seeing recidivists unless we reform our prisons so they actually rehabilitate people. We don't have that right now.

So it's not shocking to me the violent criminals are let out and then they commit more violent crimes. That's going to continue happening unless we have a serious conversation about investing in our prison system, investing in policing to improve and reform the failures that we're experiencing right now. But the idea that we should just let violent criminals out wandering the streets and committing more violent crimes is ridiculous. The crimes they've committed weren't petty theft or something negligible.

Many of them were violent offenses. Records show Rivera has been arrested by the NYPD 21 times, nine of them felonies. He was released from prison in September of 2021 after serving nearly five years for first degree robbery and criminal sale of controlled substance. He was paroled in 2021, but prior to that, Rivera spent three years in state prison for a 2011 assault and was released in October of 2014. Rivera's mother, Keshea, Gileard, told in New York Daily News that he did not trust law enforcement after serving time in prison. In addition, she told the press that, quote, he might have thought they were trying to hurt him and something

snapped. He's still in the hospital and has not yet been formally charged for his role in the shooting. But meanwhile, Jones has 14 prior arrests. He was arrested for second degree criminal possession of a weapon for having a loaded firearm in Far Rockaway on April 17th, 2023. He was out on $75,000 bail. He previously served 10 years in prison on 2003 attempted murder and robbery charges and was released in November of 2013. After the shooting, he was arraigned in Queens on four illegal weapons charges. Luckily, this time he's being held in custody. A local ABC news affiliate notes that prosecutors highlighted his violent history and missing court dates in arguing for holding him

without bail. Judge Maria Gonzalez luckily agreed that he poses a flight risk and Romanda Jones. And now Donald Trump is taking advantage of this by making, in my opinion, a smart political move. He attended the slain officers wake today in New York. His campaign spokeswoman said, quote, President Trump is moved by the invitation to join NYPD officer Jonathan Diller's family and colleagues as they deal with his senseless and tragic death. Look, I'm going to be real. That's probably going to play well with voters, especially since the majority of Americans are in fact concerned about crime, whether people like it or not. A November Gallup poll found that 63% of Americans describe the crime problem in the United

States as either extremely or very serious, up from 54% when last measured in 2021 and the highest in Gallup's trend. Now, all this isn't to say that NYPD officers are getting gun down left and right. That is not happening. Diller is actually the first NYPD officer to be killed in the line of duty since 2022. But, It's an example of violent criminals reoffending after being let back out into society soon after their previous offenses. Unfortunately, there's yet another example coming out of New York this week. A man tonight charged there with murder for what police say was an unprovoked attack on the subway, a horrific attack. The suspect in custody there after that arrest, but the scary scene inside a subway station in Harlem,

police all around happened during rush hour, right as we were coming off the air last night. The victim was pushed onto the tracks, was pronounced dead on the scene. The suspect reportedly has a history of arrests and mental illness, according to the New York Times. How many times is this going to happen in New York? This isn't the first time this has happened. NYPD says officers arrived to find 53-year-old Jason Volz had been shoved onto the number four train tracks. An oncoming train was not able to stop, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. 24-year-old Carlton McPherson was arrested and charged with murder.

Officials say that he has multiple prior arrests and has a long and violent past. The NYPD has responded to incidents where McPherson was acting erratically, and authorities say he has a history of mental illness. McPherson had been hospitalized at least half a dozen times since last year for mental health treatment, according to someone who has seen some of his medical records. A neighbor in the Bronx said he sometimes slept in a hallway closet in his grandmother's building because she would not let him into her apartment. The Times reports that last October, a man whom prosecutors believed to be McPherson, because he had the same name and birth year, was charged with beating a Brooklyn homeless

shelter employee with a cane. He was released without bail after he was arraigned on an October 31st arrest for assault, menacing, harassment, and other charges in Brooklyn. He failed to show up for court twice, and a judge issued a warrant for his arrest. He was picked up and brought to court on January 11th, where bail was set for $2,000, which he posted. His next court date was set for July, and then he committed the crime that he just committed. Jason Volz, the man he pushed in front of the subway was recovering from addiction and had also endured homelessness himself, but had recently gotten sober.

Two years ago, he actually got sober and had just moved into a new apartment, according to his ex-wife. Since McPherson faces a murder charge, there's no chance that he'll be released, at least not anytime soon. But considering he allegedly suffered from severe mental illness, it should be shocking that he wasn't involuntarily committed into a long-term mental health facility. Groups like the ACLU fight against policies that would involuntarily commit people with severe mental illnesses, claiming it's a violation of their civil liberties. But exactly how humane is it to neglect people who are a harm to themselves or to others? How does it make sense to wait until someone suffering from mental illness commits a crime

so horrific that they'll end up with a lifelong prison sentence? We're just setting people up to fail or to get hurt. In response to the subway incident, Mayor Eric Adams said that recidivism is a real issue and that the second issue we have in the city is a severe mental health illness problem that was played out at 125th Street and Lexington Avenue at the subway station. And he was a recidivist, several severe mental health issues, indicators of violence. When you do an analysis and a cross correlation, you will see it's the same people over and over again. Look, unfortunately, Adams is right about recidivists causing most of the chaos in New York.

In fact, criminal justice reformers at John J. College have research to back this up. They looked into the impact of bail reform, something they favor, and found that there's a specific group of individuals who enjoy bail reform, only to go out and commit more crimes. They write that the elimination of money bail increased recidivism for people charged with nonviolent felonies, with recent criminal history, and with a recent violent felony arrest, while it decreased recidivism for people charged with misdemeanors, and people with no recent criminal history. The reduced use of bail for legally eligible cases tended to increase recidivism among people charged with violent felonies and people with a recent arrest.

The starkest and most consistent recidivism increases across both research designs were among people with a recent prior felony arrest and among people currently charged with violent felonies who had a recent criminal history. So just to get even more granular on this, 67% of defendants who had a recent prior violent felony arrest in the past year, who were released under bail reform, were re-arrested within two years of their arraignment. Almost half, 49% were re-arrested for a felony. We're seeing a lot of this play out in New York subway system.

The NYPD Chief of Transit says arrests made so far this year in the subway system more than double the number from this time last year. NYPD numbers show that the total reports of murder, rape, robbery, felony arrest, burglary, grand larceny are up 4.4% compared to this time last year. So for those who want to keep bail reform, I suggest we tweak it to fix the flaws that allow for violent offenders to offend again, and again, and again. Like the guy who viciously and randomly attacked 57 year old Dulce Pichado as she was walking along a sidewalk in Brooklyn. So Pichotto was violently punched in the face and had to have her jaw wired shut as a result. She lost three teeth, is suffering from permanent damage to her lower lip,

and her face is fractured in several places. She likely needs to undergo surgery as a result of this attack. Unfortunately, the, well, fortunately the suspect who ABC News says has seven prior arrests for assault was arrested. Unfortunately, he was detained in New York. Officers arrested 33 year old Franz Judy. He was charged with misdemeanor assault, meaning he's not bail eligible. He will be released back onto the street. How exactly is punching a woman so hard. that her jaw needs to be wired shut, a misdemeanor.

Can someone please explain that to me? Why did the prosecutors charge this guy with the misdemeanor? Look, I keep hearing from criminal justice reformers over and over again, that all these stories that we're covering, you know, about the flaws in the, you know, reformed bail system, they're just myths. We're just fear mongering, that's all we're doing, it's all fear mongering. But none of them ever take the time to address these very, cases, including a case that I covered last week involving four people who were found to have

dismembered body parts in their apartment. They were booked and released immediately because apparently dismembering a body and then hiding evidence is not considered bail eligible under bail reform in New York. How does that make any sense? And some people push back and say, Anna, you're pushing a false narrative. The left doesn't like this. The left doesn't want this. Then why doesn't the left speak out against it. The only time I hear the left speak out is when they speak out against me drawing attention to the flaws in the reformed bail system. So if you believe that this isn't a reality that the left is endorsing or supporting, then speak up. Push back against it instead of pushing back against me for sharing the details of what's happening on the ground

in places like New York. And for the love of God, if you're going to provide cover for what's going by sharing national crime statistics, which are incomplete because there are police departments around the country that are not cooperating with the FBI or sharing their data with the FBI. Just know that most people who are following crime in the country know that it's not a national issue. It is an issue in very specific cities, like New York, like San Francisco, like Los Angeles. You look at those statistics, and then you want to argue that it isn't a problem. Some of the most populous places in this country are definitely experiencing this problem. And rather than seeking justice, for everyone involved, seeking rehabilitation for the, you know,

the perpetrators of these crimes, I feel like we're just supporting weird, you know, libertarian policies where we just don't allow for the government to step in to keep the general public safe. Just not in favor of that. I don't think that's the right approach. And I think this is the kind of stuff that's going to lead to the pendulum swinging right back to tough on crime policies. If you don't want that, then we should fix the flaws when we see them in the reforms that have been made. Unfortunately, we're in a era of politics where it's all or nothing. Even if you see the flaws, you've got to support it because your tribe likes these policies or purports to support these policies. I disagree. I think that you can

be in favor of bail reform while acknowledging the flaws in how to be. it's been implemented, you can fix those flaws and have a better outcome. It's just that we're not having a conversation about that at all. We got to take a break when we come back. We've got more news for you, including the Biden administration abandoning Bidenomics. It's a political strategy. I think it's a fascinating strategy, but will it work?

We've got that and more coming up. Don't miss it. Vito 420 writes in and says, today's my birthday, so it's awesome to have you on to break down the facts in truth. TYT is the place to be. I just want to say happy birthday to Vito. I don't know if I'd be wanting to consume depressing news stories on my birthday, but I really do appreciate that you're watching right now. Thank you for the support. I also wanted to respond to a critical comment from one of our members,

a douche, D-O-O-O-S-H, and I like your handle. They write, there are 8.5 million people in New York City, two events out of 8.5 million people is a ridiculously low per capita rate. Well, I shared a few specific stories with you. I wouldn't say that there's only been two incidents out of all these people. You really have to look at the broader statistics, and in some areas, crime has spiked in New York. In other areas, it's gone down. So homicide has actually gone down in New York, which is wonderful, right? That is a good thing. However, what I'm addressing here has to do with certain violent crimes, not homicide necessarily, but certain violent crimes that seem to go, I guess, unpunished. But the other thing that I want to mention to you is, look, I remember covering police shootings, police shooting unarmed black individuals and how outrageous those stories were, even though if you looked at these studies showing the long-term trend

regarding officer-involved shootings, they had been declining precipitously for many decades. So even though the trend was on the downward, we were experiencing a downward trend and officer-involved shootings overall, those specific incidents were so outrageous that I felt that it was still important to cover it and talk about the severity of that issue. So, I mean, What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If you don't want any attention paid to violent criminals who are let out over and over again to commit more and more violent crimes, well, then don't come at me and tell me you should cover this story, this one story about a police officer behaving poorly, because you have to apply

your standards consistently. I just think that if there are cases of injustice, even if it's not a big trend, we should do what we can to fix the system so we have less instances of those injustices. So anyway, let's get back to the news. I wanted to talk a little bit about the Biden administration, the Biden campaign, and an interesting tactic that we're now experiencing with Biden, because he is moving away from some of his economic messaging. And I have some theories as to why.

Folks, you notice, leading the comments aren't making much fun of them. Bidenomics anymore. They're thinking maybe it works to build from the middle out and the bottom up. For the first time in more than two months, President Biden uttered the word he's campaigned on for the past few years, but has seemingly abandoned with the rest of the Democratic Party. Bidenomics. Axios has actually kept track of Biden's use of the word. And you can see the heavy decline since last year.

In June of 2023, Biden mentioned Bidenomics 29 times. However, in 2024, Biden has only used the phrase a total of three times. His Tuesday mention was the first since January 25th. And look, it's not just Biden giving up on the phrasing either. Congressional mentions of Bidenomics on social media or press releases have steadily decreased as well. Between April of 2023 and March of 2024, Quorum looked at ex post. Facebook posts, press releases, floor statements, and newsletters to constituents. And here's what they found.

They found that mentions of Bidenomics by congressional Democrats dropped during the fall and now have nearly disappeared to less than a dozen a month. Republicans, on the other hand, can't stop saying it, using it nearly 500 times this month in public statements. So why is Biden abandoning Bidenomics? Well, first off, he allegedly didn't like the branding to begin with. I'm not so sure I believe that, but nonetheless, Biden told reporters last June, quote, you guys branded it.

I didn't. I never called it Bidenomics. Let's get it straight. The first time it was used was in the Wall Street Journal, okay? I don't go around beating my chest, Bidenomics. But, okay, listen, if you don't like binomics, then don't use. the phrase binomics, but I do want to address why Biden very likely isn't engaging in the same economic messaging. I don't think that it's worked out so well for him. A lot of Americans

are pretty sour on the economy, and it's not a great political strategy to keep repeating that the economy is doing great under your watch when Americans are increasingly frustrated. But it goes past the branding. Biden has been shifting away from binomics as part of a broader move toward trying to energize his base ahead of the election, instead of trying to convince swing voters that the economy is better than what they tell pollsters. Biden has recently been struggling to turn the economy around, or at least the economic approval ratings that he's experiencing as we head toward the presidential election this November. According to Vox, voters have mentioned economic issues, think inflation, jobs and more,

as their greatest concern since 2022 in a long running and ongoing Gallup survey. Another February morning consult Bloomberg survey of voters in swing states also found that the economy is the most important issue and could therefore decide the outcome of the election. Honestly, no shocker there. Many Americans also think that the economy is not better under Biden. They think it's worse. Economic confidence plummeted significantly during the COVID-19. And while Biden had no control over the pandemic rattled economy, he inherited from President Trump, Biden's really been unable to dig the U.S. out of that hole in some ways. For instance, some of Biden's policies have also added to the distrust, seeing as some families have slipped back into poverty after some pandemic era programs like the child tax credit expired.

As a reminder, this is what was provided. In March of 2021, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan. The nearly $2 trillion relief package passed with only Democratic votes, extended unemployment benefits, sent stimulus checks to individuals, ramped up food stamps and housing assistance, and significantly expanded the federal child tax credit, or CTC. Pre-pandemic, that credit gave parents up to $2,000. per child. It came with an earnings requirement and was paid in one lump sum at tax time. But the rescue plan raised the credit to $3,600 per child under six and to $3,000 for kids under

18. Half the amount came in monthly payments. And for the first time, even parents with no taxable income were eligible for the full amount. It was like I was able to come up for a little air. Would you say that the benefits kind of took care of all your problems? I wouldn't say it took care of all of them, but it took care of of enough for me not to worry as much. The woman you heard from is Daphne Chapman, and she and four children live in Vill Platt, Louisiana, which is a town where 40% of its residents live in poverty. So that was a godsend, that child tax credit was so important for her, especially after she lost her job due to the pandemic. But once the extension died in Congress, meaning the child tax credit extension,

it was a pretty hard blow to low income families. Chapman told PBS NewsHour that she wrote 1,100 job applications as she tried desperately to find a stable job. Luckily, she is employed now. Biden is making some strives to help the economy. Wages are kind of starting to catch up with inflation in some areas, unemployment rates are still very low, and the stock market hit an all time high. But there still needs to be some improvement made. And honestly, I do think that he's suffering some political consequences for not fighting for the child tax credit, for not making that a permanent program that helps to lift families with children out of poverty. Once Americans experience a successful program like that, and then it's taken away from them,

they're not going to be so happy about the economy. I think that he's experiencing backlash from that. And maybe killing the term Bidenomics is not such a bad idea. Because I do remember when Obama would visit, you know, certain parts of the country that we're not doing so well economically speaking. And then he would brag about how great his economy was. He suffered the consequences of that. There was backlash from voters as a result of that.

Hillary Clinton is the one who suffered the brunt of that backlash, but you can't say that the economy is doing great when on the ground, hardworking Americans are still struggling despite the fact that they're working long hours and doing everything they can to make ends meet and to put food on the table. So we'll see how this plays out for Biden. I think that it would be a bad idea to entirely abandon economic policies. I think that a lot of Americans do care about the economy and they want to see. what kind of policies will be championed by both sides of the aisle. So if he's planning on completely stopping any conversation about necessary economic policies, I don't think that's a good idea. Going around the country bragging about your economy, when a lot of Americans do not perceive the economy to be doing so well, that's, you know, I really do think it's a good idea to drop the bragging and focus more on what he can accomplish in the future.

And then he's got to actually fight for it, unlike what we saw with the extension of the child tax credit. All right, that does it for the first hour. We've got a lot more news to get to, including an update to the sexual misconduct lawsuit that was dropped against Matt Schlapp. Turns out there was some money involved. Hmm, that and more coming up, don't miss it.