The Young Turks - Cuomo Won't Go

Episode Date: March 4, 2021

Rep. Paul Gosar skipped a House vote on the COVID relief package to speak at a white nationalist event in Florida. 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. Welcome to TYT. It's Wednesday, which can only mean one thing. I'm Anna Casparian, and today we're hosting the show with John Ida Rola, host of The Damage Report, Dragon Daddy, good friend of mine, good friend of yours. John, how are you? Every one of you. And don't say it's not true. Anna, I'm okay. And more importantly, I'm happy to be doing the show with you. It's always good to have you, John. You know, you have your own show, which means that you likely have already

discussed, you know, some of the updates on the changes that have been made to the coronavirus relief package in the Senate. And unfortunately, Joe Biden was all too eager. to strike up a deal with conservative Democrats. And we're going to fill you guys all in on that story later in the show. Hour two will have Nando Villa join me and we'll discuss other important topics, including some of what we've heard from Andrew Cuomo in response to the sexual assault allegations. I'm sure to say mostly sexual harassment allegations, although I would argue putting your lips on someone else without their consent is also considered sexual assault. But we'll discuss that later. And it's going to be a great show. There's going to be some fire. There's

going to be some ice. There's going to be some salt, John. Is there a song of those things? There is a song of fire and ice. I have heard of such things existing. But anyway, without further ado, let's actually start off with a discussion about what Republican Representative Paul Gosar was up to when the rest of the House of Representatives was voting. on critical relief for Americans. Republican Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona was not present during the House of Representatives vote on coronavirus relief. In fact, he made a decision to be somewhere else. Gosar, who skipped Friday's House votes, including the vote on the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief

package, spoke Friday night at the America First Political Action Committee, where she, he blamed former President Donald Trump's election loss on big business, big tech, and the swamp, and pushed anti-immigration arguments to the crowd of Groypers, a loose coalition of mostly young alt-right extremists, led by white supremacist Nick Fuentes. And I really feel that ABC News did a service to these people by essentially using euphemisms for who they are. These are neo-Nazis. These are white nationalists. These are individuals who are anti-government. And the fact that Gosar decided to be absent during important House votes in order to speak at this event, tells you everything you need to know about Representative Gosar.

But we do have a snippet of his speech. Let's take a quick look at that. We all watched recently as big business, big tech in the swamp. handed together in a technology coup to usurp the White House from President Trump the people's president. Shadow elites in the deep state continue to clude with big tech and big media to further disenfranchise

President Trump and you, the American patriots. No, John, I think he nailed it. I think that crowd was very enthusiastic about his speech. I think like half of them are like, yeah, don't do that to Trump. The other half are like, this isn't good enough, do better. What an awful. No, well, to be fair though, like from their point of view, he's giving a really uninspired version of the big lie. But I'm sure from his point of view, that's the best you've got for booze?

Are you half asleep? I'm telling you they're trying to take out your God. They both suck. Like, optically speaking, this is exactly what I would expect from any type of conference put together by someone like Nick Fuentes. Like they didn't want to invest in any lighting for the event. You know, they're like, ah, we can't really get some big name speakers. Let's get this Gosar guy, not really charismatic, which by the way, I love that it was a a train wreck. Like what Gosar is trying to do there is continue pushing insane conspiracy theories, many of which seeped into the minds of insane people who decided to storm the Capitol on January 6th.

Okay, so I'm not in any way supportive of any of the messaging here, that's clear. But I can't also, I can't help but notice just how poorly this speech really went. And you know, when you hear the crowd, They're not booing Gosar. They're booing the Democrats. They're booing what they believe was an unfair electoral system, which by the way, I agree. I think the electoral system is incredibly unfair. It's just that I want to make it more democratic, whereas they want to essentially do away with whatever we have left of our democratic process in order to install whatever right-wing lunatic they want in office. But this is what Gosar was up to while the rest of the House of Representatives was voting on a relief package that, Americans desperately need right now both Democratic voters and Republican voters. So find it interesting that Gosar doesn't think it's that important at all. Yeah, I think that, look, Gosar is among other amazing examples every day of how all of the different checks on our politics and our politicians, sort of like the guardrails, I guess, just aren't there anymore. Like, in theory, when you're running for Congress, having virtually every member of your family put together an ad about how much of a

de-hole you are that would hurt you as a politician, but it didn't with GOSAR, skipping, you know, debate or a vote on the aid bill during, you know, what objectively is the worst crisis of our lifetime should really hurt you. But none of it really seems to anymore. He seems to have made the calculation that talking with those individuals is more potentially valuable to his current political position and his future political aspirations. And I can't say confidently that he's not making the right call there. Yeah, I mean, we're talking about a house member from the state of Arizona. And we know what the state Republican Party is like. He is making a political calculation. But honestly, aside from, I think it's different from other Republican lawmakers, right?

I think that Republican lawmakers like Ted Cruz, for instance, will certainly say all sorts of things. that he doesn't believe in order to support whatever agenda or whatever hero worship is taking place among Republican voters. He will say things he doesn't believe just to further his political career. Whereas it's different with Gosar. Gosar is one of them. And I don't think that there's really been enough emphasis on that. Because first of all, let's just focus on who Nick Fuentes is for one minute. Because Nick Fuentes, who put this entire thing together, also spoke at the event. And I'm gonna give you a few of his quotes. He says, if America loses its white demographic core, then it's not America anymore. He also said, you know,

he praised the Capitol riders. While I was there in D.C., outside of the building, I saw hundreds of thousands of Patriots surrounding the U.S. Capitol building, and I saw the police retreating. I said to myself, this is awesome. And he also said in his speech, to see that Capitol under siege, to see the people of this country rise up and mobilize to DC with the pitchforks and the torches, we need a little bit more of that energy in the future. And the reason why Gosar was there is because he agrees with that message. How do I know that? Well, a leader from the oath keepers, one of these anti-government right wing gang groups in this country, put out a video recently and talked about how, you know, Representative Gosar actually did attend

one of their meetings and answered an important question regarding civil war in the United States. Let's take a look at what he had to say. We did a meetings a couple of years ago where our elected representative from Washington, Paul Gosar, came out. And we asked him flat out at that time, do you think we're heading into a civil war? And his response to the group was just flat out, we're in it. We just haven't started shooting at each other yet. That was Jim Arroyo, and he is from the Oathkeeper's Chapter in Arizona. And so why is a member of the House of Representatives attending meetings for right wing gangs in this country? And why is that not an issue? You know, we have these conversations about Marjorie Taylor Green, and those are

are definitely valid discussions to have. You know, Lauren Bobert and all of the other far-right members of Congress, you have some of them literally showing up to meetings that are being held by groups that stormed the Capitol on January 6th. It's just, it's amazing. It really is. I mean, I remember, John, in 2012, there was a Republican lawmaker who argued that if a woman gets raped and Voile gets raped, you don't have to worry about her getting pregnant because

the body has this whole way of shutting things down. That's what he argued. It was such a ridiculous, ignorant, and offensive comment that it destroyed his political career. He's done. Yeah. But things have gotten so much worse, like to the point where you have right-wing lawmakers empowering right-wing extremists in the country and protecting them. Yeah, and implying, you know, that we're in the civil war, we're not shooting. yet, that's great. It just reminds me so much of, you know, you'll have people like Megan McCain on the view will be like, you know, if you try to take people's guns, you'll have a civil war, you know, I'm not saying if that's a good or a bad thing. I'm just saying

maybe it'll happen. It's all these people that are like agnostic about millions of Americans killing each other. So that's terrible. The comment from the Nick Fuentes guy about the demographic core, I don't even need to hear any of those other comments. If you say that, I know exactly who you are and what you believe about America. But the issue is that while the racist, the people who believe that all politics is about race and protecting the white race have become simultaneously more vocal about it and also far, far more influential in the Republican Party, at the same time you have more right wing propaganda about how racism doesn't exist and white supremacists haven't done anything wrong,

even when you're literally watching video of them doing it. You have people not even necessarily on the right trying to pretend that any conversation about race is a waste of time, it's all economic anxiety and everything. And so what do you know? They continue gaining power and the fact that they're becoming more explicit about it never really seems to hurt them because there's so much plausible deniability. So many people on all sides have just kicked up a bunch of dirt that we're just supposed to, I don't know, try to convince people that this is a problem. We have to We have to convince people of things that were so obvious years ago, I don't know, I don't

know. Is he going to be in trouble? Like he, is it Steve King? Like, this is the sort of thing that made him lose his position. And now it can't effectively. With the Democrats in charge, maybe Marjorie Green gets stripped of her committee assignments before. It was the Republican Party that did that. But we have backslid so much on this. I don't know, I don't know. I don't either. I mean, Representative Steve King, former Representative Steve King, who, you know, is obviously not in office anymore. He was also stripped of his committee assignments because he had said that there's nothing wrong with nationalism, among a million other insane offensive racist things. But I bring him up because he was also at this, you know, nationalist conference, whatever you want to call it. He was there to speak as well. So it gives you a sense of who gathered. And again, understand, Gossar decided that voting, doing his job was not important.

Going to this racist conference to speak for right wing extremists who had stormed the capital. Like that was more important to him. Now luckily, you know, the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package passed in the House of Representatives because Democrats have a slim majority there. But it doesn't matter. The point here is GOSAR obviously has his priorities in emboldening and empowering the worst elements of society, while also abandoning his job and refusing to do what he was literally elected to do. So this is, this is what the Republican Party is. And I'm actually, to be honest with you, tired of reading articles by reporters who are like, ooh, so this war within the Republican Party, is it going to be Trumpism,

or is it going to be the more traditional republic? You know, you know already, you know already. They protected Donald Trump who incited the riot. You already know, case closed. We don't need to have the debate anymore. Let's move on. Well, speaking of moving on, Mike Pence has broken his silence since the Capitol riot, and I have lots of details to share with you on that. Former Vice President Mike Pence has decided to break his silence following the January 6th riots where Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and chanted things like hang Mike Pence because he was in the process of counting the electoral college votes for Joe Biden, the person who actually won the general election. Now, in an op-ed for the daily signal, Pence argued that, you know, we need more election integrity. That's the headline for his op-ed. election integrity is a national imperative. So he's continuing to push this lie that there were issues with voter fraud. A few excerpts from his piece where he says that after an election marked by significant voting irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside

state election law, I share the concerns of millions of Americans about the integrity of the 2020 election. Do you? Your family was in the capital with you. Like Pence's family had to be evacuated along with Pence, obviously, because these Trump supporters who had been lied to by Donald Trump and lied to by Mike Pence stormed the Capitol and were threatening their lives. They were literally chanting, hang Mike Pence. But, you know, he's going to continue furthering this nonsense about how we need more election integrity. And to be sure, we do need reforms for our election, something that Democrats have passed in the House of Representatives, something called HR1, which we'll get to in just. a second. But John, the whole idea of this op-ed was to shift the ire of Trump's supporters off of Mike Pence and onto congressional Democrats who are trying right now to expand voting rights, to get money out of politics through legislation. That's what HR1 is.

That's what the whole point of this piece is. And we're going to get to HR 1 in a second, but I wanted to give you a chance to jump in. Yeah, maybe it'll have that effect. I don't know. If I had spent the past few months being told by the only person I trust to be the arbiter of all that is true in the universe that Mike Pence could save us and he chose not to, I'm not sure that I would care about any opeds he wrote afterward. You could have overturned the election.

You could have made Donald Trump president. And by the way, I am not predisposed to read. So I don't know why this is the thing that would actually save him. I have to say that I think, you know, considering the threat to Mike Pence and his family that has to be ongoing, combined with the complete lack of interest in the Republican base of his presidential aspirations, I think it's sort of beautiful. You know, like everybody just wants to find something they will fight for, something they're willing to die for. And he's proven that he's willing to die for this big lie.

And he might be called upon to do so at some point in the near future. And yet he's not backing down. He will be torn to shreds by a mob of red hat wearers so that Donald Trump can raise money for the next few years. You know, it wouldn't be my cause, but I appreciate the commitment. Well, the Republican Party is terrified about the potential passage of HR1. And they're pretty transparent about how they know that it would put them at a disadvantage because throughout the years, their ideas don't win over the majority of voters. What typically tends to happen is they find ways to rig the system in their advantage through

gerrymandering and other tricks that they've played. And so HR1 is this opportunity to really reform elections in this country to make it a little more fair for people, to make it easier for people to take part in it. And more importantly, the part that I enjoy the most out of this piece of legislation is the campaign finance portion of it. But here's what Pence would have you believe about HR1. And of course, all of this is complete and utter bull crap. So he says Congress will vote this week on HR1. The so-called for the People Act, a massive 800-page election overhaul bill that would increase opportunities for election fraud, trample the First Amendment, further erode confidence

in our elections, and forever dilute the votes. of legally qualified eligible voters. At one point, he even argued that this would make it possible for undocumented immigrants to vote, which is not in any way true. It's just not true. You just completely made that up, completely made it up. And I know, right? And John, you know, it's interesting that he put this op-ed out because the Supreme Court is actually hearing a case right now involving restrictive voting laws in their own state. So one of the those voting laws that actually makes it very difficult for minorities to cast a ballot in the state is that if you are submitting your ballot in a precinct other than your own,

well then that ballot doesn't count, right? And so it disproportionately impacts the minority vote in the state of Arizona. And so the case has made it to the Supreme Court. And so Amy Coney Barrett is questioning the lawyer representing the Republican Party from the state of Arizona. Just to give you a little more context before we go to this video, an attorney representing the Arizona Republican Party helpfully admitted outright that voting makes it harder for Republicans to win elections. As by right-wing Supreme Court Justice, Amy Coney-Barrant to explain the Arizona GOP's interest in upholding a state law that disqualifies ballots cast in the wrong precinct, Republican lawyer Michael Carvin responded that striking down

the regulation would, quote, put us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. Now, I want to have you hear the exchange for yourselves. Let's take a quick look. I'm interested in knowing why the RNC is in the case. So, you know, the DNC had standing, and the district court said that it had standing to challenge the out-of-precinct policy because the policy placed a greater imperative on democratic organizations to educate their voters and because the policy harmed its members who would have voted out of precinct.

What's the interest of the Arizona RNC here in keeping, say, the out of precinct voter ballot disqualification rules on the books? Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game. He just says it. They just say it, guys. They say it out in the open. They don't want democracy. They don't want free and fair elections. Okay, they're just saying it, John. They're just saying it. They don't even care.

It's amazing. Well, and they should say it. And why not? Because in theory, like we express like, oh my God, they're just saying it because we're not explicitly saying it because, wait, shouldn't that have consequences? Well, hypothetically, the consequence might be that you would turn off your voters because they wouldn't want to be affiliated with a group who cares so little about democracy. But all of those people believe that the other side harvests the hormones of babies and wears

their face as masks. So I think they're going to be okay. I don't think that the Republicans are going to lose a lot of votes for trying to shut down voting, especially when it's been made very clear to all of their voters that the voting suppression is going to largely affect non-white voters, far more so. So it's surprising to me that it's not more explicit. I mean, it's pretty explicit. All these different bills and all of that, the, you know, the completely fraudulent op-ed from Mike Pence. We're in it, we're in a really dark place. We've had, I don't want to go too broad because I know we have a million things to talk about, but like there have been instances in the past, for instance, prior to the ACA where there's this big

crisis staring America in the face about health care. And in theory, you had both sides with plans. I don't think the right was ever going to pass one, but they at least had to pretend that they might. And now there's nothing like that. There's no, the Republicans, every Republican in the country is desperate for Trump to get back into office. But I defy them to explain why, what they want him to do, in theory to stop the left, I guess. But it's not that they want him to get in to fix something having to do with wages or health insurance or student loans or anything. It's not tied to any problems. And so the right doesn't have to even pretend to offer solutions to those problems, which means that there can't be any nationwide

debate about the problems because only one side even acknowledges that they exist. And I don't understand how a democracy, how a political system of any formulation is supposed to work when an ever increasing percentage of the population is more interested in like, like man, they took out that Dr. Seuss book. And that's a serious issue for my point of view. And that's the only serious issue. Cancel culture is the only serious issue. How are you supposed to have competitive campaigns? How is it supposed to be anything other than just raw demographics and voter suppression at that point that determines who rules the day?

Yeah, I mean, that's that's what we've been dealing with. in several states, that's what's going to get worse unless HR1 actually passes. And, you know, just a quick word to Democrats who are refusing to nuke the filibuster in the Senate. And also a word to the Democrats who immediately cave to conservatives, even though they have the majority in both the House of Representatives in the Senate, you're not going to pass HR1. They're not going to pass anything. Like, what I'm hearing right now, how could they? Right. I mean, If they caved immediately on a $15 an hour minimum wage, something that's tremendously popular, what do you think they're going to do with the passage of HR1 in the Senate?

What do you think they're going to do, guys? Do you think they're going to fight for it? They're not going to fight for it. And I keep hearing all this nonsense coming from the corporate media about how Biden doesn't want to use all his political capital on a $15 an hour minimum wage in the coronavirus relief bill because he has an infrastructure bill coming up. B.S. That's funny. B.S. If they were unable to pass $15 an hour minimum wage through reconciliation, they're not going to be able to do it when it comes to an infrastructure bill through the Senate. They're not going to fight for it. They're not going to fight for anything. The Senate, even under the slim majority of the Democratic Party, is where important legislation goes to die.

We have lots of updates on that for you later in the show. But it's just, it's beyond frustrating. because what Republicans understand is raw power and they understand when it makes sense to use Machiavellian strategies to get what they want. And they've become more and more emboldened, John. Like they don't care, you're right. And we don't have an opposition party for them, to them. Yeah, like I think, I agree with everything that you're saying. I would only, the only issue I would take with it is they won't fight in the future. Because it's not even a thing where, fighting, could in theory, work. The reason we're talking about Democrats fighting now is we have to theoretically win over mansion and cinema or whatever. But like on these other

issues where it won't be reconciliation, it doesn't even matter if we get all of them. Fighting to get every Democrat won't matter because you're never going to get Republicans to sign on to literally anything. We do not have a functioning government. And fundamentally, you have one party that identifies actual, that in theory could identify problems and try to fix them. And then you have another party that doesn't want the government to literally accomplish anything. That's a huge impasse. And where you said the Republicans understand raw power, we might say hypothetically in the future, if Republicans wanted something, they would would nuke the filibuster, but I would argue they already have in literally the only area that

they care about with judges. They don't want those to be filibustered. In terms of legislation, they don't care about the filibuster because there's no legislation they want to pass. There's no bill that they care about actually passing. They got their tax cuts, they can get judges. They don't need a majority. They need to hold on to 40 seats, and that's it. That is literally it. You're right. That's the situation we find ourselves in. So if the Democrats in the Senate aren't fighting tooth and nail to nuke the filibuster right now, there is no future for the Democratic Party. And it's just going to continue allowing the Republican Party to accumulate more power,

more influence over our elections. They're going to continue rigging the system to their advantage. And that's the situation we find ourselves in. And look, I know this is definitely, downer commentary. It's not very optimistic. But in the second hour, Nando and I are going to discuss a number of these stories involving the coronavirus relief package. You know, AOC compared the minimum wage in the United States to what workers get paid in Denmark. There's a very specific reason for that. And it's labor power. It's labor power. We need to stop focusing on this hero worship strategy in politics. There are no heroes in Congress.

We need to make sure that we organize and empower ourselves to apply the pressure necessary to get them to bend to our will. And we'll discuss that later in the show. But for now, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government,

the media and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-the-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional

and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. I'm going to be it. Hey everyone, welcome to our first social break of the show. I'm going to start off with member comments.

The anti-fascist metal hippie writes in regarding the GOSAR story we just did. Nick Fuentes is a white nationalist that is trying to mainstream the ideology. Much like Richard Spencer was before Unite the Right, he's trying to marry mainstream conservative politics with the hatred of overt fascists. And look, to be honest with you, it's not that difficult to do considering the types of Republican lawmakers we have in office right now. I don't even think it takes much persuading to get someone like Gossar at one of these oathkeeper events. It's all McDonald's writes in and says Gossar was implicated by Ali

Alexander as helping to plan the insurrection. Of course, he would speak at a neo-Nazi event. Meg says, wow, you can really see how Paul Gossar won his seat with an electric public, what an electric public speaker. He's not good, wow. Which, by the like, the standards are so low for, anyway, okay, KD. Dragon, I thought that all of those rioters at the Capitol on the 6th were Antifa, are they saying that Antifa are patriots now? That's from KD. Dragon, it's hilarious. Gabby Marita, why do I feel like the attendees of this AF PAC thing are basically a gaggle of people who utter the phrase, I'm not racist, but at least 53 times a day. Yeah, I don't even think that they try to deny that they're racist. I think they know they're racist. I think that they just accept it. I don't even think they're phased by that accusation at this point. Nick Fuentes thought that, what's his name? Charlie Kirk wasn't racist enough. Like, come on. All right. Greg says, hey, Republicans, your terrible opinions and policies

also put you at a competitive disadvantage. I'm not seeing any rush to change them. Because they know, okay, so there's, Corey Robin is a political scientist that we interviewed on weekends. That's the Jacobin show that I do with Nando. Look for that video at YouTube.com slash Jacobin Mag because what he argues is that Republicans have not had much in terms of popular policies for a long, long time. What they focus their energy on is further, you know, destroying our democratic process to their advantage, like changing elections structurally in any way they can in order to maintain their power. So they can have the unpopular opinions, but it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. I mean, that's why they can lose the popular vote,

but still win the electoral college and, you know, find themselves in office. It's, it's incredibly frustrating. And Durge writes in and says, gerrymandering puts the Democrats at a competitive disadvantage. Maybe they can get struck down if this ruling goes for the Republicans. We'll see. We'll see. Anyway, we do have to, actually no, I'm going to read a quick super chat. Peter Hamby. Merci beaucoup, Anna, for reminding us of Todd Aiken. Thank you for reminding me of his name. I blanked on it. I was like, I'm not going to guess. So thank you for reminding me. I wonder how many rapists actually believed him. I'm sure quite a bit. It's disgusting. Anyway, we got to get back to the show. I'll see you guys there.

I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Welcome back to the show, everyone, Anna Casparian and John Iderola, John, this is your chance. This is your best shot. Promote your show. Oh, geez. It's fine. It's fine. You know, if you've already, like, if you've worked through all your podcasts or whatever and you're waiting for a new episode to come out, like, I don't know, maybe, maybe look into it. No, it's, we have a lot of fun and we talk about a lot of great stuff. We have awesome guests on both my co-hosts. Like today was J.R. Jackson. Tomorrow, Adrian Lawrence is going to be joining me. We close out the week on Fridays by throwing human garbage in a garbage can, which is a lot of fun. Congressman Rokana was just on to talk about the minimum wage and the IRS. Yeah, we don't We have a lot of fun, we don't take ourselves too too seriously, but we actually identify what's wrong in the country. That's what we try to do. I love it. It's the damage reports. It only makes sense. Your show is so popular that now on anything I post on Instagram,

there are comments dragon related. So I posted a picture of me and my dad this morning, and people wanted to know what is my dad's dragon nickname. And I've already chosen it for him. It's, he's the what's the hell dragon because he says what's the hell. I like it. I like it. So that's it. That's, that's my dad's dragon nickname. All right, well, let's talk about Marjorie Taylor Green, but more importantly, the where she was speaking and why she was speaking today and the important underlying story that I don't think is getting enough attention. So, right wing conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Green, who earlier had her committee assignments stripped from her after she advocated for violence against her political

opponents, says that she's the real victim of voter suppression. Not because her state GOP is actively working to dismantle the voting rights of minorities, but because, you know, she has to walk through metal detectors. And that's, you know, really hurting her ability to enter the House floor. Anyway, I don't want to put words in her mouth. Let's hear what she has to say. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to HR1. While we're talking about voter suppression and long lines, I'd like to point out that there's real voter suppression that happens right here in Congress. Many members of Congress have to stand in long lines to enter the chamber going through metal detectors, emptying our pockets, and being treated very disrespectfully. So that is real voter suppression, and it's a shame that it happens right here on the House floor.

Standing in line to vote is not voter suppression. It's just part of the voting process, just like people stand in line to buy groceries at the grocery store. So she believes that walking through metal detectors is just, it's wrong. It's offensive, except for when the Republican Party demands that schoolchildren do it to enter their own schools because our politicians refuse to do anything about gun violence in this country. But John, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Marjorie Taylor Green's, you know, oppression. Like she's really oppressed here. Yeah, so presumably for those kids, it's not disrespectful.

Or it doesn't matter if it's disrespectful. Yeah, she sort of did, like I'm inclined to say that she would do okay as a right-wing pund it, except she doesn't talk fast enough or do enough Coke. But the reason I say that is because she has mastered the skill of saying like at least six dumb and or crazy things at every statement so you don't know exactly where you're supposed to start. Yeah, that's pathetic. It's, you know, making yourself out to be the victim, which is her natural impulse. It's the impulse of virtually every right wing on the country now. I imagine that even Republicans watching that would think, why are you being such a baby about this? Like, how many people could possibly be in that

line? And bear in mind, we wouldn't have the line if you hadn't encouraged violence. If you didn't insist on bringing guns into the Capitol building, we could get rid of the lines if you guys would act like actual humans living in a society. And in the absence of that, making yourself out to be a victim just seems so pathetic and whiny. And I keep waiting for eventually just the constant whininess of the right to actually hurt them, for people to see through the claims that somehow they're the strong ones, the alphas when they just whine about stuff like this all day long. But it doesn't seem to be catching up to them. So I guess they're doing okay. Aside from that, the actual substance is that voter suppression is real and it actually

affects people other than Marjor Taylor Green. And I hope as a country we take it seriously at some point. In fact, voter suppression is exactly what Republican lawmakers are currently working on in the state of Georgia, which of course is the state that Marjorie Taylor Green comes from. And so they're working on two bills. And I want to highlight them for you. So you can understand why it's so important for the House of Representatives to pass HR1, also known as the for the People Act. We'll get to that in a second. But here's what's happening in the state of Georgia, which as we all know did go from red to blue in the 2020 general election. So Republican lawmakers in the state are panicking and trying to find ways.

to rig the elections, future elections to their favor. Two bills, one passed by the House on Monday and another that would pass the Senate this week, seek to alter foundational elements of voting in Georgia, which supported President Biden in November and a pair of Democratic senators in January, narrow victories attributable in part to the array of voting options in the state. So the House's bill in the state of Georgia, it's HB. 531. which has not yet been passed. It might be amended in the Senate. It calls for an end to automatic voter registration, vote by mail system known as no excuse, which allows any voter

to cast mail ballots if they choose. They'd call an end to that. It also goes to the Senate this week. So that's what we know so far. And the Republican legislation would undermine pillars of voting access by ending automatic voter registration, banning drop boxes for mail ballots and eliminating the broad availability of absentee voting. The bills would restrict early voting on weekends, limiting the longstanding civic tradition of souls to the polls in which black voters cast ballots on Sunday after church services. So this is very clearly targeted toward black voters in the state of Georgia. And again, that's why it's so important for Congress to pass H.R.1. And that is exactly what they were debating on the House floor when Marjorie

Taylor Green made those idiotic statements. So I want to go to this video of Professor Lawrence Lessig, who explains just how important H.R.1 really is for people who actually care about having a free, fair democratic process. This bill referred to as H.R.1 is the most fundamental reform of our At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN.

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And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EXPRE S-SVPN.com. TYT. Check it out today. Political system since the Civil War, this bill would establish public funding of congressional elections. It would end partisan gerrymandering in the states. It would establish automatic voting registration. It would restore the Voting Rights Act. It would establish an extraordinary system of ethics to keep those congressmen focused on what their constituents want,

rather than what the lobbyists want. In other words, John, H.R.1 includes a number of provisions that would be great for democracy, not so great for an unpopular political party that can't win based on ideas and has managed to win through rigging the system in their advantage. Yeah, yeah. It's just the latest and maybe not even the latest. I mean, you know, there's so many bills going around the country right now. part of the Republican war on democracy, but I will say especially if we're talking congressionally, I can only get so mad at the Republicans when they are not needed to actually pass this. And yet you and I both know that this bill will not become law under the current system. It has no chance. It'll pass the House or whatever, and that's meaningless because it

won't pass the Senate because Republicans won't support it. And so at the end of the day, the only people that really matter are, again, the Democrats who will not get rid of the filibuster because they say it encourages bipartisanship. I would love them to provide some evidence of that because I don't see any. But Christmas Cinema and Joe Manchin, and probably others, by the way, to their credit at least, they say they won't override the filibuster. There's probably other Democrats that aren't even being honest about that. They value their myth of the filibuster more. than every one of the things that that video just described, because they would rather keep the filibuster and not have those things, or raise of in wage, or the Equality Act, or insert

literally anything you want because literally nothing will pass. So again, the Republicans are the bad guys, the Republicans are the reason that the bill is necessary, but they're not the reason fundamentally that the bill won't pass, or they're at least not the ultimate reason that the bill won't pass. Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. And for someone like Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema, understand that their unwillingness to do something about the legislative filibuster in the Senate is based on self-interest and also cowardice. Because Joe Manchin wants to brand himself as the Democrat that's, that can be tolerated by right-wing voters in West Virginia. Like he's afraid of right-wing voters, right? Kirsten Cinema is in a similar

situation. But what are you doing appealing to right wingers, right? And even if you want to appeal to right wingers, I mean, on the issue of a $15 an hour minimum wage, it's a pretty popular policy regardless of which political party you fall under. But, you know, the future of the country doesn't matter. Doing the right thing doesn't matter for these politicians. Just maintaining their political power or their position of power for what, for what is what matters to them. I mean, imagine yourself as a United States senator or imagine yourself as the vice president of the United States where you have enough power to get things in motion to improve people's lives and you don't take that opportunity. What's the point? Other than enriching yourself

financially, what is the point? Yeah, I mean, for Joe Manchin, he gets to have a job that pays him a lot and he will never be expected to do anything. He set up a situation where he won't have to. But imagine being Joe Biden and running for president and then spending like the next 30 years running for president more and thinking about when you're going to run for president. Then you finally somehow become president and you will accomplish nothing. And you're not even pushing for the change that would result in you possibly being able to accomplish something. Imagine in like and maybe it'll happen. But already I'm thinking like imagine having wasted decades and decades of your life to accomplish literally nothing because

some myth about Mr. Smith goes to Washington or something like that. It's really sad. I mean, it's far more sad for the people who are being devastated by the lack of solutions to their problems. But, you know, on a shallow level, it's sad for people like Joe Biden as well. We gotta take a break. When we come back, Andrew Cuomo has broken his silence. What does he have to say about the allegations of sexual harassment. And Fox News has a debate about Cuomo's actions as well. We'll give you that and more when we come back. I'm going to be.

I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Hey, everyone. break, TDR is on TikTok. So if you're a follower and a fan of the damage report, you should check it out on TikTok at the damage report. Lots of fun stuff, I'm sure, on that TikTok page. Do they call it a page, John? I don't know. I'm not on TikTok. And I think I'm starting to get pulled in. It's very different. I have no idea what anything's called. I'm already falling

behind. I'm already turning into a boomer. Like, I got to get with it. Speaking of getting with it, you should check out happy half hour tonight on our Twitch channel. It follows our postgame show and is hosted by our very own Brett Ehrlich. You can watch at 530 p.m. Pacific 830 p.m. Eastern at Twitch.tv slash TYT. And then I'm going to read comments. I'm going to go to comments. Okay. Let's go to the super chat comment from Christina. Is there any trouble coming tomorrow? Q said March 4th was the day that Trump would be reelected, love TYT. I don't know. I don't know. I know that there have been some worries about that, but it's really hard to tell. I think what's- What if he does become president? What if?

Who, Trump? What if it's right? He might be in 2024. I mean, we'll see. No, tomorrow. What if? Yeah, maybe. We'll see, we'll see, maybe, maybe. Jesse Minor, if a grocery line is backed up, they call for help referring to the story we were talking about earlier. Special Thanks to our YouTube members, new YouTube members. We have Marcy Carrillo and we have Todd Wulgamuth. I hope I pronounce that correctly. And Susan Griffin, thank you so much for being supporters of TYT and joining as members. Hale the parliamentarian in our members section wants to know if John, you and I are going to talk about Iona Presley wanting to lower the voting age to 16, I actually had not seen that story. So no, we're not going to talk about it today. But maybe

we'll talk about it right now. Go ahead, John. Sure. No, I will say that I'm familiar with it. I've got it set aside for tomorrow on TDR, but it happened relatively recently. All right. Someone who likes Bernie Sanders on Marjorie Taylor Green, classic conservatism, I'm being oppressed because of this process that we all have to go through. I know it's amazing. Diana writes in and says 15 minutes in line for groceries as opposed to 11 hours in line to vote. Typical right wing false equivalency. I know, exactly. So stupid. It's so stupid. Bart Kyle. I know, it is. It is. I just, I'm like, I'm so numb to it. That's the thing that scares me the most. And then Bart Kyle, our very own Bart Kyle, who's a member of the show, says, just tell Marjorie Taylor Green that the metal detectors will protect her from the Jewish space laser weapons and she won't complain, problem solved.

Pretty amazing. It'll detect Bill Gates's nanobots. Maybe, maybe, maybe. All right, we got to get back to the show, guys. I'll see you there. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Hey everyone, welcome back to TYT, Anna and John with you. Let's get right to our next story because Andrew Cuomo is still in the news and he has broken his silence.

It's worth going to a statement. So New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gave a press conference today and we talked about the coronavirus pandemic and also broke his silence regarding the. sexual harassment allegations that have been put out against him by three different women, two of whom were actually former staffers of his. Now, before we go to this video, I should note that if you watch the full statement, he begins it by trying to be less offensive by arguing that he's in favor of women coming out and being able to air their grievances, to be able to share their thoughts and their

discomforts and all of that. And then he followed it with this. First, I fully support a woman's right to come forward. And I think it should be encouraged in every way. I now understand that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable. It was unintentional, and I truly and deeply apologize for it. I feel awful about it, and frankly, I am embarrassed by it. And that's not easy to say. And then he followed that by saying that it wasn't his intention to make any uncomfortable and that he did not inappropriately touch anyone.

Even though we showed you a photo that was released by the third woman who alleged that he made her uncomfortable, he had his hands on her face, and he had asked her if he could kiss her, and that was after he had put his hands on her lower back. And then the first former staffer who came out with sexual harassment allegations said that he had kissed her on her on her lips without consent. That's putting yourself on someone physically that is touching someone inappropriately. I think that's worth noting. He is dealing with an independent investigation after he tried to appoint someone that he's close to to do the investigation. Luckily, the attorney general in New York stepped in and did not allow that to happen.

And so there will be an independent investigation, which I'm happy about. Letitia James is the prosecutor who's pursuing this, which is important. But this is that statement, I'm not good in my opinion. But John, I wanted to get your thoughts. I mean, I think it was better than the last one from Sunday. The Sunday one was, you know, I apologize that you and your dumbness misinterpreted my meaning, basically. this was better than that, especially, I don't know if it was honest or not, but he definitely sounded like he was on the verge of crying, which is better, I guess, for an apology, for you

to have some sort of emotion other than condescension. So this is better in that respect. I mean, he refuses to step down by the way. Oh, well, definitely. Yeah. No, I, yeah, I get that. That's a relevant part to this story. He was asked by reporters if he's willing to step down and he's like, no, I'm not stepping down. And by the way, there. There are vote Democrats in the media who are, you know, pushing all these ridiculous conspiracy theories about how this is just an attempt to destroy him politically. But look, remember, I don't want anyone to forget this. What he did in making these women uncomfortable, especially given the power dynamic as he's,

you know, was their boss with two of the former staffers, like it's a problem. And I'm not in any way arguing that we should forget about that. He should certainly be investigated for that. But I also feel like everyone has forgotten about the massive scandal involving Cuomo deciding to force nursing homes to readmit elderly patients who were still recovering from coronavirus. That spread coronavirus in nursing homes. that led to a giant number of elderly people dying, contracting the virus and dying in these nursing homes. And then his administration intentionally, purposely to suppress the numbers.

He covered up mass deaths. That's what he did. That alone, that alone should force him to step down. That is not a small thing, guys. That's huge. And for any Democrat who is critical of the Brian Kemp's and the Ron DeSantis and all the other Republican government, the Greg Abbott's, all the Republican governors who have mishandled the coronavirus pandemic, how dare you not hold Cuomo accountable for what he engaged in? This is not about political labels. This is about what's right and wrong. What Cuomo did is wrong. And everyone's just forgotten about that. It's like not a big story anymore. That is a huge deal. We're talking about death, mass deaths in the state of New York that were caused by a terrible decision that he made, and then he covered up how many people had died.

It's, I don't know, maybe I'm crazy for being outraged by that, but that deserves outrage. Yeah. No, I mean, yeah, and the whole thing just comes down to does, is he going to get enough pressure from people that he cares about that have some influence over his future aspirations? And I don't mean the voters, I don't think he particularly cares about that. But there's always somebody that gets to weigh in on this. Nobody steps down willingly. Nobody's like, you know, if it would make people feel better, I'll end my political career. I don't think they generally do that, but sometimes they've stepped down. Katie Hill stepped down, El Franken step down. It can happen as long as you're a Democrat. And so maybe it'll happen.

I don't know. I don't think that these various iterations of apologies are really convincing anyone that he's fundamentally changed what he thinks happened and why fundamentally it was inappropriate? And that's a problem, but not necessarily a big enough problem to cause him to leave political office. Well, we do have one more Cuomo-related story that I want to get to before we wrap up our first hour. And John, I can't wait for you to react to Geraldo here, because Fox has weighed in on the Cuomo scandals. And so they got into a little bit of a debate. I want to share those details with you.

The fine people over at Fox News engaged in a debate regarding New York's governor Andrew Cuomo and the multiple allegations of sexual assault that have been made public against him. Now, Geraldo has decided that maybe this is a good time to defend someone who, uh, allegedly kissed a former staffer without consent, who also proceeded to ask all sorts of inappropriate sexual questions, you know, just made his former staffers uncomfortable, then later, you know, made another woman at a wedding uncomfortable. But Rollo's like, come on, come Come on. I mean, he's a poor guy's lonely. Here's his argument.

Now, I'm very sympathetic to these young ladies who have come forward. None, as far as I have heard yet, has alleged a conduct that would be called sexual assault in the classic sense of it. Andrew Cuomo, I mean, I know this is the most unpopular thing in America to say right now. He's a 63-year-old single guy living in Albany, the most boring town. in America, he's all by himself, and single women come by. I'm not saying anything is appropriate. I'm saying that there's human nature, and we have to recognize that he's not a street corner rapist that he's being made out. Oh my God, that was awful.

You know, sexual harassment is bad. It's wrong. I feel a lot of empathy for women who have been, or people who have been sexually harassed, except if you live in a boring town, then it's okay because you might be a little lonely and you have no choice, but to sexually harass your own staffers. That's, that was his argument, John. Hannah, cut him some slack. They shut down the only Dave and Busters in town. What's he gonna do? That's it. David Busters is so much fun. I miss that place. I know, it is. They didn't have enough, he didn't have enough activities. Throw him at some toys, perhaps a ball. Give him something to do. I've never heard he was so bored he had to harass

as an argument. That tight shot of Geraldo's face is very uncomfortable giving this, given the commentary that we just heard from him. Okay, just pray that Geraldo is not bored. Well, okay, that's a good point because that come, oh, come on, Skip. You're going to do that. Back to it, I'm just kidding. But it is a very close up shot of Geraldo's strange face. Someone said in the chat. It makes me wonder what Geraldo does when he's bored. Like if he thinks that being bored is justification to engage in sexual harassment, Bonjino, Dan Bongino did chime in. He apparently was disgusted by Cuomo and does want to hold him accountable, but it's for a very political reason. Let's watch.

I wanted Kavanaugh to take a lie detector test, and he went out with, I believe, I believe, I believe himself too. Dan? Yeah, yeah, that's all crap, what Heraldo just said. Because, listen, I'm sorry, man, but this, like you just said, this guy has put himself on the totem pole morality. He's put himself at the top. Kavanaugh, who had the most ridiculous accusations you've ever heard level against him, debunked by every credible person who understood what really happened in Kavanaugh. And Cuomo was

out there. He needs to take a polygraph test, a lie detector test. Nah, nah, man, I'm sorry, he can be lonely, all he wants, and, you know, go get a dog. What are you going to do? What are you going to arrest him? I'm not doing anyone. He's disgusting, and he's a creep. I don't want anything to do. I wouldn't even have a tequila shot with this guy.

Let's mug him. Let's get a freaking dog, man. If you're lonely. Stop putting your mitts on people. It's probably not a good idea to be doing kissy play with people who aren't interested. It's kind of gross. Unlike Andrew Cuomo, I actually believe in process. Andrew Cuomo is innocent until proven guilty, even though I dislike the guy as much as I like any, dislike any human being on planet Earth. Having said that, there was never a scintilla of credibility to charges against Kavanaugh, ever, ever. Yeah, well, but, you know, I mean, for him, this is a political issue and it doesn't need

to be a political issue. Kavanaugh had credible allegations against him. Kavanaugh did not face a real FBI investigation. The FBI did a narrow scope investigation that was supposed to last a week, which was far too short. But they didn't even take up a full week. They decided with less than a week in this investigation that, yeah, he's good, he's fine. Okay. Well, he's a Supreme Court justice now, so that's great. But this is not, I want to be clear, this is not a political issue. And yes, Cuomo should resign, not only because he sexually harassed former staffers and one other woman that we know of, but also because he made terrible decisions that led to deaths and nursing homes in his own state, then proceeded to cover

up those numbers and lied to the people of his own state, and then proceeded to threaten a Democratic state assembly man for not defending him publicly after he had been embroiled in that cover-up scandal with the nursing home deaths. So yes, he should he should resign, Geraldo. He should resign. That's what he should do. Yeah, I, no, exactly. Exactly. I think I think you handled that very well. I will say that this is a political issue, not the Cuomo stuff. He's got plenty of political issues. No, what you just saw in Fox News is a political issue? And the political issue is that a bunch of, what do you know? It's a bunch of guys have a view of whether sexual assault or harassment are being bad or not, which is entirely just a product of who did it. And what are the implications of acknowledging it? That's it. There's no further thought than that. Whether accusations are credible. and not, doesn't mean anything, it just means do I want to believe they're true? With Kavanaugh and with Cuomo, it's the same thing. It's the word of the woman and further contemporaneous confirmation and all of that. It's the same thing, but they care about one and they don't

care about the other because fundamentally they don't care about women or assault. They care about political pay, payback. We've figured out something that I don't think is complicated here, which is that we reported on Cuomo and on Trump's accusers and on Kavanaugh's accusers and on Tara Reid and on Madison Cawthorne, what do you know we found a way to be consistent on sexual assault? But virtually no one else can do that. Everybody picks maximum 50% of that span that we just talked about and pretends to care about it briefly if it'll produce some political outcome that they like. It doesn't seem super complicated to just take it seriously all the time and talk about the accusations.

I would advise other media outlets to look into it. It's not as hard as you might seem to believe it is. Yeah, when you use something as serious as sexual harassment, sexual assault as nothing more than, you know, something meant to be used for political leverage, you're just as bad as the people who engage in that behavior. You're helping to cover up or defend individuals who engage in that behavior while at the same time using it as something to destroy political opponents.

It's an issue that should be devoid of a political agenda and should focus solely on doing what's right to protect people. Because, you know, as we know, especially when it comes to sexual harassment in the workplace, women are disproportionately represented as the victims in that case. But people in general, I mean, we've heard stories of men who have had to deal with these types of advances, who have had to deal with sexual assault, who have had to deal with rape, right? And it doesn't get covered to the same extent, but it's a problem. And so this is a problem that should, you know, we should want to deal with fairly to make sure that people feel protected, that people feel safe. But it just becomes nothing more than a political bargaining chip by bad faith actors. And it's incredibly frustrating to see it. John, thank you so much, as always, for hosting with me in hour one. You're a hoot. I have a good time with you. You're a double hoot, Anna Kasparian. Thank you, thank you. And when we come back, Nando Villa will be joining me to talk about how conservative

Democrats have destroyed your chance of getting a $15 an hour minimum wage through this Senate bill for coronavirus relief. We'll be back with that and more in just a minute. 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 at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.