The Young Turks - Dank Biden

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

President Biden says he will pardon all federal offenses of simple marijuana possession. Herschel Walker now says “ abortion isn’t something to be ashamed of” but he still supports the abortion ban. Ben Shapiro just made the worst defense of Herschel Walker yet. In a recent study, a majority of republicans believe Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election.  Host: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right, well, Leo Turks, Jane Cougar and a Cusparian with you guys back in the studio. It feels like it's been forever. So we've got a great show ahead for you guys. More hypocrisy from Herschel Walker, of course. And one of my favorite stories of the day is one of the Scooby-Doo characters.

Gay, let's debate tonight because America. Okay, so that ought to be fun. All right, Casper, what do you got for us? Marijuana. Where? Where I'm ready. Kind of, you know. In my purse.

You want me to get it? Oh, okay. You want me to smoke you out on the show? Oh. You'd probably don't want that. Anyway. Ugar. Thank you.

Has a nice ring to it. I'm into it. All right. Well, Joe Biden full of surprises. All right. So Joe Biden has delivered on a campaign promise and has stated that he will pardon thousands of individuals who have been convicted federally for possessing marijuana. Now simple marijuana possession is something that he plans on erasing from people's records, which is good to. records, which is good news. He also is taking the first major step in decriminalizing pot

and potentially taking marijuana off the list of Schedule 1 substances, which is huge. This is a big deal. Now, he made the announcement via Twitter where he writes, as I've said before, no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana. Today I'm taking steps to end our failed approach. Allow me to lay them out. Lay him out, Biden. Lay him out. So here's what he says he's going to do first. I'm pardoning all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession. There are thousands of people who were previously convicted of simple possession who may be denied employment, housing, or educational opportunities as a result. My pardon will remove this burden. Let me pause for a second. This is great. I don't think that anyone should be denied a job

because they were convicted of simple marijuana possession. That is insane. But I also think that if you've done your time and you've paid your debt to society, regardless of what the crime is, you should be able to get out of prison or jail or whatever it is and get a job. It's crazy that people are punished literally for the rest of their lives. Anyway, but let me continue. That's a little bit of a side note. Additionally, he will also encourage governors to take similar steps. Remember, we're talking about the president of the United States. He has control over federal convictions, but many people are still dealing with state convictions

for marijuana possession. So he says, second, I'm calling on governors to pardon simple state marijuana possession offenses. Just as no one should be in federal prison solely for possessing marijuana, no one should be in a local jail or state prison for that reason either. And currently, marijuana is illegal under federal law because of the fact that it is a schedule one substance or listed as such, even as individual states have moved toward legal use for recreational and medical purposes. Under the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is listed on Schedule 1, meaning it has

no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Jank. Yes. So for those of you who have been watched a long time, what do I always tell you about how progressive the country is? And one of the ways that I prove that to you guys is by showing you right before an 11th, election, everybody goes progressive. Even Mitch McConnell, when he thought there was a small chance he might lose two elections ago, declared that he loved the Kentucky version of Obamacare.

Funny, I thought you were trying to kill Obamacare all that time, right? And I can show you dozens. And in fact, I have throughout the years dozens of examples. And here's another one. Joe Biden, first he goes progressive on student debt relief. And just like we told him, his numbers go up. Of course. And one of the reasons is that when you have people who are mad about student debt relief, they're only a little mad. They're not going to vote based on that. If you've got $10,000 or $20,000 in student debt relief, you're going to vote based on that. And his numbers among the young went up double digits, right? Now, another thing he'd promised young people was getting rid of marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug. And we're going to get to the portions of

announcement related to that in a second and doing these kind of actions. So now that he saw all progressives were right about student debt relief, that wound up helping me in the polls a lot, he goes to do the second step because this is also going to help him win elections. And then of course, just the general thing of not just the student debt relief worked, but they always go progressive before the elections. And remember, this is not primaries. This is general elections because they know the overwhelming majority of the country actually

He loves all these progressive proposals. Yeah, I mean, imagine that actually doing something for people and giving them a reason to vote for you or to vote for your party as opposed to constantly leaning on the fear mongering messaging about the Republican Party, which sure, do that too. I mean, I think that's legitimate, but at the same time, offer something to people. And so he mentions the marijuana classification in his third tweet writing, we classify marijuana at the same level as heroin, which is insane. more serious than fentanyl. It makes no sense. I'm asking Javier Bacaria, I'm kidding, Javier Bacera and the Attorney General to initiate the process of reviewing how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. And by the way, I mean, this is an issue that has widespread agreement across the country, across the political aisle. Ninety one percent of Americans overall

would like to see marijuana be legalized. And I think that makes a lot of sense. Take a look at this Pew Research Center pie graph that gives you a sense of just how widespread the support is for marijuana legalization. Fewer than 10% of U.S. adults say marijuana should not be legal at all. And that consists of like Dennis Prager and maybe three other people. Jank. Yeah. So remember why the war on drugs was starting in the first place. One of Nixon's top eight says it has admitted this is a direct quote.

You want to know what this war on drugs was really about. Remember, it started in 1970, as Anna just told you, under Nixon. He explained, we knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against a war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. The war on drugs has always been political. It has been against black folks and the left in general. And so this is 50 years too late, right?

But I'll take it. I'll definitely take it. Why didn't Obama do this? Why didn't Clinton do this? By the way, they both smoked pot and laughed and laughed about it. So to Kamala Harris. But they put away millions of people, not just those two, but all of these folks combining a war against their own. And they were cowards through and through and constantly caved in to Republicans and look at it. They barely move when it's 91%. How much clearer does it have to be? And the Democrats are like, All right, all right. We waited two years. It's right before the election.

Maybe we'll pick up a couple of votes. 91%. You sure? I don't know. McPretan is going to yell up. No, no. Okay. And then they go.

I mean, what Biden did is very, very bold. Okay, very, very bold. In fact, it's so bold that the youngsters are now calling him dank Brandon. And the memes have begun. We got to look at them. Here's an example tweeted out by Don Moynihan. And I think it's a lot of fun. The idea of Joe Biden ending his day, like wrapping things up, taking a load off by smoking

a blunt is pretty hilarious. Yeah, there's almost no chance of that. Zero percent. Maybe that's why the memory loss is happening. It turns out he loves it. He can't get off of it. Yeah, right. Okay.

No, seriously, one last thing here. Look, it's many decades too late. Even more should be done. It should be legal everywhere. I can't believe they waited till 91%. All that notwithstanding. Okay, okay, we'll take it. We'll take it. Great job.

All right, look at Biden delivering on student debt relief and on marijuana. It gives people a reason to vote. And so well played. Thank you. Super late, but we will definitely take it. Well, we move away from a positive news story to take a deep dive into scandal. Herschel, the Daily Beast has updated the story about you're paying for a woman's abortion. The anonymous woman has now also alleged that she had a child by you. Your response. That's right. Turns out that the woman.

who has alleged that Herschel Walker got her pregnant and then urged for her to get an abortion and paid for said abortion also shares a child with Herschel Walker. And before we get to Herschel Walker's response to that question, I think it's important to give you guys a little bit of context because the Daily Beast caught up with this woman who still remains anonymous to get her thoughts on everything that's transpired since the groundbreaking story broke earlier this week, how she feels about the way he's. he's handled it. And the woman whose years long relationship with Walker continued after the abortion said that her chief concern was revealing her name, in revealing her name, was because

she was the mother of one of Walker's own children and she wanted to protect her family's privacy as best as she could while also coming forward with the truth. Now, we learned about all of the secret children that Herschel Walker has. And apparently the child that they share together happens to be one of them. And we know that she says that, you know, she's tried to be a good sport. She's tried to kind of stay out of his campaign and the fact that he's trying to run for Senate. But she couldn't handle the fact that he kept pushing for legislation that would essentially do away with the right to get an abortion in any in all circumstances, even if a woman's life is in jeopardy, in danger as a result of the pregnancy. And so she says, quote,

I've been very civil thus far. I keep my mouth shut. I don't cause any trouble. I stay in the background. But I'm also not going to get run over time and time again. That's crazy. So did Herschel Walker acknowledge this woman and the fact that they share a child together? How did he answer that question posed by Hugh Hewitt? Well, let's watch. I know this is untrue. I know untrue and they keep telling me things like that and it's totally totally untrue and I'm not sure why that will be told I know nothing about any woman having an abortion and so they can keep coming at me like that and they're doing it because they want to distract people I know that right right your longtime girlfriend is that's it's a big conspiracy to distract people

from what a wonderful campaign you're running. I'm sure that's what's going on. Jank, I just, this is the story that will not end. Yeah. So, of course, every Republican is going to vote for him anyway. They don't care. They've never cared about abortion. It's always been a lie.

And so when they see that Herschel Walker did the equivalent of what? What do they call it? They call it murder, right? A lot of them are now trying to pass laws against not only doctors, but women, including women who had miscarriages. Okay, so and they say, oh, when it comes to women, when it comes to, now they hate doctors too. Oh, they have, oh, they treat this pandemics and they believe in vaccines and saving your life. And no, and now they want to help women save their lives.

No, boo, we hate doctors, we hate women. So now when Herschel Walker does the thing that they call murder, look, no, it's only fine. No, he's one of us. Yeah, we're not trying to oppress him. He tells us all the things we want to hear about how blacks are no good and all these things. And he says he would oppress women too, mission accomplished. No, but I mean. They literally don't even understand what we're talking about.

They're like, what do you mean hypocrisy? Dana Loche. They're like, he would have oppressed woman like we want him to. Just yesterday, Dana Loche just gave the whole game away. And she was just like, don't care. He called, she called this woman a skank. Okay. And then proceeded to say, I don't care.

I would vote for him anyway because. Then she lied and said, if Raphael Warnock remains in office, I mean, he wants to use our money to pay for everyone's abortion. She knows that's a lie. She knows that there's something called the Hyde Amendment, that taxpayer money doesn't go toward funding abortions. That's ridiculous. But nonetheless, it's again, as I said on the show yesterday, I've said it multiple times on this show. It ain't about abortion. The debate isn't actually about reproductive rights. It's about using that issue to accumulate power politically. And I think that everything that's transpired with Herschel Walker and a whole host of other scandals involving other Republican lawmakers like Scott D. Jarlay, a current Republican congressman who urged his wife and mistress to get abortions, they're all full of it, right? They don't care about it. They use it as a campaign tactic, and that's all it is. Yeah, I mean, look, about Herschel Walker, the Republicans have never cared that he has clear, obvious mental health problems. In fact, he did an ad saying, I have mental health problems. That's not the bug, it's the future.

Yeah, and I'm sure that his poll ratings went up among Republicans. He's like, oh, he's crazy too, ooh, just like Trump, we like this guy. And a pathological liar, he says, oh, this abortion totally, totally untrue. Really? Later, he said, well, I mean, if it did happen, kind of like OJ, we'll get to that in a second. So then, but like guys, he doesn't know anything. And the fact that that doesn't bother Republicans is amazing. So I'm gonna give you one example, it's adjacent to this story.

So they're asking him about this. This issue in Georgia lieutenant governor Jeff Duncan has criticized them on this issue. I'm gonna read you his quote because it's fun. Remember some of the Georgia Republicans are upset at Trump, so that's the context. He says, if we're being intellectually honest, this is a Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia. Hershaw Walker won the primary because he scored a bunch of touchdowns back in the 80s and he was Donald Trump's friend.

Okay, so that is true. So then they asked Herschel Walker about it and he says, oh, what's he doing now? And the reporter answers, he's the lieutenant governor. And then Walker says, yeah, but what is he doing now? Who's he working for? And the reporter's like, for the state of Georgia, he's the lieutenant governor. He doesn't understand that the lieutenant governor works for the state of Georgia. He doesn't know anything.

No, I mean, he'd fit right in. He'd fit right in with our Congress. Not the bug. The feature. The feature, exactly. Now, let's get to other portions of the latest Daily Beast report, latest Daily Beast interview with this woman. She was asked about Herschel Walker's religious beliefs and whether or not he's actually

sincere about how religious he is. And surprisingly, she says, no, he's pretty religious when it's convenient. Asked about the role faith played in Walker's life, the anonymous woman who identifies as a Christian herself said, And even though Walker often talked about Christianity, he uses it when it works for him, and he certainly has been talking about his faith quite a lot this week. She said Walker frequently talked about being a Christian, but never once expressed any misgivings about abortion generally or any regret about the one that they had.

When she got pregnant again years later, the woman says she made a different choice, even though Walker said it still wasn't, quote, a convenient time for him, she says he didn't express any regret. That doesn't shock me at all. He said, quote, relax and recover. And that's the woman, of course, recalling the message, the get well card that Walker had sent her, along with the abortion payment. He seemed pretty pro choice to me. He was pro choice, obviously, she said. And finally, I want to give you another quote from her, because I thought this was telling. She says he didn't accept responsibility for the kid we had, we did have together. That doesn't surprise me, especially since we didn't hear about these children until it came out

through reporting. That says so much about how he views the role of women in childbirth versus his own. And now he wants to take that choice away from other women and couples entirely. So I think that it's brave of her to come forward because honestly I have no doubt that her identity will probably be revealed at some point. And considering the amount of harassment Christian Walker has been dealing with recently from the Republican Party, I mean, instead of attacking Herschel Walker, they're attacking his son for being disgusted for what his father has been up to, how he's been lying. It's incredible.

And if you see the kind of harassment he's dealing with, I have no doubt that if her, if her, identity is revealed, she's probably going to deal with similar, if not worse, harassment. So it takes a lot of courage to come forward and share this story. All right, so last couple of things. You mentioned Christian Walker. He's speaking out against his dad. So here are some, here's a GOP official close to Herschel Walker. They told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that Christian Walker was quote a deeply disturbed kid with obvious issues of his own, who's a spoiled brat and is solely to blame if Herschel loses the race. So Herschel walkers not to blame for getting the abortion and then being against abortion.

His son is to blame for complaining that his dad had all these other kids and didn't tell him about it. It wasn't helpful in raising him. In fact, threatened violence against him. None of that is Hershal Walker's fault. It's his son's fault for complaining about what a monster his dad is. And he's just, but I want you guys to remember, the right wing loved Christian Walker a minute ago. Like literally, I went to New York, came back, and all of a sudden they went from loving Christian Walker who does anti-gay, anti-black videos online. all the time like yeah that's right we got a gay guy who's i don't know if he's still i don't know

what he's pretending to be but he's obviously gay and and and and it's oh but he hates gay people yeah we love that kid right oh wait he spoke out against one of our candidates as the boy a brat mouthy in fact i love that quote i mean this is this is old school south yes it is okay right around the conservative site red site called christian quote a mouthy ungrateful little punk. In other words, hey, we were helping him with his career as long as he said the right things. As long as he was a tool for the Republican Party, yes. And then finally, again, Herschel Walker gives the whole game away in this one statement during his interview with Hugh Hewitt, how he actually feels about abortion, whether or not people should feel any shame

about it. Let's watch. If that had happened, I would have said because there's nothing to be ashamed of there. People have done that, but I know nothing about it. And if I knew about it, I would be honest and talk about it. But I know nothing about that. I mean, if it had happened, there's no shame in it. I mean, I wanna ban it, even in instances where a woman's life is in danger due to complications from that pregnancy, I would ban that, ban it. But there's no shame in it.

I mean, I think it's murder, but there's no shame in it. I mean, this guy doesn't even know what he's talking about. And the idea of him being elected into office in an incredibly powerful institution like the Senate blows my mind, having such a significant say over the personal lives of Americans all across this country, having a say over what I can do and can't do with my own body, insane, knowing what his history is, knowing that he tries to take this mantle of self-righteousness, when in reality, I mean, all these children that he was trying to keep secret, Paying for abortions while purporting that abortion is murder and it should be completely banned.

I'm so sick of these disgusting, egotistical, power-hungry narcissist running for public office. We don't need them. We need actual leadership, people who want to look out for their fellow Americans, not these power-hungry lunatics. Sick of it. Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do about it because Republican voters love them. They love pathological liars. They love people who don't know anything about government, anything about the job. and people who are, you know, who have mental health issues.

They can't get enough of them. So, you know, mainstream media and others will say, jank, you can say bad things about Herschel Walker, but you cannot say it about the beloved Republican voters, really? The overwhelming majority of them are about to show that they're going to vote for Herschel Walker and not give a damn. I mean, how much clear did he have to make? Now, if I had known about it, it would be no big deal, there's no shame in it. I mean, is there any shame in murder?

I mean, if I had murdered seven people in their sleep earlier, there's no shame in it. There's no shame it. No, by you saying we should pass a law that a woman cannot get an abortion, even if she raped, even if she suffers incest, you're saying there's shame in it. That's why you pass a law against it, right? But of course, with conservatives, what is their number one priority themselves? Power. So they're like, hey, when I got an abortion, it was convenient for me to pay for that abortion.

I was super happy about it. My life was better. Now my life is better when I lie about my stance and get hateful Republicans to vote for me. So he's like, I don't even see the issue. So there they are. And the Republican voters go, amen. Amen. We love slash hate abortion.

We're voting for Walker. Yep. Doesn't have to make sense. They're Republicans. When we come back from the break, Ben Shapiro tries to defend Herschel Walker. And it turns out to be a major debt. We'll give you that argument and more, including a breaking news story about the proud boys and their sedition charges related to January 6th. Come right back.

We do. We do have more news, including conservatives twisting themselves up into pretzels, trying to defend Herschel Walker. And we begin with Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro has finally decided to weigh in on this big scandal involving Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker, a Republican who wants to ban abortions in any and all cases, including when a woman's life is in danger from the pregnancy. Now, It's interesting because he's attempting to defend Herschel Walker and specifically defend him against accusations of hypocrisy. He says, quote, it is so very telling that the supposedly horrible thing that Herschel Walker did, according to the media, was support the pro-life position, not knock up a woman and pay for her abortion. Because if he were pro-choice, this would not be a story.

Yes, Ben, if he were pro-choice, this would not be a story because Walker wouldn't be a hypocrite. So for Ben Shapiro, who I think is genuinely a conservative, a person of faith, and he, I think, genuinely thinks abortion is wrong. I don't think he's one of these people who uses it as a political tool. For him, it's immoral. And the biggest issue here is that Herschel Walker actually paid for an abortion. But for everyone else who lives in reality, and doesn't think in the same religious way that Ben Shapiro might think. It's actually worse that Herschel Walker wants to ban abortions for everyone, including in cases where a woman's life is in danger,

meaning she could die from the pregnancy. When his past includes a situation in which he urged a girlfriend to get an abortion and then funded that abortion. That hypocrisy is particularly disgusting. Well, I mean, this is hilarious in a couple of ways. But first of all, well, if you're right, Ben, and you think the real issue is the underlying policy and Herschel Walker paid for an abortion and you care so much about that underlying policy, well, then you would obviously be against them. I mean, he's a deeply immoral person. It's not my faith, it's your faith.

It's not my ideology, it's your ideology. So since you think Herschel Walker is deeply, deeply immoral and basically paid an assassin to kill his unborn child, Why would you support him? I mean, she should be urging Republican voters in the great state of Georgia to vote against him, right? Yeah. I mean, is it a life or isn't it? I don't think it's a life. So if someone who doesn't think, hey, I also don't think the cells in my knee are independent life form.

So someone gets, if I get knee surgery, I'm not a hypocrite. It's not an issue, right? But if you say, oh my God, the cells of my knee are the biggest life in the world. We must protect it and you dig it into your knee 24-7. Yeah, you're a hypocrite. Like, how is this a difficult thing to understand? But they have to do these word salads to try to make the, you know, something that is indefensible, appear to be defensible, but just confusing their audience.

Because his audience is going to read that and be like, I don't understand it at all. But I think I'm supposed to vote for Herschel Walker, even though he paid for an abortion. and we theoretically hate abortion. Let me give you the second tweet in this thread where he writes, the hypocrisy charge, as always, isn't about the personal immorality of someone's activity. And it's immoral as all hell. It's about undermining the actual moral standard they violated. But Ben, that's your morality.

This is my problem with conservatism, right? Their morality is derived from their religious doctrine, Which is great. If that's what you believe, you should be able to believe that. You should have the liberty to believe that. You should live your life as you see fit based on that religious doctrine that you have so much faith in. Great. But your definition of morality is very different from what the vast majority of Americans feel about this very issue of abortion.

Where you have, depending on which poll you're reading, between 70 to 80% of Americans who do not want to make abortion illegal in America. So you're actually in the minority. I think they're kind of, I don't know, in the dark about that, unaware of that. And they seem to forget about the fact that your, again, your morality is different from other people's morality. Your version of what life is, is different from what, honestly, doctors and scientists believe,

but what the vast majority of Americans believe as well. Yeah, I mean, look, a lot of humans do this, to be fair to them. But conservatives especially are so egotistical. They think, well, the whole world. revolves around me, doesn't it? So here I'll give you an example. Analogy that you might be easy for you to understand. So Shapiro thinks, well, I think abortion is immoral as all hell. By the way, I'm going to vote for Herschel Walker anyway. He doesn't live in Georgia, but I guarantee you, he's like, Herschel walker all the way, baby. He's as immoral as hell and I love him for

it. Okay, let's put that. No, no, no, you're just putting out my hypocrisy because of word salad, word meat salad. Okay, but, but guys, okay, so you say it's really immoral. I think it's like knee surgery. I don't care. I don't think abortion is immoral at all. I don't think it's one percent immoral. There's absolutely nothing immoral about it. They're like, no, you can't think that. No, I can think that. I also think that drawing the Prophet Muhammad is not immoral. Muslims think it's really immoral. And they're like, how dare you draw the Prophet Muhammad? But wait, I'm not in your religion. I don't think it's immoral at all. I don't think it's one percent immoral. And Ben Shapir would look at that and go, obviously, look at these dumb Muslims,

thinking they're drawing the prophet Muhammad is immoral. But me, I think the equivalent of knee surgery is the most immoral thing in the world. So how dare you not think like me? No, but okay. But we don't. We don't. And we live in a democracy. So I don't actually believe this or think this.

But I want to make an argument. And I would venture to say, I don't know for sure. But I'm going to speculate that Ben Shapiro would be against what I'm saying. So my mom, for instance, in order for her to live, in order for her to survive, she desperately needed a kidney transplant. Now, humans can survive on just one kidney, right? You don't need two, you can survive on one. In order to save human lives, which is the most important thing in the world, we should have a government program that forces people to donate kidneys.

Since you can live with one, we should save lives by donating one of our kidneys, right? And there are a lot of people on that waiting list to get a kidney transplant. So should we do that? I mean, if- I think we should take Ben's kidney. I'm not kidding. Like, so he thinks, well, in order to save a life, I can totally imprison you for nine months, make you carry a rapist baby, and then take care of it for the rest of your life.

Well, taking your kidney, which you don't need is nothing compared to that. And who's doing it? You're asking the government to kidnap that woman and to force her to go through all of that, right? So why can't the government kidnap you and take your kidney? To save lives. It's to save lives, Ben. It's to save lives. And by the way, the kidney would actually save a life and not a zygote and a clump of cells.

And by the way, the reason why we know he wouldn't want to do that. Because it's his goddamn kidney. No, because it's his goddamn kidney. You're correct about that. But also, I mean, we have evidence of how over the top angry conservatives got over mask mandates, which is nowhere as invasive as undergoing surgery to donate a kidney. to someone who needs it to survive. By the way, my mom's fine.

She did get a kidney transplant from a wonderful person named Jordan, who happens to be a wonderful Christian. But nonetheless, I just think that these arguments are so hollow and so ridiculous, and it just blows my mind that they put it out there and there's some portion of the country that's like, yeah, yeah, it totally makes sense. Just give yourself a moment to really think about it critically. Yeah, and look, my morality says that we should take your kidneys to save other lives. Now, by the way, I'm not going to give you my kidney because I get to be a hypocrite all day long.

And I'm just being a Republican, right? No, you don't get my kidneys, but we're taking all your kidneys, okay? Would you agree to that? Of course somebody would agree to that. But when it comes to women, they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, just make them carry it inside their body for nine months and then have them take care of it for 18 years. And they think, what's the big deal? They're not me. and I kind of like oppressing them.

Keep it real. That's what this is all about. Well, we come back from the break. We've got a breaking news story about the proud boys and the sedition charges they're facing due to their involvement on January 6th. We'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Jankana, with you guys forward. Well, we've got a breaking news story on the individuals charged in the January 6th riots,

and this is a pretty big one, so let's discuss. A lieutenant of longtime former proud boys chairman Henry Enrique Tario has now pleaded guilty to sedition. charges. His name is Jeremy Bertino, 43 year old from Belmont, North Carolina, and he is a potential key witness who could be cooperating and testifying against other members of the proud boys, including Enrique Tario. And so he is, in fact, the first member of the proud boys to officially plead guilty to seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6th Capitol riots. And this is a pretty big deal. Now, since he has pleaded guilty, he might get some leniency when it comes to sentencing. The proud boys are facing trial for their role on January

6th in December of this year, so in a couple of months. And this is pretty big news. I've got more details in regard to what Belmont's role was on that day and the kinds of weapons he had on him on that day. Before I get to that, though, Jank, I want to hear from you. Yeah. So, You will still see to this day, in fact, we do interviews like this all the time with Trump supporters, you can check them out on rebel headquarters, where they'll say, oh, no, it's Antifa, or they were tourists, or they were doing no big deal. And then you will see someone from the proud boys say, yes, I'm guilty of sedition. I did it, and if I don't confess now, I'm going to get a lot of time in prison. So obviously they're taking a plea deal here, and they're probably turning evidence against the others. But you do not admit to sedition unless you did sedition.

And, Jank, what is sedition? I think it's important for people to, like, understand how serious that charges. Yeah, and it's actually like relatively simple. It's very easy to understand in this context. So it is an act of against the government, right? Say I'm defying the government. I will not listen to the government's rules and I'm acting against the government, otherwise known as America, right?

And in this case, it's super easy to understand because they attacked America's capital. Imagine if a foreign country had sent thousands of people to attack America's capital. We would have already invaded them and bombed the bejes out of them and probably killed a couple hundred thousand people. So they just happen to be internal, but it's sedition. Well, and when it's a foreigner, it's not sedition, they're just simply attacking us. When it's someone inside the country, it is sedition against your own government and against your own country, right? Right. And so it is a very serious charge. And with all the money that the right wing has to defend these folks, if they didn't commit sedition, it'd be super easy to get off. The evidence has to be overwhelming and it obviously is. And it is the proud boys. It was the right wing, unquestionably, and they have admitted it. Obviously, that won't change anybody's mind in the right wing because they hate facts, but these are facts. So what he pleaded guilty to, I think it's important to understand the wording of it.

So from December of 2020 to January of 2021, Bertino, quote, did knowingly combine and conspire and agree with the proud boy's leaders and other persons known and unknown to oppose by force the authority of the government of the United States and to delay by force the execution of the laws governing the transfer of power, the two page charging document alleges. So again, that is what he pleaded guilty to. And what's fascinating about this is his role in the prosecution of other members of the proud boys, including Enrique Atario, and in a sign of the sensitivity and potential importance of his testimony, prosecutors have agreed that if he provides substantial

cooperation, they would seek leniency in sentencing and could enter Bertino into a Justice Department witness protection program. So there is some concern about his safety if he does engage in cooperating with this trial and this investigation. And if you're wondering, well, what was his role within the proud boys? Was it a big role? It absolutely was. Bertino held a place in the top inner circle of the proud boys. And he's been accused of, again, conspiring to impeach. Congress with angry Trump supporters. He apparently Bertino's home in North Carolina was searched in March at the same time that Tario was arrested on charges that he had at least, that he and at least for others

had directed, mobilized, and led a crowd of 200 to 300 supporters onto Capitol grounds. Many in the crowd are accused of leading some of the earliest and most aggressive attacks on police and property. And by the way, Bertino was caught with all sorts of weapons. He allegedly possessed two pistols, a shotgun, bolt action rifle, and two semi-automatic AR-15 style rifles with scopes. Bertino was convicted previously, by the way, back in 2004, of first-degree reckless endangerment in New York State, which is a felony.

He was sentenced to five years of probation with a period of local jail time. Yeah. It's kind of amazing, right? Like, in 2004, we didn't have any leniency in our justice system at all. You'd hear stories about people being locked away for decades over their third strike, which wasn't even a violent crime. You hear about what he did in 2004, first degree reckless endangerment. It's like, we'll give you five years of probation.

Yeah. No, look, that's why the right wing is so shocked that the law is actually being implied to them now. almost never is. And so, but in this case with the January 6th insurrection, there was three different levels of people and he's in the second level. So there's the foot soldiers, the prosecutors are grown after all those folks with a heavy hand because they're regular Americans. So you can actually apply to law to them, even if they're right wing because this was over

the top and it threatened the establishment, right? Then there's the lieutenants and captains, those are the organizer of the riots, those are the proud boys leaders, the oathkeeper leaders, and they're being charged with heavier charges like sedition, because they're organizing the disruption of the authority of the government, right? And so that's what's happening here. And so that Enrique Atarios and Stuart Rhodes, who's the head of oathkeepers, etc., appear to be in a lot of trouble given guys like this flipping. But if you'll notice, as we've said throughout, there is not a single general that has been charged, right?

So the people who actually organize the coup, the fake electors, et cetera. Now you've got Navarro and Bannon up on other charges, but not on this. And a lot of it has to do with contempt, et cetera. Trump's up on nothing, of course. He's the one. He's the elite organizer, Roger Stone's got no charges against them. So all the people who actually organizes are in the elites. And so the Justice Department is much more wary of going.

going after the elites. So that's why the actual, the bigger organizers have never faced any consequences, and I'm not sure they ever will. Well, we'll see what happens in December as the trial begins, you know, against the other members of the proud boys. But I think the point you made earlier, Jank, is the most important point, which is if you pay attention to these prosecutions, if you pay attention to the identities of the individuals who are being charged and convicted, it's not Antifa, it's not black lives.

matter, it's not a group of foreign tourists who are just having a delightful walk through the capital. These are individuals who very much thought they were going to overturn the results of our democratic process and essentially hand victory over to Donald Trump, even though he did not win the election. And that says everything. And they're all right wingers and the people giving the evidence about them are also right wingers. Exactly. Well, since we're on this anti-democracy trend, why don't we keep going at it? Mark Zuckerbach paid $400 million to flip the votes. Do you think that it was a stolen election?

I would say so as what I have known so far of what I've read and researched. When you look at the entirety of the Republican electorate, and you see that a huge portion of them refused to accept the fact that Donald Trump did in fact lose the 2020 presidential election, It's a little terrifying when you also take a look at the Republican candidates who are running for office and who are very likely to win positions of power that could undermine our democracy. And this was a story that the Washington Post put out. It's an analysis of these GOP candidates and just how many of them keep repeating, perpetuating the big lie that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. They write that a majority of Republican nominees on the ballot this November for the House, Senate, and key statewide offices, 299 in all, have denied or questioned the outcome of the last

presidential election. This will probably scare you even more. 174 are actually running for safely Republican seats. Another 51 will appear on the ballot in tightly contested races. And most of them, you know, look, most of them are expected to win. That's what's so terrifying about this. So you take a look at the electorate, you take a look at the candidates that are likely to win. If Republicans take hold of the House, we should be very concerned. In fact, there are already scores of election deniers in the House. 139 of them voted against the electoral college count after the violence, after the violence of January 6th, had finally abated. But with 37 election deniers who are not incumbents running in safely

Republican or competitive House districts, that number will almost certainly rise after November. Jenk, I'm actually really worried about the future of this country, right? So we could talk about policy all day long. But the underlying democratic process is what I think is is going to be dismantled slowly but surely. We're seeing it before our very eyes. And I'm not trying to be hyperbolic. I'm not trying to fear monger. I'm giving you the numbers here. It's pretty scary stuff. Absolutely. So, so this is why I get frustrated with Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and all the other Democratic leaders who keep saying the majority of Republicans are wonderful, awesome, reasonable people. But we've got a small minority who are ultra MAGA who are creating problems. No, it's the

majority. So first of all, the number was 139 as Anna explained to you that already challenged this election. Now it's very likely to be at least 174 because those are safe seats that the election deniers are running in. And it is now 56% of Republicans, not in the country, not the voters, but actual officials who almost all of them, outside of a handful of lunatics like Paul Gossar and Louis Gomer, et cetera, almost all of them know that the election was not at all stolen, that Trump lost 60 court cases in a row because he presented zero evidence. They all know it, but 56% of them say, no, we deny it. And we think Biden lost and Trump won.

I'm surprised it's only 56%. But that is the majority of elected Republican officials in the House of Representatives. So yes, the majority of Republicans now say we don't give a damn about democracy. We're going to keep out. Remember, for a lot of the Republican voters, they actually believe the election was stolen. So you can say that's crazy, and I say that's crazy, right? But I mean, you saw them. They think Mark Zuckerbach took it.

Although I will say, even though that woman, you know, seems to have some issues, the Mark Zuckerbuck is pretty clever. Yeah, that's why he has $400 million. He's got a lot of Zuckabucks. A lot of Suckabucks. Okay, now they never explain why Mr. Zuckabucks doesn't turn around and then by all of Congress. Why would he let the Republicans win anything? Right, exactly. Okay, let alone have the majority all the time. They just under Trump, the first two years, they had the White House. They had the Senate in the House. Why does Zuckabuck allowed that? No, man. I mean, Zuckerbuck looks at McConnell and is like, that's the homie. I'm like to keep him in charge. Yeah. Well, actually, of course, in reality, Mark Zuckerberg,

is, it appears to be a Republican and certainly on all economic issues supports Republicans and seems to favor Republicans on his platform. But he is Jewish and he does run a social media organization and so is George Soros. So here they are. The two people she named happens to be Jewish. I wonder why. I wonder where she got that from. Right wing media that's constantly mentioning Jewish names secretly controlling politicians. That's a very old anti-Semitic trope that has been around for hundreds of years and usually leads to massacres. Okay, so now, back to the serious situation at hand. Okay, now, it's not just the politicians.

Look, I was just at Yale. I did a debate there at the political union. It was wonderful, great, terrific students. But we started discussing, you know, what do different students believe? And now, there's a little bit anecdotal, obviously, right? But you're seeing it in media as well, and we've tracked that for you guys. I even interviewed the original right wing philosopher who came up with the idea of being in favor of a monarchy here in America.

A dictatorship, let's stop calling it a monarchy, a dictatorship. Yeah, and I ask for clarity from the students too. And so they said a certain portion of the left wing, by the way, is getting more radicalized. That's interesting too, and that might come back to haunt us. And then you've got your regular set of folks in the middle. And then you've got now a significant portion of the right wing. students who believe in that they call themselves monarchists. Insane.

That's a, that's a, basically a politicized word for dictatorship. That's exactly what a monarchy is. It's not a little like a dictatorship. It's exactly like a dictator. So, like, do they understand? These students go to Yale. Like, they go to Yale. They go to Yale.

Like, what happened? We're not winning with our education. We're not, even with these Ivy Leagues. What happened to these fancy Ivy Leagues? No. No. Okay. Dictatorship.

So Fidel Castro was a dictator, right? Yeah. So are they under the assumption that the dictatorship will definitely be someone they like? Like they think it's gonna be their homie? Yeah, they do. Interesting, no, but it's intellectually. Stupid? Indefensible.

Yeah. So unbelievably indefensible. They go to Yale. Okay. So the minute someone is a monarch, they can do anything they want. And- You have no say at all. You're seating all of your own power, by the way. They could, as Anna points out, if they wanted, they could turn left wing.

If they wanted, and the thing that dictators most often do is they first go after their own side to solidify their power within their own faction, right? So the first ones to the gallows will be the right wing leaders, right? And that's what Saddam did. That's what every dictator does. But yet there is now a significant movement, and you'll see. thought leaders, right wing pundits talking about monarchies and how America should be a monarchy. And why are they doing that? Why do they attack us on January 6th? Why do 56% of Republican

congressmen now or candidates running for the House want to delegitimize democratic elections? Because they know their days are numbered. It's over. It's over. And it's not over because of minorities, it's over because of the young, the young, every year the elector gets far more progressive. Millennials and Gen Z are way more progressive than the people who are brainwashed into corporate rule by television. So as power is slipping away from them, the right wing has never, ever cared about democracy, ever in the history of the world in any country. The only thing the right wing cares about is power. So if they thought, hey, will appeal to white Christian Americans, and they're the great majority, and that will give us power, then they pretended to

be in favor of democracy. But the minute they can't win in a democracy, they're like, no, no elections count, no way, Zuckerbuck and Soros are doing it, we're not going to allow it, we're just going to take power, and then damn your stupid elections, and maybe we'll go towards a monarchy. That's what people do when they don't actually believe in America. I can't remember, did I mention that those kids go to Yale? Yeah, but again, look, to be fair to yell guys, it's just, that's one anecdote. To be fair to Yale guys.

No, no, no, my point is, poor Yale guys. No, but my point is, if that's happening there, it's definitely happening elsewhere. Yeah, I know, my point is, though, that these Ivy League institutions are supposed to foster the greatest minds in the world, okay? Greatest minds in the world don't look at monarchies and dictatorships and say, nailed it. Yeah, they're supposed to be like cream of the crop. But yet they prove otherwise. Anyway, I'm going to buy a home in Puerto Vallerta. Get ready, Mexicans. I'm coming. I'm sure they're very happy to hear that news. Anyway, all right, we've got an incredible story involving Saudi Arabia, giving Joe Biden the middle finger over oil production. There's a lot to get to with that story.

don't miss it. We've got that. And later on, we will lighten things up, have a little bit of fun. It is a second hour after all. So I'll see you there. Apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.