The Young Turks - Dems In Denial

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

Jen Psaki, Rachel Maddow and the MSNBC panel openly laugh about the border crisis being the most important issue among voters. San Francisco voters pivot right on drugs and policing. Cenk Uygur makes a BIG announcement." HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Welcome to TY, I'm your host, Anna Casparian, and we're

You know, I'm always honest with you guys. If I think the show is just gonna be me, so, so, news is slow, I would let you know. News has not been slow today. There is so much to get to. And I promise you're gonna get stories here that you are unlikely going to hear on other digital platforms in other progressive shows. So I'm really looking forward to sharing some of the results, some of the specific local results of the elections that took place yesterday. We're going to talk about San Francisco, which the San Francisco Chronicle has now declared is no longer progressive. Why do they think that? Well, we'll get into the details and the argument.

And, you know, we're doing some fun things with the camera today. We're having a good time. Okay, let's just all enjoy it, accept it, it is what it is. Also, we're going to talk about Jake Uger, who is a primary candidate in the Democratic Party. He'll be coming on to give us some updates on his campaigning. And in the second hour of the show, John Iderola will join me for a whole host of fun topics, including Florida's breakup with spring breakers. Honestly, it's one of my favorite stories of the day, so don't miss it. But I have to be honest, bonus episode for our members is going to be one of my favorite bonus episodes of all time. I'm going to share a video that a conservative YouTube channel made of me.

I thought it was fantastic. It was one of the funniest and well-made videos I've ever seen. So we're going to share that with you. It's a bit of a music video, and I'm actually the vocalist in the song. I didn't know if you knew this, but I'm a recording artist, not a big deal. So anyway, if you want to become a member, t.com slash join to become one, or you can just smash that join button if you're watching us on YouTube. All right, without further ado, let's get to our first story.

They're increasingly from the Tea Party on, they're voting on race, they're voting on this idea of an invasion of brown people over the border. They're just voting specifically on racial animus at this stage. It isn't about economic. No, which is why Trump killed the immigration bill. Correct. That's why. And because otherwise he can't run against the other and brown people and people who don't look like him. I mean, if you look at some of these exopoles, I mean, I live in Virginia. Immigration was the number one issue. I mean, again, these could change in Virginia.

Well, Virginia does have a border with West Virginia. Very contestory. But you're thinking like, as Super Tuesday election results trickled in last night, the liberal media intelligentsia provided a case study of what denial looks like. Don't be fooled by the ladies of MSNBC joining forces to jovially mock voters who express concern about the migrant crisis, because if one looks closely enough, you can see that Wojack mask slipping. I suspect they're actually panicking about the vulnerabilities of the Democratic Party as we barrel toward the general election. They absolutely should be panicking,

by the way. Unfortunately, instead of hearing voters out, the women of MSNBC have chosen ignorance and denial instead. Every election cycle, when there's, particularly when there's a Democratic incumbent, we We get reminded about the borders and the borders become a thing again. And then if there's a Republican in office, we don't think about them anymore. It's the deficit and the border. Like you make these things an issue, you make them into boogeymen, you make them into something that grabs you from under the bed at night as soon as you wake up.

As long as there's a Democrat who can come into blame on it, you make sure that nothing's ever done to fix either. And then you hope that people stop talking about them once you've got a Republican office. Now look, I'm sure that there have been. many examples of political opponents to Democrats exaggerating claims of immigration. But this ain't it. There's very clearly a migrant crisis. In December alone, 300,000 people across the border in just one month. And there are local communities who have been really struggling to appropriately respond to the influx of migrants who have arrived into their

cities. And look, for viewers who have convinced themselves that the denouement, denial demonstrated by the gaggle of gals on MSNBC is in no way indicative of progressives. I have unfortunate news for you. The idea that Republicans, in order to win an election, say we need to hermetically seal the border when they know that that would be, that is economic self-sabotage to the U.S. economy. And they are saying, let's do it anyway, while ginning up. this false narrative about this being a crisis.

And there is not only no moral calculation, there is no economic calculation, there is no logical calculation, there is only a political calculation. And that political calculation is we are going to keep whining about it. We are going to keep pretending this is a crisis. Pretending that this is a crisis. Look, I'm sad to say that Congresswoman Alexandria Acosio-Cortez is wrong. What's really unsettling is that she should know there's a migrant crisis. After all, she represents a district in New York where local officials have struggled to find shelter for the 171,000 plus migrants who arrived in the city recently.

AOC herself addressed the migrant crisis just last September in front of the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. Now, you tell me if this doesn't look like a crisis to you. cities and municipalities dealing with this issue. The second is to allow for work authorizations so that folks in here can get to work and start supporting themselves as soon as possible. They are prevented from getting jobs. They are prevented from employment and that is part of the strain on our public systems. Yeah, very is for home for us for the United States. You come down. You're completely destroying our city. You come down. You always break you. You've got to go to

sleeping night. Hey, but I'm sick as I'm posing its division. It's all they got you. Oh, I got you. Look, I'm sure the angry individuals in that video will just be brushed off as deranged right-wing lunatics who were sent there to harass AOC and give the false impression, of course, that people are worked up about our broken immigration system, right? If you think that, you're also wrong. But that's okay, because anecdotal evidence is oftentimes extremely misleading. So let's actually take a step back and take a broader look at broad public opinion in New York.

For example, a Quinnipiac University poll just last September found that 62% of voters said that they agreed with New York City Mayor Eric Adams's statement from September, where he said that an influx of migrants will destroy the city. I really hate the framing of that question because it's It makes it seem like there's something inherently negative or nefarious about migrants, and there just isn't. Most of these people came to America to work hard and build better lives for themselves, and their families.

That takes tenacity, resilience, and the willingness to take risks that I admire. I'll always feel deep gratitude for having the privilege of growing up in Reseda, California, a community where the majority of residents consisted of Latino immigrants. They've enriched my life. I'm a child of immigrants myself and we are a nation of immigrants. It's important to remember that. However, our immigration system is absolutely broken. And there are loopholes in our laws that human traffickers, unfortunately, are well versed in.

These loopholes allow for the unmanageable influx of migrants into the country at a time when we don't have enough judges to process asylum claims. And this also comes at a time when we clearly, have a shortage of housing for American citizens. According to that same Quinnipiac poll, a whopping 85% of New York City voters are either very concerned or somewhat concerned that the city will not be able to accommodate the surge in migrants who have sought sanctuary in the city and their right to worry. The federal government has sent the city some resources, but hundreds of millions of dollars

Apparently ain't enough. New York City has received about 140 million in federal funding for shelters, which is more than any other city not on the southwest border. The White House told New York Governor Kathy Hockel in August that it cannot send more federal assistance to the state, blaming congressional hurdles for the inability. So New York is left to pick up the tab, and it ain't cheap, as local leaders in Denver have recently learned. Here's Mayor Mike Johnson laying out some tough budgetary sacrifices Denver had to make recently to accommodate their growing migrant population.

We are announcing today we will make some changes both to our services at DMV and to our services on parks and rec. What that looks like for DMV is we are no longer taking vehicle registrations in person. We will move those to online. We will start rotating weekly DMV closures starting on March 4th. Our Senate, central spot at Tremont will stay open permanently, but our other satellite spots will rotate closing one week at a time. We will have folks that are hourly workers that will have fewer hours. If we reduce your hours and you're an on-call worker, that's true. We will have on-call workers we won't hire for the summer. We would have hired otherwise.

We will also have to make some hard decisions around reducing services for parks and rec heading into this summer and spring. That means beginning February 20th, we will reduce hours at our rec centers. Our regional centers that are seven days will come back to six days. Those sites that are six days will stay at six days, but will reduce hours. We are planning for the entire 24 budget, so we believe we have to make it through this entire year. And so these changes will be in effect until we can get back to a balanced budget. We think it will take us to 2024 year. Not good.

I think we can all agree that economic instability and growing wealth inequality has led to growing rage in America. I certainly feel it. So when Americans start seeing cuts to programs in their communities to house migrants instead, honestly, I can understand their frustration, even if it doesn't always manifest in the healthiest ways. Tensions have been simmering within the black community in Chicago, for instance. Much of their fury has been directed at progressive mayor Brandon Johnson, who has mostly responded to the crisis by being as welcoming to migrants as he can be. The kindness has been costly to both the city and his political career. In an attempt to be transparent with voters in Chicago and Illinois, the Comptroller's

office for the state of Illinois has published a website that discloses the total amount spent on the migrant crisis by taxpayers. So if you take a look at this, this is from the website itself. From November 1st of last year to March 5th of this year, state expenditures total more than $31,200,000. It's a lot of money. It's also just the tip of the iceberg. The governor, J.D. Pritzker, has pledged around $182 million in state funds for Chicago, while Cook County Board President Tony Preckwinkle has committed up to 70 million more in a joint

funding plan to ensure migrants sent to the city from Texas have access to wraparound services and health care. Those funds come on top of the state committing 160 million in November to undocumented immigrants for welcome, shelter, and independence. That commitment was in addition to $478 million the state has spent since the start of the response, according to the governor's office. And obviously those funds include both the state's resources and some of the federal money that's been sent to Illinois to grapple with the migrant crisis.

Now look, this crisis has shifted the politics of longtime Democratic community activists in Chicago, including a woman by the name of Kata Trusts, who filed a lawsuit against Chicago over the migrant crisis. I certainly don't want to demonize the migrants because not a lot of what is happening is their fault. I think that our mayor, our governor, as well as President Biden, has to step in and make some changes to what is happening. right now. Right now it seems as if our borders are just open and that people are freely coming in and that there are no laws that are being followed in terms of immigration. Now when you talk about

the black communities here in the city of Chicago and you talk about the years of disinvestment in our communities, in our schools and all around us and you see this amount of money being spent to people who have come from outside of this country, that is a problem for us. At a time where we're seeing increased crime because our children don't have things to do, they don't have jobs, and we're seeing this money being spent, and it's being spent on other people in communities that could really benefit for that money. That interview was on MSNBC, by the way. Apparently the women over at MSNBC who were part of that panel that we showed you at the

of the segment missed it. Now, while trust had been a Democrat her entire life and even donated money to Chicago's progressive mayor, Brandon Johnson, the migrant crisis has had a significant impact on her politics. Carter, why are you going to vote Republican for the first time ever? It's simple, the Democratic Party has failed us here in Chicago. our local government, as well as our state government, and even our president has made our migrants a priority over American citizens. And so we have to stand up and we have to

let them know that it is unacceptable. We have to let them know that you're not going to continue to depend on our vote. You know, Chicago is a democratic stronghold. And we've been that way for years. And we are allowing our elected officials to mistreat us. I am excited about being able to vote Republican for the first time. So for all the pundits out there who can't understand how someone like Donald Trump has managed to increase his support among African American voters in this country, please just listen to the voters and take what they're saying at face value instead of assuming all sorts of things about them. including allegations of racism or hatred and bigotry in their hearts.

In fact, does Joy Reed want to smear this woman as a racist? And does AOC think it's smart politics to deny Truss's lived experience? Because I can recall progressives upholding lived experiences as declarative statements about the world around us. That is until it was inconvenient to do so. The fact is that the migrant crisis is not some made up issue, and the left sounds laughably out of touch when they claim it is. Telling Americans that they're just gullible voters who bought into a made-up right-wing narrative is insulting and demonstrates a level of arrogance that honestly makes me pretty sick.

Maybe have a little faith in what voters are saying and listen to them. This is politics. You have to meet them where they are, not where you think they should be. Progressives in Congress used to understand this. In fact, just listen to Senator Bernie Sanders, address the notion of open board. while speaking to Ezra Klein back in 2015. Open borders. Open borders. That's a Koch brothers proposal.

The idea, of course. I mean, that's a right wing proposal which says essentially there is no United States. But anybody- It would make a lot of global poor richer, wouldn't it? And it'd make everybody in America poorer. Then you're doing away with the concept of a nation state. And I don't think there's any country in the world which believes in that. I think we have to raise wages in this country.

country. I think we have to do everything that we can to create the millions of jobs. You think we should open the borders and bring in a lot of low wage workers? What do you think maybe we should try to get jobs for those kids? So I think from a moral responsibility we've got to do work with the rest of the industrialized world to address the problems of international poverty, but you don't do that by making people in this country even poorer. Bernie was right. And honestly, I oftentimes wonder what happened to that brand of progressivism. The Koch brothers actually do love looser immigration laws, as do many private corporations looking for cheap migrant labor. Speaking of which, in the first 11 months

of 2023, at least 2,953,66 migrants crossed either of the United States's southwestern or northern borders, according to CBP data. You can interpret that figure how you'd like, but I can't help but think about how this impacts the leverage American workers have had during this tight labor market. Since there weren't enough workers, that leverage translated to higher wages and better benefits for Americans. With a massive flow of migrants coming in and with lawmakers like AOC demanding that they receive expedited worker permits, it seems naive to think that leverage American workers currently have will exist in the near future. Finally, let's clearly identify what the left accomplishes when they deny the existence of

difficult issues in the country, like crime. They forfeit an opportunity in shaping the response to it. They create a vacuum in which legislation is crafted by their ideological opponents. Denial of reality is dumb politics, and it makes the left look weak and void of solutions. San Franciscans have made a right word pivot in their politics. In fact, even the San Francisco Chronicle today declared that San Francisco can no longer be a progressive city or considered one because of what went down yesterday. during the elections.

They have now responded to the very clear drug and homelessness crisis in their city by bolstering police and requiring drug screenings for welfare recipients. There are caveats to that, we're gonna get to all the details in just a moment, but this is seen as a major victory for the current mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, who has hitched her political future to a slate of conservative leaning ballot measures, all of which, by the way, passed easily. So voters approved all three of her measures on Tuesday, including her proposal to screen and mandate addiction treatment for people receiving county welfare. Now, they passed by incredibly large margins. I'll tell you what the margins are in just a moment. But first,

let's get to the specificity of these proposals. Breed's proposal, we're requires all recipients of locally funded cash assistance, participate in a substance abuse treatment program if screening showed drug use. Politico notes that the proposal reflects the depth of frustration with a fentanyl crisis that has led to record overdoses, turned parts of downtown into open-air drug markets, and is correlated with an increase in

car break-ins and other property crime. And so I gotta say there wasn't enough like in depth reporting on this measure because obviously this sounds like just a right wing policy. Right wingers have been wanting to drug test welfare recipients for decades now and it's kind of weird to see a city like San Francisco do it. But I have to say that the way they want to carry it out is kind of fascinating and I'm curious to see if it actually helps people who are struggling with addiction. So let's get to the other proposals and then we'll come back to this because it's worth talking about how they're going to carry it out.

So besides the drug screening requirement, Mayor Breed proposed expanding police officers authority to chase suspects and use drones and video surveillance. She also joined pro-development, yes in my backyard or YIMBY advocates to back waiving a local tax. It's about a 7% tax for developers who convert office buildings into housing. After her proposed changes were bucked by the left-leaning board of supervisors, Breed took them directly to voters. So I actually want to stop and talk a little bit about the, it's called like a transition tax that would impact developers who want to transition office buildings into housing.

So the whole point of doing away with that transition tax, which again, reports say are about 7% is to incentivize developers to transition those empty office buildings into housing. If it does in fact incentivize them to do it, I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, you have these buildings that are sitting empty. Our way of working is very different now. Many people don't go into the office if they don't have to. And so we should do something with those properties and we should kill two birds with one stone by one dealing with vacant buildings and two dealing with a very obvious and brutal housing shortage. So look, I usually don't like tax incentives, but in this particular case, I do think it makes sense. The biggest

issue I have is some of the police surveillance that they are sanctioning. I do think that there are laws or were laws in San Francisco that ban certain surveillance that made policing more difficult. But the use of facial recognition technology is concerning because oftentimes they've been flawed and they end up accusing the wrong individual of being the perpetrator or suspect. So there could be some pretty serious flaws in that particular proposal or ballot initiative, which again has passed. But nonetheless, the other ballot measures I think are pretty interesting. So under Proposition F, single adults without dependence on local welfare, about 9,000 people a year,

must be screened for illegal drug use. If they are found to be using drugs, an addiction specialist and the recipient would agree on treatment options that include residential care, meaning inpatient drug treatment, a 12-step program, individual counseling, and replacement medication. So Understand guys, this isn't, oh, we drug test you and you come out positive for whatever drug. And so as a result, we're not going to give you welfare. That's not how they're going to carry it out.

Essentially, they're going to use the drug test as a way of compelling that individual to get the treatment and care that he or she needs in order to potentially get out of that addiction, get sober and maybe even live a better life. But they don't even have to necessarily be sober. It goes even further than I expected. So there is no sobriety requirement only that a person make a good faith effort to participate in treatment if they want to receive cash assistance, which maxes out at just over $700 a month. So I'm curious to see how this is going to play out. Obviously there are some opponents on the left. They feel that this is a right wing measure and even though they feel that way and even though San Francisco has been synonymous with far left voters, 63% of people who voted in

San Francisco favored that measure. When it comes to the increased surveillance for policing, that measure passed by 60%. So by the way, this isn't the first time that we have seen some backlash from left-wing voters in the city of San Francisco. For instance, in 2022, in response to higher crime rates, San Francisco's voters backed the recall of district attorney Chesa Budin and school board members who were blamed for focusing on their political agenda or progressive causes as opposed to focusing on enhancing and improving the educational experience of the students there. Now, obviously, there are people on the far left and some progressives who are really upset about this,

Critics attribute her move to the right, meaning London Mayor, Mayor London breeds move to the right, to desperation amid dismal approval ratings and a growing field of mayoral challengers. They accuse her and groups like together San Francisco of trying to turn the city of peace and love into a city catering to the interests of the wealthy. I don't know how you can look at the streets of San Francisco and the absolute devastation there and think that that is the city of peace and love. You have people shooting up lethal drugs on the sidewalks.

You have hundreds of people dying of drug overdoses on the streets of San Francisco every year. In fact, why don't we get to some of those numbers? Let's go to Graphics 7. A record, 806 people died from drug overdoses in the city last year. Retailers continue to leave downtown by the dozens, and just last week, Macy's announced it will close its iconic store in Union Square. I just think that if you're not living in San Francisco or if you haven't seen what's actually going down in San Francisco and you're just enjoying your steady drip of progressive

news that never gives you the reality of what's happening on the ground, you should maybe dig in a little bit more before you start making claims about how this is wrong, this is is like some fascistic regime that's trying to punish innocent people, they're trying to help people. What we have seen in San Francisco and cities like it for years now is failed policies that should have been recalibrated. And luckily now we're seeing them get recalibrated. I'm just a little worried that things might go too far to the right or get too conservative. But here's the problem. If you're a progressive and you're also concerned about it, ask yourself, Have you been denying the reality of crime, overdose deaths, and the absolute devastation

on our streets? And if you've been keeping your head in the sand, what did you expect to happen? Did you think local communities and voters were just gonna live with it and deal with it? Or was the pendulum going to swing in the other direction? The pendulum has swung. And for the progressive lawmakers who decided to keep their head in the sand, they created that vacuum that allowed for policies that they don't agree with. to be crafted and passed.

That is what happened in San Francisco. But anyway, the other thing I just want to address is, let's go back to Graphic Five, let's put it back up. Critics attribute Mayor London breeds move to the right to desperation amid dismal approval ratings. That's it, that's all I wanted to read. So she saw that she was unpopular as she continued supporting policies that were unpopular, and then she

decided, hey, maybe I should listen to the voters and reconsider these policies and instead support policies that they want. Isn't that what we want politicians to do? Or do we want politicians to ignore the community they represent and instead listen to ideologues who want to live in a fantasy world where everyone's happy with hundreds of people dying of overdose deaths in their city each year? It's like ridiculous criticism. Anyway, but The final thing that I'll say is that it's really important for us to just acknowledge what people in our communities are concerned about, and especially when it comes to elected lawmakers. These are people who are supposed to represent individuals, represent what the people

want and help make their lives better. And for far too long, we've just been dealing with this political system that seems to ignore voters. And that used to be far more more indicative of the right wing. And I'm really sad to see it happen on the left. I get it, we have our own political biases and our own, you know, ideologies and some of us might be ideologues, but you kind of have to put that aside once you see your preferred policies failing.

It doesn't mean that you're a bad person, it doesn't mean you're dumb or you're always wrong, it just means that you wanted to try something out, you thought it would work, it didn't work, and that's okay, let's tweak it a little bit. Let's obviously regroup and do what's right. Because at the end of the day, our ego and our own ideology really doesn't matter. Our tribe doesn't really matter.

What matters is making lives better for people, not worse. And I really hate the fact that increasingly people think of progressivism as something that makes life worse for people. I saw this coming from a mile away, it's now happening. And the backlash isn't just in San Francisco, you're seeing it in other parts of the country as well, including Washington, D.C. Their high crime rates has led to the passage of some new laws that, you know, are obviously going to also upset progressives, focus on more policing. Axios reports that the D.C. Council approved a bill Tuesday after a 25-year high in homicides occurred in Washington. in D.C. So this is a bill that the mayor Muriel Bowser had proposed last fall. And it's pretty sweeping. It's referred to as a sweeping public safety bill. The bill passed with near

unanimous approval Ward 8 council member Trey on White voted present. That was the only person who didn't vote yes. It creates a new crime for organized retail theft and revives a 90s era anti-loitering law, creating drug-free zones. It also revises. the definition of an officer chokehold, a change sought by the police union, along with the new permission for cops to view body cam footage before writing incident reports. There's more. Another provision gives judges more power to jail suspects charged with violent crimes until their trial.

Minors can be held longer until their trial. You guys liking that vacuum? Denial doesn't work. continuing to make excuses for failed policies doesn't work. People don't care about you or what your ideology is. They care about living in safe, clean communities where they and their families can thrive. And when that's not happening, that's when the backlash comes. By the way, there's now an effort to recall a D.C. Council member by the name of Charles Allen,

I'll tell you why. As a member of the D.C. Council's committee on the judiciary and public safety, Allen was instrumental in cutting $15 million from the police budget in 2020, money that he said would be reinvested into community programs across the district and wrote an overhaul of the city's criminal code that reduced mandatory minimum sentences for some violent offenses, which was ultimately blocked by Congress and repudiated by President Biden last year. And what hasn't been like on the ground in D.C.? Homicide spiked 35% in 2023 compared to the previous year. And that's according to data while robberies rose by 67%. Washington had 958 carjackings or attempted carjackings last year. And separately, average nearly 19 motor vehicle thefts a day over the same period, an 82% jump from the previous year. People don't want to live this way. Again, people want to feel safe. They don't want to worry about

their property being stolen and they don't want to worry about carjackings and homicides. So we'll see what happens to council member Allen. But again, I can't reiterate this enough. When your voters are saying they're concerned about something, maybe take what they're saying seriously and recalibrate. That's all. All right, we got to take a break. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show, everyone, before we go to our interview, I wanted to read one comment in our super chats from the weiner who says, why are you talking about talking like that's a lot of money in regard. to the response of the migrant crisis. 14 billion to Israel, 4 billion every year to Israel. Military industrial complex steals trillions.

America steals way more than that from other countries. Listen, the weiner. I was referring to the money that was spent by local governments, not the federal government. Local governments spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a migrant crisis that they did not expect and were not prepared for. It's pretty devastating to their budgets, which is why they're cutting programs for local communities as we speak in order to come up with the money to shelter migrants.

But apparently that's not a crisis and we should ignore it. So let's get to our interview. Joining us now is Democratic presidential candidate Jank Yugar, who has been running in the Democratic primary and has a big announcement to share with us. Jank, how are you? I'm good. How are you doing? I've been better. Okay, I hear you. Me too.

So I am here to announce that I am suspending my campaign. I talked to Joe Biden and he has given me Secretary of Labor. So we negotiated, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, he didn't do that and I didn't. Can you imagine? Under these circumstances, no, I cannot imagine. Neither can I. Yeah, so Anna. No, not because of you.

I mean, go ahead. Go ahead with your announcement. The idea that there would be any kind of negotiation is hilarious. Anyways, no, I'm suspending the campaign and I'm not actively campaigning anymore, so I'll be going back to my role strictly in media at Young Turks here, obviously, back as a host. And, you know, I never left, but there were some restrictions that we had put into place and some extra programs we weren't doing, but I'll be going back to doing most of those.

And so, and I wanted to talk about what we accomplished and didn't accomplish in the campaign. So I can start with goal number three. I remember the three goals that I laid out and the fourth one popped up. Goal three was to win, right? That definitively did not happen. And if you remember when we first talked to Anna, I said, look, we need a couple of miracles. This was an active desperation to try to change the course of this campaign because Biden, I was positive, was going to lose.

Yeah, like a democratic apparatus that actually values the democratic process and allows for a robust primary. Apparently they're not interested in that. So continue. That's for sure, but I knew that going in. going in. If we had won the constitutional case that we had, Muslim leaders had backed us, et cetera, there was a real pathway to getting to the 15% and more, as we saw in Michigan and Minnesota. But those things didn't happen. So we wound up exactly where I thought we were. I said we got about a 1 to 2% chance barring those miracles. And we wound up last night in the

four states that I was on somewhere between 1 to 2%. My high water mark was 2.2% in Oklahoma. We did, but I'm going to get to the goals we didn't accomplish in a second, but obviously we didn't accomplish the goal of those couple of miracles to get to, to be able to win this. And I, and I never, ever want to give people false hope. So we're not in that business. Now it's definitively over, not just for me, but for the whole campaign. Obviously, Biden's going to be the nominee, except for one giant maybe, which is related to our first goal.

But in terms of the nationalized citizen issue, that was our. second goal. And on that one, well, look, we, we put on a hell of a case. And so we, as you know, we've discussed in the previous interviews, we went to the district court in South Carolina. And I wanted to show the audience something. So I, you don't just take my word for it. The judge there was district court, Judge Joseph Anderson. And this is what he said towards the end of the process. And so he, if we could put that out of it. up, that'd be great. He said, let me just repeat what I said earlier. This case was unusually well briefed and well argued, and I repeat that. So what that means is, we almost had it.

We almost had it. And what happened? Why didn't work out? So he did about an hour and a half case, but there was like so many defendants on the other side that they ate up most of the time responding to us. So by the time we got to the end of the case, we didn't really have a chance to respond much. And at the district court level, they are very unlikely to agree with you because they would be overturning some degree of precedent. So we were hoping to be able to get to the circuit court level, but the circuit court denied our appeal to expedite the case before the South Carolina elections happened. So that kind of ended it in South Carolina. And to be honest, I just didn't raise enough money to be able to do it in two, three

different states. It's very expensive to do this. And I, and by the way, Well, plenty of mistakes were made. I miscalculated, for example, how much money I could raise. And because of this naturalized citizen issue, we couldn't raise anywhere near the amount of money we've raised in the past. So that didn't allow me to make a second or third case. But we moved the ball, for whatever it's worth, you know, Harvard Law Professor Larry Lessig wrote a blog saying, this isn't crazy at all.

This is actually enormously possible, and he explained why it's possible. So I hand the baton off to whoever is now. If one or two other naturalized citizens try in future presidential races, we're almost certainly going to win on this. We almost won at the district court level at the first try, basically. So I wish we had the resource to finish that, but we don't. Now back to goal one, when we started Anna, everybody was super skeptical. You remember on the show we did the thing, the petition to get Biden to drop out, et cetera.

And at the time, people like, you're crazy, you're crazy. Let me read a list real quick of since I entered the people that have said, oh, I think your mind is going to lose. Okay, so we have David Axelrod, James Carvel, Paul Begalla, Bill Maher, Bob Costa, Charlemagne the God, John Stewart, Ezre Klein, that is just a short list of all the people go, we're gonna lose, watch out, watch it, Nate Silver, I forgot to put him on the list, everybody basically saying that we were right, we were right, and so I want to congratulate my supporters for being right. And then finally there's goal number four, which came up,

which was the Gaza situation. And that happened right, of course, as I was entering the race. And I was trying to get pushed politicians to say, hey, maybe we should consider or reconsider Israel's funding since, you know, they're taking this money and not listening to us and committing these war crimes. And I prepared a clip, I think the producers have it from Bernie Sanders just last week. So let's watch that. The United States should not be giving Netanyahu and his extreme right-wing government another nickel for their war efforts that are killing so many innocent Palestinians.

So did we move the ball enough? I don't know. And that's a good question for everybody out there to decide, did we move it? enough to say victory? No, I don't think so. You know, maybe Biden drops out after the primaries, in which case we say we had a big role in that, not a definitive one, but a sizable one in what we did. If, you know, next election cycle of naturalized citizen wins, or if we can actually get Bernie Sanders and others to push for ending the funding of Israel, if they're going to continue to do this, then we'll have won something tangible and real. But for the moment

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Is there anything left in the Democratic Party that's worth looking forward to or feeling any hope about? And I mean that. I really do. Yeah. Because as they continue to. to, and I'm talking about Congress specifically, as they continue to take the campaign contributions and legalized bribes that we've been talking about for a long time. And as they continue to trade individual stocks based on insider information that they get

in their closed door briefings, they become more and more corrupt. And they're bribed by the same corporations and donors that the Republican Party is bribed by. So what's left for the Democratic Party? And I get that some people are going to get real offended by that. But I'm genuinely curious, outside of the rhetoric, outside of the lip service to marginalized communities who they never hesitate to screw over once it's convenient for them to do so, what's left for the Democratic Party? Yeah, so I have a short term and long term answer to that.

In the short term, you know, binds the nominee and he's gonna get slaughtered. And so I don't care what people say, I don't, I could read numbers, if you can't, that's kind of your problem now. my problem. And if you say, oh my God, then they've already, Andrea Mitchell today on air started blaming third parties. It's even lost that, but they know he's going to lose. So it's begun, the same old talking points. But it is not impossible for Biden to drop out after the primaries and for us to get a really good candidate against Trump. That would be an excellent short-term band-aid, but it would be a band-aid. In terms of the long-term answer, look, I've been trying lead a rebellion against the corporate Democrats for now, you know, well over a decade.

And it had a brief success in when we founded Justice Democrats and got 11 of them into Congress, but they've largely been co-opted. And now AOC is out there saying don't run against incumbents, which is the exact opposite of the point of Justice Democrats. So that was a spectacular success and effort that has now unfortunately come to a conclusion. They're not going to lead any rebellion inside Congress, they're enormously comfortable and they are very wary of challenging their colleagues, which means, well, then you can't do a rebellion inside the Democratic Party. Okay, so then the only hope that remains is twofold, which is by 2028, which is four years from now, even if Biden drops out, there's a 0% chance that his delegates will pick a progressive.

So I mean, I love Rokana and others, et cetera. But there's no way those insiders pick Rokana. That's the reason why in the beginning of this interview, as you were joking, about Biden offering you a cabinet position, I couldn't help but laugh. And it's not because of who you are as a person, it's because of the gatekeepers who have stood in the way of anyone who genuinely wants positive change in our political system, our economic system. And look, AOC and other progressive individuals that you helped to get elected got co-opted for a reason. I just wish they were smart enough to realize that they've been

co-opted. Yeah, plus maybe they don't want to. I'm gonna find that because in order to fight the system, you have to get really, really uncomfortable. I mean, look at how uncomfortable I got in this race. Everyone in that room is gonna hate you. Every time you show up to the House floor to debate legislation, vote on legislation, and you've been pushing back on, you know, corporatist policies that have been absolutely devastating for American workers in this country. Everyone's gonna hate you in that room, and I get it, it's super uncomfortable. But didn't they expect that? Isn't that what they were supposed to do?

Oh, 100%. So that's kind of why I've given up on it. Let me tell you to say two things here. One is a little interesting. Look, when you get into power, you wind up caring about yourself a lot more. I'm just being honest, right? So, for example, I know for a fact that some of the Muslim American politicians, not Rashida Talib, but some of them, because I don't know about Rashida, I don't know what she thinks, okay?

But some of them thought supporting me was a bridge too far. And so uncommitted got a lot of votes in Michigan and Minnesota and they actually got delegates. Right. And those delegates are now going to be handed over to no one. No, Joe Biden. Oh, okay. So it was, look, it was in some ways a powerful form of protest. Hey, he's not getting all these votes. On the other hand, it was a, I don't want to say a trick, because I think that they mainly intended it well. But it just goes right back to Biden. So it was enormously ineffective. And so part of the reason they did that is because there's only so much you can disagree within the Democratic Party without risking. your career, right? So, and in terms of me, I mean, look at what happened to me. And look at what happened to Mary Ann Williamson, which are much more so, Dean Phillips.

Anyone who dared to challenge the leadership in Democratic Party was either ignored or obliterated, right? So is it over? Are you done with them? And I only ask, because like you've tried with congressional run, you've tried with the presidential run, they're not going to let you in, Jank. Oh, they're not going to let me in, yeah. Okay, so, and they're not going to let any of us in. So, and power never concedes without a demand, it never has, never well, you know, the famous Frederick Douglass quote. So, so the next plan is also very, very difficult, okay? We, we basically have to organize the internet and find a candidate, and we need to help that candidate for about four years straight. Because the only way that an outsider, an outsider populace with incredibly popular policies can break through is by having an enormous ground swell of,

Right. Because they're never going to be supported by mainstream media. They will always be ridiculed, disdained, ignored, etc. They're never going to have the credibility that those guys talk about. The Democratic Party is never going to, of their own volition, welcome them. Oh, you would like to do a rebellion against us. Oh, you don't take corporate donor money. Oh, you're going to call us out for taking corporate donor money and being corrupt. They're never going to agree to that. So this party, this Democratic Party as it stands now, is permanently corrupted and cannot be fixed if it heads in this direction. There has to be an outsider that comes in and takes over the party.

We already tried at the congressional level and it didn't work. At the grassroots level, I wanna do that as well. We'll talk more about it as we revitalize Operation Hope here at TYT. But we need someone at the top and Trump proved that you actually can do it in a presidential primary. But Trump was a massive celebrity, right? Which a lot of us of course are not. So we need to be able to build up that candidate, spend four long years. But it's not just about a candidate.

We have to organize the internet. That's what Operation Hope was supposed to be about. And I, of course, suspended that when I started doing the campaign. But I'm now going to do that more at TYT. We have an incredible town hall that we do every week. And I'm going to do it again tonight at 8.30 p.m. We have a Slack channel that's helping to organize. So we're going to take the kernel of this incredible team that we put together on my campaign

and use it to try to organize the internet so that we can create that ground swell. Because mainstream media is never going to let us in. We have to barge in. And one more thing at it looks on a personal level, you know, I took a lot of hits in this campaign. And although people were interestingly nice today. Now that it's over, people were like, hey, thanks for trying. It was, you know, but I'll say this guys. I also got stuck with a huge debt.

My call to make, I made that call and going forward, for example, if you donate at jankforamerica.com, you're not going to, I asked you to donate so that I could help you. But we can't do that anymore in the context of this campaign because it's now suspended, okay? But if you'd like to help in making sure that team's okay, that works so hard, that tried so hard to try to do something positive in the world. I would deeply appreciate it. And that would be amazing. But you don't have to because, again, whenever I ask you to donate, it's for you. It's to help you guys get to power and leverage, et cetera. This is a rare instance where I'm saying, if you can help the team and me after we've already tried and it didn't work, then you're

wonderful and we deeply appreciate it. But you don't have to, right? And so bottom line is, Santa, you know me. I can't help myself. Yeah, I know. I give it everything I got. And there's no agenda other than, wouldn't it be amazing if someone actually fought for you and actually delivered on the things that are so popular, so intensely popular, ranging from paid family leave, lower drug prices, like what used to be known as the progressive agenda, the Bernie Sanders agenda, before the progressive activists in the cities took over and went in a completely different direction. But the 2016 Bernie agenda is still enormously popular.

It is. Unfortunately, I think that agenda, for the time being, is dead. And that's the most depressing part about all of this. Yeah, so I hope you guys put the jankforamerica.com link in the description, and as we've done for other candidates. And so I appreciate all of you guys to all my supporters. you're amazing. I love you for trying. And we're going to try again in different ways. And we're to keep on trying. The only advantage we have is relentlessness. So if we keep trying and trying and trying, we're going to knock that door down. And we're more relentless than they are. And we need it more than they do. You know, so let's keep going. Let's organize together.

I'll see you guys at the town hall tonight. And I'll see you back at TYT. We'll restart Operation Hope. and we'll begin to kick ass together and build up our power and use it for you guys. All right, let's take a break and we'll be back with some more news. Welcome back to the show, everyone. We're gonna do a brief segment here where I read some of the feedback from our live viewers. Critical Rice Theory writes in and says, and it is critical rice theory, that's the handle. If a majority of your voters think something's an issue, you have to address it, totally, I agree. And if you don't address it, again, it creates a vacuum that allows for your political opponents

to offer up proposals that you might not like. And obviously it's not good for your political career either if you're not listening to your own constituents. Let's go to Blue Spirit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 who says, why should, and this is in our member section, why should a town have to cut its budget to help Americans to accommodate migrants? Well, I think that's what we're seeing in terms of the backlash in certain cities that have seen an increase in migrants. Look, we can't treat these people inhumanely, and we shouldn't, okay? They do need to, they need shelter, and the idea of just leaving them to find whatever shelter on their own. is ridiculous. Of course these cities are going to try to find shelter for them. But at the same

time, that's going to come at a cost. And when you have a dysfunctional federal government that is not taking care of this matter due to their own political aspirations and political maneuvering, it really just puts these cities and towns at a massive disadvantage. It's just really shows you how broken our political system is at the moment. It's depressing. Let's go to Miss Anonymous 617, who says, we got 9.4% uncommitted. here in Massachusetts yesterday. And of course, this trend began in Michigan where Arab and Muslim voters decided to vote uncommitted instead of voting for Biden in the primary in order to send a strong message about how they are demanding a ceasefire. And so I'm really happy to see

that that trend is continuing. We'll see how it plays out in the general election. I don't know what percentage of these voters are going to sit the election out or, you know, vote differently or vote for someone other than Biden in the general. I guess we'll wait and see. But I'm actually amazed that this has really taken off because it's so difficult to organize people and have something like this work. There was an effort to organize in Michigan, but what we just experienced in Massachusetts and Minnesota was totally organic. So that's impressive. Thank you to our new members including Roy Gumpel, Marcia Weasel and Andrew Andrew Webb, Web Ray. You guys are amazing. Thank you for supporting the show and supporting

what we do here. As you guys can probably tell, I share points of views and certain stories that isn't really consistent with one political ideology or another. And the reason why I do that is because I just really want to break through, pierce through ideological media bubbles. because I was in one forever and was so blind to so many things that were happening in the country. And I feel a tremendous amount of guilt because I feel like I unwittingly got stories wrong or misinformed people. And I just really want you guys to know that I take this job seriously. It's important to me to get you guys the truth as uncomfortable as that truth might be for myself, for you. That's just the job that I want to do. And I don't want to mislead

anyone about what's actually happening. So for anyone who is offended by those stories or those points of view, I'm sorry if you don't enjoy it, if you don't like it. But for those who stick around, thank you. I really appreciate you and I appreciate the support that you give to the show and the work that we do here. All right, let's go to, let's go to our Twitch community. We have Matt is Jenk who subscribed with Prime and they've been subscribed for 16 months. 16 months, woohoo, it would be, it would have been more, but I spent seven months in a nursing home because I had seizures and doubled pneumonia and was put in a coma for two weeks. Oh my God, I'm so sorry.

I have what is called functional quadriplegia. I thank TYT for speaking up for the small people, people like me, your voice is important, which makes my voice important. I'm so sorry that you've gone through that. Thank you for writing in and sharing your story with us. And it makes me happy to know that we've provided any comfort to you. And that's what I try to do here. That's what Jay tries to do here.

We do try to provide a voice for people who are oftentimes neglected, ignored, brushed aside. And anyway, thank you. Thank you for writing in. Let's take another break. When we come back, we're going to have John Ida Rola join in. I'm probably going to surprise him with some stories that he's not prepared for because I didn't get to a lot. in the first hour. But stick around because one of my favorite stories is in the second hour. Florida's breakup with spring breakers. So much fun. Come right back.