The Young Turks - Evil or Incompetent?

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

By voting no on the infrastructure bill, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez set off a fierce debate among NYC residents eager to see the subways improved. Arizona Kyrsten Sinema did a rare interview where she talked about her negotiating style, disagreeing with her party and fashion critiques. Senator Joe Manchin boasted that the ‘coal market has never been hotter.’ Ben Shapiro told a crowd in Florida 'wokeness is destroying America.' President Biden is asking for an investigation into oil companies illegally increasing gas prices as their costs drop. Host: Ana Kasparian 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. Oh, hello there. You're watching The Young Turks. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian. It is a super Wednesday with both hours of the show, just jam-packed with stories that I cannot wait to share with you guys. Later in the second hour, John Iderola will be joining me to talk about some of the updates in regard to the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. We'll also talk about how the right wing is essentially rebranding its manufactured culture war against Sesame Street and PBS. I've got my side pony because it's good to have that when you're talking about Republicans being nothing more than one trick ponies. So it's going to be a great show in the bonus episode today, super producer Ashwaria.

One of the people who I would not be able to do this job without will be joining me for a discussion. I want you guys to get to know her. She's a really big part of the show, but a lot of the people who help to make this show happen are not in front of the camera. So you'll get to meet Ashwarya, you'll get to know a little bit of our process and we'll get into some personal questions as well. So you can become a member by going to tyt.com slash join. or if you're watching on YouTube, just click that join button and you'll be offered different memberships and you can join at a price point that you're comfortable with. And as always, please like and share the stream.

Help to get the message out for TYT because the more eyeballs we have on the show, that means the more people are hearing our message. Without further ado, why don't we get to our first story today? Because I want to continue discussing just how corporate media tends to frame things in a way that denies reality while simultaneously helping corporate interests, okay, helping the very business interests that want to do away with any policy that would actually materially benefit your life. We need to know one thing, and it's an important thing to suss out.

Is the corporate media incompetent, or are they just plain evil in the way that they frame any type of negotiation regarding social spending. Now, case in point, recently the New York Times had a fascinating, lengthy piece on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, titled, Acosio-Cortez isn't wavering, are New Yorkers on her side? And the sub-headline there is, by voting no on the infrastructure bill, Representative Alexandria Acosio-Cortez set off a fierce debate, including among city residents eager to see the Subways improved. Now, Representative Ocasio-Cortez was one of the progressive lawmakers who did the right thing in refusing to vote in favor of the corporate handout bill, also known as the bipartisan infrastructure bill. That was the bill that was promoted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. That was the bill that received support among Republicans in both the Senate and the House, 19 in the Senate, 13 in the House. And it was a great to see AOC stay true to what her promise was, along with other members of the squad,

by the way, because the whole point was that progressives would vote in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure bill if and only if there was passage of Biden's build back better agenda, which has all the social spending in it. All of the provisions that progressives, of course, prioritize, but more importantly, would benefit the lives of constituents that these lawmakers represent. Now, the context, of course, is important, but the New York Times didn't get into the context. They didn't get into the context regarding how corporate Democrats, certainly corporate Democrats like Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema in the Senate, didn't hold up their side of the promise or their side of the deal. They were supposed to go along with the

reconciliation bill, as long as they got passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill. They didn't hold true to their promises. But that context was missing in this. piece. Instead, get a load of the framing that you'll come away with as you read this story. Now, they write this. Yes, AOC is one of the progressives who voted against the infrastructure bill, want to know why? Because corporate Democrats didn't fulfill their side of the deal getting the social spending bill passed. Like, that is, that is the point that they should mention. That was not in there. Here's what the lead was. This is the first paragraph in their story. As the number six train, subway train, as the number six subway

train creaked toward an elevated Bronx station on Tuesday, one of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's constituents stood across the streets struggling to understand his congresswoman's opposition to the most sweeping public works legislation in generations. Then they move on and say the infrastructure bill, which passed the House last week, offers New York billions of dollars. And it was a top priority for President Biden, congressional Democrats, and even 13 Republicans, four of them from New York. This is the third paragraph. Yet Acacio Cortez and five fellow progressives voted against it, they argued that the bill was too modest and sought to use their votes to pressure wavering moderates to support

a bigger climate and social safety net bill that is pending. No mention of corporate Democrats and how they fail to fulfill their side of the deal. No mention about any of the context that's relevant in informing AOC's decision to vote against that legislation. Now, again, those are the three paragraphs in the very beginning of the article. There's also no mention about how the bipartisan infrastructure bill includes provisions that would actually be incredibly unpopular with AOC's constituents. For instance, that would allow for the privatization of public infrastructure, which means that corporations would be managing that infrastructure and of course would be implementing tolls and fees that Americans would have to pay as they're getting to and from work. No mention of that provision at all by the New York Times. They also didn't get into an analysis in regard to how exactly the bipartisan infrastructure bill would benefit AOC's constituents. They vaguely mentioned spending for public transportation. They vaguely mention a number, billions of dollars.

Now remember, the bipartisan infrastructure bill only allocated about $550 billion in new spending. So what portion of that is going to help New Yorkers with their public transit system? New York Times doesn't get into any of that. But they did just kind of vaguely talk about it or write about it as if it would overwhelmingly benefit the lives of New Yorkers. Okay, I mean, it's not true. There are certainly huge issues with the bill, but they didn't get into that. Now, they love to cite anecdotal evidence for how AOC's decision to vote against the bipartisan bill is incredibly unpopular in her district, so unpopular. Now, did they provide a representative poll to make that point?

Because, you know, a representative poll of the constituents in that district would give you a better idea of whether or not her constituents. disagree with her decision. They didn't do that. But they're like, oh, let's just find, let's just find some people in New York in this district who didn't like her vote. And they gave the example of Emmett Ellen, Allen, who says this, right mindset, speaking about AOC's decision, but wrong execution. And there were other comments like that sprinkled throughout the article. But again, anecdotal evidence is not the same as maybe having a representative poll that shows how constituents in that district really feel. Nonetheless, the other paragraph that I wanted to draw attention to is where they write

that even in her New York City district perceived as one of the most liberal in the nation, there are sharp disagreements unfolding over how far left the party should go and how change is best achieved, according to interviews, get this, with more than a dozen constituents elected officials and party leaders? Oh, fascinating. So what portion, what percentage of the dozen or three dozen people that you talk to represent her constituents? Because there's a lot of people mixed in that group of interviews. You've got some constituents, but then you have, you know, elected officials and party leaders. I'm guessing elected officials and party leaders who have probably been pretty transparent about the fact that they can't stand the progressive wing of the Democratic

party. But we don't get any details about the specific individuals that they interviewed here. Let me give you more, though. They blame her. They blame AOC for being divisive. They don't mention Joe Manchin. They don't mention Kirsten Cinema. They don't mention the fact that cinema would literally run away from her own constituents as they're trying to ask questions about legislation that she purported to support. And now all of a sudden has completely abandoned her base on. They didn't get into that. They didn't talk about how divisive that was, but they did talk about how divisive AOC is, allegedly, that she's divisive. She's the big baddie. She's the one who denied corporations or tried to deny corporations, those sweet,

sweet government contracts. How dare she? But let me give you more. They finally provide a positive comment about AOC in the fifth paragraph? No. The 10th paragraph? No. 15th paragraph? No. They waited until the 16th paragraph of the article to provide a positive comment on AOC. And it comes from an assemblyman, Zoran Kwame, who says this. All I've heard across the district has been support for the decision that she made. A lot of that is based on the fact that she was elected on the promise of fighting for more. than the crumbs we've been told to accept. And he's absolutely right about that. And then my favorite part about this piece is how the New York Times decides to conflate AOC's constituents with the business community,

going so far as to include the Chamber of Commerce in the same sentence as her constituents. Here it is. They write, some constituents, business leaders, and elected officials say that day-to-day, she's not always accessible. Ideology sometimes has to go out the window when it comes to bringing home the bacon, says Thomas Gresh, the chief executive of the Queen's Chamber of Commerce, who said he has never been able to successfully schedule a meeting with the Congresswoman. By the way, that speaks very highly of AOC.

Look, I will criticize AOC when I think she deserves the critique. not taking up a meeting with the head or the VP of the Queen's Chamber of Commerce is something I can get behind. Go ahead and cry more, Grish. But I'll give you more from this piece. Again, there's no mention of how Mansion and Cinema didn't uphold their part of the deal. All the blame was on AOC and how she's so, so bad, so naughty for not voting in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, there was again no explanation or analysis of what's even in the bipartisan infrastructure deal and how it would be so great for its constituents, right? No mention of that. And so the real question here, and I want to ask you guys, because this isn't the first time

that we've talked about it this week. The media's framing on progressives versus the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. We've seen it happen time and time again. So the real question is, and we have a poll on this, t-y-t.com slash polls, is the New York Times incompetent or evil in the way that they've been covering this story? And by the way, I want to give you another example. This isn't necessarily about the New York Times specifically, but we have noticed something very specific in the way the cable news networks are reporting on the build back better agenda, on inflation. Remember, we shared a story with you regarding former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who I'm not a massive fan of, but he has been raising alarm over inflation

in our economy. But the way that the media was reporting on it literally twisted his words, right? They put words in his mouth when, according to the op-ed he wrote this week in the Washington Post, this is what he thinks the solution needs to be in response to inflation. He writes, let's not compound errors that have already been made with far too much fiscal stimulus. He's talking about the Federal Reserve here. And overly easy monetary policy by rejecting build back better. The legislation would spend less than 10 years than was spent on stimulus in 2021. Because that spending is offset by revenue increases and because it includes measures such as child care,

that will increase the economy's capacity. Build Back Better will have only a negligible impact on inflation. So Larry Summers is being very clear there. He's saying, look, I'm not saying that the solution or the response to inflation should be to kill the build back better agenda. But if you watch cable news, they'll tell you a different story. They'll put words in Summers' mouth. Just watch. Summers, he pointed this week to the $1.9 trillion American rescue plan that was passed earlier this year in March.

He said that's a major reason behind the rising inflation, something he called at the time, quote, the least responsible macroeconomic policy we've had in the last 40 years. Is it possible that Americans are suffering now from high prices because the Biden administration over-stimulated the economy with all of this money going into the economy? The inflation thing is so real that everybody acknowledges it now. Of course, it's not just Republicans. I mean, Larry Summers has worried about it openly and Joe Manchin worries about it quite rightly. And the problem Joe Biden has is that it's going to affect the passage of billed back better. They've already created a lot of harm this year with the previous $2 trillion package they passed earlier this.

year without a single Republican vote. It created raging inflation, which Larry Summers, the last honest Democrat in town, admitted was going to happen, predicted was going to happen. So the best way to sum up the impact of this package, if the Democrats pass it, and of course it'll be all by themselves, is they double down on all the mistakes they've already made this year. Yeah, well, I thought you put it well, I mean, and Larry Summers deserves a lot of credit. Larry Summers deserves a lot of credit, unless you actually read his op-ed and noticed that he doesn't want to kill the social spending bill.

That he's actually blaming inflation on the behavior that we're seeing from the Federal Reserve. You know, cheap money in the economy allows for private equity to borrow at near zero interest rates and invest that money in real estate. Single-family homes, which has inflated housing prices, and that's spilled over into the rental market as well. They didn't get into that because it seems like, I could be wrong, but it seems like the corporate media has an agenda here. For me, if I were to answer that poll, it seems like they're intentionally taking Larry Summers's words and twisting them in order to fit a pro-corporate anti-social spending narrative. And in the case of the New York Times, to leave out so much critical context in their reporting on AOC's actions, I mean, it just shows you everything that they really stand for, who they really stand for, what they protect in this country.

It isn't policy to benefit your lives, it isn't social spending to materially improve your lives. What they seem to want to protect is corporate interests and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. and if AOC and other progressives refuse to play ball in providing government contracts and handouts to corporations, because corporations love that kind of welfare, well, they're being baddies. They're being very naughty, according to the New York Times. Absolutely pathetic. Anyway, we've got to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll move on from New York Times and focus on how Politico loves to fillate people like Kirsten Cinema. They did a long piece on her. We'll give you that story and more when we come back. back.

Welcome back everyone. You're watching TYT and I'm Anna Kasparian. Let's get to our next story. Politico, of all places. Politico has decided to publish a complete and utter fluff piece on behalf of Senator Kirsten Cinema, someone who's done quite a bit of damage. to herself in regard to the Democratic electorate or Democratic constituency in her own state of Arizona. In fact, if you pull Republican voters in the state of Arizona, only about 40% of them have a disapproval of her job performance. When you look at other Democrats in that state, the number jumps up to 75%. I give you that number because Kirsten Cinema standing in the of passing Joe Biden's social spending bill, which would provide paid family leave,

which would call for lower drug prices, which would, you know, do things that would really improve the lives of Arizona. She's stood in the way of that. And now here comes Politico to essentially do positive PR for her and to completely ignore how her political corruption is what really motivated her behavior. So let's get to it. They write, Senator John Thune, the GOP whip, confirmed in an interview he's pressed cinema to join his party multiple times. But cinema's goal in an evenly split Senate isn't to toss away Democrats majority, despite enduring months of criticism from progressives on her policy positions, rock solid protection

of the filibuster, and yes, even her fashion choices. So, you know, she says like, why would I want to join the Republican party, no. No, my behavior has nothing to do with wanting to agree with Republicans, which might be true, because really what's motivating her is corporate donors. We'll get to that in just a second, because I always love to come correct with the receipts and the evidence. But she's also trying to make it seem like she does all the negotiating on good faith. In fact, she says this, I've been concerned at the push that happens in both parties, this push to have no disagreements, to only have unity, or to only speak with one voice.

And some will say, oh, that is our strength. Having some disagreement is normal. It is real. It is human. And it's an opportunity for us as mature, us as mature beings to work through it. Yeah, but how about answering questions from your constituents in regard to abandoning them on key policy issues that you campaigned on? She claimed that she wanted to raise the federal minimum wage. She claimed to really, really care about responding to the climate crisis appropriately. I mean, that was actually one of the main things that she campaigned on. She also was a Ralph Nader supporting progressive at one point who claimed to be concerned about forever wars. She claimed that she wanted corporations to pay their fair share in taxes.

Now all of a sudden she's changed her opinion on all of that. Did Politico ask her why? No. Did Politico challenge her narrative here where she's pretending to be negotiating on good faith? No, they didn't challenge it at all. It was just a giant fluff piece. I mean, the way that they decided to fillate her here is honestly incredibly shameful. And I wish I could ask these reporters, do you feel good about you?

Like, how do you feel after you put out a piece like this? Do you recognize that you're not really doing journalism here, that you're providing a fluff piece and a positive PR article for Kirsten Cinema? They probably told themselves all sorts of stories about how they're doing the right thing here. here, but they're giving their readers one side of a story coming from the very person who has a personal interest in rehabilitating her image. But let me give you more. She decided to criticize Democrats for having a bold vision for this country. In fact, she says that she will criticize her party for its complicity in setting unachievable, sky high expectations just like the Republicans who promised to repeal Obamacare under former President Donald Trump.

You know, the difference is repealing Obamacare was unpopular. But the policy proposals coming from progressives and the Biden administration pull really, really well. It was a big difference there. But let me continue. A $3.5 trillion social spending bill sweeping elections reform, a $15 an hour minimum wage, and changes to the filibuster rules were always a long shot with cinema and mansion as the definitive Democratic votes in the Senate.

Oh, oh, was it always a long shot, political? Why? Why was it a long shot with Mansion and Cinema? Can you get into that? What are the motivating factors here? What is persuading them to vote against legislation, to vote against policy that their constituents overwhelmingly support? Can you get into that?

Can you challenge her narrative here? No, they didn't do it at all. But let me continue. They then quote Cinema is saying this in regard to the Democratic Party. This is so rich. You're either honest or you're not honest. So just tell the truth and be honest and deliver that which you can deliver. Kirsten Cinema, who is now on multiple videos running away from her own constituents

because she doesn't want to answer questions about her corporate corruption. telling us about honest, like it's so rich to hear anything regarding honesty from her. But she's very bold, very brave. Let me give you more. The fact check, the fact checks never happened in this piece. So you should read it for yourselves. You know, don't take my word for it. They just allowed cinema to say whatever she wanted to say. And they took it at face value. They provided no context, no fact checking. And I do want to maybe help the political reporters out a little bit. Because look, I get it. This job is hard. Sometimes we get things wrong. Sometimes we miss things. We know, we were covering cinema's corruption

for, for months. In fact, why don't we go to this video of cinema telling everyone about her corruption herself? This is while cinema was speaking before the Chamber of Commerce, and she just loves being in tune with the business interest. Let's watch. The way I make, decisions on behalf of Arizona and for our constituents is by listening to the business leaders who will be impacted by these decisions. I can tell you that many Arizona businesses have already reached out to my office and I know have discussed the concerns that they have with the Pro Act with some of the folks who are on our call today. We are watching carefully because some of the Pro Act provisions, especially in regards to the worker classification

test for independent contractors, could become a part of other legislative ideas. So I would ask all the members who are joining us today to please stay involved with my office and help me by sharing information about how this would impact you and your company so that I can go back to Senate leadership and folks on both sides of the aisle to discuss the concerns that Arizona businesses have. This is at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. These are business interests that do not want to pay more in taxes. And she's just brazenly saying, make sure you guys are. hitting me up, reach out to my office. Well, talk, because that's how I prioritize things. That's how I make decisions about legislation. And you know what talking really means. In fact, if you don't know what talking really means, political, let me help you out with that

as well. Here's another video we did on Kirsten Cinema and the pharmaceutical companies corrupting her. And remember, the Build Back Better Agenda initially had a provision that would allow for Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, allowing for lower drug prices. We pay two to three times more for pharmaceutical drugs in the United States compared to other developed countries, right? So doesn't it make sense to support a provision that would allow for Medicare to negotiate drug prices? No, Kirsten Cinema was against that. Why was she against it? Well, she loves that sweet, sweet cash from pharmaceutical companies. Let's watch.

Cinema formed a congressional caucus, by the way, to raise awareness of the benefits of personalized medicine in February, then soon after that, employees of pharmaceutical companies donated $35,000 to her campaign committee. Now, it doesn't stop there. I want to give you specific examples. Amgen gave her $5,000. So did Genentech and Merck, Sanofi, these are all pharmaceutical companies. Pfizer and Eli Lilly all gave $2,500 each. Each of those companies has invested heavily in personalized medicine, which sounds great, right?

Except it promises individually tailored drugs that can cost a patient hundreds of thousands of dollars. And also it's worth noting that for the 2019 to 2020 election cycle through March, this isn't even when she's running for re-election, political action committees run by employees of drug companies and their trade groups gave her $98,500 in campaign funds. I mean, I just think that that kind of data, that kind of information is important. It's important to provide that context for your readers. No, am I wrong? Because journalism is not supposed to be like glorified stenography. It's not supposed to be like, oh, here's a person in a position of power.

You tell me what you want me to publish. That's literally what they did. Nothing more than a puff piece, just providing positive PR. This is journalism? What is this? I want to go to the last graphic here because she really, she makes sure to double down on this notion that she negotiates on policies on good faith. She says, if you're in the middle of negotiating things that are delicate or difficult, doing it in good faith directly with each other is the best. way to get to an outcome. I'm still in the process of negotiating the second provision of the

president's agenda, and I don't negotiate in the press. It would be difficult to answer questions from real journalists. It would be difficult to talk to people who are actually informed about the motivating factors for someone like Kirsten Cinema. She runs away from people like that. We have several videos showing you running away from people who have specific questions about her corporate greed, her close ties, her coziness to corporations. Just that Politico decides to omit all of that in their reporting and treat her as if she's a good faith actor who's just trying to do the right thing by her constituents. No, that's not what's motivating her. What Politico is doing here is PR. And if they want to do PR, go work for a PR firm. Go be a publicist.

But don't pass this garbage off as journalism. It's not journalism. It's not anything to be proud of. It's just shameful and honestly creates more distrust toward our institutions. When you hear people raging about the media, about the news industry and how they lie to people, this is the kind of stuff they're talking. about. Stop running interference for corporate goons. If you're doing that, you're not a journalist, you're not a journalistic organization. You're a joke. All right, let's move on to our next story. Because I thought this was fascinating. All right, so we've got Ben Shapiro. You know, he's on Rogan's podcast and all of that. I know he's made a bunch of appearances recently,

but there's something else that caught my attention. Ben Shapiro argues that, Despite all of our societal issues, despite all of our societal ills, the one thing that will destroy America is wokeism. Let's watch. So tonight, we're going to talk about how wokenness is destroying America. And here is the thing. A lot of members of the left starting to realize the wokeness is destroying America. The problem with wokeness is that bottom line, it promulgates lies. In particular, it promulgates four sets of lies. It promulgates lies about the nature of the United States. It promulgates lies about the nature of inequality. It promulgates lies about the nature of responsibility. And finally, it promulgates lies about the nature of truth itself.

Now, I debated Ben Shapiro before the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce. And we have some agreements in regard to so-called wokeism. We have some pretty significant disagreements as well. And I just wanted to respond to like the whole theme of his wokeism speech by saying, look, you could be annoyed with wokeism. You know, you could have your thoughts on that and I've shared my thoughts on it. But to say that wokeism is what's destroying America is just a weird thing to say. Because there's a lot going on in this country right now. A lot that's causing pain and suffering among our fellow Americans that has nothing to do with the

culture wars. In fact, a headline from today that was jarring and I wish got a lot more attention. 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 12 months during the pandemic. That's a record. A hundred thousand Americans dead from drug overdoses. These are deaths of despair. These are people who are addicted to opioids, thanks to a lot of help from pharmaceutical companies pushing painkillers. I mean, that's a lot of people. You look at the body of this piece, New York Times reporting on it. The people who died, 275 every day, would fill the stadium where the University of Alabama

plays football. Together, they equal the population of Roanoke, Virginia. But here's what's also jarring. The new figures, which are provisional but rarely change much in final tallies, represents a 28.5% increase from the same period a year earlier. Here's the relevant part. The financial, mental health, housing, and other difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic are widely blamed for much of the increase.

So on one hand, we've got wokeism, which can be annoying, can have some unintended consequences by people who I think have good intentions. I think want equality, want equality of opportunities, you know. But to say that that is the one thing that's destroying America, I just, like, hyperbole doesn't even cover how ridiculous that statement is, okay? You have people literally sleeping and dying on the streets, 60,000 of whom are living and dying on the streets of Los Angeles County. alone. Okay, so I just, there are real economic issues. And I just want to get to a point

in this country where we focus on that. But it's really hard to do it when all you've got on the right is nonstop fear mongering about culture war issues. By the way, women haven't been able to get back to the workforce. Even when they want to go back to work, they can't do it. They don't have child care. Some schools are still closed. They can't afford child care because they've been paid insanely low wages, their entire working lives. Maybe talk about those issues, but no, it's wokeism. The real problem in this country is teaching about racism in our public schools. That's what's destroying America. Anyway, let's get to the second video, because he does give specific examples of what he means, and I respect that. I just, I tend to disagree with his

diagnosis here, right? Because there was one moment where he finally got into economic issues, which I love, awesome. And get a load of his perspective on meritocracy. You know, I think there's this myth of meritocracy in this country, but he's pushing it along with this notion of personal responsibility. So let's take a look at that. Any system that rewards skills has excellent externalities for third parties. In any society, some people are going to be rewarded and some people are not going to be rewarded as much. The question is what metric do you use in order to delegate who is rewarded and who is not? Presumably, as a society, we'd like to reward people such that the externalities of their activities make our lives better. That's why we reward Bill Gates

for creating windows. That's why we reward Elon Musk for making Tesla. The system rewards that labor specifically because it makes a lot of people, it makes their lives better and it makes their lives easier. So, you know, he gives this example of people who have been incredibly successful in this capitalist economy. Elon Musk was one of them. But to leave out how much government aid people like Elon Musk have taken advantage of, I think is unfair and wrong. So for For instance, here's just one headline. This is coming from TechCrunch on June 23rd of 2009. The government comes through for Tesla with a $465 million loan for its electric sedan.

But by the way, that's just one example of the government coming to the aid of Elon Musk. I'm curious to see how Elon Musk would perform without all the help he got from the federal government to launch his business and to sustain his business. Let me give you more. This is from the New Republic. A 2015 Los Angeles Times investigation estimated that Tesla, Tesla, Solar City, and SpaceX had together benefited from $4.9 billion in government support. That included, for example, a $465 million low-interest loan from the Department of Energy in 2010 that helped Tesla ride out the effects of the Great Recession.

Since then, Texas's Travis County has offered a $14.7 million at minimum tax break for the building of a Tesla factory. A Nevada factory was built on the promise of up to $1.3 billion in tax benefits over two decades. So listen, if you want to commend someone like Elon Musk for being a visionary, for having ideas that were revolutionary, you want to make that point, fine. I certainly have my disagreements with Elon Musk, but I'm not going to minimize what he has thought about doing and what he has accomplished, but you also have to acknowledge how much help he's gotten from the federal government. Because let me tell you something, ordinary Americans, they're looking to start a business. It's a lot harder to get capital like that from the federal government. And it's incredibly hard to get approved for a business

loan. So, you know, it's that saying, like people who think they're, you know, people who are like born on third or second base and they thought they hit a double. I mean, it's just another example of that. Just be honest about how the government plays a role in not only subsidizing these private companies, but more importantly in providing the seed money when they try to get these ventures started. And that's certainly what happened with Tesla. Moving on. I also want to talk about the myth of meritocracy in this country. Now, I'll give you a specific example to reinforce the point I'm trying to make here. I believe Ben Shapiro went to Harvard, okay?

Smart guy went to an Ivy League school. But, you know, I think that there's a misconception about how people who get accepted into these institutions are the brightest, the smartest, the best of the best. I don't know if that's the case with Ben Shapiro. I'm, you know, I'm not going to get into his personal merit, but I am going to get into a study that was done by the National Bureau of Economic Research. And they looked at the admissions over at Harvard specifically. Here's what they found. Among white people who have been admitted to the university, over 45% are ALDC. Okay, you might be wondering, what is ALDC? Well, that includes people who have been accepted for things like legacy admissions, people who got a scholarship because of a sport that they engage in, also people who have gotten admitted because someone in their family has made a massive donation. So that's what they're referring to when they mentioned ALDC people who have been admitted to Harvard, okay?

among admits who are African American, Asian American, and Hispanic, the share is less than 16% each. Our model of admission shows that roughly three quarters of white ALDC admins would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs. So look, there's the racial component to it, right? But I like that they did this control, where they take out. the legacy stuff, where they take out the sports, and where they take out donations to the university. Because all of a sudden, you see the likelihood of these people getting admitted to the university drop significantly.

Let me give you more. In addition to this, admissions preferences for ALDC applicants are substantial. We find that a white non-ALDC applicant with a 10% chance of admission would see a fivefold increase admissions likelihood if they were a legacy, more than a sevenfold increase if they were on the dean's interest list, and that they would be admitted with near certainty if they were a recruited athlete. So again, I just, I really, really want to emphasize the point that meritocracy

in this country is a myth. And I agree with Ben Shapiro, actually. There was a part in his speech where he talked about some schools doing away with the grading system because students are struggling. I don't agree with that. I don't think they should do that. I read a Los Angeles Times article about how teachers are struggling right now because due to virtual learning, a lot of students are failing their classes. They don't know what to do. So they're going from a grade-based system to a pass or no pass. I disagree with that. Sorry. So I actually happen to agree with Ben Shapiro on it. However, to then turn around and say, oh my God, wokeism is destroying our system of meritocracy is just a lie because that system does not exist. There is a system in place

that overwhelmingly benefits the privileged. And when I say privileged, I'm talking about people who come from money. People whose mama and papa can donate, you know, some money to the university, that plays a role in whether or not this Ivy League accepts you. End of story, right? And by the way, I do want to also mention that there's a specific reason why people like Ben Shapiro kind of shy away from economic issues, and they really hone in on the culture war. Number one, everyone hates the culture war. Everyone does have an issue with, you know, the scolding that takes place. Like, let's keep it real, all right? So the left has kind of become the scolders. The right loves it because that's all they want to talk about. And then in the

meantime, the left is missing out on an opportunity to relentlessly attack the right on what they are the least popular on. And that's economic issues. The John Deere workers who are on strike, 40% of them identify as conservatives. And I just want to remind you all of why they're striking in the first place. they wanted us to agree to do away with pensions for any new hires that came after us I'm not willing to sell out my future brothers and sisters that might be coming in here could be your kid it could be the kid down the street we're not interested in having our retirement plans in a wall street speculation portfolio we want something guaranteed

corporations don't want to pay their employees a fair living wage with a fair cost of living increase. Instead, they want to shift that over to stockholders and the president, CEOs, and vice presidents. Over the last year, our CEO's pay has gone up 160%. They're projected to make between $5.7 and $5.9 billion in profits this year. Whether you're a Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, leftist, doesn't matter. If you're a worker in this country, you're experiencing the same thing. And the policies that the right, well, I mean, I don't know what policies the right wing wants. The only thing they've been calling for is protecting corporate interests and cutting taxes.

They love it. I mean, that's all they advocate for. If we could focus on hitting them where it hurts and also mock them for only relying on a culture war for their messaging and campaigning, I think that we might have a path to victory. But instead, we keep giving them content again and again. giving them stuff to, you know, do these speeches on. I'm sure they get paid handsomely for these speeches. Focus on what they lose on.

They lose people once they talk about their vision for the economy. They lose when they pretend that we live in a meritocracy. They lose when they point to American workers and say that if they're struggling and can't feed their families, it's their fault. They're not taking personal responsibility. He knows how capitalism works. I know he knows how capitalism works because I told him during my debate with him before the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce.

Let's watch. As an employer, right, it's not that you have to be awful to your employees, but you have a fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders to return, you know, to provide a return on their investment. That's literally like it's baked into the system. That's true.

And so as a result, I mean, what's the most expensive cost within a business? It's always labor. It's always labor. So when we talk about exploitation, right, exploitation always makes it seem like you're actively brutal and awful to your employees, which in some cases, that does happen. But it doesn't even have to get that far. The whole point is to extract as much labor for the lowest possible price in order to increase in a monopolistic situation. increase profits and provide a return of investment to your shareholders. That's just the way the system works.

That is just the way the system works. And he knows it. And he'll say, no, no, no, the system works fine because, you know, companies need to compete for labor. And when they compete for labor, that's when they increase wages. But pay close attention to how they're talking about the labor shortage right now. But more importantly, pay close attention to how they're talking about inflation right now. Oh, these higher wages, it's translating to inflation, these higher wages, because they don't want you to get paid higher wages. Hit them where it hurts, guys.

It's easy. We just need to stay focused. All right, we got to take a break. We'll be right back. All right, well, let's get to our next story before we get to our second hour, which of course will be joined by John Idarola. I want to talk a little more about what's happening with gas prices. So Joe Biden, of course, has been getting a ton of pressure in regard to what Americans are feeling and experiencing at the gas pump. Gas prices are high.

And people want Biden to do something about it, even though his ability to do something about it is pretty limited. So Biden is now asking the head of the Federal Trade Commission to look into, to do an investigation on whether oil companies are. illegally increasing the prices of gas, right, at the pump. And so that's an interesting tactic, right? An investigation into oil companies, I mean, I'm always down for an investigation into oil companies. However, it misses the main point, which is there is a throttled oil production right now, specifically to spike prices at the pump. That's what oil countries are doing on purpose. So let's just be honest about that. I don't know why he's not speaking out about it, but that's what's actually happening. Now, he says this, he wrote a letter

to Lena Khan. She is the chairwoman of the FTC. Prices at the pump have continued to rise, even as refined fuel costs go down and industry profits go up. In the last month, the price of unfinished gasoline is down more than 5%, while gas prices at the pump are up. 3% in that same period. This unexplained large gap between the price of unfinished gasoline and the average price at the pump is well above the pre-pandemic average. And he also notes that two of the largest oil and gas companies in the United States are on track to nearly double their net income from 2019.

So they're doing pretty well. But part of the reason why they're doing so well is they can limit the production of what we need, right, of petroleum. Limit it, and if you limit it and you have higher supply, well, then you'll get an increase in prices. Essentially, they're manipulating the market. Now, let's talk about OPEC. I've talked about OPEC with you guys before, but here's what's happening. And I commend the Hill for including this context, because many, Many media outlets have just completely ignored this.

Here's what's really going on. Many of the factors impacting gasoline prices, such as global oil production, are out of the president's control. Currently, a group of oil-producing countries and their allies, known as OPEC plus, are steadily increasing their oil production, though the United States has urged them to do so more rapidly. Now, Saudi Arabia is being particularly difficult in responding to Biden. request to produce more oil.

I would venture to say, this is just speculation, that Mohammed bin Salman probably is not too friendly toward Biden these days. Biden did conduct an investigation into the slaughter of Jamal Khashoggi, who was, of course, murdered because Mohammed bin Salman ordered it. Now, Biden didn't do anything after he conducted that investigation and had the findings, he just decided to let it go. But I'm guessing the investigation itself and the findings of that investigation didn't make Mohammed bin Salman so happy. But look, putting that aside, even if it's not a retaliatory thing being conducted by Saudi Arabia, oil producing countries want

to make money. They want to make money that they missed out on in the beginning of the pandemic. So of course they're going to manipulate the market by holding back production. But this wouldn't even be an issue if we weren't dependent on fossil fuels, right? If Democrats like Joe Biden, for instance, focused on pivoting toward renewable energy decades ago, instead of sucking up to corporate interests, instead of providing oil companies, more government subsidies, maybe they should have focused on developing renewable energy in this country and getting us off of oil dependence. That would have been pretty nice. Then we wouldn't be struggling. with persuading other oil-producing countries to help us out.

Also, maybe some of the oil that we produce in this country shouldn't be exported to other countries if we want to lower, you know, gas prices in our borders. I don't know, just a thought. We also have oil reserves that we could tap into. But again, these are short-term solutions. The long-term solution should be renewable energy, moving toward electric vehicles.

Now, there's been some movement on that by the Democratic Party, but obviously they didn't move quickly enough. All of that stuff should have been fought for aggressively, and it should have been accomplished so we wouldn't find ourselves in the situation we're in today. But it is also important to know how this system works and why we're seeing higher gas prices at the pump. It's not because we have more social spending in the country. It's not because there's increased demand, but, you know, production has been the same.

No, there might be a little more increased demand. People are traveling more, certainly. But there's manipulation also happening because of the OPEC plus cartel holding back production. That's what's really going on. All right. We got to take a break. When we come back, John Iderola will be joining me to give you some updates on the Kyle Rittenhouse trial and more. Don't miss it.

We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.