The Young Turks - Fatal Flirtation

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

A federal appeals court upheld the nationwide TikTok ban. Investigators searching for the gunman who killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson have found key clues, including a flirtatious note, writings on ammunition, and an empty bottle. Rep. Tom Tiffany expressed a desire to cut “mandatory spending” programs such as food stamps. A Newsmax host criticized Trump’s nomination of Pete Hegseth. Stephen Miller announced that Trump plans to ban federal employees from conducting business in bathtubs." HOST: Brett Erlich (@bretterlich), Jayar Jackson(@JayarJackson), Mark Thompson (@MarkTLive) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com 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. How do you like my garbage truck? Welcome to our trash revolution. Begha! Live from the Polymarket Studio in L.A.

It's the Young Turks. It's Friday, Friday. Gotta get down on Friday. And by down, I mean, drop it. How pow, power panel, ladies and gentlemen, someone in the chat recently requested an all hat show. I'm not making that up and oh my goodness, am I happy to be able to provide that by sheer dumb luck that John Ida Rola had to drop out of the show today. He's fine all of his problems that he has to leave for.

He did not explain them, but judging by the look on his face, he's going through some kind of crisis. I think the baby's sick and he can't handle it. So if you have a bad day, just picture John with throw up on him and everything, while you get to party with us. I'm Brett Ehrlich in for John Ida Rola on the power panel today, J.R. Jackson, joining us from the watch list. How's it going, J.R? What's going on? Only advice for John Adirola, consider I'm an experienced parent. My child just turned, get this, you guys, Mark and Brett, 13, 13 years old.

You guys remember when he was just a little. It won't be long before he's asking. guys outside 7-Eleven to buy beer for him, you know? Just really, he's at that age. What makes you think that isn't happening already? Anyways, but the advice, John, is swaddle. If the kid is four years old, I don't care, swaddle her. It'll be fine.

Swaddle. That's the kind of oppressive love that John is known for. Also joining us on the power panel, Mark Thompson. He does love to swaddle that, John. Yes, thank you. So I didn't mean to step on my intro. Go ahead, please. Mark Thompson, host of the Mark Thompson show,

which you need to open a new tab for, right? now or right on your hand if you have like a single tab monopoly on your cellular device. But the Mark Thompson show on YouTube, how's it going, Mark? It's going great. And, you know, I'm inspired by my TYT brothers and sisters. We've had really good luck with the show. And I'm always so happy to visit here. So thanks for inviting me. Great to have you here. I just, before the show started, there was a pretty formal negotiation to get J.R. Jackson onto the Mark Thompson show. So that is in the works and in the offing. I'm so happy about that. This month, it will happen. Yeah. Mark Thompson offers a lot

of money. Yeah. That's really the only way we can get guests or is to offer some kind of financial inducement. The best part about being part of the negotiation in the background was Mark Thompson obviously wanting to get J.R. on the show. Right. But I was also on the call. So I had to like be polite and include Brett. Of course, I want both of you on. Then the next words were, but especially J.R. I did say that. I said, but especially J.R.

Because I wanted to talk about the beginnings of the young Turks. And Brett wasn't there at the very beginning. No, I was incidentally in the building, thanks to a lingering contract at current TV, for which I thank the Lord every day. Well, that origin story is kind of interesting too, maybe for another day. Guaranteed, not as interesting. But for all you people who are about to go or are currently subscribing to the Mark Thompson show on YouTube, you can look forward to that on J.R.'s later appearance. On this show today, we have some amazing news to cover some thoroughly intriguing news, such as the developments and some strange mishaps for the guy who shot the CEO of United Health.

We're going to follow that trail of breadcrumbs through Central Park and through the tunnel of love, apparently. And also, we're going to talk about how food stamps might disappear, which is decidedly less fun. But we do have some fun stuff for you as well, such as Newsmax hosts turning on Fox hosts because they are very obviously jealous. They themselves were not tapped for the cabinet positions on offer. And then if time, we will talk about Jesse Waters and his odd fixation with bubble baths and masculinity. Man is always talking about his alphidum while thinking about naked dudes in a bathtub. But first, don't forget to smash the like and subscribe button and share this right now because we have a lot of show for you. and you need to share that with the world and, you know, protect independent media.

All right, are you guys ready for this first story, J.R. and Mark? That's rocking. All right, let's get into the TikTok ban on the horizon. We are one step closer to a TikTok ban. That's right. For the 170 million Americans who use TikTok, they might have to come up with some other New Year's resolution besides stopping the use. of TikTok because today a looming ban on the Chinese-owned application was approved and upheld by a court. So the question is, will this ban stick? And ironically, how could Trump's

corruption play a role in keeping the app on app stores and overturning its ban? We'll talk about it all. Let's get into some of the details. I'm going to tell you what happened. A federal appeals court just green lit a federal ban on TikTok, which means that come January, the app might disappear from stores and slowly die on your phone. We'll talk about that. That's pretty amazing. But the cheat sheet on what happened is this. TikTok is owned by bite dance, which as Trump would say is from China. In April, Biden signed a bipartisan forced divestment legislation, essentially forcing bite dance to sell it by a deadline. And the reason they gave is the Intel community claims that China could use TikTok to surveil Americans and spread propaganda. And as we all know, that's not TikTok's job.

That's X's job. That's Elon Musk's job. TikTok challenged the law and are arguing it violated Americans' free speech rights to use TikTok. But the court sided with the Justice Department, NPR rights, and their analysis. The court said it was precisely because of TikTok's, quote, expansive reach that both Congress and the president determined that divesting it from China's control, quote, is essential to protect our national security. And Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote for the court, the First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States. Here, the government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary's ability to gather data on people in the United States.

I have trouble tracking how that is free speech. You can't do a platform because your data might end up in China's control. I don't know, we'll talk about that. But just for all of you who are plotting how you're going to ring in 2025, I put together a nice calendar. You might want to screenshot it. If you use TikTok, you will be happy up until the 19th, at which point they will stop featuring it. It'll be the end of the world. The next day will be denial followed by anger, bargaining, depression, and then worst, Instagram.

And then by about the 20th or 28th or so, you might have to do some real human interaction. Sorry for that hack joke. But that's a big if. The question is, what can TikTok do in this scenario? What are their next moves? Well, they can either A, turn to the Supreme Court, which they're probably going to do, or China might look to Trump for help. The TikTok investor, whose name is literally Jeff Yaz, gave $96.2 million to the GOP,

and Trump did change his tune a little bit on this. Okay, Trump before that was for the TikTok ban, right? Probably because he controls truth social and his best buddy controls X and he wanted to ban the competition. But then Yas showed up and then he changes new tune to say, actually, this ban as written might favor Facebook too much, which is still a sanctioned enemy of MAGA. So that. And then finally, before we get into our larger discussion, here's what Trump could do to prevent the TikTok ban. He could either persuade Congress to repeal the law using the bully pulpit. He can broker some kind of new deal, which is his brand, but he never follows through. Three, he can declare TikTok is no longer under Chinese control, or he could just refuse to enforce the ban.

Those are kind of the widely discussed things he can do. But first, to kind of guide this discussion, the question is, do you guys think that this ban will go through? And do you think it's a good idea? Okay, I'll jump in. Sure. I feel like it's going to have, this obviously is the speculation because we don't know which way the Supreme Court may rule. If they get to that point before, you know, what January 19th, I believe is when this is supposed to kick in, which is the day, ironically, a day right before President Trump will then be President Trump again and have his opportunity to do whatever is he's trying to do. I'm not sure if there's a day one declaration

or a day one type of promise the way the politicians always talk about. But there's that buffer zone. I'm sure you're probably going to get to how TikTok won't be available if this goes through or not. But there'll be enough of a buffer zone for him to figure out something, maybe one of these three to four ways that they're talking about. I think it'll be around. The hard part is how would it still be around? The selling of it, the complete decision to just not do anything about it, feeling like he has this kind of mandate where he can just either tell Congress or declare himself or talk to his people that are in charge of it. No, we're just not going to go that route and how they're going to explain that away. The explaining away part might be the easiest

thing because they haven't had to explain much of anything that they do that they've either reneged on or that they've just simply not done or done that they declared that they wouldn't. It's going to be around. It's going to be hard for them to get rid of TikTok, even though I guess the larger demographics of folks that are voters don't use it as much as say teenagers or 20-somethings. it's one of those things where I think he learned it when he had this first go around declaring, oh my God, it's it's China. They're coming for us and then flipped his script on it because what he wants to ultimately be is popular and that's going to be the bottom line, I think.

Right. Mark, what are your thoughts? JR is so right about the fact that it's going nowhere. You've got 170 million users of TikTok in this country. It's loved. It's beloved. It may exceed in how much it's loved. It may exceed Facebook and Instagram.

I mean, it's really, it's taken a hold in American society. And it's become a great marketing tool. It's become a sort of a commercial part of the business community to the point that they can advertise there. It's part of so many fabrics within American society now that it's more than just like a social media thing that just puts us in touch with cool videos. So to unwind all of that is just much to. big and steep a hill for this administration to climb. Plus, this administration is populated with people who really the mother's milk of so much of what they do is social media. And TikTok is an asset to them as well. So for all those reasons and more, it's going nowhere. Now, the legal

machinations and how it's going to sort of manifest, as J.R. said, a little tough to predict at this point. And the last thing I'll say is, if a sale was forced, it would be just that. It would be a forced sale. So you probably wouldn't get fair market value, if you will, for American control of TikTok. And it would open up the door to one of Trump's pals, I mean, talking about one of these jillionaire guys to come in and grab TikTok, this tremendous asset for all the reasons I just mentioned and more, at a sale price, a forced sale price. And one of the people who is indicated in interest in doing that should it become available is Jared Kushner. So, Watch for all of this to unfold in one way or another, but TikTok itself is going nowhere.

Right. That's the thing. So we kind of settle the question, right? They keep saying that the reason that they want to ban it is because China's going to get your information. Do you guys buy that at all as a reason? Or is it this just like, I want to sell it off to an American company? I don't buy the protection of our information, because if you really cared about protecting our information, you'd prevent it from being used by all of these domestic business. that have access to our information. I mean, our location, our identity, all of it's being tracked in boilerplate terms and conditions from Facebook to some gift you're going to buy on eBay. So I don't buy it, no. Yeah, it's one of those things. It's, I mean, domestically, Mark, you're talking about how it's already been sold in our identities and our locations and

everything. I have no expertise in this, but I'm paranoid. I think, as you guys already know, I feel like people's information is all across the world already. So, I mean, if you're worried about that, it's already happened. In my opinion, I don't know that for sure. But if it hadn't happened now, it's going to at some point from all these other entities and ways that we can spread our information. And honestly, not think about it or read any of the terms behind it. Yeah.

So I just put up in the chat a poll saying, why do they want to ban TikTok to sell it off to cronies or to protect Americans? And immediately, it's like 87 to 50 or 85 to 15, they want. want to sell it off to cronies. I just, yeah, I agree. I think that the most appealing thing to them, and I think this is a microcosm for what's to come with the Doge. There's people like Roe Conno who are going out there and saying, earnestly, if you guys want to play ball and talk and you want to eliminate waste in government spending, yes, I'm here for it for a real discussion. But I don't think that's the real discussion to be had. I think the closer incarnation to what we're going to see from Doge

is just this is like, uh, we got together and decided that we would like to make money off this thing instead of the people who are making money off it now. And so we're going to weaponize Congress to get them, this is a bipartisan thing, to get them to agree on something, which is itself like a miracle, unless you see for what it is, which is just a bunch of people being like, yeah, I'd like to make money off of that, right? I don't know, what do you guys say? Honestly, But the bottom line of it all is going to be Trump is going to take this. Whatever way it decides to stay around, whether it even be before he steps in, it's going to be one of those, look what I did for you. Look what I did for you type of moments.

Remember the UCLA basketball players that were held in, where were they? I don't remember. Lonzo ball. Yeah. Or not long. The middle ball, Leangelo, right? Is that his name? The one who's not in the NBA. Yeah.

When they were held overseas, and then he's like, I really look, look what I did for them. And he couldn't give a half a damn for them at all until he had the opportunity to make himself look good. That would be the motivation behind it. And whatever way it comes, be prepared for the high step. Well, he'll definitely take a victory lap. He loves taking those victory laps on anything. He's already taking victory laps on the stock market, claiming that it's at record levels because people were anticipating. This is before the election, okay?

He was already hitting record levels then. People were anticipating his victory. So he'll definitely take the victory lap. I think also, and this is kind of an interesting point that you guys are raising, perhaps it will be the blessing of Trump that will be needed for the House to kind of act, should it get to that point? So I wonder if he won't have an oversized place at the table in determining who actually or what entity might end up buying TikTok should the for sale go through.

Right. And this is not an important thing in America, which means they will. talk about it because it's the perfect newspeg. It's something unimportant that people immediately have a lot of like water cooler opinions about. And if you're wondering what will happen to TikTok, if it does get banned, it just will be removed from all the places where you can purchase your apps and it will no longer update, meaning that it will just slowly get glitchier until you finally throw your phone out the window and get a new iPhone 25. I don't say, just like the same my phone, yes. But remember, it's going nowhere. It will not go away.

that was my pitch today. All right, let's get into this next story. He checks into this hostel, which we've been up to on the Upper West Side, and he's assigned to a room where he has these two roommates, so it's a room for four, but he's the third person there. He talks to the clerk at the desk, and, you know, they are chatting back and forth, and, you know, she's kind of having a flirty moment with him and says, that's when the smile happens? Let me see your face. Take down your mask and he lowers the mask and gives that big smile. That little flirtation between the two of them in some good-humored way actually yielded what is so far the most significant clue to identifying him. You will not believe what might be responsible for the ultimate downfall and capture of the man

who shot and killed the CEO of United Health in New York a few days ago. After somehow evading capture in the wake of all this, which if you follow the play by play, it is insane. The guy apparently got on a bike, went through Central Park, ditched his backpack, got out, got in a cab, went to, as the new late breaking news is, went to a bus station and made his way out of town. It turns out he was very disciplined in tons of ways to not get caught. They have a partial fingerprint of him maybe, but the one time when he apparently lowered his mask, according to the sources, is to flirt with the girl behind the desk at the hostel. We have a lot more details to get into. But first, Mark, your reaction to this news.

Well, you know, first of all, the guy has this almost movie star smile. He looks to me like Jake Gyllenhaal a little bit, which is, I don't know, it's just striking. You kind of, I don't know, you expect this shadowy figure to have sort of a shadowy face. he has this leading man face um i'm because of some of the stuff that we've been talked about on the show today just in terms of kind of the digital trail that we all leave one way or another i'm a little surprised that he hasn't been apprehended yet i mean there is so much cctv footage of him and and i'm a bit astounded that he's eluded of authorities as well as he has i mean we have had a good look at his face, and the fact that you could, in a way, crowdsource

IDing that guy, then somebody knows that guy based on that face, and yet authorities have nothing on that, it's astounding. But, you know, if he is taken in because of that smile flash, we know, you know, guys, you can't help it, right? It's flirting works. It's what I was wondering, because this is the thing. It was, you know, the flirting moment is like the headlines now. It's so us, not us as TYT or the three of us, but like Americans for us to be like, oh, but this guy was flirting. I saw a headline where it said, this is the chilling, the chilling moment when the shooters

flirting. Okay, the guy shot the CEO in the back a few times, filled with the gun and shot him a couple, or maybe another time. And our concern is that, look, he even smiles afterwards. A dude rolled off like he did nothing when it happened. So I don't think it's such a chilling moment that he was smiling at some point before or after, I think it was before he even took part of it. He'd been there for over a week plotting the whole thing out.

But we're focused on look how he smiled because he was flirting with a girl. How do we know that he was hurting? Is there audio of this conversation? Maybe she's talking about how she smells a fart in the background or something. happened about it. I don't know. But she has to see his smile. So that was the reason that he lowered the mask. She asked. So there is. She was flirting. Yeah, I think that's fair to say. She was there was some flirtation mild or whatever. Or maybe she was just being friendly. I mean, we kind of, you're right. We've flown under the. I mean, I did it too. I'm not trying to

criticize him. Yeah. No, look at his face. He's happy. He's into it. He let down his guard. This is the hubris, the most amazing, I'm sure a good writer could come up with it, but a normal writer could not come up with this moment. I did, I do have a list of suspects. Let's skip to graphic four. Mark thinks he looks like Jake Gyllenhaal. I'm more of a, he looks like Aaron Taylor Johnson from kickass and ensuing films, but his first movie was kickass, I think.

Runner up, Dark Horse, someone who is also missing, not to talk trash about former child stars, but writer strong. I think he looks a lot like Sean Hunter from Boy Meets World. I don't know if you can see the last. Oh yeah, that's actually a good call. Is there an age progression on this kid? Yeah, it's the photo on the left. It's amazing. I do want to say, like, I agree. I think Ken Clippenstein's like, yeah, obviously we're joking. It's murder is bad. I know that murder is bad. None of us are arguing that murder is good. It is obviously a bad thing. But like, this is the kind of, this is the nation, as, you know, Mark points out this kind of stuff.

But like, this is a nation where like, if I want to do hard news and get a sponsor doing politics and to hard news, they won't show up. But this is a country where if I had a true crime podcast where I outlined the gruesome details of people getting their arms chopped off, dismembering. deposited in mailboxes all around the city, they'll be like sponsored by Verizon. 100%. Yo, every episode of Dateline is detailed, not every, I guess most are delaying someone's murder. And they talk to the family, they talk to the suspect, they talk to the person that they have in prison.

And as they're going through it, sometimes as they're going in, out of breaks or come back to introductions for the next block, then they'll say things like, in the gross murder. And I was like, man, this is still that person's kid, brother. father, mother, whatever. And the way that we flippantly talk about murder, it's just the way it is, how often it happens from our gun violence situation to honestly, how many people were shot in New York City

that same day that, you know, haven't had the coverage. And I understand the point of the coverage. But we pick and choose our moments when we actually have some reverence for death. And to act like that's not the case, I think isn't being very honest with, just humanity in general.

Let's talk about the tens of thousands of people murdered overseas every day. Right. Boy, that's true, too. I mean, maybe we're just so immersed in it that on some level we become a nerd to it. But the, the, the dateline thing is funny only because you're right. And they've got a podcast now. And it goes right to number one. Like everybody's just love.

I think the top two podcasts in America are Dateline. And so they're doing the Dateline thing, just what J.R. is talking about. And then there's a live read for like, you. know, more on that, more on who the murderer might be in a moment. But first, have you ever wished for fresh baked goods delivered to your door? I mean, it's crazy. I mean, like, dude, what it's so you're right. There's a weird cognitive dissonance here when it comes to a grisly crime, like gunning someone down on the streets of Manhattan, the manhunt, and then we get into some of these things that do make you smile, or they're just quirky, or they're just weird aspects to

it. And on some level, sure, we feel guilty for it. But on the other, on the other hand, as you've said, there's just, you know, there's too, there are too many examples of this stuff happening all the time. And this, meaning looking at the quirky things. Yeah. Yeah. Like also, CSI is going to be a murder of people that were in a fight. This is like Michael Clayton. This is someone doing some, ostensibly the fact that for people who don't know, they had handwritten, uh, writing on the shell casings that had basically key words in a book about the corruption of the healthcare industry. All of us know how incredibly insanely expensive it is to get sick in a miracle or even not sick, you know, break your ankle and need some, God forbid, you have to pay for an ambulance to come.

All the jokes that ensued afterwards were the kinds of jokes on everyone's mind. the question was, do we have the temerity to, and not as much writing on our career to actually communicate them with the world? So, you know, not fear of getting in trouble. Right. The one thing I just say because you brought it up, and I think it's great that you did, is that this reaction on the part of the public to this entire thing has been surprisingly, well, it's just lacked sympathy, frankly, for the victim. I mean, I'm just seeing online, tons of karma's a bitch, dude. You know, couldn't happen to a nicer guy. I mean, you know, finally payback.

It's incredible to me. I mean, it's just extraordinary. And yet, we do live with a system that's horribly broken and people are so aware of it and so fed up with it that when this thing happens, that is in a sense, a predictable reaction. Right. And then also, if you think that that is ridiculous, here is an actual moment from CNN where a crime solver went on to speculate. about possible motives as to who might have actually orchestrated this murder. This was on CNN. Take a look. There have been times when people have orchestrated their own demise for certain reasons.

We know that there are some, and I'm not saying this is the case, but as an investigation. Like for insurance purposes? Absolutely. Insurance purposes, you know, maybe they fear some type of investigation down the road. Maybe they want to leave their family in a good light. But there have been cases where people have orchestrated their own to my, and here's another reason. And just to say, you're saying in a nice language, you're saying, you're saying that it is a possibility. It is a possibility that he hired somebody to kill him. Absolutely. It cannot be ignored. This guy knew too much about where he was going to be at a specific time. Yeah. Wow.

This guy's like, you might. I love it because this is CNN doing. what was instantly on the internet, like instantly on X, instantly everywhere, instantly people talking about like, let me just speculate wildly. And I don't think CNN is like, oh, we got to catch up with them. But it is, it is kind of fascinating. I mean, I don't know, you guys react. I mean, conspiracy theories are always the sexy theories, you know. I mean, listen, if you want to, if you want to pin some specifics on a conspiracy theory, here's something. You know, he was involved in an insider trading situation with that company. And And there were depositions, you know, one of the bullets had on the casing, the word depose on it.

So if you want to go that way with it, so it's not now a disgruntled person who, you know, was stiffed on insurance and one of their loved ones died because they couldn't get the appropriate coverage, whatever it might be. And you want to play the insider trading thing. And this guy was taken out because he maybe was going to turn state's evidence. I mean, that's to me like a more believable conspiracy than that he was setting this whole thing up to take his own life. He had two kids. I don't know. I mean, and he needed some money. The CEO of United Healthcare needed to plot to have himself killed so his family could be well off. Or needed to do insider trading. Like what? I don't know if it was he that was implied or implicated in any of the wrongdoing or that he just had to be deposed. But if like, dude, if you're not making enough money as the CEO. of United Healthcare, like, I feel like you just like to like a year in salary and bonuses

as well on top of that. So you're right. I mean, the money thing, we can pretty well scratch that off the list. I love how he goes says, well, you can't ignore it. I think you pretty much can't ignore him offering himself, actually. I'm just the opposite view. You can ignore that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the guy who has a gun that jams on him. While we're all flailing to figure out who the suspects are, I'm I did compile a list, and this is Graphic 7 of who the suspects are not in this murder. And it's the pharmaceutical industry, mainstream media, and pro-private health lobbyists and politicians.

Like, you can rule those ones out because I think they really like a guy who is responsible for, as Graphics 6 says, The Value Penguin found that United Health Care denied 32% of claims in 2023, twice the industry average, though they do say, according to Value Penguin's website, an unnamed insurer disputed the denial rate on Thursday, one day after the guy was shot. But in the spirit of the American healthcare industry, I'm denying their claim that those figures are wrong. All right, we got to take a break. Don't go anywhere. We're going to read some of your comments during this break, if you're watching online, more after this. and get into this story.

There is one Republican who seems very, very, very excited to make life worse for people in America who have the worst time. Let's take a look. We can get at some of the mandatory spending also. I mean food staff, some of those things. That is Republican Representative Tom Tiffany, and believe it or not, his take gets even worse than that. Using a secret camera, the undercurrent, which is run by Lauren Windsor. And incidentally, you can see if you go to t.yt.com or YouTube.com slash tyt investigates. That shows you how tightly we are with them in the past. Using a secret camera, the undercurrent caught him red-handed saying this in July. I'm just really, I feel really just disheartened that, you know,

It's basically government bureaucrats that are running in. I mean, what we are learning every day is that, you know, that's just not the way to do things. It should be, you know, people who actually, actual investors, like, from Wall Street, like, know what they're doing and, like, went to school for that. So there's precedent, though, that that actually works. Why isn't that something that we can do on a federal level? Because you have a whole political party that does not believe in private enterprise. They do not believe private enterprise can solve problems.

They are the enemy. So trust private enterprise, the thing that fired your family and made health care wildly in unaffordable in America. So that is the same guy. Let's go back to Tiffany's take on food stamps, though, because we're about to expose his hypocrisy. He's saying that we should be cutting spending on food stamps, what he calls mandatory spending. But Tiffany represents the state of Wisconsin just to kind of frame this discussion the way that a progressive would. According to subsidy tracker, corporations are getting a lot

of money and subsidies from his in his state of Wisconsin. 2023, buy serve solution, $7 million tax rebate. 2020, Moulson Coors, $25 million. Green Bay Packaging, $60 million. Commatsu, mining corps basically $60 million. Haribo. I've seen that factory off the free $22.5 million. And let's not forget, Wisconsin asset, Brett Fav, and that $1.1 million welfare fund scandal from the COVID era. But not a peep from Tiffany on those handouts. Guys, what do you think seeing those moments where this guy wants to remove spending on food stamps to, quote, save money for America? I'm not sure if they think far enough ahead for these agendas and these declarations that they'll make. I mean, I assume he wouldn't have said some of the things on camera or on camera knowingly, but maybe he would. So all this money comes.

And you think he doesn't know that all this money comes into these particular industries and private industry is the one of solving all of our problems. And there's just one political party that doesn't believe in it. You know, if does he not pay attention to general to how things work in the country or how much money's been given? or is it just a constant push to keep that same narrative going? And they've convinced themselves of this as well. I looked up how much, what's is Tom Tiffany or Tim Tiffany makes? Tom Tiffany. Is that his name?

Double T. You know, he's only worth like a few hundred thousand dollars, right? So who is he looking to represent? He's a representative. Who does he represent? Like the people that he's saying should cut some more of their funding or more of the things that actually do when they assist with a couple hundred dollars a month to survive in the country. But he's probably the same guy that

a complaint about crime or to complain about homelessness problems. But there's absolutely no solutions for those things outside of punishment for them. Punishment after you've continued to undercut people and keep them from anything of this American dream that we talk about. It's only for those private industries that we continue to give our damn money to. May people who make minimum wage give their money to private industry because private industry always does something for other people. This stuff is small as this is, I know I recognize a lot of names of members of Congress. He's one of the ones that I didn't before I had to look him up more. Even people like him who don't have that much personally as

far as, you know, getting tons of money put into their pockets over it are still hellbent and brainwashed on the same narrative that the government is made to give it to the richest people in the country, in corporations, I'm sorry, in the country. And a little piddly, a couple hundred bucks they try to take from poor folks. It doesn't do anything except for punish poor folks. That apparently is the agenda. I don't know how much they have been brainwashed or how much he's been brainwashed as much as certainly they all sing from the same hymnal and they do it with a difference degrees of elegance. Sometimes some of them are really good at it. I'd say he's not that great at it. And the reality is that these programs, particularly when you get to Social Security,

more about these programs are I think not going to go away just because it's such a these are popular programs the thing about food stamps is that so many Americans aren't touched and then so many Americans are touched so I think the GOP feels safer in floating these kinds of entitlement programs to be on the chopping block because not all of America necessarily has agency when it comes to these but as to whether or not you know he believes this stuff I don't know it's kind of kind of like trying to figure out on, you know, at a Christmas mass, who really believes in God and who's just there because they're bringing the kids into Christmas mass. I mean, I don't know. But it's definitely a consistent part of a GOP platform is taking a meeting on either revising or eliminating many of these programs. That's a good analogy with the Christmas mass. Sorry, Brett, go ahead. No, I agree. And it's in with Trump, it's like, I wonder if Trump's like, quiet. We're just going to do that. Don't talk about it.

Like you guys, I don't know how the right wing has gotten away with saying, oh, are you poor? I'm going to make life worse for you in a country where there are more poor folk than rich folk. I know how they've done it, though, because in America, people want to be rich and they want to be safe. And if they're not rich or safe, they need someone to blame. And there's been a lot of race and economic shaming essentially by their saying, Listen, the reason you're not rich is because we're giving $400 to people for food stamps. That's what they're saying.

And it's your money that's buying other people food. Exactly. And I don't even think these guys want to get rid of food stamps because the more money that goes toward food stamps, the more discretionary income people have to buy all the other crap that private enterprise is trying to sell them. And they also don't have an excuse of who to blame. I mean, look, after Roe v. Wade was overturned and then, you know, obviously we've seen the uptick in mothers that have died and also complications that don't get addressed, they don't have the boogeyman anymore. If something ever actually happens with gun control other than like one provision every 10 years, they don't have the boogeyman anymore. They don't actually want to get rid of these things. Maybe they do, but once it happens, then like, oh, man, what do we run on to complain about?

So maybe they don't think that far ahead, and they just don't have to because, again, they have an electorate that's willing to buy whatever it is that they're selling. Right. And Mark's right that like these things are so popular. People love entitlement programs as they're called. They love Medicare. They love Social Security. And the one thing that the Republicans have in common with China, to be honest, is time. They're just going to spend a decade saying the same thing. The Chinese government thinks decades. in advance, the Republicans with their way they've been able to get control of the Supreme Court, they proved they're going to be decades in advance. So all they do is a messaging campaign forever to convince you that Medicare is bad, to convince you that Social Security is bad. Why? This guy says it. Privatize them and give it off to the people who are doing private

enterprise so that they can just vampirically suck all the money and make it so that they are rich. Even at a time when they're yelling at Medicare for being bad, it's like, well, it has lower administrative costs than United Healthcare does. Anyways, all right, we got to take a break. We're going to read some of your comments when we come back. We've got two hilarious and amazing stories for you. Don't go away. Welcome back to the pow-paw power panel that did cross the threshold on our $100,000 fundraising goal, something that people like Jake Huger, Anna Casperian, John Ida-Rola, Jordan Yule specifically could not do. I think Yaz could pull it off, but Jordan was holding her back.

That's all I have to say. So great, by the way, to see Brett. both celebrative and also kind of spiking the football at the same time, kind of in your face about it. Thank you. And that's the kind of aggression that allows me to succeed and capture all my goals. All right, speaking of aggression, this is an amazing story. So let's get into it. It is getting very, very messy at Newsmax. Some hosts Phoebe's got extraordinarily heard, it seems, because they were some of the few Trump psychophants not picked for cabinet posts. So I'm going to show you two pictures, side by side. This is a screencap from a television show. On the right, you got

Pete Hague Seth, a right-wing host, a military veteran who was nominated for Secretary Defense. And on the left, Greg Kelly, right-wing host and military veteran who was not nominated for Secretary of Defense. Now, you tell me if there's not a touch of jealousy that I am totally here for coming from Greg Kelly on Newsmax. Take a look. So with Pete, who is a, has told people quite openly that he's not good at being married. That's a situation for the folks in uniform. I speak from experience, number one, I made a hell of a lot of mistakes.

I am no angel, but I'm also not the nominee for Secretary of Defense, nor would I be, all right? No, I can't. I understand that. I can deal with that. I was on the military for nine years active duty. Iraq flew over during Operation Southern Watch, went back as a journalist. I know the culture, I know what flies, and I know what doesn't. Now, if I were a United States senator, I won't be the Secretary of Defense, but you never know, right?

Pete Hacks shows up for his confirmation hearings, if he makes it to the confirmation hearings. Where has he been thus far? He spent the bulk of his, I don't know, the last nine years or so on that couch, right? On the Fox and Friends couch. This clip goes on forever, and it's amazing. Greg Kelly then goes like, I interviewed him on that couch. I was on that show. He's on the show, but I was on that show. And he said basically everything except it should have been me, dad. Earlier this week, Greg Kelly also said this. Take a look.

How old is Pete? Pete's 44 or so. All right. Now here's what I'm talking about. There is time for Pete to make a big, valuable contribution to this country. Life is long. But now is not the time. I'm sorry. The stakes are way too high. Now, Donald Trump likes Pete Hegseth, respects Pete Hegseth, and that's amazing. But there are things about Pete Hegseth that he has got to deal with. Oh, my God. It's so great for those of you. What's that?

It looked like he was crying in that second. I don't know. A little teary-eyed. That's what I thought. It's, I'm teary-eyed, crying, laughing while it's happening. Greg Kelly also brought up the now infamous letter from Pete Hegsett's mom to Pete Hegseth saying things like on behalf of all women, and I know it's many. You've abused in some way. I say get some help and take an honest look at yourself. It goes on and on. I'm not going to read any more of it. But this plays into more and more vitriol, kind of guys. as helpful hints and criticism and consolation or whatever from Greg Kelly. But anyways, on Wednesday, Kelly turned things up a notch and really let out his frustrations

regarding headset. Take a look. Pete Heggseth is no Matt Gates. He hasn't done nearly enough for MAGA to warrant the Department of Defense job. And he's got serious baggage. Serious baggage. It happens sometimes. There are some problems here. Sorry, big time. According to Pete's lawyer, Pete is blackmailable. Two years before that email was sent, Pete Hegeseth was conferring with President Trump at Trump Tower about high-level political appointments, maybe even as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. He was at the Trump Tower, he had that conversation, and that's fine, right?

But two years later, he is blackmailed by a woman falsely accuses him, but he pays money to her anyway. Is he a new man? Anybody can be forgiven. I know that. I know that. If you ask for forgiveness, of course. And finally, Greg Kelly sort of pitches himself for the cabinet pick even more explicitly over Heggseth. Take a look at this. If I were talking to Pete Heggseth as the United States Senator, I would want to know more about his journalism career. I would ask him, so you were the anchor of Fox and Friends for nine years. Tell me about the most important January 6th story you ever did? Have you ever done anything about January 6th?

Have you ever done anything about Ashley Babette? Have you gone deep with Ashley Babbitt? Have you gone there? What about when Fox News called Arizona? Like what, 20 minutes after the polls closed and changed the course of history? Did you repeat that claim the next day? Were you on the set? So if anybody gets a little bit fatigued about the truth that we utter here

I'll remind you, we're special and we're better than Fox. That's the most exclusive thing. Guys, that is wild. J.R., your thoughts. This is fun. I'm Mari Blankin on his name, but that guy is one of the most entertaining hosts on Newsmax, just for this year, fun of it. My favorite clip of him is when he was literally like drooling over Alina Haba. And he said, you're just, oh, amazing.

Look at you. Let's look at it again. This guy, every time he gets on camera, he does something like this. But how about this blatant way of my favorite part of this was the blackmail line. Pete Hexath is easily blackmailable because, you know, what a way to deny that he, you know, the sexual abuse claim is false is this lady's blackmailing him. Like this is nice roundabout weaving way of going through this whole thing. But you know what?

He can't be much worse than Pete Hexeth. Let's go ahead and give Greg Kelly a try at it. And to have his shot at jumping into this role as defense secretary, because as he pointed out, he's done some things wrong too. Let's find out all of them. I'm down. Let's see it, Greg. I mean, it's so bizarre. And honestly, since I don't watch a lot of Newsmax or Fox News channel, it's just so wild to see these guys in this. You talk about an echo chamber. I mean, it's unbelievable. I mean, just it's extraordinary. And there's no lib, lefty echo chamber that can hold a candle to this echo chamber.

So it's wild to watch that. And then to see them eat their own that way is kind of fun. You're right. I mean, it's almost a delightful clip. It's both a pitch to get the job while, you know, lifting your leg on this other guy. I, meaning Hegseth, look, the Hegseth thing to. is so full of stuff you can make fun of. And when you have to get your mom up on Capitol Hill or in any way on television to

vouch for you and pitch for you, it's pathetic. And normally these positions that we're talking about and these nominations, certainly to run the Department of Defense, are inhabited by people who have, you know, a real wealth of decades of experience in the military there, in administrative jobs in the military. All of a sudden, we're just on, you know, like, who's the best Newsmax or Fox News channel host who has been in the military. The whole thing is laughable. But that clip, thank you, because I never would have seen it. And it's just an extraordinary thing to watch. Oh, yeah. So Newsmax exists because it's a cheap imitation of Fox. So does right side broadcasting

network. So does whatever, I don't even know what, you know, Steve Bannon does his show on. But they were all really jazz. Like Trump is such a Regina George. He's such like that person in high school who makes you think that he really values you the most, even though he's going to turn around and call you a loser behind your back. Like that's how he feels about Greg Kelly. Greg Kelly, who does an impression of Donald Trump, that's his whole personality. He's like, like, we're going to do this.

And we're like, you watch his whole cadence. It's based on Trump. And they all felt as Trump was kind of, you know, elbowing and needling Fox along the way, they thought they were now getting closer to most favored nation status, but all of this stuff. All of this stuff, like, bro, they never liked you. You were never close. He's just not that into you. And it's sad.

There's tons and tons of reasons why Pete Hanksett should not be Secretary of Defense, not the least of which is that, I mean, the least of which is that he's cheating on his wife and that he's a bad husband. I love watching all of these guys just try to take cheap shots at the guy who you don't eat. The guy went around saying kill all Muslims according to a friend. Like he said that. I don't think you should be Secretary of Defense with that kind of record. And then definitely the way he's handling himself. Like, I will quit drinking if you give me Secretary of Defense. How about you just quit drinking? And I did on John's show this morning. a guy who is an Oklahoma senator and he went on Mark Wayne Mullen and he went on Fox being like,

listen, I listen to the guy's mother on Fox News and now I'm more likely to vote to, or people are more likely to vote to approve of. No, no, no, here's all anyone needs to know about what Mark, about what Pete Hanksett's mom did. She's a good mom. She's trying to, when the job wasn't on the line, she wrote him an email saying, stop being such a d-bag to women. Stop being a bad person when the job was and then when the job was on the line she's like oh i'm not going to ruin his career i'm going to lie to everybody and say he's awesome that's all you need to know about it but uh i don't know we'll see if he has any more or less likelihood to be confirmed well remember he said i don't think women should be in the military i mean it it's

there's one thing after another but you're right to start because there are there is one thing after another to start with, you know, he's not good at marriage and that could really be a problem for him in the military. I mean, like, dude, that really, that's down, I think, under the top five of the problems of Pete Hagsit. So, but oddly, it might be the thing that the Newsmax audience understands better than anything else. Here's something I definitely do not understand. It is our next story. The hardest working alpha male dog in Fox News history, Jesse Waters,

has a lot of thoughts about what makes a man a man. And he also is thinking about naked men taking bubble baths, take a look. Government has only gotten bigger, where 36 trillion in debt, agencies are bloated, and bureaucrats have never been lazier. Biden spent 40% of his presidency on vacation. But compared to the rest of the government, he's a workaholic. A new Senate report says only 6% of federal workers go into the office five days a week. And if you don't count security guards and maintenance staff, only one percent of government workers do nine to five Monday through Friday. One percent. Almost 90 percent of government office buildings are completely empty. So where is everyone?

One manager at Veterans Affairs took a picture of himself working from a bubble bath. He called it my office for the next hour. What kind of man takes a bubble bath? Men age out of bubble baths at five. If you're a guy and you're alone in a bubble baths at five, If you're a guy and you're alone in a bubble bath, that's a problem. You have to have someone with you. Remember when the GSA got caught in a Vegas bubble bath holding a California cab? Yeah. In that guy's defense, there was another glass of wine.

So either he drinks enough to be a real man or somebody was joining him. But let's just react to it right now. Jesse Waters thinks you can't be a real man unless you. you swear off bubble baths or something? What do you guys think? I continue to think that Jesse Waters is running some kind of, he's not really that guy. There's some internet guy. I can't remember his name right now. He always posts and says over the top ridiculous conservative things, which you would think would be conservative because of how ridiculous things that people say from the conservative side say them. And it's obvious

that he's messing around. But there's so many nuggets of things that they really think. You go, wait a second, maybe he is for real. Jesse Waters can't be for real. He can't, he can't be for real. So your whole block is to talk about how bubble bans, by the way, I don't take bads either, but I don't know why I need to judge anyone who does. But that's his purpose, is going into talking about bubble bats and how it's so unmanly. And that's the reasons why we have these deficiencies with the amount of time that federal employees work.

By the way, federal employees don't work. But somehow his favorite president, all of his favorite Congress people and senators that are on the Republican side, somehow they work enough, but they're still federal employees. They don't work in the month of August, but they're still better than federal employees that this whole MAGA movement wants to rid the entire government of that they call the deep state. It's only those guys, not the ones who are getting paid the most and doing the least amount of work, which by the way, the work that they do is about enriching rich folks standing up for corporations and billionaires. That's the little bit of work that they do. But he can go on TV and talk about bubble bats and somehow have a persuasive argument. I don't think people are persuaded by Jesse Waters. I think he's a comedy show.

Mark? He's definitely bizarre and oftentimes off key. And in this case, of course, you're right. You see the two glasses of wine there. So he's kind of like just, he couldn't even find a good prop picture to, you know, from which to make his point. But he's part of this hyper-masculinity thing, which is really what the GOP is doing now. It's what the Trump MAGA campaign was all about.

And in that hyper-masculinity, we'll tell you what's masculine. We'll tell you the manly thing, and we'll tell you. I mean, look, you wanna talk about, by the way, just as an aside, hyper-masculinity is typically, I mean, within campaigns, is typically a precursor to authoritarianism. And you can, you know, look it up. It's absolutely completely applicable.

But the idea somehow that you could bust any government worker for not working enough when the guy who's about to take office was essentially on the golf course all the time, he showed up to work, okay, every day at around 11, usually a little after 11, and he was gone by early afternoon and playing golf, almost every day. So the idea somehow that there's a work ethic that's going to be reflected by either GOP leadership or the president, the president elect himself is laughable. The whole thing, to J.R.'s point, is a laugh. I mean, Waters is a joke. Yeah. Yeah, there's, Trump visited a Trump organization property on 428, which is nearly one of three days of his presidency. He was out someplace else. So one, like 40% percent, this is, you know, this is, I mean, this is a sizable chunk of time that Trump was spending at his freaking, it is, at his, his places. And when he was there, when he was at the White House, he was, he's there for a handful of hours and he's doing essentially nothing, didn't read briefing materials, all the rest. So, I mean, when it comes into the gold medalist for lazy, Trump is is lapping every other person who you could even

consider. So ridiculous. And but to give more advice on being an alpha male, he brought in alpha male Stephen Miller. This part's amazing. Take a look. Stephen Miller, should grown men be taking bubble baths? Groom men should not be taking bubble baths and they certainly should not be doing their work from home in a bubble bath. It's just so, it's so emblematic. of the contempt that so many people in the swamp have for the people who pay their salaries. When Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20th and that new golden age of America begins, he's going to tell the federal workers of this country who are paid for by your viewers to get back into the office and do their jobs or find another line of work.

We are not paying billions and billions of dollars for people to sit at home all day as federal workers streaming their favorite shows on Netflix, lounging around in bubble bass and doing God knows what else, but definitely not working for the American people. This is one of my favorite clips of all time, because I'm not taking advice on how to be a dude from Stephen Miller, who still looks like a sperm. Also, he transitioned from how to be a man's man to to cupping the backside of Donald Trump's balls in his mouth. When my daddy shows up, everything's going to be great. He's going to bring back glory at a golden age.

No really golden age. Who talks like that? Not real men. Real men love mahogany. We like a wood paddled office. Like me and my best friend, Matt Walker. Isn't it weird though? Everything becomes a pitch. Everything becomes a political pitch. I knew it was coming back to how great Donald Trump is. By the way, if you stop and think about the stupidity that he's saying, everything's great because of Donald Trump, because now people are going to come back into the federal offices and work. People stopped going into the federal offices and work in 2020 when your boy ignored the pandemic and people were died to the hundreds of thousands, the number of hundreds of thousands of people. Now people work from home regularly from that moment. So whose fault is it or partially the reasons why no one goes into work and real men or non men are taking bubble baths while they work?

Yeah, boy that you just finished praising. None of it makes any sense. They just talk for the point of promoting. It's all propaganda. Nothing is valid. Nothing they say really has their belief systems behind it. It's just pushing the same narrative. By the way, athletes take ice bats.

Does that count? Are they not real men? No, I think that's a different deal. It has to be painful. I'm sorry, it has to be a painful bath. I've never taken a bath or bubble bath. I'm really, now I'm feeling like really kind of a loser here with somebody else or without somebody else. I have taken a bath before, but maybe the number of baths I've taken, I could count on one hand.

But I feel like a little outclassed here by the real, the bath people. I'm not a bath person at all. But, I mean, I haven't thought about it passed to myself. It just takes two time consumed. You've got to fill that tub up. you know the whole thing for the time it's full it's then the water's getting cold you know i'm not in the mood anymore then you're just you're just soaking in your own that's true washing off yeah that's that's what i can't get out of my brain and now you're just getting clean and you're

sitting in it no you clean before the japanese people take baths it's awesome and they're very clean people they've got there's a whole system you have to do it oh that's cool yeah the japanese probably have it to a down to of science yeah um also okay so that's that's all the time we have for first hour. We can go on and on about that. We're leaving with the baths stuff. Yeah, we're leaving with the bath stuff. I don't know. I think you should be able to take whatever kind of bathing approach you desire. I like a good bubble bath. I like bath bombs. Don't tell Donald Trump wears makeup, like a very thick bronzer. So don't tell me what is and isn't masculine because I'm going to end with that body blow. Very good.

And then also like my guy freaking Jesse Waters spends hours in a makeup chair. Like if you really a man's man, just show up, grow a beard, first of all. And then we'll talk. But he's in his fancy suit, having a driver take him across town in New York City. It's all projection and admission. Anyways, that's all the time we have. J.R. Jackson, where can people find your work? Watch list, T.Y.T. Check us out. You can find us on all the, all this. spots, of course, YouTube. We run a couple of few analysis clips a day. Yeah, I'll talk straight to you at the camera and break things down. Yeah, we go for all this. Check us up. Subscribe. Awesome. Like it.

Thank you. And Mark Thompson, where can people find your stuff? It's called the Mark Thompson show. It's here on YouTube and across other platforms or when it comes to audio podcast. We're around that way. But I'd love for you to subscribe here on YouTube. Check us out. We've got a lot of people through. Michael Shore is a regular. In fact, Michael Shore is filling in for me next week while I'm away. Pulitzer prize winners, journalist, and major political figures. So I hope you'll check it out, the Mark Thompson show on YouTube. Fantastic. My name's Brett Erlich.

You can catch me on Rebel HQ, pretty much every Sunday when I have time. Got a new video coming up this week. So you're going to have to check it out about Trump giving more love to AOC than the Democrats do sometimes. So you should watch that. And check out happy half hour every Wednesday at 5.30 p.m. Pacific, 8.30 p.m. Eastern at Twitch. slash TYT. You guys stick around because after this break, we got Jordan Yule, Wazni Lombray, and Sharon's going to be here. She, we couldn't find her, but now we found her. It's going to be great. Don't go away. We'll be back after this.