The Young Turks - Felonious Punk

Episode Date: August 3, 2024

JD Vance credits Trump for Biden's Russian hostage deal. Trump complains that Kamala Harris calls him a felon in the latest bid to get a hush-money judge to recuse himself. Senate GOP blocks bipartisan bill to expand child tax credit. Boxer Imane Khelif, who faced a gender-eligibility claim, wins an Olympic bout. " HOST: Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur), John Iadarola (@johniadarola), Francesca Fiorentini (@franifio) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. I have no takebacks. Okay, free speech. Bega! Drop it. Power Power Power Panel.

Jake Uger, John Iidrola, Francesca Furentini, Young Turks Damage Report, Bituition Room, all it represented here in this beautiful power panel we got for you guys. So we are going to talk about potential testicles, obviously. And we also have some great news in terms of our return hostages, but then, of course, hilarious Republican talking about. I mean, actually throughout the entire show, Republicans are outdoing themselves in flailing. What a difference the Democratic candidate makes. Now they've turned into giant flailers, and I love it, I'm here for it, and I can't wait to tell you all about it. So, oh, and by the way, as we get started here, did the Young Turks reach a 6 million subscribers on YouTube?

Oh, I guess. But, da, da, da, da, da, da, pah, pah, da. Okay, so God bless, God bless. So I'll have to get you a full count on how many subscribers do we have across the internet's, but it's in the 27, 28 million ballpark for the TYT network. Damage report over here, got to bring in millions as well. Closing in on a million. Yeah, get John a million. Get me 75,000. Do not happen.

And you could also do a double value deal where you subscribe for the damage report and the bituation room and you save significantly, it's only $0. If you act now, okay. You act now. Yeah, that's right. Okay, so yes, subscribe to damage report for sure. Check out the podcast. Those downloads are actually worth their waiting goals. So God bless, keep a goal Francesca.

Okay, so John, let's get started. Okay, let's get started. Let's talk about something that would seem to be objectively good news. But Republicans, as always, are stepping in to convince you that it is in fact not. Let's start with this. What you're seeing right there happened late last night. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovick and Paul Whelan were greeted by both President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, as they stepped back on to U.S. soil for the first time

since being released from a Russian prison. So two of the highest profile prisoners that were released in this complex venture, there were four Americans that were held in Russia. And this is effectively considered to be the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War. But this was a really big deal, both literally and figuratively, figuratively very significant to get these prisoners back after so long, but also big and complex in literal terms as well. The deal involved 24 prisoners and at least six countries, you don't typically see so many countries coming together and working to hash out these long held differences. But it came together after months of negotiations at the highest levels of government in the US, Russia, and Germany. And speaking at

a press conference yesterday in the White House about this deal, Joe Biden said, multiple countries helped get this done. They joined a difficult complex negotiation at my request. It was a feat of diplomacy and friendship and also spurred Vice President Harris talking about the importance of having someone who values diplomacy in a perfectly cogent comment that the right wing has pretended they don't understand. So a lot of purposeful misunderstanding coming out of this, but obviously Joe Biden presided over this, it was multiple countries, but he helped to get it done, and that would seem to be a good thing, but there are a lot of Republicans rushing to the media to attempt to explain

in a variety of ways why it's not actually good news. We're going to start with J.D. Vance. Look, I think it's great news, at least what little we know. We certainly want these Americans to come back home. It was ridiculous that they were in prison to begin with. But we have to ask ourselves, why are they coming home? And I think it's because bad guys all over the world recognize Donald Trump's about to be back in office to their cleaning house. That's a good thing. And I think it's a testament to Donald Trump's strength. Yeah, I think it's a very strong testament to Donald Trump's strength that while he's off talking about Hannibal Lecter and Sharks, Joe Biden is getting actual things done, including at least one prisoner that's been a prisoner

back for at least two years of Trump's presidency. And he's had a lot of tweets about how he can save these people, but he didn't actually do anything about it. So J.D. Vance would have you believe that like with the growth in the stock market, somehow the guy that's not in office deserves all the credit, and he's not even alone in that. Here is Doug Bergham. So on a personal level, it's a day of gratitude and celebration. But on a larger scale, Again, the Biden administration is clear. The reason why Russia wanted to do this deal now is that they think the President Trump's going to win, and they don't want to deal with him. Biden's track record on these hostage negotiations, I mean, you go back just to September of last year, paying $6 billion to the Iranians for five hostages.

I mean, he put a price tag on every American's head when he did that, made it less safe for anyone traveling abroad when he does that. Okay, so there you have a combination of two things. He says that people believe that it's going to be Donald Trump and he should get the credit again. All the bad stuff goes to Biden, all the good stuff, even though he's not in office, goes to Trump. You can see that there, but also saying that, well, this actually isn't good news because the fact that he succeeded in getting the hostages back means that there's just going to be more hostage taking. And Doug Bergam has been consistent on that. He spent the years of the first Trump term responding to all of Trump's negotiations in that same way, saying this makes a makes Americans less safe.

Sean Hannity, by the way, said the same thing on his radio program. And I want to turn to Donald Trump, who thus far is not directly claiming credit for the deal. That'll happen sometime in the next 24 hours. But he still has thoughts about it. Well, as usual, it was a win for Putin or any other country that deals with us. But we got somebody back, so I'm never going to be challenging that. It wouldn't have happened with us. We would have gotten them back.

We wouldn't have had to pay anything. we wouldn't have had to let some of the great killers of the world go because that's what's happened, as you know. And the deal is very complex because it just came out so nobody understands the deal yet. And they make it complex. So you can't understand how bad the deal is for us. But we got him back and we could have had them back. We should have had them back a long time ago. It should have never happened.

It would have never happened. He shouldn't have been taken in the first place. And it would have never happened with us if I was president. So it was more than prisoner swaps? It was something else? I have no idea what they did. I just know they announced it's a very complex deal. That's usually a way of saying we made a bad deal and we made it complex so nobody understands it.

Okay, so two quick fact checks. First of all, he doesn't understand it because he's not the president. I know this is going to come as a shock to a lot of Republicans. He's just a low-t loser ranting about fictional serial killers at rallies. He doesn't, he's not involved in any of this stuff. That's why he doesn't get credit for it. Although in his defense, were he president while it was being done, he also wouldn't understand the deal. And I also want to mention there that he said we would have gotten it if it was us and

we wouldn't have had to give anything and we certainly wouldn't have given any killers over. A little fact check on that. In one of the negotiations during Trump's first term, three of the highest ranking Taliban officials were given back in one of these releases, who knows what they went off to do. In another 200 Houthi militants were returned. And again, that's how these deals go. We got people back.

Maybe that was a good deal, but he did that. For all we know, they're engaged in hostilities right now in Yemen. And so we're not talking about hypotheticals with Trump. He has a track record. He is lying about what he has done. Or maybe he doesn't remember. Maybe he honestly has forgotten what happened just a couple of years ago. What do you think?

Yeah, so first, he says it's complex, then he says, I haven't read it. How do you know it's complex if you haven't read it? I bet it's not complex to me. I bet if I read it, it'd be fairly easy to discern what happened. So number one, you don't know what the hell you're talking about because you don't even know what's in the deal. And then if you did read it, you're not wrong that you would think it's complex. Remember, this is the same guy who came out early in his administration was like, nobody

knew that health care was this complicated. Yeah, brother, we all knew except you because you're not that bright. So now, in terms of the hypocrisies, I can't stand it. I mean, look, I often address Maga on the show as if they're watching it, some of them are, but like, does it not bother you that he keeps saying they would have been released under me? Paul Whalen was taken in 2018, so you're in, you had your whole term to get him out, and you didn't. Well, not your whole term, but half your term, right? So you had two years. Why didn't you get him out?

I would have gotten him out, but you didn't get him out, right? And he's not the only one, Trevor Reed, also taken earlier. And during the Trump administration, could have gotten them out, didn't. You know what that makes you? A failure. And on top of that, guys, the reason I address Maga is like, are you guys, I'm amazed by you guys. So you're not at all bothered by these outrageous lies? And this thing that is clearly not true that he could have gotten them out. Or is it that he could have gotten them out and just didn't want them out?

Didn't care. Who cares? We had Americans taken by my friend Vladimir Putin. I'm not going to bother picking them out, right? I don't know, but it's not that he could have gotten it done because he didn't. And so the other hypocrisy that drives me crazy is, Biden couldn't get these guys out. This is what they were saying until yesterday, right? He's so weak, he's weak, he can't get them out.

Oh, he got him out, I can't believe he got him out. God damn it, why did he get him out? Okay, he shouldn't have gotten him out, it was a wrong negotiation. So which one is it? Which one is it? Do you care about being principled? Do you care about being consistent? I know the answer, no, you don't, you don't care.

You just want to criticize them, but then own it. Own that you don't care about logic and that you would have criticized them either way. And you're totally unfair. If you can live with that, no problem, okay? And so, and when it's a negotiation, you get something, you give up something. That is how negotiations work. There is no magical fairyland where you go and go, and said, just give me everything I want, and I'm not gonna give you anything in return.

That's not art of the deal. That's an art of a fantasy in your dumb-ass mind. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Yeah, I mean, he usually does give foreign leaders, adversaries, whatever they want, with no preconditions, like sitting down to tea with Kim Jong-un, right?

I mean, that was just like, what do we get for that? Literally nothing. It was absolutely a photo-op for Kim Jong-un, but I digress. I think what's really interesting about this story beyond the Republican hypocrisy is that that you saw Vice President Harris right alongside Joe Biden. Well, it turns out, according to the Wall Street Journal, Vice President Harris was deeply involved in these complex negotiations, complex because they involved, again, 24 prisoner releases and six different countries. She met with the German Chancellor and the Prime Minister, I believe, yes, of Robert Gobe, of Galab of Slovenia. First time that US and Slovenia had discussions like on this level,

It was Kamala Harris that was in these meetings with both of them. She met with the the chancellor, the German chancellor, multiple times as far back as February. So I think what's the real story here is it's not even Biden's victory. It's actually Kamala Harris's victory. And I hope she is talking more and more about it as she continues to campaign. And it is very interesting and pretty incredible that she is there receiving the American release, hostages. And I think it's a testament to the fact that, hey, on an international level, she's got chops. But she laughs. So yeah. Yeah. Who cares? So, look, last two things here.

In their hilarious alternate reality, they're like, when Trump is in charge, he's so strong, he makes all these deals to get the hostages back, except when he doesn't. Okay. And when, and Trump is so strong that when he's not in charge, they return hostages right. away because they think he might one day be in charge. So in other words, he gets credit for everything, no matter whether he's in office or he's not in office. And then, okay, then so how about the way that we had to give back an assassin and an arms dealer, et cetera?

They're like, nope, he only gets the credit, he never gets any of the discredit. Right. Okay, okay, again, if you live in a fantasy world where Donald Trump is, you know, Jesus and Einstein and Churchill combined, okay, okay, there's nothing I can do to help you, right? But for the rest of us, you sound ridiculous when you say these things. Yeah, well, as you said though, Biden gave back an assassin, whereas basically all of those 200 militants, mostly quilters, actually. Oh yeah, yeah.

Quilting circles, you know, it's communal. And you know the right wing has been saying about the Taliban all along, we should give them their leaders back. They're really lovely people. They do say that all right. And so, but we're, by the way, I want this to be very clear, we're consistent. We're not criticizing Donald Trump for those negotiations. And we never did. We didn't do it back then. Because in negotiations, you get something

and you give something. Yeah. That's how negotiations work. And lastly, if you're curious, why the hell was Slovenia involved? They remember why because we have a hostage that they want back, Melania. I knew Melania was going to get involved somehow. Anyway, so look, we've responded to the idea that Donald Trump should get credit for this. But obviously, a lot of Republicans have been claiming that somehow Donald Trump deserves credit for getting the hostages back. Well, here is John Kirby to respond to that ridiculous notion. I don't know what to say. There's absolutely zero evidence at all that this deal was brought about because of some potential fear of who might be the next president. Trevor Reed was taken

in the previous administration's time in office. Mr. Biden got him home. Paul Whalen was taken in the previous administration's time in office. President Biden got Paul home. Yeah, I don't see anything in what John Kirby said that's inaccurate and it's nice and novel in recent months to have him go on TV and not say something utterly reprehensible. But anyway, it's a great response to the ridiculous claims that they're making. I want to show you some other responses to ridiculous claims. As this was all going on, Representative Nancy Mays tweeted, Biden is MIA.

In his MIA, why is no one talking about it? Which is just a hilarious thing to say as like momentous news is coming out. The White House responded with he's been busy showing him meeting with those that he brought back from captivity. Nancy Mace noted dumb donkey. But anyway, that's the official response. I want to give you the unofficial response and that's from the official Dark Brandon Twitter account that said, Sorry, Karen, I was too busy freeing America's held prisoner in Russia to give one single solitary frack about you. I inserted a different word there, but you get where he's going with that.

And look, these people- And Nancy's just like, punch me in the face, just right here, I just need one little welt. Just seen up, I need, oh, they're gonna look so good. Punch me. It's just so, like, they're just jokes. And it's so, like, they're so utterly focused. I know they're politicians and their jobs rely on it and everything. But to like they cannot even do the thing, in past years, you could acknowledge good news. Like acknowledging that something good happened doesn't mean, well, then obviously everybody

has to vote for that guy. But they think they've been put in this position mentally that they don't think you can give a single millimeter. And that's why you have so little actual bipartisan action. When you do, the bills end up dying, whether it's on the child tax credits, we'll talk about later or the border bill or whatever. These people are truly radical. In every meaning of the word. Yep, no, the dark brand in tweet was legendary. Nice job. That's all.

Yeah, all right. Well, anyway, I think we should probably take our first break. When we come back, Trump believes he's come up with a clever way to get the hush money verdict, verdict vacated. I think it's a little bit ridiculous, but we'll give you the evidence and you can decide. All right on TYT, Jank, Francesca, John, with you guys, but also these are wonderful human beings. Joey Gully, D's Blank Bay Dragon, you know what those are, Deborah Kingtie upgraded through the join button because Deborah's American heroes. All of you guys are thank you for joining. Hit it there so that you can be the

young Turks and allow us to stay in business and do what we do. And someone named and this is probably a misspelling, but Diaz, gifted 10 young Turks memberships, appreciate you as well. Nice. Thank you. Okay, in exchange for all that you've done for us, we're going to do a few stories for you. Let's start with this. Donald Trump is now claiming that Vice President Kamala Harris, referring to him as a felon, is so mean that his dozens of conventional. convictions in the hush money trial need to be vacated immediately. And this is like an official legal thing that he's saying. A letter that his team sent to Judge Juan Mershan has been revealed.

And it says, in light of the longstanding, an extremely beneficial working relationship between your honor's daughter and Harris, who recently became the nominee, we respectfully submit this pre-motion letter to renew a request that the court recuse itself. This letter can be deemed the motion, which I guess is a thing, like if it was any other person's legal team, I'd assume that's actually how these legal motions work, but it is Trump. So I'm not sure this is official as he thinks it is, but here's the case that they're making. So Harris, as you know, immediately framed her candidacy with a, they're saying, a specific false reference to this case as a contest of prosecutor versus convicted felon. So Trump is saying

that is a false reference despite the fact that she was a prosecutor and he is a felon. Your Honor has insisted on maintaining an unconstitutional gag order, which they capitalize, backed by threats of imprisonment made during the trial that prevents President Trump from responding fully to that inaccurate attack. They make in this letter no explanation as to how it's inaccurate to present her based on the job she had and him based on the legal classification he now fits under. The gag order prevents President Trump from engaging in constitutionally protected speech by drawing attention to the obvious connection between the Biden administration and the prosecution team. Again, as before, they make no explanation as to what this supposedly obvious connection is. No candidate for office, much less a presidential candidate, has ever faced such an insidious prior restraint.

And so that is now something that the judge is going to have to rule on. By the way, that is only one of several ways in which the Trump team is still trying to vacate the verdicts against him. And look, I'm assuming that his legal team was involved in this. I do think that Trump might have had more of a hand than usual, mostly because a lot of words are capitalized that don't need to be. And that just sort of stinks of Donald Trump. But again, I'm not a lawyer. I share that with Alina Haba, but my suspicion would be that this is not going to work.

But what do you think? Okay, so I'm going to get to how Donald Trump crying over this is a disastrous idea. But first, a fun fact that I've never shared before, just because John mentioned it, is this real or not? I'm not sure because you'd have to look into the legality of these type of letters. But I do know sometimes people do things like this because when I was running for office this time around in the primaries, since I'm a naturalized citizen, we had a lot of legal issues that we had to deal with, right? And so 98% of it was perfectly legitimate. We went to court, et cetera. But there was this problem that that some states required like 10,000 signatures, which is incredibly expensive.

Money we didn't have, right? But we had to go to court first to determine whether I could run. And so it made no sense to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars we don't have before we go to court, right? So how were we going to fix this problem as deadlines were coming up? So we decided to write them a letter. And our letter said, we reserve the right to hand in these signatures later. And my campaign manager asked me, is that a thing? Can we reserve that right?

Is that even a right? And I was like, no. But there we have a letter that reserved the right. Okay. And so the reason to do that is because, not because it's a legal principle, but because you go back into court later and go, well, there was no precedent for any of this where a naturalized citizen runs, but you still have to get the signatures.

So we reserve the right. Now courts tell us, do we have that right? Right? Okay, and that's how that would have gone down. And this feels a little similar, like, I have written you a sternly worded letter, judge. Is it applicable? Who knows? Okay. Okay, so now on to the main event. There's no crying in politics, and this is weeping, right? Oh, she shouldn't be allowed to call herself a prosecutor and me a felon. I mean, it's true, but she shouldn't be allowed to. That's crying to mommy.

Okay, did you wipe your tears away on his robe? So, and most importantly, guys, if you're crying, you're losing. And this is not just based on Republicans, think about it. So you've heard me say many times for Democrats, stop getting offended, fight back. I mean, I've been saying that for about 20 years. And the reason why people sometimes find me off putting is because I punch back immediately. And for a lot of Democrats, they weren't used to that at all, especially 20 years ago, right? And so like NPR would be freaked out.

This guy doesn't seem civil. LA Times hated that I wasn't civil when I ran for Congress, right? And so, because if you're crying, you're losing. So Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 because she was offended by everything instead of making an affirmative case. Now you've got Donald Trump telling us that he's offended by everything and crying 24 7. Terrible political strategy makes you look weak.

And so have added, Haas, keep writing more sternly worded letters about how unfair that you're a criminal and she's a prosecutor. Those are just facts. I mean, it seems like he wants to start a defamation case. Like how you can't technically call me that? That's a separate case. He's asking Juan Roshan to vacate the ruling that a jury delivered about the hush money payments and the, you know, the financial fraud that took place in order to make those payments,

which is illegal in the state of New York, because now Kamala Harris is running for president and his daughter, Juan Mertron's daughter, may have worked with a digital consulting company on Kamala Harris's 2020 campaign. So therefore, the jury, the verdict is rendered inaccurate and ineffective. We have to strike it. Well, look, I have something to say for myself. Look, I was taking care of a small infant when Avatar 2 came out. And so I missed Avatar 2 in the theater and had I known it was going to be released the month that it was really I would have what point is I AMC should give me a free ticket and re-screen Avatar 2 in the theater for me do you see what I'm saying like we're just going back and like read but that's it's just so

wild that's what he's doing but he's trying to mash two legal cases in one if he wants to do a defamation case around like um actually you're not a prosecutor you're not my mom you know And I'm not a felon, make that case, that's separate than the one, you know, the hush money. Yeah, and like the only thing I would add is everything both of you said about why it's, it's bad substantively, it indicates you're losing. But it also, it encourages Harris and her team and her supporters that like, we see you crying, oh, you don't like being called a felon, you don't like being called weird, I wonder what I'll spend the next few weeks doing. It just encourages everyone. Yeah, John, great point. And that's the downside of Trump's verbal

diarrhea. The upside of it is it gives him an air of fake authenticity, right? Well, brother's just saying what he thinks. Well, sometimes, oftentimes it's true because he just spits out whatever's top of his mind. But when he does it in a legal briefing like this and he goes, whatever you do, do not call me a felon and her a prosecutor. Well, thank you for the tip. Appreciate it. Apparently it bothers you so much. You bother to write a fake legal letter for yourself with other caps and everything. So we know it's you, Donald Trump, and we know how much it bothers you. Think about how stupid that is strategically to put that on a basically a billboard telling

your opponents, please attack me on this. It's getting completely under my skin. Yeah, and I also think that you kind of undercut your case that she's being unfair and pitching you as some sort of criminal when you can't go five minutes without bragging about you're the best selling mugshot in history. Everybody take a look at this when they booked me. Aren't I a great, tough, bad criminal? I think it's kind of ridiculous. Three-fifths of senators duly chosen and sworn have not voted in the affirmative. The motion is not agreed to.

I'm just really saddened by the fact that our Republican colleagues have not voted for a bill that passed so overwhelmingly in the House put together by a conservative Republican chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. And that would do so much to help housing, help kids and families, and help businesses. And so, at least in, at least right now, at least in the Senate, the child tax credit is dead. It was killed by Republicans who apparently believe that it was good politics, less than three months out from the election, to tell tens of millions of American families, screw you and your kids, you're not getting any help. That's what they chose to do. Okay, well, we're going to break down what actually happened. Bear in mind, what was lost?

The expansion would have been in effect for three years, would have cost roughly $33 billion, according to the CBO. And the CBPP said that it would have lifted as many as 400,000 children above the poverty line just in its first year, as well as making an additional 3 million children less poor as their incomes rise closer to the poverty level. In addition to that direct assistance to millions, it would have bolstered certain business tax credits, which will return to when we talk about why some progressive Democrats opposed the bill, different reasons than the Republicans, including deductions for research and development, interest expenses, and, investments in equipment. So as Chuck Schumer alluded to in that video, this already passed earlier this year, very easily bipartisan fashion in the House. And so you might wonder, well, if it was good enough for the Republicans as the House, why are they killing it in the Senate?

Well, some Republican senators are not hiding at all what the motivations are. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley told a reporter earlier in the year that passing the bill could make President Biden, quote, look good, which could help his reelection campaign and jeopardize the 2017 Trump tax legislation that Republicans want to renew. So there's two potential motivations there. And if you're a family that desperately needs help, you tell me if either of these make you feel better about them denying you that help, that they don't want it to pass because it'll make it harder for Trump to win a re-election. And they don't want it to pass because they'd rather wait until next year to hand

trillions of dollars to the richest corporations in the world. I don't think that's gonna placate a lot of Americans, but that's what they're running on. And I will say, because I alluded to this, the Republicans have given their reasons. Senator Bernie Sanders also voted against this, doesn't support it, and back when it passed in the House, some progressive Democrats opposed it there for different reasons. He said, incredibly, this legislation would hand out a $2 billion retroactive tax break each to Lockheed Martin Raytheon, some of the most profitable defense contractors in the world. Further, at a time when artificial intelligence and automation threatens to displace millions of

American workers, this legislation could provide billions of dollars in tax breaks to companies like Amazon, Google, Verizon, and Facebook to replace workers with machines or robots. The tax bill on the floor today is only one-tenth the size of the child tax credit in the American Rescue Plan, and it would only last for three years. When all is said and done, this bill would provide at least $3 in corporate tax breaks for every $1 in tax cuts for working families with children. That is not a good deal. Which I think is a good point, and these are things that people have to weigh in deciding

whether it was good enough for it to pass. I mean, I would say that that sort of, the fact that it's doing things for working families and doing things for corporations is probably why it had Republican support in the House in the first place. But again, as we get closer to the election, suddenly they don't want to deliver a win. This really just reminds me of the killing of the border bill. But what do you think? Yeah, I love this bill for so many different reasons. So number one, because it shows you what American politics is all about. And number two, because within this is buried an amazing strategy for this campaign if the Kamala Harris team has enough courage to do it,

okay? So first let me start with American politics and how disgusting it is. So in order to help children, you first have to give three times as much to corporations. That's how any bill passes. So why did it pass in the House, even though the Republicans control the House? Because corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats are like, oh, we're using children as human shields to give three times as much money to defense contractors. Well, I love it, okay? Perfect little marketing trick, and don't worry about it. Mainstream media is in our back pocket, not just for Democrats,

but also for corporate Republicans, and definitely for the donors who are the same advertisers that advertise on mainstream media. So they're never going to tell you that this bill is actually to help all of their donors. The only reason they didn't pass, they would normally pass this, because this is exactly what they do. Whenever they pass anything halfway decent, they right behind underneath the tip of the iceberg is the iceberg itself, which is giant corporate giveaways, okay? And it happens in both administrations and the mainstream media. It just never figures it out.

They're like, oh, I don't know what was in the bill. Oh, did I have to read it? Okay. So, and then instead what will happen is, and especially if it's an establishment Democrat in charge, like marketing on behalf of that person forever and ever. Oh my God, he got the child tax credit pass. He's the greatest progressive the world has ever seen. This is a great perfect example. Joe Biden gets us to negotiate drug prices on one drug.

Leaves tens of thousands of other drugs alone with a giant monopoly power. And everybody has to kiss his ass that he got one drug price reduced. No, that was a cover for not reducing all of the other ones. Okay. So anyway, so that tells you American politics. it. In a nutshell, Bernie Sanders is in a sense. And hence, Bernie Sanders is right to vote against it. But if you did this right, you stripped it down. And my idea isn't child tax credit, although that's a beautiful one. And you can use that one as well. And I'll tell you why in a second.

My idea is to do this on paid family leave. But first, on the child tax credit, if you took away the Raytheon stuff and the corporate stuff, you know what it pulls at? It pulls at 75%. What else do you want? It's 75 to 19. Only a bunch of J.D. Vances are sitting on their couch and to go and God knows what and say, oh, no, we don't want children to not be hungry. Make them hungry, right? So Americans don't agree because we're generally speaking decent people. 77% of independence wanted. 64% of Republican voters wanted. It's intensely popular. So whether it's child tax credit or paid family leave, that's at 84%. It's about children and moms and families. Put them

to a decision. Make the Republicans vote no. Okay, here's my revolutionary idea. Try to get it passed right now. These are show votes, right? They're barely trying to get them passed. Actually make an effort. So how would you make an effort? Kamala Harris, this would take enormous courage, but it's actually a layup politically. Kamala Harris comes and goes, I'm going to get paid family leave passed, and I'm going to get it either passed right now in the middle of the campaign or I'm going to get it passed as soon as I become president. Republicans, it's your choice, which one would you like? It says sitting at 84%, 74% of Republicans want it, it's about giving moms a break after

they deliver their kids. Go ahead, I dare you, be against America's moms, be against America's children. I dare you, be against 84% of Americans. I'm going to get this passed either now or after the election, after I mall you and I wipe you off of the Senate in the House so that I can get it passed. So your choice, I guarantee you it would work. I like that actually. You know why I like that, Jank?

Because I don't like the bipartisan border bill. And I don't like this now handout to corporations with a little bit for children on the side. Remember, it was Joe Manchin and Republicans who effectively discontinued the child tax credit coming out of the pandemic that lifted 46% of children out of poverty. And when it expired, immediately plunged 3.7 million children back into poverty. Right? So it was wildly successful and of course popular because of it. But I'm in part, I'm like, you know, Chuck Grassley, the Vecna of the Senate who's like, it will only look good for Biden. Like he's so creepy. But I'm actually glad it didn't pass. Just like I'm glad the bipartisan border bill didn't pass because they were crap bills, honestly. And and they go backwards, not forwards. But something like paid family leave with a clean bill is good. It's positive. It moves us forward. And I totally agree with you. It would be an amazing strategy. And I just also want us to learn the lesson. They're bad faith about everything. So working, getting a bipartisan bill means absolutely squat in today's Congress.

We got to win the seats. We got to keep the Senate slash win the Senate for real this time. And expand from there and do things that are popular with the people. Screw Republicans. Yeah, look, I think combine both of your ideas, have a clean paid family leave bill that also includes a clean child tax credit and just try to pass that. Have for people who already have kids, for people who are about to have kids, you get young people, you get older people. I think that would be incredibly appealing. And I also would say that the Republicans have really teed up culturally that they're now saying you shouldn't have any of this help. Kids are super expensive. All three of us can attest to that.

It doesn't matter. Just deal with it. You don't get any help. Oh, and by the way, how dare you not have kids? If you don't have kids, you shouldn't even get a vote, you maggot, you peasant. You don't have skin in the game, you're not a real American. That's what they're going around saying, and meanwhile, they're making sure that you are 100% on your own, both in terms of paying for, and also hoping to maintain a job when you have to go immediately back when it comes to that. So I think you should do, they should do all of that.

And I would love to see Harris make that a centerpiece of the campaign. That would require courage. Let's see if she's got it. Maybe she does. Let's see, let's see. Okay, I think we should take our second break of the hour and we come back. The Olympics have been going on. Have you noticed there's been a lot of talk about it? And we're going to dive in after this. John Francesca and Hyper Infinity with you guys. Hyper infinity and beyond!

Hit the join button, we appreciate you. Members are this show. John. Okay, let's jump into what's going on with the Olympics these days, starting with this. Khalif, they say, has identified as a woman his whole life. They say there's no indication Khalif is trans. So the Olympics thinks it's fair for a genetic male

to punch a woman's so hard in the face she quits and cries, as long as this says female on her passport and they're going to let this guy keep beating up women in Paris and they're just going to hand them a gold medal for it. So that was obviously gross. I mean it was Jesse Waters. You knew that it was going to be pretty gross. It also represents another retreat on the right where before they would claim that they want to focus on biological women who have the right genitals. Well now that's not good enough so he's taken a step back from biological woman to genetic woman, which doesn't even mean

anything, but that's where we're at in terms of their understanding of what exactly a woman is. But what you saw right there is a story that's been literally everywhere. I believe last night, every single Fox program had a segment on this, a story that had already been debunked for hours and hours by the time they went live. But they're focusing there on the victory of Algerian boxer Imani Khalif over Italian boxer Angela Karini, who quit 46 seconds into their bout. And as a result of that, some people immediately began tweeting that Khalif was trans and that this was a man engaging in women's sports. And I am sure there are many right wingers that simply believed that they trusted the wrong people and went insane and started calling for Khalif's head. Of course, Khalif is not trans.

The reason that, as Jesse Waters says, there's no evidence she ever identified as anything else is because she has always identified exactly as what she is. than what she was born as. But despite that, we're supposed to do this thing now where we try to provide information to sway these people and bring them back with evidence and logic when neither evidence nor logic got them to the dark place they're in. But sure, let's spend a couple of minutes doing that.

So Khalif is an amateur boxer. When a silver medal at the 2022 International Boxing Association Championship had previously gotten a silver back in the previous Olympics, IBA president Umar Kremlev claimed last year that a previous disqualification from a competition last year were because quote it was proven they have xy chromosomes. They a reference to she so the misgendering continues now males typically have xy chromosomes while females typically have xx chromosomes however there is the differences of sex development group of conditions

this is a rare condition but it involves genes hormones and reproductive organs. Some people with ds are raised as female but have xy sex chromosomes and and blood testosterone levels in the male range. So you could have elevated testosterone. So that hormone can be different than might be expected. Now we don't know if Khalif really has DSD. The entire world is collectively making a whole bunch of assumptions and speculation about what this individual-

She doesn't. I'm going to explain why she doesn't. Exactly. Well, I'm saying a lot of people are weighing in that are suddenly becoming experts in all this. But in a statement this week, the IBA said that women did not undergo a testosterone testosterone examination, but a separate and recognized test, they say. The statement added that the test and results are confidential.

And the IOC, which is overseeing the boxing competition that we're talking about here, does not test for gender, and there never has been any evidence that either Khalif or fellow boxer, Lin U Ting had X, Y chromosomes or elevated levels of testosterone, they have competed for years, including at the Tokyo Olympics and several world championships. Khalif, by the way, has lost nine times in international bouts to other women. That said, we have a lot that we're going to get into, including some of the initial tweets that went viral and made this a massive thing, but what do you think? Okay, so first let's discuss how all this came about in the first place that will show you exactly why this nonsense story came up and is completely untrue. And then we'll get into why the Republicans are obsessed with this and how it's going to be their undoing.

So that'll be fun. So Jesse Waters said, they say this about her. They say that. they, who's they? So I was curious, who's, who's saying it? Because if it turns out she failed a test, you know, I, and this to the great frustration of a lot of people on the left, I do think past high school that it's okay for organizations, whether it's professional organizations or the Olympics, to do testing and to say, hey, we're going to even exclude trans athletes. Okay, so a lot of the people on the left will disagree with me on that. So obviously some folks on this panel disagree with that. So I'll come back to the politics of that in a second.

So did anybody do that in this case? No. So the people who was the they, it's IBA that John told you about and their president, Umar Kremlin. Now why would the IBA care? Why would Kremlin care? Well, it turns out this boxer beat a Russian female boxer right before the last competition where the Russians really wanted to win, okay?

So all of a sudden, the Russian leader of the IBA says, oh, well, golly, gee, I think she might have failed a test. And the other competitive person that might beat the Russian athlete as well. You want to know who not only the largest, but the only sponsor of the IBA was in that event where they claimed that she failed this ambiguous test that they've never actually shared publicly? Gazprom, a giant Russian oil company, okay? Do you want to know where this news story was leaked to? It was Toss, a Russian news agency. And when I saw that, I was like, wait a minute, I thought we weren't paying attention to the Russian news outlets anymore.

I thought they were propaganda, et cetera. And now all of a sudden everybody's like, well, the Russian news said it, it must be true, okay? So no, this has nothing to do with transgender controversies here in America. No, some crooked Russian dude running the IBA, which has not been, it was decertified before this controversy, because they're a bunch of crooks, it looks like. And so this guy, he says dumb-ass things like, oh, the head of the IOC, the Olympic Committee, is what did he call him some sort of eunuch or pedophile? It's just a total, just nut job, okay? Utter nut job.

That's where this story came from. To the best of our ability to tell, there was no test. They've never said what the test was. It's a very reputable test we can't share with you. The Russian news agency is reporting it, right? So this is garbage, total dumpster fire of a story. So now the politics of it, Kamala Harris just took the lead by about five points in a Trump favoring poll. She's caught him in almost all the swing states.

She's passive in Pennsylvania. She made up a 12 point lead in Nevada. The Trump is slips sliding away, he's flailing like crazy. And you Republicans think it's a good idea to focus on the potential testicles of an Algerian boxer? Have that it, Haas. I can't go for it. You look like idiots. You're making a giant case out of this like, oh, this is the most important thing in the world.

Does you have potential testicles or not? Go ahead, go ahead. Here's some more rope. Hang yourself. Go for it. Okay, politically speaking. This is so dumb of the right wing to focus on this. So please keep going.

Yeah, I mean, my opinion on this, I think it's important to know the IOC basically called the IBA out on that. They issued a statement that said effectively and exactly that, Jank, that like this was a unilateral decision made by one guy and no one's seen those tests. But I will say, and I will push back, because I do feel like some of the anti-trans athlete speak, is a slippery slope into broader anti-trans behavior and also policing of athletes writ large beyond Khalif. Earlier this week, a rugby player for the American team, Ilona Marr, was called a man because she's six foot six and a massive unit. And she successfully helped that team win bronze. The very first time an American team has won a medal in rugby. And she was called a man.

Why? Because she's big, because she's a rugby player. And so when we start to say that trans people can't play an Olympic sports, right? They can't play in the sport of their chosen gender. Then we start to, everyone becomes a cop. And everyone starts to look at everyone's makeup and their muscles and their cheekbones and what looks different and what they think in their subjective mind, a woman or a man should and does look like.

And so I just want to say that sometimes when we traffic in these ideas that trans people should not be able to participate in sports at these levels, it does lead to things like Jesse Waters, openly saying that on primetime television. And I want to just center that when we stand with trans people, yes, even trans athletes, that all goes away. And we stand with them no matter what. But you start to dabble and you open up, everyone becomes genital police. And I just have to push back on that. And you've done it, Jane. You've done it. I totally, totally, totally disagree. So first of all, when you have an extreme position, you have an extreme position that says, no, we don't ever ask anyone.

And I think the Olympics position is actually absurd. They don't do any genetic testing. They don't do any testing. So you could, since they don't do any testing at all, you can just walk in, call yourself a female, not be trans people are actually. Do it, Jane, do it. Okay, yeah, all right, well, you could say it, but then what's gonna happen? Somebody's gonna do it, and they're gonna get away with it, and then everybody's gonna be furious, okay?

It's, all right, I can't stand it, and it doesn't help trans people at all to have these extreme positions. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, don't test anyone, just take their word for it. I think it's terrible politics. It's not an extreme position, it comes from a position of human rights, and it does help all Not a human right to compete in the other genders sport. What you see there is when, what you just saw are women, our biological women being attacked for being trans because of the anti-trans athletic narrative that is already festered and has now come for these women. And so what are the women to do? Say, I'm not a man.

In fact, screw, like, I'm not a trans man. Are you kidding me? No, we all stand in solidarity together. That's how we actually fight the right when it comes to their bull crap. culture wars that you know lead nowhere and it doesn't serve. Look, I understand, Jenk, you're in the majority. You're in the majority. I'm in the minority. Most people disagree that trans athletes should participate in Olympic sports. Most people don't agree with me. But hell, man, I'm willing to stand on a hill that is unpopular and fight for people and for

their human rights. Yeah, look, we could spend an hour debating this and I have in the past. But when- Not really, though. Yeah. Not really. Not really. Not really. really debate more of an agreement. Okay, whatever. I'm happy to debate anybody about it. I think it's, I don't agree. Okay. You're never going to get me to agree by saying it's the left wing position.

It's a pro-trans position. I don't think it's a pro-trans position at all, at all. Offer a platform, you don't have to agree. All right, all right. So when your opponent is in the middle of doing something radical, step out of the way and let them do it instead of stepping in the way and saying, hey, I'm more radical. Okay, I think it's terrible politics.

It's terrible for Christmas people. I think it's terrible for the LGBTQ community, and I think it's terrible for the people who are looking to defeat Trump. So can we please get out of the way and let the Republicans do the dumb things? I think you're laying out a hypothetical that is conceivable. Someone can conceive of it happening. But I think the reason you keep having Republicans over and over, by the way, there's already another case of this in boxing. You identified Francesca case in rugby. There are so few trans athletes that the right constantly invents trans athletes to attack.

That is how hypothetical their problem is that they can't even talk about it actually happening. They just keep pointing at people who aren't trans and saying they're trans. In sports that even not just, Michelle Obama gets to be trans because they need someone to be trans. The wife of Emmanuel Macron has to be trans because they need someone to be trans. They invent trans people because trans people do not constantly transgress and ruin their lives. So they can't actually point to them. They have to invent fictional trans people to talk about. That's exactly my point.

And I totally agree with John on that, even if we might disagree on the other things. So my point is, at most, this affects seven people in the country. So I'm not saying that you should abandon those seven people. We have an honest difference of opinion on how to help those seven people, okay? But if the Republicans are making a giant deal out of how much they hate those seven people, okay, let them punch themselves in the face over and over and over again. So that's why politically, guys, do not get mired in this muck, right? Make fun of them for inventing trans people to hate. You're totally right about that, John.

They can't, they hate so much that they have to invent problems that don't even exist. And they make fun of them for that. I think that's a much better political strategy. And by the way, I found the quote of the idiot who runs the IBA. he called ahead of the IOC at Chief Sodomite. Jesus Christ. Okay, and so look, when the Republicans are like, oh, I love that guy who called the other guy a Chief Sodomite.

Great, wonderful, here come, just tell everybody, because you look so stupid and hateful. Don't call them weird though. I want to make a couple of quick points about this specific case though. So on her and her record, so like when you find out that she has lost nine times, that could influence your evaluation of whether it's fair, for her to compete. When you find out that in her 37 victories, she has only five knockouts. It goes against the attempted narrative that she is she hulk and no person can stand against

them. But the issue with that is we can't expect them to know that because none of the people, and we can show you, J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk and Riley Gaines and Donald Trump and Valentina Gomez and Jesse Waters and literally all of them complaining about this, none of them give one single quantum of a damn about women's boxing. I want to be super clear about that. None of them watched a boxing match. They didn't watch this one. None of them even after this will watch a single one. They don't care about women's boxing more than they care about literally any woman's sport to be very, very clear. And on the evaluation of what is a woman, a question they love to ask, they kept saying it's not a social construct,

it's not a frame of mind, it's not what you believe yourself to be, it's not an identity, it's in your pants, it's your genitals. Oops, that's not good enough, it's not that. Because she has too much testosterone, that's it. It's the hormones. If you change your hormones, then it doesn't matter if you were born with a vagina. You're not anymore because your hormones changed. Now you're a man. But they don't believe that hormone replacement therapy changes your gender.

They've never given ground on that. And suddenly, that's their retreat point is if your hormones are out of whack, it doesn't matter what's in your pants. The entire thing is ridiculous. And the final point I want to make it, I apologize. I've been thinking about this for like 48 hours straight. If they wanted to talk about protecting women, there's a rapist at the Olympics right now. There's a volleyball player who raped a 12 year old. They don't got anything to say about that because they don't care because they're not paying attention.

But also to be clear, if they wanted to talk about how important female athletes are and their amazing accomplishments and all that. And if they could ever bring themselves to do that without it being about a trans athlete, Katie Ledecki became the most decorated American. woman in Olympic history, Simone Biles is now the most decorated female gymnast in world history. The literal goat, they did amazing historic things, and not a single one of these people cares at all about it. Not interested whatsoever, because women are irrelevant. All of this is a defense mechanism from a movement of misogynist that know how regressive they look when it comes to women and are constantly desperately looking for a shallow cloak that allows them to pretend that they give a damn about women for even a single

second. That's all this is. Amen. Yeah. And also just a correction, it's cisgender, not biological. So let's just be able to say cisgender, women, we should normalize cisgender. That's easy for us to do. I will only say that when I say that, I'm saying it's the way they use that term. I don't use that term, but they say that's what they want and then it's not good enough in the end. Yeah. And and I do. I do know it's a minority and all I have to say, I'm all I am saying is that if and when there is a trans athlete, can we stand with them? And can we see and tie our own liberation together and our own defense against this bigotry together?

And me as a feminist, me as a cisgender woman, I believe that my own liberation, my fight against that misogyny that John's talking about. If someone were to call me a man, say, I'm not a man, but also I stand with trans people, I stand with trans athletes. And I hope that we will see that eventually one day, even for those seven people, I do think it matters. Yeah, all right, last thing I'll say on it is similar to what John was saying. Imani Khalif has lost nine matches, but they're convinced, oh my God, this is a giant issue. She's dominating the sport. So when I was going to make a similar point about Leidecker, she won the 1,500 meter race by 17 seconds. That's insane.

It's unheard of. There was no one else in the frame. It looked like there was no one else in the pool. The top, you know how many of the top 20 times in, in the top swimming race? Katie Leidecker has come in number one. In other words, she owns the record of the top 20, all 20. She has all 20 of the fastest times, okay? She's unbelievable.

So they don't care who's actually dominant in the sport. They don't actually care about the competition. Well, well, look, man, if you have a man, you can compete and blah, blah, blah. Katie Leidenker's killing them, no matter who's in the race, right? They don't care, oh, that it's unfair that she has a genetic advantage because she's better than them, right? That's the whole point of the Olympics. All they care about is how do we get people to focus all their hatred on people that are in the LGBTQ community? So Khalifa is not dominant in the sport.

It doesn't matter. They're just using it as an excuse to attack that community. community, because their whole point is hatred. That's why this is so dumb politically. They keep assuming that the average American is as hateful as they are, and they're incorrect. Let's step out of the way and let them clown themselves. Okay, we're good.

Oh, shoot, we're out of time. All right, well, in another Olympic story. But we do have one of the sex stuff. Can I plug before we go? Oh, yes, Fannie, sorry. Come see me in Chicago for the DNC, not for the DNC, I won't be at the DNC. But at the Lincoln Lodge on Tuesday, August 20th, I'll be doing stand-up. We got an early show sold out at 7.

Late show 9 p.m. on a Tuesday? Yeah, have a couple drinks come out. Francesca Fiorendini.com for tickets. Thank you. Yep, and send us to the DNC, t.com slash team, definitely go check out for any. We appreciate you guys for the best. When we come back, whole amazing second hour, including just a colossal story. Did Donald Trump take $10 million from the Egyptians?

Egyptians. So I know that he does a lot of crazy things and it's hard to keep up, but this one is, in my opinion, gigantic. All right, we'll come right back.