The Young Turks - Fox Eats Hannity

Episode Date: July 24, 2021

Trump PAC that was formed to help fund legal efforts to challenge the 2020 election has reportedly hoarded most of it, not using it for audits, but for paying Trump’s travel and legal expenses. Madison Cawthorn is looking to capitalize off of the Fauci/Rand Paul fight. Top US Catholic Church official resigns after cellphone data is used to track him on Grindr and to gay bars. A breast cancer patient is attacked by violent anti-mask protesters outside a clinic. Hannity hits critics surprised by a clip of him saying “take COVID seriously”: “Let me say this one more time for all the idiots. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Bexie! Three by me, three my team, three my team, three by team, three by team, three by team, three my team. Okay, I guess you can drop it. Okay, it looks like it's a power panel. I'm John and Rolla. I'm here. Don't worry about that.

Much more importantly, joining me today on the show. We have the editor of Insider's Voices of Color, Ken Evelyn. It's good to speak to you again. Thanks for having me. Great to have you here. And of course, Civil Rights Attorney Charles Coleman, welcome back to the show. Always good to be here. John, thanks for having me. Glad to have you both here. It's been kind of a crazy week. And the news that we've got for you in this first hour is kind of absurd too. But we're going to get through it together. So thank you to both of you for being here.

Thank you everybody for being out there in the audience. We not only have a great first hour coming up for you, but we're going to have an awesome second hour as well. Jared Jackson is going to be here with an awesome panel. So definitely look forward to that. And as always, if you want to send us messages and stuff, we're going to be reading those as we go. But with that said, we got a lot to get to. So why don't we jump into this first story? Donald Trump has apparently scammed his followers. I know I can be talking about like 30 different things right now. But there's actually a new scam.

And it's a big one, something to the tune of about $75 million. It might end up being far more than that. But apparently, former President Donald Trump's political pack, that's the Save America pack. raised about $75 million just in the first half of 2021 on the claim that the 2020 election had been stolen from him and that he needed to contest that and you needed to help him, even if it puts you out of your house. But that group has not devoted funds to help finance the ongoing ballot review in Arizona or to push for similar endeavors in other states, according to people familiar with the finances. And so, look, if you're going to put together this group,

And you're saying, I'm going to try to save this country from the combi bastard in the White House that stole it from me. One would think that you would get involved in the highest profile effort to do that, to try to overturn the results in Arizona. But so far, no, he hasn't been interested in it. And look, the idea that he has taken money under false pretenses from his fans, perhaps it's not going to be particularly surprising. But this is a lot of money. Kenya, what do you think about this? I mean, this is still following in the lines of Trump Stakes, Trump University, take your pick. This is just a continued effort at the grift.

Whether if you are one of those unfortunate few like myself who still have to subscribe to his text message alerts, you know that this is all a part of the plan. We are transitioning from one scare tactic, one element to keep his contingent of sycophants, you know, just enthralled about the idea of fighting for an election, fighting for an administration that had an election and their tenure stolen from them, which we know to be a lie. And that grift is shifting from what we knew to be the conversation around voting rights for to, if you are one of those subscribers, you're getting text messages about contributing to

the campaign and contributing to his PAC in order to fight for free speech. The same GOP members who are canceling or engaged in cancel culture in one essence in trying to dial back critical race theory, something that's not even talked. in schools is used as an essence who even champion free speech when we see others who are then using that very rhetoric or using the hypocrisy of that rhetoric to challenge progressive policies and other avenues. And so this is all a part of that continued grip to continue, you know, channeling and drumming up support from his base and in turn, you know, stealing their finances. Yeah. Charles. So I agree with Kenya. My biggest question is what's the end goal here?

Like where are we ending up? Where are we trying to go with this? Because on one hand, while I completely understand this notion of trying to advance the narrative around a stolen election and elections that don't have integrity and problems without democracy, as a means of pushing forward a very conservative right-wing agenda that ultimately is centered around erasing black narratives, erasing narratives of people who are non-white and silencing narratives for people who are not white in the name of white nationalism, I'm very confused because where are you spending the money? So like where are you intending to spend the money? So you've been very much so on the side of pushing this narrative and I understand why that makes sense. But my question is if you're raising all this money and you've gotten all the support around this narrative and you're not participating in something as big as what's going on in Arizona, which seemingly is your only shot to have some sort of legitimate chance in getting the momentum back around these. these audits, where are you spending the money? So that's really what I want to know. I kind of am wondering where is this going?

Because as Kenya is laid out from a narrative perspective, I completely get it. It makes sense. But I just don't understand if you're not going to participate in that, then what's the whole point? Yeah. Well, look, it's a great question as to where at least some of the money has gone so far. So I'm going to catch up a little bit on these graphics. And we'll see if we can figure out at least where some of it went.

But in addition to the $75 million, that's the first half of 2021, bear in mind that right after the election, between the election and the end of last year, he raised $31.5 million. And they were fund raising hard. I mean, up until the election and then right after, so Kenya, I apologize for how many texts, you must have gotten about that. But that's a lot of money. That's over $100 million. And apparently, so far, they've paid for some of the former president's travel, legal

costs and staff, although apparently not Rudy Giuliani, they refuse to pay him no matter what, along with other expenses, according to the people who are spoken to on condition of anonymity. But the vast majority of it, the pack is held on to. And it seems like a safe bet to say they just want to have it, you know, for his tours and especially to maybe donate some of the money to other candidates or pay to support other candidates, giving him some power in the midterms. Maybe they'll keep some of it and eventually roll it into his presidential campaign in 2024. And all of that, I think his fans are probably going to be okay with, but notably, it is not what they said they were raising the money for. And especially that money right after the election, they didn't

spend it to try to stop, you know, the election from being stolen. They couldn't even pay for proper event space. They were sending Rudy Giuliani to hardware stores. So the thing about it is, I'm not going to, normally I would ask you like, you know, is this going to have an effect or is followers going to get mad? Obviously they're not going to, but why? So I don't know if either of you have a politician that you feel some sense of trust for, some connection to. I can think of a couple that I generally like. And I would like to imagine that if they lied to me outright about what the money was going towards, I would be a little bit mad about it. I mean, this is following up the, this stuff were before the election, Donald Trump got in a little bit of trouble for the automatic recurring payments where when you donated, they would just take the same amount of money like every week out of your account for some people. It literally made some people go broke. They had

to give back millions and millions of dollars. And that seems to anecdotally have affected a few of the people who are directly affected by it. But there's no sign that his fundraising is slowing down. So why isn't the direct continued conning any more effective in getting through to these people? Charles? Well, I think there are a couple of reasons for that. The first one is at the end of the day, if you're a Trump supporter, you're not really concerned about details and facts. Let's just be very candid about that.

That's not something that moves the needle for you. What moves the needle is ideology and someone who is going to be able to represent an extremist ideology. And in this case, there are very few people who are out there who have the name recognition, the charisma or whatever it's worth, and the history from a brand perspective, that's going to be as big a draw as Trump for people who want someone who's going to represent that ideology. That's number one. On a larger scale, I think that we underestimate the number of folks who just feel like

because Donald Trump has advanced this idea of himself as a rich person or someone of affluence and status and wealth. There are people who are okay with them being different rules for him, at least conceptual in the theoretical sense. There are people who feel like he should be able to do whatever it was, whatever it is that he wants with his money. Or it's not a big deal. And then, of course, the final answer is that we don't have any problem with inconsistency when it benefits us. So for example, if this were Joe Biden and he were in a situation where his pack and the money that he had raised or Kamala Harris and the money that she had raised was going to all sorts of things that weren't what it was that they had asked for. You know, you understand and we all can be certain

that people on the right will be jumping up and down, setting things on fire, talking about how crooked and corrupt everybody was. But when it happens for someone who we cheer for, when it happens for someone who we seem to like, we will make every excuse under the sun as to why it's okay and let's look the other way or it's not a big deal or some other fabricated myth like Obama was a crook too in order to distract from what's really in our face. So those are the answers that I have. I probably can think of a bunch more, but Kenya certainly knows. Kenya? I think it's a good point that we're mentioning and we're asking, you know, how can you be okay with the money? But essentially that's the framing and the premise.

It's not about the money. It's about the message. And the message that, you know, Donald Trump former president, Donald Trump, has been adamant on reaching to his base and reaching to those who feel aggrieved by the result of the election is that I am you. I understand you. You are me. And because I feel your pain, because I feel your sentiment that this is an election that was stolen from you, this is a part of a broader dominance and a white dominance that has maintained, has existed in this country that you are entitled to and that we are seeing these glory days of yesterday you know, fading away. I am here to fight with you in any capacity that may be. So tomorrow we're talking about disenfranchising, you know, a great swath of America with, you know,

voting rights laws that repeal and essentially dial back the progress that we've made from voting rights legislation and the Voting Rights Act. That's okay. And if tomorrow we're going to contradict ourselves in terms of cancel culture and free speech and pursue a framework, a legal framework and taught in law schools that isn't even taught in in K through 12 education across the country as a guise to dial back the reporting of an accurate history and storytelling of this country, then that's exactly what we are going to do. And so at the same time that I'm even receiving text messages and calls from the president in this moment, that's essentially the message that he wants to give to his viewers. And it's resonating. I am one of you.

And as you feel aggrieved, as you feel like your dominance and the entitlement to privilege and power that you are entitled to as an aggrieved member of a dying breed in this country. I'm here to fight with you. So, you know, essentially give me the money to do it. And that message is what's resonating. So the money doesn't matter. Yeah. And I think you're 100% right that they feel some version of he's one of us when in no significant substantive way. Is he anything like the vast majority of those people? He hates and fears or at least says he hates and fears of the same people. Beyond that, like we're in a society. that supposedly authenticity counts for everything.

But every single thing he says is a lie to them. Like, why doesn't, and that doesn't hurt him 1%. What would it be like to have a right-wing politician that meant it? Like, that wasn't actually corrupt, wasn't actually a massive liar. Like, the closest thing I can think of is maybe Marjorie Green, because I think that she's, I think that she believes all the insane things that she's saying. I think it's kind of grifty, she's playing it up, but she really does believe. it. And it leaves me wondering, like, the situation is so crazy with Trump. It is so obvious

that he is robbing these people and they don't care. Like, is it all the same? Like, are they looking at like me liking, for instance, Bernie? Do they see a whole bunch of times that Bernie robbed me that I don't see? I just, it feels different. But I don't know. It's hard to say. Anyway, if you're a Trump supporter, I know that this doesn't bother you. You trust him with your money more than you trust yourself, even though he could be funding all of this himself. That's $75 million, he could do it himself. $3 million for the Arizona audit, he doesn't need the pack money. He's rich, he could have paid for it.

Why don't you expect him to pay for it? But whatever, I'm never going to get through to you. I'm never going to understand it. In any event, there is, of course, a lot more going on in the news, and we're going to be turning to that, including the effort to prosecute Dr. Fauci. I hear he lied and people died, so we'll be breaking that down after this. Hey everybody back on the power panel with myself, Charles and Kenya. You guys ready to jump another story? Let's do it. Okay. Do it.

North Carolina Representative Madison Cawthorne has vowed that if they take control, the Republicans take control, of the house, they are going to prosecute Dr. Fauci. A couple years in the future, that's what their priority is going to be. And this is apparently coming from their longstanding conspiracy theories about Dr. Fauci, but that have been giving a shot in the arm to borrow a phrase, as a result of his interaction with Rand Paul earlier this week. In case you didn't see that, here is Dr. Fauci with Rand Paul. Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress,

Do you wish to retract your statement of May 11th where you claimed that the NIH never funded gain of function research in Wuhan? Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement. This paper that you were referring to was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain of function. What was, let me finish. You take an animal virus and you increase his responsibility. to humans? You're saying that's not gain of function? Yeah, that is correct. And Senator Paul, you do not

know what you are talking about, quite frankly, and I want to say that officially. You do not know what you are talking about. Okay, so we're going to get to the Madison Cawthorne in a moment, but that was fun. I had forgotten how fun that was. And I haven't actually heard from

either Charles or Kenya about that interaction. So before we move on to Madison Cawthorne and the long-term plan to see Foward, She locked up. Let's start with you, Kenya. What did you think about that interaction between the senator and Fauci? I'm quite surprised even to just to see the direct aspect of us watching Dr. Falsy just say the obvious. And it shouldn't be a shock to us. Those of us in media who are used to the fallacy of absolute

objectivity and whether to call a lie, a lie, whether to say something wrong is wrong, to say outright that you do not know what you are talking about. Man, I wish I could use that language for many, many of the occasions folks feel the need to explain my lived experience as a black woman. But honestly, it's just you do not know what you're talking about. And I think that is the plain and simple messaging here that Dr. Fosse has been adamant in pushing back against Republicans and the TOP now who are attempting to dial back their own aspect of, you know, they lied and people died. And so now want to find a scapegoat and now want to find elements of the NIH or other leaders who were under the whim of an administration that did not want to be transparent with the American people about the severity of this virus, the ability for it to be transmitted via error at the very beginning. And so what we are seeing is someone whose reputation is on the line, stepping forward and essentially doing what needed to be done and calling a lie, calling it coming from someone who is incompetent and ignorant to the facts, calling it out exactly what was needed. Any thoughts, Charles?

I think thematically when I look at this story and I think about all of the other stories that are connected to where we are currently are around the pandemic and the virus, there are two things that jump out in me when I see this clip. One of them is how unfortunately politicized the virus has become. And so while the slogan may be that Fauci lied and people died, the reality is we politicized and people died. I think that folks really, really don't understand the gravity of how deplorable it is to sacrifice literally millions of human lives at the expense of political expediency and one-upsmanship. And that's what we've seen arguably for the past 18 months, and it's been disgusting. And the fact that we're still in this place where people feel like we can gain. political points if we just sort of make this virus and everything that's going on around it politicized in a way that allows us to point our finger at an enemy and then point our supporters to a ballot box. That's just really disgusting. And the second piece of it that sort of strikes at me that has allowed it to be politicized in this way is the death of expertise. We have seen so many people emerge as experts on intervenes. virus viruses and vaccines and medicine and things of that nature.

And you ask them, where did they go to med school? And it's like webmd.com. And I mean, you know, as absurd as it sounds, as someone who practices in professional spaces, it is often that I find myself saying, listen, your binge watching of law and order or Google searches do not match my legal degree. And I'm not going to debate you on this. And so when you see someone like Fauci get into it with, you know, congressmen or you see people who are critical of him in terms of not knowing what he's talking about, and in the broader sense, you see people talking about the virtue of masks versus no mask and there's no science that's backing that up. It all speaks to the death of expertise, whereas because I have a voice, because I have a platform, and because I have the Internet, I can basically say whatever it is that I want. whatever vein that I want, and there will be a group of people who will take that as factual. And I think that with respect to the virus, it's just been incredibly dangerous and beyond unfortunate.

Yeah, I totally agree with you, the death of expertise. I also think, though, like it's, that last year was, I hope the peak of the death of reason. Like, obviously, the American people believe a lot of crazy things. They have been led to believe a lot of crazy things. but I think, I'm probably wrong. You know, I'm not an expert. I feel like it's worse than it's ever been. If you can believe that Fauci is singularly responsible because he lied,

I don't even know exactly which lie they're talking about. The one that they always put on like boards at their press conferences is that he told people that they didn't need to wear masks, which they say like, how dare you tell us that lie to not wear masks? Are you going to wear a mask? No, I won't. But he lied about it. But then how mad are you about that lie?

You don't want to wear it. That was the bad thing, right? Or whatever the lie was, he's responsible for telling that lie and then saying, I don't want you to get the virus. Whereas everybody is cool on the right with Trump, who spent most of last year saying we need to go herd. We need to go herd. Everyone gets it. It's going to be awesome. Scott Atlas, come on, you'll be my new advisor.

You're the new Fauci. They believe that everyone should get the virus. The virus that is apparently so bad that Fauci lying about it means he should go to jail. But Trump advocating for a national strategy where you and your family get the virus is cool. I don't understand that. I never will. I kind of hope that I don't. I feel like to get your brain into that space is like the closing chapters of 1984.

But anyway, Madison Cawthorne, coming out of the interaction between Rand Paul and Dr. Fauci, has a strategy going forward for the doctor, and he lays it out in this video. You can just go back and very simply look through the clips of Dr. Fauci speaking back in May or even subsequent months after that, and you can tell he has directly lied to Congress. And so when Dr. Fauci gave, when Dr. Rand Paul gave him the opportunity to actually recant his statements, he declined. And then when Rand Paul started pressing him further and said there will be consequences for those responsible, I'm not sure if you notice in that clip, you see his hands start to shake uncontrollably. A lot of people say, oh, well, that's that's uncontrollable rage.

No, that is fear because Dr. Fauci knows he's been working as a pawn of the Chinese Communist Party. He's been funding through the NIH, which without tax dollars, what I consider to be militaristic research on how to make an animal virus more transmissible to humans. So I think it's very well-founded that we refer to this to the DOJ. Jenna, I will just tell you, unfortunately, the DOJ right now is under the control of the Biden administration. So what's going to come of it? I don't know, but I'll tell you when we take the majority back in 2022, I'll make sure consequences are doled out. But we want to prosecute this guy to the full prosecutor, full ability of the law, because I'll tell you, to lie to the American people,

just to get your name in the news, just to see your face on the cover of books, just to get fame and fortune, I'll tell you, Dr. Anthony Fauci does not deserve either fame or fortune. Okay, he's literally telling insane lies so you can go on TV. Okay, so Dr. Fauci has teamed up with the communist Chinese to create some sort of werewolf venom. And it's so bad that he should go to jail. It's not bad enough that you should get vaccinated. I don't think that you should do that. You shouldn't wear masks, we shouldn't have lockdowns. It's really not a big problem. Let's not focus on it, but it was really bad when he lied about it.

Again, I don't know how you can have those positions. If you were to tell the, if you were to say that Fauci lied and made the virus out to be worse than it was, And that caused the lockdowns and that was bad. Okay, then that's consistent with the fact that you don't want to do anything about the pandemic. But you can't keep vacillating between he lied. It was way worse. He's responsible. It was designed in a Chinese lab.

It's basically a bioweapon and then say we should really just move on with our lives. We shouldn't do anything. And you know, we've got this vaccine. In fact, we have so much of it that we're literally one state throughout 50,000 vials this week. But you don't, you shouldn't take it, though. It's not necessary. It doesn't make any sense to me. And I apologize that I inflict on the audience my attempt to work it out, but nobody can explain it to me.

But we'll see, maybe one of you too can. Charles, any thoughts? How do you square what Madison Cawthorne is saying right there? Well, first of all, Madison, you talk about Fauci lying to get on the cover of books and so on and so forth. You, sir, I would submit, are lying rather intentionally for your own fame and fortune and to become a rising star in your own party. So let's not talk about the truths and ulterior motives because I think that yours are pretty suspect. But as you were talking, John, one of the things that I started thinking about was framing. I started to think about the framing of the Affordable Care Act being what it was.

that being framed, going from being framed as the ACA to being Obamacare, where there were literally people who were walking around talking about, you know, I'm for the ACA, but I'm not down with Obamacare, not realizing that they were the same thing. I am very curious to see if this were framed as a Trump vaccine in the sense that this was developed allegedly under Operation warp speed and introduced allegedly, you know, at the tail end of his tenure in office at his behest. Because let's be clear here, where Donald Trump's still in office, he absolutely would be taking credit for this virus, for this vaccine, and he'd be wanting people to get vaccinated. I am curious to understand what other people would be saying if the narrative were

different. Yeah, I definitely think that if Trump were president, it maybe would be different. I mean, Look, people like Tucker Carlson had already turned rhetorically against the vaccine before inauguration, but who knows? Maybe they would have modulated it. I'm not sure. Ken, any thoughts about that or Madison Cawthorne? I essentially echoed Charles in that, you know, Representative Cawthorne, there's a couple of questions that I would want to ask.

And if we're even just getting to the point of embellishing one's record or lying about the establishment, about one's personal involvement or lack of their of and their personal history, I would caution, you know, throwing stones and glass houses when we have discrepancies about the passenger in his 2014 crash, as well as discrepancies about his own history in his own tenure at the Naval Academy. I think if we're opening the floor for scrutinizing folks' records in their involvement or lack thereof in the amping up of their profile in history for political gain, I don't think that this would be the representative to do so. But if we are actually playing culture attention, I think the point here and what we are failing to recognize or even, you know, what is often overlooked is the obvious dog whistles involved here. And that we, at the same time that we saw this virus take over the United States fairly quickly, we saw its origins and its debated origins in China. When we saw conspiracy theories peddled about a lab in Wuhan, when we saw that have lingering impact, substantial impact and deadly consequences even in Asian American communities across the kind of. country when we saw an uptick, a spike, and hate crimes all across the country. We have to pay attention to the obvious dog whistles involved here when we're essentially levying, levying accusations against the head of our coronavirus response and alleging that he is in cahoots somehow with a communist government. These are all dog whistles to amplify the anti-Asian and anti-Asian American rhetoric and hate that has had disastrous consequences across this country. And similarly, like my colleague mentioned, you know, the same way that we would

see if this were still a President Trump administration, the same effort to discourage individuals now, the same effort to blame the spread of the virus we're seeing now on unvaccinated communities. Similarly, what we saw, the blame being placed on communities of color in the early days of the initial spread last year. If we had seen a different, if any of us were in a president Trump administration right now, we would continue to see credit be taken for a disastrous lack there of federal strategy in implementing vaccines at the time that the Biden administration took over. We knew that the distribution of vaccines were largely placed in the hands of incompetent state and local agencies. And so the same credit that he wants to receive

for essentially what is saving Americans now, we're now seeing be used and pivoted hypocritically to discourage people from getting the vaccine. And this is dangerous rhetoric. In addition to the racist dog whistles that we're hearing, this is continued rhetoric that has disastrous consequences. It's not a matter of pumping up their own personal record, which we know Representative Cothorne is good for. But this is a matter of policy that is impacting people. Exactly. Yeah, and I'm glad that you're focusing on the continually playing into, you know, I don't know exactly what the mix is of just sort of generalized anti-Asian xenophobia or specifically trying to get people to be terrified against China. that's convenient for certain economic policies that they support, but it's a disgusting

mix regardless. And trying to use that, but also trying to drag down Dr. Fauci, one of the few members of the government over the past year and a half that have generated, you know, a good deal of goodwill and trust is even more disgusting. Yeah, all of that, doing all of that telling these insane lies, again, as Charles pointed out effectively, to get on TV and have the right wing like him is really disgusting. I don't know why most people would want to go down that path, but like Kenya was saying, if the reputation you have right now is generating like an entire veteran politician's amount of scandals in like a year and a half, and also along the way generating a reputation on your university as a guy that no woman should be caught

dead alone with, I would probably be looking for any new reputation I could get as well. But anyway, we do have some other news. So we're going to talk a little bit about the right in vaccines, where their narratives about it might be changing and where, unfortunately, they're not as we go into this next story. Earlier this week, Sean Hannity got a little bit of credit, very briefly, for seeming to encourage people to take a second look at the vaccine, saying that they at the very least need to take COVID seriously. Now, that is beyond what most in right media are willing to say, although let's bear in mind that on that same broadcast, he said a number of different things that seem to be designed to increase suspicion of the vaccine,

fear of the vaccine, and all of that. But regardless, he seemed to be standing out as supportive of a vaccination. As a result of that, you had multiple broadcasts on shows like Tucker Carlson, where without ever naming Sean Hannity, he implied that members of the media have no position to be telling you that you should be taking the vaccine. Tucker Carlson had Charlie Kirk on to, again, without ever, you know, being specific in naming Sean Hannity, attack Sean Hannity for doing that. And it seems like Sean Hannity is feeling the burn for that, because he took to his show last night to reassure people that he is not in any way encouraging vaccination. I have no idea why, but it was only in the last week my coverage of coronavirus, COVID.

COVID-19 got the attention of the liberal press and their attempts to paint this great network of ours, which has varying opinions, which is actually fair and balanced, to paint us as a dangerous anti-vax network. They watched this program and were shocked to discover what I said and what I had been saying for months and months and much. Business Insider reports, quote, suddenly Sean Hannity and other Fox hosts are urging their viewers to get COVID-19 vaccines. I never told anyone to get a vaccine. I've been very clear. I am simply not qualified. I am not a medical doctor. I know nothing about your medical history or your current medical condition.

I think it's inappropriate for me to do so. Instead, for over a year now, I have been warning my viewers, you make my career possible. I want every American, liberal, conservative, Republican Democrat, I want you to be healthy. So look, I'm going to admit I don't watch much Sean Hannity. So the fact that his voice was noticeably shaking during that, that may be a common thing for him. I'm not sure. To me, I read that as this is a guy who is shook, shucken. Like, he's a little bit shook from the reaction.

And we've seen it before. You know, Ducey did encourage vaccination. And he was attacked on social media quite a bit. It appears that Sean Hannity might be experiencing a bit of that because that disclaimer on his show is not the only one he gave on his radio show. He did another rant about how I haven't changed anything. I'm not telling you to do it. So anyway, if you're hoping that this week was the beginning of a move towards more support for vaccination, the end of the week doesn't seem to indicate that. But Kenya, what do you think? I mean, I just have to have to have my colleague here, Charles, who said it eloquently.

It's a depth of expertise, and we see how interesting, essentially, we have leaders, media consult, media pioneers, essentially, who are comfortable in any one regard, negating, refuting, challenging scientific data, scientific studies, questioning the record, questioning the expertise, questioning this rapport, and just questioning the effectiveness of what we see saw to be our medical leaders attempting to combat a growing and dangerous virus. Yet that depth of expertise that made them comfortable with questioning the experts are now being used to say, hey, I don't know enough. I'm not an expert here. I'm ignorant to the issue just as much as you are. Although you've listened to me for the last six months refuting the information that I have a responsibility to report to you. Report to you is true. Report to you as scientifically sound. I did not do that. And now, in my attempt to dial back the backlash, the same way we are seeing even Republican governors all across the state with Alabama government, Governor K. Ivy, essentially blaming the unvaccinated while absolving herself of dialing back, you know, social distancing and mass restrictions. We're seeing that element of hypocrisy play out. And we're seeing people essentially play into that depth of expertise or lack thereof to feign ignorance and absolve themselves for responsibility in perpetuating the ignorances, perpetuating the conspiracy theories, and essentially costing more lives. Yeah. Charles, do you think we'll see any other Fox personalities being over

openly supportive. Oh, by the way, let me mention they did put out a PSA after the Sean Hannity comment earlier this week with I believe Ducey said take it seriously. And it might have been Harris Faulkner who said get vaccinated if you can. So she was explicit. But for their personality hosts, Ingram, Tucker, Hannity. Charles, do you think that they have been scared away from any advocacy for vaccination? I think that in terms of being pro-vaccine, which I don't even understand how it is a thing like pro vaccine, anti-vaccine. It seems absurd to me, but I don't think that we'll see anyone who's going to be actually pro-vaccine. I think that what we are likely to see happen at some point is there is going to likely be something in the legal realm

that sort of suggests that, you know, I listen to Fox News or these personalities influenced me the same way that people said they suffered from Foxitis regarding January 6th. And what that likely may do is push producers on that end to say, listen, let's not talk. Let's not encourage or discourage and let's just go back to the idea that we're not experts and you should consult doctors. I think what we may see is a push back to the mid to the middle to the middle what Sean Hannity sort of did. And I also found it so like in Kenya was just really cheat the nail right on the head when she talked about the sort of hypocrisy in as much as Tucker Carlson sort of of calls Sean Hannity out without calling Sean Hannity out as being inappropriate for making a commentary about the vaccine because he's not a doctor, he's a member of media, when Tucker

Carlson has been making comments about the vaccine this entire time. So it's kind of like you're chastising members of the media for talking about taking the vaccine because they're not qualify, but you, someone who I'm not necessarily certain has a straight through college degree, if one at all, are consistently downing people for taking the vaccine and suggesting that people don't. And the fact that people don't see that inherently, like as hypocritical, when they hear it, to me is just proof positive of the fact that he's a wizard and he just knows magic. Because I have no other explanation. I have no other explanation. But to be a wizard, you do have to actually study. You can't just watch Harry Potter.

As Charles has pointed out, watching it isn't enough. Okay, so you mentioned the hypocrisy. So the thing I'm most excited for in this first hour is a little bit more on the hypocrisy. So let's turn to that. Sean Hannity would have you believe that he's not pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine. After all, he can't be because he's not a doctor. It's not his place to give you any advice, to tip the scales in either direction, to indicate what you should or shouldn't do. He is being oddly humble for Sean Hannity when it comes to the vaccine, which I have to assume is an actual. There's a real position. That's a value of his rooted in his desire to not give you bad advice.

But is it? Is he always so humble about tipping the scales on your opinion on a piece of medicine? Well, it turns out not. In fact, not even during this pandemic. And he is hardly alone on the right. They may say it's not their place to get involved. But last year, when hydroxychloroquine was in the news, they weren't quite so humble, even if sometimes Sean Hannity did use the same excuse to some extent.

So last year, while reminding viewers that he wasn't a doctor, he routinely asked guests whether they would take hydroxychloroquine for treatment if they were infected with COVID, which we've since learned is a violation of your hipporites. But anyway, his defense against not having to say whether he's vaccinated is, how dare you ask me if I would do that? But he was asking everyone who came on his show if they would take hydroxychloroquine. Now, that's just a question, you might say. That's not advocacy. And yet, he often highlighted the use of the drug. At one point, citing a study that he told viewers showed, quote, hydroxychloroquine is rated now the most effective therapy by doctors. Over 6,300 of them surveyed for coronavirus. Okay, so that's not him saying anything. That's just him saying the doctors support it. Okay, well, the doctors support vaccination. Outside of a couple of cooks on Newsmax, doctors all over the country are vaccinating people. So if thousands of them supporting of a medicine was good enough for hydroxychloroquine, why does millions of them supporting the vaccine not lead to him being willing to support it? But all of this might still allow him to kind of weasel out and say he's not getting directly

involved and have a little bit of that humility. But he also at one point suggested that the entire leadership of the FDA should be fired because they weren't recommending hydroxychloroquine. So he's saying my evaluation as a pundit of what you doctors should be advising is enough that I'm willing to have you be fired because you disagree with my medical evaluation. When it's hydroxychloroquine, when it's vaccination, he's much more humble. Now really fast, he's not alone in this. Laura Ingram called the drug a game changer talking about people's miracle turnaround.

She said anyone who questioned the drug's efficacy was in total denial. How dare you imply that this isn't an amazing cure for the whole thing, even though it turned out not to be? So she said, I love everybody, love the medical profession, but they want a double blind, controlled study on whether the sky is blue. So they wanted data on hydroxychloroquine, and she implied that they were being ridiculous and wasting time. But on the vaccine, can we ever really know, we need a couple years to look into the side effects? weird how that turns out. Anyway, look, we can jump ahead. Sebastian Gorka was saying, I'm sure Trump's taking his hydroxy this morning, just like I did. Hydroxy Z-Pack and zinc equals maga. So he was very confident about the medicine he was taking then when it wasn't a vaccine.

On Steve Bannon's podcast, he suggested that one of the first things Trump should do when he got sick was to get up on the hydroxy right away. They'd never say you should get vaccinated, but when it It was hydroxychloroquine. There was no caution, there was no humility. They might as well be doctors. Anyway, Ken, any thoughts on that? I think what we're seeing here, and I'm down to call a spade a spade, is the obvious attempt to dial back from the obvious legal culpability that this presents. The same way, I think we all know of the incidents from the 1980s, early 90s, where there was a restaurant chain that was sued because of the temperature of their coffee.

It's frivolous as many people thought that this lawsuit was, and as much as the elder woman who brought this lawsuit against the restaurant chain, it created substantial conversations about what can be legally hot and how a restaurant can be culpable to the damages of their consumers, even when the action or the ignorance of that action is their own. And how much culpability does anyone, organization, person, or entity hold for the consequences when somebody takes that and then does something else with it? And so what Fox News and what their pundits and when everyone else who was peddling hydroxychlorine are saying that essentially they were taking it or peddling it as a possible cure-all for a deadly virus that we knew at the time to not be effective, they're now trying to dial back from what could be a legal jeopardy that they find themselves in when there are those who have taken it, who are those who consume their advice, consume their punditry and believe them to be media experts who have an unbiased scientifically set. analysis of what this medicine does or what this medicine is purported to do. And those who may have foolishly, like similarly, there may be those who actually try to cure their coronavirus with bleach that the president told them to or eluding it's possible or even just suggested. Knowing that those ignorant statements were made out there, they find themselves regardless of whether they personally attested to it or to directly

encourage those to do so, they find themselves in potential trouble later on when there's dire consequences or a trend, a pattern of consequences that others may legally pursue them for. And so we're seeing those efforts to dial back the rhetoric. Nile, now when it's a little too late, we have an established record here of you encouraging people to do these, take these steps that had no basis in scientific fact. And now you want to use that same, that very ignorance to medicine to absolve yourself when it's just not going to work here. Charles, quick final thought? I tend to agree with everything Kenya said. I mean, I think the one caveat.

out to everything that we're talking about is at the end of the day. It says less about them and more about us. When I say us, I'm talking about the American public as a whole and the fact that we are unfortunately in a space where we are easily manipulated by misinformation. And a lot of it comes because we refuse to think critically about these things. And in some cases may not have ever learned to think critically about some things. And I mean, I can't say it's about not reading between the lines because if you're reading between the lines, the between is really, really big, and it's hard to miss if you're looking

for it. But unfortunately, we've been conditioned not to, and this is the result. Yeah, unfortunately. Well, we're going to take our second break. When we come back, we've got time for one more stories. So stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the power panel, everyone. Wanted to give you a heads up that not only after this hour is done, we've got an awesome second hour for you, but later on tonight at Twitch.tv. T.Y.T. You can't expect common room. Of course, it's Friday night. They're going to be having a community game night. So go to Twitch.tv slash TiT. Can play some games with Brett and Brooke. That'll be a lot of fun. And over the

weekend, of course, Brett will also be hosting the Sunday stream. That is 6 p.m. Eastern Time, 3 p.m. Pacific time on Sunday at Twitch.tv slash TiT. That said, we have only a few more minutes. So why don't we jump into our last story? COVID cases are once again rapidly spreading. Even here in LA, almost 3,000 cases being reported in just one day. And as a result of it, California and LA are reinstituting some forms of mask mandates. And as you'd expect, that was met with some protests. So we're gonna show you some footage of an anti-mask protest that happened outside of the Cedar Sinai Breast Health Services building in L.A.

Just yesterday, here's what happened. Breast cancer and you mother fucking out. Sex over feeling. There's nothing to do with us. We're trying to help. You are protesting at breast cancer. It has everything to do with me and my community. They should have equal access.

Do you know anything about chemotherapy? Do you know what happens to the immune system? Yeah. I said we're right. What? What? Oh, yes. I might not like now.

Oh yeah. Get on the right side of history. You guys got a lot of anger. You guys got a lot of anger. You need to release. It's a very dangerous emotion. People die for those rights, ma'am. Just, you know. What?

Okay. So that was a woman who apparently had had breast cancer as she was trying to inform, though. Of some people who have been through the experience or are currently undergoing it have suppressed immune systems. So having a bunch of people congregating right outside of the building that they have to walk into, trying to be incredibly clear about the fact that they don't take any of this seriously. is not great. To add on to that, of course, saying that she seems too mad. Perhaps she should smile or something. That was an added layer of insult to the injury that she's clearly still dealing with. So it's in L.A. This is not just a Florida thing. It's not just an Alabama

thing. We're getting COVID here, and the attempts to try to stop it from spreading are going to face some issues too. We're rapidly running out of time. But Charles, give me your thoughts on this what's happening in LA? I think, again, it goes back to what we're talking about in terms of how easily manipulated we are in terms of misinformation. It goes back to the politicized nature of this virus, which quite frankly, on both sides have left a lot of people not knowing what to believe. But of everything that I saw, quite honestly, the thing that bothered me the most of that last clip was the anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, invocation of civil rights and the notion of civil rights and civil freedoms

and liberties as part of their meeting for their resistance. You can argue a lot of things, right? But civil rights folks did not die for you to walk around like a jack, like a jack, you know the rest of the word, and argue about whether you should be able to wear a mask in the middle of a global pandemic. And so as a civil rights attorney, you know, even as I'm trying to comment from a logical and unobjective place, that sort of just took me somewhere else because I just really find that to be assinine. Yeah. Kenya, what do you think? I will give you the professional Kenya's response immediately saying that the reckless disregard and abandoned for, for the reckless disregard for human life is borderline criminal. We have to have

serious conversations about the exposure, the willful, negligent exposures to a deadly virus of those who are more vulnerable to serious consequences, if not death. And essentially, what those protesters were doing was assaulting a breast cancer survivor by inundating her with the potential of exposure to a deadly virus. We have to have those very serious conversations about moving forward about what happens when as we see can happen, those who either unknowingly or deliberately pass those as carriers onto those who are vulnerable. But speaking from the position of a daughter of a stage two triple negative breast cancer survivor, I wish a mother lover would, because it would not be me. And you should be charged for assault. Those protesters,

you should be charged for assault. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for that. And, you know, we partially play this video just so people know this is not just a thing that happens in crazy conservative parts of the country. No, in the heart of LA, you see this all the time. Unfortunately, that is all the time we have. Both Kenny Evelyn, Charles Coleman, thank you so much for being here for the first hour. It's great getting a chance to talk with you. Thanks, always a pleasure. Thank you. And a second hour is coming up. You're going to have J.R. Jackson, Mark Thompson, Francesca Fiorentini. You know it's going to be a lot of fun, so don't go anywhere. We'll be back in just a few.

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