The Young Turks - Full Fascist

Episode Date: August 6, 2021

TikTok shows an ex-Fireman melting down over a non-English speaker. Tucker Carlson, Hungary, and the right’s embrace of authoritarianism. An airline forces a woman to cover up a Biden sign for “offending” people. Out-of-control wildfire destroys the town of Greenville, California as dry, gusty conditions encourage rapid spread. “I was right”: Geraldo Rivera slams “full of s***” Dan Bongino over surging Florida COVID numbers. 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! Bigotsie! Weimartee! Bigotsie! Bigotee!

Bigotee! Dreamaree! Drop it! Power, Power Panel. Okay, Jake, you're John Iderola. Abelina Sabrina's here. Now, she's not only a YouTuber that does comedy and a leftist, I like this description, leftist Twitch streamer,

but she also inspired the challenge, the Thousand Gift Challenge that made John dies hair purple. You might be able to tell why. Can tell a little bit. A little bit. There's still a little bit left. Hers is slightly more visible. Yes.

So Sabrina, first welcome. Always happy to die somebody's hair purple. Thank you, thank you. And so, and we of course realize that John's a fraud. He did some sort of shenanigans, some Harry Potter-like wizardry to make sure that make sure that the hair was purple for about three and a half seconds, whereas you're actually rocking excellent, I was going to say authentic purple hair, kind of.

I should have recommended the purple shampoo. That's how you maintain it every single shower. John? I used a Sharpie like I read, but look, I can't, it was permanent diet. I can't help it if my body is operating at such peak efficiency that it pushes every toxin, every impurity out. It just does that. Clearly. Yeah. Yeah. Look, this John, this isn't Fox News. Okay, we're not going for permanent die propaganda. Okay. Permanent die that last four days. Anyways, all right. Sabrina, it's great to have you. We got a big show ahead, of course. And so I was wearing my Dragon Squad shirt today. And I saw John wearing his. And I was like, you know what? Normally I put on a dress shirt. I'm like, no, we're going to go double dragon here.

Backwards elbow We need an intro Okay All right Dragon Squad squad well represented All right let's get started John's got the news for us Okay let's do it

Look at him Okay let's break down The most recent way that Tucker Carlson wants to ruin everything for all of us So right now he's not at his normal Fox studio He's not even at one of the many broadcast quality studios he has

in his multiple mansions No, instead, right now he's in Budapest, airing his show from Hungary's capital city all week in his Monday monologue kicking off this trip. He told his listeners that they should pay attention to Hungary, quote, if you care about Western civilization and democracy and family, and the ferocious assault on all three of those things by leaders of our global institutions. He tweeted out a friendly photo with Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, and is confirmed to speak at a government-supported conference in Budapest on Saturday. have to wait until Saturday for him to meet up with members of their ruling regime and say a bunch of nonsense about how you know they're awesome because all the right people hate them. You know, like all the different opposition parties, people formerly that used to be in academia and the media and all of that that no longer have any functioning position in Hungarian society

because the regime has made off with democracy basically. It doesn't work anymore. And so this is really the issue that you have Tucker Carlson, an incredibly wealthy, and unfortunately popular media pundit, one of the most watched cable pundits in the country, who has decided to misinform his audience about one of the last sort of Soviet-style despots in Europe. One has to assume that the average Tucker Carlson viewer knows absolutely nothing about virtually any other government around the world, and he is playing on that. So look, I'm not an expert on this, so I turn to those who actually are, NGOs and, you know, academics who study the fall of democracy.

And they will tell you that Orban and his allies gerrymandered parliamentary districts and packed the constitutional court. They seized control over the national elections agency, the civil service, and over 90% of all media in Hungary. They used economic regulation to enrich themselves and punish their opponents, persecuting a major university, for example, until it was forced to leave the country all. together. Now, I know you probably hear a lot of that and you think, hey, that sounds kind of like our government. And sure, there are certainly some shades, but it was a lot stronger. So, for instance, as an example, by 2017, 90% of all media in Hungary was owned by either the state or a Fidesz ally, according to account by Budapest-based scholar Marius Dragabir. This media empire includes every single regional newspaper in the country. And they do mean

that. They don't just mean that, like, the ones that, the, the, the, the, the, the, Parts of the media that were allied with the regime became more popular. No, they seized control of virtually all of the media. And so while you might have elections, for instance, in Hungary, there have been elections that Orban has won re-election in. Virtually every bit of media in the country is on the behalf of the government, feeding people their narratives, viciously attacking the opposition with complete misinformation. And as a result of all of the sort of stuff that we've unfortunately had to gloss over, like the gerrymandering, getting rid of the courts, all of that, there was a 2021 report from VDEM, the leading academic institute assessing the state of global democracy, found that Hungary crossed the line into autocracy back in 2018, and is now an example of what is called competitive authoritarianism, where there are sort of some of the rituals of democracy, but you have virtually no democracy in fact. And none of that is going to be learned by people watching Tucker Carlson throughout this week.

Instead, he's going to give them, well, I'll get to what he's saying about Orban. But before we get to that, I do want to throw a tour panel and get your thoughts about this massive figure in U.S. political media, trying to shut a spotlight on Hungary as an example of what the U.S. should aspire to become. So I want to clarify first that this is not just about Viktor Orban. They're now also celebrating what people are calling fascist adjacent leader of Portugal. It's called the Salazar option. I'll get it back into that in a little bit. And it is not just Tucker Carlson, Charlie Sykes, who is a conservative, but is horrified

by what the right-wing movement has done to conservatism, has explained many right-wing leaders are now heading in this direction of what they're calling illiberal democracy, meaning no. And not democracy, okay? And it's complicated because it's actually a spectrum, and I think we have some versions of that already in America. So I'll get to that in a second as well. And what they're looking for is what they call an American Caesar. Oh boy, okay, yeah, that's just a dictator, and they're now starting to be open about it.

And the second person who is behind this effort, most of the aggressively, other than Tucker Carlson, is Steve Bannon. Okay, so here come the fascists, and the question is, how are we going to react? Now, when we talk about fascism, so now let's go back to Orban and talk about that. And remember, Tucker could have gone to over 200 different countries and could have celebrated the system in Barbados, or, by the way, or more reasonably, Germany, Norway. I mean, they're right, in the general vicinity of Hungary, right? He chose Hungary for a reason.

He chose hungry because the right wing had become a minority, but found a way to seize power. And without having it seem like they destroyed democracy, in fact, destroyed democracy. So it's actually perfect for the right wing in this country, because they are now slipping into a minority. They're perfectly aware of it. That's why Tucker and Fox News for a long time have been talking about how they're losing the culture wars. And it's true, and they, I believe they just flat out have lost them. And they believe the same thing. And they realize the younger generations are so overwhelmingly progressive that they're on borrowed time.

I mean, they're barely winning with their electoral college and gerrymandering, et cetera, to begin with. But when the younger generation's wave comes, it's good night, Irene. They have no hope or prayer winning national elections. So they're going to have to do this. And they're going to have to do it right away to make it in time to be able to execute this point. And this is not a plan that's just specific to even Hungary and Portugal. Some versions of this plan have been done by a lot of authoritarian leaders across the world, including, by the way, Turkey.

And so, and I've seen it happen with my own eyes, you know, since obviously I have friends and family there. And a critical part of it is setting the political rules so that it doesn't look like you're doing a coup. It doesn't look like you're ending democracy. You don't declare to everybody, oh, by the way, we're fascists, we're neo-Nazis, and we'd like to take over and end your freedoms. Of course, you don't do that. No, first of all, you say you are for freedom as you take freedom away. But more importantly, it's the rule rigging that's important.

So gerry is a great example of that, and what a lot of authoritarian governments do, where, and this is a line that is prevalent in America, where the voters don't pick the politicians, the politicians pick their voters. So I don't want the general population deciding, so I'm going to carve out the districts in a way where I pick my own voters and so I'll carve up a state so that Democrats will have more votes overall in the state but Republicans will get more legislators. By the way part of this that is not talked about in any of these pieces or nearly often enough is the Democratic, basically compliance with this and willing participation in it.

Why? Because there's seats that once it's gerrymandered are super safe. So those Democratic congressmen and state legislators think, okay, the Republicans get more seats, but I don't really care. I don't care about the voters at all. I got in the office through corruption anyway. I took a bunch of corporate money and lobbies money. And so my seat, if it's 80%, 90% Democratic, will be safe forever and ever and ever. So yeah, let fascism win as long as I'm a useful tool in that toolbox. So Democratic Party has a lot to explain for itself. And by the way, if they don't take action now, they're gonna execute the strategy.

Democrats are feckless and corrupt, and that's exactly a recipe for disaster. If you've studied fascism, when it has won in any country, usually the opposition is feckless and useless and cares own craven and only cares about their own power and is easily steamrolled. And then the second part of it, of course, is the media. And I saw Erdogan in Turkey take over the media in an astounding way. The piece by piece, intimidation, legal threats, and then shutting down things. And then there was audio tape released of him on the phone with heads of media companies

and saying you'll either do as you're told or I'll shut you down. And then what do we have? We had compliance. And so Orban has executed that, unfortunately, brilliantly in Hungary. That's why Tucker goes to learn at the feet of the master. Because when they first tried it here in America, it was through Trump. And Trump is out, of course, his IQ is way too low. He's too dumb to execute it.

And people like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon are greatly frustrated by that. And they think if we only had a strong man like Orban who isn't a moron and could do a fascism right. And by the way, that person who's more intelligent and could do fascism right might be Tucker Carlson himself. So this is, you know, maybe an Anakin Skywalker that has already turned going to some. study with the Sith Lord to see how he can, you know, rule in the dark ways. And so it's very dangerous. And this last part of it, and I don't want to talk to a lot and we got to bring in Sabrina and there's so much more to cover.

But is that they're also getting their audience ready for it. They're saying, oh, no, this is okay. This is okay. Now, look, I know it's not really democracy. They're actually admitting it in a lot of different ways. But it's because they just went after the family. And we've got to protect the family. And they went after Christianity.

And we've got to protect Christianity. We've got to protect our culture. We had to end democracy to protect our culture. What's more important? Democracy, when the libs win or culture where we win, right? And so that's excuse. Orban, you're already you see the right way using that over and over in this country. Sabrina.

Oh, absolutely. I do agree with you that Tucker is turned. How do you go to a fast conference and you're surprised at the attendees? he's not surprised and if anything the actual conference itself is funded by a very nationalistic conservative think tank that receives large sums of money from orban himself so it's it's not a coincidence i think that tucker carlson is speaking very very positively of of this authoritarian person i i think this is how fascist ideas become mainstream because of people like tucker carlson Yeah, he has a big enough audience.

That's all it takes. They trust him in his word. I mean, after you can get people to totally lower their guard to a virus and watch their family die needlessly, it's pretty easy to get them to support someone like Orban who they have zero information on. This isn't something that they've been getting conflicting information. They're Americans. They went through the American education system. They don't know anything about this. They don't know the country exists probably.

Maybe they heard a joke about the name one time. That's it. That's their information about Hungary. And that is what Tucker Carlson is going to use. But if you're watching Tucker Carlson's program throughout this week, what will you learn about Hungary and the ruling regime? Well, part of one of his monologues was also uploaded to Fox News.com as sort of an op-ed. And it starts off, Tucker Carlson, quote, if you need proof, the media lies, look at how they treat Hungary. And the second line is, we've read many times how repressive Hungary is, but that's wrong.

Oh, okay. Well, you said so. It must be true. Yeah, I mean, look, he went to Hungary with his producers, open mind, and did research for several days, and he's come to that conclusion. So he says, what does Orban believe? Just a few years ago, his views would have seemed moderate and conventional. He thinks families are more important than banks. He believed countries need borders for saying these things out loud. Orban has been vilified. And he really nailed me. I think banks are more important than families. And if you say otherwise, I'm done with you, buddy, I'm done. That's what it is. You might not like Tucker Carlson, but you do have to give it to him.

He gives a fair shake to what the opposition says, to their arguments. Really fast, just for fun. There's this photo of him when he's doing an interview there. And I want to zoom in. He does the face thing in person too. Like that's not just when he's looking into it. I thought that was like, look at it, come to me? Like right now, it looks like I'm looking.

at you, right, but I'm not. I'm looking in a black ball lens or whatever. He does that looking into people's eyes. But anyway, that's the least important part of this, I think, fairly objectively. So it is just family and borders. You know, the sorts of things that the right has been using to try to win elections for decades now will be the reason that we don't need to have elections anymore. And I fear that to the extent that people get what's going on the war on democracy and might try to respond to it. I think too much attention goes into trying to like reveal to conservative voters, hey, wait, do you guys not get that the Republican elected officials don't want democracy and they're trying to fool you? I don't think the voters

want it either. I think they want to win. If they thought they could win with elections, they'd be fine with elections. You know, they're totally cool with democracy, I guess. But if the only way to win is to get rid of it. Democracy is not some core value of the right. It's a means to an end. And what it's no longer a means to that end, they'll dispense with it. They're not being bamboozled by Tucker Carlson. They are right there with them in terms of values. They don't care about democracy. They were fine with disenfranchising, you know, tens of millions of black people for like a hundred years plus. That entire time, they got that democracy would have been inconvenient so they never embraced it. And so what do we do?

But by the way, to John's point, there was another moment in American history that you might remember where conservatives decided that they don't like democracy and they just like to seize power through force. That was called a civil war. Oh, hey, the North outvoted us. And now, you know, we might have to liberate human beings that we've been enslaving this whole time and murdering and whipping and lynching, et cetera. Well, we don't want to stop lynching them. We don't want to do our own work. We want to make them do it, right?

So screw freedom. Let's attack America. They literally did that in this country. So you think the right wing won't do it again? Well, they're in the middle of doing it now. January 6th was an appetizer for what's coming next. So Charlie Sykes, again, amazing quotes from actual conservatives that are pushing these ideas. One of the conservatives now positively speaking about Slobodan Milosevic, the war criminal in Kosovo.

It's amazing. It's amazing. He's a convicted war criminal who did ethnic cleansing. But for them, ethnic cleansing is not the bug, it's the feature. And they think, well, that's the family values we care about. And we have to burn down democracy to get that. We can do it. In fact, so Orban ran on this. He says, oh, he just ran on families being war. than banks and puppies being more important than cancer. Okay? In reality, here's what Orban ran on.

He ran on the threat posed by Muslim immigrants, liberals in the European Union, the LGBT community, and the Jewish billionaire George Soros. He might be Tucker Carlson, actually. And so, like, they start with the normal bigotry against Muslims, which is worldwide, right? And like, oh, goddamn Muslims, you know, we gotta protect. our culture, we're going to end democracy to hate Muslims, and of course, gay people, of course,

of course, but if you act now for the low, low price of fascism, we'll throw in hatred against Jews. Of course you will. What have you ever done fascism without throwing in anti-Semitism, right? So, I mean, isn't that amazing? They use Soros here. They use Soros in Hungary. They're like, why? We're not that different, really, around the world. It's almost beautiful. Yeah, unity around anti-semitism. And by the way, the world has done that before, too. And so, you know, it's scary, scary times. And so Soros is originally from Eastern Europe, and yes, he's Jewish.

And yes, they call him a puppet master. And yes, that's the oldest anti-Semitic slur. And this is disgusting. So now, what they call this system that Orban set up, competitive authoritarianism. Well, that seems ironic. A bit of an oxymoron. Well, you can't, authoritarianism by definition is not competitive. Well, that's the whole point.

It's an autocratic system where you have in essence fall elections. It's not that they rigged the elections, but they, and this is what I, you guys, if you watch Young Turks, you heard me say this so many times. The Mitch McConnell's of the world were so pissed at Trump because, hey, and the Georgia Republicans most of all. Because they're like, you schmuck, we rigged the elections before they happen, not afterwards. You're so dumb, you can't just say afterwards, oh, the ghost of Hugo Chavez stole it and the pillow guy agrees with me. No, you purge voter rolls, you do gerrymandering, you do electoral college. Of course, I like to college from a long time ago, but it is now serving their purpose, right? And then you indoctrinate people with media that's friendly to you, et cetera, so that by the time you get to the elections, it's pointless.

And you kill off different parts of democracy one step at a time. And different countries have seen this in different ways. Putin started killing off local elections when he sees power in Russia. And so then all of a sudden you weren't electing your local representatives that were closer to the electorate and were more responsive to democracy. So there's different ways of strangling democracy to death. And by the way, like I said, a lot of that happens here. Now let me throw your one more curveball.

So as the right wing is clearly doing this and in a way that is brazen, you don't go talk to authoritarian leaders like war band by accident, like, oh, golly gee, I didn't know he was near a fascist, right? Oh, I didn't know who's trying to exclude Muslims and hate LGBTQ folks and blame the Jews for all the problems. Golly gee, I missed that. I went for a whole week and I missed it, right? So no, they're doing it on purpose.

Now as the Republicans are fully loathsome, well, I mean, control of the media in a way where they lie to your benefit so that by the time you get to the election, the die is cast. That is mainstream media 101 and what the Democratic Party has executed here for decades. So by the time you get to vote in Cleveland, they already told you who was not the Democrat and who was the Democrat and how you should vote against the person that's isn't Democrat in the Democratic primary, although the actual truth is the exact opposite, right? So Trump donors give tons of money to Chantelle Brown, and they encourage Republicans to vote for on and on it goes, right? And she brags about how she works with Republicans

all the time. The press takes that and goes, no, she's not the one that's supporting Republicans. Nina Turner is. But wait a minute, Nina Turner is more in favor of Democratic proposals more, not less. Nope, we just lie to people and we tell them that the reverse is true. So in a sense, they've been strangling our democracy through corporate media for a long time. Now, that's a different version of fascism where corporations rule everything. Corporatism, and that is a structure, and that is one of the core tenets of fascism. And so be careful on both sides, both with corporate rule and just flat out fascist rule that the right wings are proposing. Sabrina thoughts?

No, yeah, absolutely. I think that there's a large number of conservative people, like really conservative people who, you know, they claim to care about like your individual rights. But when it comes down to it and when Tucker Carlson starts showing them a little bit of like what Hungary is like now, they are not all that opposed to it, I think, or at least maybe because of what Tucker has to say.

But as long as like those ideals are in line with their own, I think they're totally fine with people having their rights stripped away from them. Well, especially if they feel like they're getting a wink and a nod that the sort of people whose rights are going to be stripped away aren't them. You know, it's not our religion that they're going to come for. It's not our race they're going to come for. Some people might have to, you know, you might lose your rights, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to have you make. Maybe. Yeah. Look, this topic is so important.

I'm gonna last make last couple of points here. One of the things that folks that right wing writers are now saying is the way that these fascist adjacent governments work, and that's really could be helpful to us, is they take advantage of the ambiguities in the Constitution. Okay, and everybody has a different constitution, obviously, right? And what did Trump try to do with Mike Pence? Well, you're supposed to just declare who the winner is as a ceremonial role, but we can call it ambiguous and have you just declare me the winner. So he already tried that, but in a super

ham-handed way. So that's why it didn't work. But they've learned all these lessons now. So next time, they're going to do it better, right? And although they're still pushing right now at the local level, too. And Sykes again points to Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers, who's calling for the arrest and solitary confinement of the five members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. You voted against us, and you counted accurately. The courts all say that you counted accurately. So we hate you for telling people the truth. And so how are we going to respond to that?

Well, why don't we just put you in prison? Yeah, that's exactly how you do fascism. And so finally, what can the Democrats do to fix this? I'm going to fight back. So we don't slip into fascism. Extended olive branch. Try to work with the Republicans. And like Pelosi said, I just want a stronger Republican Party.

No, no, Speaker Pelosi. We do not want a stronger Republican Party. And so, no, the answer is partly for the People Act. Now, for the People Act says, let's get rid of gerrymandering, done on a partisan level, whether Democrats or Republicans do it, right? Just end partisan gerrymandering, make sure that everyone can vote. Not no, not anybody who can't, like we don't want anybody voting that can't vote. You know who would take advantage of that or who shouldn't vote?

You know who would take advantage of that first? The right wing, are you kidding me? If we set up a system where people could vote if they're not actual citizens, the right wing would pour, are they bringing Hungarians and Turks and Russians? Whatever, right? I'm kidding around about the ethnicities, but you never want to set up an unfair system because the right wing will take advantage of it way quicker than the left wing will, right? Plus it's not the right thing to do.

No, we want a system where everybody is allowed to vote that can vote and should vote, right? So it's the bare, bare minimum. It's the lowest bar there is. And honestly, just the Democratic Party is so weak, so pathetic. so corrupt, they can't even pass the four of the people act. By the way, at this point, I'm now starting to get so worried about fascism. I knew they were going to kill the anti-corruption parts of the Four of the People Act. I told you guys that three years ago when they first started talking about it,

when they thought it had no chance of passing because Trump was in, it was in office. I said, there is no way on earth this corrupt Democratic Party actually means these anti-corruption measures. And now when they got control of all branches of government, the first thing Mansion said is, No, no, the anti-corruption parts have to go. Totally unacceptable, right? Okay, I got it. You've got to fix the voting.

So fine, I know you're going to kill the anti-corruption measures anyway. I know it. I told you with, I know it with every fiber of my being. For God's sake, you corrupt jerks at least pass the voting rights parts and the gerrymandering parts before the fascists take over. But yet Biden's like, I don't filibuster, I love the filibuster. Oh, if the Republicans say no, if even one. Republican in the Senate says, no, I surrender. Schumer surrenders, Pelosi surrenders, Mance is on the other side anyway, cinema's on the other side anyway. And then Jim Clyburn

is supposed to be the one guy who really wants for the people like, because it also affects African American voting rights. And that is the most core thing that African Americans care about. And that's absolutely true. That is the thing. And God bless them. There are protectors of democracy African American voters who insist on voting rights. For all of, not just for themselves for all of us, right? Clyburn, what have you done? I see you going around the country attacking progressives. I see you spending millions of lobbyists money to attack progressives who are in favor of voting rights. I haven't seen you do anything on For the People Act. If the Four the People Act doesn't pass, the legacy of Jim Clyburn will be that he was a monstrous failure,

a total, complete, and utter failure. He says it's his number one priority. And he says it's his number one priority and he's getting absolutely annihilated on it. And what's he doing? Is he putting pressure on Biden? No. Because he told Biden, don't worry, just take it. As long as it's not Bernie, you can do anything you want. I won't ask for anything in return. That's what Killer Mike said. And did Clyburn caught feelings. Damn it. A rapper figured it out. Soon reporters might figure it out that I'm useless and I've gotten nothing. And I'm going to let the fascists win because I'm too busy taking corporate donations. But it isn't just

Clyburn. It's the entire Democratic leadership. So God help us, if we don't get one strong Democrat in there soon, and I don't know how in the world we're going to do it now, they're going to, these guys are going to get steamrolled by the fascists. Good luck, everybody. I don't know about you guys, but I've never heard a Republican say we need a stronger Democratic party. Have you guys? Don't remember. No. No, never goes the other way around. All right, we got to take a break. That story was super important because the fascists are coming. But we've got to take a break. We have so many great stories coming up for you guys. Come right back. All right, back on TYT, Jenks, Sabrina and John with you guys. All right, John's got more news.

Okay, and unfortunately, while the transition was laughing matter, this is not a laughing matter. Right now, California is, as almost always, devastated by fires, and we want to focus on one of them. It is the Dixie Fire, which was bad earlier this week. It was really bad yesterday, but in the transition today got far worse. So it has grown by more than 97,000 acres in just 24 hours. And even that data is, of course, out of date. So God only knows what it's like now. But earlier this week, it leveled the town of Greenville in Northern California.

It became the largest blaze currently in the U.S. this year, having burned over 432,000 acres. By Friday morning, we can show you a projection of the territory that's been affected by it. So it's grown by about a quarter in just a day. 7,900 people live within five miles of the territory that's currently burning. But you can see the territory that's already destroyed. Still growing, only about 35% contained. So this is obviously devastating. And there's a lot of property and potentially lives, let alone countless animals who are still being threatened by.

by this. But we also want to put it in context. Because we've been talking about this throughout the week. It was the third worst wildfire in California, or sorry, the sixth worst in California history a couple days ago. It's moving fast. Right now it's the third. It will almost certainly become the second ever. And so you might say, well, how bad could the previous ones have been if this one can so rapidly jump up the list? Well, the thing about the list of the worst wildfires in California history is that they are changing fast. So let's bring this up. This is a 10 worst ever. Do you notice a pattern with the years? A lot of 20s in there. We're not done with 21. I hope the Dixie's the only one from 21 that makes it on there. But virtually all of the worst wildfires

have gotten there in the past four or so years. You have to go all the way to number 10 to find one as old as almost 20 years ago. And it's not just the numbers of fires, that have gone up, according to a researcher at Columbia University. The amount of burned areas since the 1980s in California has doubled, more than doubled, and the fire seasons are starting earlier. So the Dixie Fire ignited on July 13th, about two weeks before the state typically experiences its most intense fires. And that is partially because everything is drier. There was one firefighter who said the area that is now being threatened, everything was so dry that it looked like it itself might combust before the fire even hit it.

And so that leads to more territory being destroyed when the fires do hit. Fires that burn for longer cover more territory and start earlier in the year. Okay, so two aspects of this. Number one, the world's on fire, California is on fire. In the old days, you say, oh, don't go to California, you'll get hit with an earthquake. It turns out that's relatively minor issue. The real problem is California is now every summer constantly on fire. And you saw the chart that John just showed you, 17, 18, 20, 21, right? All the biggest fires.

And the Earth is getting warmer and warmer. And Palm Springs was 122 degrees broke a record. Okay. We break records every year and every year we're told, oh, that happens once every 500 years. No, it happens every year. Climate change is real. It's not in the future. It's right now.

The planet is absolutely burning. Siberia is on fire, the Arctic is on fire. This is insanity, right? They're gonna look back in history and say, well, didn't you guys know? Yeah, we know. Well, why didn't you do something, right? Greed, the oil companies and the electric companies

and all of these different companies, America allowed for legalized bribery and they just bought the politicians, which brings us to point number two. California is run by Democrats, so we should be good, right? Are you kidding me, then if you say that, you don't know anything about politics, right? So Democrats, I got news for you.

are just as corrupt as Republicans, with the exception of progressive Democrats that don't take corporate contributions. If you take corporate contributions, you're corrupt, period, period. Best case, unfortunately, is state of California where the Democrats are infinitely corrupt. So PG&E might have started this fire. That is one of the theories now as to why this horrible fire started. They have started many fires, because why, they didn't want to cut costs, they wanted to cut costs, and not take their wires and put them underground like you're supposed to.

Any rational system would do it. And it's a monopoly. There is no second electric company we can go to in most of these regions. So they said, oh, I got it a great idea. I'll keep my costs super low. I'll charge as high as I can. How am I going to get away with that? Oh, I'll just pay off Democrats and Republicans in California.

Don't get me wrong, they pay off Republicans too. But two-thirds of their contributions recently have gone to Democrats. Why? Because the Democrats are in charge. Democrats happily took it. PG&E, because of previous virus, has already been convicted of 40, I'm sorry, 84 counts of felony manslaughter, felony manslaughter. People died because PG&E convicted, right?

During their bankruptcy because of that conviction and afterwards, the politicians in California has still took $2.1 million from them after they knew they were murderers. And they're like, oh, murderers? No problem. Give me the money. Give me the money. Give me the money. All I care about is the money. Did the press call them out and go just outrageous? Look at these corrupt criminals taking money from PG&E that starts all these fires and gets people killed? No, the press is like, oh yeah, we'll cover it here and there. But it's totally fine. Democrats are awesome. No, they're not. They're grotesque, okay, especially in California. Which leads us to Gavin Newsom. He's being recalled and the clown is losing right now. We might have a, I mean, you want to talk about a sideshow about. We might have Larry Elder as our. governor soon. You know why? The press doesn't tell you. The press says, oh, I don't know why it's happening. Republicans are upset, and maybe something to do with COVID or something in mass, right? No, progressives also despise the corruption in the Democratic Party, and everybody can see it now, man, it's visible. Now, you want to know how much Gavin Newsom's taken from PG&E recently?

$200,000. When a reporter finally asked him about it, he said, I don't even understand why you're asking. We're asking Gavin because we think you're grotesely corrupt. That's why we're asking. Now hold on. I hope you're sitting. Do you know how much Gavin Newsom has taken in his career from PG&E? $10 million. $10 million since he first ran for San Francisco supervisor in 1998. Gee, I wonder why he didn't hold PG&E accountable. I wonder why he didn't make them bury the lines, why he never regulated them. And then by the way, after all the fires, He took taxpayer money and gave it to PG&E to fix the problem. No, they're supposed to spend their own goddamn money, okay?

No, the Democrats are hopeless. So now, and what we're constantly stuck in this situation of insane Republicans or horribly corrupt Democrats. Now, by the way, don't get me wrong, the insane Republicans are also corrupt. So it's a Hobson's choice. And then the audacity of the corrupt, where they then come to. shows like Carson go, oh, you haven't supported Democrats enough. You guys know that you're supposed to be reporters and you're yelling at other people in the media that they haven't done enough propaganda for one of the parties? Just retire, man. You guys are all pathetic. All right,

Sabrina. No, I can't picture Gavin Newsom taking money from a Ted Bundy from a Dahmer. And yet he has no problem taking over $200,000 from PG&E. Meanwhile, they are still bribing politicians in this way. And they are pretending as if they are, well, I mean, they are bankrupt, but they are using their bankruptcy as an excuse to not pay the victims. They go and they say that and they say, oh, sorry, we're bankrupt, can't pay you. Let's negotiate a lower amount. Or here, have some shares in the company.

have some stock, even though it's obviously going to plummet, and yet they still have the money to pay people like Gavin Newsom and other representatives. It's disgusting. They, I don't understand why it's okay for, I mean, it just depends. It doesn't even, it doesn't even matter which side of the aisle is on. It's a matter of who is going to protect them, you know, they don't have actual values. It's just who is going to take our money, our blood money. Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna add one last thing to great point made by Sabrina there.

When they took the victims of the earlier fires whose families burnt down, burnt to death, okay? They said, well, we don't have any money. By the way, while they were saying they don't have any money, they gave $2 million to politicians, okay? And then they said, okay, instead we're going to give you stock. So when the next fire happens, you'll be shareholders of the company that did it and partly morally culpable. just when you thought they couldn't get any more disgusting. That's ridiculous. Well, unfortunately, we do have to take our second break because the hour is just rapidly passing.

But we do have a lot more news, including Geraldo. Man, he loves fighting people on Fox. We've got some of that for you after this. All right, back on TYT, Jank John and Sabrina with you guys. one last Twitch here comment. Daniel Le Bequois says, hi, Jank, John and Sabrina. It is great to see you all.

I'm so grateful to have TYT. I cannot imagine my life without you all. We're the best family ever. I love my TYT family so much. Well, we love you too. And we do the fun things like Sabrina tricking John and dyeing his hair purple. She didn't like make me accidentally fall into a purple lake.

What are you, the Joker? Do a vat of purple? Anyways, love you guys. All right, John's got more. Okay, let's do it. There are not many people on Fox News who are trying to get people to take the pandemic seriously. So I feel like we should support those who do, even if we often disagree with them. Heraldo over there is one example.

He's worried about how COVID is going in Florida. But you're going to watch in this video as he tries to get the people on the panel with him to take it seriously. Here is how they greet that. that. On Tuesday in Florida, there were over 16,000 new COVID infections. Yesterday, Wednesday, in Florida, there were nearly 17,000 new. Ron DeSantis saved every older person. He used every state agency. No, this is not bash Ron DeSantis. There was 17,000 infections are coming here because of Joe. Dan Bongino. This is, this has nothing to do. with Joe.

I want to say yes, it does. Yesterday. Dan. Herald does, Herald doesn't, around Ronda just said this. He doesn't know the numbers. I live here.

Florida's 26th in COVID deaths per hundred. Dan. It's not my fault. You never know what you're talking about. It's not my fault that you never research anything before you come on the air. You are so full of it. You know, that's why I hate coming on with you.

Please look it up to prove how silly this guy is. This guy is. Heraldo, let Dan talk. Heraldo. Dan. He doesn't like to do that, Sean, because he always gets caught, never knowing what he's talking about. And he's embarrassed. Stick to the story. And his position on the border.

I did stick to the facts. I'm embarrassed to be on this air with you. That's why I'm embarrassed. Okay, so he's asserting there's 17,000 cases. Dan Bongino doesn't bring actual numbers. There's no receipt. He just says that Heraldo's wrong and never does any research. So what do you think happened?

Heraldo was right there. So yeah, Heraldo points out Tuesday, Florida suffered over 17,000 new COVID cases on Wednesday and another 17,000 new cases. I was right. Dan Bongino, as usual, was full of cannolis, I don't know. And he owes me $1,000. Speaking of bull, whatever, popular Ronda Santas better stop gaslighting and pay attention to his afflicted state. state. But I think that's where he got in the most trouble was implying that Ronda Santa should do more. Hannity said he saved every older person. Well, not all of them. I looked

it up. They lost over 39,400 people in Florida, some of them older. And it's actually Biden that's causing the cases to come in, but there's no next step to, and so what should we do about it? Let's say that Biden is bringing in a whole bunch of diseased illegal immigrants. Do you want to wear masks? Do you want to do a lockdown? Do you want to get people vaccinated? No, you don't want to do anything? That's weird. That's a weird response. But anyway, I do want to hear what both of you think. Maybe as you're giving your commentary, we can show people these charts of how bad it's getting in Florida. We've got info on the cases, hospitalizations, and deaths as well. So a couple of quick points here. So Bongino is like, he did have a fact, John. I'm going to correct you. He said, I live here. Okay. Okay, but we were looking for a pertinent fact. Something that's relevant to the discussion.

I live here and I looked around and I didn't see 17,000 cases of COVID because I didn't go to any other hospitals or the websites or do any research. And then which gets to my main point, that segment there was a textbook case of gaslighting. What Fox News does is they bring in a guy who actually did bother to do the research and is actually right. And you think, well, that's good. That's positive, right? By the way, I give you the exact numbers, it was 17,629 and 17,757. So Geraldo had actually underestimated by a little bit. And yesterday it was over 18,000. Yeah.

And so they bring him in, and then they gang up on him, and there's the cases in Florida skyrocketing, right? They gang up on him and they make him look like the crazy guy. Yep. This guy with numbers, everybody knows that numbers aren't true. But living somewhere is what makes you know all the facts there, right? And they all like kind of laugh at them. They're like, oh, there goes Geraldo with facts, right?

And so the audience comes away from that segment if they're not savvy. And trust me, they're not savvy, thinking, oh, yeah, look at that. Geraldo embarrassed himself there. Bongino and Hannity agreed. The overwhelming majority of the people on TV agree that Florida doesn't have any problem at all. Okay, and DeSantis is great. I love how Hannity panicked there because he thinks DeSantis might run for president, let alone supporting him as an important governor.

And he said, this is not bashed around DeSantis. It says, don't bash him with facts. Okay, this is propaganda for Descentes. I mean, I mean, and but I give credit to Fox. That is, that's pretty good gaslighting there. Yeah. No, and the funny thing is, like, DeSantis, he seems to deflect by talking about Mexico. when confronted about the rising COVID rates.

But Florida is a peninsula. You don't share a border with Mexico. You know? Did you check that? Did you check? Let's bring up a map. Well, we're not trusted books around these parts. So I don't know.

I know. It's so ridiculous. I mean, I get, maybe Greg Abbott could try to make that case. Again, I would say, let's say that you're right. So now what? So now nothing. That's, it's, that doesn't make any sense. But they're also wrong. The problem with Louisiana, the problem with Missouri, the problem with Oklahoma, the problem with Florida is not its proximity to the Mexican border. But anyway, people, look, here's your transition. People love blaming Mexico for everything, including 9-11, it turns out. So why don't we go to this with the few minutes we have remaining? Did you have something last?

No, no, go ahead. Okay, let's jump to this. A firefighter got into it with an employee at a wall. when the employee committed the sin of speaking a language other than English. Here is what the firefighter had to say about it. What gives you the right to tell her? Because I'm not in uniform. A uniform does not give you the right to be racist. You better respect your elders, because you're disrespecting me. You're disrespecting her.

You want to bet? When you're in America, you better learn our language. We don't come up in somebody. You want to bet? Yeah, you want a bad. You want a bad. Seriously? You were very racist to that woman.

No, I was not. You should just leave. No, you should leave and get her away from me. I'm not leaving until you leave. You should leave. Just get her away from me. Roger that. It's called the First Amendment.

You're a very racist man. You're on a bed? Why would you say that to her? I'm a Christian, I'll tell you why. Because they murdered 343 of my fellow firemen. That's why. September 11th, 2001. That's why.

That has nothing to do with her. You're in a bet? That has nothing to do. Learn English. It's America. It's not Spain. And it's not Mexico. Is there a manager?

I'm trying to get one on the way. I'm waiting for Brenda. Because he verbally attacked one of your employees. And this lady is verbally accosting me. I want her away from me. I'm a retired Los Angeles fireman slash peace officer. Get her away from me. So I don't know about both of you. I feel like I'm learning a lot. I now know that jet fuel can't melt steel beams, but the dulcet tones of the Spanish language can, I guess.

Well, I feel like I'm off the hook here. You know, I thought maybe it was Muslims, but it turns out it's Mexicans. So my favorite, I mean, look, there's so many insane things of that. And of course, there's a serious part that this will get to in a second. But first, let's keep making fun of them. is the want to bet you're saying racist statements want to bet it was the Mexicans who did 9-11

okay if we're betting on that sure I do want to bet right and I mean on everything I don't know if you could hear in the beginning the lady said you know I was in the military

too and he's like want to bet I imagine she does because she knows her life a little bit better than you do and then this is She said, the lady says the woman you were yelling at, 9-11 had nothing to do with her.

He's like, want a bet? Yes, that bet I will definitely take. Where do I take that bet? Okay. You know, if you close your eyes, he kind of sounds like Joe Biden a little bit. Just the voice, just the vocal tone, not what he's saying. Want a bet? Depends on the time of day.

But yeah, really, really ridiculous. fellow we got here, and I'm not surprised that he is a retired Los Angeles firefighter. There's been a long history of racial bias in that fire department, even as little as a week ago where black and Latino firefighters are like calling for a federal investigation because there has been a history of racial bias. So this does not surprise me at all, but wow, what crank. Yeah. And so look, the serious part of it, of course, is that he says he was a peace officer. I guess he's referring to firefighters, but he's trying to throw all of his credentials out there in terms of ironically the authority he gets from the government, which on other

ransom, I guess, is he will tell you the government's terrible, although they paid his paycheck apparently for his whole life. Okay, and he was in the military, he claims, and the firefighter, etc. And look, if guys like that are in the force, right? Whether it's firefighters or police, did he not go into certain fires and certain communities because he thought their lives aren't worth it? Want to bet? Right? And so, man, that is scary. Your house is on fire and that guy's going to judge if you live in the right neighborhood and you're the right ethnicity. And he's super mad at you if you live in East L.A. because you did 9-11, right? And what is that going to lead to, let alone if they're police and what they do?

And guys, there's tons and tons of those folks in police and fire department across the country. Super scary. Yeah. Well, it looks like we're out of time. Okay, I'm going to say one last thing about that story. He's like, it's the First Amendment. Well, isn't she using her First Amendment rights to call you a racist? Yeah, that's right.

It's the First Amendment. Shut up. Look, he was told by a Walmart employee to leave, and he told her leave. And I thought, she probably wants to, but she can't. It's her shift. Why are you trying to stay any longer to Walmart than you need to? When I go in there, I go to get something and then leave. I don't often do that even.

You should want to go. Why do you want to be there so badly? Want to bet? It doesn't have to make sense. Walmart and Los Angeles, of all places where, like, as of the people living here are Hispanic, and you're surprised that somebody is speaking Spanish? Really?

Oh, all right. Okay, we're out of time. Look, everybody, Abelina, Sabrina, check her out on YouTube and on Twitch, where she's got lovely channels. And we thank her for prodding John in that great dare last week. We really appreciate it. He claims he died his hair purple. You know, it's fake news. I don't know, whatever you want to call it. But Sabrina, you're wonderful. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. And everybody, obviously, here with our double dragons of red and green uh dragons that's the dragon squad from damage report so check that out you can get this on shop t yt dot com but make sure you're watching damage report every day uh 10 a m pacific 1 pm

eastern uh all right love you guys we'll be right back with the second hour 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.