The Young Turks - Gaetz Of Hell

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

You’re vital to our work. Support as a member: https://go.tyt.com/signup. The UN agency says there are "mass casualties" after shelter struck amid intense fighting in Khan Younis. Violent assaults on transit workers are on the rise. Ethics committee escalates investigation into Matt Gaetz's alleged sex crimes. Airlines filed 1,800 reports warning regulators about Boeing’s 737 Max planes. HOST: Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Woo! It's up! Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm your host, Anna Casparian, and oh my God, are you guys in for quite a show today? News regarding Matt Gates broke right before we went live and it is a doozy of a story.

We have the main show team working real hard to get that story produced, research and ready for you all. So we will be covering that breaking news in this hour. But before we get to that, we're gonna cover an update on the ongoing war on Gaza. Story and study involving violent assaults on public transit workers. We're gonna discuss that as well. In the second hour, we're going to really dissect an important topic. Are millennial managers the worst or are they the best?

And one of the other stories I'll be covering with John Ida roll in the second hour today is yet another pastor defrauding and stealing from his parishioners. So you've got all that and more to look forward to. And if you want to share the message of TYT and share the work that we're doing here, it's a very easy way to do it. Just like and share the stream if you're watching us online. You can also help support us by becoming a member. TYT.com slash join to become a member or click on that join. button if you're watching us on YouTube. You can also send us super chats if you're watching us on YouTube.

And I'll do my best to read all of your comments before we wrap the show today. But before we get to any of that stuff, I do want to get to this update on Gaza. The bombardment is unfolding them in every single corner of the city of Khan Yunus. We have been seeing within the past 24 hours and also within the past couple of days that the Israeli military is trying to take full control over the city there. But this time, the military attacks had been reached to evacuation centers. We are talking about today, one of the United Nations run facilities, which is a training center, which had been turned within the days of the war into an evacuation center for thousands of people in the city of Khanunis. Today had been bombardment.

What does the IDF consider not a Hamas command center or training center? Like, is there a single building in the Gaza Strip that the IDF doesn't use? that justification to bomb. Now today, a United Nations training center that had been housing hundreds of Palestinians suffered mass casualties at the hands of the IDF as Israeli forces continue to intensify attacks in the southern Gaza city of Kahn Yunus. As of right now, as we speak, it's known that nine people were killed in the shelling with 75 people wounded.

There's more from the director of UNRWA explaining what allegedly happened at the UN shelter. For the last sort of 48 hours there's been fighting in and around a training college that we run as Unrua in the western outskirts of Hanunus. Already in the last two days, there have been eight people killed in and around this facility. Because of crossfire, this afternoon, the facility took a direct hit. It was actually on the carpentry building. Now, this is a building that's been housing 800 people who've been seeking shelter under a UN flag. We've got a team going up there right now that, in fact, just entered the facility. At this stage, we know that there are nine fatalities and over 75 people have been injured in this tank strike on this building in the, in an Unrua training center in Hanunas.

Just want to note, for the record, in case anyone's confused, you just heard from someone who is not a member of Hamas. You just heard from someone who's the director of Unura, someone who is attempting to provide humanitarian help to, innocent Palestinian civilians, but nonetheless, he suspects that around 150,000 people are trapped in this part of Kahn Yunus and said that the United Nations received absolutely no warning ahead of the strike on their facility. Waji, azure, who is sheltering in the facility, said that he could see tanks near the building. We are completely surrounded. There are Israeli military tanks just outside the walls of the building.

Some people have shrapnel wounds from the fighting in the area and the building also sustained damage. In response to questions about the shelling, the IDF said the wider area was significant, a significant base of, oh, you guessed it, Hamas militants. Dismantling Hamas's military framework in Western Khan Yunus is the heart of the logic behind the operation it said. And remember, this is in southern Gaza after they level. northern Gaza and told Palestinian civilians to flee to the south for their safety. Not a single portion of the Gaza Strip is safe for any of the civilians there, half of whom are under the age of 18, many of whom happen to be children. That's why you see an overrepresentation of children getting killed in this war.

Now their main target appears to be the area around Con Unis's longstanding refugee camp, which includes the Nassar and Al-Amal hospitals and also the UN training center. And while the IDF says that they have been telling people at these facilities to evacuate, residents say that leaving is impossible because the IDF is blocking roads and shooting at people who are trying to flee. Making matters even more difficult is the fact that some wounded people outside can't get into the hospital for much needed medical care. This happens to be one of the hospitals that's still functioning, or these two hospitals are still partly functioning, which is so important to know because it gives you a sense of how critical these hospitals are.

And it's also too dangerous for these people inside the hospital to leave, given the fact that they're attacked by the IDF when they do. Look, here's a doctor explaining what happened to people who attempted to flee the Nassar medical complex after Israel ordered the entire neighborhood to evacuate. civilian returned to the hospital with severe injuries and many of them returned seeking for shelter in the hospital. We received 120 injuries and 52 mortars. It's not just Nassar hospital that's suffering. The Palestinian Red Cross Society which runs the Al Amal hospital said troops had blockaded its staff inside and imposed a curfew in the area, including its local headquarters where three displaced individuals had been killed. Israel says Hamas fighters, of course, operate in and around the hospitals,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We get the point. Hamas everywhere, that's the justification for leveling the entirety of the strip. The health ministry in Gaza said Wednesday that in 24 hours, 210 people have been killed and 386 others injured due to ongoing IDF operations. So far, the U.S. government has basically supported everything that Israel's far right government and its military has been doing. But what does America have to say about the latest U.N. facility shelling? Like a complete and utter coward, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby declined to weigh in on reports of a mass casualty event at a United Nations shelter in Kahn Yunus, but said Israeli forces have taken steps to transition their operations,

including moving toward more targeted operations. They're targeted all right at refugees and injured civilians. Or maybe he's referring to the targeted killing of a Palestinian as he was carrying a white flag. British outlet ITV news filmed the moment an unarmed Ghazin was shot and killed while standing with a group of men. Let's watch. these pictures were filmed by a cameraman working for ITV news in Gaza as he moved forwards towards the combat zone he noticed this group of men doing their utmost to appear non-threatening

trying to proceed with care they wanted to reach two other family members and get them out of harm's way The interview and I have about 50 nash or 70 nash and 70 people who are looking for us and they want to look us and we'll go in-shall-uh-in-shall-law. The interview complete, our cameraman walked away. And then this happened. The interviewee had been shot and fatally wounded.

You can see them placed their flag on his chest. As he was carried away, the white flag was turning red. So as this man was attempting to get into a building to help escort other family members out as they were evacuating. As he's waving a white flag, they decide to shoot. He couldn't kill him anyway. The victim was identified as 51 year old Ramsey Abdul Salul. The Israeli defense forces, when approached by ITV news for comment, denied awareness of the incident. Questioned further, the IDF dismissed the video as clearly edited.

So are they alleging that this news outlet in the UK ITV news is being dishonest in their reporting and editing the footage? Yeah, I think not. And we already know that Israeli forces shot at their own hostages as they were carrying white flags and speaking Hebrew. So the idea of them doing this again is really not far-fetched. The IDF says they'll continue heavy operations in Con Unis for several more days. And that's despite the lies John Kirby spewed earlier. This is what's happening on the ground. And what's really amazing to me, what really stands out to me is how little the IDF or the Israeli government cares about at least working harder to prevent the kind of footage that we all just witnessed, the footage of a Palestinian man waving a white

flag, getting shot and killed. You would think that they, I mean, you have reporters right there, you have a cameraman right there, you think they'd be smart enough, you know, to at least cover up the war crimes they're engaging in. But it is amazing that they don't do that, right? It is amazing that they commit the war crimes, and then they proceed to lie to us and accuse journalists of editing the tape. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter with the general public in the United States or the UK thinks about all this, whether or not they think the war is justified.

They don't care. The only thing that matters is that the governments of these two countries, continue to support Israel regardless of what it does. And that is certainly what we're experiencing here in the United States and in the UK. It's just so shameful, so embarrassing. You know, you can be in support of Israel going after Hamas while acknowledging that what is being carried out in the Gaza Strip, which has led to incredibly high, an incredibly high civilian death toll is wrong. And the military operations that have been carried up, you can acknowledge that war crimes have been committed while still being in favor of Israel protecting its civilians or going after Hamas, which of course has leadership not in the Gaza Strip, but in other countries like Lebanon and Qatar.

This is an absolute bloodbath, and honestly, I used to use the phrase indiscriminate bombing. or indiscriminate attacks. The IDF is carrying out in the Gaza Strip. But no, I think some of these attacks are actually targeted attacks. How do you shoot and kill an obvious Palestinian civilian man waving a white flag? That was a targeted shooting. IDF snipers shot and killed that man as he was just hopeful that he could get to the building to retrieve other family members for evacuation.

That's what happened. All right, look, we're gonna move on to something entirely different. So shameful with the United States is complicit and disgusting. Not just complicit, supportive of. You know what? In fact, let's just actually take a break. I need a breather. When we come back, we are going to take a trip back to the United States.

We have a story to cover in regard to public transit and what workers on public transit have been experiencing. Come right back. Stephen Bowen in our member community says our prime minister, Rishi Sunak cannot work out if Israel is committing war crimes after being questioned about that ITV video in parliament today. So I actually saw that and I'm hoping that James O'Brien covers it on his show, the James O'Brien show on LBC. It's a UK, I think radio station, if I'm not mistaken. I watch it on YouTube. Anyway, listen, I need you all to hit him up and get him to go back to covering Israel because he did a great job. And I want to hear what he has to say.

But anyway, with that said, let's move on to our next story, which isn't related to the war. It's a little different. We're going to talk about something that's been kind of building. up here in the United States, and I think it's finally starting to become enough of a problem that government officials are taking notice. According to the Federal Transit Administration, in recent years, there's been a 121% increase in transit worker assaults like this one. In July, gunfire shattered glass around this bus driver on Oakland, California's AC transit system, which according to the FTA's preliminary 2023 data has the highest rate of assaults on transit workers in the country.

It's been rough persuading those living in the country's urban centers to ditch their cars for public transit. And incidents like the one you just watched have a lot to do with it. But those who lack other means of transportation have it much worse, as they're increasingly met with violent attacks and assaults on buses at subway stations and on trains. We'll get back to the experiences of those who rely on public transit in just a moment, because what they've been going through is absolutely outrageous to say the least. But I want to start off by drawing specific attention to the terror that transit workers are

facing as they simply try to do their jobs. Keep in mind, they work in jobs that are incredibly important, essential to communities around the country. But they feel as though their lives and their safety is nothing more than an afterthought. The Urban Institute recently studied major assaults involving transit workers for bus and rail services. What they found was disturbing, including the fact that assaults have actually tripled since 2008. Assaults on transit workers, meaning those resulting in death or a trip to the emergency

room, rose nearly threefold nationally between 2008 and 2022 from 168 to 492, the Urban Institute found, using data from the Federal Transit Administration's National Transit Database. For some who want to minimize this, those numbers might not sound like a lot. But remember, we're are only talking about assaults that led to a fatality or someone getting hospitalized. Those numbers do not include less grievous assaults like hitting, kicking, and spitting. In other words, the number of assaults on transit workers is much, much higher. Operators have also reported being robbed, having things thrown at them, being doused with urine and hot beverages, being threatened at gunpoint, and shot at.

Back in 2022, the Washington Post profiled the story of a Denver area bus driver named Suna Carabay, who had immigrated to the United States from Turkey and absolutely loved her job. That is until she didn't. Much like other big cities, crime, public drug use, and homelessness exploded in Denver during the coronavirus pandemic. Kara Bay was confronted by the dysfunction as writers spit on her, hit her, and even threatened her with deadly weapons like knives. The windshield of her bus had been shattered multiple times by people throwing rocks or bottles at her. She told reporters that she was even chased into a restroom during one of her breaks.

Some of the incidents that were highlighted by that Washington Post piece were so horrifying that I don't think I could ever forget. the peace and the overwhelming sense of injustice Carabay was dealing with. There was Billing Street where in the summer of 2021, a mentally unstable passenger tried to punch a crying toddler only to be tackled and then shot in the chest by the toddler's father. And Dayton Street, where Suna, the bus driver, had once asked a man in a red bikini to stop smoking fentany and he'd shouted, here's your COVID bitch before spitting in her face and downing where another number 15 train or I'm sorry number 15 bus driver had been stabbed nearby with a three inch blade. The most horrifying episode happened on North Yosemite

Street. An intoxicated and emaciated the 57 year old woman had jumped out in front of a moving number 15 bus shouted at the driver to stop and then pushed her way on board. She'd started cursing at other passengers pacing up and down the aisle until a man twice her size stood up in the back of the bus and punched her in the face with a closed fist, slamming her to the floor. Kuwait never been knocked out before, he asked, as the woman lay unconscious in the aisle. And then he stood over her as the other passengers sat in their seats and watched. Here's one more, he said, stomping hard on her chest. He grabbed the woman by the ankle and flung her off the bus, leaving her to die.

of blunt force trauma on the sidewalk. We can keep riding though, one of the other bus drivers, or I'm sorry, passengers had told the driver moments later. We gotta go to work, man. Now the driver was understandably worried that the man was going to hurt her next. But as he was walking off the bus, he banged his fist into the windshield, cursed, and then exited luckily without harming her. Other public transit workers aren't so lucky.

Look, I got a lot of grief from some members of the left last year for highlighting the story of an African American subway worker in New York City who was sent to the hospital with a broken collarbone after he was viciously assaulted. A man who has been arrested 41 times for assault has just sent a New York City subway worker to the hospital with a broken collarbone and a dislocated nose. Now the suspect, Alexander Wright, again, has been arrested for assault, 41 separate times. But apparently, that's not enough to keep him out of the public to ensure that people are safe. Nelson's family is furious about this.

Again, they're wondering why he was out on the street. Lisa Nelson, the victim's mother, says, this man, Alexander Wright, should not be walking the streets. I hope these politicians and these judges give him the max that he deserves and do not let him walk free. And by the way, one of Alexander's past victims was involved in a hate crime as well toward an Asian woman. We're going to show you the video of what he did. It's difficult to watch, so I want to give you that warning. But without further ado, this is a man who's been arrested 41 times and is just released back onto the streets to assault other people. This is unacceptable.

This is 100% unacceptable. I just, I'm done with this. Whatever this is is not criminal justice reform, allowing people who are clearly a threat to public safety, allowing people who are assaulting and hurting workers as they're just trying to do their jobs and get through the day, unacceptable. Now, prominent progressives, like,

Progressives, like Brianna Joy Gray, weren't happy with me for refusing to provide cover for that brutal assault in the name of, I guess, leftism. Part of why people were upset on the internet is because Anna Kasparian works for what is perceived to be one of the flagship left media outlets in the country. So for one, I just want to say that part of the response to her was not an expectation that she's representing the kind of normative, normy view of criminal justice, but that she is a is ostensibly supposed to be representing the left view. And regardless of whether you agree with her, she absolutely didn't do that. Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't realize that wanting to protect workers

from violent assaults on the job wasn't a left-wing priority. I actually thought it was. I also thought the left wanted people to, you know, transition to public transportation and drive their cars less. But who the hell would want to do that if this is what they'll have to deal with? Post reporting I was referencing earlier briefly mentioned similar trends in other cities across the country. Philadelphia was reporting an 80% increase in assaults aboard buses. The Transportation Union President in Tucson said the city's buses had become a mobile refuge frequented by drug users and mentally ill and violent offenders.

The sheriff of Los Angeles County had created a new transit unit to keep passengers from having to step over dead bodies or people injecting themselves. ablaze by mentally unstable people who should have been institutionalized. Like on May 7th of that year, when out of nowhere, a mentally ill homeless woman squirted a man with flammable liquid and set him on fire with a lighter in Pasadena. That man was rushed to the hospital in serious condition, but luckily survived. That same month, another man was set on fire at a downtown L.A. bus stop near Olympic and Flower Street. Fortunately, he survived too.

But earlier that same year in January of 2022, a health care worker was attacked by a mentally ill homeless man at Union Station in downtown L.A. She wasn't as lucky and died as a result. Carrie Bell was charged with murdering Sandra Shells, who worked as a nurse at USC Medical Center. Shells was attacked shortly after 5 a.m. on Thursday, January 13th, at a bus stop on Cesar Chavez Avenue, and according to investigators, bell punched shells so hard that she fell to the concrete, fracturing her skull. The investigation reveals she was attacked for no apparent reason.

But maybe I should be a good leftist and pretend like these incidents didn't happen? Nah, I'll keep speaking up, thanks. In fact, incidents like these led to an outcry by maintenance workers at Union Station. We're talking about low wage workers, many of whom are immigrants with difficult jobs that were made even more unbearable by the violence they deal with at work. They didn't sign up for that and they don't deserve it. According to Alejandra Valles, who works as the chief of staff for the SEIU United Service Workers West, 19 of the 21 janitors working at Union Station reported being threatened or assaulted while doing their. jobs. One of the custodial workers told the Los Angeles Times, we are scared, we are frustrated

every day something happens. We don't know if we are going to return home to see our children. Renee Herrera, who's one of the managers at a deli called Tremana at Union Station, said that people have quit their jobs over the abuse. And that was a broader trend reflected in the study by the Urban Institute. In fact, another study, a survey by the American Public Transportation Association found that more than 9 and 10 public transit agencies were having difficulty hiring new employees, particularly bus drivers. That sounds kind of important, no?

If you want people to ride public transportation, you need workers for public transit and you need people who feel safe enough to actually use the public transportation. Principal progressives rightly care deeply about workplace conditions and they demand that companies and corporations protect their employees while they're on the job. These demands shouldn't take a backseat when violence is carried out by the mentally ill or those struggling with addiction and homelessness. In fact, and I want to be clear about this, most people with mental illness do not harm others. But unfortunately, some do, some do harm others, and instead of imprisoning

them, they need to be removed from the public to receive mandatory and adequate mental health treatment, emphasis on the mandatory part. The Urban Institute unfortunately boils the problem down to income inequality, likely because they don't want to ruffle feathers with the criminal justice reform squad that wants to avoid institutionalizing anyone who poses a threat to public safety. Like the repeat offender who sucker punched an Asian woman and then went on to send a subway worker to the hospital with broken bones. Did Brianna Joy Gray think that that person should have been sent to either a facility

for mental health or to prison? I don't know, let's watch. As horrible it is to suck or punch someone in the face, you don't go to jail for that, and nor should you, right? Obviously, you should not go to jail for the rest of your life for that. So the point is that you do have to go to jail. They're gonna, he's gonna keep getting out. People like these are gonna keep being on the street because the jail is not a solution

the kinds of issues that they're dealing with. I respectfully disagree. Some people need to be rehabilitated, whether it be through mental health treatment or through a reformed prison system. You know, prisons could be reformed to be rehabilitative rather than abusive torture chambers. Simply throwing our hands up and saying that prisons are bad is ridiculous. Fortunately in 2017, California reformed Valley State Prison as part of a pilot program meant to operate like the facilities you'd find in Nordic countries.

The emphasis is rehabilitation and it's nicknamed Prisneyland. But the more you get to know Prisneyland, which officials say some locals refer to it as, you realize the first barriers coming down aren't actually physical. One of the principles of the California model is normalization. And the idea is we want to make the environment insider institutions as normal as possible. the goal of not releasing somebody who's institutionalized, but releasing citizens back to the community who have practiced normal pro-social behavior. Our goal is to basically help them become better citizens. So with that in mind, we are not in the punishment business. We're in

the rehabilitative business. A big part of that rehabilitation, a wide array of programs where the population learns a variety of coping and calming skills. And she is a good horse. Did you know you were going to be grooming horses in prison? No, to be honest, I thought I would be stuck in a cell, maybe a few rehabilitation groups. But it helps me, you know, cope with, you know, a lot of stresses I deal with, you know, day to day here in prison. The hope is that creating a more positive environment makes the men locked up here more willing to rehabilitate. Of the total incarcerated population of 3,000 here, the prison says 2,400 are enrolled in training or education programs. including high school and college.

When you came in and you saw what this was, what was your impression? I thought I was in coming to prison and get worse, but coming to prison actually save my life. Wow, say that again. Coming to prison saved my life. You guys have no idea how relieved I was to see this. This was a report done by NBC weeks ago, and it wasn't on my radar until literally today as I was researching for this story. And so there are two prisons now, state prisons in California, that are part of this pilot program. And I love to see it because my concern was that all of the so-called reforms led to like the dysfunction that we're seeing on the streets.

And that leads to a much smaller appetite for the reforms that we need in policing and in our prison system. Okay, and there are already some promising results with Valley State prison's new model. According to reports from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, prisons across the state have seen between 15 to 32 homicides each in total, right? But, and that's between the years of 2017 and 2021. But at Valley State, there have been zero homicides within that state prison in that same time period, Meaning that it is a safer environment where people are actually getting rehabilitated. And this is the kind of facility that I would like to see created in other parts of the state,

other parts of the country. So it's not just about being punitive. It's about ensuring that people are rehabilitated and are able to make good lives for themselves once they serve their sentence. This is what we should be fighting for on behalf of everyone in our communities. The hands off approach to violent crime ensures that everyone loses. And I just want to be clear about one other thing. The other thing that we're experiencing right now on the streets is you have mentally, people have mental illness, struggling, suffering, unable to make decisions for themselves, unable to make the decision to get the mental health treatment they need,

or maybe unable to get the mental health treatment they need. And instead of institutionalizing them after, they commit some sort of crime or engage in a violent attack, you know, to keep the public safe, the argument is, well, you know, that violates the civil liberties of the individual that we're allowing to wallow away and die on our streets. And by the way, if they're lucky, because if they're not lucky, the other thing that happens is they will commit a violent crime so terrible, including literally setting people on fire that they'll end up in prison for the rest of their lives.

So how exactly is that the humane option? Either death on the streets or you're gonna end up in prison for the rest of your life. Now this is a broken system. This doesn't work. This doesn't make the situation better. Everyone loses with what we've been doing. But I am happy to see that there is some positive change happening in the state of California. And look, I don't I don't care what my label is.

I don't care if I'm being a very naughty leftist for telling the truth about. what's happening. Call me left, call me right, call me center. I don't care. My number one principle, like the motivating factor, the thing I care about the most, and what informs my opinions on political policy is doing what's right for workers in America. I'm never going to advocate for any policy that asks workers to deal with even more hell at work, including violent assaults. No, not interested in that. All right, we got to talk to you a little bit about this breaking news story. It's a doozy and it's about Matt Gates, so let's get right to it.

investigating congressman Matt Gates has reached out to the women whom the congressman allegedly had sexual relations with, including someone as young as 17 years old, according to a source familiar with the committee's work. Oh yeah, that DOJ investigation, which came to an end, apparently the investigation hasn't really come to an end when it comes to this House Ethics Committee looking into the allegations. Now, just reminding a little bit, a few years ago, news broke regarding a DOJ investigation that was launched under the Trump administration, by the way. This investigation didn't start under the Biden administration.

And it was over allegations that Matt Gates had sexual relations with a minor and that he had basically paid the minor to travel to his state to where he was in order to engage in a sexual relationship. That was the allegation. Well, apparently this House Ethics Committee was not satisfied with the DOJ investigation. They kept investigating and they talked to more women. They reached out to more people. And so now there's a sign that the GOP-led committee's investigation into this Florida Republican,

Matt Gates, has recently expanded to include questioning around allegations of sex crimes. According to CNN, sources say the committee has also reached out to the Justice Department requesting materials from its investigation into Gates, which included allegations of lobbying violations, sex trafficking, and possible obstruction of justice. Again, now that federal probe, which included these allegations, concluded back in 2023. So last year, they wrapped it up, and apparently Matt Gates is innocent. That's according to the DOJ. But there must be something going on with what the House Ethics Committee has been looking

into. There must have been some incriminating evidence that they've come across based on the conversations that they've had with other women. And now they're requesting that the DOJ provide some of the investigative materials that they had come across as they were doing their investigation. Now, Gates has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, including ever having to be. sex with a minor or paying for sex. He says that those allegations were not true, have never been true, and the people who spread those lies have been exposed, indicted and imprisoned. Have they?

Have they? But he also thinks that this House Ethics Committee investigation, which again, these are Republicans. Like, there are Republicans investigating him, members of his own party. He argues that this is just retaliation for his decision to oust former House Speaker. and former Republican congressman, Kevin McCarthy. So I don't know what the truth is, right? This story just broke. I thought that after the DOJ dropped the investigation to Matt Gates, they would let it go and that that was it.

But no, there's apparently more going on. And I'm uncertain of what the committee has found. I'm uncertain if it's anything really robust enough to go after Matt Gates aggressively. But the fact that they've reached out to the DOJ, I think, should be concerning for Gates. Now, McCarthy denies that the investigation into Matt Gates was motivated by Gates ousting McCarthy as House Speaker. He says, you know, I don't believe them to be conservatives, McCarthy said in November, referring to the eight Republicans who actually voted to oust him. Gates was one of them.

McCarthy had said at the time that it's driven by Gates, and it was all based upon ethics complaints that, happened in the last Congress, he would throw his country away to try to protect himself for what would come out as the truth. That is what Kevin McCarthy had said. What does Kevin McCarthy know? And what does the Ethics Committee know? The Justice Department, by the way, does not have to comply with a voluntary request from the House Ethics Committee.

And that's according to Norman Eisen, who served as counsel. to House Democrats in former President Donald Trump's first impeachment. If a request seems merited as part of the usual accommodation process between the legislative and executive branches, DOJ will sometimes provide some information, but they tend to be withholding of sensitive investigative materials. And even when the House issues a subpoena, the Justice Department typically holds back much of their internal investigation. I don't know why they do that.

If there's any evidence of wrongdoing that the House Ethics Committee came across, the DOJ should cooperate and provide some of the materials that the Ethics Committee is asking for. Again, we're talking about Republicans investigating one of their own. That never happens, okay? That never happens. And I'm super curious to figure out what is happening here and how this story is going to continue developing.

Now, as part of the sprawling investigation, Joel Greenberg, a former Florida tax collector and close confidant of Matt Gates pleaded guilty in 2021 to six federal charges, including soliciting and paying a minor in the Gates allegation for sex. The ethics committee controlled by Democrats originally, by the way, opened its investigation in 2021. So this is the previous congressional session where Democrats still had control of the house. They launched the investigation publicly announcing that it was examining a range of allegations, including that Gates violated sex trafficking laws. But the committee later deferred the investigation at the request of the Justice Department,

which again, eventually, you know, dropped the investigation entirely. But it appears that the, you know, the House Ethics Committee now under Republican control decided to continue with the investigation. And so a source familiar with the House panel's work previously told CNN that the Justice Department's decision not to bring charges against Gates does not impact what the committee will and won't investigate. The committee plans to examine the same allegations they were looking into when they opened the investigation in 2021, the source told CNN.

So buckle up, I feel like this is a story that will continue to develop. And once it does, once we have new details, we will share them with you. It might be the case that Gates is found completely innocent. He denies it, the DOJ didn't find any evidence that led to the prosecution of Matt Gates. So we're gonna have to wait and see. But this doesn't look good. I just have that gut feeling that this is not good news for Matt Gates. So we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, we're gonna take a brief break when we come back, more news. Listen, we got a fun name incoming, so buckle up, you're about to hear it. But we do need to cover some of the updates in regard to the Boeing planes that have been malfunctioning in various ways. So let's get right to it. In an exclusive interview with NBC News, CEO Minnacucci says, Alaska technicians have found more loose bolts on grounded planes. We found, you know, some loose bolts on many of our max lines. So those are, yeah. So those are things that are going to be rectified. It makes me angry, Tom. Boeing is better than this. And flight 1282 should never have happened.

Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci, that is his name, that is how you pronounce it. We did double check, is furious with Boeing, which manufactures all of the planes in Alaska Airlines's fleet. Now that's because in the weeks after Alaska Airlines flight 1282, when a door plug flew off a Boeing 737 max plane, A growing number of reports have proved just how error prone the company's planes happen to be. Now, Minicucci isn't even the only CEO that's frustrated and furious about this, calling out the problem. Here's United Airlines CEO, Scott Kirby, explaining his thoughts on this whole matter. Look, we're Boeing's biggest customer in the world. They're our biggest partner in the world.

We need Boeing to succeed. And I have a lot of confidence in the people of Boeing. There's great mechanics, great engineers, great story of history. But they've been having these consistent manufacturing challenges, and they need to take action together. That's the point today, and to anyone, is it needs to be real action to make, if they don't change something. And when you tell Dave Calhoun this, what does he say? Well, he says yes, but I'm a lot more, he doesn't disagree, of course, but I am a lot more interested in seeing the actions. Like right now we need to get through the max, we're doing that, but on the backside of this, what are the real actions?

to really get the manufacturing process back to the high levels of quality, consistency that historically existed at Boeing. Get money out of politics. So companies like Boeing are no longer able to lobby our politicians to keep pushing for deregulation. That would impact the companies that he is the CEO of. But you know, you're worried about safety. And if you're wondering why Boeing has been able to get away with, these issues with a lack of oversight, lobbying has a lot to do with it, and we'll get back

to that in just a moment. But here at TYT, we have already covered multiple reports by the lever about Boeing and its parts supplier spirit aerosystems, both of which have prioritized profits over safety. Well, this morning the lever published yet another fantastic report on Boeing, this time revealing that over the last three years, operators of Boeing's troubled 737 max planes have filed more than 1,800 service difficulty reports, more than one per day warning government regulators about safety problems with the aircraft. So airlines must file those service difficulty reports to the FAA with 96 hours of safety issues or safety malfunction, and the reports include false warning notifications,

noxious, odors, fuel leaks, engine shutdowns, brake system malfunctions, and other incidents. And look, all of this stuff sounds scary, is scary. And I just want to note that even though there have been all sorts of malfunctions reported in the news recently, luckily there have been no reports of fatalities or injuries. But this is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with immediately. The number of service difficulty reports is especially high with one airline in particular. So let's talk a little bit about that. Between December of 2020 and September of 2023, Alaska Airlines filed more than 1,230 reports related to the 53 Boeing 737 max planes it had in its fleet.

For comparison, during the same period, the airline filed 25 reports for its 10 Airbus A321 Neo airplanes, the main competitor to Boeing's 737 max. So according to Ed Pearson, who's a former senior Boeing employee and founder of the Foundation for Aviation Safety, many of those incidents in these reports would not cause a plane to crash on its own, okay? They're issues, they're definitely malfunctions, but based on what was read in those documents and those filings, there was no indication that the malfunctions were serious enough to to cause the plane to crash, but the sheer number of these reports indicates that something

is wrong with how Boeing is manufacturing these planes. Pearson also told the lever, what we're talking about is the cumulative effect of multiple emergencies at the same time. These add up and these are new planes that should not be having these problems. There are clearly manufacturing defects because the planes haven't been operated long enough to do any kind of maintenance on them. These are brand new planes. And by the way, if you're wondering, okay, is there something up with Alaska? Because if Alaska Airlines has all of these reports of the Boeing planes malfunctioning, maybe Alaska Airlines is doing something wrong.

But no, Alaska Airlines is actually doing the right thing by filing the necessary reports. There's some indication that other airlines aren't doing that, and that's a big problem. So according to Pearson, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines don't appear to be submitting their reports in accordance with the spirit of the law because we know that the Alaska planes were not built in a group. Southwest Airlines has over 180 max airplanes and just a fraction of those reports. We think what's happening is that they're choosing not to submit the reports and the FAA is not holding them accountable. Meanwhile, Boeing appears to be more interested in lobbying our federal government rather than keeping their passengers safe or the

passengers of their plane safe. For example, there have been more than 80 reports filed since April of 2021 involving the anti-ice system on Boeing 737 max planes. Previously in 2018, an anti-ice system caused a part of the engine on a 737 plane to snap off and strike a window resulting in fatality on a southwest flight. Boeing is currently, Boeing is currently seeking an FAA exemption to use a new anti-ice system on its 737 max planes. But critics have warned against this saying that if the system is left on for more than five minutes, engine parts could overheat and snap off. And it's not an isolated incident. Let's look at some other lobbying that's been taking place. Let's take a look at this graph. It's the annual lobbying by Boeing.

And according to Open Secrets, Boeing spent over $12 million on lobbying the federal government every year from 2008 to 2022. The company fell just shy of that mark last year. I mean, it wasn't an election year. That's probably why. They spent a mere $10 million, $10,710,000 on lobbying. It's insane. And so I just find it so funny that you now have the CEO of Boeing meeting with individual senators to explain himself. One of those senators, by the way, is Ted Cruz. Are they really going to pretend like they don't know what's up? It's like, hey, look, we took your bribes and we followed through with the deregulation. But just for show, we're going to have these closed door meetings.

So it appears like we're holding you accountable. No, no, you guys are corrupt and you guys went with the deregulation. And this is what you get. Companies have one job to do. What is their, what is their responsibility, everyone? Especially publicly traded companies. What is their responsibility? Their fiduciary responsibility is to their shareholders.

So they're going to focus on maximizing profits. ensuring that manufacturing is full proof, ensuring that everything is squared away, that there's proper oversight and everything is functioning well, that takes time and money. Those can be costly resources that they would rather funnel over to their shareholders. Because that's their fiduciary responsibility, right? The responsibility of the government is to keep their citizens safe. And that includes regulating industries that are as important as the airline industry. This is insane.

But this is what our system has devolved to. In short, the company has spent a huge amount of money, Boeing, that is, on bribing our elected officials in a quest for deregulation. But the top brass at Boeing have received a massive return on that investment. So try to wrap your head around these numbers. Get ready. In total over the past decade, according to SEC filings, Boeing spent roughly $573 million on total executive pay. In the last decade, Boeing has spent more than $40 billion on stock buybacks and

distributed almost $22 billion in dividends to their shareholders. That's the do sherry responsibility. Of course, that's according to regulatory disclosures. Many of Boeing's mass stock buybacks came after President Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts, despite the fact that Boeing and other major companies promise to invest their resulting tax savings on capital expenditure and innovation. The only thing they're innovating over at Boeing these days is instilling more fear in American travelers.

This is outrageous, it's unacceptable, and I'm not buying the little show that's happening with a few senators right now, meeting with the Boeing CEO, that they shouldn't get rewarded for that. You shouldn't be under the assumption that they're holding Boeing accountable at all. Holding Boeing accountable means passing regulations through legislation that ensure that they're doing their part to keep passengers safe. And I'm not seeing that right now. And until I do, no cookies for them. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, John Ida roll. joining me for a fun second hour, but before we get to the fun, we'll talk a little bit about how Tim Poole is cheering on child labor in the state of Florida.