The Young Turks - Gang Greene

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

Chris Hayes explains to Tim Kaine that they shouldn’t means test relief check, which Kaine joyously rejected with a big dumb smile on his face. 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. All right, welcome to the young Turks. Jake, you grand, expanding with you guys. So what kind of a show are we going to have for you guys today? An awesome one. Avi. So having gotten the Avi out of the way, Casper, I throw it over to you. All right. Let's get started right away with some updates on the coronavirus relief package.

Now, some Senate Democrats are in favor of stricter means testing when it comes to determining which Americans are eligible for the direct $1,400 checks that are proposed by, Joe Biden in his version of the $1.9 trillion relief package. Now, one of those Senate Democrats happens to be Tim Kane, who does, in fact, take some pretty conservative positions on issues and is funded primarily by the types of companies and people who push for austerity and are definitely in favor of this kind of means testing. Now, in the previous bill, the means testing would basically indicate that anyone making over $75,000 a year would start to see the amount of money that they receive from the direct checks taper off. And by the time you get to $99,000 a

year, you no longer qualify for those direct checks. Now, there is an orchestrated effort by the right wing and by corporate Democrats to pursue further means testing, which would indicate that the cap would, where the amount starts to taper off in terms of the direct relief checks, would be $50,000 a year as opposed to $75,000 a year. And as I've mentioned before, this means testing is determined based on tax filings in 2019 when the pandemic had not even hit yet, meaning that people were still employed and the tens of millions of Americans who were laid off hadn't been laid off yet because the pandemic hadn't impacted their jobs yet. Now, with that context, I just want to note that I wholeheartedly

agree with Chris Hayes in the exchange that you're about to hear while he's interviewing Senator Tim K. Let's watch. Here's my pitch to you, Senator. Then I'll shut up. Don't do this, A, B, if you have to do it, and you need 50 votes, so whatever. Just give people checks and tax it back next year if they had a good year and didn't need it. This idea that you're going to means test off 2019 income, which is currently, it does not capturing the need. Please don't do this. Okay, you respond. I'll shut up now. Chris, so here's what I, here's what I. So I absolutely agree with the White House. We shouldn't shrink the check amount. If we target the check a little bit more in terms of the means, but we take the money we save and we put it into more vaccines or more

unemployment insurance or more housing aid or more SNAP benefits, we can meet the needs. Again, the logic here of means testing gets complicated and people don't, their income in 2019 isn't relevant. All I would say is the tax code next year is a great means and it will score the same. By the way, for CBO purposes, it'll score the same if you just tax it back next year. It would be a budget committee staffer, Chris, with that comment. So I certainly do not in any way respect the framing that I've heard from Senator Tim Kane on this issue. He's essentially giving people an ultimatum, meaning that if we use the same means testing that was originally used, which by the way, I'm against that means testing

as well, well, then maybe we're not going to have money for vaccine distribution. No, how about we want the whole enchilada and more and don't buy into that framing of, no, well, we got a nickel and dime, you know, we're going to have to like cut off the relief checks unless we're willing to, you know, cut spending on vaccine distribution during this pandemic. Like, I'm sorry. I'm not buying that. Jank. I'm curious what you think. Well, they really leave us no choice but the question intent and or intelligence, right? And so I know they hate it when I say that. And I don't want to say it. It's not a nice thing to say. But if you really wanted 1400, right, put aside the fact that they said 2000 and there was some confusion about whether they meant 2,000

more or 2000 in total. Put that aside for now. And then you really wanted the 1400 to finish the 2000. Well, you would start with 2000 as you're negotiating position, because you know the Republicans are going to come in much lower. So now if you had done that, then and you wanted the appearance of it being bipartisan, you wouldn't have to compromise on the threshold income. You could quote unquote compromise on bringing it from 2000 to 1400. And then it would seem like a giant compromise that you did, but still got to 2000 in total. So then you got unity and bipartisanship and you pass the maximum amount. So I mean, I would literally ask the Senate Democrats, but they would never come on to talk about it because we're not going to be as

you know, as forgiving, honestly, because we're going to challenge them on. And Chris did a great job there. Don't get me wrong. And he, those are the right questions, et cetera, right? But, but there is no answer to that. They either have to say, well, we just don't know how to negotiate and we blew it, right? Or we didn't really want there to be a cutoff of $75,000 in income. We didn't want to give that much. We wanted to give less. And so this was a good way of giving less. That That way we just say the Republicans made us do it when in reality it was our donors who made us to it because we don't need a single Republican vote. That's the brutal truth and that's why the young Turks is hated by the establishment.

Because we tell you things that are really simple and obvious and true. So and we like to provide receipts, right? Because it's important to provide the data and evidence for why we have the analysis that we do. So first incredibly important point is that the data that the means testing would be reliant on is not accurate, meaning that it does not actually apply to this crisis and the situation that people are experiencing because the data is from 2019 when people hadn't lost jobs as a result of the pandemic yet.

And so I apologize if you watch the show regularly and I sound repetitive, but for anyone who's new, it's important for you to know this. So the Daily Poster, based on U.S. Census data, did a great job in pointing out that 45% of households earning between $50,000 and $150,000 have experienced a loss of employment income since March of 2020, including 48% of households earning between $50,000 and $75,000. So clearly the tax filings from 2019, do not properly reveal the extent of the pain that Americans are suffering right now as a result of that pandemic. It's also important to know what motivates these lawmakers in pursuing austerity and certain

strict means testing measures when it comes to government aid. And the US Chamber of Commerce has a lot to do with this. So the Daily Post are also reported about the money and politics involved in what's going on right now. The US Chamber of Commerce, which spent $82 million lobbying in Washington last year, sent a letter to the White House and Congress urging them to consider, quote, targeting any additional stimulus checks based on income, loss of employment, or similar criteria. And an excerpt from their letter stated this, while the pandemic-induced recession has created

near unprecedented levels of hardship, the impact has not been universal, the chamber wrote. The Census Bureau Pulse survey indicates that while a majority of households with less than $50,000 in income have experienced a loss of employment income, a majority of households with more than $50,000 in income, including those between $50,000 and $150,000 have not experienced any loss in earned income. I just gave you guys the data. I gave you the accurate data from the U.S. Census and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce intentionally lied in their letter about the reality of people in this income bracket losing their employment. By the way, this is also driven by a ridiculous study that was done. We talked about this study by Opportunity Insights,

and it's important to know who funds these types of think tanks. And so the campaign to limit survival check eligibility was recently boosted by a study by economists at Opportunity Insights, a Harvard University think tank bankrolled by the family foundations of billionaires, Mark Zuckerberg, Bloomberg, and Bill Gates. And then if you look at some of the funding for Senator Kane in the 2020 cycle, oh, would you look at that? One of his top donors is actually Bloomberg with $72,975. This is from opensecrets.org.

You should check it out for yourselves. So, Jank, if you're questioning whether this is intentional or stupid, I would argue, it's certainly intentional and stupid, but not uninformed. Right. So I think probably if Tim Kane's watching this, which he most certainly isn't, he'll be very angry and say, oh, my 15th largest donor isn't going to affect me. And besides which I'm superhuman, I'm not affected by any of my donors or the millions upon millions of dollars that they give me. Really? Then why are we playing this game? Because I'm going to ask you guys a simple question.

Why does the Chamber of Commerce care about this issue? This is not about what money is going to businesses. That would be very and directly related to what they're doing. Instead, they're weighing in on how much individuals and families should get, and they're arguing that you should get less. Why do you think that they do that? They do that because they know something you don't know. It's a zero-sum game, and they're going to give out a certain amount of money,

and the Chamber of Commerce is basically saying we want more. And that means by definition, the average Americans should get less. I want the money, and I want it for business and almost only for business. So I'm going to try to nickel and dime you guys. I'm going to try to press you down, press you down, press you down. Now, we already affect these legislators by keeping your wages super low. We affect them by giving this gigantic tax cuts that Republicans give us, and then Democrats make permanent with slight tweaks as if they fought us, we orchestrate this

entire Kabuki theater. So our hands are in everything, including this, to make sure that your family gets less money because big business runs this town. If Tim Kane or anyone else in Washington claims something to the contrary, they're being absurd. And every poll will show you that regular Americans don't believe them for a second. They think that all the millions of of dollars that they get from business interests like the Chamber of Commerce definitively affects their votes. And this is yet another instance of it. So finally, think about the slight of hand that they're doing here. And that's why I'm giving Chris a lot of credit here, because he's at least partly exposing it. So they say, don't worry, we delivered on our promise of $2,000

checks. Now the reality is though, but not for most of you. Because if nothing, like think about it logically. If they said, all right, we're going to get you $2,000 checks. And then after the election, they're like, we did it. We got $2,000 checks for everyone making under $10,000 a year. You'd be like, wait a minute. No, no, that wasn't a promise. That's a tiny amount of people. No, you said you'd get it to everyone who needed it, which $75,000 and under makes sense. And that's what you had said before the election. $10,000 a year, that means you're not giving it to anybody. Well, the same is true of the new cap of $50,000. And by the way, again, it's not $50,000. And at 50,000 you get nothing.

And they start lowering it at 40,000, okay? So if you're, if they, if you cut out everybody from 50,000 to 75,000, even if we're being generous to them, you've cut out millions of tens of millions of Americans who thought they were going to get a check. And now you're going to get nothing. And now none of this had to happen because again, they don't need a single Republican vote. But the Democrats use the Republicans as a foil to help the chamber. of commerce achieve their objectives, which is to give you less money and give business more money. So that's where some Senate Democrats stand on the issue. There should not be any means testing. And if a family was doing well during the pandemic, as was mentioned by Chris Hayes, then you tax them later.

But delaying money in people's hands during this crisis makes absolutely no sense. So again, I agree with everything you said, Jank. This is, I think this is intentionally done and it's by donors, no question. Well, let's talk a little bit about something that Biden cares a lot about. And that's the topic of unity because the truth of the matter is there is a lot of unity in the country. It's just that he's not tapping into certain unity that his donors might not be in favor of. So let's talk about it. A new Quinnipiac poll indicates that 64% of Republican voters support Joe Biden's proposed

stimulus checks, really survival checks, of $1,400. Now this is important because despite what Republican lawmakers want, what's really important here is that this is a point of unity among American voters. And that's where the focus should be. So the stimulus, of course, is desperately needed. And what we're unfortunately hearing from the Biden administration is a willingness to concede to the Republican Party on strict means testing in order to lower the number of Americans who are eligible for direct survival checks.

So let me note that 10 GOP lawmakers did meet with Biden this week to propose a scaled back bill that would cost $618 billion, roughly one third the size of Biden's, and lower the direct payments from $1,400 to $1,000. The Republicans proposed package would also lower the income threshold. This is the means testing I was talking about for payment eligibility, meaning that fewer Americans would be able to receive the benefit. So Biden luckily said that he will not lower the amount of money that will be offered to people through these survival checks. However, He is willing to consider a stricter means testing. And that was something that Jen Saki, the White House press secretary,

also seemed to indicate during a recent press briefing. Let's take a quick look at that. Today on the call with House Democrat, the president talked about better targeting the stimulus test. I'm wondering if you could just explain what he meant by that and what might be under consideration. Sure. Well, as we've said in here a few times, but I know this is an ongoing. process. You know, the president, having served in the Senate for 36 years, fully recognizes

that the bill he proposed that he did a primetime address on two weeks ago, that may not look exactly like the bill that comes out. And he knows that. That's part of the legislative process. So further targeting means not the size of the check. It means the income level of people who receive the check. And that's something that has been under discussion, There has been a conclusion, but certainly he's open to having that discussion. No, don't be open to having that discussion. Pass it through reconciliation. It's popular.

There's unity in the country in terms of voters being in favor of the $1,400 direct checks. 64% of Republicans are in favor of it. Stop trying to unify with trashy Republican politicians who don't care about helping people out. Do this through reconciliation. Stop negotiating. Let's move on with our lives. Jank. So a couple of things here.

two. First of all, there's no question at all what is actually bipartisan. We have the poll. Two-thirds of Republican voters want the higher checks. No question. Over 90% of Democrats want it. Over 80% of the country wants it. No question. Do we live in a democracy or don't we? Because it's not like, hey, it's 5248 and maybe the polls a little off and is it in the margin of error. It's 80% of the country that says we definitely, definitely want it. Now, this is why I often get frustrated at the media, because when you turn on television, they're telling you the bipartisanship is to go against 80% of the country. Well, now, you know that that doesn't make any sense.

And that's why the mainstream media has lost credibility. That's why part of the reason why the right wing is going to look for answers in all the wrong places, because they know that when they turn on TV, they're not getting the truth. So now, the other issue is political. When you agree to compromise with the Republicans, well, what it forces you to do is what you saw a Gensaki doing there at the end. She started defending better targeting, which means less of you get the checks. That means tens of millions of you will not get any check at all because we targeted you

out of help entirely, okay? Now, if you were opposed to the Republicans, you could point out that quote unquote better targeting means we're not going to give it to you. If you make above $50,000, you're not going to get a nickel. If you make above $40,000, you're going to get less and less and less. And you could hammer them on that. And it would actually really piss off two thirds of their own voters, let alone 80% of the country. But instead, you saw her defending a Republican point.

So it forces the Democrats to defend Republican positions because they have now adapted them in their so-called compromise. Now how is that for terrible politics and branding and framing? And then you wonder why are the Democrats constantly losing elections they shouldn't lose? Well, they frame them all of the issues in favor of their opposition. That's why you lose. And so when they ran an election in Georgia where they said we're going to get you $2,000 checks Unequivocally, they won in Georgia, both seats.

The minute they win, they turn around and help their Republican friends, and immediately they start losing popularity. And guys, one last thing on framing and why it's so important, when they ask a question in this particular poll, but it's true in all the polls, hey guys, do you want this size of the check? Everybody says yes, right, in the numbers that we gave you. When they ask, are you in favor of Biden's plan, which is the same exact thing, right? This size of check, et cetera.

More Democrats say yes. It goes from like 90 to 97, but that's not much of a difference. But for Republicans, it goes from 64% saying yes to 37% saying yes. So it drops in half. It drops off a cliff. Still 37% go, I don't care that it's Biden's. I could do math. That's a higher number.

I want that, right? But it loses all sorts of popularity because the Republican Party has destroyed the brand, of the Democratic Party. They've hit it, hit it, hit it, destroyed it, right? And so since they've damaged it so badly, the minute you say it's Biden's plan, Republicans go, no, then that's it, I don't want more money. The reason I'm telling you that guys is because framing is everything in politics. And the Democrats, when they choose to frame things in a way that helps the other party hurts their chances and hurts our chances of getting better legislation. And they've done this for 40, 50 years. Either they don't get it in the entirety of Democratic leadership,

which does not speak well of them, or they're doing it on purpose because they actually all agree that the donors should be helped more than you should be helped. Yeah, so something to think about while we go to break. But when we come back, there are some Senate Democrats who are holding Joe Biden's feet to the fire and demanding cancellation of student loan debt. We'll give you all the details on that story. story and more when we come back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations

are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the

nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime.

So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Thank you. You know, I'm going to be able to be. You know, I'm going to be able to be. Hey friends, let's give you guys some programming notes because there's a lot of exciting stuff coming up, including a conversation on between me and Yugar tonight. Jank will be joined by Frederick Joseph and you can watch live at 9 p.m. Eastern time, I'm sorry,

915 p.m. Eastern time, 6.15 p.m. Pacific. Just go to Twitch.tv slash TiT where you can watch live. Also on Twitch, we have deep dive with Jordan Yule. Today, Parkland survivor Cameron Caskey will be on deep dive with Jordan Yule and they'll be talking about Marjorie Taylor Green, which is incredibly relevant considering Marjorie Taylor Green, who is a freshman Republican member of Congress, believes all sorts of insane conspiracy theories about school shootings being false flag operations. You can watch that live at 10.15 p.m. Eastern time 7.15 p.m. Pacific. And again, that's at twitch.tv slash t-y-t. And then not a big deal. I have some appearances coming up as well. Including tomorrow, I'll be on the Nomeiki show at 12 p.m.

Pacific time, 3 p.m. Eastern. And you should definitely check that out. So I'll also be on the issue is with Elix Michelson at 10.30 p.m. Pacific time. So I'm sorry, 12 p.m. Pacific time tomorrow. I'll be on Nomiki show and then 10.30 p.m. Pacific time, I'll be on Fox to basically debate a conservative. And you can learn more about this by going to t-y-t.com slash notice. See how good I am at the stuff that I do. I'm awesome at it. I'm so good. Anyway, let me move on to some comments, starting with our member section. Opinionated writes in and says, I'm back after undergoing throat surgery for cancer. Apparently, according to my doctor, my body is now completely cancer-free. Congratulations, that's really, really good news. I'm really happy to hear that. Thank you for giving us that update. Will you shut this clown and says, well, wife and I made well over $120,000 in 2019 and spent nine months of 2020 fighting to get unemployment after I was laid off. Means testing will be one more hurtful hit to my family that is trying desperately just to get back to the block after I finally got back to work. Yeah, exactly. There's so many stories.

stories like yours and the means testing is a very intentional way of cutting people off from the assistance that they desperately need during this pandemic. So we're going to keep fighting for you and hopefully we get the Democrats to fight on your behalf as well. We're coming right back to the show. You know, I'm going to be able to be. All right back on a young Turks. Jank and Anna with you guys, tons of stories to get too. So let's do it, Casper.

All right, well, a topic that I care a lot about, and that's student loan debt. We have some good news, but we'll see where it takes us. So Senate Democrats, Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren are fighting pretty aggressively to get Joe Biden to cancel up to $50,000 of federal student loan debt through executive action. Now the education secretary can do that. The executive branch can actually cancel all of your federal student loan debt. So what we're hearing from Biden, what we previously heard from from Biden is not so great, but let me give you the details of what Schumer and Warren are calling for. The resolution calls on the president to use executive action for student loan cancellation

in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The resolution is similar to the resolution that Schumer and Warren introduced back in September. Since then though, Schumer has clarified only student loan borrowers with federal student loans who earn less than $125,000 would be be eligible. So their proposal does not call for a cancellation of all student loan debt. And it also is a means tested program, or at least what they're proposing that Biden does is pass an executive order that is in fact means tested. There are approximately 45 million borrowers who collectively owe $1.7 trillion of that total approximately 44 million borrowers collectively owe 1.5 trillion of federal student loan debt and approximately 9 million borrowers

are currently defaulting on their student loan. So this is a serious problem. And I would honestly demand that Joe Biden cancel all federal student loan debt, not $50,000, not $10,000, which he had floated before. And my argument is that part of the reason why student loan debt is astronomical. And And part of the reason why, not part of the reason, the main reason why students are unable to discharge that student loan debt through bankruptcy is because of bankruptcy legislation that show Biden championed and passed when he was in Congress. In fact, back in 2015, David Serota talked about this in great detail during an interview on Democracy Now.

Let's quickly watch that video and I'll give you more. There was a series of other bills through the 1980s and into the 1990s, in which Joe Biden worked on the same set of issues, lengthening the amount of time students would have to wait to be able to access bankruptcy protections for educational debt. And then, as you noted, into the late 1990s and the 2000s, there was this push by Biden. He was a key Democrat pushing the bankruptcy bill that was ultimately signed by President George W. Bush that eliminated the ability of most Americans to seek bankruptcy protection.

not only for their government loans, but also for their private student loans. So that was a big objective of the private lenders. At the time, over his career, Joe Biden has raised about $2 million from the financial sector while he's been sculpting these bills. And again, he played the key role throughout the last three decades in the Democratic Party, really in Congress, pushing these bills. Okay, so that's why David Sorodas hated by the establishment, because again, he brings receipts. And once again, mainstream media has no answer for this.

Did Joe Biden actually put the Albatross around our neck on uncancelable student debt? Yes, definitely. There's no question about it. Any of you can look it up. It is not in dispute, right? But nonetheless, when it was brought up in the primaries by people like David Sorota and us, the mainstream media was scandalized. How dare you tell people the truth about his voting record? Okay, that's cool. Just prove us wrong. I'm okay. Like just maybe we got it wrong. So tell us,

hey, he didn't actually vote for that or he didn't sponsor it or anything. I'm ready. No, no, he did. We just don't want you to say it. Okay, so now that winds up having an effect when he's president. Because now, Schumer and Warner are saying $50,000 and Biden's saying $10,000 already, a giant difference. Second of all, that doesn't even matter half as much as Schumer and Warren are saying do it through executive action and we'll have it tomorrow, right? And Biden is saying, no, I wanted to be passed through Congress. That's a curious thing to say, if you're the person who has the power to do executive orders, why would you voluntarily give up that power? Trump tried to do executive orders for things he didn't even have a power to do, right? And everything he had a power to do he did through executive order.

And he didn't care 1%. And neither did Mitch McConnell. And honestly, neither did many people in the media. They might have cared about his tweets, et cetera. But as he's passing one brutal thing after another through executive order, they're like, well, it is what it is. Let's go back to the tweets, right? And so now Biden goes unilateral disarmament.

Now, look, we're fair. He did some executive orders in the beginning that we liked and we gave them credit for it. But there's no reason why you can't. In fact, the legislative language is super clear. It says there's no question that you could cancel the debt. And if you're a conservative and you've all argued your whole life that you believe in the plain reading of the statute, well, it's very clear in the statute what it says. You can, the president or the secretary of education. I have the statute. Yeah, we're going to get to read it for you. Oh, in a second. Go ahead. Sorry, just to finish the thought. The executive branch can absolutely, can

cancel the debt. So Biden is choosing not to. That then forces you to wonder, why is he choosing to do that? If he really was driven and passionate to cancel the student debt as we are, wouldn't he use, of course he would. It wouldn't he at least threaten the executive order to get a better bill if that's the direction he was going? He's not doing any of that. So we have to conclude that his position is completely disingenuous. So one of the things that I think motivates the federal government's decision to avoid canceling federal student loan debt is because there's, it's essentially a form of regressive taxation, right? Because these aren't interest free federal loans. There's interest associated with it. And I just looked up the recent interest rates for the 2020 to 2021 school year. And for undergraduates, the interest rate is 2.75%. Federal rates for unsubsidized graduate student loans are, and parent loans are higher at 4.30% and 5.30% respectively. When you consider the fact that the bulk of outstanding student loan debt, I mean, to the tune of $1.5 trillion, is federal student loans.

And you consider the amount of money the federal government brings in through the interest rates attached to those loans. Well, I mean, they don't want to tax the rich, but they certainly want to bring in some revenue through charging interest to these students who had no choice because education is so astronomical in this country that they had to take out these loans just to get an education, just to get a college education. So I think that that is a motivating factor. And, Jank, to your point, there certainly is current law indicating that the education secretary can just cancel this student loan. There is no limit on it. So it's called the Higher Education Act of 1965. I'll read you a little from it. It's section 432A of the Higher Education Act, and it grants the United States Secretary of Education the authority to modify, compromise, waive, or release any right title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption.

So that is the exact law that indicates that the education secretary can just cancel the student loan debt. But they wouldn't be able to collect those, you know, that interest if they did that. Yeah. And the Biden administration right now is aggressively arguing against the plain reading of that statute. They're telling the press, we at TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing. and selling our data, but that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you

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with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EX, P-R-E-S-V-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. You don't think that statute applies. Why? First of all, you're not accurate. You're not, that's not true. We just read you the statute. But second of all, why are you helping the Republicans make their case against you? Guys, you've got to, if you're just a normal

independent person that it does not live in the area of Washington, D.C., you've got to be thinking, why would the Democratic president make the case against his own proposal and help the other party? I wonder if there's some other game of foot here. And of course the right wing populace excuse me, oh yeah, it's Soros and space lasers and it, no, no, it's the donors, it's super easy. And by the way, Soros is one of the donors, but and his problem isn't as the right wing thinks because of his ethnicity or background, it's because he's part of a donor class that gives money to politicians, like the Koch brothers and the Mercer's who are, you know, come from a different background than Soros. And all of those guys, and most importantly,

Exxon, Mobile, Goldman Sachs, instead of the corporations, they control. are politicians. So the Democrats do a better job of acting like they care about people. And to be fair, they oftentimes do give you more than the Republicans. So when it comes to after we have gone through a primary and we've tried to get a progressive into office, sometimes I'll tell you, well, it's a general election, you should vote for the Democrat and send the Republican. Why? Because a quarter of the time, they're way better than the Republicans. But imagine if the Democratic Party was the Democratic Party 100% of the time. And then they weren't making things up and helping the Republicans on the down low three quarters of the time. And the reason

they don't is because of that the donor cash. And so, so again, this one's not complicated. One last thing, guys, what would I do? Okay, because we tried to constructive critique here, right? If I was the president, I would call a press conference if I actually cared about this. First of all, I wouldn't even call a press conference. I'd cancel the student debt with an executive order and I'd be done with it. And then then 44 million people who got relief would love the Democratic Party, probably for the rest of their lives. Game over, game over, game over. He would be, I mean, think about your legacy, Biden. Like, think about what that would do to your legacy, all of the horrendous things that you've done,

right? I'm not going to say that they're going to be completely erased. But if you want to prove that you are, you know, really serious about meeting the current. moment with the type of robust policies and executive orders that would be proportionate to what Americans are experiencing right now. Cancel the student loan debt. Why are we having this discussion? Don't be afraid to be popular. This is easy, easy. So guys, look, that's why I juxtapose us oftentimes with the mainstream media, because you could watch them or read them, and then you could come here, and then you could check the receipts. You could check the facts for yourself. So, for example, Forbes had all the right facts in one of the articles written about this.

But when they got to the, I guess the analysis part, they didn't label it analysis. But that's okay, I don't mind them doing analysis. They said, curiously, Joe Biden hasn't asked for permission from the Republicans. He didn't ask for permission. They said, curiously, and that's a direct quote, that Joe Biden is basically not looking for bipartisanship here. Now, wait a minute, why are you framing it like Biden is guilty for being too progressive? progressive when Biden just told you he's not going to do it. And why are you saying the Democrat should, by definition, ask for permission from Republicans when the Republicans didn't win?

You didn't write the article in that way. Nobody ever said, curiously, Trump didn't ask for permission from Democrats. Trump never asked for permission and nobody ever thought he should ask for permission from Democrats. So they frame it in a way where they say, now remember, everybody to be bipartisan, which in Washington means don't do anything and do not help to average American. So finally to come back to the hypothetical, if I couldn't do it through executive order, I would just call a press conference and I would read that statute that Anna just read you and say, look, I know the Republicans have a war on reading, but I just read it to you. It says we can waive or cancel any equity or debt. We can do it. And so if you have trouble

with the English language, you will be opposed to us. But the rest of you who are capable of reading, we'll see that we have every right to do it. We have every authority to do it. And I would end the press conference with, you're welcome. Totally. All right, well, we got to take a break, Jank. But when we come back, we'll switch gears and talk a little bit about how Kevin McCarthy is doing everything possible to try to keep the Republican caucus together. Is he going to be able to do it? And is that really what he wants? This story has twists and turns. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. So we're getting a lot of feedback, not even feedback, just people who are sharing their personal stories regarding how this means testing tied to the coronavirus relief package will negatively impact them or their family members and friends. And so we did provide, you know, a broader look using data from the US census. But even this anecdotal.

evidence is important to share with you guys. So thank you to those of you in our member section and our super chat for doing that. TYT Wolfpack Justice Dem in the super chat section says, my best friend earned $50,123 in 2019. He's now unemployed. He's not alone. Izzy Sanchez in the super chat section says, how are these survival checks still being debated just to prove it and send them out already, sheesh, we're in a pandemic and we need help. I mean, I obviously agree with you. And when you compare us to other countries that have not given out, you know, UBI once or twice during this pandemic, but literally every single month, it gives you a sense of how broken and disgusting our system really is. Our stone writes in

and says, we can whisper of a dream of means tested corporate tax loopholes. Give me a break. Yeah, I know. It's, I mean, when it comes, by the way, a story that we might get to today, in the CARES Act, Republicans snuck in a giant tax cut for the wealthy. Essentially, Trump had closed few business tax loopholes, right? Deduction loopholes and things like that. And what they did in the CARES Act, the Republicans, that they snuck in a provision that would reverse those deduction bans. And so Democrats are fighting to get rid of it. We'll see where that lands them, but it's just, it's pathetic. Okay, moving on to, why don't I, I just lost the document. Hold on, pulling it up again. All right, let's thank our YouTube members, David McClintock,

Ken Argin, Ryan Guy and Rye Guy. Thank you so much for being members. We really appreciate you. Thank you for supporting the show. And I'll move back over to our members section since we have a little more time. Jim writes in and says, I can't wait for MSNBC Joe Biden Apologist Tour, where he tells us that he can't do anything because, you know, Republicans, and now he has to focus on foreign affairs, which by the way, there is a little piece of good, not a little. If it, if it really happens, good news regarding Yemen, Biden has decided to pull U.S. involvement in Yemen, which is something that had bipartisan support under the Trump administration, but he vetoed that bill. So this is great news. And I don't like to celebrate too early. Let's wait and see that he

actually does that. But if he does, that's fantastic news regarding foreign policy. All right, guys. Cortina writes in and says, Dems are working so hard to lose the midterms. They're pros at losing their power, especially when it comes to economic issues. Shadows writes in and says they don't want to give the checks out now and tax people later because they know how they dodge paying any taxes and assume these people will do the same projection, I'm sure. Shadows, I love that comment. Thank you for sending us that. For now, we gotta get back to the show. Let's do it. So, you know,

I'm going to be able to be. Thank you. We're going to be. . You know, Hey, . Hey,

so I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I don't know. Right, back on a Young Turks, Chankana with you guys. Casper, go. All right, well, we do have some updates on Marjorie Taylor Green. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has refused to censure right-wing conspiracy theorists and freshman Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green for her conduct and her statements, calling

for the execution of Nancy Pelosi, which was as recently as last year, including her statements and conspiracy theories regarding mass shootings on school campuses, which she has said are false flag operations meant to take Americans guns away. That's something that Alex Jones is in a world of hurt over. But unfortunately, we have one of these people who believes these unhinged theories in our Congress. Now, during a recent meeting with the Republican caucus, McCarthy not only decided to protect Marjorie Taylor Green, but he persuaded Republican lawmakers to avoid booting Liz Cheney from her leadership roles in Congress. Now, Liz Cheney is facing a lot of criticism and heat from Republicans because she, for once in her life, did the right thing

in voting in favor of impeaching Donald Trump following the capital riots. For now, though, let's focus a little bit on what happened with this whole Marjorie Taylor Green incident. While McCarthy condemned Green's comments questioning the veracity of school shootings, encouraging political violence and promulgating anti-Semitic falsehoods, he said he would not bow to demands that she be removed from her committees. Instead, he accused Democrats of pursuing a partisan power grab by seeking to control the minority party's internal decision-making. And he also said this, quote, they chose to do something Congress has never done. Now censuring her isn't unprecedented, remember Ilhan Omar faced censure.

And by the way, apologized after she had, I think, unwittingly used a phrase that some felt was an anti-Semitic trope. She apologized. And it's just a completely different situation because Marjorie Taylor Green has refused to apologize and remains defiant. Now, since McCarthy and the House Democrats decided to go in this direction, that means that Democrats are pursuing a floor vote on stripping Marjorie Taylor Green of her committee assignments. And as this is taking place, she gave a little statement. We're going to give you a small snippet of it because I'm not interested in amplifying her disgusting lies. But note how she does not apologize. Watch.

I never once said during my entire campaign Q&ON. I never once said any of the things that I am being accused of today during my campaign. I never said any of these things since I have been elected for Congress. These were words of the past and these things do not represent me. They do not represent my district and they do not represent my values. And if this Congress is to talk, tolerate members that condone riots that have hurt American people, attack police officers, occupied federal property, burned businesses and cities, but yet wants to condemn me and crucify me in the public square for words that I said and I regret a few years ago, then I think we're in a real big problem, a very big problem. No, the very big problem is you don't regret those statements. to repeat those statements, including calling for the execution of your political opponents. She went around following David Hogg harassing him while indicating that she has a licensed

carry, which can be pretty traumatic for a child or a teenager who just witnessed his own peers getting gunned down and slaughtered in front of him during the school shooting. She decided to try to harass representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib because they were, they weren't swearing in on the Bible because she happened, by the way, they happened to be Muslim lawmakers who don't believe in the Bible, so why would you force them to swear in on the Bible? I mean, this woman is ridiculous and she has not apologized. That was a very Trump-esque statement. And I want to get your thoughts, Cenk. All right, first of all, one of our members, Chris just tip me off to breaking news. Thank you, Chris. The House just voted to remove her from her committee 218 to 220. I'm sorry,

210, 218 to 210. So, and so the reason why I wanted to let you know that is that the one, it's obviously breaking news, but two, the Republicans stuck with her. So they're all on the Jewish space laser hype train. So now, look. She wants to soft pedal it, and that's why she said I kind of regret some of the comments I might have made. And McCarthy says, like, oh, the comments she made about Jewish America is not so great, but let's move on. Now, I don't even want to, Ilhan Omar, Elhan Omar talked about specifically about lobbyists, it's all about the Benjamins. Well, it is. That's the, like, the job of a lobbyist. It's like saying, hey, for the plumbers, it's all about the plumbing.

like, oh my God, I can't believe you were bigoted. What? What are you talking about, right? Compare that to Marjorie Taylor Green. I read her post on Facebook said she thinks the Rothschilds, which is another horrible anti-Semitic trope about how the Jews control the world because of the bankers like the Rothschilds have built a space laser and they zap forest with it so it can start forest fires so they can make money off of it. And guys, by the way, you know the Q&I conspiracy about drinking the blood of the children?

That's blood libel. It's the oldest anti-Semitic trope there is. It's not new. They've been saying that for centuries. So these people are viciously. And I'm afraid violently against certain groups of people. And so this is not a light thing. And the entire Republican Party just co-signed on it by saying, yeah, Marjorie Taylor Green, she shouldn't be removed from the Education Committee, from the Education Committee. Are we going to teach kids about Jewish space? Lasers? Is that the insanity that the Republican Party just co-signed to? And the answer is yes. Yes. So they just said, we're not sweating it. Remember, I mean, the reason why I agree with Anna and bringing up Ilhan Omar is because remember how the Republicans had crocodile tears, how they pretended, like, oh, we are so hurt by this attack against our beloved lobbyist friends. I mean, I mean, we think it's anti-Semitic. Yeah, that's right. We're so hurt by the anti-semitism, but they drink the blood of children. But anyway, but don't touch our beloved lobbyists.

Now she says Jewish space lasers, there's 210 go, yeah, love it. We're here for it. Put her out of the Education Committee. So that's the Republican Party. I'll say one more thing. It's super important. They did a poll. Every dumb ass on media says, oh, no, Audrey Taylor Green.

I mean, she's amazing, horrible, terrible. Okay, that's good. That's good. I like that. And then turns around goes down. And remember, she's a tiny, tiny, tiny minority of our beloved cherished Republicans. Tiny, tiny minority. French, French, French, French, French, French, French, French, French.

Nope. She has a 38 point lead on Liz Cheney. Liz Cheney's the number three leader of the Republicans in the House, the one that everybody on TV bows down to the Cheney's. It doesn't matter if it's Fox News or CNN or MSNBC. Cheney's, oh, start more awards, we love it. So I got no love for Liz Cheney and I hate, I love that the country hates her. But Republicans don't hate her because she's vicious and horrible. And they don't like her because she's not sufficiently crazy. So Marjorie Taylor Green is crushing Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate. She is the majority of the Republican Party, the majority.

And so then they asked about the issues just to make sure because, and I like that they did that. Because maybe sometimes people heard, oh, Trump likes Marjorie Taylor Green, but Mitch McConnell wouldn't steal the election for Trump, et cetera. So you remove that and you ask just about the issues. So in essence, the radical ideas that Marjorie Taylor Green has, favored by three to one among the Republican voters, three to one, as opposed to the establishment of Republican positions. So we keep telling you, the one thing we're willing to tell you that no one on television will, the core of the problem is the Republican voter. They've lost their minds and they,

And they, it's Marjorie Taylor Green is not the bug, she's the feature. And I actually think that this was well played by Democrats. And I think Kevin McCarthy made a political calculation because he knows, I think he's fully aware of what the, you know, right wing electorate represents, what they prefer. And as you mentioned through that poll, you know, there's no question that Republican voters overwhelmingly support what some believes was just a fringe, you know, a portion, those fringe part of the Republican Party, but it's not. I mean, this is representative, Marjorie Taylor Green, Representative Bobert, like these conspiracy theorists represent what the right wing voters want. And so I was wondering,

like why would Kevin McCarthy want to, if he just censured Marjorie Taylor Green, stripped her of her committee roles on his own, then you don't put Republican lawmakers in the hot seat where they need to literally vote, either to strip her over committee assignments or not. And then I realized they don't, they don't care. I mean, they're not worried about voting in favor of her. They know that that's what their constituents want. But I do think this is well played by Democrats because really at this point, I mean, the country is definitely polarized. But I think Democrats are certainly going to use this as part of their campaigning because, God forbid, they ever actually focus on economic issues that impact people's lives. They got to focus on the culture wars and cultural issues instead.

So they're going to use this for their campaigning in order to appeal to, you know, some of the independent voters that are going to be turned off by the Lauren Bowberts. and Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world. So I want to do a small but important correction. So the 218 to 220 vote was through a rule on the debate to go ahead with the vote on Marjorie Taylor Green. And that passed. So then they had the actual vote. And then that's where Marjorie Taylor Green lost and hence will be removed from the committees, 2.30 to 199. So that means a hundred and 99 Congress people said Marjorie Taylor Green's insane

Q&ON conspiracy theories were here for it. Can't wait. And Jank, I also want to read a recent tweet from Marjorie Taylor Green just to again emphasize the fact that she's not apologetic at all. She says this and it's again very Trump-esque. I won't back down. I'll never apologize and I'll always keep fighting for the people. For me, it's America first. Any elected politician that isn't putting America first, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The point here is the first line. I won't back down. I'll never apologize. This is who she is. And this is what the Republican voters want. This is, this is now the identity of the Republican party whether Mitch McConnell wants it or not. Sorry, whether Liz Cheney wants it or not. Sorry.

This is what they've emboldened. So when Ilhan Omar made it perfectly innocent comment about lobbyists, the Republicans called it all Democrats anti-Semitic, even though they voted against her, the Democrats did, for the rest of time. So now, will the Democrats continue this? My guess is they'll drop it soon. But you know what they should do? They should say the anti-Semitic Republican Party every single time in every single appearance. The anti-Semitic Republican Party who voted in favor of, you know, validating Jewish space lasers did this, this, and this. And now you might say, well, that's absurd. No, you got to drill it into their heads. People don't know unless

you tell them. So now the Republicans who voted on it, they know, they read her comments, and they co-signed. And now the American people are not going to know unless the Democrats do a good job of explaining who she is. And now, by extension, who the entire Republican party is. 199 people said, I'm okay with her comments. Let's go forward. All right. Well, we got to take a break.

So let's do that. And when we come back for the second half of the show, we'll give you an update on the whereabouts of Kyle Rittenhouse, who now has a warrant out for his arrest. Come right back. 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 dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon