The Young Turks - Gavel to the Grave

Episode Date: January 6, 2023

Kevin McCarthy is really trying to woo the GOP, but after several failed attempts, it’s not looking good. Lauren Boebert had a miniature press tour, yesterday and it was disastrous. President Biden has expanded on the border policy of former President Trump. Host: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Apparently, okay. So America, I welcome you to me. All right. As you can tell, I enjoy doing this show. I enjoy being back. I enjoy the shenan's that's happening right now in Congress. Apparently, no one else does, but I do. No. Are you kidding me? You enjoy the shenanes, right? Do you guys know what time it is? this is the rhythm of the night the night oh yeah I thought yesterday was a unicorn day

right where there was actually a lot of positive news I'm enjoying the chaos that ensues in the house with the speaker vote but no today took it to another level another level guys that's what you're going to get right now Casper all right well we are now on day three

of the power struggle within the House to determine who the House Speaker will be, Kevin McCarthy refuses to throw in the towel. He wants to be Speaker. He is willing to agree to all sorts of concessions, but the far right wing of the Republican Party is not buying it. They do not trust him. So as we speak, the House is getting ready to head into their 10th vote on Kevin McCarthy. 10th vote. He's already lost nine votes, but he just won't give up. And nor will the

Maga wing of the Republican Party, the Matt Gates is and Lauren Boberts, they are not interested. So let me talk a little bit about the concessions, what he has agreed to and how they're still not buying it. But before I do, this is a hell of a line. Tensions continue to run high within the fractious conference with one member recalling another GOP colleague telling them, I wouldn't pee, although he said a different word, on them if they were on fire referencing the holdouts. Oh, I'm so into this. This is so much fun.

It really is. It really is. Now, nonetheless, McCarthy does need these chuds to vote for him in order to secure the speakership role in the House of Representatives. there is some talk about Democrats working with Republicans to secure McCarthy as Speaker of the House. I wouldn't be surprised if there were enough Democrats to do that because Democrats are so pathetic and they would never cease to turn a fun story into a not so fun story. But nonetheless, let's talk a little bit about McCarthy's concessions and how the concessions

don't really matter for the holdouts. Now McCarthy offered to lower from five to one the number of members required to sponsor a resolution to force a vote on ousting the speaker, a change that the California Republican had previously said he would not accept. So in other words, he is willing to do anything, including weakening the position of power he's vying for, just to get that position of power. And I think it's just so funny and so pathetic. McCarthy also expressed a willingness to place more members of the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus on the House Rules Committee, which debates legislation before it's moved to the floor. Jank.

Breaking news alert. I'm getting news now that he has lost his 10th vote in a row, okay? I didn't actually get it from my ear or a non-existent IFB. I looked it up. It happened just a little while ago. So the losses are piling up. Look, there's a thousand things to say here. Number one, yes, I'm enjoying the circus.

I think the circus is a lot of fun. I think that it's largely irrelevant because I think the two factions actually completely agree with each other, which is that the rich are awesome and they should get everything that they want. In fact, the two things that are the top priority for both wings is cutting the IRS so that rich can cheat on their taxes more. We're going to talk more about that later in the show. So all of this is theater anyway, right?

Like, oh, I'm going to serve the rich better. No, I'm going to serve the rich better. And meanwhile, mainstream media is like, oh, no, this is a real battle. What's the battle about? What's the policy differences? That's such a great point, Jake, because again, ideologically, the two wings of the Republican Party, the so-called moderates and the MAGA faction are aligned. Policy-wise, politically speaking, they might be a little different rhetorically, right?

which I guess makes the moderate wing of the Republican Party slightly better because they're not going around promoting Christian nationalism in America like Lauren Bobert has. But what's really going on here is the holdouts just don't trust Kevin McCarthy because Kevin McCarthy has been a weasel who has tried to play these two sides the entire time. And the two sides aren't stupid, right? Especially the holdouts. They're like, no, you keep trying to play us. And we don't trust you.

So he keeps trying to court them with all sorts of concessions. They claim they're looking for concessions. But at the end of the day, they don't care about the concessions. They don't. That's why he keeps agreeing to things they claim they want. And then they turn around and say, nope, under no circumstance. I'm not interested. Yeah.

And so look, if there was a policy difference, what they should do right now is take, pick one policy and say, I want this, you give me this. You give me absolute confirmation that we're going to pass this thing, not just propose it, but pass it. And then, okay, you could be speaker. Because they don't have an alternative. There is no second person who agrees with the smaller faction. They can get another one who's just like McCarthy, Steve Scalese or someone else that'll do literally 100% of what McCarthy would do, right? So in order for them to win anything, they have to have a policy demand and stick with it.

Apparently, they have a couple of policy demands that are around the edges, like to vote on term limits, to vote on one. Right wing border policy. Yeah, border policy immigration issue, right? But they're not guaranteeing a win, and they could if they want it because they have enough votes in the House. They're just saying, okay, we'll give you a vote on it. And still, the smaller faction says no. In fact, McCarthy pulled a Democratic move. He gave them concessions without knowing if they were going to vote for him.

There's a kind of a preemptive surrender on that. And they all, every one of them voted no anyway. So just gave and gave and gave and got nothing back. You know why? Because they don't have a policy difference with you. They actually love the rich just as much as you do. Their differences, I want to fundraise off of him. And I'm the most right wing.

Hey, everybody, I'm the most right wing. I'm the craziest. And by the way, they are. They're definitely fundraising off of this. So it's for political clout with the, MAGA voters in the Republican base. It's to get their names out there, even more than they're already out there. I mean, Lauren Bobert went on a press tour just last night. Another story we'll talk about a little later on the show. So there's a grifter element to it for sure. But there's

also, in my opinion, based on what I know about McCarthy's past, the way that he tried to play both sides, I think that there is a credible and understandable complaint about McCarthy coming from the holdouts because they don't trust him. They see him as a weasel. And if I were in their group, I would understand where they're coming from on that alone. So Anna did a great breakdown yesterday of McCarthy's record of being just a perfect weasel in politics, playing both sides throughout the entire process. So you should check that out.

The YouTube or Facebook is excellent. But also keep in mind, they're all politicians. all weasels, right? So is it like, they have found out that Kevin McCarthy is the one guy without principals in D.C. None of them at principals. advice, if they actually want it, Matt Gates actually has one thing that he's proposed that's really good, his anti-corruption measures. You know why, by the way? He doesn't take any PAC money. So he's terrible on everything else, but since he's not corrupted by corporate money, he actually has a really good anti-corruption proposal. If you want it, and by the way, it would

give him such a moral high ground. He could say, I'm okay with McCarthy, but we're going to pass these anti-corruption bills. Then he'd get all the American people on his side. He'd get the right-wing based on his side. He'd get the rhetorical advantage on his side. And all of a sudden, it would seem like they were doing this for some reason instead of fundraising, ego, and being childish, right? But he hasn't done that, and none of them have done that. You know why? Because they don't actually want it. They don't mean it. Exactly. That's why, I mean, when you started talking about that, I'm like, it's very sweet that you would fall for. Any argument coming from Matt Gates regarding corruption. Sweet. I'm often called sweet. Yeah.

But anyway, by Republicans. By the way, speaking of Matt Gates, so all these concessions happen. And even after all those concessions, you have Matt Gates who decided to basically vote for someone else for Speaker of the House. Let's watch that moment. Gates. Donald John Trump. Trump. So he nominated Trump for Speaker of the House.

Look, I'm very curious to see what Trump's reaction is ultimately going to be on that because Trump was urging the Republican Party to vote for Kevin McCarthy. He said that they're embarrassing themselves, you know, don't turn a win into a loss, yada, yada, you get the point. But now it's like, maybe, maybe. So a couple of things about that. Number one, it's a little bit of a smart move for two reasons. One, the smaller reason is Trump, as animals morning, Trump is back in McCarthy, the minute you appeal to his ego, he might be like, oh yeah, I withdraw my support for McCarthy. I now give my support to me. Okay. And so it's not impossible, as you all know. And so if he gets him to do that, it's not like Trump's going to win, but it would torpedo McCarthy for sure. if Trump backpedaled, right? And so it's well played in that regard.

And number two, it accomplishes his main goal, which is attention. So remember Donald Trump actually is against Matt Gates in this situation. Allegedly. Yeah, that's why when Marjorie, when he sits down, Marjorie Taylor Green looks at him, she's on the other side too, but she looks at him like, game recognizes game. That was a good attention grabbing stunt, which is the whole point of this anyway. And so no, and by the way, even Charlie Kirk said Donald Trump wouldn't lose by 20. He'd lose by 120 because the moderate Republicans would never vote for Trump for Speaker of the House.

So he's like, that's he's like, look, our fans are. Can I just say the moderate Republicans are the biggest cucks in the House of Representatives? And I say that because moderate Republicans were in the House as Donald Trump was stomping on our democratic process. they didn't want to impeach him when they had the opportunity to over that very issue. I mean, they will immediately, like, bow their heads toward Donald Trump, as long as the Republican voters are willing to aggressively criticize them and go after them for refusing to vote for Trump. I don't know how that would play out. I think it's funny that Charlie Kirk has that take because he's been, like in the media, one of the top ass kissers for Donald

Trump. I don't know if he would lose the Republican vote. No, but that goes to show you that Donald Trump was completely lost his mocho when even Charlie Kirk is kind of throwing shade at him saying he'd lose by 120. All the viewers, though, still asking for Trump. And that's who Kirk is responding to. So the base is not at all clear on where they need to be. That's what I wanted to say. I've been paying very close attention to what the conservative Twitter spear, which at this point is like 90% of Twitter, was saying about this whole debacle. and they were furious at the notion that moderate Republicans might work with Democrats

to get Kevin McCarthy elected a Speaker of the House. So there's still a lot of Trump love within the Republican base. We'll see how that plays out. But one thing that's clear to me is that this fight is not about concessions for the holdouts. In fact, you'll learn as much in this next clip. Let's take a look at this. the reality is there are some people who in their estimation there's no way they're going to be able to support Kevin McCarthy and some of the people who you know may have been willing to get behind Kevin McCarthy at some point maybe the week before or the day before and and for a few people maybe even the morning of that first vote on January 3rd kind of hardened up to say no there's no way they're going to support Kevin McCarthy the tough part is I think the number that we're will never vote for Kevin McCarthy is more than, is more than four.

Well, then that means he's never going to make it to 218. He may never make it to 218. He may make it to a majority of the House. There are a couple procedural paths where he could pull that off. Which would mean going to plurality, which Mike McCall said yesterday was a nuclear option here. Well, plurality so far would elect Hakeem Jeffries. So that's, you know, a polite way of saying, well, let's just go with Hakeem Jeffries if you make that motion. So I don't think that would be a good idea for anyone to do. do that. So you just heard from Republican representative Warren Davidson, who actually is a

supporter of Kevin McCarthy. And the tone of that interview made it clear that he thinks maybe Kevin McCarthy should give up at this point. Because the concessions aren't working, you have enough Republican lawmakers who are unwilling to vote for Kevin McCarthy under any circumstance. And so he's essentially saying maybe it's time for him to throw in the towel. Yeah. Well, Well, so that now leads to the last option for Kevin McCarthy, because how many times are going to bang your head against the wall? And the nuclear option is working with Democrats to get Kevin McCarthy the speakership. And so that would then, that would infuriate the base, but against both sides. That's burned down all their houses strategy, because then the base

would be furious with McCarthy for doing any deal with Democrats. But also, some portion of them would be furious with the Gates crowd for forcing them to do a deal with the Democrats. Now, that is the worst option, not just for the Republicans, but also for us. 100%. Yeah, and the reason for that is because that would bring the uniparty together, what I would call the corrupt coalition. And so that would be conservative Democrats and 90% of Republicans. And those are the exact core of Washington that will do anything for their donors, right?

Those guys agree in reality, in reality, 100% with each other on economic issues to serve their donors. And they would get mainstream media love like you wouldn't believe the Jake Tappers of the world and everyone, New York Times. Everybody would be like, by part is an agreement. Give the rich everything. And so don't get excited by that. I know Rachel Maddo. No one's excited about that. No, are you kidding me?

Turn on cable news. Jank, jank, when are you going to understand this? Because it's so repetitive and it drives me insane. Corporate media is owned by the same donors who corrupt the politicians. Okay, stop expecting anything different. That's what I'm trying to explain to folks. They get it. They definitely do.

Look, you guys, a lot of you get it. And if your core audience, you get it to nth degree as Anna does. But there's a billion newbies in the world who are like, Oh, I am so excited. This is going to help Democrats. The Republican fighting amongst each other. MSNBC loves it. It's going to be so great.

No, it's just furthering corporate rule. Yeah. Okay. Okay, I'm going to say one last one. Oh, yeah, yeah. All right, go ahead. This is how we do the show. Okay, look, for all the progressives,

when mainstream media tells you, it writes in every article, Pelosi's so much better than McCarthy, because she gets her progressives to bow their heads and get back in line and do everything she want. Well, her weasel. That's not a compliment to progressives. No, it's not. But also, look, Nancy Pelosi, if you're really comparing her to Kevin McCarthy, is tactically

better and more sophisticated because she's better at tricking democratic lawmakers. But there's a giant, there's two giant differences between progressives in Congress and the Freedom Caucus. One is that progressives have actual policy differences from the conservative, moderate corporate Democrats, right? Massive policy differences. Medicare for all or no universal health care. That's a giant, giant difference, right? And there's 12 more just like that. But the second thing is not to our advantage. The progressives in Congress honestly are way, way weaker. And so they never stand up to the establishment Democrats or almost never these days. And so these guys are rebels without a cause.

We have a cause, but no rebels. So don't think that it's a great compliment to you when they tell you how unified the Democratic Party is. That means you're complying better. All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll take a look at some corporate media and their interviews with Lauren Bobert, who happens to be one of the holdouts in this whole power struggle in the House of Representatives. That and more coming right up. Hi, back on TYT,

Progressive Kinnock gifted a young tourist membership in the new year because he's an American hero, also a Canadian hero. Casper. All right. Let's get right to our next story. You haven't answered my question. So if you have, yesterday you supported, yesterday you supported Jordan. Today is supporting Donald. That's not the way this works.

We need a check and a balance on the third in line. Who is your fight? Let's have a final answer. Who do you want to be speaker of the house? Maybe that's for the conference to decide. We need to come together. Who do you want? I'm asking who you want.

The Republican. establishment, which includes right wing media, like Sean Hannity, big mad over the McCarthy holdouts in the house, real upset at the embarrassing Republican circus that continues to play out a multi-day level circus. It's amazing, I love it. Hannity, not so much. And so he thought he'd have Lauren Bobert on, again, one of the holdouts to scold her for not bowing her head and playing along to essentially allow Kevin McCarthy to gain that powerful position in the House of Representatives. Now, it's a little bit of an exhausting interview because it's the same question, the same conversation over and over again. They go around in circles. Let's watch

how the interview begins. And I want you to note the question that Sean Hannity asks Lauren Bobert, because again, you're going to hear it many more times. town hall quoted you today saying the president you said complimentary things about president Trump needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that sir you do not have the votes it's time to withdraw let me turn the tables congresswoman Kevin McCarthy has 202 3 votes your side has 20 so if I'm going to use your words and your methodology and your math isn't it time for you to pack it in, in your side to pack it in, considering he has over 200, and you have 20? Sean, I understand the frustration, I promise you.

I'm not frustrated, you didn't answer my question. And we are hearing, we are hearing from many people who are still voting with Kevin McCarthy who are very supportive of what we're doing, and they're cheering us on. So there are more for us than are against us, and they are waiting for Kevin to Cate. So look, I hate everybody, right? Like I can't stand, Lauren Bobert, can't stand Sean Hannity. You know, in the context of this conversation, the worst person, in my opinion, is the man who enabled the maga wing of the Republican Party for years.

The same group of people, the same lawmakers that Sean Hannity provided cover for. The same lawmakers that Sean Hannity knew were destructive, knew had no real, you know, political strategy in mind, don't really care about the American people. He just wanted to kiss Trump's ass, and that required him to also kiss the asses of the Republican lawmakers who were Trump loyalists, people like Lord Boebert, who to be fair, over like the last day she took a jab at Trump. But at the end of the day, watching conservative members of the media, have these meltdowns over the embarrassing circus that's transpiring in Congress is one of the

most delicious things I've ever experienced in my career. Because you made your bed. So now you must lay in it. Okay, so if you're gonna have a little temper tantrum on your own show, please do so because I'm enjoying it. I hope others do as much as I do. But like, I love the fact that they empower, they emboldened, they enabled the growth of the lunatics in the Republican Party. And now turning around and saying, I can't believe. I can't believe that you guys aren't agreeing to something that would, you know, save the Republican Party embarrassment, that would allow the Republican Party to investigate Hunter Biden's sex life. How dare you? Kind woman, how dare you? So I've got an interesting blackjack analogy coming up in a second. But first, my favorite

part of this story is, and he goes, I'm not frustrated. I've never seen him do that with the desk ever, because usually he has like almost 99.9% of the time friendlies on that come and go, oh, yeah, we're the best, right wing's the best. Left week's the worst. Oh, we hate all black, brown, gay people. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So now he's got someone he doesn't agree with it. And all of a sudden, he's like, um, not frustrated, brother, okay?

So now, in terms of the blackjack analogy, here's what's happening with right wing media, who almost always always, win in these battles. What do you mean? Like they're not even in the battle, are they? Yes, they are. Of course they are. Whichever side right wing media goes to wins. So they went to Trump and Trump won. Now they're backpedaling out of Trump. But in this particular case, most of the right wing media is on the side of Kevin McCarthy. Yep. So now all of a sudden, these little, you know, goblins and gremlins that they created, they're like, okay, now get back in the closet. Get back in the closet. Okay, everybody. So what's the blackjack analogy? Well, If I'm winning, I push my luck, right?

And I push all the way until I start losing again a little bit. And then I stop, okay? So this is what the incredibly rich Republicans are doing. They pushed over to Window all the way to the right, to the maniac, lunatic, lunatic, Charles Manson Wright, for maximum tax cuts, maximum deregulation, everything they wanted, right? And then the 22 midterms happened. Right. And now they realize, okay, we've got a little.

too far. Okay, now we're losing because we lost the midterm elections. Now we got this mess on our hands. As soon as we have a new speaker, it doesn't matter if it's Matt Gates or McCarthy. It doesn't matter. We're going to have all those IRS agents fired so they can't figure out we're cheating on our taxes, right? So now they're sending their, their servants in right-wing media like Sean Hannity to go pound his desk going, get back in the closet. Me want tax cuts. Me want to cheat on taxes. No, but Jank, you hit the nail on the head. Because people like Sean Hannity are very similar to people like Kevin McCarthy.

No guiding principles, no values, just a pathetic little tool for corporate America. And what do I mean by that? Let's go to Graphic 1. Some Republicans are feeling more confident after seeing conservative media press Colorado Republican Lauren Bobert on Wednesday over her continued opposition. They think continued pressure from influential media members, as well as donors who are being encouraged to make calls, could flip some of those more open to McCarthy's concessions. Now, that was published earlier today in the morning before Kevin McCarthy lost his 10th vote to become Speaker of the House. So yeah, I mean, Sean Hannity is serving as a tool for the corporations that bribe the Republican Party.

That's exactly what he's doing. Yeah, and guys, look, it's actually quite literal, of course, because advertisers are the major corporations that fund right-wing media. And so at the end of the day, and by the way, the owners of right-wing media are almost all billionaires. So at the end of the day, they're going to have their own perspective. And their perspective is those of incredibly wealthy people and corporations. So when they were backing Trump the whole time, remember, that's what corporations and incredibly wealthy people actually wanted. That's why they paid their servants in both right-wing media.

And let's be honest, mainstream media to go, oh, golly gee, there's nothing Democrats can do. Oh, he passed a $2 trillion tax cut for the rich. Oh, look, that's the only thing he got done, right? And now they've gone too far and they're hurting the rich, getting even more money. And that's why Handy and all the rest of right-wing media is trying to stuff them back into the closet because they're just servants for the rich. Now, I want to skip ahead to the MSNBC interview with Lauren Bobert because what I found so fascinating about this video was just how similar the liberal cable. News Channel was to Sean Hannity. Okay. So let's watch and you'll see what I'm talking about. Dan Crenshaw and these other Republicans, do you see yourself working with them again?

In the last 24 hours, he's called you the enemy and he said you'd rather work with Democrats than Republicans. He thinks you're doing all of this for attention. And let's be honest, you've never been I've seen Dan Crenshaw work with Democrats on red flag laws. So, you know, I mean, this is this is just how things operate here. We are going to. come together. We are going to be stronger than ever. We're going to handle the issues that the American people care about. We just need to elect a speaker. I mean, it's pretty incredible. Hey, Stephanie, what are you so concerned about? Aren't you supposed to be a Democrat on a liberal cable news channel? Why are you so concerned about Republicans finding a speaker of the

house? Yeah. And if you watch CNN or MSNBC right now, they'll be just as, maybe they're not as mad as Fox News, but they're just as concerned. It's concerned. Right, and you'll see a lot of concern, concern everywhere. Everyone's so concerned. What is the one policy issue that they, that is underlying all of this and why that extreme right wing has gone too far for the very rich, the debt ceiling? So they're threatening not to raise the debt ceiling, which would collapse the economy

and cost the rich a lot of money. And what basically the Republican donors are saying are, guys, we were just bluffing with the death ceiling to move the over to a window so we get everything else. We didn't actually mean it about the debt ceiling, you schmucks. And so now you got these 20 guys who have gone rogue. And Lauren Bobert, their little cute little gizmo has turned into a gremlin. And so now they stand out both Hannity and Stephanie Rule and all the cable channels, right wing and mainstream media, to go, don't you dare you little.

naughty gremlins. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not on the side of the 20, right? At the end of the day, they're going to get back in line and they're going to serve the rich, right? I'm just giving you what the reality is, what the playing field is instead of the mirage that you're seeing on cable news. Cash rules everything around me. Exactly right. And it looks like the Republicans are getting creamed. Yeah. Creamed is a funny way of putting it. Well, cash rules everything All right, well, I gotta say this next story is a banger, so buckle up. Let's do it. I just came out of a meeting with approximately 80 to 90 people. I call them Main Street Republicans.

And we said if you're not committed to do this to the very end, go ahead and just leave. I can hold it against you. But every single one says, we're here until the very end. We cannot allow 20 people to hold us hostage, act as political terrorists. We cannot cave into that. He just called Republican holdouts political terrorists. The person you just heard from is Representative Don Bacon, who seems to be a bit of a Kevin McCarthy loyalist because he voted in favor of Kevin McCarthy becoming the next Speaker of the House every single time. And they have voted 10 times already. But what's incredible is the colorful language that Representative Bacon is using here. Maybe he's exhausted by the holdouts. Maybe he's exhausted by the MAGA Republicans within the Republican Party. Maybe his bacon's fried, Jank.

Oh, okay. Okay, I'm not the only one making dad jokes right. Okay, so listen, this is a really interesting case because Don Bacon is in Nebraska, but he's in the one Nebraska district that is very, very purple. Cara Eastman, a Justice Democrat, almost beat Don Bacon two cycles ago and three cycles ago. They went head to head and it was decided by a couple points each time. So Don Bacon has a vested interest in appearing moderate. He doesn't actually vote moderate.

He voted with Trump all the time. He votes for the rich. He votes for every extreme policy. But he works together with conservative Democrats to make it seem as if, oh, only the crazy people wouldn't agree that we should give everything to the rich. In fact, a corporate Democrat who was running in the primary against Carr Eastman, once they found that that Cara Eastman was leading in the polls, he did an ad for Don Bacon to make him look more moderate, okay?

So that the Democrats and the Republicans, in reality, work together to defeat a progressive. And so now Don Bacon is the leading guy going, maybe we should work with Democrats. And at the end of the day, it's all the same policy anyway, guys. Exactly. Exactly. Certainly when it comes to bread and butter issues, when it comes to foreign policy-related issues, there are a lot of similarities there. Now, two days ago, he told a local radio station, well, he used similar colorful language to describe the holdouts.

You don't negotiate with terrorists, he said. It's all been unilateral concessions, and they keep moving the goalposts. They keep putting in new demands, and I just think at some point, you've got to stand up to that. Okay, but what does that mean you've got to stand up to that? Like, you can't beat them, like, physically to submission, right? Their holdouts, they refuse to vote for Kevin McCarthy. At some point, the two sides, the two very different sides allegedly, need to come together

and agree on someone that they would likely support. Look, on economic issues, all there is is one giant blob and a couple of progressives who are too fight. Too scared to fight. Let's be honest, okay, two weak to fight back, okay? But the giant blob is all the way from Justice Democrats, all the way to Matt Gates. All of the Democrats outside of the progressives, all of the McCarthy wing. And in reality, Matt Gates wing, except for things like the debt ceiling, et cetera, that they've now gone rogue on.

They all agree, give everything to our donors. Everything, everything, everything. It makes sure media agrees. Everybody in Washington agrees. So at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if McCarthy wins and other Republican wins, if the Democrats vote with McCarthy, the conservative Democrats do or not. So none of the policy is going to change at all. So let's just have fun.

Yeah, this is all just an amusing power struggle. Like this one story I think epitomizes every flaw we have in our political system, right? The nonsense, phony political theater they engage in, right? The wheeling and dealing, they engage in depending on whether their district is purple, whether their district is red. It's all about, okay, what do I need to do? What kind of lies do I need to tell and sell in order to get reelected, right? Because if Don Bacon was in a deeply red district, I guarantee he would not be on cable news repeatedly calling Republican colleagues terrorists. 100%. And as usual, the media never points out. Look, this guy's lying too. He's just lying

because of his particular district in this way. Exactly. Exactly. So my last point on all of the fun here is I love it when it's Republican on a Republican crime. Just for fun, not that it has an effect, but Republicans, they only have a couple of tricks, right? One is called other side terrorists, no matter what they are, right? So now they've used it against each other because they don't know anything else. They're just sad little servants, right? So they've been given their talking points. He's like terrorists, Muslims are terrorists. Arabs are terrorists.

All of our opponents are terrorists. The Russians are terrorists. And the Democrats are terrorists. And now there are other Republicans are compute, compute, compute, terrorist. Yeah. No, he likes to keep it fresh. Yeah. He likes to change it up a little bit.

Representative Don Bacon says he's heard colleagues privately tagged the 19 Republicans who repeatedly voted against McCarthy for Speaker. the Taliban 19, a nickname Matt Gates, who by the way, just nominated Trump for speaker again for the second time, called hurtful and false. Oh, it hurtful. Though he added, quote, I too am prepared for an extended battle. I will ultimately win. Okay, all right.

So, and then the last part that I like is the McCarthy wing, which is actually very, very right wing. and that has used the same kind of tricks against Democrats for timing memorial. Oh, yeah, we're not moving. We're not moving on the budget. We're not moving on the debt ceiling. We're going to shut the government down. We're going to do X, Y, Z. Ha, ha, give me, give me.

And Schumer and Pelosi pathetically walk over and give everything that they want. And the media celebrates. Yay, right? So now the Gates is using that trick on them. And he's like, oh, we've given all the unilateral concessions. playing the role of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, all of a sudden, Don Bacon and Kevin McCarthy. We've given all the unilateral concessions. Why won't they give in? You schmucks, that's your trick, because you never meant it in the first place. They're just using it to gain more attention,

more fundraising, et cetera. Welcome to your own party. All right, we've got to take a brief break. When we come back, we're going to move away from the fun for a second, unfortunately, and talk about how it appears Biden is going to expand Trump-era immigration policies. That more. Of course. Coming up. because they just joined.

They hit that beautiful join button below the video if you're watching on YouTube. Others have gone to a beautiful URL called TOTD.com slash join. And by the way, Kev Z 247 is an American hero who gifted five Young Turks memberships on YouTube just now. Oh, we're a little past that, but the Santa stuff, but not too much past it. Still listening to Christmas sucks. Anyway, Kev, love you. Thank you for being so generous.

All right, Anna. All right. Well, the next story is something that you might have missed because the whole Kevin McCarthy debacle is taking up all the oxygen in the room. But we should talk about Biden's deportations. Today, my administration is taking several steps to stiffen enforcement for those who try to come without a legal right to stay. And to put in place a faster process, I emphasize a faster process to decide a claim of asylum. Someone says, I'm coming because I'm escaping oppression. Well, there's got to be a way to determine that much quicker for people who are credibly seeking protection from persecution. President Joe Biden announced that he is effectively expanding Trump-era immigration policies, likely due to the pressure he's been facing from bad faith Republicans who would never give him credit for anything and will likely continue claiming that there is a completely open border, which of course is not true.

Now, what is Biden doing exactly? Well, according to the Los Angeles Times, it appears the administration decided that turning back immigrants from Cuba and Nicaragua, two countries that have either limited or refused to accept deportations of their nationals, along with Haitians, was an essential tool to lower the number of people arriving at the border. So what I fail to understand, And it hasn't been explained in the way the media has reported this story, is if their home countries are refusing to take them back in, where exactly are they supposed to go as the United States refuses to hear their asylum claims and turns them right back around? I believe the correct answer is Mexico. So they just give them back to Mexico. I don't know what Mexico is doing with them.

And I don't know how much we're paying them to house all those folks. but they got nowhere to go. By the way, Ukrainians still allowed in. So are Afghans, to be fair, right? But it is interesting that tons and tons of brown folks not allowed into the country anymore, but Ukrainians rightfully so allowed in, and Afghans rightfully so allowed in. But you should also have the same standard for Venezuela and many of these other countries, but all of a sudden they're all blocked.

Now, the same report indicates that the Biden administration will continue its embrace of Title 42. the public health rule that allows border officials to immediately expel migrants who cross the U.S. border illegally to Mexico, a dramatic shift in policy that will narrow the ability of thousands of migrants who are fleeing persecution to seek asylum in the United States. So to be fair to Biden, part of the reason why he is continuing to honor Title 42 is because he's essentially forced to by the Supreme Court, which decided to keep the policy in place indefinitely until I guess there's a better solution to the flow of migrants coming to the southern border. Now, Biden did address Title 42 during his speech today. So let's take a quick

look at that. They've been turned away. They go back. They try again. They try again. Well, you know, they can and they do try to reenter the United States again and again, which makes the problem that borders at the border even worse. And under the United States Supreme court decision, a case on Title 42 later this year, my administration will enable make a decision, finally, what to do above Title 42. In the meantime, my administration will continue to use that authority as the Supreme Court has required. And until Congress passes the funds, a comprehensive immigration plan to fix the system completely, my administration is going to work to make things better at the border using the tools that we have available to us now.

Look, Jake, on one hand, it's frustrating to see the weakness of Biden's administration when it comes to this issue. It's also incredibly frustrating to see the clear difference in how the media handled the way Trump dealt with immigration and how they're so different when it comes to Joe Biden. For some reason, when a Democratic president is being vicious to migrants, it's okay. when a Republican president is being vicious to migrants, not okay. Pretty interesting stuff there. But at the same time, real quick, I don't know what Biden can unilaterally do about this, especially when you have these conservative judges blocking every effort to unwind some of Trump's anti-immigration policies.

Yeah. So there's always a lot of things that you could do that are not normally considered. Okay, so, for example, Biden could bring in tons of judges to the border and spend what is really a minimal amount for the federal government to bring those judges in and to process people quicker, right? And if he wanted to, he could be a little bit more defiant towards the courts, he could let that play out, but he could say, hey, we're ready, we're ready to actually do this. He could fight back rhetorically telling you that there's nothing wrong with immigrants seeking asylum, but we can't let everybody stay if they don't have a legitimate

asylum claim. He can clarify all of these things and fight for his positions. Instead, what done is now, all right, I'll just keep doing what Trump did. And actually, now that he's blocking Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, all of them, a little worse. So, but I think the main point in this story is the one I just shared with you guys. It's the same policy as Trump. It is, yeah. It's actually a little bit worse because he's blocking a couple more countries. Why is the media up in arms over it? Now, it's massive, Massive bias. And don't get a twist of guys. We're on the left. It's not bias in favor of the left or it's not the liberal media. No, no. It's the conservative media that will do whatever corporate politicians want and frame it in a way their corporate politicians are happy with. If George Bush had done the same immigration policy as Trump, they would have thought it was great. Well, my take is a little different, right? Because when people refer to the media as the liberal media, I would always roll my eyes at that because when it comes to bread and butter

policies, we know that the media overwhelmingly is owned by the corporate world, right? So they don't in any way support, like build back better. They weren't supportive of build back better. So when it comes to bread and butter issues, they're certainly not liberal or leftist or anything like that. But when it comes to cultural matters, I feel like there is a lot of liberalism in the media, yeah, it's corporate media, but remember, and I'm glad you're clarifying, corporate media, and we've said this many times, but to be clear here, on economic issues is very conservative, and we'll agree with Fox News on almost everything, and we'll show you 100 examples, including one earlier today on the show, where Stephanie and Rule and Sean Hannity

agreed 100%, right? And so, but on social issues, that's where they're supposed to do the theater of disagreeing. So they do have people who actually disagree. They Stephanie ruled Don Lemon, et cetera, genuinely have those opinions. But why were they picked? They were picked to be socially liberal and economically conservative so that they could have fake fights with Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity about social issues while the corporate world robbed us blind. So the, so but Trump was an outsider and now also Trump did terrible things.

So that's why it gets a little complicated. I know everybody wants it easy. Trump bad guy, these guys good guys. Yeah. No, Trump was a bad guy, but he was a bad guy, but he was a bad guy. verifiable outsider for some portion of that time, not the entire time. When he was passing tax cuts for the rich, corporate media was totally okay with it. Right after that they found out he was a liar, okay, when he started doing

outsider things that the corporate world didn't agree with. Now the outside of things weren't positive, they were just in his behalf, right? Progressives want to do outside of things that are on your behalf. But none of this gets explained. Instead, what we have is this, what seems to be this mysterious situation, where Biden gets credit for the same exact policies that Trump was annihilated for by corporate media. Yeah, and look, to be fair, I didn't feel like the press was giving Biden credit. They just covered the story without the added opinion, right?

Because there was a lot of added opinion coming from the journalists, the reporters, the writers. And now it's like, matter of fact, this is what Biden is doing. It's just normal. It's just normal. It's just normal. The thing that was super outrageous just a couple of years ago is not perfectly normal. Now that somebody else that's a corporate politician is doing it. And we're saying it's outrageous regardless of which administration does it.

That's what honest journalism is. It's not picking aside and just being super tribal about providing cover for that side. And I feel like we see a lot of that. Are you kidding me? That's almost all of media. And by the way, it doesn't solve the problem. That's the biggest issue. Okay, these are people who literally at this point have nowhere to go because they're being

turned away by the United States at the southern border, their home countries aren't taking them in. So they're stuck in limbo in Mexico. Are they just, do, does the United States government think they're just going to magically disappear and go away? No, they're going to try to come back into the country through illegal means. That is the way that it works. That's what's going to happen. When people are desperate, they will do anything to get to safety. And that is likely what's going to happen. And then you're going to hear members of both parties whine and cry about it because they neglected their jobs. They didn't do their jobs. They didn't pass any immigration reform. They just kept kicking the can down the road for decades. For decades, the immigration

battle has been going on literally for decades with no solutions. Yep. I can't stand these guys. Let's go back to talking about McCarthy. Okay, that's why I don't care about, oh my God, They can't get any official business done. What business are they going to get done? What are they going to do? All they've done over the last, I don't even know how many years, how many administrations is cut taxes, deregulate. All they've done.

It's okay, all right? It's okay. They can go on with this fight as long as they'd like. At least we're being entertained. Yeah, one last thing. You know what the press is celebrating now? The bipartisan tour that McConnell and Biden are doing. for the infrastructure bill.

The infrastructure bill has some good parts to it. But overall, it's a giant shoveling of money towards other corporations. So McConnell and Biden is very different. Oh, they're always fighting. No, they're not. They just shovel tons of money to their mutual donors. And now the media's like, yes, look at the wonderful bipartisanship. Let's just let, okay, let me just say one other thing about that.

Okay, I love how we always have to do that caveat with the, the bipartisan infrastructure. But it has some good things in it, some good things. Okay, mark my words, this is a prediction, you guys note it, the date, the time, because we're gonna go back to the video at some point, okay? Because as these programs are rolled out, which require public-private partnerships, oh, it's gonna be a disaster. Take a good look at how public-private partnerships for housing have worked out in Los Angeles County, okay?

A bunch of developers padding their pockets, no affordable housing has been built, or a very tiny amount of affordable housing has been built. I guarantee you 100% of it, for the most part, going straight into the pockets of private corporations. That is where our money's going to go. Okay, and I'm sick of all of the like Democrats coming at me for saying it when we all know it's true. If they were real about creating jobs, building infrastructure, they wouldn't do it in a way that funnels millions, no, billions of dollars into the pockets of these corporate executives. Rage of Maddo was on the air the other day saying, it's incredible how much Biden has gotten accomplished. Incredible.

He's like this semiconductor bill. All that does is take $50 billion of our money and give it to the semiconductor industry. You might think that it's necessary. That's an interesting and debatable point, but it's not like we got the money. No, they took our money and gave it to incredibly wealthy corporations, incredibly profitable corporations. And by the way, right afterwards, Intel said, we were kidding and cut a $1,000 jobs, 8,000 jobs, okay? Also, there were no protections in place to ensure that these corporations don't ship those

chip those chips to other countries. There was one regulation preventing those chips from being exported to China, but any other country that is in shortage, I mean, just like the oil companies, they can go ahead and sell to the highest bidder. Everything they pass is taking money from us and giving it to their, is giving it to their, is, and giving it to their corporate donors, everything. I just solved all the politics for you. Look, I want to go back to having fun.

So let's take a break. But before we do, let me just say what we're going to get into in the second hour. Laura Ingram gets embarrassed by a guest that she invited on her own program. Lots of fun. And then at some point, we'll talk about, no, that's not a fun story. Just come back, okay? I'll see you then. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks.

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