The Young Turks - Getting The Boot

Episode Date: November 4, 2023

The House approves nearly $14.5 billion in military aid for Israel, and Biden vows to veto the GOP approach. What Robert Kennedy Jr.’s shocking poll numbers say about 2024. DeSantis pledges to "wear a boot on my head" if "Donald Trump can summon the balls" to debate. "Soul-crushing" and "depressing": The 9-to-5 is facing a reckoning on social media as users rally against the corporate work schedule. HOSTS: Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) and Brett Erlich (@bretterlich) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com 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. Three-by-Tee! Free-R-T! Street-R-D-R-T! Street-R-R-T! It's Friday!

Drop it! It's Friday! Drop it. I totally forgot that when I drop it, I'm supposed to, in fact, say, drop it. So here we are. Brett Ehrlich, Anna Casparian with you for another Friday show, another Friday first hour. How you doing, Brett? I'm doing great.

I love that. Every time I see that power panel intro, I'm like, I think when I was, whatever my job, was on main show, producer, I was like, I'm supposed to change that. And there were so many people going like, yeah, we'll get right to that who were just like, we don't want to change it. We want it as old. And like, you know, 1997 as possible. There's something like fans were sending, guys like, I'll redo it if you want me to, but I don't want you to. That's amazing. I can't believe people are into it. But there you have it. We didn't change it. It's there. And it's 1990s, a stylistic, you know.

Through space one. Yeah. It's amazing. Anyway, all right, we've got a lot of stories to get to. So, yes, we do know that there was a pretty devastating hospital bombing in Gaza. That is going to be covered in the second hour today. To be quite frank with you all, I personally need a mental health break from the devastation of that story. When I present those stories, I not only present them during the show, I research them and

produce them. And so we will be covering the war a little bit at the top of the show by discussing the House of Representatives and the bill that they passed for more military funding to Israel. We'll get to that in just a moment. Brett and I might engage in a bit of a TIF later on in the hour because it looks like his anti-worker characteristics are just going to be out in full display. And as a warrior for the common man, for the common worker, I'm going to defend the person that he's going to attempt to trash. So I'm looking forward to that, Brett. I'm sure the audience is as well. And then we'll get into some election-related news as well. All right. I just said I loved the video and she was crying and I loved that she was crying.

I'm not, I might not necessarily be against her. I genuinely just remember thinking. Look at him. Already trying to get out of the situation. Also get back to work, everybody. All right. Now with that said, why don't we start off with that legislation? I referred to earlier, the war funding that the House just approved. So the House of Representatives has passed a bill allocating $14.3 billion in military aid funding for Israel. However, the bill does not include funding for Ukraine. In fact, it falls short of the $106 billion that Biden had requested in his military funding proposal. That included a whole host of other things, including just $100 million in humanitarian aid to

Palestine, efforts to bolster our southern border. And there were some other elements which we'll get to in just a moment. But first, let's talk about the bill itself that passed and what the Biden administration is now threatening to do. So new speaker Mike Johnson, a theocrat, if you will, package required that the emergency aid be offset with cuts in government spending elsewhere. That tack established the new House GOP's conservative leadership, but it also turned what would typically be a bipartisan vote into one dividing Democrats and Republicans. So there were many issues that Democrats had with this legislation. Ultimately, it passed because Republicans control the House. And there were enough Democrats to support the bill that it did in fact pass. We don't know if it's

going to pass to the Senate. We're going to wait and see. But Democrats had an issue with with the fact that it didn't include funding for Ukraine. And more importantly, the GOP in the House was not kidding. They plan on cutting funding that was allocated for the IRS to ensure that they were auditing millionaire tax dodgers. But that would actually make this bill far more expensive because the whole point of bolstering the IRS with that money was to ensure that we're collecting the revenue that the federal government is justified in collecting from these tax dodgers. So with that said, the nonpartisan

congressional budget office says that by cutting the 14.3 billion from the IRS in order to fund 14.3 billion toward military aid to Israel would mean that the outcome would actually cost $26 billion since the money for the IRS was supposed to bring in about $12.5 billion. So this is actually going to amount to additional lost revenue. Now, Biden has said that he would veto the bill, which was approved 226 to 196, with 12 Democrats joining most Republicans on a largely party line vote. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has warned that the stunningly unsurious bill has no chances in the Senate. But the vote was apparently difficult for some Democrats, mostly because of some pressure coming from APAC,

Democrats who wanted to support Israel and may have trouble explaining the trade-off to constituents, especially as the large APAC lobby and other groups encourage passage. In all, only two Republicans oppose the bill. Now, Democrats are also trying to get Republicans to comply by arguing that this partisan move is only going to delay military funding to Israel, which seemingly is the only thing,

Republican lawmakers care about when it comes to, you know, a military aid package. And so if Biden vetoes it or if it fails in the Senate, then the House is back to the drawing board. That's going to delay the money to Israel, considering what's currently transpiring in Gaza. I'm not concerned about that at all. But I can understand why politicians who take campaign contributions from APAC would be concerned about that. Now, just real quick, a refresher on what the Biden administration had wanted. It was a $106 billion proposal. They did not want to pass the provisions piecemeal. They wanted to pass one omnibus bill. That is not what the Republican Party wants to do. It included $100 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza, while of course also asking for $14.3 billion

in military funding for Israel. It also had money for Ukraine's defense against Russia, border security, and also efforts to counter China. So Brett, I, I do think that if Democrats are really going to do what they're threatening to do, which is vote down this legislation in the Senate or have Biden veto it, they are right that it's going to delay the military funding to Israel. Again, I'm not really concerned about that. I think that that money should have strings attached, considering what's happening in Gaza right now with the insanely high civilian deaths.

But what is your take on all of this? There's a lot in it, right? My general take is like the Republican Party's back, baby. It is back in action. It is a way to kind of appeal to the evangelicals in the room who need enough Jews to live in Israel for the apocalypse. And then also at the same time, they like to say stuff like, aren't you tired of paying taxes? But the plans that they put in place only save money for super rich people and not the Normie or the evangelical folks in their group. Like, and so just to, there's a lot in there, right?

For the IRS thing specifically, that is, it is the literal worst way to save money because it costs you money. It is as dumb as saying, I want to save money. Time is money. I use time by going to my job. Okay, what if I just don't go to my job? I am saving so much time and so much money and then you get fired and you don't make any money at all. Like, that's it. The IRS is the thing that makes money for the government. They cut the funding to it. They're just going to lose it. And it exposes the Republicans for the fiscal conservative sham that they put out.

And all they want to do is save rich people money. They really don't care about the deficit when it comes to large scale funding like this. You're 1,000% right about that, right? The whole fiscal conservative nonsense has always been a joke. I think it's evident in the fact that Republicans were willing to pass Trump's tax cuts for the rich, which amounted to $2 trillion. The deficit exploded under Donald Trump's watch. So I don't believe them at all when they claim to be fiscal conservatives. But I also want to just say, look, oftentimes we talk about how lawmakers want to protect their wealthy donors. Don't forget about the fact that these guys are pretty wealthy themselves. So not only would it benefit their wealthy donors, it would benefit the very lawmakers who are trying to gut the IRS of the resources that were allocated to the IRS during the Inflation Reduction Act. By the way, the Biden administration already agreed to cutting $20 billion from the $80 billion that was previously allocated for the IRS. And he agreed to that in order to make a deal with Kevin McCarthy to lift the debt ceiling.

And the other aspect of this is this is like a little bit of Matt Gates. Like Matt Gates' DNA, Matt Gates having won some stuff in the speaker debate. This is him. He was the piecemeal guy. He's the guy who's like, we should vote for every bit of funding one at a time. That will delay the process for getting stuff. But they are not doing piecemeal. You need to know that. And in doing so, they're giving an out to Democrats when it comes to getting their name on paper for funding for Israel. intentionally confusing to the average person. None of us have experienced something like this before. The average voter doesn't know what to do with this. And so a lot of the Democrats who are involved with it are like the Republicans think it's a great thing because they're looking at

Democrats and be like, are you not going to support Israel? And do you want more money to the IRS which everyone hates? So the Democrats are like, I don't think anyone really understands that. I I don't think you're going to be able to message that effectively. I'm going to put out a lot of messaging, but like this, this is an insane thing they're trying, which slows down getting money to the people who we are pledged to defend. And it doesn't get to all. And I think the mainstream media gambit right now and the main narrative gambit is that all the stuff that you see talked about a lot of places when it comes to the specifics of Israel, Palestine, they just don't think that's gotten through to that many people.

So they're trying to get everybody's trying to get it back to the status quo. And the Gates element of the Republican Party is trying this new thing with piecemealing some funding for Israel and taking away from the IRS. I want to move on to why I actually think voting on the various provisions from Biden's proposal piecemeal is better than doing one large piece of legislation. And it's because of this story that was recently reported by in these times, they looked at the legislation and they caught something that we didn't even catch as we were reading about the bill or the proposal from Biden. So they found that basically Biden, in his proposal, has requested this loophole on arms sales to Israel. Now, right now, it's unclear whether Republicans included that in the

legislation they passed in the House. And if they did, luckily Biden's going to veto it. And it's unlikely going to pass in the Senate. However, this loophole would effectively give Israel a check to purchase $3.5 billion in arms in complete secrecy. And I want to be clear, this is in addition, okay, to the $14.3 billion. Okay, so it's buried in the $106 billion supplemental national security funding request by the White House. Here are the exact details. As part of $3.5 billion earmarked for foreign military financing funding for Israel, the executive branch sought permission to unilaterally blanket approve the future sale of military equipment and weapons, like ballistic missiles and artillery ammunition, to Israel without notifying Congress. So this provision, if it gets passed, would essentially bypass our system of checks and balances.

Israel would be able to do this without Congress even knowing about what kind of weapons they're buying and what they're using the money for, when they're using the money. So this means that the Israeli government would be able to purchase up to $3.5 billion in military articles and services and complete secrecy. The House included the waiver language in a bill that splits off Israeli military. Oh, they did include it, my bad. So they did include this in the Israeli military aid from the rest of the package. So I wanted to look into the actual language and find that part of the provision. And I failed to do that, but I guess it is included. So I want to now go to a video featuring that State Department official who actually ended up quitting recently over the White House rushing weapons to Israel.

His name is Josh Paul. And he sheds more light on what this kind of provision really means. Let's watch. The language in the supplemental request that the Biden administration sent up would remove the requirement to notify Congress of any arms sales conducted under that. funding. Typically, there is a process where for any major defense sale, Congress is notified of it, and there's actually a process prior to the formal notification where Congress gets to ask questions, poke, prod, delay, and then if it wishes to oppose a sale, can raise a joint resolution of disapproval on the floor. What this proposal would do is essentially destroy all of that,

remove all of that, remove that congressional oversight, remove that congressional ability to object. It is unprecedented. I've never seen anything like it, and I cannot imagine that the committees of jurisdiction are viewing it very favorably because it is just, you know, such a damaging approach that also sets horrible precedent for other countries with whom, you know, future administrations may decide they don't want Congress to be involved. He also told in these times that, frankly, it's an insult to congressional oversight prerogatives. It's also redundant with existing laws, Paul says. The White House can unilaterally approve foreign military sales in emergency situations,

but must notify Congress and provide a detailed justification. The Israel waiver does not require any communication with Congress. And Paul says that, so this doesn't actually reduce the time. It just reduces the oversight. It removes that mechanism for Congress to actually understand what is being transferred at the time it is being transferred. And so, look, you would assume that members of Congress who vote in favor of this know about it and they're okay with it.

But I'm not so sure about that. And if they are okay with it, the real question is, then why are you working for government if you don't believe in our system of government, which is supposed to include a system of checks and balances? Go ahead, Brett. I know, because you want a paycheck and you like being in power. Like, it really is. There's two reasons to vote.

One of those reasons is you can claim ignorance. You didn't know. It's not just the White House saying, let me get past Congress, it's Congress people being like, make it so when someone asks me, and this is for anything, not Israel, if it gets applied in the future. It's like, I just didn't know. And there's a certain aspect of this story that's like, this is just like a new headline about things that happen anyway. Because like everybody, please tell me the last time you heard about a large arm sale and it really affect, and it really broke through the news when we didn't have waivers for it. I mean, we don't, we cover it. We cover it. But that's what I'm saying is like for most people and most like oversight committees, like we have Josh watching oversight committees all the time. Like most of it is boring. And if you're going to find it an exciting thing out of it, you need to subscribe to YouTube.com slash TYT investigates reports.

We'll get it to you. But the fact is like most people don't see any of that. That's fine. No one thinks that it's a transparent process anyway. Look, I think it's a big. problem that even before this proposal, there's a lack of transparency. I mean, that's something that we should be working to fix. And just because we live in a country full of terrible wannabe journalists who don't actually want to do journalism, doesn't mean that there shouldn't be transparency in the process, right? We should know, like, forget Congress. I mean, the American

people should also be fully aware of where this money is going, how it's being spent, especially when we're talking about American arms that are being sold to other countries or money that we're giving to other countries to buy American arms and use it however they please, as Israel's been doing, right? There are Americans who have a huge moral issue with that. I'm included in that group of people, so I have a huge problem with this. And look, the fact that the Biden administration is trying to add an extra layer of secrecy. To make this process even more opaque than it already is, is a huge problem.

And I'm not going to pretend like it's not. Right. For me, it's like this is one of those stories that is in the news right now because of the Israel-Palestine thing. And what you kind of mentioned is it could be, or one of the people, the guy that you mentioned, is this could expand anything at all in the future and make it further opaque in a Pentagon, which fails its audits every year. Exactly. That's the scary dairy thing about it to me.

And one other thing I'll mention is separately, the House passed a resolution. Now, on its face, it just appears as a resolution condemning anyone who, anyone in the United States who shows any support for Hamas, which, look, I despise Hamas and I despise anyone who has provided cover or justified what Hamas has done, slaughtering civilians, is never okay and it never leads to any success. I mean, look at what's happening to innocent Palestinians right now in retaliation for what Hamas did. But anyway, putting that aside, I don't think that the government should try to put out these like statements as a form of punishment against people who have political views who differ from them. So that's point number

one. But aside from that, what's being kind of hidden in that resolution is a provision that states that the United States will try to stop Iran with any means necessary if they are developing a nuclear weapon. And it appears that they are setting the stage for justification for a war with Iran. And that scares me. And it's just so funny how few outlets have really reported on that provision in the resolution. Because, you know, the thing about Hamas is non-binding. Like the government cannot punish you for your political speech. But read a little further, and then you'll see the provision in regard to going after Iran with any means necessary if they're developing a nuclear weapon. Any thoughts on that? For that, it's like those are the hardest ones to interpret, right? Because is that a justification? And historically, these are hard ones to interpret because you don't want to say, you know what, Iran, go nuclear, bro. You don't want to say that. And you don't want to give any indication afterwards. So there's certain things that happen, I think, in the discourse.

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Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. About international relations, different posturings to other nations that are trying to exert influence in a region and you want to protect your own, where, like, you know, afterwards, of course Biden's going to go give BB a hug

after the attack on the seventh. But over time, you have to, it's the developments after that that are the most interesting and terrifying. and maybe edifying and give you a sense of relief based on how they develop. But they're going to say stuff like, yeah, at any means, by any means necessary. Because otherwise Iran or replace that with any other global power, we'll just go take what

the defense gives them. Yeah. I mean, we'll see if a resolution will serve as a deterrent for Iran. I'm terrified about what the future holds. I'm terrified about an expansion of this war. The leader of Hezbollah gave his first speech in this. entire conflict and stop short of committing to expanding the war. So I guess that's good news for now. But if things continue the way that they are, I'm worried that the pressure from, you know,

Arab citizens in these Arab countries, they're going to cave to it. So I hope that it doesn't get to that point, but things look pretty dire at the moment. Let's take a break. When we come back, We'll get into some election-related news, including a new Quintipiac poll that shows that RFK Jr. is doing way better than I would have expected as an independent third-party candidate. What does that mean for Biden and Trump? We'll give you that and more when we come back. Welcome back, everyone. Anna Casparian and Brett Ehrlich with you. Stinky, Stinky Feet also joins us today and says, I love the contrast between Anna and Brett's homes. It's like heaven versus hell with light and dark,

except in this case, hell has dance party lights. What are you talking about? I don't know what you're talking about. It's not like hell here at all. I actually really, I like your setup. I like it more than my kitchen in the background, but the lighting here is just, come on. Lighting's more important than backdrop, if you ask me. All right. Let's get to some election related news. I got to be honest, I wanted to kind of avoid talking about RFK Jr.

But now I'm actually a little interested in him since he is running as an independent candidate. So let's talk about what that means for Trump and Biden. A new Quinnipiac poll shows that independent presidential candidate, RFK Jr., Robert Kennedy Jr., of course, is drawing in a massive amount of support for a third party candidate. Let's be clear. Now, the survey found that in a hypothetical three-way matchup in 2024, Kennedy would get the support of 22% of registered voters, former President Donald Trump would get 36% and President Joe Biden. Biden would get 39%. Now look, prior to RFK Jr. registering as an independent, he was previously running as a Democrat, effectively serving as a primary challenge to Biden. Biden wasn't doing well. I mean, I don't think he's doing that great now either, but there were some polls that showed that Trump was leading by a couple points, or they were neck and neck. But now, according to recent

polling. And this isn't the first poll. There's now two polls that show that with RFK as the independent candidate, he actually takes more support from Trump as opposed to Biden. Okay? So a USA Today Suffolk poll that came out last month also show that Kennedy may hurt Trump more than Biden. And according to that poll, Trump would have had a narrower lead if JFK Jr. hadn't switched his party from Democrat to Independent. So do you think Biden should celebrate this? Or I've heard some news about Team MAGA, people in Trump's campaign reaching out to RFK Jr. to basically complain.

But what are your thoughts on all of this? I don't think RFK Jr. cares what Joe Biden or Donald Trump think about him running. And that's why he's running. Like, oh, I got a phone call from Trump. he wants me out of the race. Like, uh, I'm running against you, bud. And that makes sense. If you ask any of the Republicans that question, they will just like, be like, well, I'm here to help. And I don't want to be against Trump. I want to be for him. Those guys are going to respond differently to questions from Trump. And they'll probably respond like, well, what

cabinet post can I get? But in this situation, like, what a fascinating, you know, voter base that would say yes to would you vote for RFK Jr. Well, voter base, yeah, I'm just thinking it's going to be like, it's going to be people who listen to like Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn who listen to those podcasts. I mean, Tucker and Theo were talking about partying with RFK Jr. the other day. And they were like, oh, man, like, hang out of that guy. He's kind of fun.

He's cool. He tells like it is, man. So you've got that contention. You've got people that just see the word Kennedy and they're for it. And then as you used to have with Perot, you had a lot of people who in like the preliminary polling are like, well, I hate those two. So give me any name and I'm for it. If it's the third name, I'm along. The question is, how does that shake out when people do go to cast their ballots? Right. So just to give you all the background info on Ross Perrault, there was some

analysis written about this latest Quinnipiac poll on MSNBC's website. And I wouldn't share this with you unless they mentioned Ross Perra, because I think this history is important to keep in mind as the election progresses. So some see Kennedy's Quinnipiac numbers as a sign that he could be the next Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire who won 19% of the popular vote in 1992. But recall that Perrault's polling numbers, much closer to the election, greatly overestimated his performance. In the summer of 1992, Perrault was polling as the frontrunner in the race against President George H.W. Bush and his Democratic challenger, Bill Clinton. I didn't even realize he was the frontrunner ever in that race. Those are really tough because, like, Herman Cain was the front runner. Mike Revelle was the front runner at some point in the elections. Right. The closer it gets to when you're actually voting, like Santorum, like the more interesting it becomes.

Because everyone just kind of has their thing. And it really underscores the way that people, at least back then, you also have to remember, like, this was what, 92. Before 92, you would get like landslide elections and there were no like red states and blue states when it came to presidential elections. I want 92 back so bad. The 90s were so great. I know people are going to say that I'm misremembering and I have rose colored glasses on when it comes to the 90s. No, I don't. The 90s had its issues, way better than what we're dealing with today.

I just remember driving, listening to Smashmouth. And I was like, the music is so bad right now that things must be going pretty well in the world. Like, I remember that was it. Totally. This is a bore. All the songs are so boring. I love them. It's so insane.

I thought Smash mouth was pretty lit back then. It was great, but there was nothing. I was like, oh, and then I go to the classic rock station and people are like, oh my God, that was a soulful ballad that I just won't find anymore. Now classic rock is considered like the Beastie Boys. That's how ancient we are. Anyway, okay, let's get back to the topic at hand, though, because I want to make a point about what you said in regard to Tucker Carlson and his love for RFK Jr.

Isn't it kind of amazing how propping up RFK Jr. actually ends up helping Joe Biden? I don't think they realize that. I don't think they're doing that intentionally, but according to the polls, that's what's happening here. Yeah, so what happened was in the interaction that I listened to because I presented bonus episode yesterday. I listened to pretty much the entire podcast. I'm talking like over two hours of it. Even Tucker was like, well, those are the people, people who vote for Biden, people who voting for Trump might switch over and go for RFK Jr. because he has that vibe of like the libertarian, like all mainstream media is nonsense. I like his style.

I like, I hate the establishment. There's a lot of people like that. And Tucker was like, it's just people who would vote for Trump, obviously. And Theo's like, I know people who would vote for Biden or RFK. They're having a lot of trouble deciding which one to do. And I think that might be a holdover of like the Kennedy name and something to do with being an environmental lawyer and a lot of people just being like I don't I'm not a big Trump guy I'm not a big Biden guy you got there's a lot of that but like I can't I can't with the RFK

junior is just too much. Yeah, I'm not impressed with him. I desperately want someone to be impressed with, but I am coming up short on that. Now, if he wasn't running, right, what does that mean for Biden and Trump? Biden is narrowly ahead of Trump by one point, again, assuming RFK Jr. isn't running as a third-party candidate. So it would be 47% to Trump's 46%, but it's also within the margin of error in a head-to-head matchup. And what really stood out the most about this poll was where the majority of support was coming from. And it was from independent voters, really the kingmakers in these elections at this point,

considering how polarized everything is. So if you look at the Quinnipiac poll, it'll show you that among independent, RFK Jr. enjoys like the highest percentage of support from the independent voters. Among independents, 36% support Kennedy, 31% back Trump and 30% back Biden. So it kind of speaks to what you were talking about, Brett. It's like the independent voter who typically doesn't really commit to one party or another and usually is disillusioned by both parties. And so in this case, they're like, I don't know, there's a third option. He seems okay. except he doesn't, in my opinion.

Yeah, and right now, I did some analysis like a week ago. But like without Kennedy, the independent voter springs for like breaks for Trump pretty hard right now. And that's got to terrify the hell out of the Biden campaign. It should. It definitely should. All right. Well, let's move on to Bootgate. We've got important critical updates on this.

So let's do it. This is no time for foot fetishes. We've got serious problems as a country. I know people want to try to divert onto other issues. I know Donald Trump and a lot of his people have been focusing on things like footwear. I'll tell you this. You know, if Donald Trump can summon the balls to show up to the debate, I'll wear a boot on my head. This is a time for substance.

Florida governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is still struggling with his with his socially awkward demeanor, even as he attempts to take jabs at Donald Trump following Team Maga mocking him over allegations that Ron DeSantis is wearing boot risers to make his appearance a little taller than he actually is. It's been dubbed Bootgate. It has been the comedic relief that we've all been looking for during this awful new cycle. But here is what sparked the entire controversy. Can you bring this one clip? I know you were on, what do you call it, on, what was it? Bill Maher and Bill Maher talked about the boots.

I've seen you walk with these boots. Go ahead and play this clip. This on TikTok went viral. It doesn't have a million views. It doesn't have, you know, 10 million views. This thing's got 1.2 million likes. And some people are wondering. What are they, I don't even, I haven't seen that.

What they're not shown this to you. Okay, what they're trying to say with this is that in your boots, you have heels. No, no, no. Those are just standard off the rack, Lucchese. How tall are you, Governor? 511. 511? Okay.

Why don't you wear tennis shoes and dress shoes? I do wear tennis shoes when I work out. You do? Okay, I got a gift for you. I'd love for you to wear, okay, I shop at Fergammo. Okay. And I don't accept gifts. I can't accept it.

I'm sorry. I have to say, look, Patrick Bet David is Armenian and saying, I shop at Farragamo is the most Armenian thing I've ever heard in my life. I've been dying to say that as a fellow Armenian. It's just Armenians love the fancy clothes. I just, it's who they are. He's the best at that. He's like, listen, bro, like not a lot of people, like I like you. I think you're very cool.

But these people are saying horrible stuff. And then he just quotes the horrible stuff straight to the guy's face. Bro, that can't make you happy. Can't make you happy, can't it? It's so bad, right? It's so bad, right? It's just the meaner than if someone showed up and was like, I think you wear lifts in your shoes. It's like, bro, a lot of people.

I'm looking out for you. I'm your friend here. It's like psychological warfare. And I am so here for it. Same. Now, after that appearance, of course, the Trump campaign is going to jump off. on it. Hours after the political articles publication on Tuesday, the campaign sweatily declared victory calling Bootgate the kiss of death for the man once seen as Trump's top rival

in the Republican primary pool. Instead of telling the truth and just being comfortable in his own skin, he resorts to borderline psychotic behavior by lying to the American people, the campaign crowed. Is that what this country wants in a president? And they also said, Ron is going to wish for more puddin and in-flight biohazard stories instead of having to deal with his shoes that are more appropriate for America's next top model than the campaign trail. Yeah, look, our political arena should not be an episode of mean girls. But honestly, I'll take this. I'll take it. I'm into it. Nikki Haley said, she's like, I don't know. We'll have to figure that out. I can tell you, I've always talked about my high heels. I've never hid that from anybody. She said, I've always said, don't wear them

if you can't run in them. So we'll see if he can run in them. Like she's making fun of him. Like Nikki Haley's making fun of you. And I love when he's like, this is not the time for foot fetish. Begged to differ. Any time's a great time for foot fetish, especially a presidential race. And Donald Trump has tried so hard to stay out of these debates. I think he's not a very good negotiator. But in this situation, did you see what Trump by not participating and holding out for the debates has negotiated himself into a head-to-head debate with Ron DeSantis? And Ron DeSantis has offered to wear a boot on his head the whole time. If Trump doesn't say deal, at bet, done, 100% get me in there. What I would, I would love that. Because if, and if,

and if Ron takes the boot off his head, Trump should walk off. agent just leave and everybody's like, come on, Ron, put the boot on your head. You know what, you're right. I mean, Ron DeSantis is really taking a huge risk here because there is some chance that Trump will take you up on that offer given what you just proposed. I mean, I would. And look, Trump really hasn't needed to attend these debates. He keeps rising in the polls. And Ron DeSantis is dipping in the polls. Now, if you look at an average, of the polling, Ron DeSantis is still in second place, but I do want to show you who's actually seeing a little bit of a rise in the polls. So let's go to the real clear politics

average of polling. So this is an average of all the polls that have been done on the GOP primary. And as you can see, Donald Trump still has a massive lead of 59.3. DeSantis is still second place. If you look at the averages, and that's 13.4. Nikki Haley rising in the polls to the point where if you look at the average of polls, she's at 8.3. Now, I want to take a look at the bigger picture because this next graph will show you, honestly, depressingly, how Trump has been rising, even as these indictments are being carried out and worked through. I really didn't think the indictments are going to have a negative impact on his race. I think Democrats who are hoping for that are delusional. But if you take a look at this chart, you'll notice that

DeSantis, who's represented by the green line, has been steadily dropping in the polls, while Nikki Haley, represented by the red line, has a very slight uptick in the polling. It's hilarious because never Trump Republicans are super giddy about that, but it doesn't matter who's second place. What matters is whose first place. And Donald Trump is still first place by a lot. The saddest thing about that graph is that after Pence dropped out of the race,

his percentage was not affected. It just kind of stays in 3.4. Poor baby. It reminds me of Peter Griffin from family guy when he like stubs his toe and he just like sits there.

It can pay. All right. Well, we got to take another break. When we come back, though, I mean, Brett and I need to go head to head. He's the anti-worker in this debate. I'm the pro-worker in this debate. So stick around. Let's see who wins. It's going to be me.

I'm so upset. Oh, my God. Okay. Free speech. Welcome back to the Young Turks, Anna Casparian and Brett Ehrlich here with you, and let's get ready to rumble. No, we're not going to rumble, but we might argue about this. I know I'm probably just being so dramatic and annoying, but this is my first job, like my first nine to five job after college and I'm in person and I'm commuting in the city and it takes

me forever to get there. There's no way I'm going to be able to afford to living in the city right now. So that's off the table, like, duh, if I was able to walk to work and it would, it'd be fine, but I'm not. So it literally takes me, like, I leave here, like, I get on the train at 7.30 and I don't get home till, like, 6.15 earliest, and then, like, I don't have time to do anything. That was a TikToker who went massively viral recently after complaining about the trials and tribulations of nine to five jobs.

Now, it's not just about the nine to five job that she has. It's the commute time into the city. She apparently has a marketing job in the New York area. And as of yesterday morning, she had amassed three million views on that video alone. Why don't we watch a little more of it? And then we'll ask Brett Ehrlich why he thinks it's okay for workers to deal with these lengthy commutes that essentially take up the entirety of your day and basically make you unable to do anything else, life maintenance, chores, taking care of your family. Anyway, let's get to the rest

of the video. I want to shower, eat my dinner, and go to sleep. I don't have time or energy to cook my dinner either. Like, I don't have energy to work out. Like, that's out the window. Like, I'm so upset. Oh my God. Nothing to do with my job at all, but just like the nine to five schedule in general is crazy. Being in the office nine to five, like if it was remote, you get off at five and you're home and everything's fine. But like, I'm, I'm not home. It takes me long to get home and like, like people that drop to the office, like it doesn't, you don't get off at five. And I know it could be worse. I know I could be working longer, but like I literally get off. It's pitch black. Like I don't have energy. How do you

have friends? Like how do you have time to like meet like a guy? I don't know. Like how do you have time for like dating? Like I don't have time for anything. So look, a lot of people supported her. But there were a lot of people who also. mocked her in that video. And I just want to say for the older individuals who had the privilege of graduating college without the kind of social media that we have today, and I happen to be one of those people, just consider what you might, well, kind of embarrassing stuff you might have posted if social media was readily available, right? Like, sometimes you're going through something, you're feeling emotions, and you overshare on social media. So I don't like the people

mocking her. But I want to know what kind of beef you've got with Brielle here, Brett. Go ahead. I love being an old myself. Isn't it great? An old is you just lose touch with that feeling you had the first time you were like, oh, school's over. This is the rest of my life. And I remember of being like, you know what, Brett? You're going to have to work hard pretty much every day all day long. And that's just how it is. It's, I listen, I want to, I want to be so mean to this girl. But I can't.

I can't be mean. I want to be the monster that you think I am. Well, I don't know. Why do you want to be mean to her? What is it about her that makes you want to be mean to her? No, because you set me up is like, Brett's going to trash this crying girl as she cries herself to sleep. Like, listen, to me, it's a case-by-case basis.

I'm a problem solver, so I would go through every aspect of her job that does not require her to actually physically be there and just go to the management and be like, so tell me why they need to be there. If they can get the job done, why not? But like, there's so much fun stuff you can do on your commute home. I don't know why she's complaining about that. Everybody loves to be stuck in traffic. I want to be the Jesse Waters that you want me to be where it's like, Why is dad leaving work early to go home and trick or treat with the kid? He's a wuss bag.

But I don't know. I know that everybody did have that moment when they were like, oh, crap. School was till three. And this is till five. And it's not nice to me. The only thing I'll say about Breel is when I was her age, when I was in my early 20s, getting off at six was like the best gift.

Like TYT back in the day had some pretty awful schedules. I remember one of the schedules, it was the worst where I would get off at like 11. This was during the current TV days where we would do our online version of the show after the TV version of the show. And so I wouldn't get, it was the worst.

I hated it. Okay. But when I was in my early 20s, getting off at six means I've got so many hours to hang out with friends, go have a drink, go get some dinner. You're in the city, right? Look, I can answer her questions. With some friends. Because I'm like, oh my God, I have to drive home and commute. It's like, well, here's what everybody does. They go out after work in town and they wait until rush

hours over. And then you drive home when no one's on the street. Like, you can't go get a drunk or anything. But you go out and you drive home when no one's out there. And then you You're supposed to get really, really, really mad at everybody that's on the street during rush hour because you're like, why when I'm not working and I stay late? Why does it when it's rush hour, it takes two hours to get to work and driving home at 11 p.m. It takes 20 minutes. Like that's, that's it. But she's got a plan. She's got to be a better planner. You can make it work. But the answer is to go out with your friends after work. 100%. And you have the energy right now to do that. So go do that. Right. But I do agree, hold on, I do agree with her, though, because once you get older and you're like, I just want to be home. Okay, I want to work and I want to be home. I don't want to be anywhere else. It does suck up your entire day. And like doctor's appointments, you can't do doctors appointments. You can't do any grocery shopping. It's just stuff to maintain your life

is really difficult to do. So I feel her on that. I really do. And I remember the first time I had a full-time job and I realized what that actually means for like basically losing the entirety of my day for my job. And remember, at that time, I'm living with my parents very far away from Los Angeles proper. The drive from the valley to, you know, the office was just absolute hell. And so it was difficult. But again, I didn't have TikTok to cry to. So I would cry to my friends. I would cry to my parents who probably did laugh because they thought it was ridiculous. Like you have these two immigrant parents who like came here with nothing and did the worst jobs for very little pay. And they're like, look at this privileged little. Right. And that's

a thing. It's like now I'm an old. So I'm like, yeah, it sucks. Go do the thing better than everyone else to get out of it as fast as possible. But I remember my first job. I was in a, worked in my first job out of college. I worked in a mail room at a talent agency. And I was the earliest shift. You wouldn't see the sun. You'd be in the bowels, like not in the fancy part of the agency, you'd be in the bowels of the, of in this tiny room, putting like, just sorting mail all day and then going and getting yelled at by turbo agents in the land before, in the time before they got sued for being horrible, people just harassing you, throwing stuff at you, like literally there was this bank of desks. And then there was, they had a golf club.

and a tennis ball, and they would just hit the tennis ball as hard as possible into the bank of assistant desks. And the people who were new people were just like, oh my God, where do I work? And the people that had been assistants for like a year just like were typing. And when the ball came by, they'd duck. And then they go right back to typing. Like that is what it does to you. But it makes you a better person. They'll tell you. Look, there's definitely truth to what work environments used to be like, how much more abusive they were back when we started out after college. And I'm not talking about TYT. Honestly, when I first started working at CBS radio, I was like, is the editor allowed to just curse me out in front of everyone like this?

Because I didn't get him his printed papers in time. That's crazy. And I remember complaining to the news director about it. And she's like, this is what it's like to work in a newsroom. And I was like, okay. I remember I worked with the one of the guys, I think he was a producer on Ask a Ninja. He ended up doing that later. But before that, he had the meanest agent as his boss. And the way it worked is there were these glass walls that it was, where the outside of the agent's office, and they'd be working and there's a glass wall. And then the agent assistant was outside looking through it in the bank. And when your boss was mad at you, they call you on the phone and shut the door. And you'd be out there and everyone could see you. And through the glass wall,

you could just hear the muffled screaming of the boss. We're like, man, these piece of creeper ever seen a look. And I remember this guy, David, he sat there and he started shaking and crying. And then he, like, popped a blood vessel in his eye. Oh, my God. And he had to walk around with this.

That's terrible. Oh, my God. And people were just running by, like, you had to walk your, one of my buddies had to go home and walk his agent's dog every day. And then another guy, this guy, Ed, who was like a photo, if you looked up a photo of me, It's actually a photo of Ed on getting images, but his boss, Tracy, was like Johnny Depp's agent. And she wanted her coffee at like 300 degrees.

And I could only see like it was like where his desk was over here and then the coffee area over there. And it was like blocked. So I could just see, I could hear Ed's footsteps out, out, out, out, out, out. As he's holding this 800 degree coffee and he would just sprint, scream. Like, ow, ow, out, out, and running to give her her coffee, which she would just sit there and have to wait till it got not hot anymore. It was the worst. Like all those like entourage era references to how horrible it was as a talent agency, it was that bad. And it's not anymore from what I hear. So that's good. Yeah, definitely. And look, to be fair to Breel, look, I'm on her side a thousand percent.

But she also says to insider, quote, I'm very grateful to have my job after five months. of unsuccessful searching after college, but it is discouraging and understandable why Americans are burnt out and mental illness levels are high. She's got a good head on her shoulders. She sees the world for what it is, and she's absolutely right about that. And look, believe it or not, the 40-hour work week, which a lot of Americans would kill to have, a lot of Americans work longer than 40 hours a week, including myself, was something that labor unions had to fight for. So the 40-hour work week first came into effect in the United States in the 20th century. And workers at the time considered it a win because manufacturing employees a century earlier

had been clocking up to about 100 hours of work every week. I mean, I would be making TikTok videos myself if that were still the case. So luckily it's not. And even with our heavy workload here at TYT, we are not working 100. hours a week. Maybe Brett is. I don't know. Brett are you? No. I was thinking like 40. I'd go 80. I've done 80. It depends on if we're launching something. Then it's just horrible. But it's very rewarding. Definitely. Anyway, Brett Ehrlich, thank you for doing the show with me as always. And everyone else, please stick around because coming up next, we have Francesca Furentini leading

the second hour of the show. There will be some Gaza coverage. So for those of you who are hoping for more of it in the first hour, stick around. You'll get that in the second hour, along with some lighter stories as well. And write in your comments. We'll see you later. All right. Bye. TYT. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.