The Young Turks - Giggity Economy

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

David Frum, the man who coined the phrase “Axis of Evil” during the Bush Administration thinks his support for preemptive wars was better than Tucker Carlson’s because he was more polite. 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. Welcome, friends, you're watching the Young Turks. Anna Casparian, and for the first hour, I'll be your only host. And I'll be joined by John Iderola, the host of the damage report here at TYT Network, for the second hour where we will give you some good news on the vaccine and that whole debate that we've been talking about regarding whether or not the patent for the vaccine should be lifted.

We have some positive updates on that. John and I will also talk about the latest decision by Facebook in regard to whether or not Donald Trump should continue being banned from that platform. Twitter has also weighed in on that. And we're going to switch things up a little bit. There's an interesting story regarding a mother-daughter duo who are facing some pretty serious criminal charges after they rigged an election for Homecoming Queen. So it's a little different from what we typically talk about. But I'm really looking forward to having that conversation because it does have a little to do with our justice system

and whether or not the authority should throw the book at her. But in the first hour today, lots of heavy news stories. Unfortunately, Tucker Carlson returns to the program with his white supremacist denials. But before we get to all of that, I do want to encourage you guys to help to support the show. You can do it for free by liking and sharing the stream if you're watching on YouTube. Another way you can do it is by becoming a member. And you can do so on YouTube. Our YouTube members get a choice between three different tiers.

And at the 499 level, you can get access to the post game. You can watch videos on demand, use custom emojis. And you also get access to members-only merchandise and discounts. We're going to have a fantastic bonus episode for our members tonight after the main show. So definitely check that out. So just click that join button, and you'll see all of our offerings, as Jake and I like to say. And as we always love to tell you, we love our members and we wouldn't be able to do this without them. So thank you for your support. We genuinely appreciate it. All right, well, moving on

to our first story of the day, Tucker Carlson, who's just right on brand. Tucker Carlson's brand is pretty clear to anyone who's paying close attention. He will deny white supremacy in the United States, that's really a huge part of his brand, while also saying something that has a kernel of truth to it, something that maybe appeals to populist sensibilities in the United States. And in this particular case, he decided to not only deny white supremacy, which is a trend with his show, but also shockingly criticize U.S. imperialism, which is something that Tucker Carlson has been in favor of throughout his entire media career. Now, let's listen to what he had to say in one of his latest segments. Does anyone in power really think something called

white supremacy is the single greatest threat America faces? No, of course not no one thinks that. Susan Rice knows it isn't true. So does Barack Obama. So to all of the other architects of this particular lie. They made it up in the first place. So of course they know precisely how false it really is. They may be liars, but they're not delusional. In real life, they understand perfectly well what actually threatens America. They've seen it up close. It's the culture that produced them. It's the decadent rich people from their class at Harvard.

It's the Gender Studies Department at Cornell. It's the cat cafes in Austin and Asheville. It's the Monday editorial meetings at the Atlantic Magazine, where David Frum is treated like an important intellectual rather than some dopey middle-aged Canadian Twitter celebrity whose life goal is to force America into yet another. unwinnable pointless war. Those are the people who actually detest the country. They're the ones who are working through the night to destroy it. They're the people who are committed to and in the process of excusing violence. So if

you wanted to save America, these are the people you'd be worried about. They make the Iranian nuclear program look like nothing. Oh, is is Tucker Carlson concerned about unwinnable pointless wars? Because I'm old enough to remember what his rhetoric was like back in 2003 when the Bush administration was considering, at that point they were considering a preemptive war in Iraq. I didn't hear any protests coming from the likes of Tucker Carlson heir to the Swanson wealth. And now all of a sudden, he, of course, he's very on brand when it comes to denying the very real situation that we're dealing with in this country and we have been dealing with for centuries regarding white

supremacy. On the other hand, he's now pretending like, no, no, no, I've always been against U.S. imperialism. But of course, as we know, what really gets Tucker Carlson so angry is the video that was just released by the CIA in an attempt to recruit new people, new agents to the agency. And so he refers to the CIA as the, you know, as some woke organization. He doesn't like the language that they used in their recent ad. We talked about this on the show and we explained the problems that we had with the framing in that ad as well, but of course it came from a true, a genuine anti-U.S. imperialist perspective. Tucker Carlson doesn't fall under that category at all. He has been very much

in favor of the United States invading countries for useless forever wars. But before we get to the details of that, because I want to make my case and I want to provide evidence for that case. Let's first focus on what he has to say about white supremacy in the United States. Because he claims that it's non-existent. He claims that it's completely made up by the Democratic Party, by the Obama administration, by intelligence officials during the Obama administration. It's completely made up, completely made up, as if we haven't had several mass shootings in this country that were specifically motivated by white supremacy. One of them was in El Paso not too long ago when an individual walks into a Walmart and opens fire

killing dozens of people because he has a problem with immigration from Latin American countries. He'll deny that that has anything to do with white supremacy. Christopher Ray, FBI director, has said over and over again that one of the top threats domestically right now is the rise of right wing extremism. In fact, you know, it's one thing for me. me to just say it. I like to actually show the audience evidence of the case that I'm trying to make. So let's take a look at this video. Police in Texas are investigating a possible link between a 21-year-old white male suspected of killing at least 20 people inside an El Paso Walmart and an anti-immigrant manifesto shared online minutes before the shooting. The four-page document

posted to the message board 8chan calls the Walmart attack quote a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas. That possible motive may link the Walmart massacre to a series of attacks by suspected white nationalists in the last year, targeting immigrants, Jews, and Muslims. Racially motivated violent extremism, specifically of the sort that advocates for the

superiority of the white race, is a persistent, evolving threat. It's the biggest chunk of our racially motivated violent extremism cases for sure. And racially motivated violent extremism is the biggest chunk of our domestic terrorism portfolio, if you

will, overall. I will also say that same group of people we're talking about have been responsible for the most lethal attacks over the last, say, decade. Hughes will not replace this, was the chant in Charlottesville in August of 2017. And just the other day, the president essentially said that they were fair. And we have seen a spike in anti-Semitic acts in this country. The Anti-Defamation League, the FBI have all shown that. anti-semitism is on the rise in the United States, and I don't think we can say that it's

divorced from the political rhetoric that we see right now. To deny that white supremacy exists in America is absolutely ridiculous, and Tucker Carlson knows it. He's a white supremacist himself. But this is the type of red meat that he loves to throw out to his audience, because it's his bread and butter, really. What else would Tucker Carlson talk about? He pretends to want to hold corporations accountable for for their unfair behavior, but does he actually propose increasing their taxes? Does he actually propose regulations? No, he doesn't do any of that.

He offers all sorts of disgusting denials of white supremacy and then couples it with popular talking points regarding corporations and in this case, U.S. imperialism, which is something that Americans are tired of across the board. You'll see Republican voters fight back against any notion of engaging militarily with Iran, for instance. When the Trump administration was considering military action against Iran, his own supporters spoke out against that, showing that Republicans do not have an appetite in engaging militarily the way that we had during the Bush years, the way that we had during the Obama years. And by the way, we continue to engage in militaristically across the globe, certainly with our own involvement.

involvement in Yemen, the fact that we're increasing hostilities with China by arming Japan and India. I mean, the list goes on and on. I mean, these actions are already or have been taking place. But make no mistake, Tucker Carlson has loved the Forever Wars. He has supported the Forever Wars. He certainly has never spoken out against them until he realized, oh, maybe I can weave this into my ridiculous populist rhetoric in an effort to really stand out and appeal to the very people who might want to vote for me when I run for president in 2024, but do not be mistaken by who Tucker Carlson really is. Now, he's also right, though, in calling out David Frum.

David Frum was the Bush speechwriter. In fact, back in 2002, when Bush gave his speech on foreign policy, this is before the preemptive war in Iraq, You might have remembered the phrase axis of evil, and that was a phrase coined by David from someone who was also very supportive of the war in Iraq. And the Axis of Evil referred to the countries that were the biggest threat to United States national security, Iraq, Iran, North Korea. The warmongering rhetoric coming from the Bush administration was significant. They needed to manufacture consent for the wars that we're still engaged in. And so David Frum was part and parcel of that. He helped to craft the narrative.

He helped to convince Americans that we absolutely needed to engage in that preemptive war, that we absolutely needed to ward off this dangerous threat to U.S. national security. And so Tucker Carlson's right about From. But again, let's not forget who Tucker Carlson was. And maybe this compilation will remind you. Rock is a crappy place filled with a bunch of, you know, semi-literate. But I just have zero sympathy for them or their culture, a culture where people just don't use toilet paper or forks.

And the way they treat women, you know, I agree with you. Their culture is, but you're in their homeland. And you're over there as an American who they hate, and they want nothing more than the Americans off of their soil. So they're not going to play games. I mean, they can just shut the fuck up and obey, is my view. How could you salvage Iraq at this point? I don't, you know, it's beyond our control.

I mean, if somehow the Iraqis decided to behave like human beings or something. He'd need to say, look, I'm a bigot, okay? I'm a bigot. I don't like Islamic extremists. Like, if you are really heavily into Islam, I really do. I'm sorry, I just don't care for you that much. And I don't care what that sounds like. You can call me a racist.

You can come out of the fuck you want. For Tucker Carlson to try to re, I guess to launder his reputation as someone who was an opponent of these wars is ridiculous. And he knows that video exists. He knows exactly how supportive he was. And of course, we're going to bring these videos up and we're going to call him out. It is fascinating, though, that he failed to provide a single example of how he differs or deferred from David from at the time. It's because those examples don't exist. He was in favor of the Bush administration.

He was in favor of these wars. And as you heard from the language in that compilation video, he's also very much in favor of white supremacy. So while he denies it, there are countless examples of him spouting white supremacist talking points on his show and on other people's shows as he called in. Now let's get to David From because he did not like the fact that he was mentioned in Tucker Carlson's segment. And I want to be clear, there are no winners here. Tucker Carlson, clearly awful and a liar. But David Frum, not a good guy, doesn't deserve cookies, doesn't deserve credit. And so he responded by tweeting this. Carlson has some abusive personal comments about me, two-thirds of the way through this complicated

excuse and justification for the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Anti-vax, pro-insurrection, quite a combo. As to the abuse, I'll say this. Carlson for more than 20 years. We were colleagues at the weekly standard in the 1990s. I appeared fairly often on his MSNBC show in the 2000s. We were Washington friends. We had lunch. He came to parties at my house. And by the way, I totally believe him on that. But as we've learned with Liz Cheney in the house, there's really no loyalty among Republicans when people's political careers are on the line. But From continues and says this. All this was during the period of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Carlson now proclaims his fierce opposition to both.

But when it mattered, when his already influential voice could have made a difference to the national decision, he was a ferocious advocate of both wars. He's right, so far so good. But here's where David from loses me. And I think loses a lot of other people as backlash to this tweet would show you. I supported the wars too, of course, but Carlson's support was way more outspoken, radical, disdainful, and frankly, bloodthirsty. His radio broadcast description of Iraqis as primitive monkeys resurfaced in 2018. And then he goes on. But I want to focus on that tweet, because when I say that there are no winners in this story, I really mean it. What Frum is essentially saying is, yeah, I mean, you know, I supported the war too, of course.

But I'm better because I did it politely. I'm better because I did it in this professional context of speech writing where I helped the president of the United States craft this narrative meant to terrify Americans and convince them in supporting these wars. That's what David Frum did. He gets no credit. He gets no cookies. The polite rhetoric he might use is no better than someone like Tucker Carlson.

in supporting the war in the way that he did, because the end result was the same. Whether you're polite or ferocious in your support for the war, at the end of the day, it was support for that awful war that we still find ourselves in today. And David Frum isn't necessarily completely telling the truth in that tweet, because I did manage to dig up some old interviews that he did. This one from 2004, where he was talking about Iraq, where he was talking about the notion of diplomacy, and here's what diplomacy meant to him. I think the United States is entitled and is right to be stern.

I mean, that, look, we're not, we don't have one answer for every problem. There are a lot of problems with the correct approach, the soft approach. There are a lot of times you have to woo and placate. But just as it's wrong to say the answer is always force, it is wrong to say the answer is never force. And sometimes force, sometimes force or the threat of it, necessary. Diplomacy, in my view, is not the art of smoothing relations. Diplomacy is the art of getting your way through words. And sometimes the right words are, please, please,

please. And sometimes the right words are, do it again and will knock your teeth out. Mm-hmm. His idea of diplomacy is using words like, do it again, or will knock your teeth out. not my idea of diplomacy, not what most Americans would think of when they consider diplomacy as a way of persuading other countries to work together with us collaboratively. David Frum certainly was not some dove when it came to US foreign policy, neither was Tucker Carlson. This story was full of, honestly, a bunch of losers, a bunch of liars, and men who really deserve no cookies. We gotta take a break, we'll be right back.

We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode, or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York

Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must not learn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today

and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Thank you. I mean, you know, I'm going to be able to, you know, and I'm going to, you know, and I'm going to, I, uh, uh, uh, uh, Hey everyone. Welcome to our first social break of the show. I want to start off by reading a few member comments, beginning with Little MacGee, who says, I read a report where the FBI just came out that they underestimated white supremacists at first. And only after the Oklahoma City bombing, did they realize it was even a national organization. But now, now white supremacists see themselves as modern successors to the organized violence in the South. post-Civil War, which caused reconstruction, oops, reconstruction to fail. I used to think Tucker was just winking and nodding to these groups, but now I'm wondering if he isn't actually one of the leading members and is officially part of the organization. Honestly, there are no dog whistles on Tucker Carlson's show anymore.

He's very clear in his white supremacist views. On one hand, he denies them. On the other hand, he spouts the exact same talking points that you would hear from a white, supremacist because he's a white supremacist moving on I just want to say thank you to lmg 15 who says does Anna do a great job presenting the first hour on her own of course thank you I really really appreciate it we already have someone in our member section with the handle no cookies for you I love it great news today Biden you're stepping on my lines Uger I know you're not Ugar but this is a story that we'll talk

about it more detail later. But great news today, Biden supports the World Trade Organization IP waiver for COVID-19 vaccines. However, that's just the first step. I'm sure there will be pushbacks. So we will discuss that on the show in the second hour specifically. But it is great news. And honestly, for me, what's even better is the fact that Biden clearly can be pushed in the right direction. It certainly happened when it came to the cap on refugees. It happened in regard to the vaccine waiver, so that's good news. That means that if we fight hard enough, if there's enough backlash, we could get him to take the right position on some of these issues.

So I didn't think that was possible before. I also want to thank our new YouTube members, Kara Lee Swanberg and Tom Woodruff. Thank you so much for becoming members. I hope you guys enjoy our bonus episode tonight. And for anyone who's interested in becoming a member, you can do it by just clicking on that join button and deciding which tier of membership you'd like. to join. In our superchats, we have New World Global Community who says, please Anna, with TYT cover what the right is doing to the people of Columbia. I will absolutely look into that

and consider it for the show. Thank you for that tip. Graham Henry says, what the hell is wrong with a cat cafe? I mean, honestly, I think cat cafes are great. In fact, I wish more cafes allowed animals, including dogs. Like, you have to lie about how you have a service hand. I don't that. I don't actually lie about my dog being a service animal. But I wish my dog can go with me to certain places. But yeah, I agree with you. Anyway, let's get back to the show. I'll see you there. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Kasparean with you, and let's get right to our next story, because this is exactly why Tucker Carlson decided to talk about U.S. imperialism. It's a hot topic, and he realizes that maybe you could use that populist rhetoric to guard some support.

A new global poll finds that most countries are worried about a threat to their democracy, and that threat is the United States. This is an incredible survey. the findings come in a poll commissioned by the Alliance of Democracy's Foundation among 50,000 respondents in 53 different countries. And what they found by asking these respondents some questions about their fears and how they feel about democracy in their own countries was that 44% of respondents in these 53 countries surveyed are concerned that the United States threatens democracy in their country. Fear of Chinese influence is by

contrast, 38% and fear of Russian influence is actually the lowest at 28%. So for everything that we hear about China and Russia here in the United States, when you look at the world stage and how other countries feel about us, they find the United States government to be a much bigger threat to their own democracy. And if you've been paying attention to our foreign policy and our decades of U.S.-led coups in various countries in the Middle East and in Latin America, you can understand why. Other findings from this survey indicate that since last year, the perception of U.S. influence as a threat to democracy around the world has increased significantly from a net opinion

of plus six to a net opinion of plus 14. This increase is particularly high in Germany, plus 20 and China plus 16. Now I gotta say it is fascinating that the number is higher in Germany versus China because whether you're dealing with a Democrat or a Republican in the US government right now, you will certainly hear the war drums toward China. Right now, of course, it's more of a cold war than anything, but it's something to be concerned about, especially when you want to do something about the real threat, not only to national security here in the United States, but to the world, and that's climate change. You need to be able to cooperate and collaborate with countries like China, like Russia.

But the U.S. government's rhetoric, even under the Biden administration, leaves much to be desired when it comes to diplomacy. So I'm certainly concerned about that. But even with all that rhetoric, Germany tends to be a little more concerned about the United States than China is. But nonetheless, China's numbers are pretty high. They are concerned about the United States meddling in their affairs. Now let's be clear about something. Obviously China is not a democracy. So China is probably worried about the United States meddling in their affairs. But to, you know, claim that China is like some wonderful democracy that the United States might tarnish is obviously not what we're

trying to say here. Let's be real about that. Now, let's also move on and talk a little bit about what the respondents had to say about their biggest like non-governmental threat. And what this survey found was that the single biggest cited threat to democracy is economic inequality. 64% of respondents felt that inequality was the biggest threat to democracy. Now 48% of the power of, or 48% say that the power of big tech companies

as opposed to the simple existence of social media is a threat to democracy in their country. Among democracies, the US is actually the most concerned about big tech at 62%. And I can understand why, When you have this monopolistic system where there are only a few tech companies that reigns supreme and they crush the competition, yeah, they're a little too powerful. There's no question about that. So if you're feeling concerned about that here in the United States, just know that there are people all over the globe who are also concerned about it. And right now, anytime we hear anything about antitrust lawsuits or antitrust actions against these big tech companies, it seems. to be fueled by conservatives who don't want to be censored, but don't actually want to do anything about antitrust violations. Or in some cases, there are prosecutors who are looking into it.

But so far, I haven't seen anything robust in terms of solutions to the very clear monopolistic power of these tech companies. Now, China isn't, you know, as I mentioned, China isn't a democracy. Russia has its own authoritarian issue. So I just want to repeat that again, because while there is legitimate criticism toward the United States and it's meddling into other countries. We also need to be real about where these countries that are critics of the United States are coming from as well. The U.S. might not be a threat to Chinese democracy, but the U.S. certainly is a threat when it's selling weapons to Japan and India in an effort to intimidate China.

That's some of the actions that started under the Trump administration, actually really started under the tail end of the Obama administration, continued under the Trump administration, and will probably accelerate during Biden's administration as he continues to use the rhetoric that we heard during his address to a joint session of Congress. China came up quite a bit. Now, I do want to also mention that when this survey was done, Trump was still in office. It was toward the tail end of his administration. And so the attitudes that that some of these respondents have toward the U.S. government might be a little different today. Donald Trump, of course, attempted to stage coups in Venezuela, failed miserably.

He staged a successful coup in Bolivia that luckily didn't last long. But with all these actions that were taking place, it's kind of understandable why anyone would have that kind of feeling toward the United States government. But I also want to mention that this all coincides with an important report that came out on The Intercept. It was written by Ken Clippenstein and Ryan Grimm. And what they did was shed light on some new findings in regard to the U.S.-led coup in Bolivia. And what they did was they, of course, Ken Clippenstein always manages to get his hands on leaks and emails and documents to do this kind of incredible reporting. But what they found was that the Department of Justice under the Trump administration threatened MIT researchers with subpoena in collaboration. with Bolivian coup regime.

Emails to the analysts show that the Trump administration's complicity with a Bolivian criminal investigation. So as they write in the body of their piece, emails reveal that the Justice Department's involvement in the Bolivian coup regime's criminal investigation into alleged voter fraud, the inquiry targeted a pair of respected MIT researchers about their work for the Center for Economic and Policy Research in which they broadly refuted suspicions, that Bolivia's socialist party had rigged the election. Now remember, prior to the coup, what everyone heard was that the OAS, the organization of

American states, had found that Evo Morales had engaged in voter fraud in order to steal the election. Now, the OAS is based in Washington, D.C., and it's also mostly funded by the United States government, which is why I say that it was a U.S.-backed coup. 60% of the funding for the OAS comes from the United States. Now, there was no evidence provided by the OAS in regard to alleged voter fraud in Bolivia. Evo Morales was forced out of the country. The opposition in the country took to the streets as soon as the OAS had released these allegations.

And then you have an awful extreme right winger come into office, even though she hadn't been democratically elected. But what kind of saved the day for Bolivia was the fact that these MIT researchers were like, let's actually look into these allegations of voter fraud and see if we can confirm anything. Researchers as MIT commissioned by the Center for Economic and Policy Research took a closer look at the data and evidence behind the allegations and concluded what many other independent observers had already found. The fraud claims were bogus. And so after that happened, luckily there was enough pressure on this right-wing coup government in Bolivia, led by Janine Agnes, to hold new elections. And they did hold new elections. The right-wing government is now out. And Luis Arse is now the new leader of Bolivia.

He comes from the same party that Evo Morales was in. And Evo Morales was happily able to return back to the country. Now, the whole point of this report by The Intercept is that DOJ officials under the Trump administration tried to subpoena these MIT researchers over the research that they had conducted because it undermined their coup. And this is the kind of game that you'll see people in positions of power play in order to maintain U.S. hegemony in the interests of businesses that are based here in the United States. is exactly how it goes down. If you have the audacity to find evidence that counters the narrative that allows for a coup to happen, well, then you need to be threatened. You need to be served with some sort of subpoena. Luckily, the DOJ dropped it. But again, it's important to know how these things happen behind the scenes and how censorship really does occur when power is challenged the way that these MIT researchers challenged power in regard to this coup.

So this is my long way of saying that I certainly empathize with the survey respondents who are concerned about their own system of government, their own democracy being harmed in some way by US intervention. We have a long history of doing it, there's no question about that. Even in recent history we did it, we also attempted to do so in Venezuela and luckily failed. But if you look at examples like Guatemala with the United Fruit Company, if you look at examples like Iran and how we overthrew its first democratically elected leader and decided to install a dictatorial religious government instead. Again, you can understand why survey respondents responded

the way that they did. Now, let's counter that negative story with a positive one, because we do have a little bit of good news coming from the Biden administration that I think is important to share. In rare good news today, we've learned that the Biden administration, has canceled a signature Trump era rule that would have allowed for companies to reclassify workers as independent contractors. This is so important, guys, because if you take a look at what has happened in California after the passage of Prop 22, you can really understand and grasp how disastrous this Trump era rule would have been for workers across the country. Now, the Biden administration rescinded the pro-business regulation without replacing it with a new interpretation of when workers can function as independent contractors and when they must be classified as employees under federal law who are entitled to minimum wage and overtime pay.

So the reason why it's a problem to just allow for these businesses to reclassify workers willy-nilly is because if they can reclassify you as an independent contractor, you don't get many of the businesses. of the on the job protections that typical employees get. Things like workers' compensation, things like, in some cases, health care, right? The benefits that workers typically get as part of the job, independent contractors don't get those benefits. Now Jessica Lumen, who is with the Department of Labor for the Biden administration said that the misclassification

of employees as independent contractors presents one of the most serious problems facing workers today. We are committed to continuing to combat misclassification and were particularly focused in sectors where we know workers are vulnerable and violations are rampant. She also says that Trump's simplified test for determining employee status would have frankly resulted in more workers potentially being classified as independent contractors instead of employees, which means that they would not have had the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

I can't underestimate, and I don't want you to underestimate how good this news is. If you're a worker in this country, and I'm sure most of you are, this is fantastic news. And I would encourage the Biden administration and the labor department to go even further to offer more protections for workers, including people who currently are classified as independent contractors. Now, let's also talk a little bit about what happened in California so you can understand why workers in other states have really dodged a bullet here. So in California, these app-based employers, and I'm talking about Instacart, Uber, Lyft, all of those types of companies, fought aggressively to pass something known as Prop 22. And Prop 22 would allow for them to reclassify workers as independent contractors. They spent quite a bit of money to get this done. And unfortunately, that ballot initiative did pass. And now workers in California are suffering the consequences of it.

Let's take a look at this video because I think it gives you a good idea of just how disastrous it's been. In California, gig economy companies have written a new law to suit themselves, spending the most money ever on a California ballot proposition, passing last week with 58% of the vote. Companies like Uber, Lyft, and Instacart spent more than $200 million to gather support for Proposition 22. which exempts them from a 2019 law that would have turned their drivers into employees. Some labor experts worry that this is the beginning of the end of worker protections. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them.

It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine.

So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to expressvn.com slash t-y-t, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. It's probably the most dangerous labor law that has been passed or voted on in my lifetime. They've sort of taken a desire that companies have had for, you know, since capitalism began, which is to keep labor costs as low as possible. What drivers don't get is paid time off, sick days, or unemployment insurance. That could save these companies 20% on employee costs.

And as independent contractors, legal challenges will be more difficult than they are for employees. Steve Gregg says he doesn't feel protected. I feel manipulated and exploited. I don't feel spoken for. Greg did 16,000 rise as a full-time driver for Uber and Lyft until the pandemic hit. I love the work because I just fell in love with the human race doing this. And I stayed a driver despite for a while, despite the decreases in pay. He says that Proposition 22 will make it impossible to earn a living driving full time.

They're trying to push it down into a minimum wage job. You should get paid by tips. He's right about that. And unfortunately, after Prop 22 passed, many of the drivers who were promised all sorts of perks and benefits found themselves getting quite the opposite. So as I mentioned earlier, being able to reclassify workers as independent contractors means that they don't get many of the protections that ordinary employees get. And let me also be clear about one thing. I mean, ordinary employees in the United States, it's not like they're enjoying like a great work environment right now. Obviously, we need to do more to increase the protections, but also the power of workers in workplaces across the country.

Now, putting that aside for now, let's talk about the fact. that they don't get workers compensation if they're reclassifies as independent contractors. In the case of these ride share apps, remember, we're talking about employees who are using their own vehicles and they're paying for their own gas, they're not being reimbursed for their gas. And that's another issue. They were promised by these companies before Prop 22 pass that if it passes, you know, you could get this reimbursed. We're going to look out for you. And that's not what happened. Ben Valdez, who's a gig worker in California, said a lot of drivers were duped because they expected they were magically going to be able to qualify for benefits that the companies made it sound like they were going to pay for up front and that drivers were going to be getting reimbursement for the mileage. They didn't. In fact, Valdez also says, I've had maybe three or four nights where I literally made $4. So some of you might wonder, how is that even possible? Well, under this law, Uber gets to avoid paying their workers when they do not have someone in their vehicle.

So if they're on the road looking for someone to give a ride too, they're not getting paid for that time. They only get paid for the rides that they give. Also, a study by labor economists at the University of California, Berkeley in October of 2019, found that Prop 22 guarantees a minimum wage of just $5.64 an hour. as only engaged time is accounted for in the wage calculations. And one other graphic because it's important for you guys to know all the details here. Shortly after Prop 22 passed,

several gig apps announced fees for customers in California would increase to cover the cost of Prop 22 benefits after several of the apps claim prices would hike if Prop 22 didn't pass. So they're facing some legal consequences for that line. consequences for that lie, because I'm sure that that persuaded some consumers in California to vote in favor of Prop 22, thinking that they wanted to, you know, keep the costs of

using these services low. But at the end of the day, these rideshare companies decided to hike the prices up anyway. So when I say that the Biden administration made the good move here, I really do mean it. But I'm still uncomfortable with where we're at. The labor Department's decision here is important because they effectively prevented a Trump-era rule from taking effect. But it's not enough. We need to do more to ensure that what happened to workers in California doesn't happen to workers across the country. When we come back from the break, we'll talk a little bit about the DNC and how it's already preparing for the 2024 election. Are they making good decisions? Spoiler alert, no. So I'll give you those details and more when we come back.

Thank you. You guys, you guys, our Twitch channel is going to be so Like, it's insane. No, no, it's a double whammy. That's what you guys don't get. So after the bonus episode tonight, happy half hour. You can check that out on our Twitch channel. Twitch.tv.

That airs at 5.30 p.m. Pacific time, 8.30 p.m. Eastern. That's Brett Ehrlich's show. And look, what you guys don't understand is how naughty things get on that show. Like, I didn't even realize how naughty things got on that show. Like, I would watch here and there, but lately I've been watching it religiously. and it's a lot of fun, okay? It's a lot of fun. They do things that we can't do on this show.

So check it out. Also on our Twitch channel, we have Woznia. He aired one of his episodes just yesterday, but he's airing another episode today, tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern Time, 7 p.m. Pacific. Again, you can check that out at twitch.t. I was unable to catch all of his show from yesterday, but he had an interesting take that I don't think you can.

that I don't think you hear in most other places regarding just the economic concerns of of black people in this country and what he thinks needs to be done in order to address those concerns. So definitely check out his show. It was absolutely fascinating last night. All right, moving on to super chats. And guys, like, come on, let's keep them coming in because I want to show, Jank, that you guys like it when I'm hosting solo, that I bring in the Buku Bucks. All right. So I'm going to start with Jeremy Skibba, who says, I'm loving the show more and more every day. It's great that you call out both parties and speak the hard truth that mainstream media doesn't. Keep up the great work. You deserve a daily charcutory board and all the cookies.

That sounds like the perfect dinner. A nice charcutory, shakout, beer. I've really been feeling Guinness Extra Stout lately. I think it might be my favorite right now. You like it too? All right, Edwin likes it too. So does Bart. Love it. And I can eat cookies all day. Peter Hamby also writes it and says, it's the consequences of having the First Amendment shoved repeatedly at us, saying that we can stand with or against different, though similar people, without consequence ever in mind, at least in my opinion. Yeah, well, Peter, as you probably know, the free speech warriors are also the most disingenuous people on the planet, because on one hand, they'll argue that they want to protect the First Amendment. They want to protect our freedom of expression. And then they'll

turn around and say some pretty awful things about Black Lives Matter protests. They'll be incredibly supportive of laws that encourage people to run protesters over if they're blocking the streets. I mean, every time I think of free speech warriors, I think of Dave Rubin, who I think is the most aggressive person to block others on Twitter. So not really a big proponent of free speech when it calls him out. Anyway, we got to get back to the show. I love reading your super chats. Keep writing in. Keep writing in. And I'll see you in a few minutes. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian with you. I was about to say Anna and John, John's not even in the room yet, but John will be here

for hour two, and everyone loves him, so you know it's going to be good. Anyway, but for now, you've got me, and we're going to talk a little bit about the DNC strategy for 2024. for. The Democratic National Committee has already begun strategizing about the 2024 presidential election. And you're seeing Mike Pence and Donald Trump right next to me in this B-roll because they are part of the group of people who are currently being investigated for opposition research. This is par for the course. This is how politics works. Opposition research is a big part of how campaign strategize, but what concerns me is that it's not something that

tends to work these days against the Republican Party. Now, I'll make my case in a minute, but before I do, let me give you the details, got to give you the facts. According to the Hill, the DNC is digging up dirt on several prominent and unconventional possible GOP contenders, ranging from the former president, Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSan and former United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, to Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Mike Lindell, the founder of My Pillow and a staunch Trump ally. By the way, I like that they decided to group Tucker Carlson and Lindell together, right? It's like, here are the more serious candidates, and then here are the unconventional candidates.

Also, other GOP figures such as Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Rick Scott, former vice president Mike Pence and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo are also considered potential 2024 contenders. I don't even think they need to bother with Mike Pompeo. Like I it, I think it's impossible for Mike Pompeo to win. I mean, he's a giant warhawk. He's got no charisma whatsoever. I just, I really find it hard to believe that he's even a little bit of a threat, but I get it. You want to do oppo research on all the possible contenders. Now, the effort started weeks, just weeks after the inauguration and is being headed by Nick Bauer, the group's research director. Bauer is being aided by Carolyn Graham and Austin Dieter, two of his deputies.

All right, now you guys know the details. And now I get to the point where I explain why this is probably not a good idea. It's not that it's a bad idea to do opposition research. All parties do it. It's just part of the campaign strategizing. I get that. The problem is, what have these individuals said privately? That's any worse than what they say and do publicly. Now in 2016, the Democratic Party focused solely on attacking Donald Trump over the awful things he had said and done. And to be sure, there were many things. I mean, he was a target rich. environment, talking about grabbing women by the genitals, talked about, you know, how Mexicans are allegedly rapists and murderers and drug dealers. I mean, we heard all of the terrible things

from the Trump camp back in 2016, and Hillary's campaign focused primarily on that messaging. Trump is bad, he's a bad boy, we're not bad. When he goes low, we go high, we're better than that and vote for us. But obviously there was a big messaging issue there because voters didn't care about the bad things that Trump campaigned on. They didn't care about the terrible things he had said. He's still won. And then you look at his term and he continued to say terrible things. He continued to do awful things. I mean, talked about good people on both sides referring to the Charlottesville hate marchers who were chanting the Jews will not replace us. He totally bungled the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. response to it at least, and I think honestly

that's where he suffered the most politically. Had he handled the coronavirus better, I think that Joe Biden would have had a much more difficult time winning. But my point here is the negative of attacks against the Republican Party haven't really seemed to work. I mean, we just focused on Donald Trump, fine. Let's put that aside for a minute. But Jim Jordan was approached by multiple wrestlers about sexual abuse, and he told them to keep quiet, allegedly. We know about that, and Jim Jordan is still a GOP lawmaker. I mean, what do these people do in private, that's worse than what they do in public. And look, there might be things that they do privately that are far worse. But is it enough to persuade people to leave them and vote for

the Democratic Party? That's, that's the, I mean, Tucker Carlson, that's the other person that they're digging up APA research on. You don't have to dig that much. I mean, he's saying insane white nationalist crap on his show on a nightly basis now. And so what can the Democratic Party do? What is a far smarter strategy? Do opal research on Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema and members of your own party that refuse to pass the very policies that would make the Democratic Party wildly popular. Now, on the right, we see what happens to someone like Representative Liz Cheney who dares speak out against Donald Trump and the big lie, which is that the election was rigged and stolen from Donald Trump.

Liz Cheney is facing a lot of political backlash from Republicans as a result of that. But on the Democratic side, no one is ever willing to play hardball when it comes to ensuring that popular policy actually passes. Now, do I think that the Biden administration is going to do opera research on Joe Manchin? No, of course not. Or Kirsten Cinema, or Mark Warner, or any of these other corporate Democrats, who get pawned off as as moderates when in reality they're conservatives who are paid to spout the ridiculous nonsense that they do while serving as obstacles to infrastructure policy that we need, to family leave policy that we need, to redistributive policies that America not only

needs, but honestly, I think our national security at this point relies on it. I think the future of the country relies on it. So if they actually were able to improve people's lives fundamentally, materially, I think that that carries a lot more weight than complaining about how awful the Republican candidates are. Because they are awful. The thing is, they're not hiding it. They're putting it on full display because their voters love it. But what the Republican candidates will not offer is a better life. They're not going to offer solutions for health care. They're not going to offer solutions to do away with corporate greed.

I mean, they'll pretend like they care about corporate greed, but they won't do anything about it. The question is, while Democrats propose wonderful legislation, I would like it to go much further than it does, but still, it's a start. are they willing to fight for it, accomplish it, and improve the lives of the very people they claim to be concerned about? Because if they do, I would argue that they would be far more popular than they are today. And the opera research wouldn't need to be a big part of their campaign. It wouldn't have to be the thing that they latch on to or rely on to be popular to win these elections. They're just not willing to do it. So far, what we've seen from the Biden administration is a pretty decent list of executive orders.

The coronavirus relief package was okay. They certainly did cave to the demands of a conservative Democrat like Joe Manchin in cutting the weekly unemployment amount from $400 a week to $300 a week. They implemented more means testing. They didn't need to do any of that. But still, that relief bill did improve the financial. situation that many Americans were feeling anxiety about at that time. But moving forward, we do need to do something about the infrastructure bill, which is wildly popular. We do need to pass Biden's American Families Act, which is also tremendously popular across the board,

even with Republican voters. If they fight for it, if they accomplish it, again, they don't have to rely on the oppo research, because Americans will feel that improvement in their lives. And that speaks much louder than Trump bad, Pence bad, Tucker Carlson, racist. They know all that. Anyway, we got to take a break. Actually, no, you know what? I'm going to keep going. I have four more minutes. This is great. I'm not used to being able to do five stories like this. But I do want to give you an update on the Liz Cheney story because there's an update. her, but I think it is a cautionary tale for anyone in the Republican Party who dare speak their mind or speak the truth. So House Minority Whip, Steve Scalise, the second most powerful

member of the GOP in the House, is now also backing the ouster of Representative Liz Cheney due to her unwillingness to go along with a pro-Trump narrative. Now this has been a developing story. It It comes after Kevin McCarthy, the Senate, I'm sorry, the House Minority Leader getting caught on a hot mic saying that he is frustrated with Liz Cheney and her unwillingness, you know, basically stop criticizing Donald Trump, stop telling Americans the truth about what actually happened in the election, which is the fact that Biden won it. But when you look at Scalise's statement and what he suggests, you can already read the tea leaves. You know what's going to happen to Cheney.

House Republicans need to be solely focused on taking back the House in 2020 and fighting against Speaker Pelosi and President Biden's radical socialist agenda. And Elise Stefonic is strongly committed to doing that, which is why Whip Scalise has pledged to support her for conference chair. So that was a statement from a spokesperson for Steve Scalise, essentially saying that he absolutely does back, Liz Cheney losing that leadership position. And the name, Stefanic, is now in the Republicans' consciousness. This is what they want. They want to replace her with Stefonic, who actually is a little more moderate when you look at her voting record compared to Liz Cheney.

Liz Cheney has voted with Trump more often than Stefanic has. However, there's a big difference. Stefanik knows that she needs to present herself as a Trump loyalist in her words, in her actions, maybe some of her votes, not so much, but it doesn't matter. She knows where the Republican voters are, and the vast majority of them still approve of Donald Trump. And if you want to have a political career in the Republican Party, you just got to go along with it. You can't tell voters the truth like Liz Cheney did.

That's political suicide, and we're seeing that right now as we speak. Now, Donald Trump, of course, loves the idea of replacing Cheney in this leadership role with a loyalist like Stefonic. And so he's weighed in, and he says that Elise Stefonic is a far superior choice. And she has my complete and total endorsement for GOP conference chair. Elise is a tough and smart communicator. And what does Stefanik have to say about this? She didn't even do the fake like, oh, no, I'm not, I'm not even thinking about this. No, I'm really focused on my consistent.

No, she loves it. She loves it. She says this, thank you, President Trump for your 100% support for House GOP conference chair. We are united and focused on firing Pelosi and winning in 2022. So it's worth discussing what this means for both the Republican Party and, honestly, the Democratic Party as well. Because while the Democratic Party was already a big tent with progressives and corporate Democrats, all included in one, now we have the situation in which these Trump era Republicans, people like Liz Cheney, are looking for a place to call home.

And many of these never-Trumpers, even before the 2020 election, decided to make their way to the Democratic Party. And what we should be concerned about is how these people who tend to come along with moneyed interests can push the Democratic Party further to the right, which is the exact opposite of what we want. So while, you know, there are some positive reactions, people are amused by what's going on, they think it's funny, I get it, and certainly I don't feel bad for Liz Cheney at all. But my point here is I don't want Liz Cheney's brand of republicanism to further influence. trait the Democratic Party, which has already become quite a bit of a problem in their lack of representation of working Americans and their willingness to take on a more favorable view toward corporate America. So that's already been a trend, and I'm worried that it's going

to continue to be exacerbated by what's happening in the GOP. And clearly, what's happening in the GOP is this pretty terrifying authoritarian culture, where, there's one true leader, you're not allowed to ever tell the truth or speak out against someone in this position of power, Donald Trump. If you do, there will be brutal retaliation. You'll lose your leadership position. I mean, for a party that consists of countless people who claim that they're disgusted by cancel culture, get a load of them. If you tell your constituents the truth about what happened in the 2020 election and you go against our dear leader Donald Trump, well, they'll be a price to pay. So Liz Cheney, effectively getting

canceled by the Republican Party, they're going to have a vote on this next week, and it's pretty clear how it's all going to turn out. But this chaos in the GOP does spill over in negative ways for the Democratic Party as well, and that's something to keep an eye on. let's take a break and when we come back our good friend John Iderola will join us to have a discussion about the coronavirus vaccine and many other topics one of my favorite stories of the day is Megan McCain's reaction to what's happening to Liz Cheney don't miss it I'll see you in a few minutes 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 podcast at apple dot co slash t y t y t I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.