The Young Turks - Gold & Smoking Guns

Episode Date: September 23, 2023

Senator Robert Menendez is indicted in New York. "Sexy" Biden and family get-togethers: Comer views new email details. Striking autoworkers pulled off a major coup before their strike and baited America’s largest auto manufacturers into self-sabotage. UAW files a labor complaint against Sen. Tim Scott for saying they should be fired. HOSTS: Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian), Wosny Lambre and Jayar Jackson (@watchlisttyt) 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. Woo! Hey, guys, Friday! Drop my team, Free watching, Free watching,

Drop it. Power, power, power, power panel, as Jank Uger would say. But he's not here right now. He's touring doing interviews to promote his book. But don't worry, because we've got J.R. Jackson, Wosney Lombray. And I'm here too, Anna Casparian, here to share the news with you. You guys excited? Happy Friday. What's going on? You guys, I'm trying not to jump in. I'm like itching to say something. Hey, what's up, Anna? What's up? How's you guys doing? It's been forever. It's good to see you.

I know, I know. I haven't hosted a show with you in, I don't even know the last time, JR. I have no idea. I don't even know where your political views are anymore. I'm just going to find out in this hour. We're going to find out. You should check her Twitter mentions for that one, J.R. No, man, I'm happy to be on.

Got a fresh haircut today. I'm a black man with no facial hair. Feeling inspired by Coach Prime, J.R. Coach Prime is going to have a problem next week when he faces the University of Southern California. That's all I'll say. All right. Yeah, good, good. I'm glad that's all you'll say. Well, with that out of the way, why don't we actually get to the news of the day? Lots of pretty big stories, starting with this. New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez and his wife indicted by a federal grand jury. The senator is accused of using his office to help several businessmen from New Jersey,

as well as the Egyptian government in exchange for receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts, including cash, a luxury vehicle, even gold bars. That's right. Now Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat, is facing federal criminal charges. He has been indicted today for cartoonishly brazen corruption, allegedly, obviously people are innocent until proven guilty. But really, Menendez did a horrendous job of attempting to cover up his alleged criminal behavior, especially considering the fact that he had been previously prosecuted in a separate corruption scandal. He was acquitted in that case due to a hung jury. The judge then decided to let him go. Now, here are the details on the latest indictment,

which also has to do with alleged corruption, the indictment revolves around Menendez's relationship with the government of Egypt, as well as three businessmen. Now, let's watch U.S. Attorney Damien Williams, whose office brought the indictment against Menendez, explain how Menendez allegedly did favors for Egypt and these businessmen. The indictment alleges that Senator Menendez used his power and influence, including his leadership role on the the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to benefit the government of Egypt in various ways. Among other actions, Senator Menendez allegedly provided sensitive, non-public U.S. government information to Egyptian officials and otherwise took steps to secretly aid the government of Egypt. We also allege that Senator Menendez improperly pressured a senior official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to protect a lucrative monopoly that the government of Egypt had awarded

to Hana, a lucrative monopoly that Hana then used to fund certain bride payments. Now, keep in mind, Menendez is a part of the Senate committee having to do with foreign policy. So he has quite a bit of influence on some of the issues that might impact countries like Egypt, for example. But his wife also allegedly got in on the action. Her name is Nadine Menendez, and she was allegedly involved in some of these shady dealings. She helped to introduce Menendez to one of these businessmen by the name of Hannah, who she was friends with for years prior to meeting Menendez, and that's according to the indictment.

In exchange for Menendez's favors to Hannah and Egypt, Nadine was promised a low or no-show job at that businessman's company, and she was indicted along with her husband as a result of her alleged involvement here. Now let's hear Williams explain Menendez's relationship with another businessman, or two other businessman, Uribe and Davis. The indictment alleges that Senator Menendez uses power and influence to try to disrupt a criminal investigation and prosecution undertaken by the New Jersey Attorney General's office related to an associate and a relative of your rebate. Third, the indictment alleges that Senator Menendez used his power and influence. to try to disrupt a federal prosecution of Davies in the district of New Jersey. In two ways.

First, by seeking to install a United States attorney who he thought could be influenced with respect to Davies. And second, by trying to influence that office to act favorably in Davies case. So the full names of the three businessmen in question here are Whale Hanna. You have Jose Uribe and Fred Davies. Now, in addition to what Menendez is accused of, allegedly, in exchange for the favors that he provided to these businessmen, Menendez received some pretty nice bribes, allegedly. Let's watch. Special agents with the FBI executed search warrants on the residence and safe deposit box of Senator Menendez and Nadine Menendez in New Jersey. When they got there, they discovered approximately 500.

thousand dollars of cash stuffed into envelopes and closets. Some of the cash was stuffed in the senator's jacket pockets. Some of the cash, some of the envelopes of cash contain Davy's fingerprints or Davy's DNA. That's not all. Agents also discovered a lot of gold, gold that was provided by Davies and Hana. And the FBI, of course, found the Mercedes Benz that Uribe had provided them. Who keeps the bribes in their sports coat? I mean, I guess when you get away with the corruption the first time, you get real brazen about it the second time, allegedly.

But I am curious what you guys think about this. I'll start with you, Wes. This is just incredible, honestly. This reminds me of like a Steven Seagal flick, this level of just blatant corruption on the part of a freaking sitting U.S. senator. Like, this isn't penny-any stuff, right? Like, this guy is some county commissioner or some, you know, commissioner of some school district. This guy is one of the 100 senators in the U.S. Senate.

And he's taking these essentially cheap bribes. The idea that they found this guy with $500,000 in cash is quite hilarious. But luckily, Hannah, excuse me, Anna, we know why this is happening according to a statement from him. These people are doing it because he's Latin X. Okay, so let me let me give you the statement. Let me give you the statement. Because look, I got to be honest. I got to be honest.

This is this has now become corporate Democrat 101 to provide cover for any wrongdoing. And it really grosses me out. So this is what he said in a statement in response to the indictment. Those behind this campaign simply cannot accept that a first generation Latino American from humble beginnings could rise to be a United States senator and serve with honor and distinction. No, no. You know what this shows, you know what this shows you guys? This shows that no matter who the criminal is, where they come from, they're just as ridiculous

and maybe even don't plan things out as others. Just because someone's a senator or a congressman or a former president of the United States doesn't mean they know what the hell they're doing. It means they're greedy and they found some ways to use the system to benefit themselves and their family and their wives or whoever else that they're looking to help benefit from it. So we give people way too much credit or way too much ground to be like, oh, they're the honorable senator, the honorable representative from whatever state. These folks, some of them, are so damn corrupt, just like anyone else that's a criminal,

and then they'll put the cash in bags. There was a previous Republican, a congressman, I believe, who was tossing cash out of the window at his wife's house and he was finally busted. They're not as sophisticated as they tell us that they are. They just tell us that so many times that we begin to have this level of respect for them when they're just as sloppy and messy as any other common criminal. And in this case, it's the same thing. You ask the question, Anna, who's dumb enough to stuff a bunch of cash and some sport coats

and have gold bars in the closet and have all this hanging out? A criminal would. But you know what? Even worse, maybe even criminals that get away with these things as regularly as elected officials do is the reason why they're so messy. They're like, what are you going to do? Donald Trump literally is being exposed for telling some of his age. You never heard that. You never saw this. That's fourth grade type of stuff. They don't have to be

sophisticated or smart. Matter of fact, they're less sophisticated and even dumber than other criminals because they never actually get held accountable for the action. So this is just another case at it. Well, I think that politicians, it's a different flavor of stupid. I think you're right about the incompetence, definitely right about the corruption, generally speaking. But what makes this a little different is when you're talking about a United States Senator who has previously gotten away with similar charges in a separate case, he thinks he's above the law, right? And it really doesn't matter what the political party is. I think Trump has that kind of air to him.

And now you see a sitting Democratic senator facing criminal federal charges for, you know, alleged corruption in a country, by the way, that has corruption baked into the system. Like, you've got to try real hard to break, you know, corruption-related laws in the United States. But he did it. I mean, allegedly, according to the federal prosecutor. And that's the other thing I want to just quickly mention. The charges brought, the indictment brought upon Menendez is by the federal government. The same federal government who is also indicting Donald Trump, the same federal government

that currently we're going to experience another government's shutdown over because Republicans in the far right wing of the Republican Party would like to defund federal prosecutors is because they're very mad that the federal prosecutors are pursuing any indictment against their beloved Donald Trump. So in this case, we're talking about federal charges that impact a Democrat. So what do they say about that? Do they maybe provide a little bit of funding to the federal government to prosecute people like Menendez, as long as it's a Democrat?

Is that okay? I mean, it's just so dumb to think of every indictment, which is not. not easy to bring against any type of politician, whether we're talking about a former president or a sitting United States senator, to just automatically brush it off as, oh, it's just political and nothing more. No, you've got to have some evidence. But Anna, you're referring, sorry, go ahead. Yeah. And in this case, it appears that the federal prosecutors have some evidence. They're not just going to bring some, you know, weak case against a sitting senator. Why haven't we seen James Comer and Jim Jordan on TV talking about

the Menendez case? Yes, they've talked about it. It's an extent. that they go from the first wave that he got, you know, the hung jury or whatever happened when he got off of that first time. But you're referring to the Donald Trump talking about we got to stop defunding the government because then we got to stop Jack Smith, that ridiculousness. Not only that, as far as this being an aspect of them trying to hold up, doing the government shutdown thing is it don't even work that way. If they hold up the government and stop the funding like they think they can for Jack Smith's investigations and the others, some of these cases are state investigations and state prosecutions. You can't hold those up, bro. And I was just talking about it.

because there's a Justice Department memo from two years ago that makes it clear that these things are not exempt from government shutdowns. So follow Donald Trump down the stupid road all you want. That's why it's currently the impeachment inquiry is not looking good. And it's also why this whole thing when they're fighting within the house over these rules and trying to make sure things get shut down so they can be more closer to Donald Trump's feet. Yo, it doesn't work this way because he doesn't know what he's doing. I just believe that any politician, anyone in a position of power who breaks the law, who abuses the office, he has the privilege, he or she has the privilege of sitting and should face the consequences

of that. I don't care if we're talking about a Republican or a Democrat. I ain't got no love for Menendez. I don't care. Good, good. I'm glad that he's being prosecuted for this. And the fact that he thinks that he could sell his influence, whether it be to businessmen or to politicians in other countries, it's disgusting. It's against the law. And we'll see what the outcome of this case will be. But for those who are curious, Menendez was charged back in 2015 with illegally accepting favors from a Florida eye doctor, including flights on a private jet, three nights at a five-star hotel in Paris, and more than $700,000 in political contributions for him and the Democratic Party. The case ended in a mistrial after jurors were unable to

to reach a unanimous verdict. At that point, federal prosecutors decided not to retry him. But what he's facing charges for now are in a completely separate corruption-related case. So again, we'll see how it all plays out. But I just love the fact that he used his identity to defend himself, as if that matters at all. Yeah, it's tough because it's impossible to commit corruption while also being a member of the Latinx community. community. Everybody knows that. And oftentimes, liberals and centrist, they talk about a loss of or a lack of decorum that we have in government, in media. And I tend to agree with him. This guy

didn't even have the decency to have a bag man. He's actually receiving the bribes and having his wife negotiate on his behalf. It's kind of crazy. It absolutely is crazy. All right. When we come back, we've got a massive segment related to labor for you all. We're going to give you an update on the UAW strike and also some consequences for what Senator Tim Scott had to say about these striking workers. All of that when we come back, don't miss it. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Kasparian, Wozni Lombray, and J.R. Jackson with you. Let's get to our UAW updates because I came across a piece in The Intercept that I thought was so delicious. I love to watch tricky things happen to bad people who won't comply.

And that's definitely the case here. So let's talk about it. The big three automakers and the corporate media. were effectively fooled by the striking United Auto Workers. So to understand how, here's the background on everything you need to know on how this strike works. So the unionized workers can basically strike at some plants while keeping other plants open. And this is actually a really great strategy because it helps the United Auto Workers maintain and save some of the resources in their strike fund, helps the strike fund last longer.

Now, this tactic also allows the union strike fund to not only last longer, but keep the big three auto companies guessing which plants and which factories they're planning on striking at. Obviously, they're not going to know ahead of time unless they're going to be dumb enough to just believe what is put out on social media ahead of time. And that's exactly what happened. The companies, meanwhile, according to Daniel Boguslaw over at the Intercept, who has the best name I've ever read in a byline, the companies, meanwhile, sought to anticipate precisely which plants would be struck and reorganized production and distribution to minimize losses. The big three guessed badly. So mostly because of the fact that the workers cleverly tricked the employers with the use of social media. So in the run up to the strike, UAW members at auto plant, from Georgia to Tennessee to Ohio, took to Facebook and Twitter to share accounts of partial plant closures and faulty information from plant managers leading to chaos on shop floors across the country. I mean, it's amazing. So the press, by the way, also ate it up.

Like, they see the posts on social media and they're like, oh, these are our sources. Our sources say that they're going to shut down these plants. So the industry-aligned publication auto news, published an article describing plants that UAW members would likely target, including Ford's Livonia transmission plant in Michigan, its Lima engine plant in Ohio, and the Cleveland Engine No. One facility. The article claimed Stalantis's engine and transmission plants in Indiana and Michigan, as well as three GM plants across three states, were also likely strike targets. And it wasn't just auto news, okay? I, I, I don't want to dunk on auto news specifically because CNBC deserves a lot of blowback for this segment.

Let's watch. We have received some information from a source familiar with the UAW's plans for the plants that it will plan on striking come midnight tonight if they do not reach an agreement with Ford GM and Stalantis. And this is our understanding of the plants that will be announced tonight. 10 o'clock is when we will get the official announcement from the UAW. Let's start first off with General Motors, Romulus Power Train, Toledo, Ohio propulsion, and the Marion Metal Plant in Indiana. For Ford, it's our understanding that the UAW plans to strike at the Livonia Transmission Plant, Lima, Ohio Engine Plant, and the Cleveland Engine Plan.

And finally, for Stalantis, we understand that the UAW will walk out at the Kokomo Transmission Plant in Kokomo, Indiana, and the Dundee Engine Plant. We should stress, we have reached out to the UAW for confirmation that this is in fact is the plan. We have not heard back from the UAW, but our source says this is the game plan for the UAW in terms of the targeted strikes. Yeah, none of those were the targeted plants or facilities, not a single one of them. But it appears that the reporter received some faulty information from his source. I just love the wording. I love the framing. It really does shed lights on the way media works when they talk about how they received information from a source. It could very well be a post on Facebook or Twitter that they came across. That's sure, I guess you could consider that a type of source, but framing it in a way that makes one think that the reporter talk to someone within the unionized workers is ridiculous because clearly that's not what happened here. The actual targeted facilities included GM's Wentzville Assembly Center just outside of St. Louis,

Stalantis's Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio, and two divisions of Ford's Michigan plant. And they're actually going to expand the number of plants that they are going to strike out. I'll give you the details on that and more in just a minute. But did you all enjoy this as much as I did? It was fantastic. It was perfect. It was almost as if one side, the stakes of which this strike are life and death. And the other side that they're fighting against has people who's earned something in upwards of

$200 million in compensation over the last nine years on the other side, right? It's like they expected to bulldoze the UAW like they have in previous years. They expected a compliant, pliable, a very docile unit. But no, they've planned for this. And they wanted to demonstrate in the first blow that they meant business. And that's what they did. So it's incredible to see, you know, when one side has dire stakes and the other side is living high on the hog, they're caught slipping. You shouldn't be surprised by this.

It's one of those things. Listen, so we talked about how media jumped on it. And also, of course, the companies jumped on it and made their moves. The thing is, is media, it's kind of easy to manipulate in these type of situations, especially if you hold some piece of information. So the way that he's talking about, at least that one particular reporter was talking about, you know, my sources, my sources. We're still in this media mindset of got to get that first scoop, scoop, scoop, scoop, scoop.

In fact, it's probably even enhanced more because of the internet and how much information comes across many times misinformation comes across because anybody can post. So they're like, first, first, first, first, first, got to get out there first. So you can give them a little crumb of something and mislead them very easily. I mean, check out politicians who do it all the time. But still, that can be used very easily. So it's just become the nature of the game. But these hard-nosed tactics are these tricks that they've been pulling on these companies.

This is some of those things that maybe politicians would be complaining about. Even the companies would be complaining about. These unions are so tough, man. Look at them. Breaking knees and all that. If you think about the tactics of executives, lawyers, corporations, they crack knees. and they pump fear into people and they're supposed to whip them into this kind of shape. When it comes to the Hollywood, the rider strike out here, these tactics are filthy that they're

trying to pull off. But they want that to fly under the radar and say, look at these tactics, these dirty tactics from our opponents. What are you doing, bro? How much have you been putting your boot on the neck of people for years, decades, since forever? The reasons why we even have to have these unions is because it's cutthroat and they're like, we're going to take every dime we can from you and get you to work as much as possible for little. Well, I mean, to that point, in after the economic collapse in 2008, the unions decided, you know what, we know that it's a tough time for the big three. These auto companies are literally taking bailouts from the federal government.

So in our contract, we will agree to concessions. And they were significant concessions. And now that these companies are doing real well, I mean, to the point where they're, paying their CEOs up to $29 million in a single year to the point where they're spending tens of millions of dollars in a given quarter on stock buybacks or dividends for their shareholders. I've heard of numbers as high as $5 billion in stock buybacks. Insane. Insane. So like to turn around and basically give the middle finger to the very employees who were willing to take on those concessions in order to save your.

companies tells you everything you need to know about why it is that you need a real fighter like Sean Fane. He's the head of the UAW. He is not messing around. And I love it. I mean, just read any of the quotes he's put out into the world over the last week and you'll get exactly what I'm talking about. But real quick, let's go back to the topic at hand because the trick that the workers pulled led to quite a bit of chaos. So I want to read you some quotes from Scott Holdison, he's a worker over at the Ford Assembly plant in Chicago. He spoke to the intercept and said that the company bosses seem to have no idea where the plant strikes were going to take place.

But they decided to act on the information they had, which of course was faulty information. And so they made some moves that were ill-fated to say the least. He says that our local plant management started emptying out vehicles from plant ovens. and dip tanks. If they leave cars in there, they get ruined. So they start emptying those out and preparing to shut the ovens down. So that's what was happening here because they thought that our plant was going to be the one that was called out. The plant chairman was telling me that ours was the one they were going to strike.

He also says that the other automakers had transferred parts from plants elsewhere in the country, including one in Tennessee, saying that at GM, in Spring Hill, they loaded engines to send to Wentzville because they thought Spring Hill would be the target. Turns out Wentzville was where they struck. So there was a lot of disinformation out there that really put the company on their heels. In other words, the company moved product from one plant that they thought was striking to one that actually did end up striking and that did lead to some chaos. But my favorite part about all of this is that I guess to try to save face publicly and not appear to have egg on their faces, a GM spokesperson said that there's

been no work interruption at the Spring Hill as a result of the Wentzville strike. And Stalantis was really the only one that was willing to admit that they were caught off guard with a Stalantis spokesperson saying the following, strike preparation and contingency planning is part of our normal process in a contract negotiation year. As a responsible business, we have to do that. They made it very clear that a strike was possible and we did everything we needed to do to protect the business. But obviously they didn't end up protecting the business. I think a good way to protect the business is to treat your workers well. So the strike doesn't happen in the first place. But you know, can't have that. You got to maximize profits for shareholders and the

executives as much as possible. But going back to what I said earlier, guys, Ford apparently has been engaging in good faith negotiations, and they're actually getting rewarded for that to some extent. So the auto workers union began strikes at noon on Friday against 38 part distribution centers across United States at GM and Stalantis, extending its unprecedented simultaneous strikes that began with one assembly plan each in each of the Detroit three. The additional facilities added about five. 600 workers to the 12,700 already on strike. So they're expanding the number of plants, but they're focusing specifically on GM and Stalantis, not Ford. And the reason why is because

Sean Fain says that Ford has basically been engaging in good faith negotiations. They've made some progress. So he also said that they have more work to do at Ford, but quote, we do want to recognize that Ford is showing they're serious about reaching a deal. Fain said Ford had improved its contract offer, including boosting profit sharing and agreeing to let workers strike over plant closures, but said the union still has serious issues with Ford. Ford also agreed to convert temporary employees with at least 60 days employment to full time upon ratification of a deal, he said. So that's already a pretty significant concession. What do you all think about that. So again, it's to point out to the folks at home, we don't just bring this up because

this was some QT trick that they, that they played on them. No, these folks lost money immediately. And Ford was smart enough to come to the table and, you know, meet them closer to what their demands are. So these strikes are having a tangible actual impact on the bottom line. And what are we talking about ultimately when we talk about worker militancy in these strikes? The big three has seen a 65% increase in profits over the last four years. Obviously, the workers have seen none of that excess in profits. And that's ultimately what they're fighting for. What share of the pie do the workers who generate all of this damn wealth get to keep to feed their families to pay their rents to send their kids to college and what share of the pie do the

shareholder class and the CEOs get to keep? It's actually really heartening to see. It's one of those things. My last thought really fast on this. So if you think about the amount of money they spent shipping engines across different plants and then trying to prep for that, move this, move that and change that and take the cars out of the the bake tank, whatever it is that they're called, that's probably a cost. And they said a responsible business would do that. So they incur those costs to move it. It's probably not to the degree that the workers are demanding over whatever kind of time spend that these negotiations are taking place in, but is spending money on it. But still somehow spending money on your workers and your employees, that's going

to bankrupt the company. They've got money set aside to continue holding on to the way that they do things. But they don't have money to spend on the workers because, by the way, we don't care about them. And they also point out, we're protecting the business. If you're protecting the business and your way of protecting the business is to go against the employees, the business is against the employees. But when the employees are giving you these negotiations and concessions, somehow the workers are supposed to have this loyalty to the business. When the business is loyalty to them. Why is that the case? We're supposed to be working together here.

JR, just anecdotally, if I could jump in, I bought a Ford last December. Business is booming. I tell you, man, these cars, these cars ain't cheap. They're making money hand over fist. And also, I read somewhere that as it stands right now, an estimated 5% of profits go to worker wages. Think about that. Wow. Five percent of profits are going to worker wages right now. So when they say that it's going to bankrupt them. It's nonsense.

We know it's nonsense. It is nonsense. So more power to them, solidarity with the striking UAW workers. I love the leadership that they have and that they have to fight for better leadership. And they got it. And I'm happy to share that all with you. Let's get to one other story related to the UAW strike. This is a good story that has a mix of labor.

and politicians that say stupid things. Without further ado, here it is. Ronald Reagan gave us a great example when federal employees decided they were going to strike. He said, you strike, you're fired. Simple concept to me, to the extent that we could use that once again, absolutely. Senator and Republican presidential candidate, Tim Scott, says that he thinks striking union workers like those who are part of the current United Auto Workers' Strike should be fired for simply flexing some muscle and going on strike in the first place. But UAW President Sean Fane ain't playing around, and he's not going to just let that anti-worker comment slide. So now,

thanks to Senator Scott's big mouth, Scott is facing a labor complaint that could lead to punishment from the National Labor Relations Board. So here's how Fain pulled that off. According to the National Labor Relations Act, anyone can file a charge against an employer, even if they don't work for that employer. So Fain filed a complaint against Tim Scott as the employer of his campaign staffers. The National Labor Relations Act states that it is illegal for employers to interfere with, restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of collective bargaining rights.

And as Benjamin Sachs, who's a professor of labor law over at Harvard explained to the intercept, if a reasonable employee could interpret the statement as, if I strike I'm fired, then it is without a doubt an unfair labor practice violation. And should the NLRB rule against Scott, he'll probably have to do something that would drive him insane, inform his own staffers, his own employees of their rights as workers. So good. So many things come to mind for Tim Scott, who's got a lot more problems than materializing a girlfriend before the Iowa caucuses.

Come on. Just the idea that this is the status of labor in this country. Tim Scott has never thought about labor as an issue. that he's ever had to address. And so he went out and broke the law on camera. He's so ignorant to the issues of American labor that he went out and just ran off at the yet. Never mind that the air traffic controllers are a public sector, we're a public sector union. And so obviously directly under the auspices of Ronald Reagan's authority.

And the UAW is a private sector union, never mind that. Never mind that. Also, just read the room. Even that homie in the overalls had no response to this. Like, you're just up here just cackling about firing workers. That's funny to you in the state of this American economy. This guy's clueless. He's done. But so he's trying to do. He's trying to get some kind of traction. Do you see the picture of him at the McDonald's? I stopped somewhere in the middle of nowhere because there was a McDonald's and I'm going to eat. It's just trying to gain some traction. So one of the main veins of gaining track. And if you're losing and you're talking to Republicans, it's to bring up the name

Ronald Reagan. Who cares? Just say Ronald Reagan did it. Therefore, you should listen to me because I said Ronald Reagan. So Ronald Reagan fired some federal employees from some, you know, air traffic controllers back in 1982. So therefore, we should do it now in 2023 with UAW workers in the auto industry, because that makes sense. Those things connect. They're used to not having to make sense with their arguments. So therefore, it just gets thrown out there. And as you said, the ignorance of not knowing how that works is because they just don't pay attention to it. I really thought that they're giving all of these one-liners to their loyal followers, and they eat it up. I didn't know that they actually don't know anything past the one-to-two, one-liners that they're

actually given to their folks that are eating it up. And if we bring up those same, those those same B-rolls of Tim Scott, can you guys can? There's one of this, this tie that he's wearing in that one. He's not only ignorant about the workers strike. He's not the stars and bars, boy. He's very ignorant about whether or not he should have worn that tie. Oh, my Lord. Oh, my word. But this is why these guys, this is why these guys don't stand any chance against Trump because they're just not as savvy of political operators.

Tim Scott is just reading the party lines. I hear union, smash. I hear Medicare, smash. I hear social, smash. You know, I hear free trade, smash. Donald Trump's like, no, I can actually read the tea leaves of what's, going on out there. And a lot of it, yes, is lip service and his rhetoric, but

he has better instincts than these people. They just told the party line, it's just like, yeah, let's have tax cuts for absolutely nobody except the absolute richest people in this country. This is Republican Party orthodoxy, but it's deeply

unpopular. And Tim Scott is just such an idiot. He doesn't even know to move away from saying, yeah, let's fire all these people who have sacrificed wages in the name of this damn company. Let's keep real. I'm sorry. Last thought here for me, at least, you guys. No, Tim Scott's pushing that same line. But Donald Trump is not like he's that good at it. Maybe at one point, because once he's got his minions under him to listen to everything he says, he says many nonsensical things, things that make absolutely no sense. But at this point, he's like an old, you know, rapper who had some good hits at the beginning of his career. And now he sucks, but now he's got a name for himself. And people don't even listen closely anymore. And be like, this guy's bars suck. But they continue to buy his stuff. Tim Scott is the new artist, to recreate and make the same song in his own name and people go that that was already done by someone else. So you can't recreate what the guy did already. Now he's moved on and has just

become this, this, you know, this dinosaur of a politician. They still listen to him because they still love what he did before. Tim Scott has to find his own lane. He just doesn't seem to have one. It's just no. No, and and I'm going to disagree with you a little bit, at J.R. Because the reason why I think workers buy what Trump is selling is that, yes, optically, he presents himself as a pro-labor individual when in reality he's not pro-labor at all. In fact, he was asked specifically about the UAW workers going on strike. And he immediately started talking about how he's mad at the union leadership for not supporting him and endorsing him. It's like, it's always about him. But when you think about what the,

economy looked like during his term, and this is obviously prior to COVID tanking the economy, he would bully Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve, to keep interest rates low, which allowed for these corporations to keep borrowing money effectively for free and then use that money on stock buybacks, which helped pump up the stock market, which helped the retirement accounts of these workers. So when they talk about, ooh, the economy was doing so much better under Trump, you know, they're referring, I think, mostly to how their brokerage accounts and how their retirement accounts were performing because the stock market did perform well under Trump, right? But when it comes to bringing jobs back, manufacturing jobs back to the United

States, he didn't do any of that, right? So when we talk about job creation, no, when we talk about deregulation and tax cuts for the rich, Trump certainly did a lot of that. But to your point was about how, like, Scott doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't even realize how unpopular his talking points against labor happened to be. You know, I think Nikki Haley hasn't beat because Nikki Haley bragged on national television about how she's a union buster. And I mean, if that's their way of winning, please keep winning for us. Please go out there on the campaign trail and talk about how much you despise labor and how much you want to bust unions. Now, with that said, Scott did respond to the complaint.

that Sean Fain filed with the NLRB. He argues that big labor's wish list of a massive pay raise for a French-style work week would make the American auto industry less competitive, encourage outsourcing, and leave workers even more vulnerable to automation. It would put the industry on a path to more taxpayer bailouts or bankruptcy while the big labor bosses lined their pockets. Oof, those are some fighting words. I'd be careful.

The UAW is one of the most corrupt and scandal-plagued unions in America. I mean, they've been around for a very long time. So he also says that they are showing their true colors once again. And auto workers and taxpayers will be left holding the bag together. They want to threaten me and shut me up. They don't scare me. I will truly fight for American workers at jobs. How are you going to fight for American workers and jobs?

You want them to be fired if they demand better pay and better treatment at work. I mean, come on. But any final words on his reaction? Got something wise, I do. Tim Scott is done. That milk dud looking head of his is finished. Oh my God, Watson. He never started.

He never started, watch. Think of fork in that dude. A black Republican in South Carolina. How is that ever going to work? Are you kidding me? any single. So by the way, I was not even to start there, please. By the way, this is the same line. This response from Tim Scott is the same line. Are you guys, we have to conform to what the corporations are telling us to do or else the corporations are going to punish us.

If nothing else, that's a direct admission that you've handed over the country to corporations. We are beholden to what corporations want to do because if we don't, they're going to send jobs over here. Fire that guy. Go back to go quicker to automation because they don't like their employees. Yo, that's a bad thing that you're supporting. We have to, we've given, we've handed the keys over. So now we're just beholden to what they're going to do to us. Bro, you look weak. You're trying to be president and you're beholden to those folks. You talk about people being bought and sold and paid for. That's telling us that you're one of those guys except on the other side. But the way it should be, as we talked about earlier, when the UAW president and the

way that they handled what Ford was doing, because they've handed some level of some kind of negotiations in this, they've given them a bit of a break. That's the way it should be. Why aren't the corporations and companies afraid of us? We are paying the taxes that then of course go to the way that they reconfigure money and hand it back to themselves. We're not the bosses. We're supposed to be afraid of the folks that are running businesses in our country. It's not just theirs. It's ours too. And if you actually fight correctly, then they'll have to conform to us. We have to stop being in the Stockholm syndrome of acting like they, whatever they do, we have to follow because they rule us. Man, this is this most powerful country in the world. is afraid of folks who are stripping all of us of our wealth. It's messed up. When we come back from the break, I'll give you an update on the Republicans flailing attempts at impeaching President Joe Biden. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casperian, J.R. Jackson, and Wozny Lambray with you. Let's talk a little bit about what Republicans are up to with this whole impeachment inquiry and the ongoing investigation into the Biden family.

Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, finally got his hands on the precious, unredacted Biden emails that he was, alivating over as part of his possible impeachment investigation. And I say possible because, you know, to bring forth an actual impeachment, you need some evidence. But they're fallen short. All he learned was that some Georgian women think the president is a zaddy, not the information he was looking for. So let's talk about what was actually in the emails. So the emails from the time, these emails are from the time that President Joe Biden was vice president. So this is during the Obama administration. In July 24th, 2009, in one of those emails that was forwarded by Biden's then personal assistant to Biden and his two sons,

it included praise for a speech Biden had delivered in Tbilisi to the Georgian parliament. The assistant forwarded the email titled Biden as new Georgian sex symbol. And with the following comment must read email below. It also stated that multiple female friends were talking about how sexy Biden was after his visit. A new man in my life, remarked one. A big crush on him, said another. To which I say, maybe the investigation

should be into these women who somehow find Biden attractive. Yeah, Biden was about to get me-toot over there. Lord have mercy. I can't believe it. Somebody got to get HR on the horn over there because these women, they're too horny. My word. So think about that in the context of Joe Biden. It just mine, like, honestly, it's the most interesting thing

that has come out of this investigation. I got to be honest. So you know what, Comer, go for it. Keep investigating. Maybe we'll find some more juicy tidbits. Now, a July 14th, 2016 schedule card shows that Biden was to meet with the prime minister of Ukraine. Oh, I bet that was a juicy one, right?

The newly unredacted portion show that he was also scheduled to work out with his personal trainer and dine with Hunter's then 15-year-old daughter's daughter's maizey and Finnegan in the vice president's office. Again, not exactly what Comer was hoping to find. Also, a May 27th, 2016 schedule card includes a car. with former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. Hunter Biden was copied on the day's schedule. It's already been reported that Biden was also due to attend the one-year anniversary of the

passing of his son, Bo, back home in Delaware. Now, Comer, this is my favorite part, okay, Comer had been pointing to this scheduling item since it was also emailed to then-Vice President Biden under a pseudonym email address, Comer even said the vice president was sending a secret message to his son that he was about to fire the prosecutor, meaning the Ukrainian prosecutor, Shokin. We'll get to him in just a moment. As recently as last week, Comer included that email on a list of evidence of Joe Biden's involvement in his family's influence peddling schemes. However, the Washington Post had debunked this a few weeks ago by noting that Parliament had fired the prosecutor. prosecutor two months prior to Hunter Biden being looped on the day's itinerary, the only new

information in the unredacted version was a phone number of an aid. That was it. Okay. And the other thing I'll say is, I've been trying to figure out how exactly are conservative commentators still hanging on to evidence of wrongdoing, evidence of criminality, right? Like, well, what are they saying to their audiences? And believe it or not, they are pointing to, to former Hunter Biden business partner Devin Archer's testimony in which he simply said that sometimes when Hunter Biden was in the presence of business partners, his father would call him to say hello and check in on him. And because of that, there is now proof that Joe Biden was involved in the business dealings of Hunter Biden because he called his son to say hello and that

was it. I mean, Devin Archer testified that Joe Biden had nothing to do with any of the business deals, any of the negotiations. He would be shocked if that were the case. That was what he testified. But he did say that sometimes because Joe Biden hasn't memorized his son's schedule, he would call his son as his son happened to be meeting with business partners. That's the That's what they're hanging their hat on. It's amazing. It's evidence, evidence, evidence, evidence, smoking gun, smoking gun, evidence, evidence.

As long as they say all the, you know, the spark and the emotional words, they get people then go, oh my God, what did they just said? Must have been, I was snoozing during it, but they just said smoking guns. So I think I just heard of smoking gun. That's the process and that's the approach that has been. How many times is Jane Comer and Jim Jordan put themselves on television or in hearings and embarrassed themselves like this? At some point, at least just wait.

Because I actually, you know, since this whole thing started, I was like, man, these are some clowns. I wonder when I stumble across and reveal some actual information that shows some wrongdoing. Maybe we won't go to the degree of total corruption and was handing over trade secrets over a couple dollars for a son or snorting lines of cook. Whatever it is that they're saying was happening. I'm still waiting for some of it. I was like, they must have started this because something happened. I actually believed there's probably 5% of something they're saying that did happen and I'm still waiting for it.

I'm ready. I got a tall glass of conspiracy ready to drink this, and they haven't given it to me yet. I'm sure people that are actually supportive of these guys are really waiting for it. Bro, if you got it, we're ready for it. And they still haven't come up with it. What's the plan, bro? What's the plan? So there are reports that they're getting a lot of pressure from Donald Trump to pursue this impeachment, even though they have absolutely no evidence. And I mean, look, they're really playing with fire here because it's not just Trump, to be fair. Republican voters are like urging and pressuring Republican lawmakers to pursue this investigation. But at the end of the day, the election is going to, this is a politicized stunt, right?

And at the end of the day, elections come down to independent voters. And so if after several years of this investigation, the, you know, House Oversight Committee under the leadership of James Comer and the Republican Party come up with nothing, well, then you're going to turn a lot of independence off. And even J.D. Vance is saying that. J.D. Vance is like, I don't know, this is not a good idea. This could actually really hurt us in the next election. We'll see what happens.

But in regard to the prosecutor, in case some of you don't know about this angle or forgot about it, so Republicans have been arguing essentially that Joe Biden fired a prosecutor who was investigating the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, which Hunter Biden was serving on. And the whole idea was, oh, there was corruption on the board. There was corruption with this gas company. And Biden, as VP, decided to fire the prosecutor in order to end that investigation. But that is not the case. So it turned out that Shokin himself was corrupt. He actually was not investigating Burisma, and Biden didn't unilaterally make a decision to do away with him. This was the current U.S. foreign policy at the time.

And so he carried out U.S. foreign policy on behalf of the United States government, whereas if you look at Trump's first impeachment, he was withholding congressionally appropriated money to Ukraine unless Vladimir Zelensky announced a sham investigation into Joe Biden to help him. helped Trump get a leg up in the 2020 presidential election. That's what he got impeached for. So if you're trying to compare the two investigations, we're talking about two very, very different situations. And so far, there hasn't been any evidence of Biden engaging in any wrongdoing. Now, with that said, Comer is now arguing, look, anyone who thinks that we're worth laughing at,

just keep in mind that we haven't gotten all the documents we asked for. There might be more. So this is what he says. A House Oversight Committee spokesperson said to Politico, it's silly for anyone to try to draw conclusions from 14 pages of documents that the White House cleared to give to Congress, especially when it contains an email that opines on foreign nationals thinking Joe Biden is sexy. These are the emails Joe Biden wants Americans to see.

I bet he does. I think that's probably the most accurate thing this person is saying. The oversight committee will continue to follow the money and evidence. to hold President Biden accountable for his abuse of public office. You guys go ahead and do that. But remember, Comer received the specific document unredacted that he had asked for. The document that he believed was going to prove that Joe Biden was engaged in wrongdoing, and it proved no such thing.

So, I mean, look, great, let's give them more unredacted documents if they want. But I think they're starting to realize there's no there. and it could backfire politically. Any final words on this? I would just like to thank Comer for making me feel personally closer to Joe Biden and Hunter Biden because anybody who has immigrant parents has had the experience of getting a phone call in the middle of the day on a weekday and your parent being shocked that you are at work. Just like, what? You're working?

No way. Like, bruh, it's Tuesday at 1.30. What else would I be doing? Dude. So, yeah, thank you for that, Comer. One time my mom called me in the middle of the workday to tell me about, like, a designer purse that she thinks I should buy as she was at the mall. And I'm like, mom, I don't do designer purse.

It's going to be all right. Don't call me about this kind of stuff. Anyway, but yeah, it's true. By the way, parents call randomly. all the time, right? Like the idea that Joe Biden calling his son is enough evidence to point to wrongdoing. The family values party, Anna. Yeah, it's insane.

Any final words, JR, before we wrap up? Oh, yeah, really fast. Yeah, just so this seems like the objective made for Comer and these guys is to keep this going for the duration, this until the next election cycle, and then hopefully have this energy of lawlessness surrounding Joe Biden's name be the thing, and then that derails hopefully him for the next election. But the thing is, this is way too long. We're already tired of it. The people that are supporting you are already tired of it. If we stretch this all over to the next election, it's going to be like, okay, bro, cool. What, no? It's just, it's, the strategy is way off

if that's it. Or the other part of it being, let's cover for all of Donald Trump's potential criminality because of all the indictments on him, we need to at least have both of them are up on all kinds of investigations. Whichever reason it is, it ain't working, bro, and it's really hard to pull the, you know, the emergency pull handle now because that looks even worse. So I think he's now beholden to something he started that he probably doesn't want to keep doing. Look, we all run into issues in our lives. It's all about how we react or respond to those issues. Compounding the problem isn't usually the best avenue, but who knows? Maybe, maybe Comer knows better than us. We'll see. But for everyone watching, we're going to take a

brief break. When we come back, a whole new panel. We'll be joining the show to cover the news of the day and more. Don't miss it. And special thanks to J.R. Jackson and Wazni Lombre for hosting with me. We'll be back in just a few. Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.