The Young Turks - Hillaryous Suggestions

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

Shady Uvalde Cops Are Concealing Key Details About The Mass Shooting | Hillary Clinton Warns That The Democrats Are In Serious Danger | France’s Political Shakeup Gives MASSIVE Boost To Far-Right Extremists | Texas Republicans Declare Homosexuality As An “Abnormal Choice”  Hosts: Ana Kasparian & Emma Vigeland *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET.  Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey ▶ https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt Watchlist with Jayar Jackson ▶ https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 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. Hey everyone. Hey everyone, welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Casparian, and Zeke Gonzalez better get ready because you guys are getting a double hitter today. I don't know if that makes sense in this context. I've heard the phrase double hitter a bunch of times. But Emma Biglin joins me for the entire show, the entirety of TYT, both the first hour, second hour.

We're not going to have a bonus episode today because we will be having a June 10th special immediately after the second hour hosted by our very own Rashad Ritchie. So definitely check in and stay tuned after the main show because we have a lot more wonderful programming ahead for you. Emma, how are you? I'm doing well, I'm doing well. I think you were looking for the phrase double header, double header, right? This was a baseball term that you were looking for. Yes, that's what we've got, that's what we've got. It's so good to see you as always, thanks so much for having me back on.

Oh my God, it's our pleasure, my pleasure, it's awesome to have you on. You know, as a fellow cul-de-stack dweller, it's just really good to have you on to talk about the news of the day. You know, right? We are cul-de-sac experts. I'm here in my apartment in Brooklyn, and my bed takes up my entire bedroom. So like I can't even really stand up, but I'm a true elite like that. Yes, yes, as we both are, Emma, as we both are. Anyway, we've got a lot to get to today. We will lighten up the rundown in the second hour. There was a bit of a gaffe from Joe Biden that I don't see a lot of generally speaking left outlets talking about, but I found it kind of hilarious, so we'll discuss that. But in the first hour, we have a lot of important

stories to get to, including the Uvaldi Police Department, just growing shadier and shadier by the day. We'll talk about an incredible profile written in the New Yorker in regard to Ron DeSantis and how eagerly Donald Trump allegedly wants to destroy his political career and chances at running for president in 2024. We'll also talk about how the right wing has become so unhinged that typical right wingers that we typically disagree with just aren't right wing enough for the far right. So we'll talk about that as well. But before we do any of that, why don't we get started with the updates on the Uvaldi police department, a story that broke over the weekend that I think

is worth giving you the details of today. So officials in Yuvaldi police department, Yuvaldi are apparently using a strange legal loophole to avoid transparency on how their cops handled the mass shooting at Rob Elementary School, which of course tragically left 19 children and two teachers dead. The police department is facing a lot of ridicule because of the fact that it took them over an hour, about 77 minutes to get into the classroom and do something about the shooter, but now we're learning that they're trying to avoid releasing documents that are being called upon by various reporters. Now, the city of Yuvaldi, according to NPR, has hired a private law firm to make its case, which cited the dead suspect loophole to deny the release

of information because the gunman died in police custody. The legal exception bars the public disclosure of information pertaining to crimes in which no one has been convicted. Now, There was a good reason for putting this type of loophole in the legislation. It was meant to ensure that someone who might be innocent isn't publicly accused of a crime, that their reputation isn't completely destroyed. The Texas Attorney General's office has ruled that the exception applies when a suspect is dead. And in this case, of course, the suspect is the mass shooter. Now the maneuver has been used repeatedly by Texas law enforcement agents.

agencies to claim they're not required to turn over the requested information because a criminal case is still pending, even though the suspect is dead. And again, the loophole exists to protect innocent people who are wrongfully accused or whose cases were dismissed. Now, as you can imagine, the press is looking for all sorts of documents, including and also surveillance, including body camera footage, the 911 calls, criminal records and emails and text messages that were exchanged between members of the police department. And there's good reason for why they would want this information, as you guys probably already know, but for those of you who might have missed, after the shooting happened, we got all sorts of contradicting information from

local officials, from the police department. The story kept changing. And wow, what a shocker. We're actually learning some other pretty terrible incriminating information about how the police department handled the shooting that day. But before I get to that, Emma, I wanted to open it up to you and get your thoughts. I mean, to me, it's clear that they're covering up something massive. Now, we don't know what that is. Obviously, I'm speculating here. I'm going to give that a million caveats. But there's a possibility that something a cop's bullet killed a child or more, right? We don't know that for sure. But given the extent to which they're trying to cover these

things up, you can't rule out that possibility. Because it's been revealed at the very least, They were incredibly negligent. There were dozens of officers at the scene from different departments that chose to wait an hour as they were receiving 9-1-1 calls from a little girl who said, my teacher's bleeding, smeared her friend's blood on herself in order to hide herself from the shooter, among other things. You can see the logged minutes where they didn't do anything at all. So either police are too scared to do anything or they committed a crime here. And frankly, we can get to more details. And I want to critique the Biden administration's lack of really saying anything at all on this topic in a bit. But maybe you can go through those details and then we can get into that.

Yeah, the Biden administration, I think unsurprisingly, has been careful in avoiding any type of offense toward the police. in this situation, even when you have right wingers in the country criticizing how the police handled it. But I do want to talk about some of the latest that we've learned according to those close to the investigation and also one sheriff in the area who disclosed information to the press. So the city and its police department are arguing against the release of the requested records citing the following reasons. And again, all of these reasons are being cited, Okay, the city's being sued. Some individuals criminal history records could include highly embarrassing information.

Some of the information could reveal police methods, techniques, and strategies for preventing and predicting crime. I doubt it. What strategy? Right, exactly. Like the idea, like we need to hold these strategies close to home, close to our hearts. Because we've been so effective in preventing crime, including a mass shooter in an elementary school. in an elementary school. Like, so ridiculous.

Absolutely ridiculous. A strategy where we coward and fear as children were being massacred inside, that's something we've got to keep under wraps, guys, because it's really highly technical police work. Okay, yeah, insane, absolutely insane. So could cause emotional slash mental distress is not of legitimate concern to the public. No, I would argue it actually is of very legitimate concern to the public, namely the victims, family members who want answers in regard to how the cops handled this situation,

could be subject, could subject city employees or officers to a substantial threat of physical harm and violates individuals' common law right to privacy. City officials have also refused to release more details, reasoning that it could interfere with the ongoing investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety, Uvaldi County's district attorney, and the FBI. But look, despite their best efforts to avoid any any transparency, we are learning more and more about how incompetent the Uvaldi police were. How honestly, it seemed like they were completely unaware of basic issues, including whether or not the classroom

door was locked. And apparently, according to new reports, the Uvaldi police didn't even attempt to open two of the classroom doors, two of the doors leading into the classroom where the shooter was, right? So they had assumed that it was locked. And so they didn't just try to turn the knob and open it. Instead, they, according to police officials, tried a bunch of different keys. I don't even know if that's true. That's what they're alleging. And they didn't get into the classroom until they used a crowbar to open it. So let me give you those details. This was, okay, so surveillance footage shows that police never tried to open the door to two classrooms at Rob Elementary School in Uvaldi. In the 77 minutes between the time the gunmen entered the rooms and massacred 21 people and officers finally stormed in and killed him,

according to a law enforcement source who's close to the investigation, police might have assumed the door was locked. But the latest evidence suggests it may have been open the whole time, possibly due to a malfunction, the source said. The surveillance footage indicates gunman Salvador Ramos was able to open the door to the classroom, 111, and enter with an assault style rifle, the source said. So this is a police source close to the investigation disclosing this information to the press. And so regardless of how much the cops want to avoid transparency, things are leaking out now. But it's just... Don't assume, try to open the door. They didn't even, according to the surveillance footage, they didn't even try to do that, Emma.

This kind of reminds me a little bit about when we've been talking about abortion and the pending abortion ban that's going to happen in many red states in this country after Roe v. Wade is appealed, in which sometimes I see liberals focusing on the rape and incest exceptions in certain bills. And it's like, you know, certain Republicans, they might not be that extreme if they want to put exceptions for rape and incest in these bills. But it's kind of a red herring because one, then you're focusing on and you're conceding the point to the right that an abortion is an immoral act. And so now the debate is about whether you can in some narrow exceptions, if you were a victim do this immoral act in order to save yourself some emotional distress. And it's not even a good faith debate because Republicans don't really care about rape and incest exceptions. Now we're talking about doors. We're talking about doors. And that's what the police want, right? They are

putting this out there to the public that maybe the door didn't lock on purpose. So the conversation is about door safety. And Republicans are happy to talk about that as well to one entryway point. And they don't even believe this either the Evalde cops are waiting this out until the national media doesn't pay as much attention anymore. And Republican politicians are waiting this out so they don't really have to do much on gun bills, etc. So they're working in tandem to just tread water and make this a separate conversation, push the pressure away from them and all of that. I mean, it was the same reason why they were focusing on the teacher, leaving the rock allegedly, which was proven false at the door and that the door was open,

etc. Focus on the teachers. Public schools are inherently unsafe. Teachers are those unions. We should really undercut them, right? They're not doing their jobs well. Doors are not safe enough in schools, etc. Anything except the major issues in this country, which are we have way too many guns, it's way too easily accessible for people to get guns. And also that cops are overfunded and are doing nothing, nothing with that money. Yeah, it's interesting because I think the frantic search for a scapegoat following a mass shooting has become even more vicious where, you know, before, you know, the usual talking points focused on the right wing's alleged concerns, obviously hollow concerns because they never want to do anything about mental health in America.

Now it's focusing all the energy on the teachers. The fact that they decided to place blame on a teacher for allegedly propping a door open with a rock tells you everything you need to know. And then that story of course changed and there was evidence indicating that that was not the case. The teacher did not prop the door open with a rock. And now yes, you're right. The focus is on whether or not that lock malfunctioned. But placing all the blame on a malfunctioning, you know, lock is, is, is, is. exactly what you say it is, Emma. It's a way to distract from the very real issue of mass shootings

happening on a regular basis in this country. Mass shootings impacting children in elementary schools. This isn't the first time it's happened. And you're right. I do think that the right wing, along with gun advocates, are desperately hoping that the ending to this whole story is what we've experienced in the past. Everyone forgets, everyone moves on. We get distracted by what the latest scandal or latest political story is. And that's it. And they never have to face any real consequences or really question some of our failing policies. So I like that we're staying on the story. We're going to continue doing that. And hopefully the police will have no choice but to release the documents and the footage that the press is demanding of them. But they do have that loophole in the

books. And they're definitely taking full advantage of it to avoid the release of these documents. And just one final point really quickly. Just notice how the rights demonization of teachers is a through line throughout all of their political projects right now. It's both with this mass shooting. It's with grooming kids. They are trying to undercut the concept of public education and teachers. And it's a multi-pronged approach. So just be aware of that. Oh, totally. Yeah. Teachers are groomers, but we are going to put guns in their hands because we trust them to protect our kids from mass shooters. So ridiculous. Anyway, I'm actually gonna take a break. We're gonna take a quick four minute break, but when we come back, we're gonna talk a little bit about the consequences of neoliberal politics in two different stories. We will touch base on the election results in France, but we'll also talk about Hillary Clinton's recent interview with the Financial Times,

where she has some critique for the Democratic Party. I agree with a little of what she has to say, but I do have some constructive criticism as well. So we've got that story and more coming right up. Come right back. What's up? What's up everyone? Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and Emma Vigland with you. If you're unfamiliar with Emma, what's wrong with you? You should check her out on the majority

report Monday through Friday, although Emma's about to take a little bit of time off, but you can typically catch her on majority report with Sam Cedar and Matt Leck. Emma, anything else you'd like to tell the audience about before we move on? No, not much. I mean, well, you should check out the show today at the majority report because Dennis Prager is claiming that nobody wants to debate him on the left and that he's offering tens of thousands of dollars for someone to do so. Sam has very publicly said that he will debate Dennis Prager and yet it's crickets. Prager also pretended not to know who he was. So we might be having another crowd or situation on our hands. We'll see, something's brewing. Something's brewing. These guys are hilarious.

Like how many times have we seen right wingers make that claim? Inevitably, there's like a giant group of people on the left who are like, I'll debate you. I mean, I saw Ben Burrug. Burgess offer as well, it doesn't matter, they just do it to push this talking point that the left is somehow afraid of them. But we've got facts on our side, baby, we're ready. So I hope he takes Sam Cedar up on that offer. I'd love to see it. Sam loves it so much, so much. So his enthusiasms, in fact, just check it out for sure. I mean, he loves it so much that he takes callers without really screening them and ends up doing impromptu debates with libertarians live on air. Oh, no, we have no screening process. It's almost a problem, but yes.

Yeah, it's amazing. It really is. All right, well, why don't we move on to Hillary Clinton? This is a story that got a lot of attention over the weekend. I wanted to discuss it with you, Emma, and get your thoughts. So let's do it. Hillary Clinton is catching a little bit of heat from the general left after she critiqued Democrats in an interview with the financial time. She was speaking with Edward Luce, and in that interview, she talked about the consequences of Democrats losing the upcoming elections. Of course, there was a lot of fearmongering about the right wing and what they want to do in dismantling our democracy. She says, quote, I say that Democrats seem to be going out of their way. She doesn't say this. This is the reporter, Edward Luce.

I say that Democrats seem to be going out of their way to lose elections by elevating activist causes, notably the transgender debate, which are relevant only to a small minority. What sense does it make to depict J.K. Rowling as a fascist? To my surprise, Clinton shares the premise of my question. And Hillary agrees by saying, quote, we are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy and everything that everybody else cares about then goes out the window. The most important thing to do is to win the next election. The alternative is so frightening that whatever does not help you win should not be a priority. And okay, let's stop there because there's one tweak I want to make right off the bat, which is I don't see the Democratic Party really going out of its way to initiate this process of elevating transgender issues.

What I have seen is an effort to respond to the right wing, you know, turning the transgender community into its latest boogeymen and women in an attempt essentially to distract, as they always do, from the bread and butter issues in which they have absolutely no solutions and want to offer absolutely nothing to the American people. And so what I see happening is they attack the transgender community and Democrats try to intervene and, you know, in some, some sense virtue signal that they're different from Republicans in that regard. But also, you know, use that kind of messaging to campaign against Republicans and like the hatred they put out there. But what are your thoughts on that statement, Emma? One, I mean, the premise of the

question that was asked of her by that reporter, I couldn't agree with you more. I do not really even see Biden being vocal about trans people. Have we seen anything in that area? I mean, we don't really see him at all. That's part of the issue with his selection of Kamala Harris's VP. She's not a very charismatic speaker, nor does she connect with anybody outside of Democratic donor circles. She was like created in a lab to appeal to Democratic donors, but does not have broad appeal to regular folks. She's really not good on the stump. And then Biden is just struggling to communicate at this point in his life. And he's also just...

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Because when you're doing big things, your tools should to. Visit square.ca to get started. Powering in fear of the right. He is of, and so is Hillary Clinton, of an era of politician and of a philosophy that is constantly afraid of being called a socialist by Fox News. And they don't know any other avenue. And they're going to call you a socialist anyway. So you might as well do what's right.

But it's not surprising to hear this from Hillary Clinton. who came way, way, way too late to supporting marriage equality in this country, who has always taken a position that you have to concede bigotry to the right. Look at her rhetoric on super predators, et cetera. There's not really a fundamental understanding that you can fight bigotry by actually communicating issues to people. So the concept that it's trans issues, like, Democrats act like battered victims of Republicans all the time, they hit them in the mouth

and then they go, well, it's your fault. Look what you made me do. That's what Republicans say. And so you're never going to win elections that way. You have to be aggressive in your messaging and throwing the most vulnerable people in this country to the wolves in order to win elections for electoralism is actually a pathetic concept in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, I agree with you there. But the other thing that I don't think Hillary Clinton has really thought about. And James Carville made a very similar point in regard to wokeism infecting the Democratic Party and how it's leading Democrats, you know, off a cliff. They really need to get off of it. And it really overall, like the general point that I'm seeing them make is get off the identity politics. Get off the identity politics. Which, look, I do think electorally speaking, there is some truth to what they're saying, right? Because if you're just hyper focus, if you're campaigning is hyper focused on politics that tend to divide people, right? If your message is, well, we're going to be fighters for a very small group of people in the country,

but you ignore general issues that impact all Americans. Well, you're going to lose people and their support for your party, right? Because at the end of the day, people might want equality for various disenfranchised groups of people, but they also want to know, well, what is your party going to do to better my life? Because there are plenty of people struggling in the country, plenty of people who are still underpaid, dealing with insane inflation, not being able to put food on the table for themselves and their children, not being able to afford rent or housing. When you think about those issues that are at the top of your priority list as an American, everything else just kind of dims in comparison. So I kind of get the point that she's trying to

to make, but here's the other side of it. Okay, well then, what do you propose Democrats campaign on? Do you propose that they campaign on their economic reforms? Because there really haven't been any. All you see from Democrats at this point is the promotion of the same neoliberal policies that have led to widespread resentment toward them and has allowed the extreme right wing to gain power in this country. They couldn't pass build back better, the social spending bill. They might try to focus on the stimulus that Biden passed in the beginning of his presidency. But people are going to forget about that. And it's just too far away from when the elections take place. Are they going to talk about canceling student loan debt? They can't really do that. Biden promised to cancel

$10,000. He didn't even do that. I mean, I just don't really know what they would campaign on. And I think part of the reason why they lean into these issues is because they've got nothing else. And I know this sounds super cynical, but I don't even really think they care about these issues at the end of the day. I mean, they'll kneel down in a kente cloth after George Floyd gets murdered, but they haven't passed any police reform. So it's just, I just wish both James Carville, Hillary Clinton, and anyone in their line of thinking really take a step back and think about how they kind of created the mess that they're now complaining about. You know, the endless engagement in what they now refer to as distractions, well, they've

been engaging in that for a long time now in lieu of the very real bread and butter issues that Americans care about. You can't seed the culture war to the right because they have a much more aggressive apparatus and a much more hateful apparatus. It's easy to to play into reactionary instincts. Right now, look at what they're doing with trans people. They are using trans people as a conduit into a larger rollback of rights for gay people, right? Which is also a conduit into attacking teachers in this country. Trans people, it's newer for some people. They don't quite

understand. And so they're exploiting that fear into this is going to be a broader don't say gay bill here. And so we're going to attack gay people as well. And if you're a gay teacher, You're a groomer. They are so intersectional, ironically, in the way that they target specific groups in this country. And frankly, the Democrats could, if they chose, do many things at once. Be aggressive in combating the culture war and also having an aggressive economic agenda for the rest of the country. But Biden is completely out of his depth in that area because he chose to split infrastructure. That's what Democratic leadership decided to do.

build back better from the roads and other infrastructure that actually did pass. He chose to do that. And then he also chose to bring Republicans into the process, because for some reason, he believes that there's a mythical voter out there that's going to vote for him because he negotiated with Republicans over a social spending policy for a few months, as if like that matters to anybody. It's just Washington brain. No, and then his entire agenda has been tanked because he was not aggressive in that area, That's why Democrats are hurting and are going to lose the House. I'm gonna be real with you, they're going to lose the house.

Yeah, totally. And if he, I mean, the Senate is something that we need to hold onto for federal judgeships, but in terms of his broader agenda, it's over, it's over. And that's his fault. And if he had done that, there should be, I don't want to hear anything about the Democrats need to be in the position to protect the most vulnerable people in this country because the right is coming after trans people with everything that they have. Democrats should be able to do that. And the reason they are not able to do that is the direct result of Biden's incompetence and the exact kinds of politics

that Hillary Clinton is clawing at and trying to make sure that it remains the policy of the Democratic Party as she kicks the left, which is trying to embrace a broader agenda for that party. Yeah, and look, the point that I'm trying to make is not like ignore these issues, ignore what the right wing is doing to the LGBTQ community. Actually, it's quite frankly the opposite of what I'm saying here. My point is if what the Republican Party attacking groups of people like this, unfortunately galvanizes their voters. It gets them to the polls, right? And so you need as a Democrat, as a, the Democratic party needs something to

galvanize their own voters. And if the only messaging we get is tut-tut, Republicans are so hateful, look at how awful they are, it doesn't galvanize voters to vote for them and put them in positions of power, which then could lead to them protecting various disenfranchised groups of people. The way you galvanize voters on the left is to offer them something. And I don't, I genuinely don't know what the Democratic Party, the mainstream Democratic Party is offering the American people right now. And that's the part of the conversation that was completely missing in this interview with Hillary Clinton. You get what I'm saying? I totally agree with you. And the point that you made about the Kente cloth kneeling is

actually like very true. And it's also I think true for gun control. They love to fundraise off these issues. They love it. That's why they're only that's why they're so nervous about trans people and they're so nervous about defund the police, those two issues because they think those don't pull well with suburban voters. But you know what does what suburban? types of voters, white older suburban voters who are disaffected from Trump, what they do care about is gun control, they do like that, and they also care, they want to be anti-racist, right? But the Democrats don't want to do anything policy wise with that because they'd have to get rid of the filibuster, anything substantive.

And so they just choose to fundraise off of it. And that is a rotten, rotten philosophy that people like Hillary Clinton, are trying to keep in place. Exactly, exactly. All right, well, why don't we move on to a little bit of international news? And I think this is predictable in regard to the elections in France, especially since there are some parallels with what we've experienced here in the US. French President Emmanuel Macron has lost his party's absolute majority in parliament.

This follows the French elections that just took place and the results are pretty grim for his party. Now, while his party still has a majority, the fact of the matter is he lost the absolute majority and that is going to stifle his ability. Honestly, there are some upside. Stifle his ability to implement some policies that are actually very unpopular and pretty terrible, including raising the retirement age. But here are the details. So Macron's centrist alliance ensemble came first in Sunday's second round of legislative elections, securing 245 out of a total 577, according to final results released by the French Interior Ministry more than any other political party. However, it still fell short of the 289 seat threshold for an absolute majority in the

National Assembly, France's lower house. So the results have shown that voters in France have honestly gravitated to both what's being referred to extremes in the country, right? Extreme extreme political party. So more voters ended up supporting the far left. And more voters, unfortunately, also decided to support the far right with Marine Le Penz party. And so leftist coalition, new ecological and social people's union or Nupes, a pan left coalition came in second with 131 seats. And to be quite honest with you, I'm definitely not concerned about that. But I am concerned about is that Marine Le Pen's party has unfortunately increased its support. They went from eight to 89 figures in the National Assembly, and we have a quick video explaining

the consequences of that. Let's watch. Celebrations in the National Raleigh headquarters as results come in on Sunday evening, an unexpected and historic score for the party. My feeling, it's obvious, I'm happy. With 89 members of parliament, the national rally multiplies by ten times its presence in the National Assembly. After disappointing results in the municipal and regional elections in the last two years, the national rally is now the third largest party in the lower house. Marine Le Pen lands a comfortable win with 61% of the votes in her district against the leftist alliance nukes.

The French people have a very severe. severely punished a government whose decisions made them suffer a lot in the past five years. Now, Marine Le Pen is awful. We've talked about her on this show quite a bit. But the results of the election don't really surprise me. You know, in the presidential election, Marine Le Pen lost against Macron, obviously. However, she did manage to close the lead, which seemed to surprise Emmanuel Macron and his party. Luckily, she didn't end up winning. But this is, very similar to be quite honest with what we're experiencing in the United States, where we keep getting told over and over again that centrist politics, neoliberal policy is really the way to

go. That's what the voters want. But that is not the case. It's actually driven more polarization and division within the party. In fact, we've always had a pretty big problem in the United States when it comes to low voter turnout. That wasn't the case with France until fairly recently. The abstentions here were incredibly high, about 53% of the French electorate decided to abstain from voting. And if you look at what Macron has accomplished or was wanting to accomplish, you can kind of understand why, because he was protested by the yellow vests for wanting to essentially implement regressive taxation. You know, he's pro-austerity. He wanted to raise the Social Security age, or I'm sorry, the retirement age. I shouldn't say social security age.

The retirement age. All sorts of policies that destroyed the social safety net in the United States. And so why would we not expect a similar response to it in France? We're honestly, relatively speaking, there's a lot more political engagement than we have here. Emma. I mean, his strategy, Macron's strategy of conceding many points to the right is a lot. lesson that we can learn, as you say, Anna, the left needs to learn everywhere. We just saw amazing election results for the left in Colombia, for example. And that was based on a bold economic climate change agenda, among other things, where if you actually sell your vision to the people of your country, it's being bolder is good. Standing for something is good. And it's not just good because it's the right thing to do. It's in your best interest politicians,

and that's what we keep trying to tell people. It may not be in your best interest right away. I mean, Bernie Sanders built a movement, and there have been some wins electorally in the House, et cetera, built on that movement. And it takes some time and it takes some courage. But you need to get it started somewhere. Because restoration politics, which is what Biden is doing in my opinion, I'm going to restore our democracy to what it was, which is just putting a plug in the many gaping holes that Trump caused and other right wingers have caused. And as soon as another right winger inevitably gets elected, they will create more holes. So restoration still moves the country further and further to the right. And the same thing was happening here

with Emmanuel Macron. Macron ceded all of these anti-Muslim points to the right wing. He's been aggressive in targeting Muslim mosques, areas of faith in prayer in order to help demonize them so that he turns out his voters. Well, it didn't work out that well. Very low turnout for him. And you know who's going to keep turning out? The actual racist. Because the racists always want to go with the real thing. They're not going to go for the guy that just says, I'm a little bit racist, but not as racist as Le Pen. No, they want the real thing. And he's helped stoke Islamophobia in the process of a failed election strategy. So he's both an idiot and he's doing the wrong thing morally for Muslim people who are incredibly vulnerable to the extreme racism that's in

France right now. Yeah, you're exactly right about that. And as a result of the losses for his party in this recent election, he has to figure out a way. I mean, it'll be a lame duck, you know, situation unless he finds a way to work or create a coalition within parliament. And so just to show you that he has learned nothing, he has decided to work with the traditional right. Instead of like, hey, the left has actually made some pretty significant gains here. why don't I see why? Why don't I see what's appealing about their platform? Maybe that's the coalition, maybe that's the direction I should go into. But much like the mainstream Democratic party here, he's digging his heels in and has decided to work with a coalition of the traditional

right instead of moving to the left and maybe listening to all of those people who took to the streets in the Yellow Vest movement. Doesn't really care too much about that. Just wants to continue on with the same failed policies that has led to major losses for his party. So we'll see how it plays out. Actually, we know how it's going to play out. It's playing out here in the United States as well. Just one failure after the next. But we got to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about the Texas GOP and the very strong message that they're sending to the log cabin Republicans. We've got that story and more coming right up.

Welcome back. You're watching TYT with Anna Casparian and Emma Viglin. Make sure you catch Emma on the majority report Monday through Friday. You guys go live at 12 Easter. Yeah, and we'll go usually to around 2.30, 2.45. except when Sam wants to go longer. So today we went to like three, which I get really hungry by that point of the show. Yeah, no, it's you guys like started switching streams, I think for the fun half.

So I think you have to be a member, right, to watch the fun half? You have to be a member to watch the fun half if you are not watching it live. So if you'd like to become a member, it's really not much, but it helps us out a ton. join the Majority Report.com to do that. Wow, I'm an expert. I am a professional. I cannot believe, I even remembered the website. But yeah, there we go. I love it. All right, well, why don't we talk a little bit about the log cabin Republicans, because they're really struggling these days. It's been a tough, tough time for them. Gay Republicans are really having a rough go at things, especially now that they've been

explicitly rejected by the GOP in Texas. This is a pretty big story, but it should be unsurprising, considering how the right wing in America has really gone all in on their hatred and discrimination of the LGBTQ community. But maybe gay Republicans thought that it was limited to transgender individuals. They are sadly mistaken, it turns out that the right wing despises them as well. So the newly adopted platform of the Texas Republican Party now officially declares that homosexuality is an abnormal choice. And there was plenty of hate directly toward the trans

community too. The shocking platform voted on by 5,100 delegates and alternate Saturday at the party's biennial convention in Houston also affirms Texas Republicans opposition to all efforts to validate transgender identity and calls for a ban on any gender affirming medical care, including hormone therapy for anyone under the age of 21. So I thought they were concerned about children having, you know, operations and stuff. Like, but no, it's not really about that. I mean, really, you can't make decisions about your own health and your own body as a transgender individual until you're 21. Yeah, so much for medical freedom, so much for parental rights, too.

Exactly. And I mean, they're going after parents who are actually good, loving parents who are accepting of their transgender children. I mean, but none of this surprises me. And the platform also supports the terrible and long debunked gay conversion therapy, which they call reintegrative therapy, nice euphemism there. I want to give you a little screenshot of their platform that addresses this. They address counseling methods, and they write therapists, psychologists, and counselors licensed with the state of Texas shall not be forbidden or penalized by any licensing board for practicing reintegrative therapy or other counseling methods when counseling clients of any age with gender dysphoria or unwanted same-sex

attraction. It's just, you know, look at it. into those gay conversion therapy clinics and the sexual abuse that took place within those clinics, the torture that was used against gay individuals, including electroshock therapy. I mean, the fact that the Texas Republicans have like really leaned in on this tells you everything you need to know about them. Like they don't care about human lives. They don't care about this insanely high suicide rate among the transgender community, which is of course caused by this type of rhetoric, this type of political platform, they don't care about lives. The only time they purport to care about lives is when they want to

essentially legislate and control women's uteruses. That's the only time they allege to care about human lives. But even in that regard, they don't really care about lives at all. As I've said, multiple times in the show. It's all about accumulating political power. It's all about controlling and punishing women and it doesn't matter how hypocritical they are. It doesn't matter how much they contradict themselves. They throw the red meat out to their Republican base and they eat it up. And this is this is what they do to galvanize their voters. It's incredibly depressing. But it's about time that the log cabin Republicans who were denied a booth at this event,

learn what the reality is of the party that they actively promote. Yeah, Dave Rubin might need to get that message as well, but he's not really, his financial benefits might might go away if he chooses to think critically about the party that he now supports and how they much they hate gay people and trans people for that matter. When you talk about how suicides for trans kids and for gay kids increase with this kind of legislation and therapy that's being promoted, frankly, that's what the right what the right wants. I think we need to be clear-eyed about that. They either don't want trans people and gay people for more extreme Republicans to exist or they don't want to see them.

They don't want to think about them and they certainly don't want their kids to be that, right? They think that if they implement these policies, that their kids will be exactly perfect little narcissistic versions of themselves. That's really what this is. They are terrified, cowardly parents who are afraid to expose their kids to the world because they want their kids to be reflections of themselves. Frankly, the right wants you to be a bad parent and they want to legislate it. And I also just keep thinking when I see this about the progress myth, right? Where liberals, traditional like neoliberal types really want to believe that the tide of history, the arc of history bends towards justice. I'm kind of butchering the question.

But you get what I'm saying. Yeah. And that's not true. It's not true. The reason that good things happen for disenfranchised groups and policies get implemented is because people fight for them. They fight for them. And you know what? The right is always fighting, always fighting against that. And so right now we're seeing this with Roe v. Wade. You mentioned abortion there. No, the arc of history does not I've always been towards justice because right now a right is going to be snatched away from tens of millions of women in this country. And it's going to happen like that because the right fought for it. The right fought for it. And the Democrats need to fight and the left. I don't even

want to talk about the Democrats, right? Like they're fairly useless unless you make them do something. And that's why we have to have organized on the ground groups, you know, like DSA here in New York has this massive slate of candidates that I've been supportive of, large organizations that can wield their power in state legislatures and eventually on the federal level as well. But you can't just like say, you know, we'll just be hands off and eventually people won't be bigoted anymore. That's not how things work. Activists fight for them and claiming that that's the case erases years and years of work by indigenous, black, gay, trans, etc., advocates. this country which actually fought for things and it's frankly an offensive myth.

Yeah, you're you're absolutely right about that. And I think, you know, it's such an optimistic take, an optimistic myth that it's hard not to believe it, right? Because, you know, we did see some progress in this country when it came to social issues, but the right wing has been active organizing for 50 years to essentially put all of the building, building blocks, if you will, in place to get what they want in controlling women's bodies. And they did it through federal courts, they did it through ensuring that the Supreme Court was just stacked with right wing ideologues that didn't believe in a woman's right to choose. And you always have to be on guard because you can't just assume that every victory is a

guaranteed permanent victory. You're always gonna have the opposing side attempt to chip away. away at it. And the depressing thing is, you know, I don't see the opposition to the Republican party aggressively organizing to chip away at what they're doing in the country right now. I mean, it's really hard not to fall into this mood of despair because they have everything in place to their advantage, including the Supreme Court. So not only do we need Democratic politicians who are willing to fight for the right policies, we also need. need a fighter who's willing to reform, because that's definitely what we need, reform our institutions, including the Supreme Court, which has now just become another arm of the right wing.

But real quick, going back to the reaction to the Texas GOP and their platform, well, they are, they got a little bit of a response from the log cabin Republicans. I should note that delegates at the convention were peppered with flyers attacking the LGBTQ community, including one warning, beware of the homosexual agenda. And then in response to that, there was a tepid denunciation from Chris Halbo, who is the log cabin Republicans of with the law cabin Republicans of Houston, which represents LGBTQ members of the party. He called the anti-LGB language an unnecessary, gratuitous addition to the party's platform and then made an argument about how they're better served by building a broad coalition that includes the gay community. But look, I'm sure Homeboy

loves his tax cuts. I'm sure he supports the Republican Party because he loves the austerity measures that they promote. I'm sure he loves the tax cuts that he gets to enjoy. But at the end of the the day, they don't see you as human. They see you as subpar, as someone who doesn't deserve the same rights, someone who deserves to be persecuted in American society. And sometimes, you know, greed gets in the way of common sense thinking. And that's definitely what's taking place with the law cabin Republicans. Yeah, class interests will largely trump all. I mean, it doesn't mean that bigotry isn't the, really how the Republicans are operating. That's our midterm strategy right now with these anti-gay bills. But when it comes to certain members of certain

classes, I mean, here in New York, there are people I've encountered like that, right? Where it's just, yeah, I'm queer, but it's just I really like my taxes not going up. And eventually, you know, that's that's kind of how it irons out. But yeah, a lot of cabin Republicans, hypocrites, that's not news. Yeah, exactly. All right, well, that's does it for our first hour, we're going to take a brief break. And when we come back for hour two, we'll talk a little bit about the reception that Republican lawmakers like, you know, Ted Cruz and Dan Crenshaw received when they went to this convention in Texas. We've got that story and more. Don't miss it. We'll be right back.

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