The Young Turks - Hillbilly Fruitcakes

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

Literal Facepalm Moment In Rittenhouse Murder Trial | NRA Execs Call Supporters “Hillbillies,” “Fruitcakes” | Republican Posts Anime Of Him Violently Killing AOC | After Death Threat, Republican Throws Graham Under Bus | Meadows’ Plan To Punish Repubs Who Helped Biden | Dems Want To Repeat Losing Trump-Focused Strategy | Prager’s Jaw-Dropping Claim About Aids And Anti-Vaxxers | Trump Gets Triggered By, Freaks Out At Chris Christie | Hawley Doubles Down On Calling Men Weak, Lazy Pervs | Musk’s Own Followers Say He Should Actually Pay Taxes | Video Claims To Expose Jimmy Dore’s Anti-Vaccine Grift Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Welcome to the Young Turks, Jake U Granite with you guys. What is this? We're back in our home studios because we both got sick, but not COVID. Everybody calm down, not COVID. Two, two, two, two, two.

It was not during the COVID days. You don't two to do during the COVID days. No. It spreads it around. Anyways, we both tested negative. I actually got sick for very obvious reason, a booster shot. And so everything's great. I feel terrific today.

The booster shot works. As you'll see in the bonus episode at the end for the members, there are some people claiming the vaccines don't quite work. That's because they're liars. And they also claim to be on the left, but that's also because they're liars. Okay, that's going to be fun for the members. And then now that's a new thing about liars. Okay, so we do have a lot of news for you guys. As usual, a lot of it is disastrous, but we will tell the smile on our face.

although not all the time. And so certainly not in the first story. All right, that brings us to the top newscaster in the country, Anna Kasper. All right, well, we begin with the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse. So let's get right to it. The prosecution's case against Kyle Rittenhouse in the shooting of three individuals in Kenosha, Wisconsin is not looking good.

Now, of course, that shooting, which took place last year when he was 17 years old, resulted in two individuals dying, one individual being wounded. And the person who was shot and wounded did testify on the stand recently. His name is Gage Grosskreutz. And he admitted on the stand that he was in fact in possession of a firearm, which he had unholstered in response to Kyle Rittenhouse because he believed that Kyle Rittenhouse was an active shooter. Now, this is an important detail in the trial because the defense claims that Kyle Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense when he fired his weapon. I want to be clear that this moment between Gross-Croits and Rittenhouse happened after Rittenhouse had fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum. That was an individual who was chasing after him into a parking lot. We cover that in more detail earlier on the show. But for now, let's focus on what happened in the aftermath, following. the shooting of Rosenbaum. This is where Gage Grosskroyce is involved, and he is about to explain why he unholstered his gun in this clip. Let's watch. Today, the jury was shown new drone video

of Rittenhouse shooting and killing Joseph Rosenbaum. A crowd chased and confronted Rittenhouse as he fled that scene. Then Rittenhouse shot and killed another protester before wounding Groskroitz. right now's claims he was acting in self-defense his attorney question gross quotes his actions leading to the shooting when you were standing three to five feet from him it wasn't until you pointed your gun at him advanced on him with your gun not your hands down pointed at him that he fired right correct now of course in order to use the defense of self-defense in a court of law you need to show that there was a an imminent threat, right? And in this case with Gross Kreutz unholstering his weapon, you could argue, obviously, that Kyle Rittenhouse, who was on his back at the time,

was dealing with an imminent threat. Now let me give you a few more details, Jenk, before you jump in. So Gross Kroits 27 testified that he unholstered his gun on August 25th, 2020, as he and a crowd followed Writtenhouse who had just fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum. Rittenhouse fell to the ground, fired twice at an unknown person and then fatally shot Anthony Huber.

That was the second individual that he fatally shot. Gross Croix just feet away, put his hands in the air video show. He then saw Writtenhouse re-rack his weapon, a motion that loads it for gunfire. He testified. So that's what he claimed. He said this, rewracking my weapon, or I'm sorry, rewracking the weapon in my mind, meant that the defendant pulled the trigger while my hands were in the air, but the gun didn't fire. So by rewracking the weapon, I inferred the defendant wasn't accepting my surrender.

On redirect, though, he clarified that he did not intentionally aim at Rittenhouse. At any point during the encounter, did you intentionally point your firearm at the defendant, prosecutor Thomas Binger asked, no, I did not, he responded. But clearly you can see in this still shot from the video, it's a little blurry, but you can see that's Gross Kroits with the gun pointed at Kyle Rittenhouse just before Rittenhouse had shot his weapon. Shank. Okay. So there are two separate issues here. One is the actual criminal case. Does he have a good defense for self-defense? The other is a moral component of the story. Who's right? Who's wrong morally? So on the shooting of Grosskreutz, he's going to have a very good self-defense case, right? So I'm not positive that picture is that you could tell from that angle that he's pointing it directly at Rittenhouse.

It looks that way in the picture, but every picture is slightly misleading because of the moment that it's taken and you can't tell which way his arm is moving and exactly which way it points. But honestly, it's irrelevant, okay? That right there is good enough and the testimony is good enough, very likely for a written house to get off on that charge. Okay, and I would say rightfully so, okay, but with a giant caveat that I'm going to get to in a minute, okay? Now remember, he's the one that survived, the other two that died Rosenbaum and Huber. I know that Anna talked about it in a previous show, but looking at those videos, there's a couple of things that are clear in terms of Rosenbaum. He had just gotten out of a mental health clinic and he did rush at at Rittenhouse and he threw a plastic bag at him with things in it, right? And there was a gunshot nearby.

So Rittenhouse is going to have a self-defense case there too. It doesn't mean he's going to win on that one. If somebody throws a plastic bag at you and you hear a gunshot, I don't know, a lot of people might say, yeah, that's definitely self-defense. And a lot of people would say, no, it's a plastic bag. He had no idea whether somebody was shooting at him or not. His back was turned to Rosenbaum. He had no idea if Rosenbaum had a gun, but he shot him four times anyway, right? And then in terms of Huber, this one we knew all along.

Huber hit him with a skateboard. And I've always thought, no, I would never murder someone for hitting me with a skateboard, right? Now, I get it. They're in the middle of a crazy situation there and protests, et cetera. At the same time, Rittenhouse is the one who purposely put it. himself in that situation with a gun. And that's going to get to the moral case. But if I was on the jury, I'd pay a lot of attention to the Rosenbaum part and the Huber part. And I would have very much an open mind. And I would hear all of the evidence, et cetera, to see if that

qualifies for self-defense. And it might depend on the law of the state. Right. So now, having said all that, now let's go to the second part, the moral part. To me, it's as clear as it always was. There's only one fact here that's different than what I knew before, which is that today, Gross Kroids said basically that the gun was pointing near Rittenhouse or at Rittenhouse, right? So there's a little tiny bit of confusion there, but it's not material. So that's new, right? And in the videos that we saw originally, it was not clear that Gross Croix, to me at least, had a weapon. So that's all new stuff. So for me, So that stuff is very impactful on his actual criminal trial, especially when it comes to

gross courts, right? On the moral issue, it is not at all impactful. The guy goes into a hostage, into a situation that could be volatile with a weapon. Everyone who was there with a weapon that was on the right wing side was looking for trouble. They couldn't wait for trouble. They couldn't wait to use their weapons. Like the stores that they're theoretically guarding, they don't know anything about there from different states. It's not their community. And the stores are ported up. The owners aren't

there. They aren't protecting anyone. They just can't wait to shoot. That's what written house was doing. So in terms of sympathy, do you have any sympathy for written house? Zero, zero. He's a terrible person who did a terrible thing. He went into the middle of that protest looking for trouble. He found it. And the minute someone threw a plastic bag at him, he started killing people. So whether he is found criminally liable for that is going to be a matter of all of the evidence in the state jurisprudence and direction that the judge gives, etc. And by the way, the judge is still wrong. He said that these guys must be called rioters, looters, and arsonists. One of them was a paramedic. There's no evidence that any of the victims or rioters or arsonists or looters. The

judge is almost lying there by allowing that. So given the judge's proclivity, God, Rittenhouse looks like he has an excellent chance of getting off. But it says nothing about his moral culpability, which I think he's just as guilty as he ever was. Yeah, to me, the thing that's standing out the most about this case, not necessarily the trial of written house, but the entire situation that unfolded that night was the lack of trust in police authorities to do their jobs appropriately. Because the militia members who showed up armed, regardless of what you think of them, felt that they needed to be there to protect the community and to protect local businesses.

I agree that showing up puts yourself in a dangerous position and Rittenhouse as a 17-year-old. Really, I mean, I get it. He previously had worked in that community supposedly as a lifeguard. I'll take that at face value. But we are not supposed to allow vigilantes to just like rush in and carry out or enforce what they believe to be the law, right? We're supposed to rely on our police, on police authorities, law enforcement to do their jobs. But whether you're on the right or the left in this particular case, no one trusted the cops to do their jobs. I mean, you watch testimony, you watch video of these militia members, and they're just like, yeah, we just saw communities burn down and we felt like we needed to go in and control the situation.

It just creates a dangerous environment. And one other thing that's also clear to me, based on reporting that's come out ever since the situation transpired, is that the cops intentionally grouped, like they pushed both groups together, like in one area, knowing that that could lead to an increase of violence. It could lead to a violent situation. And that's exactly what happened here.

So, yeah, go ahead. And I'll go further than you. And I'll even disagree in a little bit here because I blame the police almost most of all. But with a slight distinction here, I think the militia is totally guilty. I think everyone who went down there, again, I'm talking about morally, everyone who went down there with a, you know, a giant weapon that was showing, et cetera, went down there looking for trouble. And in their ideal world, there was going to be a damsel in distress or a store owner in distress, and they were going to get to kill people. That's why they went. That's why they went. That's why they go every time looking to kill black people, left wingers, et cetera.

So it's an idea that the police are, what, too lenient towards black people in America? It's just beyond absurd, okay? On the other hand, the police were terrible because they encourage the militia. It's seen in the tapes over and over again. They push the protesters towards the armed militia. They thank the armed militia, they literally give water to the armed militia. Kyle Rittenhouse at the end tries to surrender to the police after killing two people. And the police don't even arrest him because they assume, oh, that's a white guy with heavy weaponry.

So he must be one of us, a good guy who's looking to kill black people. or protesters, etc. The fact that they didn't arrest him when he surrendered was unbelievable. And it goes to show you, but at the same time completely believable because it goes to show you the mindset of cops in America. If you're a right winger and you shoot people, we don't really care. We won't even take you in when you're trying to surrender afterwards. We encourage you ahead of time and we don't hold you accountable afterwards, right? So now, guys, just you know it, if 10 heavily armed black guys went into the middle of a right wing protest, cops would be on them instantly.

And they would arrest all of them, they would crush them, and maybe even murder them. We all know that, you all know that. These guys walk around, look at it, kill people. And the cops are like, yeah, go get them. So screw the cops in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who are definitely guilty. And because of their raw, raw, right wing, go get them and do violence, I think cause the deaths of these two people. But I'll, and I'll blame one other group. If you're on the left, don't bring guns.

Don't bring weapons, okay? There were some that had brought weapons. What are you going to do? Can I actually jump in? Can I jump in on that, Jank, because I do have some details on that I think are relevant as well. And it does have to do with Gross Kroits, the third person who was shot that testified you saw the video earlier. We're also learning that he was carrying. And by the way, Jank referenced that there were paramedics there.

Grosskroyce was there because he's a paramedic and he claimed he was there to help anyone who might be injured. He had a weapon, but it wasn't licensed for concealed carry. Grosskroyds also acknowledged that he incorrectly told police last year that his firearm had fallen out of his pants that night and did not admit that he had a weapon at the time. He also said that he had only minimal information about Rittenhouse or his prior actions at the time of the shooting. And yes, he had a weapon with him for protection, but he did not have a license for concealed carry because that license had already expired. So you have two sides, obviously an incredibly hostile situation. You have cops that are, in my opinion, stoking the flames of that hostile situation.

And both sides are armed. And it's a recipe for disaster. And then you add the Rosenbaum part of it. He was someone who was just released from a mental health institution. He was clearly not in the right frame of mind. And honestly, his behavior is what really sparked the shootings to take place, right? We have so many issues in this country. And what you had in that night was a dangerous cocktail of many of those issues simultaneously.

So I'm not trying to blame the victims here because remember the two guys who are dead, Hubert and Rosenbaum, one had a skateboard, the other one had a plastic bag, okay? So gross courts who did not die did have the weapon. But there were other people that had weapons there. If you're a left winger and you go to a protest with weapons, your chance of getting killed is about a hundred times higher. If you're a black left winger and you're going in with a weapon, your chance of getting killed is about a thousand times. higher. The minute police see a black man with a weapon, they're going to start shooting. The minute they see a white man with a weapon, they're going to start cheering. Like, we don't know that in

America already? Of course we know that, right? So don't put yourself in danger. You think you're protecting yourself? The minute you draw a weapon, you're a thousand times more likely to die than if you didn't have a weapon in the first place, right? And so why did Groskorsk gets shot? Because he pulled out his weapon. If he hadn't pulled out his weapon, well, if he'd rushed written house made written house was shooting everybody anyway right but so he might have gotten shot anyway but he might not have and he certainly if he stayed away from written house and didn't have a weapon he definitely wouldn't have gotten shot so everybody has to use decent human judgment but we've lost track of that and a lot of people can't wait to get into fights including with weapons

I want to read one member here because Gabby's being in a great point Gabby marita said even if written house gets acquitted via technicality in this criminal trial I hope the families of his victims. Yes, they were victims. Absolutely bury him in civil litigation for the remainder of his pathetic years on this planet. Now, look, the part I'm not sure I agree with is I'm not sure that if he gets acquitted, it would be on a technicality. Right. You know, it just, it depends on all of the evidence and it depends on the state laws. It certainly the gun being pointed at him in that case, not all three, but in that case is not a technicality at all. That would just be self-defense, right? So, but on this civil litigation,

point, you make a great point because in a criminal trial guys, remember, it has to be beyond a reasonable doubt that he definitely was not doing self-defense and that he that he shot and killed them intentionally. Well, again, some of the laws are not necessarily intentional, but the first charge he's charged with is intentional homicide, right? So, but in a civil case, you don't need to be beyond a reasonable doubt. So think about beyond a reasonable doubt to be like a 98% certainty, right? In a civil case, you just have to be 51% certain. So, there he could be held criminally, I'm sorry, civilly responsible. And certainly if my family member was Huber, I would sue, and I would definitely think that he was civilly responsible.

Okay, you get hit with a skateboard, that's bad. It doesn't mean you should murder the guy. No. All right, well, we got to take a quick break. Let's do that. And when we come back, NPR has uncovered audio from NRA officials following the tragic shooting in crime. Columbine and what they think about their own supporters is pretty fascinating stuff, pretty insulting as well. So we've got that story and more when we return. Back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys. Anna has news. I have reactions.

All right, let's do it. The NRA referred to their most avid supporters and activists as hillbillies and fruitcakes during a strategic meeting following the shooting in Columbine. Now, we'll get to that audio in just a moment, but we're learning about these new details after NPR obtained two and a half hours of audio. from this meeting that took place immediately after the Columbine shooting in 1999. The tapes were recorded secretly by someone who took part in the meetings, and that individual who wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons shared the tapes with NPR. Now we're going to go through some of the notable moments here, beginning with the main topic of conversation during this strategic meeting,

which was in regard to an upcoming conference for the NRA. That conference was to take place about a few days after the Columbine shooting happened. And so, I mean, obviously there were some NRA officials who were concerned, including NRA lobbyist Jim Baker, who was particularly worried about how the optics would be if they went through with that conference. So let's hear what he had to say. At the same period where they're going to be burying these children, we're going to be having media within 10 miles of our convention center, the world's media, trying to run through the exhibit hall, looking at kids fondling firearms, which is going to be a horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible juxtaposition. Now, again, that's Jim Baker. He is the NRA lobbyist, and the point he's making is certainly a valid one. But there were members of this meeting who certainly disagree.

with him, including Tony Marcus, who is an NRA PR consultant, he said this, that's one very good argument, Jim. On the other side, if you don't appear to be deferential in honoring the dead, you end up being a tremendous S head who wouldn't tuck tail and run, you know? So it's a double edge sword. So the argument here is, I don't know, maybe we should go forward with it because canceling the conference could make it appear as though we feel good. or claim some responsibility for what happened in Columbine? Jane. Yeah, the reason that you would feel that way is because it is that way.

And so it's not like, they're like, oh, there was a shooting at a school, lots of kids died. So we're going to blame Star Trek. No, they're going to blame the thing that makes sense, which is that the guns killed them. And you encourage kids to have guns. In fact, you saw right there, you heard with your own ears, him saying, if the press comes to our convention, they're going to see kids fumbling guns. He literally said that. Why? Because they know, because they look, that's their internal meaning.

They think nobody's listening. They know they're encouraging kids to get guns. That's why they're so worried. My God, if they find out that we're the ones encouraging this, it's going to be a problem. But to be fair to the NRA, I got to say in an emergency situation, like that, they did amazing PR and spin control here. And as you're going to see here in this story, they got themselves out of it brilliantly from a political perspective. And it wound up being a thing that they used over and over again to evade responsibility. Now someone who comes up quite a bit

in the reporting here is an NRA strategist by the name of Marion Hammer. And she is, to put it lightly and generously insane. She's also against canceling the conference, and she makes it clear by stating, you know, you have to go forward for the NRA to scrap this and the amount of money that we have spent. And at that point, she gets interrupted by Wayne LaPierre, and he tries to make a point about how they have meeting insurance, meaning if they end up canceling the conference, it's okay. the insurance that they have will basically reimburse them for the costs of the event that they're now canceling. And what was fascinating is how she responded to Wayne LaPierre. So in this next clip, it's going to start with Wayne LaPierre.

And then you're going to hear Marion Hammer continue her argument in favor of keeping the conference not canceling it. Let's listen. We have meeting insurance. I just screw the insurance. The message that it will send is, that even the NRA was brought to its knees and the media will have a field day with it. Brought to its knees, the media will have a field day with it. Look, I think that the strategy here is very similar to what we saw from Donald Trump. Refuse to ever take any responsibility, deny, deny, deny, never apologize, and just steamroll ahead. And that's the strategy that we've seen from the NRA since. And unfortunately, it has worked.

It has been successful. And remember, the whole point of that conference is to sell more guns because the NRA is an organization that is heavily funded by gun manufacturers. You know, there is a profit motive behind what's taking place here, despite the amount of people who get shot in mass shootings. And also keep in mind that the Columbine shooting, which ended up killing 13 people, injuring 20 others was the first mass shooting since the 1960s. So the country had not yet been as desensitized by mass shootings as it is today.

Yeah, this is why I say they were brilliant. And then there's actually a very surprising twist about the gun manufacturers in this story too. And so, but we'll get to that in a second. But the brilliant part was they decided, no, let's go over the top and let's, Charlton Heston came up with this and said it in his speech. Let's say, let's blame the other side and say that they're playing politics with kids who have just died. Well, that totally worked.

So number one, I've seen political polling that shows apologizing moves about three points. So it means that it does no good for you. But what it does with the rest of the folks when you apologize is that it reinforces that you did something wrong. So I don't know that they had access to that polling. They certainly never talked about it in that call. I know they didn't have access to the polling that I saw, right? But their instinct of not apologizing, unfortunately in politics is correct, okay?

Now secondly, when they turned it around and said, you're politicizing it, well, my God, that worked like a charm because guys remember, they're not trying to prove themselves innocent. All they're trying to do is manufacture doubt. And they know with the mainstream media, all you have to say anything, and they'll turn it into 50-50. So the minute the NRA said, oh, you're politicizing it. The media went, oh, I can't tell. I can't tell who's right or wrong. I can't tell if it's the guns that killed the people or the people politicizing the guns that killed the people.

Was it blueberries and Star Trek or was it the guns? I can't tell. And so they've used that strategy now after every mass shooting and it's worked every time. Well, there was another moment during this strategic meeting with NRA officials where they discussed the possibility of providing the victims, some sort of fund, right? In order to, obviously, they're doing it for positive PR. As NPR notes, in those private moments, the NRA considered a strikingly more sympathetic posture toward mass shootings than the uncompromising stance it had taken publicly in the decade since, even considering, a $1 million fund to care for the victims. Now, one of the people who was in favor of this is NRA official, Kane Robinson. He wanted to create this victim's fund and the PR consultant, Tony Marcus, makes another appearance speaking out against it.

Let's listen. Is there something concrete that we can offer, not because guns are responsible, but because we care about these people? Is there anything? Does that look craft? Like a victim's fund. We create eviction fund and we give them a victim for a million dollars or something like that. Does that look bad or does it look? Well, I mean, that can be twisted too.

I mean, why are you giving money? You feel responsible? Well, you're true. It can be twisted, but we feel sympathetic and respectful. So in the very end of that clip, you hear Jim Baker, again, that's the NRA lobbyist. And he seems to be much more in favor of both canceling the conference, but also providing the victims that $1 million victims fund. But the person who seems to be, two people seem to be the most outspoken against doing

anything that seems to either apologize or take any responsibility. It's the PR consultant, Tony Marcus, and also the NRA strategist, Marion Hammer, who, who will make another appearance later in this segment. But in regard to Robinson, Kane Robinson, who wanted the victims fund, you can also hear him in the audio saying this, don't anybody kid yourselves about this great macho thing of going down there and showing our chest and showing how damn tough we are. We are in deep crap on this deal.

And so anything we do here is going to be a matter of trying to decide the best of a whole bunch of very, very bad choices. And again, we know which direction they went in, obviously do not apologize, do not take responsibility, steamroll ahead. And so any thoughts on that, Jake, before we move on to Marion Hammer's comments on NRA activists? Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to them insulting their own activists so you know what they actually think of you. But I also, again, want to say their views on Congress and gun manufacturers are super relevant. So keep going to. All right. So we're going to get to their views on Congress in just a moment. But here's Marion Hammer, the NRA strategist, essentially telling the world, or in this private meeting, telling them what she genuinely thinks about the most avid NRA supporters and activists.

If you pull down the exhibit hall, that's not going to leave anything for the media except the members meeting. And you're going to have the wackos with all kinds of crazy. resolutions with all kinds of dressing like a bunch of hillbillies and idiots. And it's going to be the worst thing you can imagine. Hmm. I didn't say it. She said it. Yeah. So look, that's what they think of you.

If you're an NRA member, the elites in the NRA think you're wackos and hillbillies and idiot. You know, sometimes right wing catches massive feelings when we call them idiots. But it turns out your own leaders think you're idiots. And that's 10,000 times worse because we're fighting against you guys, whereas they're tricking you. They think, oh, these guys lead to good profits, get a bunch of wacko hillbillies in here. We'll sell them a lot of weapons. They'll die, but who cares, right? And so now you know what they think privately.

Is it going to change your mind? No, you're going to listen to a right wing media show. You're going to get brainwashed into thinking guns are awesome and that they protect you. And then, you know, and then unfortunately for some of you, that'll be your demise. And then finally, let's talk about Congress because the system of legalized bribery has been a problem for quite some time. Lobbying has been a problem for quite some time. And the NRA has exploited that system for its own benefit. So here's what their discussion regarding Congress sounded like.

They discuss conservative politicians and gun industry representatives as largely inconsequential players saying they will do whatever the NRA proposes. Members of Congress, one participant says, have asked the NRA to, quote, secretly provide them with talking points, end quote. And so look, obviously none of that is surprising to us. We see how the sausage is made day in, day out. But it is very nice to see them admit it on tape for what like the billionth time? I mean, this is a different context with different players, but how many videos or how much tape have we shown this year alone involving lobbyists for massive corporations indicating that they're just buying politicians left and right? It's just

the most obvious thing in the world. Yeah. So first of all, on Congress, this is classic Washington. So even back then, 1999, the NRA basically lobbyists saying, oh, don't worry about the Congress members. They're puppets. They're puppets. Okay. And so the idiots are panicking. They come to us. And then we give them talking points. And then they're happy. They talk about Tancredo. They talk about senators. They name specific people who called who were in a panic. And they say, oh, don't worry, we're going to give you schmucks your talking points and your stupid checks. They didn't mention the checks and the calls, but that's obvious and implied, okay? And then you'll do as you're told. So all these, by the way, again, I blame the mainstream media in this case because they treat

the politicians as such reverence. Like, what does the senator from Oklahoma thing? He doesn't think a damn thing. He's waiting for the NRA lobbyists to tell him what to say because he's a stupid puppet, okay? Don't have any respect for these elites in Washington. So now look, but in a sense, you also see here the NRA leaders are kind of directing traffic, right? Hey, we got to, and they think everybody's idiots on their own side, right? We got to use the useful idiots who are the guys who buy the guns and we have to have our puppet idiots who we control in Congress. And but now the NRA is a lot more radical than even those tapes indicate. So what happened? I think there was some degree of audience capture, just like there is today in social media with online hosts.

I think that those guys that they called wackos and hillbillies were such an important customer base. They kept appealing to them and they became more and more radical over the years until they became the wacko hillbillies. And so now they, I mean, they say outrageous things after mass shootings. And they blame, they're not just manufacturing doubt anymore. They're aggressively turning around and blaming the people who are actually trying to solve it and saying that it's their problem. And then finally, the gun manufacturer part was also interesting because in parts of the tapes, it seems like the gun manufacturers are not that important to the guys of the NRA. Like the members of Congress, they treat them like, oh, we'll tell them what to say.

And I was surprised by that because I would think that the gun manufacturers are the ones that are paying them, and hence they would have more power. But later in the tapes, you see that it's the gun manufacturer is basically asking them, like, what should be our talking points? So then you realize, oh, the NRA is just the marketing arm for those gun manufacturers. So the gun manufacturers are almost calling their employees and saying, hey, how do we market our way out of this so we can sell more guns to the wackos and hillbillies? And the NRA is here to please those masters. Yeah, of course, exactly. We got to take our next break. When we come back, we'll talk about Paul Gossar, a U.S.

congressman who is spending his time posting edited anime videos threatening members of Congress on Twitter because, you know, there's nothing else to do. The country is just running perfectly. Everything's wonderful. We've got that story and more when we come back. the planet. Jank U Granite Kaspirian, Casper, Forward. Twitter has flagged a tweet from Republican Congressman Paul Gosar that depicted the anime killing of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It also showed an attack on President Joe Biden, which means that it went against the

terms of service for Twitter. Here's a little look at what the tweet looked like with the, well, that's the video that was embedded, but I wanted to go to the video first. I'm sorry, the graphic first showing how Twitter had flagged it, but decided to keep the tweet up because they believe that it serves a public interest or the public would be interested in seeing it. Now with that said, the video that was embedded is what we're going to go to next, and I'll explain to you guys what's happening in the video. So let's take a look at that. So in this video, representatives Marjorie Taylor Green and Lord Bobert are depicted as heroes from this Japanese anime series known as Attack on Titan.

The post-apocalyptic series revolves around a small civilization that lives in a bordered off city to protect itself from giant human-like creatures called Titans. Acacio Cortez's face is then superimposed on one of the Titans, who is killed by Gosar's character. his character also attacks a titan with Biden's face on it. So that's what we're looking at right now. And I just want to remind everyone that this is a Republican member of Congress in his 60s. We're still in the middle of a global pandemic. We're in the middle of supply chain issues. We're in the middle of a lot of chaos right now.

But Paul Gosar would rather spend his time tweeting ridiculous anime videos like, that. And then of course, as soon as he's called out on it, minimizing the fact that he is inciting violence, making light of harming other members of Congress who happen to be his political opponents. It's just this is what they do. This is what the Republican Party has been reduced to. Yeah, you know, I was going to make an analogy about like, oh, you know, if I put out a video, and it just like same way anime, et cetera, decapitating Cruz, the outrage that would come from the right wing would be legendary. Oh, like this is what the end thing for people though.

The liberal fascists, okay? And you know, and they would cry and cry and cry and by the way, rightfully so, like don't show people getting decapitated or killed, etc. Right? Then I realized I don't really need the analogy. Kathy Griffin actually showed a decapitated Trump head, which obviously was not real. It was not real. With Q&N people, you have to clarify everything, right? Okay, Kathy Griffin did not actually kill Donald Trump. He's still alive.

And they went nuts, nuts, and they banned or they canceled her, they, et cetera. Now, that one looked a lot more realistic. So keep it real, right? And I didn't think that was a good idea either. And so, but the selective outrage, when anything is done to the right wing, Oh my God, they didn't wish me Merry Christmas. Every Democrat has to apologize to me. When they show Democrats getting, I mean, Anna, to your point, it's like a 60-year-old guy killing a woman in her, I think she's still in our late 20s, maybe early 30s at this point,

just killing her and they're like, yeah, we're going to kill that girl, right? And they think like, oh, what, what, you can't take a joke? I guarantee you if I say one joke about you guys, you'll all call. crumble and cry for months. Yeah, I mean, and the thing is, this has been the type of treatment that certain representatives like Acacio-Cortez have been dealing with, and there have been absolutely no consequences whatsoever. So in response to this, AOC tweets, so while I was en route to Glasgow, a creepy member I work with who fundraises for neo-Nazi groups, which by the way is true, shared a fantasy

video of killing me. And he'll face no consequences because GOP leadership cheers him on with excuses. Fun Monday. Well, back to work because institutions don't protect women of color. She also says, remember when Yoho accosted me on the capital, at the capital, and called me an effing, you know, bitch. Remember when Green ran after me a few months ago screaming and reaching. Remember when she stalked my office the first time with insurrectionists and people locked inside, all at my job and nothing ever happens, which is true. I mean, look, Marjorie Taylor Green has been stripped of her, you know, committee assignments because of other awful and anti-Semitic things she's said. But in terms of treatment of other members of Congress,

it seems like Republicans tend to get a pass. And one more tweet from Casio-Cortez, she says, this dude is just the collection, this is my very part, of wet toothpicks anyway. White supremacy is for extremely fragile people and sad men like him, whose self-concept relies on the myth that he was born superior because deep down he knows he couldn't open a pickle jar or read a whole book by himself. So that was her reaction to it. Nancy Pelosi, how speaker on her part, has really done nothing, put out like a strong statement about how this is unacceptable.

But okay. But it's not really up to Pelosi, right? It's really up to Republican leadership to set the tone here. And they really refuse to do anything about this kind of behavior. So there's a couple facets to the story. First, you never see anybody going after Steny Hoyer, right? He's actually the number two Democrat in the House. You'd never know it. Why? Because Steny Hoyer, first of all, totally agrees with Republicans and secretly helps them kill every good provision in any bill. So they're not interested in attacking Stanley Hoyer because he's a corporate Democrat like they're all corporate Republicans. But secondly, because it's not fun killing a guy. It is a white male in his 70s. But for the right wing, they get off on attacking women of color. They do. The younger the women are, the more they are attracted to that kind of violent imagery. Okay. And if you remember, this is the same thing that the immigration officials did at the border. And recently we did a story about how they weren't punished at all, right? And so there's something about AOC and young women of color that drives these right-wing men crazy and awfully, and often with sexual and violent imagery.

And there's something wrong with them. They should get mental health counseling. Okay, now secondly, why GOP leader in specific, that Twitter handles referring to Kevin McCarthy, that's his handle now, because he's the leader of the Republicans in the house. And Kevin McCarthy, of course, is not going to do anything about Paul Gossar, because his entire caucus has now turned to violence. So then they'd say, wait a minute, well, how about Matt Gates and Cawthorne, who are all constantly talking about the Second Amendment, and if the government officials come to your door, kill him, and all these different things that they're implying or sometimes flat out saying, and aren't you going to do anything about that violence? That's a more direct threat of violence. No, he's not going to do

about that because now over 30% of Republicans think that they should do violence. He's not going to like go against, he's not going to take out half his caucus and he's not going to go against 30% of his base that says let's start killing him. So like anime is the least of McCarthy's problems. The Republican Party has turned violent and they're not going to go back and they're not going to condemn each other for all agreeing to violence. Which, you know, tells you everything you need to know about the Republican Party and its failed leadership at the moment. And what's also fascinating is the fact that Paul Gossar's own family on multiple occasions has come out to speak against him. In fact, on this particular issue, Gossar's own sister made her rounds in the press and just straight up called him a sociopath.

I want to go to that video. That's video C3. Yes, Allison, it definitely is getting worse. No one, no one holds him accountable. And this is something that I have to openly wonder, does he have to act on it himself before we believe that he is an absume, he's a sociopath, and what's more, we know from everything we have seen, and certainly Attorney General Garden has seen much more of it than I, that there is evidence to show he was in a conspiracy to commit treason against the United States of America. Where is the accountability?

You know, I have to say she makes a point about the DOJ refusing to get involved in any of this. And I think that's a good point. I mean, remember, Trump isn't the one in charge right now. President Joe Biden is, and he's got a cabinet full of people that he has himself nominated and gotten confirmed through the Senate. I don't really understand. Like, I don't really know where Joe Biden is, to be honest. I don't know what the DOJ is really up to. And the special panel investigating the riots on January 6th, all I can really do is roll my eyes at everything that's been coming out of that. All of the focus has been in the wrong direction and all of their consequences for individuals

who have completely ignored subpoenas have been weak. And I think I'm being generous in calling it weak. I would use other language that I'm not even allowed to use on the show right now. So I just, the weakness and the pathetic nature of the Democratic Party also does not really give me a lot of confidence that anything will be done about this kind of situation. So this story actually is a good look at both parties and what's wrong with both parties. So there's Paul Grosser's sister and his all of his siblings have come out against them on numerous occasions saying, look, you guys don't get it. He's part of our family. We know he's mentally unbalanced.

somebody should do something. But Republican voters see someone who's mentally unbalanced and they think, at a boy, like that to them, they're like, I don't, they don't see the problem. They're like, that's the feature, not the bug. And so, I mean, you name it. The party leadership is filled with mentally unbalanced people. Donald Trump, you know, just take any of their thought leaders such as they are, Ted Nugent. You can go on and on, Rudy Giuliani, obviously.

mentally unbalanced. And Republicans look at that and go, yes. Finally, someone is nuts as me. Yes, right? There's something deeply wrong with the Republican Party. Now, to the Democrats, to Anna's point, why doesn't DOJ do something? Well, they tried to do something when people were threatening kill school board members. The Republicans called in the attorney general and yelled at him, Merrick Garland, and Merrick Garland coward. And then I guarantee you, Anna, that they got scared. Oh my God, don't hold the Republicans accountable to threaten to murder people. You get yelled at on TV. So now they're like crying in a corner and can't do anything.

And that weakness is a great example of what the Democratic Party has become. I got to be honest, it's really hard not to despise the Democrats. I mean, their weakness knows no bounds. Their failure to actually carry out their own promises to the very people who have elected them knows no bounds. Just one disappointment after the next. Their weakness is pathetic. Now, I want to move on to another kind of related story because it has to do with death threats coming from Republicans. And in this case, it is a Republican congressman who's dealing with death threats because he voted in favor of legislation that Biden promoted. So let's talk about that. Republican Congressman Fred Upton is

getting death threats for voting in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure bill. In fact, he's not the only Republican who did so. There were over a dozen who voted in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure bill in the House. And of course, in the Senate, there were 19 Republicans who also did the same. That's something that Donald Trump is not in favor of, because he sees that as providing Joe Biden a win for his reelection campaign. Now, keep in mind that corporate donors loved the infrastructure bill because there were all sorts of corporate giveaways in that bill. So, you know, you got these Republican congressmen between a rock and a hard place. What do they do? Do they serve their corporate donors or do they serve their daddy Trump?

Well, Fred Upton decided to serve his daddy, not his daddy Trump, but decided to vote in favor of what his corporate donors want. And now he's suffering consequences for that. Let's hear the kind of threats he's getting. This is a voicemail that he shared with CNN. That's a traitor. That's what you are. You're a piece of a traitor. I hope you die.

I hope everybody in your family dies. You piece of trash, mother, voted for dumb ass fucking bite. You're stupider than he is. He can't even complete a sentence. You dumb motherfucker traitor, pieces of shit. Mother of a piece of trash.

Hope you die. I hope your family dies. Hope everybody your staff dies. piece of fucking shit to writer. Now, for members of Congress, a voicemail like that is incredibly jarring. For people like me and Jank, a voicemail like that is called Tuesday, something that we deal with on a regular basis. But that's not to minimize what he is dealing with, with these death threats. In fact, he claims that this became an issue after a member of his own party, Marjorie Taylor Green,

had tweeted out the names of the Republican Congress members who voted in favor of the bill, and she also included some phone numbers. Here's one of the tweets. She says 13 Republicans voted with Pelosi to spend $7.5 billion to build EV charging stations all over America, to force Americans to drive battery-driven cars, as CCP, of course, is a reference to communist China. China dominates the EV battery market by over 80 percent, and the U.S. can't even compete with less than 10% market share. I think maybe that's an issue with what we decided to invest our resources into,

Marjorie Taylor Green. You can't complain about how we can't compete with China when we refuse to compete with China and invest in renewable energy. But nonetheless, after that, she had shared the phone numbers and the names of the Republican congressmen who voted for the bill, thus leading to the type of voicemails that Upton received, Chank. Yeah, look, we needed a populist uprising against corporate rule. But my God, the first part of the uprising has turned into a total S show. I mean, insanity. Lunatics have taken over the asylum. So they're like, oh, you know, yeah, okay, Upton's a corporate Republican. I can't stand corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats. But that doesn't mean you should threaten to kill them, you lunatics. How about you just vote them out of office? That would be great. And I don't, look, I don't agree with the populist right on social issues at all.

I find them repugnant. And I don't think they really believe in democracy. I'm worried about their violent tendency, all those things, right? But if you want to get rid of corporate Republicans by outvoting them in your primaries, have added host. That is an American way to proceed, right? But this threats to kill people, it's vigilante justice, it's brown shirt behavior, it's Gestapo-like stuff where you purposely egg on your source. supporters to do stochastic terrorism.

And so, and by the way, the right wing think that they're clever. They've now learned that you, in order to evade responsibility and culpability, criminal culpability, you don't say I'm going to kill you, you say, I hope you're going to die, I hope your family's going to die. So that's, we see that every day, right, in the comments, right? So, and it's not clever. It's, you're still talking about violence, you're still threatening it, you're still trying to to unsettle people. And you're a monster. You're a monster. Anybody who says, I hope your family

dies, no matter what the circumstances are, is a verifiable, terrible, evil person. Like, for example, I can't stand Kyle Rittenhouse. I would never say I hope his family dies. What an insane thing to say, right? So I wouldn't even say, I hope he dies. Of course I wouldn't say that, let alone his family. That's because you guys, because the right wing is deeply immoral. Okay, now, but But this also goes to show you the difference again between the Republicans and the Democrats. Because while Marjorie Taylor Green is effectively bullying any faction of the Republican Party that won't agree to the most extreme elements, she docks their phone numbers of her colleagues. Republicans, not even Democrats, Republicans, right? Meanwhile, Democrats are so scared to criticize

their own. So like the six just Democrats voted no on this last bill. And oh my God, the world has collapsed in on them. All to me, how dare you vote against the master leader Pelosi? This is a crime against humanity, right? I mean, and so they're justifiably like unnerved, geez, and all they did was vote their conscience. They didn't even say anything bad. They didn't criticize the other guys. They didn't call them out for corruption, which they definitely should. They didn't put out their phone numbers. You see the difference. And by the way, the Marjorie Taylor Green stuff is deplorable. But in terms of actually putting a spotlight on people doing things that you think are wrong, does that work? Of course it works.

But our side won't even use the tamest version of that for political reasons, strategic reasons, while the other side uses it in the most extreme way possible. It's okay, Jank. Our side trusts Biden. So everything's going to be okay. I do want to go to one other part of Representative Upton's interview with CNN because I found this portion of their exchange fascinating. Pay close attention to how Lindsay Graham gets thrown under the bus. Let's watch. You know what?

It's a real step back. Thank goodness it wasn't a constituent. But I have a colleague, as you know, that put out the phone numbers of the 13 of us that voted that way. be glad to defend that vote. We've been working really since last spring on a bipartisan bill. This is, I think that call, I think he might have been from South Carolina. His own senator, Lindsey Graham, couldn't find a closer confidant of President Trump than Lindsey Graham in his four years. Lindsey Graham voted for it. It passed 69 to 30 in the Senate. No, I love that moment because it's like, oh, thank God, this guy wasn't a constituent of mine,

But he is a constituent of Lindsey Graham's and he voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill too. Get him. No, he didn't say get him, right? But it was just kind of fascinating how he starts off with. Thank God it wasn't my constituent. But the constituent lives in, you know, state that Lindsay Graham represents. One other thing I wanted to note, this is just my whole take on the entire situation playing out. Look, when you are in a political environment where the conversation, where the discourse is not really about substance, it's not about policy, it's about manufactured culture wars, it's about cults of personality, it's about all this garbage that's very specifically meant to distract voters from the substance, from the fact that the economic situation is as dire as it is because both parties,

are beholden to corporate interests, this is what the society devolves to, okay? This is all tribalistic nonsense, because the person who sent that voicemail isn't really looking at what's in the bipartisan bill. He's not fired up about the amount of spending. He's not fired up about, you know, privatizing public infrastructure. That's not what he's concerned about. He is taken in by Trump's cult of personality to him. That is all politics is at this point. And honestly, it's not his fault because politicians make politics about this, right? Because they don't want you to focus on their corporate donors. They don't want you to focus on the fact that they have no solutions to better your life,

especially Republicans. When was the last time Republicans had policy that was meant to better the lives of their own constituents? The only thing they accomplished under the Trump administration was tax cuts for the rich. They're beholden to corporate donors more than Democrats are and Democrats are pretty bad themselves, right? And so again, this is what the conversation turns into. Cult of personality, tribalistic BS, rather than, hey, what's in the bipartisan infrastructure bill? What is my problem with the bipartisan infrastructure bill other than the fact that my daddy, Donald Trump, doesn't like it? You know? Yeah. No, Anna's spot on here. You know, look, there's good things in the bill like expanded broadband access. Is that why the guy wants

of murder, a Republican official, we're going to have more broadband. I can get on the internet easier. I'm going to kill you. No, he doesn't care about the policy at all. Is he upset about legitimate things you can be upset about in the bill? I mean, as Anna has pointed out, the stock market is sky high now. Why? Because those stocks are through the roof. This is the corporate bank bill. We told you the corporations are ecstatic. You could legitimately be upset about that, but why would you murder up to? It just doesn't make any sense. And if you're upset, you should be upset at the donors, not at their tools, their puppets, which are the politicians. But by the way, don't go trying to physically threaten the donors either. For God's sake, keep a political,

keep it American. Yeah. Well, that does it for our first hour. We're going to take a brief break, but when we come back, we actually have a little more on this story, specifically Mark Meadows' reaction to the death threats. And later on, we will talk about, hmm, let's see. is curious about the genitalia of someone who just wants him to pay a little more in taxes. We'll got that story and more when we come back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen 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.