The Young Turks - Hit or Miss?

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

The Supreme Court declares affirmative action in education is unconstitutional. The President touts "Bidenomics," but a new poll shows just 34% approve of his handling of the economy. Biden was asked: "To what extent has Vladimir Putin been weakened by recent events?" Biden responded: "It's hard to tell, but he is clearly losing the war in Iraq. He is losing war at home." Eric Adams compares white woman asking him a question to a plantation owner. HOSTS: Cenk Uygur (@CenkUygur) & Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. All right, back on TYT, Jane Hugar and a Casparian back as an I guess from yesterday. Anyways, a huge affirmative action ruling by the Supreme Court. We will have, if you're un-initiated, surprising opinions on that. And then later in the program, Biden is in a world of trouble. The economy, we'll have a discussion, maybe even a little bit of a debate on how the economy is doing.

But Biden's faculty is not doing well. We will show you, unfortunately, the evidence. So a lot to get to without further to the giant Supreme Court case. Well, yes, let's start with that. The Supreme Court has now striking down both Harvard and UNC's program when it comes to race used in admissions. The court going forward in their decisions saying they're going to set new limits on the use of race when it pertains to a particular student must be part of their individual story and not simply their identity. The Supreme Court has ruled to narrow the scope in which race can be used to determine admission. in the nation's universities and colleges.

Now, how was this case brought about? Just to go back, give you the context. Students for Fair Admissions, a conservative group, sued Harvard University and the University of North Carolina over their race-conscious admissions programs, alleging intentional discrimination toward Asian-American applicants. So the court held, in an opinion for the conservative majority written by Chief Justice John Roberts, that Harvard and UNC's admissions programs violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. And that was the constitutional argument that the plaintiffs brought forward in this case.

And the Supreme Court justices, the majority of them agreed with that. The vote was six to three in the UNC case and six to two in the Harvard case with Justice Katanji Brown Jackson, recusing herself in the Harvard case specifically. Now, both programs, according to John Roberts, who's the chief justice of the Supreme Court, lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives, warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful endpoints. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today. Now, race can still be considered, although in a far more limited

way in the admissions process. And I'll explain how that works in just a moment. Before I do, Chink, what do you think about this ruling? Okay, brace for impact. I agree with it. So I've actually said that I'm against affirmative action probably dozens of times on this show. But nonetheless, people are surprised whenever you go outside of orthodoxy. So I think affirmative action was definitely correct in the beginning. I'll give you a quick example of why. So for example, If you're just pick a random profession, you're a longshoreman, you got a good job, it pays decent wages back then, right? It started in the 1960s.

And you want to pass your job onto your kids. That makes sense. I get it. I get your motivation behind it. But at the time, only white people had those jobs. So they would constantly pass their jobs on to other white people, their kids, which again, as a parent, I get it. But we had to allow minorities to break into that system.

And we had to do that at every level were jobs, universities. universities, et cetera, because folks did not have an opportunity, okay? But after a while, it becomes stigmatizing. So I'll give you another anecdote when I was in law school. I remember back then I was a Republican, and I remember being with a couple other Republican students and they said about one of our classmates and someone who I was friends with, but they didn't know that. They said, oh yeah, I wonder how he got in here.

And I thought and I said by being a great student. for them, every minority, it doesn't matter if they went to Harvard, Princeton, where, Yale, Stanford, nothing mattered. It was disqualified because of their race. Oh, they didn't earn it. And I think that that has had a massively corrosive effect in this country against minorities. So I think it has now become counterproductive. I agree with the Supreme Court's decision. I have more on that, but that's my initial. So I want to talk about how they did limit the scope in which race can be considered, right? So for instance, what the justices argue, or at least Chief Justice John Roberts, is that the struggles or the challenges or

whatever the applicant has gone through as a result of their race can be considered. And how would it be considered? Well, there are multiple ways. One of the main ways could be through their essay. Now, those who disagree with the decision here, argue. Well, then that forces students of color to write their essays about race. Maybe they wanted to write their essays about something else. But nonetheless, I do want to give you some more details on that. Roberts wrote, Justice Roberts, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, at the same time as all parties agree, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant's

discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. And someone named David Hinojosa, who argued the case before the court, said that while the ruling did, quote, make it heck of a lot harder to use race as a factor in admissions, it would not totally prevent universities from pursuing diversity goals similar to affirmative action. He told the New York Times this, comparing this ruling to the reversal of Roe v. Wade. As you all know from last summer, when this court wants to overrule precedent, It knows how to overrule precedent, and that language is not in chief Justice Roberts' opinion, he said, referring to the court's sweeping decision, overturning Roe v. Wade. The court said that it has permitted race-based admissions only within the confines of narrow restrictions.

University programs must comply with strict scrutiny. They may never use race as a stereotype or negative, and at some point they must end. Yeah. So I, all right, first of all, I again, agree with them. I think it definitely should be considered within the context of the essay. They should not use the essay as a proxy. Wink, wink, wink, tell me about your race and I'll let you in. But as long as they're taking a genuine look at the essay, oftentimes what you have overcome is probably the number one indicator, in my opinion, of whether you'll be successful with school or anything else. Honestly, when I interview people for employment here at TYT, that's my number one question. Well, tell me some adversity you had and how you overcame it is that tells you the character of a person and how hard they're going to work and how they're going to persevere, et cetera, and that'll get the size of the fight in the person is by far the most important thing. And oftentimes that is told in an essay. And oftentimes it is overcoming some sort of racial boundary or income boundary, which then leads me to saying,

I think the much better way to go. And I think they should use this is class-based affirmative action rather than race-based affirmative action. And I know that a lot of people will say, okay, enough with affirmative action, period, right? And others will say, no, it has to be race-based. But I don't know why, you know, a poor white kid in Appalachia, it doesn't have a bigger disadvantage than, you know, the Obama kids in Martha's Vineyard. I'm sorry. Okay, so I know that's going to make a lot of people uncomfortable. Doesn't mean race is not relevant. I understand the context of race. And I understand how it's a disadvantage.

Having said that in these contexts, having said that, I think class is a giant disadvantage. I think the poor are overwhelmed by the rich. Right. And then that leads me to the last point here in this context, Anna, sorry, legacy admissions. Legacy admissions are an abomination and they help the rich more than anyone else. It's when you're an alumni of a school and your kid applies, they have a far, far better chance of getting in. By the way, we have a petition about that. And you can see the link in the description box at t.com slash petitions and legacy admissions

because it's way worse than affirmative action. I mean, look, just going back to the point that you made about class, I think class is a better indicator of the struggles that a student had to overcome in order to get to the point that they're at as they're applying for college admissions. So what I think made me support affirmative action, or the part of affirmative action that I thought, let me reword this, the strongest case I heard in support of affirmative action really had to do with, you know, the fact that black and, and, you know, Latino students are overrepresented when it comes to the lower socioeconomic statuses, right?

And with that means you don't have the extra money or the extra resources for, you know, special tutoring outside of school, right? Or for extra lessons on how to take the SAT test and how to excel at the SAT test, right? Those types of classes, that type of instruction is very, very expensive. And, you know, we know how education is funded in some districts, right? A lot of it relies on property taxes. Other states have found better ways to kind of fund public schools so it's far more equal. But that's not the case in every state.

And so I liked that argument, but I think it's a mistake to tie that argument simply to race. I think that that argument works better when you focus on class. Because as you mentioned, there are plenty of disadvantaged, poor white kids as well who have to go through a lot and have to fight a lot harder in order to get the kind of education and gain the kind of merit necessary to get accepted into these universities. So some are already criticizing me on social media, et cetera. Oh, wow, that's, I know, that's a shocking turn of events, saying that I'm trying to appease, this is the latest thing we're doing where I'm trying to appease the right wing. hilarious. Okay, so first of all, if that's true, that's interesting because I've had this opinion in my entire life. So was I doing it 20 years ago? I wrote a passage in my book for about four years ago. Again, it's affirmative action. It's in the book. You can see it.

I didn't invent it yesterday. Okay. And so look, there, just because you're in one side of the political spectrum doesn't mean that you have to agree with every single position. And this is not because, oh, golly, gee, it's so unfair to white people. No, that's not the issue at all. It's, hey, how are minorities perceived? What is fair? What is the most productive way to go forward so that we eliminate racism? But I'll give you more examples.

Look, let's take my family. So we're all the same race, obviously. We're the same family, kind of. You'll see my kid is, of course, half Asian. But my dad was an incredibly poor farmer in southeastern Turkey. I grew up middle class, thanks to the heroic work of my dad and free college that he got in Turkey. My son is now growing up in an even better situation. We're all the same race.

Should we all be treated the same when going into school? No, my son is a thousand times better off than his grandfather was. A thousand times. So my dad needed the help. He needed the help the most when he's a farmer and he's broke and he needs that hand up to get him up, okay? I didn't need to break as much. I don't think my kid needs to break at all, okay? So if you say that's outrageous, you have to take race into consideration, I'm sorry, I don't agree.

Now, if you say, hey, Jake, you're not the relevant race here. Okay, that's a fairer point. But I could make the same exact point about African American families, Latino families, et cetera, right? And so if you're, and yes, African Americans, Latinos, unfortunately still in this country, are in a lower socioeconomic class because of the history of discrimination and racism. That is definitely true, okay. But having said that, if you do it based on class, you're going to help those same people anyway, but you're going to direct it more to the people who actually need it as opposed to the son of the CEO of Coke, all right? or there's some incredibly successful African Americans in this country. Their kids don't need it nearly as much as any kid race that's poor and has to overcome so much more.

And, you know, prior to this ruling, I should note that there were eight states that had outlawed affirmative action in the college admissions process. So California was actually the first, and they did so in the 1990s, followed by Washington, which actually repealed their ban just last year. Then there's Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, Arizona, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Idaho. I also wanted to just quickly go over the dissenting opinion. Justice Sonia Sotomayor actually spoke and gave a speech about her dissent, and here's what she said. Today, the court concludes that indifference to race is the only constitutionally permissible means to achieve racial equality in college admissions. That interpretation of the 14th Amendment is not only contrary to precedent and the entire

teachings of our history, but it is also grounded in the illusion that racial inequality was a problem of a different generation. She continues, entrenched racial inequality remains a reality today. That is true for society writ large, and more specifically for Harvard and the University of North Carolina, two institutions with a long history of racial exclusion. Ignoring race will not equalize a society that is racially unequal. What was true in the 1860s, and again in 1954 is true today, equality requires acknowledgement of inequality. Yeah, look guys, in today's climate, what happens is people say, and this has been true for a long time,

if you're on a sign of an issue, this is either 100, the issue is either 100% correct. or 0% correct, and we have to argue it in the extremes. No, in the case of affirmative action, if you take it away, will it hurt some minorities? Yes, it will. Okay, you have to be honest about that, even if you're in favor of taking affirmative action. Why? For example, when California and Texas did it, yes, there were less blacks and Latinos admitted into the top schools.

By the way, they got into the lower level schools, okay? And some of those schools are great. Like you see Santa Barbara, UC Riverside, et cetera. that's okay, but it did happen. It did happen. You can't deny that it didn't happen. Okay, so let me jump in, actually, because look, I think it's actually incredibly important to have diverse campuses, right?

And it's not just about equality. It's also about ensuring that all students are exposed to diversity, to different cultures, to people with different backgrounds. That actually enhances your higher education experience. And so some of the states that outlawed, I can't remember exactly which state it was, But one of these states that outlawed affirmative action ended up deciding, okay, in order to fix the lack of diversity problem, all students who are at the top 10% of their graduating class will automatically get admitted to the state colleges, right? Which, you know, I mean, that means for anyone who wants that opportunity, it's open for them. Yeah, and so that's a different way of tackling the problem. I think a better way to tackle it. I would do it purely class-based.

But the reason why that that works is because, hey, that if you're in a public school and some of the public schools, unfortunately, are awful, right? But you made it into the top 10%. That means you're a fighter. You got that exact spirit we're looking for that we think can do amazing things in the world. And a lot of those kids in Texas were Latino, right? But all mixed races, et cetera. But at least they had a shot within their environment, their school. They excelled. And that shows you the fight they got in them, right? And how they overcome adversity. So I love that. But guys, now let's talk about the downside of affirmative action or downside of keeping affirmative action. You get rid of it, yes, you have less representation from some groups, at least in the short term, right?

For sure. Now, the upside of keeping it is, so forever we're going to subliminally, subconsciously tell everybody, minorities can't make it on their own. They need a boost up. Oh, I hate that. I can't stand that. And that's a poison that gets into all of our heads. And so look here, another anecdote. So I remember the kids who I thought were the smartest at the schools I went through.

I don't know why I remember it, but I do. At Columbia, there was this Orthodox Jewish kid where I thought, wow, that kid's smart, right? And at Penn, I remember talking to when it was a freshman, I had talking to a black student about science and math. And I was like, I'm never going to know what this guy knows. super freaking smart. And for whatever reason, it just burrowed into my head. And I remember those two kids, okay? So that black

kid who went to Penn, who was a freaking genius, for his whole life, people will look like, oh, how did you get in a pen? Oh, Jesus, that pisses me off to no end, right? And that's, I'm telling you, people are underestimating the poison that that idea is, right? That no minority ever earned

what they got in this country. It perpetuates stereotypes. It 100% perpetuates it. And if you say, hey, people shouldn't think that way. Well, I agree with you. But nonetheless, they do. If you think they don't, you're kidding yourself. You know that they think that way and you think affirmative action.

You know affirmative action, unfortunately buttresses that in their minds. Last thing, it is also fundamentally unfair to Asians. Okay, it just is. And again, if you're denying that reality, it's absurd to deny it. The minute you take away affirmative action anywhere, the Asian admission rates skyrocket. Okay, why is it because Asians are smarter? No, don't be insane, okay? No, because there's a culture of super valuing education, almost to an extreme and almost to a point where I go,

I don't know that you're going in the right direction, right? But having said that, like, so we're going to tell all Asians, yeah, even though you guys earned it, we're just not going to let half of you in because we're trying to do diverse. Look, it's super complicated. Look at all the factors that I just outlined, right? But is that a factor? Yeah, it's a factor that we're being obviously and brazenly unjust to a certain minority group in the country. And in this case, it happens to be Asians. All right. Oh, super last thing. Sorry. And for white folks who are like white right wingers are like, yeah, finally, man, affirmative action is over. White people are back. I've got really bad news for you. Affirmative action was helping you.

Yeah, it's true. It's true. Affirmative action, white rates plummet, Asian rates increase. So all those white wingers celebrating today, you're not going to be celebrating tomorrow. But it is more fair. All right, we're going to take a break. When we come back, we've got a massive Biden block for you, including his speech on his economic performance or how the economy is doing under his leadership. We'll also talk about, man, he's had a lot of gaffs over the last few days.

We'll talk about those gaffs and what it means for the future, that and more coming up, don't miss it. just join. And Bruce Salazar, thank you for gifting a membership. We appreciate it. If you'd like to support honest reporting, give us, you know, you can join by hitting the join button below the video on YouTube or you can go to t-y-t.com slash join. All right, Cass. All right. Well, Biden has been touting his economic policies and he did so recently. Let's do the story. I knew he couldn't go back to the same failed policies when I ran. So I came in office determined and changed the economic direction of this. country to move from trickle-down economics would everyone on Wall Street Journal of Financial

Times began to call Bidenomics. I didn't come up with the name. I really didn't. I now claim it. President Biden touted how the economy is performing under his leadership during a recent speech in Chicago. And what he really emphasized during this speech was his rejection of trickle-down economics. Now, before we do an analysis of how the economy is actually performing, why don't we hear more from his speech, and then we'll break it down. Dynamics is working. When I took office, the pandemic was raging, and our economy was reeling. Supply chains are broken. Millions of people unemployed, hundreds of thousands of small business on the verge of closing after so many had already closed, literally hundreds of thousands

on the verge of closing. Today, the US has the highest economic growth rate, leading the world economies since the pandemic, the highest in the world. Bidenomics is about building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down. The vision is a fundamental break from the economic theory that has failed America's middle class for decades now. It's called trickle-down economics, fundamental economics, trickle-down. The idea was it's belief that we should cut taxes for the wealthy and big corporations. And I know something about big corporations, there's more corporations in Delaware Incorporated than every other state in the union combined debt.

I want them to do well, but I'm tired of waiting for the trickle down. It doesn't come very quickly. We should raise taxes on the wealthian corporations. That would be a great way of proving that you really are against trickle down economics. But nonetheless, to be fair, let's take a look at what the economy currently looks like because there are some metrics you could look at that have certainly improved since Biden took office. The conference board said that consumer confidence this month reached the highest level since January of 2022. Unemployment stands near a historic low at 3.7%. The inflation that

has plagued Biden's presidency has fallen to 4% from a peak of 9.1% last June. So, Jank, what are your thoughts on, okay, there's the politics of Biden giving this speech, and then there's the reality of what's transpiring with the economy and the actual substance of his speech. So comment on both. I actually think there's a third factor too. So first off, on the economy, I think it's doing pretty well, and I think that he deserves some credit for it.

3.7% is near historic record low in unemployment, and that's just the fact. And by the way, it's also a fact that Trump did a pretty good job of bringing down unemployment for however much you give president's credit for the state of the economy, whether they're Republican president like Trump or Democratic president like Biden. But Trump brought it from around 5% down to 3.7%. Then during COVID, obviously, it's spiked. And then Biden brought it all the way back down to 3.7. So that's a great number.

Obviously, inflation is not a great number, but a lot of parts of the economy are booming. That's point one. Point two is, I like that Biden is taking credit for it, politically, you know, that's what you should do. You should brag, I got a great economy, I got a great economy. He calls it Bidenomics, I don't know or care who named it that. If I was him, I'd say, yeah, goddamn right, I named it, right? And I'd brag about it. So check on both of those good.

Now, the third branch is the problematic one, which is that he doesn't mean it. Like that whole speech about trickle-down economics is absurd because Biden is, one of the most conservative Democrats economically in American history, that's not fair because there was the racist Dixiecrats, but in my lifetime, okay? And, and so he has been in favor of trickle-down economics for the past 50 years. So how do I know that? Because I know all of the legislation that has been passed and all the different things that happened. For example, he helped Mitch McConnell make the Bush tax cuts permanent. And those tax cuts, I've seen the number 94% going to the top 1%.

And that's that the one extreme, the most conservative number was, so this is the best case scenario for Biden. Two thirds of those tax cuts went to the top 20%. Okay, so the enormous majority of the cuts went to the richest people in the country. And that costs us $3 trillion every 10 years. And that was Biden negotiating for Obama in 2013. So don't tell me you're going to trickle down economics when that's what you've done your entire life. Yeah, you're absolutely right about that.

So there are a few other things I wanted to just quickly mention in regard to Biden's economy. First off, look, I think it's important to also be fair because if Donald Trump were in office right now and we were talking about the unemployment rate, we would, of course, mention that there's a massive population of people who are unemployed, but they're no longer looking for work, right? So that exists and that is not calculated into that 3.7% unemployment rate figure. So- Okay, that's fair, but it was never calculated in. No, it was never calculated in, but I just wanna be clear that that unemployment rate is not, it doesn't give you the full picture.

But still, it's an incredibly low unemployment rate. With that said, there are other issues. Prices are still rising significantly faster than the Federal Reserve's target of 2%. a worry for voters and a line of attack for Republican lawmakers and other presidential candidates. So inflation is still impacting workers. We need to keep it real. Wages have not kept up with inflation since the late 1970s. And the current minimum wage is $7.25. It is not, the federal minimum wage has not been updated since 2009. It was implemented in 2009, but it was the Bush administration that had raised the minimum wage last.

So that's just giving you a fuller picture. There are other issues as well. So for instance, if you look at the polling, the majority of Americans do not have a favorable view of Biden's economy. And it's because of what they're experiencing within their households. Housing is still unaffordable and unattainable for many people. They're dealing with that. So all of those issues also play a role.

It's just that the metrics that the news media tends to look at, the government tends to look at has more to do with GDP, has more to do with the stock market, the unemployment rate, yes. But there are other metrics that I think give you a more holistic picture of how the economy is impacting ordinary Americans. Okay, and if you're thinking, hey, wait, now you're talking about Biden's record for the last 50 years, and he's been very conservative economically, and he used to be known. Remember how you just talked about the corporations in Delaware? The credit cards are all based in Delaware, and an old credit card company was called MBNA, and Biden used to be known as the senator from MBNA. So he has helped these corporations in the very wealthy his entire career. But you say, okay, Jake, but wait a minute, let's be fair.

How about lately? I mean, the economy is doing pretty well. Maybe he did well as a president that defies the rest of his record. Well, let's take a look. So remember, Trump brought down the top rate for corporations from 35% to 21%. And Biden said, oh, no, I'm going to stick it to the man. I'm going to be for the average guy. I'm going to bring it back to 28%.

What do you mean bring it back to 28%. It was at 35. So already Biden's telling you, no, I want to make the tax cuts that Trump did for corporations as permanent as possible. Because if I solidify them at 28 as a Democrat, they'll never move past that up, right? And then Manchin goes, no, I don't think 28% is right. I think it should be 25%. That's 10 points lower than what it used to be before Trump, right? And Biden goes, pretty good idea.

We'll see how we knew I negotiate and compromise. And they did. And you know what is that now? 21%. They didn't move at an inch. And is Biden planning to change that? I mean, gives a fiery speech about trickle-down economics. He's going to propose tomorrow.

Now, God damn, I'm bringing it back to 35%. No, he's not even going to try. He's perfectly happy to have it at 21%. He didn't lift a finger to change that. And so understand, and this is a thing that if you watch mainstream media, it'll blow you away. This fact I'm about to tell you, politicians lie. They lie all the time, including Democrats. Okay, if you watch mainstream media, you know that the Republicans are liars, and they are.

But the idea that a Democrat, a Democratic leader like Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi might lies, heresy, heresy. All he does is lie. And so, and the mainstream media assiduously hides the facts that we just shared with you. They're facts, you can look them up, but they never talk about them in regards to Joe Biden. So full disclosure, as I was researching and producing the story, I was planning on going after Biden, intervening and preventing the rail workers from striking. Remember, they were about to strike because they just wanted to secure some paid time off to deal with family

the emergencies, medical emergencies, things like that, when the rail companies refused to do so, they were planning to strike, but Biden got involved and prevented them from doing so. Well, it turns out that behind the scenes, he continued pushing the rail companies in order to secure paid time off for the rail workers. And I read today, I wish that this was something that he actually marketed, talked about, advertised because he deserves credit for it. He and his administration continued pushing the companies, and they did in fact secure paid time off for the rail workers.

So he does deserve credit for that as well. And I'm giving you that full disclosure because, again, I planned on coming on the show today and going after him for that. But he did continue pushing the rail companies to do the right thing. So guys, this is exactly what we're talking about when we say we don't live in a black and white world. So generally, I'm deeply frustrated by Biden. I think he's gotten way too much credit from the press, which I think is totally absurd. But having said that, look at what a mixed bag this is.

So are we supposed to pretend that the rail workers, did not get the days off, but they did. And Biden did help them behind the scenes. That's right. Biden's National Labor Relations Board is actually really strong. That's right. Okay, and you gotta give him credit for that. On the other hand, whenever anybody's threatening a mass strike, the first guy out the door is Biden saying, don't do it, and I will support the corporate point of view. Well, what are you doing that for, right? And regulations, he wouldn't regulate a business if his life depended on it. So he's given corporations so much, and I would argue all the bills were structured to help corporate

donors. So which one is it? Do you guys hate Biden or do you love Biden? No. Our job. Like every issue, everything is far more nuanced and far more complicated. Nothing is, I wish things were as simple as good, bad, black or white, but they're not. So our job is to bring you things that are true. And anyone who always lands on one side or another, whether there is a person, a politician that they're analyzing or a policy that they're analyzing, they always land on one side or another, that shows you they're not being honest. Like, oh, I don't like Biden, so I'm only going to tell you the negative things about Biden. I like Biden. I'm only going to tell you the positive things about Biden.

No, he has both. And if everybody was honest in media, you would know both. Now, I do want to give you the exact numbers in the polls regarding how Americans actually feel about Biden's economic accomplishments. This is a poll that was done by AP, the Associated Press, and NORC. So apparently one in three U.S. adults approve of his economic leadership. That 34% figure is even lower than his overall approval rating of 41%. And that's according to the survey by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Overall, just 30% of U.S. adults say they think the national economy is good, which is up slightly from the 25% who said so just last month. And when you look at the Democratic base specifically, pretty significant chunk of the Democratic base is unhappy with the economy, although the majority of Democrats are happy with it. So 72% within his party say they approve of his handling of the job overall, but just 60% say they approve of his handling of the economy. So I think that what explains that more than anything is how inflation, especially in regard to housing, in regard to everyday goods that people need, that is what is probably impacting their opinion of Biden's economy. But to say that he's done nothing good, I think would be a lie. It is a mixed

bag, and I hope we did a decent job kind of explaining all that for you. All right, you want to move on? All right, let's do it. This is going to be an awkward and uncomfortable story, but let's talk about Biden's recent gaffs all within the last few days. Twice this week, President Biden has referred to the war in Ukraine as the war in Iraq. I don't have to tell you, he has been facing doubts from voters about his age. He is the oldest president, of course, in the nation's history that we've ever had.

One of those instances happened as he was leaving the White House today. What do you say to people who are concerned about his age and slip-ups like the one he had today? Well, we'll get to Pete Buttigieg's response to that in just a moment. But first, maybe we should get into what the gaps were. One of the instances this week actually featured President Biden mixing up Russia and Iraq. Let's watch. What extent has Vladimir Putin been weakened by recent events? It's hard to tell, but he's clearly losing the war in Iraq.

He's losing the war at home. So the audio was not great considering the helicopter in the background, or at least what sounded like a helicopter. So I'll read you the transcript. A reporter asked him specifically, to what extent has Vladimir Putin been weakened by recent events? Biden responds, it's hard to tell, but he is clearly losing the war in Iraq. He is losing the war at home. Yeah, that's the second time he's made that same exact mistake, confusing Ukraine for Iraq. Over the last two days.

And when you make the mistake the first time, I guarantee you, your staff sits you down and says, please, Mr. President, do not do that again. That is greatly deleterious to your campaign. And nonetheless, he couldn't help himself and he did it again the very next day. And there's more where that came from. Yes, in fact, just today, he also mixed up the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence while on MSNBC. Let's watch. What I think the Constitution says we hold these truths to be sold that all men and women are created equal and doubt by their creator.

And so uniqueness of America, we never fully lived up to them. We never walked away from it. And this court seems to say that no, that's not always the case. So President Biden was reacting to the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action. That's the context of the discussion. He referenced the Constitution when he should have referenced the Declaration of Independence. Yeah, so that's a more common mistake. I'm not sure that it even belongs in this category, especially given the context of the former

President Donald Trump, who would say, says the box of fruity pebble says, all men are endowed as large as they want. Okay, no, no, that's none of that is true. Okay, so compared to the guy who thought we should inject ourselves with disinfectant to cure COVID, Biden still looks like a genius. But there's a worse one. You got the body one? I do, yes, I do.

Okay, so this week he also mixed up India and China. So let's get to, I think this tweet describes it perfectly. So both last night at a fundraiser, then again this morning at the White House, Biden referred to Ukraine as Iraq and said, my new best friend, the prime minister of China, before correcting himself to say the prime minister of India. So he was referring to Narendra Modi, who is of course the prime minister of India, but referred to him as the prime minister of China. So look, sometimes when we do the show, since it's not scripted, we're not on a teleprompter,

we will think one thing, but we'll misspeak. That happens time to time. That's totally normal. But it's happening regularly with Biden. These are all gaffs within the same week. Yeah. No, guys, he's in trouble. Come on, keep it real, keep it real.

So a week or two weeks ago, he had that, I don't know if you want to call it a gap, whatever you want to call it. But at the end of one of his speeches, he said, God save the queen, right? And so in the beginning, before I heard the full explanation, I was like, uh-oh, we got to pull them right now, right now, right? But as it turns out, he says that every once in a while. He's been saying that for years, not every time, but sparingly at the end of his speech. It's like a matter of speaking, like the way he says malarkey.

Sometimes he just says it like, God save the queen, right? But when people are questioning whether you have dementia and the queen's already dead, I don't think you should go back to that lie, right? So context matters within the context of Joe Biden making these gaff after gaffe. And again, remember that one more important piece of context that leans in the other direction for Joe Biden is that he's made gaffes his whole life. That's true. That's a really good point. That is a good point. Like, so he would say absurd things like, hey, go into a 7-Eleven and you can't find one that isn't owned by an Indian. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, no, Joe, don't say that. And that was like 20 years ago.

I don't know if that's a gaff. It's more of a just lapse in judgment over what you think is humorous or funny or whatever. Yeah, sure. And I mean, he's got corn pop. He's got all these. these weird things that Biden does. And that's okay, before it was quirky and he gave him character. Now it feels very different. And guys, it's not like just the corn pop story, which miraculously turned out to be true, etc. The Mandela stuff.

The lies are different, lies are just political, right? So, but in this case, it is a great number of massive screw-ups in the midst of people questioning how old you are and whether you have dementia, it isn't. I mean, if it's not actually dementia or whatever some form of that, it at least in terms of politics and optics looks disastrous. So what do we do? And what does he do, right? Because, okay, so let me also, let's also be fair. So I'm considering how exhausted I would be if I had his schedule. If I had to do the travel that he does, if I had to, if I have to do one meeting a day, like I'm pulling my hair out, like I hate meetings, so that's what it's really about. But exhaustion has an impact on you as well,

right? So he's up there in age. He has a physically and mentally taxing schedule as president of the United States, as you would expect. So I don't, like, and also like, I don't know what to do with this information. You get what I'm saying? Like, what's the course of action? No, I do. So, okay, but it doesn't mean it's realistic we're going to happen. But so first of all, In terms of the taxing schedule, it depends, right? As Buttigieg said, no, when we do meetings, he'll ask questions. Let's actually go to that video because I promised you that we would get to Pete Buttigieg providing cover for Biden, and that's exactly what he does in this clip. Let's watch.

You could be in a room with him the way I often am, seeing how he is simultaneously focused on a big picture vision and very focused on details. I'll tell you, we've had, for example, meetings on some of the work that we've been doing with rail infrastructure, where he winds up drilling in on questions so detailed. We have to go back and set up another meeting or pull in experts from Amtrak to help satisfy the president's desire for detailed information and his focus on how that connects up into the bigger picture. So, Jank, was that convincing at all? No, it was the opposite. So, guys, I think we have an extraordinarily low bar for people. in power. We do. Like, he's like, look, he's the president of the United States, the most powerful man on earth. And he asks questions. Oh, does he? What else does Joe do? He just

dives into details. What's your expectation that the president gets a briefing and doesn't ask any questions and doesn't ask about the details? Are you expecting the president to be a moron? Of course you ask questions. Of course you ask about the details. So sorry. No, that is not 1% impressive. And every president is different. Bill Clinton worked his ass off. Barack Obama was by all accounts incredibly hardworking. On the other hand, Trump didn't do anything. He just watch Fox News all day long. Don't tell me how taxing the presidency is by definition. So anyways, so I'm not at all convinced by that. But look, so what can we do about it? I know what the right answer is. It's just no one's got the courage to do it. I'm being honest, okay? The right answer is

someone really strong goes into the race and pushes Biden out because Biden is being obstinate. And honestly, like sometimes a sign of dementia is being stubborn and will not change your mind under any circumstance, right? But you know what will change your mind? If you're polling third and you're the sitting president, you're going to leave the race because you don't want to get embarrassed. But we can't, I mean, Marianne and RFK Jr. are in the race. God bless Marianne.

I think she has a lot of courage. And that's why she's in there. but it hasn't worked in pushing him out. So it has to be someone who can do it. And there, we batting as zero, a flat out zero. Not one person will go in the race and push him out. And so if you're mad, honestly, be mad at every other Democrat, everyone else on the left in the whole country.

Because no one will do what is obviously the correct thing to do. When we come back from the break, We'll talk about how Mayor Eric Adams decided to imply that an elderly white woman was racist when she asked a very legitimate question about raising rent prices in the city. So that and more when we come back. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you, and also Dami Mommy Matrix. That's funny, fun. Eddie Quawa, mega-ironica, I think that's the same person. Anyway, and Bruce Seltzer didn't give just one membership.

Wind up gifting 21. So Bruce, American Hero, we appreciate it. Everybody, come be a member of the Young Turks, help us do honest reporting. hit the join button below the video on YouTube or t-y-t.com slash join. We appreciate it. Casper. All right, this story is insane. New York City Mayor Eric Adams implied that an elderly white woman who had an important

question to ask about unaffordable rents was speaking to him in a racist manner. In fact, he compared her to a plantation owner after she raised concerns about unaworthy. affordable rent. Now before I show you the video and stick around for it, I do want to give you the context so you understand where this woman is coming from. She has a legitimate concern and she is representing the concerns of countless New Yorkers who are concerned about rents increasing. So landlords will be able to increase rent by 3% on one year leases. They will also be able to increase rent by 2.75% for the first year on two year leases and 3.2% for a second year. The rent increases apply to new leases signed on or after October

1st of 2023. So this has to do with the rent stabilized units in the city. There are about 1 million of them. And there is a board that makes a decision as to how much rent can be increased at any given time. Now, a woman stood up to ask a question about this. She is noticeably frustrated with good reason. This has to do with housing. This has to do with people being able to live in a safe place. And Eric Adams was not amused by it. Let's watch. Okay, first, if you're going to ask a question, don't point at me and don't be disrespectful to me. I'm the mayor of this city and treat me with the respect that I deserve to be treated. I'm speaking to you as an adult.

Don't stand in front like you treated someone that's on a plantation that you own. Isn't it so wonderful when someone asks you a question that makes you uncomfortable, you could just weaponize race to shut her down? That's exactly what happened there. So this one has a little bit of nuance, not a lot. So the little bit of nuance is, yeah, it's true that a lot of times some folks talk down to minorities and they do it in a way that is grating on the nerves in every imaginable way. It's happened to me a little bit, but my God, I've seen it happen to black people in a way

that is maddening, okay? So that's your context, and I get it. At the same time, when you become a representative of the people, you must. be accountable to the people. And you can't just say, oh, okay, you've got a problem with rent. How dare you talk back to me? I deserve respect. Nah, okay?

And to me, put aside the race thing for a second. The whole concept, and it is pervasive in America, that politicians deserve a lot of respect. I loathe it. I don't think they deserve that at all, at all. And I've seen people go into Congress and then all of a sudden say, I'm a congresswoman or I'm a congressman now. Who gives a damn? You're the same person, right? And they get this air about them, like they're big deal.

No, you're supposed to be a servant of the people. You're not supposed to lord over the people and be like, I am more powerful and I have more status than you. How dare you ask me an impertinent question and point your finger at me? No, we all get to point our fingers at the politicians. and ask why haven't you done your goddamn job? And are you kidding me? Like you're getting upset about someone asking about rent being too high in New York City? I mean, how fragile is your ego?

If you can't handle that, you shouldn't be mayor of New York. So he claims that, you know, he has nothing to do with the decision that was made by the rent guidelines board, that he has absolutely no say. I would venture to say that the mayor of the city could, you know, apply some pressure and look out for the people of New York. But he claims, hands off, hands off, I have no say in this whatsoever. That's his argument, he insists. Now, I do wanna give you some numbers in regard to what Americans are dealing with when it comes to the housing crisis and the unaffordable nature of rent.

So the, this is the highest percentage of New Yorkers facing an affordability crisis in the 23 year history of a study that was done. So according to the study, let's just go back and I'll give you the details on that. There was a study released in April that showed that half of all households in New York don't make enough money to cover basic needs like housing. Okay, so according to the analysis, this is the highest percentage of New Yorkers facing an affordability crisis in the 23 year history of the study and also marks a significant degradation of life quality since 2021. when the organization's report found that 36% of working age households weren't making ends meet. Listen, people are working their asses off in this country, okay, working overtime, long hours, barely making enough money to afford housing, okay? They did everything right, they followed all the rules, and they can't even afford to put a roof over their heads.

God damn right, they're angry. And for anyone to any politician, anyone who signed up for this, who ran to sit in the seat that Eric Adams is in right now, to deflect and immediately imply that someone is racist because she dare ask you a question in an aggressive way. I'll grant him that in an aggressive way about this very real and serious issue. It's just infuriating. I'm so sick of, I'm sick of all of it. Okay, I'm sick of these politicians who run for public office, run to be public service. and end up being anything but. Yeah, so look, a lot of times in my life I have gotten either subtly or over the top overtly, you don't belong here, okay? So I know how that feels, I know exactly how that feels. And so I have sympathy for that. But if you become an elected representative, you must represent

represent those people and you must take their criticism look we do a talk show here and we take your guys criticism all the time right and we deal with it we explain it we agree we explain the parts we agree and disagree etc you can't go around saying how dare you bring up a perfectly legitimate issue and a critique of me and and then hide behind any issue but yes including race and you say oh you can't what do you mean hide behind race that's outrageous what do you mean you think Clarence Thomas didn't hide behind race when he was accused credibly of sexual harassment, what do you do?

The guy who denies that racism exists at all, all of a sudden called it a high-tech lynching. See, that's hiding behind your race. Okay, so it can happen, and it does happen. And I think in this case, Eric Adams did do that. Can we just, for a second, acknowledge the power dynamic in this exchange? Yeah. He's the mayor of New York City. Let's just consider that power dynamic.

That's it. Okay, I mean, we're not talking about some rich, privileged white woman who comes across an impoverished black person and yells at him for no reason. This is a powerful man, he is the mayor of the largest city in this country, and she has a legitimate concern and is representing a concern for countless New Yorkers to brush her off as someone who just sounds like a plantation owner, so you don't have to answer the question. It's pretty gross. And he didn't.

He never answered the question. So look, here again, I'll use myself as an example and it's not at all an exaggeration. I've literally had somebody grabbed me by the elbow and walk me out of a place saying you don't belong here, okay? So having said that, if I become the mayor of New York City, I don't get to say that anymore because I have achieved a status of power and my job is to use that power on behalf of all of the citizens and not to make excuses. And also context matters.

Now let's give you the other side of the context, every mayor of New York City is pointed at and yelled at. I mean, Eric Adams, who is actually a moderate to conservative Democrat, you want to see somebody getting yelled at. Bill de Blasio was yelled at. The former mayor of New York, who was a more progressive Democrat, was yelled at and pointed at a thousand times, 10,000 times. So are mayors of New York yelled at? Hell yeah they are. I mean, come on, it's comical, it's comical. It's New York City.

If you can't handle a constituent and you won't answer a question and you come out with a lame excuse like that, that's embarrassing. By the way, last week, Eric Adams vetoed a package of four bills by the New York City Council that would have expanded the city's rental voucher program. Maybe that's why he immediately went to the race card to essentially avoid having to answer any questions. Anyway, we gotta take a break. We come back for the second hour of the show. We'll talk about just how popular how Speaker Kevin McCarthy's plot to, you know, cut Social Security really is. Later we'll also discuss, I don't know, what else do we have going on, Jank? We'll talk about how the Koch brothers have raised tens of millions of dollars to defeat Trump in the primaries.

We'll give you that and more coming up. 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 at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.