The Young Turks - Hour 4: TYT GEORGIA SENATE RUNOFF ELECTION COVERAGE

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

Hour 4: Join Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola, Michael Shure, and Dr. Rashad Richey as they cover the Georgia Senate Runoff Election between Rev. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker LIVE. 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. On July 18th, get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited.

Sorry. Smurfs. Only theaters July 18th. All right, back on TYOT bonus episode for the members. I appreciate you guys making this possible. Gonja Cat 420 became a member. And this is an unfortunate one. I mean, he's fortunate that he joined.

I appreciate it. He should look into his handle a little bit, though. But because our new member is they suck fat, long, grass-filled donkey logs. That's the, that's their handle. That's, I, Burgundy will read anything in the iPad, okay? But I appreciate you being a member. So Mr. Donkey Logs, great to have you. Oh, my God.

We have a good sense of humor here. FD logs. Yeah, in a sense. And gaining traction reminded me the thing that I wanted to say is to one more thing is to why Biden's running. He said Biden changed the primary to South Carolina first. He's running. So all of the establishment wants South Carolina to go first.

But yeah, Biden was very adamant about it. So that's another good sign that he's planning on running. It's an excellent sign. In fact, I was going to start with that. You know what? Gaining traction? $100 dollar gift card. Look at that. Rewards of t.com for remembering a point I forgot. Okay, we do have more clips, but I wanted to say, I don't think I got to, believe it or not, what I think is going to happen in 2024. So I just said, I think Biden is going to run.

But what happens if he runs? I mean, look, if it's Trump, I don't know, 50-50. It's always 50-50, right? Because Trump's going to have his 35%. They're all going to go vote. And at this point, he's down to, I think, the core, core 35%. Right? Yeah.

I mean, just about anyone who isn't crazy has peeled off of them. But 35% of the country is very happy to be crazy, very happy. And they will, they'll vote like crazy, right? And so that's pretty much locked in. But do I think Biden can't beat Trump? No, I think Biden could be Trump because mainly Trump would beat himself. So I don't know, I've got it at 50. And Trump will be even older at that point.

Like Trump is not gonna age well year by year. Look guys, Biden, as you can tell, I'm not a big fan, but it's not close. I mean, Trump is 10,000 times more mentally unstable, 10,000 times dumber. You go down the list of more toxic, more this, more that, more corrupt. I mean, there isn't a single thing that Trump wins on. between Trump and Biden, but other than perhaps the election. So, okay. Today, by the way, just we're talking about Trump,

it didn't catch on when you were saying loser Donald a lot in 2016. It was a big thing. Today is an exclamation point on loser Donald. You know, it really is. Everything he touched this election, most things he touched, lost. And he was not invited to Georgia. And people will say, it was a mistake not bringing him in. But they brought him in in 2020, and they lost both of those races.

The people he has supported in that state have all lost, and the people he has not supported have all won. And so this tonight, the biggest loser is Donald Trump. And you were 100% on with loser Donald when you sort of coined that and tried to make it a mantra. Yeah, and in the midterms, the Republicans lost almost exclusively because of Donald Trump. Except for like J.D. Vance, maybe. Yeah. That's why it looked, it's not just Hillary Clinton, but the establishment overall on the Democratic side, losing to Donald Trump in 2016 was just the most inexcusable

thing that's ever happened in American politics. The guy can't win at anything. The reason we did loser Donald segments now what, six, seven years ago, right? Is because the main thing about Donald Trump was what a loser he is, six bankruptcies. you know, the fake charity, a fake school, you name it. He's, if Trump stakes, Trump water, Trump jets, there isn't a single thing he's ever done that has succeeded other than beating the Democratic Party in 2016. Yep, right.

Okay, so. Well, and taking over the Republican Party wholesale. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's a longer conversation. So, but if it's not Trump, then I'm, and there isn't a progressive to beat Joe Biden, which I think they're can be. I'll come back to that in a second. If it's Biden versus a DeSantis or just name, fill in the blank of almost any normal and you got to put normal in giant air quotes, Republican, I think Biden will get crushed.

It'll be embarrassing to look at. So I, of course, as always, I'll add the caveat. I hope I'm wrong. And sometimes I am, but unfortunately, a lot of times it hasn't been the case. So, and by the way, one of the things I was wrong about, and this is part of what's chasing me, is if you guys remember, I thought Biden was going to beat Trump easy. I was super confident about that. And then I was kind of stunned to see how close it was that night. And so remember, seven million votes overall for Biden in the popular vote.

So if we had an actual democracy, it wouldn't have been anywhere near close. But in those three swing states that made the difference, the only one by a combined 43,000 votes. So he was this close to losing. So and I thought there's no way. I mean, Trump had reasons for thinking that other than, oh, Trump's generically crazy or racist or whatever, right? But what I got out of that election is, God damn Republicans vote. Like they will, they will vote, rain, shine, sleep, whatever the fuck. Right, they're going to vote.

Nearly two million of them are going to end up voting for Herschel Walker tonight. I mean, that tells you. Yeah, I mean, look, the guy is pointing guns at heads. He's done paid for multiple abortions, lies about everything, says he's mentally ill. He has 12 to 20 personalities, some of which are deeply violent. One of the things I asked, and, you know, if we were running a brutal campaign against Herschel Walker, I would have advised a candidate to do this, although one other than Federman would have listened, or maybe Tim Ryan, is ask him, hey, how do we know one of your personalities isn't a Democrat?

Because that's the only thing that can get Republicans to go, oh, wait a minute. Right. Well, he says he was cured of his multiple personality sort of, which no doctor said it is impossible. You cannot be cured of it. Yeah, of course. He's not well. He's not, he's mentally unwell. And so, and nonetheless, you know, he's going to lose my only two or three, right?

So look, Dan, let's talk about that for a second. So we'll see if I'm right or wrong, obviously, about all that. Oh, one last quick thing here, but I want to talk about Walker. I think, yes, I think there is a populist progressive who can run against Biden. I think there is a populist progressive who can beat Biden in a primary and then beat a Republican in the general election. is that easy it's a two million miles from easy it is very very difficult when you're you're saying that kind of vaguely do you mean that there is there's the concept of one or are you just not yet saying who but you have a person in mind there's the concept of one okay you think that a populist

progressive could be Biden in a primary yeah yeah and and I'm sure would do way way better in a general election and they have to be economic populists not social populist I'm just being honest with you guys. Yeah, yeah. And to be clear, because I see people going back and forth in the chat constantly, she will be old enough, yes. Yeah. No, I don't, I would be shocked if it was AOC. Yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't see any sign of it. Yeah. Yeah. She said that she's not sure she wants to stay in Congress. Yeah, no, no, she, look, to be fair to AOC, and on days I want to be fair, days I don't want to be fair, because I get frustrated at the lack of what I perceive to be action. And you might say, oh my God, that is so unfair.

She's done so many things, said so many things. And I get it. And it's a good, good debate and solid and all that stuff. But she's never shown leadership where she's like, okay, you, you, you, let's go. We're going to go and we're going to vote as a block and we're going to go do this. And we're going to have a plan. To be fair to AOC, I've never seen any progressive do that. All I've seen is Jayapal coming go, you, you, you, you.

Let's come over here and let's buckle the Biden and then hope for the best. Oh, shit, we didn't get the bus. God damn it. So like there's no leadership among progressives at all. And to be fair to AOC, she's been battered, right? The right wing and sometimes the mainstream media. And so I don't fault her for being exhausted from all that. So it doesn't look like she has an appetite for a bigger fight.

The guy who wants a bigger fight can't help themselves, right? So Nina Turner running a second time, well, look, it didn't work out well at all. but she couldn't help herself, right? So that's the person you need. Wish us luck. And it's going to be at the same time where they're trying to win the House back, which could play into the favor of a populist regressive because they are going to make a concerted effort,

though Tim Ryan is being talked about. You don't have to run the D-Triple-C to be, you don't have to be in Congress to run the D-T-T-C, the Democratic Congressional Campaign, Democratic Congressional Campaign committee, and Tim Ryan may take that job. they want him to have that job, which would be interesting because he would have to select different types of candidates or help promote different types of candidates around the country.

You know, if Biden doesn't run, Tim Ryan versus Gavin Newsom is kind of an interesting conversation. I don't know that Tim would want to run and he did lose the race, and I wouldn't support him because his policies are too conservative for my taste. But at least he's a fighter, and so that would be an interesting fight if he ran. And ironically, the fact that he lost allows him to potentially run. like Federman won, what are you going to turn around like six months later, say I'm running for president? Right. Too much. Yeah, no, no, right? So anyway, let's go back to Walker. So Herschel Walker lost tonight. By the way, Obama did that, but. Yeah, but didn't he do two years?

Yeah, he did two years. Yeah, that's a little bit different. Yeah, was that short. Yeah, it was. It was mentored by Joe Lieberman in those two years. It worked out great. Okay, anyways, so Hershal Walker her loss tonight. And number one, let's just take a deep breath and go, oh, thank God. Okay. And not because we're on the left and he's on the right, but because honestly, it would have been humiliating. He's beneath the U.S. Senate. I mean, there are a lot of people who are in it who are as well. But it doesn't mean you need to put another one of them. He just, he just wasn't up to the job. And he could be, you know, a lot of things. And maybe he's a great guy. Maybe he's a sweet guy. Maybe he's certainly a good running back. But he didn't

belong in the Senate. So I think in general, like as Americans, not to have that person in the U.S. Senate, probably better. Yeah. Yeah. And guys, you see the worst candidate to ever run? But probably by definition, no, because all the crazy racists that ran all the time, you know, until relatively recently and then some. And also Roy Moore was a candidate. Yeah, exactly where I was going to go. Like, Roy Moore was a candidate. And as awful as Hersch Walker was, Roy Moore used to molest little kids. I mean, Jesus Christ. No, I think he's way worse than Roy Moore. I think that if Herschel Walker, if we found out yesterday that Herschel Walker had also done everything that Roy Moore did, it's basically the same person, I think.

Herschel Walker nearly killed multiple people. He beat his own family members. He's confessed to wanting to murder people. I think he's really, really bad. I think Rowe was terrible and I hate that that was as close as it was. was, but I feel like Roy Moore had the one terrible scandal. I feel like Herschel Walker had many of them. Well, Roy Moore had several too when he was in, when he was a justice of the state Supreme Court in Alabama. There was plenty. But I don't remember about this. They're equally

bad and it's good that neither is in the U.S. Senate. But we can say that. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And look, the one of the thing that always sticks with me on Roy Moore is that he was known as the local pervert at the mall. He would come and troll teenage girls when he was. in his 30s and everybody's like, oh yeah, that's Roy Moore. I think he might have been a prosecutor at the time. Oh, he's the local prosecutor and he's a pervert. Everybody watch out for him. Not just a pervert, a pervert at the mall.

Yeah, there is something that's, it does feel slightly worse. Right? So, and he didn't win. Okay, so we dodged a bullet that a lunatic is not in the Senate. But for all, the Roy Moore was horrible. I don't know that I've ever seen in my lifetime anyone more mentally unbalanced than Herschel Walker running for an important scene. I mean, I think that Donald Trump is very mental.

Yeah, well, I think Donald Trump. I think Donald Trump. Look, I think there's a case to be made maybe on someone like Marjorie Green. I think she has some lucidity in some cases. She genuinely believes absolutely insane things. But she genuinely believes it. Yeah. There's a lot of people like that.

But isn't that worse? No, that's not 35. is crazy or whatever, he's been, his brain has been battered for decades. She doesn't have CTE and she literally believes in like a satanic cult of all of the world's elites. John, I got bad news for you. That is 15 to 35% of the country. Okay, man, no joke, no exaggeration. Okay. And by the way, again, Americans don't feel bad. It's also 35% of every country. Yeah. In Turkey, Erdogan wins all the time because he's got that 35% locked in. In Indonesia, it's a story we didn't get to today, and I might do it tomorrow.

The president of Indonesia just passed the law that, obviously with the legislature as well, I think obviously in Indonesia's case, where they're going to do insulting. The president is now a serious crime. Blasphemy is a serious crime that can get you a lot of jail time, et cetera. All these things, abortion, of course, they've taken away every freedom you can imagine. And premarital sex is a significant crime that you will go to jail for a long prison for a long time for, all these things. And why? Because he has an immovable 35% of the country that support him no matter what, because he's the more religious fundamentalist leader in Indonesia.

And all he has to do is when a small fraction of the cities in Indonesia, and boom, he's got infinite power. It happens everywhere, and it is this, it's unfortunately problematic everywhere, but that's a problem we always have to deal with. As opposed to Herschel Walker, who was guys, I mean, I, again, I don't, I don't want to offend the folks who struggle with mental health issues in our audience. Those things are not the same. Like Kanye West has a mental health problem, that's obvious, but he's also anti-Semitic and hateful. those two things don't have to be come together. Right, right? He's got the hateful part that already existed independent of the mental health problems.

When you put in the mental health problems, it just amplifies this, right? And so Herschel Walker has as many mental health problems as I have ever seen of a major candidate in my lifetime. And so thank God, he didn't make it. That's a great, great moment. So John was saying during the break, look man, I mean, these elections, the men, I mean, these elections, the Midterm election at large, include this in the midterm election? Yeah, yeah, it felt, felt way better than we expected, right? And that's another thing that, you know, I would say that I was off on a degree at least. Whereas I, at the end, I was super worried we were gonna lose and maybe even get killed, right?

But the two things that helped tremendously were abortion and Trump. Trump was probably 70% of it at least. Abortion was 20, 25%. I would go harder with abortion than Trump. I think there were a lot of, what abortion did is it got a lot of women and young people voting. And young people voted in this election in an unpredictable way for a midterm election. And that's not because of Donald Trump. That has to be because of social issues.

And I think that abortion was chief among them. And I doubted because I thought it peaked, you know, it peaked in the spring. when it happened, right? And then when Dobbs happened, it's like, oh, my God, but that's a long time. And in politics, that's like three years. But it was compacted into a few months. And the young voters that came out and the women who came out in this election, I would say it's as much as, if not more than the Trump effect on this election.

Okay, so, but those are, however you have the percentages, and we're all, of course, guessing to some degree or a large degree, but overall, Trump and abortion were huge, right? But if Trump's not around and abortion is now two and a half years removed, uh-oh. So, I mean, we saw what happened in elections without the Trump candidates. We did not fare well at all. So I just think that we covered up a problem. And but now, okay, let me ask it in a form of a question. Michael, do you think that the Democrats are saying to themselves,

dodge the bullet, but man, we really got to get this ship straightened? Or are they thinking, nailed it, knew it? I don't think they're saying nailed it, knew it. I think losing the house in the way that they did in California and New York and seeing what happened with that, I think absolutely they're, they feel lucky that it was only this bad is losing the house. But I don't think there's anybody who's saying nailed it, except in some states, right? I mean, I think that in Arizona and Nevada, they're saying we nailed it because those two candidates, Hobbs and the governor's race and Cortez Mastow in the Senate race, they nailed it, right?

I mean, they just got through, but they nailed it. And so I think they're talking about it in that way, but in writ large, no, not at all. When the head of your D-Triple C loses his race in New York, when you see that you're going to be turning the Congress over? You never think you nailed it. It just, it wasn't as bad as you thought. Okay, good, good. That's actually heartening to hear. And because I don't want them to be overconfident.

And it sounds like you're saying they're not nearly as overconfident as I think they are. And I believe you, so that's good. And they're quite worried about the Senate in 2024. I didn't mean to make light of it when you said it before in the show. There are races in that. There are candidates from Debbie Stabenow in Michigan, which is not a slam dunk, you know. And the problem is there are no places for the Democrats really to, pick candidates off. You're not going to do it to Rick Scott if he runs in in Florida.

You're not going to do it to Ted Cruz, really. Maybe Deb Fisher and Nebraska, but that's an enormous reach to win statewide in Nebraska for Democrats. So there's a, it's very, it was within it was, it was, but it was with a, you know, and that race will be nationalized and we'll see what happens. But he did win. And the question is, will he run for president and not do that again? We don't know. But by the same token, the next person up is going to be tough to be too as a Republican in that state. So there aren't the Republican pickoffs. There's Roger Wicker in Mississippi.

There's, you know, I mean, when you look around and then New Jersey, Bob Menendez is up. New Jersey is a blue state, but a Democrat won a House race there and it's trending away a little bit. So, yeah. Okay. Super last thing is I would love to add on a clip. But Michael, what do you think is a conventionalism as to why they did not do well in California and New York? Well, I think that the, the, the New York, they're for two different reasons. They got really, they screwed up the redistricting in New York, and I think that came from the top.

And I think when they, when those districts, and it was political, but when those districts were, were not approved, they were approved everywhere else in North Carolina and Louisiana and Florida. Everybody got to approve, but New York, that didn't work out in the courts. That really set them back. And they kind of messed that up, I would say, in a massive way. I don't know enough about some of the candidates there as to whether or not the better. candidate one. In California, I think that the Democrats got a little lackadaisical in parts of this state, like Orange County, like the areas surrounding Los Angeles, and didn't have, didn't motivate people and didn't have anything to point to. California voters are looking for

something that you can point to as an accomplishment. And a lot of these are what I'm going to do, not what we've done. And these are people that were elected in tight races last time. There was a redistricting. I think the Katie Porter redistricting probably backfired a little bit on them, in that it took different parts of that district and put her in the wrong place and took it and put it in other places. So there's a lot of hand-wringing about that. But I don't think it was necessarily candidate-based as much as, I mean, in some race as it was. And Christy Smith, again, was a ridiculous move by the Democrats. But I think that's part of what it was here.

Yeah, I think crime had a impact. Yeah, and crime. I'm talking about the mechanics. Issue-wise, crime definitely had an impact in both of those places. Yeah, for sure. All right, so I want to show you guys one last video here. To give you a sense, I think it's going to go to a theme here. Video seven, this is what do Hershal Walker supporters think about his abortion hypocrisy? Let's watch.

These people that show up 30 years after the fact and want to start accusing people, like the latest woman who said she forced him to have an abortion, but where's she been for 30 years? Where's the police report? Why didn't she tell somebody? I just don't like these people showing up when the elections come out and they got some lawyer who's, you know, a known show up at the election time looking for a check. So I think you lose your credibility when you do that. They had that over in Alabama with Roy Moore that he dated children basically and stuff like that. After the election, it all went away. I don't know any facts.

So it's really hard for me to make any decisions on allegations. There is so much false information on the TV and these commercials that, no, that doesn't bother me at all because I know just by hearing him speak, you know, he's a God man first, and we all were never perfect and we're all never going to be perfect. So we just, you know, we all make mistakes. You can be redeemed, you know, and that is what, you know, he talked about and everyone deserves a second chance. And he is forgiven. We're all sinners. We all make mistakes and we learn from those mistakes. Okay, I wanted to show you guys that clip because one, it's fun to see them go, oh, yeah, no big deal.

Abortion, what's the big deal? Right. But mainly to say, no, with Republicans, it's just us versus them. Yeah. That's, there is no policy, none. Right, they don't care about any policy at all. Just us versus them. If he declares he's one of us, we're going to support him no matter what he does.

That's 100% right. And they say it as much too. I mean, they say, well, he's got an R next to him and that's what I'm going to do. Who's more relief tonight, Raphael Warnock or Herschel Walker? Yeah, he was going to have to frantically Google what a senator does. And what city do they work in actually? No, I mean, look, I hadn't seen it, but Rashad's point about that clip is devastating that he kept saying that he was running for the house. Oh, I read those quotes, yeah, he thought it was the house.

Yeah, I mean, he just, he doesn't know where he is. Like, it's the fact that the Republicans put him up, it's just embarrassing and humiliating for the Republican Party if they were capable of being embarrassed. Yeah, which they're not. So anyways, by the way, Herschel Walker literally doesn't know where he is and neither does anybody else. He didn't show up to his own gathering. There's no concession speech, no nothing. As of a little bit ago, I haven't seen anything. Yeah, and to that guy, idiots, point, after the election, they didn't know anything about Roy Moore.

Yeah, well, the reason it came up during the election is because that's when people dig into your past. Well, that's what I said to him. That was cut out, but I said to him, you know, she said, why did she wait 30 years? I said, well, he hadn't been standing for the U.S. Senate for the past 30 years, and now he is. Yeah. That matters. And why did it go away afterward? Well, she doesn't have any faith that there's going to be legal justice.

It's just hopefully he won't be elevated to a position of incredible authority. As soon as that's gone, then, that's the best she's going to get. Yeah, and statute of limitations ran out on some of those things for Roymore. But the reason I brought that up is because, look, the other part of the answer is now we're done with Hersh Walker. I mean, cross your fingers, right? Now we are. We're done with him. He's not running again.

Even if he ran, the Republicans wouldn't, I don't think even the Republicans would make the mistake of renominating him. No, he would not run. So we're done, done with Hershiel Walker, so we don't have to beat him up anymore. I don't actually, if you watch the show, you might get the impression that I like beating people up on the other side, right? But no, I don't. The whole time in it, there's a part of me that feels bad for Herschel Walker. The guy is super troubled, right? And he was treated, he was like a puppet.

I mean, he was really like he was used by the, by the partner. 100%. I mean, the most telling one was the one where he said erection day, right? But it's because he was sandwiched between Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz. And they would literally jump in during that interview and say, now this is what he's trying to say, okay? And we've got an African American here and so we can't be racist. Now let me tell you what that guy, some bitch is going to say, okay?

And it was just like the most telling interview I've ever seen, total other puppet. Let me paint a picture for you guys too. So what happens after this rally? And this is one in Georgia. Sorry, mind the, what, what am I? What happened? Okay, that's easy. No, no.

No, no, I just thought you were doing a Lindsey Graham. Oh, no, no, no, I was not doing Lindsey Graham. So what happens after this rally, and many rallies like this for Herschel Walker, is, is they go to a rally, and I would say there are about 125 people at this rally. It was outside of coffee house in Woodstock, Georgia. And then the Herschel team, when the rally is over, says, okay, now, and they time it to this, we're going on Sean Hannity. And I need many of you to come down here and make it seem very busy and they put them behind Herschel. Then they bring the three chairs out and it's Herschel Walker in the middle. And then it's Lindsay Graham and there was one other person who was there.

So it's all meant to look. It's all staged for the people who are watching Fox to think this is someone we should be supporting because everyone else is. And it's trying to build momentum. But it's all, the whole thing with Herschel Walker was a facade. And it was and it was orchestrated from the word go. and he was the puppet constantly the entire time Herschel Walker was a puppet in this race. And it showed. I mean, we saw it. I mean, you didn't need me to tell you that, but to see the choreography of it is pretty cool. Yeah, and so in Nixon's famous words, although not last

words, we won't have Walker to kick around anymore. And unlike the Republicans, we're happy about that. I don't want to kick the guy around. And I just didn't want him in the Senate, right? So I hope he gets a good therapist and not a stupid conversion therapist like he tried last time. And I hope that, you know, he can get his family back together. It's very unlikely, but that he basically not hurt others or himself going forward. That's my wish for Herschel Walker. Yeah. I'm going to mock him on TDR tomorrow, but then I'm done.

Then I'm done. No more. That's fair. That's fair. All right, guys, we're done. We appreciate it. Bye, bye, bye. 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 dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon