The Young Turks - House Hypocrisy

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

Kevin McCarthy has said that George Santos will be removed from office if he ever did anything illegal. Ted Cruz flip-flops on Live TV in a mere 30 seconds. Does MTG have what it takes to be Trump’s VP for 2024? Senators keep quoting Taylor Swift during the Ticketmaster hearing, and it’s hysterical. Disney adults are selling splash mountain water for a crazy amount of money. Host: John Iadarola, Francesca Fiorentini Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Woo! It's up! Welcome to all to the Young Turks with me, John Adirot, stepping in for Anna Casparean, and there's Jane. Ugar in cosplays Francesca Fierrantini. Francesca, how's it going? Of course. Hi, John. Wow, suit and tie. Just for you and the audience and the show.

I don't know. And it's a contract. Have this ever happened just you and me in control of the main show? Like, you know, two renegades, just running from the law. Making it up as we go along. Spreading fake news. Not especially. No, we've done bits and pieces. But I don't know. Anyway, I like it.

Let's make it a trend, everyone. Hashtag John and Fran Foe ever. Let's do that. But anyway, I'm very excited to have you on the show. Not only for this first hour, which I'm going to be leading, but the second hour and the bonus episode, which you will be leading. And while we have a ton of interesting news, some VP stuff, ticket master, What are you looking forward to in the second hour?

I don't know, an FBI was on a Russian oligarchs payroll. That's cool. Also, nothing, yeah, I'm looking forward to your hour a little bit more. My hour for some reason feels real serious. But no, we're going to also look at what Iowa is doing to, it's public schools. And spoiler, it's bad. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah, what was the last time you heard good news having to do with public schools in America? Well, anyway, maybe we'll try to make it fun in a little way. We'll figure out a way to throw in the Greta voice or something. So anyway, don't worry, everyone. We're going to make this fun. We're going to make this approachable. But more importantly, we're going to make it substantive. And hopefully, we're all going to learn something through the experience. But anyway, we look forward to your comments, of course, as always during our social breaks. But with all that said, Francesco, why don't we get this thing started? Yeah.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy has booted two Democrats off of the House Intelligence Committee, and that might just be the beginning. Now, of course, if you've been following American politics, you know that he did this as like a stop to the Fox News, to the Republican base. They want to see strike back because the Democrats had the temerity to throw Paul Gosar and Marjorie Green off of their committees for encouraging violence against their colleagues. literally calling for the assassination of Nancy Pelosi, AOC, Joe Biden, a number of different people. In comparison to that, Swalwell and Schiff existed. They were, and thus they needed

to be punished. Here's how Kevin McCarthy tried to provide cover for this purely partisan thing that he did. I have rejected the appointments of Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell for the House Intelligence Committee. I am committed to returning the House Intel Committee to one of genuine honesty and credibility that regains the trust of the American people. That is definitely his focus. There's, I don't expect that you're going to be able to read that full letter, especially on mobile. So I'm going to zoom in a little bit on one of my favorite excerpts. He says, I cannot put partisan loyalty ahead of national security. And I cannot simply recognize years of services, the sole criteria for membership on this essential committee. Integrity

matters more, says the guy that put Marjorie Green on Homeland Security. No, but like, look at that. Every single person knows exactly why he did this. And I mean both the people maybe on my side of the aisle that are against the move, as well as everyone on the right wing who is cheering this. They know why he did this. They wanted him to do this and they're very happy that he did. The idea that he did it because he cannot put partisan loyalty ahead of national security

is utterly ridiculous. Nobody actually believes that nobody on their side cares. They got what they wanted, Francesca, and isn't that nice for them? Yeah, and it bodes terribly for this entire country. Look, and I'm not going to say, like, you know, that Reps Wallwell and Adam Schiff were like, you know, my heroes, but they did lead the country through impeachment hearings, right? Love them or hate them believe they were necessary is what I did. I don't know why I'm speaking like Yoda, but I am. Look, the real thing is, yeah, let's just stick with this. The real thing is, it begins a snowball, right? And it happens in a lot of countries, in a lot of countries, the United States has turned its nose out as like, their democracy is not quite perfect,

unlike ours. But it's when your entire system, your legislative branch and your judicial branch are completely flooded with partisan picks. You go through political purges when your party is not in power, and you only appoint loyalists. Again, the lesson out of the Trump administration, I'm sure from Donald Trump himself and clearly from Kevin McCarthy is we didn't have enough loyalists. Like it wasn't that we attempted a coup on January 6th, it said we didn't attempt it hard enough. It's that we had to go to the third rail, which is, you know, send a bunch of radicalized Facebook dads at the capital instead of doing it through our bought and sold loyalist attorneys

generals who are just randos, again, probably the same Facebook dads. You know what I'm saying? So this is again, where the country is headed and it all paves the way for a potentially successful parliamentary coup in the future. Yeah, and it wasn't supposed to be like this. I think that the owner donors would prefer a system that didn't have explicit violence in the streets. The way it was supposed to work was through a combination of structural factors, gerrymandering, the overrepresentation of small rural states and all of that combined with endless fundraising for Fox News and independent right wing media focusing on an ever-changing menu of ridiculous culture war topics. That was supposed to be enough.

They were supposed to win based on that. They were supposed to delude the rube's enough so that they would maintain power. And that in the end wasn't enough. Somehow the American people were able to see through a lot of this BS. And so instead they had to pull the coup card. And now we're all waiting to see if going back to business as was usual, the culture war, the demonizing trans people and trying to strip the rights away from everyone, if that works in 2024, then they'll just do that.

And if it doesn't, they'll probably try again for a coup. And they've got more of a ground game for that now. Yeah. Yeah. So obviously with all of that being said, the bad guys thus are Schiff and Swalwell. And again, I'm not massive fans of Schiff and Swalwell. They are not my guys or anything. But let's be clear about what is going on.

They got Liz Cheneyed. They got Adam Kingsinger or whatever. They're not being run out of Congress or anything. but they stuck their head up, and thus, you know, as long as the fascists don't get back in power, then you'll probably be okay. But if they do, then you're going to be on the literal enemies list. And that's where they find themselves. Now, they have responded to this.

Eric Swalwell says it's political vengeance. It's too bad because that committee has always been a bipartisan committee, and he is taking one of the most precious pieces of glassware in the congressional cabinet and smashing it, and the damage is going to be irreparable. also pointed out comparing what's happening here to what happened with Marjorie Green being kicked off of her committees. If a Democrat advocated for violence against another member of Congress, I would support getting rid of them. I think this is a terrible move on his part. And once again, showing McCarthy just catering to the most extreme elements of this conference,

I agree. We are always incredibly clear to the point of being Buzz Killington's that political violence is not acceptable. I too would call for them to be taken off their committees if that was the case. We do have to be fair though. So to be clear, the issue here is that they're being taken off of the House Intelligence Committee. It is ridiculous that this is happening in comparison to what happened with Gossar and Green, which seems very necessary. But to be fair, at least, they're not being kicked off of all of their committees. They're just being kicked off of that committee. Schiff is going to sit on the Judiciary Committee. Swalwell will join him there and also be on Homeland Security. So they are not being stripped of all of their

committee assignments, they are being stripped of that committee assignment, though. So I don't know, Francesca, like I, there might be some people maybe who superficially agree with us or largely agree with us on a lot of stuff that think, oh, well, then okay, I guess this is the way things are. And so when we take control back, then we're going to take all of there. But I don't actually want that. I'm not interested in that. I didn't see Gray and Gosar being rightly punished as the establishment of like,

now we can round them all up. It was extreme times calling for extreme measures. I don't like the normalization of people being kicked off of their committees. No, I guess not. I mean, I guess their constituents elected them, even if they are low key or high key white nationalist. Sure, they deserve representation. I'm just remembering Kathy Griffin, a not elected representative posting with a photo of a

severed Trump head early in the Trump years and how, oh my God, I can't believe it. Right. And can you imagine if a Democratic legislator had done that, if that, if a Kathy Griffin were in office right now, I mean, that's effectively. If you were outraged about that, that's what they've done. They're like, okay, so Marjorie Green can call for violence can actually actively stock a congressperson like she did to AOC, that GoSAR can go speak at a white nationalist conference, then tweet out a video of AOC dying and yeah, they get, they get these committee positions. It's important to note obviously that Kevin McCarthy has control of the intelligence committee, but not all of the committees, but he's going to use that, you know, where he can.

And and I agree with you, I guess in theory, John, that when our guys or like the not crazies get back into power, like I'd like to not do the exact same thing and do the political purges, Except you kind of have to un-eff the whole balance, right? I mean, this is I think why we're in the political situation we are in this country, which is that when Democrats come into power, they're so afraid of appearing partisan. They're so afraid of trying to appeal to the center and be bipartisan that they don't realize just how far right we've actually gone. So in order to un-f these committees, in order to un-f the entire system, you kind of do need to go through a certain amount of purge, right? You kind of, you know, again, it's, it's the ways that Kirsten Cinema gets to still defend the filibuster when she knows it has only been used to drag this country farther and farther to the right, farther and farther and farther into the hands of people with power and money and farther away from working people's needs.

Yeah. So I'm of two minds, you know, because we don't exist in a vacuum. I would say I think I'm of two minds, but in that I just think of those as being very different issues. When I say I don't want to come in and ban them all from the committees, it's not me thinking, like, oh, well, I guess we won't because I want to appeal to people. No, I just genuinely don't want to do that. I actually have no interest in that. They should get the number of seats that they're supposed to have based on their representation in Congress and let Kevin McCarthy choose, which chuckleheads is going to put on there or whatever. Now, if they do the sorts of things that Gosar and Green have done, if they are advocating for political violence and that sort of thing, then sure, I would ban them and you could probably come up with other standards that I would have for that. But not simply, they didn't like Biden or whatever. Like that, that's not enough for me. Whereas with the filibuster, that to me is, it was designed, it has functioned as a tool to stop the government from being able to actually work at a fundamental level.

But anyway, interesting conversation, perhaps we'll be able to get back around to it. I do want to move on to one other representative, though. Representative Swalwell and Schiff are off of the House Intelligence Committee. Well, what about Ilhan Omar? Representative Omar has been in the crosshairs, mostly figuratively, of the the right for some time. And they would very much like to kick her off of the foreign affairs committee. Here she is talking about the possibility of that happening. Kevin McCarthy's purely partisan move to strip us from our committee is not only a political stunt, but also a blow to the

integrity of our democratic institution and threat to our national security. We are thankful to leader Jefferies and House Democrats and even some courageous Republicans for standing with us. So Ilhan Omar, I think Representative Omar should say is right to point out that most of the Democrats seem to be on board. We're going to have to see. And there are in fact some Republicans who have said they are not going to go forward with trying to strip her of her committee assignment. This is going to be happening by the way next week possibly. Full House vote. Taking Representative Omar off of her panels will require a simple majority vote. But remember, the Republicans have a very narrow majority.

And so you only need so many Republicans to cross over, assuming all the Democrats stay in line for it to not work. So we have Victoria Sparts and Nancy Mace, Representative Sparts and Mays saying they will not vote to take Representative Omar off of that committee. We also have lobbying going on behind the scenes for Representative Brian Fitzpatrick and representatives Chris Smith. There are also a couple of representatives who said that they are undecided at this point. Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee and David Valado of California, if they all signed on, or if three of the four of those, I think, sign on, then the vote would fail. And presumably McCarthy would know that ahead of time and thus wouldn't have the vote at all. That would be, I think, a great sign of at least a little bit of sanity in the House. But Francesca, any prediction

one week out from that vote? I mean, it's good that people who've been working with Representative Omar are saying that they want to keep working with her. And look, this is where the rubber hits the road. They're actually doing real work. And so for me as a Republican, and again, I try to put myself in their position every day, especially a woman, a female Republican in Congress, like how, why, what, where, when. Like, you know, when you see that a minority in your party effectively held up government for a week until they got their way, which was, I mean, honestly, like just throwing a tantrum when you had business to do, when you had things to do.

And now the speaker, the leader of your party is capitulating to that little majority, minority instead of you guys, it would bother me. It would drive me absolutely insane. And so I would vote to keep someone like Ilhan Ormar on my committee and not go the way of Kevin McCarthy, i.e. the way of the, you know, crazies in the Freedom Caucus and this minority that wants to be listened to, even though they do not represent the majority of American people and they don't represent the majority of Republicans. Yeah, look, he wants to be popular. I mean, he just came through a rough time. So he wants to deliver. Fox News despises Representative Omar for reasons that I think should be obvious if you're familiar with American conservatism.

And so they want her to be destroyed. That's what they want. At the very least, that's the ground floor. They'd love more than that. But yeah, and if you haven't been actively following American political news for a number of years, the reason that they would give if they had to give a reason and they don't really have to, they can just say. Ilhan Omar, ew, we're going to get rid of her, is that they don't like a tweet that she sent

four years ago, I think it was, where she criticized the use of money by a lobbying organization. And I understand if you have a problem with the comment, if you think that she should have worded it differently, considering the longstanding anti-Semitic tropes of money and all that. I also think that we live in a country where money in politics almost never talked about. and when you do, you're attacked, so I would provide a little bit of cover for more criticism of the immense amount of bribery that goes on in politics. But that's what it is supposedly about, whereas Marjorie Green was liking tweets calling for people to shoot Nancy Pelosi in the head. If you think that those are the same thing, then you're insane. I'm just going to say that.

I don't think you should be serving on a committee either. But that is the actual argument. I think that that's not really why. I think that she's a member of the squad. She's young. She's a woman of color, she's a Muslim. I mean, pick an identity reason. That's why they despise her and want to see her off the committee. That's why she should be on the committee, right? The fact that her family are immigrants, right? The fact that she was a refugee.

Like, that is why we need this kind of representation of Representative Omar on the Foreign Affairs Committee, right? We need to understand the impact of our foreign policy and the wars that we create and the, the, you know, the governments that we support, how those actually impact real people. So again, it's hard to take this out of the dog and pony show of, you know, the Republicans, the Democrats and who's got the committee positions. In a, in a democracy, the functions that represents people, hell yeah, Ilhan Omar on this committee. There's no one better suited.

Yeah. There's no one who understands the impact of U.S. foreign affairs better than someone like her. Yeah, and thus why they wouldn't want, like they're not, they're not interested in the effect of our policy. They're not interested in the victims of our policy. As she pointed out in the extended comments of her speech, which you could find online, she is the first person ever as a representative born in Africa on a committee that governs the policy towards that continent. That seems like a useful thing. Seems like you'd kind of want that if you saw the people living in that continent to actually be humans. And so I can see why that would be divisive. But anyway, those are the people potentially losing their spots. We'll see with Representative Omar that is coming up next week and obviously tune in as we give you our analysis as that happens. But let's talk about one other individual. One representative who is one representative very safe on his committees, Kevin McCarthy, not feeling like he's back, like he has, his arms are bound.

He's got to take him off the committee is George Santos, currently serving on two committees. And Adam Schiff, who just got taken off of one of his, had some words about that, saying this is a Republican speaker on Kevin McCarthy who is seating a human fraud, allegedly human. George Santos on committee is a serial fabricator about every part of his existence. He's perfectly comfortable with it, which I think is a great point. Now, Kevin McCarthy wants you to believe that he's a responsible overseer of the Republican Party. And if it turns out that George Santos did anything, you know, really serious and apparently lying about the Holocaust in 9-11, that doesn't rise to the level, then he will take it seriously. He says, if for some way when we go through ethics and he has broken the law, then we will remove

him. The American public in his district voted for him. He has a responsibility to uphold what they voted for to work and have their voice heard. But at any time, if it rises to a legal level, we will deal with it then. After the ethics committee, which I thoroughly neutered a couple weeks ago, gets done with him. I would fact check him. To be fair, they kind of voted for him, but they also, when they did that, thought that they were voting for someone with a successful Wall Street. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off. But here's the good news. This doesn't have to be the story

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naturally. Career who'd gone to this long list of schools, who was a pro volleyball player who had gone through personal tragedies involving loss of family in the Holocaust and in 9-11, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they probably thought that the person that they were voting for had never stolen dog cancer money. But Kevin McCarthy is forgetting that. And again, when Kevin McCarthy says, like, I have no power to remove him from Congress, I have been explicitly stating for weeks, I know that, and I'm not asking you to. You clearly have the power and the will to remove people from their committees, though, and you are choosing not to do that because you believe that Ilhan Omar's religious identification or a tweet from 2018 is somehow worse than lying about

virtually every stated fact about your life. Francesco, what do you think? No, I mean, it's just beautiful. You know, again, like, I do think that the fact that they are not taking George Santos off these committees that they're not really sidlining him at all is, is honestly, it's a little bit of consistency from the Republicans, which are like, we love liars. Lyers are amazing, right? As long as they're lying for the right team, welcome, come on, come all. And I kind of feel like George Sanders at this point is an op. Like, I feel like he was designed to like just rub Republicans' faces in their own hypocrisy. He was a drag queen, guitar revanchet. Are you kidding me? And they're still like, you know, listen, if ethics, once ethics is done with him, what can we say? What can we do?

I don't know. Like, it's brilliant. It's brilliant to me. They are forced to embrace this liar who, again, baby represented all these things that they supposedly hate. I think it makes him very endearing the fact that he was a drag queen. And very cool. But, But so yeah, we'll see what happens. It's silly because he could probably be replaced by a Republican anyway in his district. But clearly they're too shook and they need all the help they can get with a slim majority in the house. Yeah. Well, we'll see.

I hope that they're locally, they are recruiting the best possible candidate to take him out when he inevitably runs for re-election, probably under multiple different names for multiple different parties. And also bear in mind, as we go forward, Kevin McCarthy, there, the ethics committee, you know, if they come back with anything on George Santos, that is an incredibly passive statement, but probably an accurate one, because we have no idea if the ethics committee is looking into them. I know like what you're thinking, well, there's been complaints filed and that seems like the responsible thing to do. Yeah, they have control of it. They just neutered it. Like, how do you know? And let's say it comes out in three

months so we find out that they hadn't been looking into him. Was Kevin McCarthy going to blush on air or something, why would they be looking into him at this point? They have power. They can do whatever they want, and they are. Now, we're going to take our first break, Francesca. When we come back, though, Ted Cruz, massive hypocrite, very rarely has his hypocrisy been so easy to track in real time, and we'll have an example for you after this. Welcome back to the young Turks, everyone. I am John Darilla. That is Francesca Fierantini. Francesca, I heard that before this show, you filmed the last, at least for now, Twitchuation

Room. I just want to say RIP. I know a lot of fun was had. But thankfully, so much fun. The The bituation room remains, I hear. That is correct. Yeah, that's my podcast. The bituation room. If you like me, yeah, you can listen on all the things. It's on the TYT network, as well as my YouTube and Twitch channel slash Franie Fio, F-R-A-N-I-F-I-O. But yeah, Twitch-O-R-I-P, there might be more at some point.

Okay, we'll see. I'd be down, we'll see. Okay, with that said, let's get into some more fun starting with this. Starting with this. This shifts from a political problem to a very serious problem of criminal liability. That was a mistake, but there's no reason to think it was anything but inadvertent. What are you going to do with Ted Cruz? I mean, like we understand that there is going to be hypocrisy from Ted Cruz when it comes

to his response to like Donald Trump's, many egregious thefts of classified materials and Joe Biden. But when it's Joe Biden and Mike Pence, I mean, it's pretty similar. They were both vice presidents. They both willingly searched for the documents. They both willingly turn them over to say that one is perfectly fine and the other's criminal neglect is an odd take, especially when Mike Pence has been giving every signal that he wants to run for president again. So it's not even like he's a non-political figure now. In any event, while the hypocrisy is clear Cruz does have more to say about Joe Biden in the document scandal. Take a look at this. This shifts from a political problem to a very serious problem of criminal liability and

major crimes. And so the FBI needs to search the University of Delaware archives and they need to search Hunter Biden's home and business address. If you thought that he was going to miss an opportunity to bring up Hunter Biden, then you don't know Ted Cruz or the state of the Republican Party. Francesca, we've been tracking this document scandal now since, you know, back when you are on maternity leave, it feels like forever now. And they have never missed an opportunity to show themselves to have no principles whatsoever when it comes to literally any of this. No, no, they openly embrace their own hypocrisy because they believe that their voters are too dumb to understand what hypocrisy is. That's it.

Straight up, they don't bother explaining it because they're like, oh, no, no, our political philosophy is, it's okay when I do it. That's right. Say it with me, it's okay when I do it. That's what Republicans, that's what they believe. They don't ever have to be caught out. Because if you believe that it's okay when you do it, well then that's it, then end a story. So I did it for the right reasons, you did it for the wrong reasons there.

Well, well, how do we know that? Well, what's in my heart? Well, how do you know when Trump was talking to Zelensky there? He wasn't putting pressure on him, you know, to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. Well, I know what's in his heart. So it's what's in your heart and it's okay when we do it. Anyway, we're the good guys, good guys, bad guys, good guys, bad, like, what are we doing anymore? I just love like how breathless Ted Cruz's hypocrisy is because Ted Cruz is a smart guy,

ostensibly, right? He knows when to get out of a storm, you know? And he's a selfish dude. And he, he is doing this for the likes. He's doing this for the lulls. He's doing this for the people. He's doing this for the crazy base. He's so performative in how he's doing it. And you can hear him to sort of like choke down. He understands hypocrisy and he's choking sort of on those words. But he's like, I'm sure Pence had a good reason. And but no, search Hunter, Biden's car. Yeah, I guess he's smart enough to know to say the code word, you know, it's like saying, you know, nine, 11 then he's sheer with Hunter Biden. He's smart in that respect. I guess he became a senator. I guess that's smart. I guess he

understood on some level that he had one of the most punchable faces in America. So he caught a rogue possum, strapped it to his chin to cover up as much as possible. He's done some things that are smart. But I don't know. The true test of how smart he is going to be is if he becomes president, because all of this has been in service to that for years now. He's weathered all of the Trump years, hoping that someday he'll become president. I don't think his plan in that respect is as clever as he thinks it is. But in any event, while he believes, as you saw in that video, that they need to search everyone, everywhere all at once, when it comes to Pence who did effectively the exact same

thing as Joe Biden, not the same thing as Donald Trump, as we'll get into, he has different recommendations. Watch this. Just as an addendum to this, the news came out today, I'm sure you saw that former Vice President Mike Pence, a friend of both of ours, he's found some classified documents, I think it's home in Indiana, not in his office. What do you make of that? Is this different from the Biden story? Oh, look, the Mike Pence story, it's still early. You know, Mike Pence, and as you noted, he is a good friend, he's a good man. He's explained where these came from, office has put out is that in packing up the vice presidential offices, that there were a couple of papers that were classified that were inadvertently put with non-classified materials. That was a mistake,

but there's no reason to think it was anything but inadvertent. That is very different from what Joe Biden has done. Joe Biden has given zero explanation as to how these classified documents got there. And in particular, he has given no explanation as to how he has documents from his time in the Senate. I am not the biggest fan of Joe Biden. I think that's been fairly clear. Who thinks he intentionally stole them and then stashed them in a box next to the Corvette? Who thinks that? Nobody thinks that.

Look, could he be more forthcoming? Maybe, I don't know, you guys all think that he doesn't have a functioning brain and he sleeps all day. So why would you expect that he would know where the documents came from? The reason that he probably can't say he knows why the documents are there is because he probably doesn't know why the documents are there. My guess would be that similar to Mike Pence, they packed up the office and brought the stuff home. The difference, the clear difference is not between those two. Their cases seem very similar at this point, both in a number of documents, relatively small, and the

apparent lack of intent to steal it, the willingness to search your residences and offices on your own terms and then give the documents that you find back rather than just burning them or whatever. Whereas with Donald Trump, he was told we know you have these documents and month after month after month, 18 of them passed and he refused to give them back. That is the big difference. We can debate how smart Ted Cruz is, but he is definitely smart enough to know that difference again. This is why I think that he will never truly break through. He cannot sell that obviously there is no principle here. In the same way that his body exists day to day without a spine,

his arguments exist without a single principle to unify one stance with another. What do you think, Francesca? Well, that never mattered. Obviously, that doesn't matter. He's not going to be president because not even Republicans like him, right? He's just a try hard and they can see that even when he does performative stuff like this. But again, I know what's in his heart. He's a good man.

He's a friend. I'm going to openly say he's my friend. And so because he's my friend, you know, you should trust him because he's my friend, Fox News. And like, that's a perfect argument. It's just amazing. It is completely illogical. My guess is we're going to have classified documents found for a very long time. Like I think everyone, Obama's going to have some. You know Obama's going to have some. You know, like George Bush can be like, oh, these, okay, you were talking about, you know, like there's going to be so many classified, everyone's going to get on it and just going to be like an endless, like, you know, when we're sort of like putting our hands on top of you, I don't, anyway, it's just, it's a schoolyard thing, it's crazy. But I, I'm tired of

this story for sure. And yes, what actually matters is that Trump tried to conceal it. And the Trump definitely, he was using them. He was using them. It's not like Biden deliberately planted or like kept classified documents for the instance when he became president. Then I will go back to when I was elected, you know, to the Senate in 1918 and use them to my advantage. Like all that information's old at this point.

No, Trump is like, at least I was, you know, selling it to the highest bidder. Oops. A hundred percent. Yeah, and so like everyone watching at home, I just want you to at least think about, you don't necessarily have to state it or post it or whatever, what is your actual standard, okay? What do you want to happen if this law was violated? First of all, do you think that intent matters? I'm generally of the opinion that I don't see why it matters so much, but you can defer on that. And then what do you think should be done if they violated the law?

I mean, all three of these men violated the law. Is it too harsh to say, ban them all from running for office again? Would that not at least send a signal to current officials and future officials to not violate the law? Either through intent or through gross irresponsibility? Am I being naive and ridiculous because I believe we should have a standard that we apply in all cases, regardless of whether the person has the same mascot on their jacket as we do? I don't know. Apparently I'm crazy based on my experience watching cable news over the past few weeks.

That's it. I want to close with one just a little added wrinkle of irony to this. And it's that long like before it was revealed that he had also taken classified documents. Here is what Mike Pence was saying. Did you take any classified documents with you from the White House? I did not. Do you see any reason for anyone to take classified documents with them leaving the White House? Well, there'd be no reason to have classified documents, particularly. if they were in an unprotected area.

So like, I would give Mike Pence at least the credit that he apparently independently decided to have his team search for these documents. And when he found them, he didn't shred them, he sent them in. So that's good. Just do that before you start talking about how you're so, so superior and pure compared to these other people. You can't think of a single reason. How about neglect? because that's your argument right now. And I think there is a case to be made that that's an okay one, maybe.

But you were not willing to offer that up when it was Joe Biden that was the most recent person in the news talking about this. And isn't that convenient. Anyway, Francesca, I have heard you state that you are tired of that story. So we're going to move on until the Obama documents come out. Or they dig up that casket on the Trump golf course and find more documents. So why don't we move on to other news that will probably infuriate you even more. and they go about as high as you can imagine. He is saying that she wants to be VP.

And first of all, I would like to congratulate Steve Bannon on being on the cutting edge of political discourse. Everybody was already talking about this like three months ago. Anyway, but he has actually spoken with her, which is a benefit to him. Doesn't seem like one, but he does have inside information. And so here is why he feels so confident that she wants to be Trump's VP candidate. He says, this is no shrinking violet. She's ambitious. She's not shy about that, nor should she be. She's both strategic and disciplined. And I sort of get what he means with that last part. It seems weird to apply as lofty an adjective as strategic to the mind of Marjorie Green.

But anyway, he says she sees herself on the short list for Trump's VP, paraphrasing Koki Roberts, when MTG looks in the mirror, she sees a potential president smiling back. That's my favorite part of this because he is explicitly talking about her being VP there. And I guess maybe he means someday she would run for president too. And why not? That seems like hell. So I'm sure we'll experience it together. But it sounds like he's saying she wants to be Trump's VP and just wait in the wings until he inevitably keels over. That's what it feels like to me, Francesca. That said, they have a second source, not just Bannon, saying that Green, her whole vision is to be vice president, the source who has ties to Trump spoke on condition of anonymity,

but also believes that Green would be on Trump's shortlist. And look, this is considered like a big divisive rumor in today's news cycle. I just take this as a given. Like, yeah, she's almost certainly on the short list. I am starting to think maybe Kerry Lake could edge her out, maybe Tulsi Gabbard, I don't know for sure. What do you think? Oh, God, you're just planting that. I had to like swallow a little bit of vom right there. Thinking of Tulsi Gabbard as a running mate. Yeah, of course, of course Marjorie wants to be the running mate.

And it makes sense, we can't have nice things in this country. So we will, you know, if I were to call it, Trump gets reelected. Trump keels over, which is good, that feels good. Then Marjorie becomes president, that feels bad. And there you have it. And then we are basically in a don't look up situation with Meryl Streep, except we've got Marjorie Green. Anyway, yeah, no, it's clear that her, here's what I will say. What I like about Trump is that he also loves being a wet blanket on people's dreams.

Like he loves, he hates the idea that other people have ambitions other than himself, right? or that their ambitions are not just to prop him up and his greatness. She's done a good job, right? She was not successfully, but she was like lobbying her fellow congresspeople on the floor when they were trying to vote for McCarthy and she had Donald Donald on the phone, right? Like DJT was like, here talk to him, he's begging us. She was doing that, you know, she's been calling Bobert out for her lack of like loyalty. She's been doing all the things, but also she's a little, um, she's trying to She's trying to be her own thing and Trump doesn't like someone who's trying to be their own thing.

He's going to have to play kind of a, if she's the nominee, a second fiddle like a passing the torch, passing the baton situation. And I don't think he likes that. Remember when Chris Christie kind of stepped out a little bit too much? Remember when even Rudy Giuliani stepped out a little too much and then he got just kind of like got beaten to submission and you know, he came back and he was fine. He was sort of, like came back as a little, a little puppy lap dog and like, no, you don't have to even pay me. I will eat off the ground. I'll just, I'll rely on cameo. Yes, I do recall that. He probably made a few royalties off of the Borat movie. Yeah, like I do agree that Marjorie Green has certain pros. I think from his point of view that she is

in curious and conspiratorial and will relentlessly attack people from. you know, incredibly personal things. I think you'll like all of that, but I agree that she's probably, she might be too ambitious for him. It is also, isn't it weird that like, I agree with you, when you laid out the case that he doesn't like other people around him to have ambition, I think most people would agree with that. Isn't it weird that like his claim to fame before the presidency was that he hosted a show where he'd be choosing his apprentice and he clearly doesn't want anyone else to succeed except for him, which is like the one thing you don't want in a mentor? Anyway, I think that Kerry Lake might have a leg up in.

that respect, that I think she would be more deferential to Trump. I think that Marjorie Green two years ago would be that, but I think that she's getting like a little bit big for her britches from the point of view of a Donald Trump. Someone is sensitive and thin-skinned as him. Anyway, do we have the poll? I don't know if we actually, do we? No, okay, we don't. We cannot poll you about this. So, post on Twitch or on YouTube or something. Anyway, I want to get to one other aspect of this. While many people have been being thrown off of committees in the House recently, Marjorie Green is getting another subcommittee. And it's on something that she has done a lot of independent research on, on forums on the dark web. And she has spoken

a lot about it's about COVID and the government response to COVID. To remind you of her approach to the pandemic, this is a video that was taken in the middle of 2021 when she was being asked about people dying from COVID. Take a look at this. Do you feel any responsibility for keeping people in Georgia safe, you know, there are children, skinny people who have died with the coronavirus. Do you feel any responsibility to correct me up? You know what? I think people's responsibility is their own. I get that like on a panel like today, it's me and it's Francesca and she's a comedian. I'm supposed to have fun and everything. I cannot tell you how much I despise that woman and everything that she stands for.

That was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen. And I've done countless thousands of hours of this sort of broadcasting. She was asked about her own constituents in her state dying of COVID in June of 2021. And she bust out laughing like she had just heard a really racist joke. She thought it was hilarious that people were. dying and a lot of people were dying. Of course, lots of people have died since then. But she's gonna be on the committee to investigate COVID, Francesca. Is that amazing? Yeah, no, when I saw that clip, the first word that came to my mind was vile.

And I think that's the reaction that she causes in me. I mean, we've been covering COVID, obviously, since it began. And we're going on three years now. We're gonna hit the three year mark. um shy of a million people dying in this country and this is someone who she's laughing at her own joke about it and now she's gonna you know everything that she's been saying right all the things she's been saying about Fauci it's only going to get worse and it's she's going to be on the political side right so random investigations pulling him in front of you know the committee interrogating him but what happens to Anthony Fauci in his life right how many more more bodyguards you're going to need to get, how many more death threats are going to be issued

on his life. And that's just one guy in all of the, you know, all of the many people that they're taking aim at. And let's just remember, this is a Congress that refuses to approve any more funding, not just for future pandemics, but the current COVID-19 vaccine and any kind of preparedness for its mutations. Like, there is no more money to the point where Joe Biden, the president is basically pulling the plug and he's about to declare COVID-19 not an emergency anymore. That's going to end very, very soon. And we're going to move to these annual flu shot like things, which there's no scientific evidence that those kinds of shots once a year will actually adequately prevent you from getting sick. And so they already won.

They already won and it's not enough because it's just not memeable enough for MTG. Yeah, you know what? To that end, as we go to our break, I'm going to remind you of a few of these memeable moments of Marjorie Green when it came to COVID. We probably covered virtually every bit of this along the way, but it's very easy to forget how bad things have been. Here are a few things that she has said about COVID over time. She said that young boys shouldn't wear masks because they're emasculating. I don't know if she thinks mask masculating. That's the same thing. It's not Marjorie. Read a book. She said that a vaccine. passport would be Biden's mark of the beast. She said it's fascism or communism, whatever you

want to call it, but it's coming from private companies. So I have a term for that. I call it corporate communism, which is just about the dumbest term I've ever heard. And by the way, maybe it's fascism, maybe it's communism. But it's probably just one of those two things. I feel like they're different. Anyway, she said that having to wear a mask in Congress shows that Pelosi is mentally ill. She also said that having to prove that you were vaccinated is exactly the same type of abuse Jews experience being put on trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany. But again, Ilhan Omar is an anti-Semite. Three weeks later, she said that if vaccines were provided door to door, it would be by medical brown shirts in June of 2021. When she wasn't laughing about kids in Georgia

dying of COVID, she called it a manufactured plague caused by a Chinese-made virus, In July of 2021, she said that COVID variants, including Delta, eh, no one cares. Hundreds of thousands of families that lost people to those variants probably cared. Anyway, she joked about killing someone that would come to her door to provide vaccination. That was funny. She also said when in August of 2021 that COVID is spreading, but we're human. We can't live forever.

We're going to catch all kinds of diseases and illnesses. other viruses, which is just about as fatalistic a statement as I've ever heard from a representative government, particularly one who's going to be in charge of the government's oversight of COVID, but also you'll notice that if something bad medically happens, what are you going to do? Life is short. They don't apply that to like side effects of the vaccine, only the virus itself. Weird how that works out. Anyway, that's Marjorie Green coming to a COVID panel near you. With that said, we're gonna take a short break. We come back. Ticketmaster was in the spotlight on Capitol Hill today, and we'll give you all the updates after this.

joining us. Jenk and Anna are out, although Jenk will be back tomorrow. I'm leading the first hour and then Francesca is going to be taking the reins for the second hour. I'm already excited, Francesca. Me too. Okay. We'll see. We'll see together. Anyway, with that said, let's talk about one more thing. Whenever you're ready, we can jump into this. Mr. Berthold, I want to congratulate and thank you for an absolutely stunning achievement. You have brought together Republicans and Democrats in an absolutely unified cause. Ticketmaster had the temerity to imply that the debacle involved in pre-ticket sales was Taylor Swift's fault because she was failing to do too many concerts.

And may I suggest respectfully that Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror and say, I'm the problem. It's me. I have been told from people who would know that that is a lyric from a Taylor Swift song and please to whoever is an aide to Senator Blumenthal, stop giving them lyrics to read during congressional testimony. Anyway, look, the content is important. Ticketmaster has rightly been under fire for the past few months for their effective monopoly that has ruined the regular ticket buying experience for lots of people with needless costs and markups, as well as bring into a crashing halt and tire tours like for Taylor Swift. And so they were brought in

to talk to the Senate. And there's going to be some tough questions, and we will get to that and the facts of this. But first, here are more elderly people referencing Taylor Swift. I believe in capitalism. And to have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition. You can't have too much consolidation, something that unfortunately for this country, as a owed to Taylor Swift, I will say, we know all too well. Really looking forward to my ongoing service on the antitrust subcommittee, along with Senator Klobuchar as chair. To be honest, I had hoped as of a few months ago to get the gavel back. But once again, she's chair captain and I'm on the bleachers. Those representing

the dominant player in the market would contend that their growth has allowed them to innovate and make advances that greatly benefit consumers. A few million Taylor Swift fans would respond, this is why we can't have nice things. A lot of people seem to think that's somehow a solution. I think it's a nightmare dressed like a daydream. Oh my God, it's a room full of Jen Cougars. Anyway, man, they just want any opportunity to have a little bit of fun. I look, I do want to say about Senator Klobuchar. I disagree with her on a lot and I would never want to be within staple or throwing distance of her, but she's, she's pretty good with the mom jokes. You can see like, she kind of like leans forward, like she's so excited that she's going to tell

the joke and the delivery was better than all the rest of them. But anyway, we have a professional comedian on the panel today. Francesca, how do you write, how do you rate them? Oh, I think Cloby, Chlobuchar for sure, I agree with you. She has terrible jokes, but she knows they're terrible. So she's about to do that, but I do think the best delivery, and I can't remember, but whoever said, you know, I'm on the bleachers, like, whatever, I don't know the later, clearly. Mike Lee, I think because it's off the cuff, it's smooth, you know, they're cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers. Like that was just like, like just delivery wise, you just sort of snuck it in there.

Yeah. John, look what you made me do, you know. Exactly, yeah. Well, look, and also, it's not like a big cheering environment. So it's hard for him to know, like, if the joke actually landed or if it bombed, should he just shake it off? I don't know. Anyway, I'm as cringy as them. And that's the most recent song of hers as I can reference. Anyway, look, jokes aside, this is incredibly serious. Thankfully, people like Taylor Swift and some other artists have been talking about this for some time.

There's been a lot of great journalism about the Ticketmaster Monopoly. There was a really great episode of John Oliver a year or two ago about this. whole thing, it needs to change. And I want to give you some of the facts about this. Ticketmaster currently controls over 70% of the market for ticketing in live events, far and away the market leader. It's not technically a monopoly, I guess. There are other people technically that have a very minority share that do sell tickets, but because of its market share gives it a dominant position, which raises concerns that it may abuse its market power. I love the use of the word may there. Anyway, it's held more than an 80% share of major concert.

primary ticketing since 1995. And by the way, when you throw around numbers like 70 or 80%, you think, okay, so that's seven tenths, well, you know, at least one third of the tickets. No, but like they have a monopoly over many, hundreds of the most important venues. It's not like they get 70% of the shows at each place, they get all of the shows at a bunch of different places. And so if you want to come and do major shows, then you kind of have to go with them. So again, the technicalities of whether it's a monopoly or not, we can have that debate,

but effectively it is able to wield that sort of clout as of right now. And so like if you're watching this and if you've tried to buy tickets through Ticketmaster, you already know the effect of this. You know about how much more expensive these things are, the major fees that in some cases can be something like 80 plus percent of the price of the ticket being added on top of it. And that's from the consumer's point of view. Of course, the actual artists have a long list of complaints about having to deal with this sort of monopoly in that they have to give very large portions of what they are producing. They're the reason people are going there, but Ticketmaster gets to take a very large percentage of that.

And so I certainly understand the frustration that's been brewing, Francesca, and I really hope that they use this opportunity to do something about it. I mean, the John Oliver segment you're referencing was about bad bunny tickets, which honestly, I'm much more interested in personally, which at the time were like $400 to $600 a pop. But, you know, we can think it's cringe, but it is kind of great that someone like Taylor Swift has put this Live Nation Ticketmaster monopoly on notice. And we are all talking about it. And I think it, I have a lot of thoughts about this. But if we could only do this for other industries, that matter far more than whether we get, you know, affordable tickets. But let's just take it as that. Look, you have an incredible, you have a company that specializes in being the middleman,

right? They're only the middleman and you have to deal with them. And they're putting the burden on the venue, on the actual physical venue, on the artist, and on the consumer. And none of those three entities are happy, right? They often will own the venue, so if nothing else, they're like happy with that. But in terms of like smaller venues, they get completely iced out if they're not also part of the Live Nation ticket master, you know, Beemoth. And why, or Behemoth, I don't know how we pronounce this, but the reason is because let's say like, you know, I filling stadiums, obviously, if I go and I play a ticket master or a Live Nation venue in Chicago,

I cannot legally, whatever I signed to play that venue, I cannot play in the Chicago area for six months or to a year at another smaller venue or a different venue that isn't a live nation venue. It's insane. So it hurts the artists and it hurts other small venues that John and I just did a show at a venue in San Francisco for my, for my podcast, The Vituation Room that is now closing. Now, of course, it got this is COVID times. It's really, really hard. But also if smaller venues were able to book medium, medium size acts, they could stay alive. But those medium size acts are being gobbled up by this whole ticket master, you know, sort of web, right? So it's terrible.

And you, and you, it kind of reminds me of, you know, pay discrepancy in, in Hollywood. You're like, all right, well, Angelina Jolie is still making, you know, millions, millions of dollars. Who cares if Ryan Gosling is getting more than her? It's like, wait, wait, but it does matter, you know, Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny, they have plenty of money. It's not a big deal. But in the case of, for example, Pearl Jam, they're trying to make, which basically tried to make tickets more affordable for consumers, ticket master is making that impossible

for them. So it's not that these artists can't afford it. It's that when they're trying to get rid of the middlemen between them and their, you know, and their fans, ticket master. comes in as like, no, no, no, no, there's going to be millions and millions of millions of dollars in between, and no one's going to be happy. Sure, I agree. And I'm primarily also interested more on the consumer side. But, you know, while these people are fabulously wealthy and I don't generally spare a ton of my empathy for

people who are going to be just fine either way, at least they're rich because people desperately want to see them. Like, I don't necessarily understand why you'd pay $600 to see Taylor Swift, But a lot of people want to do that. That is, she's making that. So I feel like she should benefit from it more than some corporate exec who's in a different state. I don't know. Anyway, we'll see what comes out of this. If more comes from these hearings, we'll of course have it for you.

For now, though, that is the end of the first hour. When we come back, Francesca Farentini, we'll be taking over. So don't go anywhere. We'll be back in a few. 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.