The Young Turks - Hunting The Truth

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

You’ve got to check out ShopTYT’s Free Hunter shirt. He IS the moment.. Social media lit up on Tuesday as House Democrats faced backlash for mocking Americans’ ongoing concerns about rising prices. Meanwhile, an Israeli settler company known for its work in West Bank outposts has begun operations in northern Gaza. Legal experts voiced concerns over a broad pardon granted to Hunter Biden. Gen Z’s growing financial struggles are reportedly fueling a political shift to the right." HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞  https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞ https:/www.shoptyt.com 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. Live from the Polymarket Studio in L.A. Be watching. We're watching. It's the Young Turks. What's up, everyone? Welcome. Welcome. You're watching T.Y.T. And I'm your host, Anna Casparian. We have a fantastic show ahead for you today. Democrats thought it would be a great idea to mock Americans who are struggling with inflation.

I'm really looking forward to sharing that disastrous story with you all today. But there are a lot of other stories to get to as well, including some updates on a story that we covered yesterday regarding the destruction of buildings, over 600 buildings in one specific part of Gaza. Netanyahu claimed that those buildings were destroyed, not because they're trying to build settlements or anything like that. Turns out that was a lie. And I'm going to give you some incredible reporting from DropSight News on that issue. We're also going to talk a little bit about the fallout following Joe Biden's decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden. You guys can recall yesterday when we were covering that story, I kind of raised some concern over the dates in which the blanket pardon

covers Biden or Hunter Biden. And so I did some more digging on that. And I have some details that I think is worthy of, you know, sharing with you all. So we'll do that later in the first hour. In the second hour, Wazni Lombre will be joining me to talk about a whole host of other stories, which I'm looking forward to sharing with you. But as always, just wanted to encourage you to like and share the stream. If you're watching us live, you can also help support the show by becoming a member by going to t-y-t.com slash join. All right, without further ado, Let's get to our first story. The building that, or the buildings, I should say, that the Israeli defense forces are

demolishing here are making way for illegal settlements, as is evidenced by new reporting from DropSight News. Now, DropSight News is a relatively new publication that was founded by friend of the show, Ryan Grimm, and Jeremy Scahill, an incredible reporter who has put himself in harm's way multiple times in order to do incredible, you know, war reporting. But in this case, DropSight News actually had a guest correspondent write about a story involving illegal settlements or plans to build illegal settlements in Gaza. And it's pretty devastating once you get into the detail. So the journalist is actually a Palestinian journalist in the

area. His name is Eunice Tarawi. And I want to give you some of the excerpts from his piece, some of the evidence that he provided in his story. And so he says that in addition to the Israeli military, conducting extensive demolitions, DropSight News has uncovered that Israel has now contracted private companies specializing in settler construction to work in northern Gaza. Which is fascinating, considering the fact that the New York Times literally just acted as stenographers for Netanyahu's lies,

Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, claimed that this was not happening. Some Israeli ministers have said that the military control in Gaza should pave the way for renewed Jewish settlement, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has ruled that out for now. Has he? Has he ruled that out? Why would you just repeat what a proven liar like Benjamin Netanyahu is claiming? Maybe dig a little deeper. And luckily, this report out of DropSight News did just that. So one construction company even confirmed that it is currently hiring workers specifically in Betlachia. Okay, this is the first time a private company has been documented working in northern Gaza.

And so there is documentation of this. They posted their job listing in a Facebook page for reservists for Israeli defense forces, reservists who are part of the Israeli defense forces. And look, it's not like Israeli officials were even hiding the ball. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, take Israel's housing and construction minister, who is quoted as saying that illegal settlements on stolen land are, you know, just retaliation for the international criminal court, issuing arrest warrants for Yoav Galant and Benjamin Netanyahu.

I'm going to read you his exact quote. This is what he said. Today I toured the Gaza Strip settlements. Jewish settlement here is the answer to the terrible massacre and the answer to the international criminal court in the Hague, who, instead of caring for the 101 hostages, chose to issue arrest warrants against the prime minister and the minister of defense. Now, he continues by saying that the tour that took place today included a visit to several significant points of view at the entrance to Tazeer, Natazir, or the Nazareem Corridor, which is what we were covering on the show yesterday and all the destruction and demolition of buildings there, to understand the decisive importance of the place and its immediate readiness for Jewish settlement. So they are, in fact, like, I just need everyone to understand, okay?

This isn't about rooting out Hamas. This isn't about saving the hostages. What Hamas did in kidnapping and holding captive, those hostages was disgusting and wrong. What's equally, if not more, disgusting and wrong is the fact that the Israeli defense forces have been obliterating the Gaza Strip where those hostages currently remember. I mean, you have Israeli defense forces literally killing three Israeli hostages on purpose as they are asking for help after they had escaped Hamas capture and were looking for help. The idea that the Israeli government, the current Israeli government gives a damn about those

poor hostages is laughable to say the least. I feel so horrible for those family members who have to on a daily basis hear about, read about, know about the military operations that are currently reigning terror in Gaza as their family members remain there. I just wanted to get that off my chest. Now, construction companies, as I mentioned, are even putting out these job listings on Facebook. So Libby Construction and Infrastructure Limited is one of these settlement construction companies. And they recently posted a job listing on a Facebook group named Reservis in order to find

workers who are willing to conduct demolition in Gaza. Now, Libby Construction is owned by several settlers, okay, that have been documented by various monitoring groups as raiding terror on Palestinians in occupied areas like the West Bank, for instance. And Libby constructed a 62-unit neighborhood in the settlement of Itamar, which is located in, or near, I should say, Nablis in the West Bank. And so in July, a settler tagged the Libby company thanking them for its role in building a new settlement compound in illegal territory. I mean, it was illegal settlements in the West Bank.

It was in the Palestinian city of Salfit, which is, of course, also in the West Bank. Now, in addition to that, in an article from the Israeli newspaper, Haretz from 2012, Harrell Libby, so this is the person behind this construction company, appears as one of the 12 settlers given removal orders from the West Bank for being involved in attacks against Palestinian residents and, and Israeli military in the West Bank. So, look, oftentimes when we discuss this story, I feel like we need to do a better job in expressing that, you know, the Israeli population is not a monolith. And the settlers are the extreme ones.

And for a long time, you know, you have some of the more moderate individuals living in Israel condemning these settlers. And part of the reason why is, yeah, they're not doing Israeli civilians any favor by raiding terror on innocent Palestinians who have done nothing wrong. That only serves to increase tensions, increase conflict, increase war and violence. But on top of that, these people are unhinged. Like, they literally attack Israel's own military members as well. And as for their recent job listing, what did it read? Well, it says looking for bulldozer operators for demolition work in Gaza. The job description reads, the job is also relevant for those who have not served in the army.

Good pay. Good pay. Fascinating. Okay, so what is the good pay? It's decent pay. I'm not going to lie about that, but it's decent pay destroying people's homes in order to make way for illegal settlements. And you literally couldn't pay me any amount of money to comply with that type of job title or those types of responsibilities as part of the job. So they pay $165 a day. The days are long, 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. 5 p.m. 5 days a.m. 5 days a week. And, you know, this is all, again, in order to destroy people's homes, destroy buildings, destroy what remains of Gaza in order to clear the land and make way for these illegal settlements. And as we were sharing with you all recently, you know, we showed you a map of the amount of land that Israel is basically cutting off from the Palestinian people in Gaza, basically

ethnically cleansing them from the northern region, nearly 50% of the Gaza Strip, which was a tiny strip of land with literally 2.3 million people. It's like the most densely populated area of the world. That tiny strip of land has now been cut in half. And it all started. with Israel claiming we're doing this for our own safety. We're doing this because we need a buffer zone. Nah, you're doing this because you want to build illegal settlements in northern Gaza. And regardless, regardless of how illegal they happen to be, there will be no consequences. Because the world's superpower, military superpower, the United States will back Israel no matter what it does, regardless of the international laws that are being violated, regardless of how many war,

crimes are being committed, regardless of how many arrest warrants have been issued by the international criminal court. As long as America, a military superpower, backs Israel. And the reason why we do so is because of how corrupt our political system is, well, then they're going to go ahead and do whatever they want. And it is honestly beyond humiliating to see our government do this beyond shameful because say what you will about Hamas. I have no problem with anyone saying terrible things about Hamas. But these innocent civilians don't deserve this. So when people come back at me and say things like, oh, well, you should have started a war. You didn't, you know, you couldn't end. Yeah, those kids that are being bombed to smithereens, they started a war.

Did they really? Do they deserve to have their hospitals, schools, universities, basically all of their infrastructure demolished? Do they deserve to have their land stolen? Do they deserve to see, you know, Israeli settlers build illegal settlements on the tiny strip of land that remained for them? It's really sick. And by the way, the workers are not even allowed to leave the area. unless they're escorted by a military escort because it's a dangerous situation, right? Stealing land is dangerous work.

And both civilians and reservists were welcome to apply. So Libby sent, it's interesting because the writer of this piece, the Palestinian journalist, decided to apply for the job because he wanted to learn more information about what the plans were for these illegal settlements. And he writes that the construction company, quote, sent me a document to complete a, in order to proceed. The document does not mention Gaza, but asked me to acknowledge that the work will be done outside the Israeli border.

Israel's current acts, in fact, are just so bad, so horrific that even individuals who served in Israel's military, who, them, they, people who have committed war crimes themselves and bragged about it themselves, are horrified by what's going on. I'm not even kidding. Okay, so this is incredible.

You have Moshe Yalaan, who is the former Israeli military chief. He says that Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza. There is no bet Lahia, no bet Hanun, former Israeli military chief of staff and defense minister Mosheya alon said in widely publicized critical remarks on November 30th. They are currently operating in Jabalia and clearing the area of Arabs. Now, he had previously bragged about destroying thousands of residential units in Gaza. So let's just keep it real. This isn't some innocent person who has, you know, a bleeding heart for the Palestinian people.

But even he is saying that the IDF is going too far, that the current Israeli government is going too far. You want to know who isn't saying that? our current president, Joe Biden, almost the entirety of the United States federal government. They're totally standing behind Netanyahu and his unhinged, you know, regime, totally in favor of the war crimes, totally in favor of the slaughter of innocent women, children, elderly people, civilian men, close to 45,000 people. gone, killed in the Gaza Strip. That doesn't even include the numbers in the West Bank. That doesn't include the numbers in Lebanon. How much are we going to allow here?

Like how much death and destruction is the American government willing to bear? Is there even a second where these so-called pro-life Republicans are looking at what's happening and thinking to themselves, yeah, this is a bit too much. This goes way too far. I'm really curious. Or are they really just these empty shells, these sociopaths who feel absolutely nothing as they see the carnage that our taxpayer dollars are funding, aiding, and abetting? It's just horrific stuff. It really is.

So please check out DropSight News. This piece is excellent, really, really well done. and it provides evidence and additional details that we don't have all the time in the world to get into. But subscribe if you can as well. Please support good journalism. There isn't a lot of it in America, but when there is some, we should support it as much as we can. This is a good example of that. All right, I want to take a break. But when we come back, we'll talk a little bit about the fallout following Joe Biden's decision to pardon his own son, Hunter Biden, after saying repeatedly that he wouldn't do so. Some details about what Hunter Biden was up to as essentially a foreign

lobbyist who never, you know, registered as one. So we've got all those details and more coming up. Don't miss it. All right, everyone, welcome back to the show. In our Twitch community, Galfar 71, responding to the story we did in the first segment, says the only story I want to hear about when it comes to Israel is saying we stopped all funding to them. Since I know that will never happen, then I really don't care anymore. They have committed to genocide and us bitching isn't going to change that. Well, there are a ton of policies that the left wants, that progressives want, that leftist want. We talk about it all the time, knowing that the current corporate, like corporate captured

Democrats aren't going to do a damn thing about it. They're too corrupt. So should we just stop talking about it? And if that's the, you know, if that's the take on things that are unlikely to happen anytime soon, then what should we talk about? Should we talk about Kim Kardashian's ass? Like, I don't know what the point of the show would be then. So we're going to go ahead and continue covering it because I think it's important for people

to be informed on what's happening. And it's particularly important when it comes to primary elections. That's when you'd actually have the opportunity to pick politicians that would, you know, maybe do things a little differently from corporate Democrats and complete another scum like Joe Biden. And yeah, I called him scum. That's what he is. Anyway, let's move on to our next story.

He doesn't have to explain to anybody. This is his right as president. He can pardon, if he wants to pardon, Bozo the Clown, he can pardon Bozo the Clown. I'm not sure why, again, why people are clutching their pearls while the left is clutching their pearls. Because did you all forget all the stuff that we said was going on or that doesn't matter? Democrats, you can't have it both ways. You can't have it both ways.

You can't let people tell you you're not taking the moral ground when we take the moral ground all the time. And you see what's going on and you get why he's decided to. to do this or you don't, but you don't go out and chew up other Democrats. No, I'm going to go ahead and chew up the Democrats because, you know, when they're wrong, they're wrong. And when it comes to Joe Biden's pardon of Hunter Biden, I think that there's a really big problem here that more and more people are waking up to. For me, the pardon, yes, look, I said it the first time we covered this story. I'm going to say it right

now as well. I think all politicians are liars. I didn't clutch my pearls over Biden lying because I know Biden's a liar. Okay, so I think that the hypocrisy angle is the most boring angle to this story. Of course he's hypocritical. Of course he's a liar. If it talks like a politician, if it walks like a politician, it's lying, okay, for sure. So putting that aside entirely, For me, the issue is, you know, the fact that this is a blanket pardon that spans for a pretty long period of time for 11 years. And when you consider the crimes that Hunter Biden was being prosecuted for, they didn't span in the time frame of 11 years. So why exactly did Joe Biden decide to make the dates or the period of time where Hunter Biden is totally

clear of any fear of prosecution so vast. Well, as I shared yesterday, the blanket pardon does stretch 11 years, again, far surpassing the period of time in which he, you know, in which Hunter lied on a government form in order to buy a gun. Yes, that is a crime. That's what he's being prosecuted for. It stretches well beyond the years in which he failed to pay his taxes. That's the second thing he's getting prosecuted for, right? And so it seems like that period of time is kind of meant to protect Biden from prosecution of other potential crimes he committed, that he isn't currently being prosecuted for, but could potentially be prosecuted for under the Trump administration, right? And so Lee Fong writes over at Substack where he, you know, is an

independent journalist that the order grants Hunter a pardon for those offenses against the United States, which he has committed or may have committed or taking part in during the period from January 1st, 2014 through December 1st, 2024. Fascinating. Now, that 11-year pardon window extends beyond the period of the crimes prosecuted by the Department of Justice. After all, the illegal firearm purchase was on October 12th, 2018, and Hunter failed to pay his taxes in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. So, in other words, in other words, Biden's pardon essentially protects Hunter Biden for two additional years prior to his failure to pay taxes in 2016.

So what happened between 2014 and 2016? What could Hunter Biden have possibly gotten himself into that it appears Joe Biden is trying to protect him from getting prosecuted for? Well, there are some issues. Okay. Now, I want to remind you all of what happened to Paul Manafort. Paul Manafort, close advisor to Donald Trump, he ended up serving some time in prison because he failed to register as a foreign agent. He was doing lobbying work on behalf of foreign

entities. And when you do that, you're supposed to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. He didn't do that. And so as a result, he got prosecuted. There were other issues involved. But Paul Manafort was certainly punished for his failure to register as a foreign agent. Now, there's evidence showing that Joe Biden, I'm sorry, Hunter Biden, also engaged in lobbying on behalf of foreign entities, but did not register as a foreign agent. So what's up with that double standard? Now, to be clear, you know, the special counsel never pursued prosecution of Hunter Biden

for failure to register as a foreign agent, but he was thinking about it. he was getting ready to do it, it appears. So let me give you the detail. So Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings Limited. That's the, you know, the gas company, Ukrainian gas company. And he did so from May 2014 and left in April of 2019. Interesting. From the time his father served as a vice president until he began running for president.

records which the Biden administration had withheld for years indicate that Hunter Biden wrote at least one letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy in 2016 seeking assistance for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Okay, well, that's lobbying on behalf of a foreign entity. Embassy officials, though, were uneasy with a request from Hunter Biden because of the fact that it's the son

of the current sitting vice president and he's lobbying on behalf of the foreign company. And so the response was, I want to be careful about promising too much, wrote a Commerce Department official based in the U.S. embassy in Rome who was tasked with responding. This is a Ukrainian company.

And purely to protect ourselves, U.S. government should not be actively advocating with the government of Italy without the company going through the Department of Commerce Advocacy Center, the official wrote. So this individual is like, yo, you look like you're

trying to, you know, skip some people, skip some processes that we're supposed to undergo in order to do some favors for this Ukrainian company. And there's more, including Hunter's involvement with a Romanian oligarch who was under investigation and sought Hunter's help. He hired Hunter Biden, hoping that Hunter Biden would help him with like some business dealings, yes, but also can you help like make this investigation go away? Here's some more details on that.

This is the closest the special counsel has come to tying President Biden to his son's foreign business affairs. Special counsel David Weiss accused Hunter Biden of accepting about a million dollars from a Romanian businessman who was attempting to influence U.S. policy and public opinion while Joe Biden was vice president. In a new court filing, the special counsel said Hunter Biden and two associates were hired in 2015 by Gabriel Papavishu, a Romanian real estate tycoon who was facing corruption charges. in his home country and wanted the U.S. to intervene. The filing said Hunter Biden was concerned. Lobbying work might cause political ramifications for his father, so the payment was structured in a way that concealed the true nature of the work he was performing. That's bad.

That seems pretty bad. And the more you learn about this, the more you scratch beneath the surface, it really helps to explain why the time frame, time frame in which Joe Biden provided a blanket pardon for his son is so vast, when it doesn't need to be so vast, when you're only thinking about the gun charge and Hunter Biden's failure to pay his taxes, which, by the way, to be clear, he has since paid back to the IRS with interest, with penalties and fines included. So if it was literally all about the fact that he failed to pay his taxes, but made right on his, you know, failure to do so and paid back the

government, okay, like I wouldn't have a problem with the pardon. And honestly, the government form lying about his addiction to obtain the gun, that's bad. I don't think that's a great thing. But I do think that the prosecution and what the, you know, special counsel is pursuing in regard to that charge, it's like a little ridiculous, right? It's too much. But this stuff is a big deal. And the reason why I find it a big deal, I want, guys, I want you to understand I am being very consistent here. I don't like corruption. I get that corruption, thanks to the Supreme Court, is now baked into our political system.

But we can't have foreign countries or foreign companies or foreign entities also get mixed up in our corruption. I know that it still happens to some extent. I know that there are some loopholes. Okay, like in this case, all Hunter Biden even needed to do, really, is register as a foreign agent. And he didn't do that. So I need to understand why is it that others, especially those tied to Donald Trump, were, in my opinion, rightly prosecuted for that.

But Hunter Biden is now free to go. He doesn't have to worry, he doesn't even have to worry about any charges being filed, regardless of what he did, between January of 2014 and, you know, December 1st of this year. By the way, in 2016, that Romanian oligarch, Papavish,

was convicted on charges related to a land deal in northern Bucharest, which is the capital of Romania. Also, there's more. Hunter Biden and his associates received millions of dollars from Chinese entities such as State Energy H.K. Limited and the now bankrupt, CEFC China Energy Co. Limited. Now, Hunter Biden had cultivated a business relationship with Yi Jiang Ming, the founder of C-E-F-C, who has been investigated by the Chinese authorities on suspicion of economic crimes. In 2017, Ye gave Hunter Biden a 2.8-carad diamond as a thank you for a meeting.

Now, this happened in 2017, and Hunter Biden was actually asked about this in a sit-down interview. And he's like, I mean, this was in 2017 when my father was no longer the vice president. So what's the problem here? Okay, I mean, look, first of all, I get why he answered that way, because at the time, the Republican Party was essentially trying to tie Hunter Biden's shady foreign dealings with his father, Joe Biden, because they really wanted to go after Joe Biden, right? And so what Hunter Biden was doing here was essentially protecting his father to say, well, he was no longer vice president.

So what could he have done as someone who is no longer. longer in office. But Joe Biden has been a career politician. I mean, he was a politician when he was a zygote. Okay, that's hyperbole, but you guys know what I mean. His entire adult life, he's been a politician, which means that he's cut lifelong relationships with people in the federal government. So first of all, to say that someone like Joe Biden wouldn't have any sway when it comes to our foreign policy, domestic policy, if he's not in office, is laughable to say the least. He's got buddies. He can lobby them to do all sorts of favors. But it's not just about Joe Biden. It's also about Hunter Biden. Why are you lobbying on behalf

of foreign entities without registering as a foreign agent, as you are required to do by law? Now, the CFC, that's the Chinese company, again, had hoped to invest in a liquefied natural gas venture in Louisiana, but that deal ultimately flopped. But during the presidential debate, Joe Biden actually lied about Hunter Biden's dealings with Chinese entities. And I think it's important to know about that as well. Let's take a look. My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are he talking about, China. I have not had it. The only guy made money from China is this guy. He is the vice president of the United States and his son, his brother, and his other brother are getting rich.

They're like a vacuum cleaner. They're sucking up money. Okay, President Trump, thank you. It's not true. But it was true. So family members of Joe Bidens, including Hunter Biden, of course, have, you know, made as much as $10 million in recent years through these foreign, you know, dealings. And so it is true, and it's obvious here that Hunter Biden did make money from these Chinese entities. And by the way, there's more. As a result in late October of last year, Justice Department Special Counsel, David Weiss, was actually investigating whether,

Hunter Biden should have registered for the overseas foreign work that he was doing. Now, although prosecutors had not charged Hunter Biden with violating the foreign lobbying laws yet, they did cite all of these various like arrangements and issues, especially with the, you know, Romanian oligarch and stuff, in order to make a point that there was quite a bit smoke. There's quite a bit of evidence. And it appears that Weiss was preparing to file those charges. Now we'll never know. Now we'll have no idea. And I think that's the issue here. Right. So Charlemagne responded to Joe Biden pardoning his son by saying, look, you know, you're going to do what you're going to do. That's fine. But the Democratic Party shouldn't act so

pure. And that's really what I want to get to here. There's a lot of moralizing from the Democratic Party. I can't help but think of people like Whoopi Goldberg, like Sonny Hosten, who act like the corruption is so much worse. Like the behavior of people involved in the Trump administration are so much worse. And in some ways, certainly rhetorically speaking, you can definitely make that case. The inability to accept the 2020 election results definitely make that case. There are certainly areas in which, you know, Trump's behavior and the behavior of those around him were unacceptable and unique from what we have seen from the Democratic Party. However, however, as it pertains to corruption, as it pertains to the disgusting, muddy swamp that

all of these politicians are swimming in, do not make the mistake of thinking. that Republicans are special creatures in that regard because they're not. Okay, the Democrats, I think, were able to benefit from the goodwill and the successes of people like and former presidents like FDR. But that branding, that pro-worker anti-corruption branding ain't going to fly anymore. People aren't going to buy it. And so when Joe Biden presents himself as this decent moral human being, It's not just what he has aided and abetted in Israel, or Gaza, I should say. It's also the fact that he engages in the same corrupt acts.

He engages in using a two-tier justice system to protect his own, just like Donald Trump would. It's just that he's got a polite tone. He doesn't use the same harsh rhetoric. But I don't know, is it better to have a corrupt politician smile in your face? Or would you prefer to have a politician just tell you exactly how corrupt they really are? Both are terrible. Both are bad. But I need people to understand that Democrats can't keep getting away with presenting themselves as the pure ones and the moral ones because they're anything but.

And this story is a great example of that. Let's take a break when we come back. We'll talk about Democrats in the House Ways and Means Committee mocking people for struggling with inflation. What's up, everyone? This next story is incredible. Look, we don't know who's running the House Ways and Means Committee's X account, but who that person is should probably get fired. Because they did the Democrats real dirty today.

So let's get into it. So the Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee are now getting a lot of backlash because their ex account tweeted something today that has led to, Well, a lot of unhappy people, including Democratic voters. Now, what they did is essentially repost a story that was written by USA Today about how shoppers had spent a record $10.8 billion online during Black Friday. So here's a look at the post in question, which has since been deleted, by the way. And the ways it means Democrats, or at least their account, basically commented by saying, and here we were thinking y'all couldn't afford eggs, essentially mocking or shaming holiday shoppers

while downplaying or minimizing the severity of inflation, especially the inflationary period that we experienced in 2022, which absolutely crushed American households. Okay, I'm not going to exaggerate and give like insane, like, figures to make it seem like, you know, people were being kicked out of their homes and, like, having their cars repossessed, but it did crush a lot of families. A lot of people were unable to provide basics, you know, on the dinner table for their family because of how expensive gas was, because of how expensive things at the grocery store were. And so I just want to remind those Democrats what the issue is. And it seems like they got enough backlash. where they took the tweet down, which was a good idea. But nonetheless, I mean, the data is the data. So let's take a look at the first chart. I went to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website because I wanted to see some exact numbers.

Okay, so according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation rose 9.1% in June of 2022 for essential items. That's crazy. That is a lot. And since they want to talk about the cost of eggs, let's talk about the cost of eggs specifically. Let's take a look at that. Okay. So when Biden came into office in January of 2021, the average price of a dozen eggs was $1.47. We're talking about the average price here.

So keep that in mind. However, if you look at the next graph, which shows what the price was two years later, the price of eggs jumped to $4.82 on average and never went back down to the previous price. As you can see from this graph, you know, the squiggly line, you see that massive spike. And then it comes down a little bit, right? But the cost of eggs spikes back up. And inflation in some areas has been sticky for various reasons, right? The price of eggs gets impacted by, you know, the avian flu and things like that.

But nonetheless, the reason why people keep talking about the cost of eggs when we talk about inflation overall is because it's a symbol of how much prices for essential items have gone up. Now, keep in mind, Biden did nothing to help Americans during this time, during this inflationary period other than sit back as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates and said with a straight face, the American people, the point of the higher interest rates, is to decrease the money supply, okay, decrease the buying power of Americans, and also increase unemployment, which will help to decrease inflation. Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve, I'm paraphrasing, but that's essentially what he said in various news conferences and things like that. And so Biden did nothing to help

Americans during that difficult time. Even as private equity firms, by the way, were buying up the inventory of homes and the sunbelt. Biden did nothing to help with the inflationary costs associated with housing. Even as the government somehow had an endless supply of money to fork over to Israel and Ukraine, the American people were getting crushed by inflation, which, by the way, the Biden administration denied was even happening in the first place. Because what would the Democratic Party be if denial wasn't part of the,

their M.O. And then finally, they couldn't deny it anymore. And what kind of help did the average American get? Nothing. Zero. So to post a story from USA Today about how Americans spent $10.8 billion shopping online during Black Friday as evidence that, well, Americans weren't really crushed by inflation at all. This is all BS. Is laughable and insulting and exactly What I refer to, the kind of culture that I refer to when it comes to the Democrats essentially abandoning the working class, ordinary Americans, you think you can post something like that and the American people are going to see Biden in his administration as FDR 2.0. Really? Really.

And look, when it comes to spending, it's true. Americans did spend a lot of money on Black Friday, okay? But not everyone did. And on top of that, among those who did, they very likely use credit cards in order to fund their purchases. The holidays are coming up. People want to buy gifts for their kids, for their family members. And look, I don't think it's a good idea to do a bunch of holiday shopping on your credit cards. I get it, like, it's tough, especially when you want to have presence for your kids to open and stuff. But like, it is crushing a lot of Americans. Like consumer debt is out of control.

And that's the thing. I mean, we're talking about Democrats in the House, Ways, and Means Committee. These are people who are tasked with deciding on policy pertaining to our economic conditions. And these are the Democrats. This is what they think. Okay, this is what they think about us. They should know that Americans are getting crushed with credit card debt. They should ask whether these Americans were able to do all this holiday shopping, you know, with cash on hand, or whether they were just relying on credit cards in order to do it. So household credit card debt rose by 6.7% during the third quarter to $1.3 trillion. Guys, that is crushing. That is crushing, especially when you consider the interest rates associated

with credit cards. This outstrips the average annual increase of 3.7% pace since 1998. The Fed report showed. The expansion rate for credit card debt was more than twice the 2.8% increase for overall household debt during the quarter. And look, how do I know that credit card debt is really beginning to crush Americans? Well, just, look at the delinquencies, which have actually shot up in recent months. So credit card delinquencies, as measured in the third quarter of this year, rose to their highest level since 2010, surpassing 4%. So 4% of Americans who carry credit card debt are now delinquent. And it didn't take a tweet, okay, just did not take a tweet for American voters to know that Democrats really

don't give a damn about their economic frustrations anymore. At a Washington Post forum months before the 2016 presidential election, Senator Chuck Schumer confidently stated, quote, for every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin. Now, this was prior to Election Day 2016. How did that work out for you, Chuck? Not so well. How did it work out for Kamala Harris when she pivoted away from her economic populist messaging

and instead decided to lean into what her Uber, you know, executive brother-in-law had to say about her strategy? And then she moved over to, you know, some of the more pro-corporate messaging. How did that work out for her? Did that work out well? Didn't work out so well. Turns out this strategy is bunk. It's garbage. But, you know, people will do anything to justify their behavior.

So to me, this was just Chuck Schumer justifying, taking the corporate cash, abandoning the working class, and still diluting himself into thinking, we're going to win elections, easy, peasy. No, you're not. No, you're not. People are sick of the culture wars. People are sick of struggling while productivity just continues to skyrocket in this country. Part of the reason why our economic recovery following COVID was much smoother than other countries is because American workers are killing it when it comes to productivity.

It's the American way. We work super hard. and to see the Democratic Party mock Americans for their mistakes, pretty sick. People get upset when I'm too critical of Democrats, but like, you guys let me know which areas, like, which areas Democrats are doing well in, and I'll cover that, seriously, because I'm not seeing it right now at all. All right, final story for you all. Let's talk about, well, what's going on with men? Let's watch.

The young men that I have been talking to in particular, They don't hate Kamala Harris. They actually like her in certain ways. They just say they think the world was better and safer under Donald Trump. The economy was healthier. One other thing that keeps coming up too that you don't hear a lot about in the national media, Dana, is a lot of young men are worried about global conflict because they are of draft age. That comes up over and over and over again in conversations that I've been having over the last few weeks.

It's really important for the Democratic Party to wake up to why they lost so much support among young male voters. And no, it really doesn't have much to do with the fact that we don't have a left-wing Joe Rogan. We actually did have a left-wing Joe Rogan. His name was Joe Rogan, and then he was pushed away by the left. But anyway, in October, Peter Hamby, the gentleman you just heard from, spoke to college-aged voters and actually, that many of them were really concerned that our foreign policy was quickly leading us to World War III. And they were terrified that if that happens, they might get drafted and they didn't want that. And guess who they blamed for policies that were inching closer and closer

to World War III, the Democrats? Now, that could be one big reason why young men are drifting so far to the right. But there are other reasons as well that I want to get to. But just for the sake of this conversation, let's stay on the topic of foreign policy. Okay. Let's go to Ryan Grimm, friend of the show. He has pointed to the exchange between Kamala Harris and a call in question on the breakfast club as indicative of the parties. Look, people say messaging problem. I think it's way more than a messaging problem. Okay. I think it's an identity problem. I don't think that we even know what the Democrats represent or stand for, to be quite clear. It's hard to message when the Democratic Party doesn't even have a leader at the moment. But with that in

mind, let's watch. My question for Kamala is, why are we? And I say we because my tax dollars is sending the money. Why are we sending money to other countries when we're desperately needed in our own country for homeless, housing, resources, or whatever. That is my determining factor if I vote for Kamala or not. That's one of the reasons the America first rhetoric resonates because nobody in America would complain about when money was going if American citizens' everyday needs were being met. So what do you say to that? We can do it all and we do.

So first of all, I maintain very strongly, America should never pull ourselves away from our responsibility as a world leader. Well, according to Ryan Grimm, yeah, we are most certainly not doing that at all. Take a look. Now, when liberals see America first, they read it as xenophobic and anti-immigrant, but Trump's supporters scan it as a promise not to waste money on wars and nation building while our own country crumbles. But the critique in that slogan, and expressed by that Charlemagne caller, makes an emotional

link between issues that are treated as disparate and distinct by political operatives. The jarring price swings at the grocery store and at the pump, combined with the out-of-control wars and the surge of migrants at the border, combined to produce a visceral sense that our leaders in Washington were sacrificing the needs of regular people here in the United States. People's sense that the economy was being handled poorly by Biden was colored by the chaos. overseas, and his rapt attention to Ukraine and Israel left little room for confidence that he cared what was going on back here. By pretending that the U.S. could do it all, but then only delivering on the foreign wars, Democrats set up ordinary people to view it

as a zero-sum competition. That is exactly right. I thought that analysis by Ryan Grimm was spot on. And it's not just the resources that are being shelled out for foreign wars. It's also, according to Peter Hamby, the very real fear that young men are feeling that eventually, if things keep going in the direction they're going in, they might get drafted. We might bring the draft back. Now, it's not just young men who are drifting right. Preliminary exit polling indicated that Donald Trump opened up a 16-point gender gap between young men and young women. 56% of men between the ages of 18 and 29 voted for Trump, while just 40% of their female. male peers did so. But get a load of this. Because for everything that we heard about,

ooh, the gender wars and like, oh, Battle of the Sexes, you know, men are going to the right, women are going to the left. In this election, Trump actually managed to increase his support among women. Trump managed to improve on his 2020 performance among young women, despite that gap. In 2020, 33% of young women voted for him. And this time around, it was 40%. So he increased his support among young women by seven points. Now, the gender gap is huge, of course, but Trump still improve with these young women. And the big question is why? Well, Mary Lee Bliss, who's the chief content officer at youth research firm YPulse, spoke to Axios and basically discussed the economy as the main

reason why young voters were essentially shifting to the right. She says that our data indicates the economy is the impetus for the change. There was no question for us that the economy and how they were feeling financially in the months and even weeks before the election really were going to determine who they were voting for. I mean, look, this is not rocket science. It's the economy, stupid. It's very simple to grasp. So Gen Z voters have been crushed by high grocery prices. Obviously, we're talking about younger voters who aren't like in their high earning years yet. So when we talk about inflation, obviously the people who are most impacted by that are

people who aren't making the most money. People lower on the socioeconomic ladder. And so they were forced to, you know, deal with rising costs, a tightening job market, right? Because the whole point of raising interest rates, according to Jerome Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve, was to increase unemployment and decrease the buying power of American consumers. And that's why young Americans have some, look, it turns out that they have some pretty outlandish standards for like what they think they need to make in order to survive in our economy. But I think that this is really a sign of how much they're getting crushed

by things like inflation. So financial services company and power surveyed more than 20, Americans in September and the Gen Z respondents who were born between 1997 and 2012 said they would need to make more than $587,000 a year to be financially successful. So look, it depends on what you identify or define as financial success. Like for me, financial success at this point is, am I able to pay my bills, which I am, and do I have a little bit of money left over to do fun things here and there? And to me, that's good enough. Like the big dream that millennials were sold when we were growing up,

that we're going to live in big mansions as long as we go to school, get our education and work hard. That dream's long gone. Like, I'm not even thinking about that. But, you know, for younger people, they see the cost of things going up rapidly, especially for housing. And to be fair, to be fair, in order to purchase a home in a major city in this country right now, you probably do have to make, you know, you definitely have to make six figures.

But if you want to afford other things and live comfortably, that number isn't as outlandish as you would think. Okay, so that's how insane housing prices have been. But that is roughly three times to six times what any other age group said they would need. It's almost nine times the average U.S. salary, according to the Social Security Administration. And Rebecca Rickett, who's the head of Communications at Empower also told Axios that many people feel they're coming up short with half believing they're less financially successful compared to others around them. The majority think prosperity is harder to achieve for their generation, which factors into the magic number people attached to their success. And I think that's absolutely right.

And remember, one of the main avenues in which working class Americans were able to build wealth was through purchasing a home. And when you take that one avenue, away from them by not addressing the very real housing crisis that we have in this country. Obviously, there's going to be a lot of resentment, a lot of anger, and a lot of fear, you know, about what the future is going to look like for these folks. And it's possible that pressure is especially hard on young men who, you know, think about what the traditional gender roles have been for men, right? They've always been thought of as the breadwinners, the providers. I know that that's changing. But we also can't discount the fact that there are young men who want to be

the providers, who want to be the breadwinners. And when they're put in a situation where they feel like they're unable to achieve that, well, that's going to impact them. And that's going to lead to some of the resentment that I think we're seeing among young men. It's also possible that the way Democrats' message about men is, you know, insulting, toxic. They should maybe rethink it. And political beliefs are swayed heavily by identity. Eric Anderson says, he's a marriage and family therapist. The left is rejecting men and masculinity, so men are becoming more right wing. So just some of the stuff to consider if the Democratic Party has any interest at all in improving and maybe considering why they were shellacked in this electoral cycle.

I'm not going to hold my breath, but I hope I'll be pleasantly surprised. I guess we're going to have to wait and see. For now, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, Wosne Lombre joins me for the second hour. Don't miss it. Thank you.