The Young Turks - I'm Vaccinated, You Dumb F

Episode Date: October 6, 2021

Democrats are clashing over whether to include in their sweeping spending plan a decades-old amendment that blocks Medicaid and other federal health programs from being used to cover abortions. President Biden continues to scale back his agenda to try and get moderates onboard. After his house and offices were raided by the FBI, the head of the NYPD Sergeants Union, Ed Mullins, has resigned. DC bulldozed a homeless person's tent while they were still inside. Hospital system says it will deny transplants to the unvaccinated in "almost all situations." Hosts: John Iadarola and Adrienne Lawrence 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. You know, I was going to start the show by pretending to drop it as if I didn't know it wasn't Friday, but then I realized you'd be next to me and it wouldn't work. And yet I said this anyway. Adrian, how's it going? It's the young Turks. You're joining me on the first start. It's so good to have you here. Yay. I cannot wait. I'm excited for today. No, I am I am actually very excited. You know, it's always obviously great to have you on the show because you bring, you know, a wealth of experience and all of that.

But also, I've noticed over the past couple of times you've been on the damage report, you've kind of been done with the whole this government thing. Like, you've been bringing some extra sass, and I appreciate it because I'm feeling increasingly cynical, too. That's fantastic. No, it's true. It's just like, you just over it, you know? Yeah, you got to be. You got to be. Well, I'm Johnny Rolla. If you didn't already know that, you of course know that this is Adrian Lawrence. We are stepping in in place of Jank Uger and Anna Kasparian today. I'm going to be leaning us for the first hour. There's a lot to talk about. And then Adrian is going to be on with J.R. Jackson in the second hour. Adrian, what are some of the stories you're going to be talking about in the second hour? Well, we're going to hit my former employer, ESPN, some Stephanie Grisham, and more.

Okay, okay. Well, that's going to be a lot of fun. But we've got fun even before that. Please, by the way, hit the like button, share the stream if you haven't already. And we've got a lot of talk about, why don't we jump into it? It's good. The reconciliation infrastructure bill, if it happens, how big is it going to be? We're all so excited to find out. And turns out right now it looks like it really depends on who you ask, because if you talk to Biden,

we've now found out over the past day that he's apparently cutting down his ambitions. This is going to be the big bill for his first term, and he's already kind of over it, I guess, or doesn't have a lot of expectations for what can be done. He now believes it could be about $2.3 trillion or less, which will, in the words of the New York Times, force hard choices about how to scale back a proposal that the president hopes will be transformational, which is, of course, one way to talk about it. You can talk about it from the point of view of how it will affect the politician. It arguably will force hard choices and hard situations at all the people who will not be getting the help that could have been included in an additional one or two trillion

dollars. But don't get too excited because even that 2.3 trillion is higher than what some are saying. Joe Manchin yesterday said he would consider 1.9 to 2.2 trillion, okay, which is higher than the 1.5 trillion he'd been saying last week. So that's last night. Today he seemed to indicate, no, my top line is still $1.5 trillion. Why are you so confused? I mean, I'm confused. I don't know what I actually support. Depends on when you ask me. And the only people still fighting for it to be as big as possible are, of course, the progressives Pramilajapal and other progressives met with Joe Biden and said it should be at least 2.5 trillion up to 2.9 trillion, which is still, you know, 1 trillion to 600 million, 600 billion less than the compromise 3.5 Adrian. So look, there's a wide range of numbers here. And more importantly, that translates to very different bills, what is actually included in them, which we'll be talking about. But what do you think about these different perspectives on what we might end up with? Well, I think the different perspectives is a reflection of our government and the fact

that we are all in kind of this, let's hope mode of we do not want the Republicans and the Democrats not to come to something, of course, but at the same time, it just really speaks to the fact that we can't seem to get it together. We don't have enough gumption on behalf of the Democratic side, and then the Republican side just essentially stonewalling all the time. really makes me wonder where we are going to end up because I just don't think these options are good. Yeah, I look at various points through the process, I've believed that it's likely that not

just that the progressives would be betrayed, both by people like Mansion and cinema, that was sort of obvious, or even Biden backing off is hardly a shocker. It's not like a big act two surprise. Nancy Pelosi, you know, trying to get the bipartisan bill passed first, but that they might do so much betrayal that the progressives would feel like they had to vote it down and we get literally nothing. Now, look, obviously getting something is better and $1 trillion can affect a lot of people's lives in a lot of different ways. But I also, like, I sort of feel like we're going to end up getting something far smaller, one of these numbers, perhaps, and then the

media, like, do you think that they will go back to, like, look at these deal makers, Mansion and Cinema, they made it happen. That's my fear. It's much less important than what's in the bill, obviously. But I feel like the newfound criticism of Mansion and Cinema that's started to blossom day by day will go away once the bill is finally gone if they end up voting with the rest of the Democrats. What do you think? I think that that possibly could happen And at the same time, I just do not want people to forget who these individuals truly are because sure, they might do a song and dance in the moment, but they are truly dangerous to our democracy. And the fact is we just cannot trust them. So whatever people need to do

to keep up the energy in terms of exposing them so we can hopefully get them out of office would be amazing. But as of right now, I definitely do think that most people will forget. Yeah, I fear that too. Well, one way we can try to fight against them forgetting is to focus on what these two individuals are saying, or in the case of cinema, really trying not to say. So we're to go to Mansion. This is from earlier, him talking about what he thinks all sides can agree on. Here's that. I think it's very important we understand that we need to do a tax reform to make sure the wealthiest, they got the best advantages, the biggest advantages from the 2017 tax cuts pay their fair share. I think the corporations that enjoy this great country

and the comfort and the protection of this great country pay their fair share. I think also we have to make sure that we're committed to children, children at the beginning of life, that we can help them and also our seniors at the end of life, that we can give them the dignity and a quality of life of living in your home if you desire to do that. These are all things we can set priorities.

This is not a hard, this is not a heavy lift. I think also lowering the price of drugs It makes no sense at all that we don't go out and negotiate. The VA does a tremendous job. Medicaid does it? Why doesn't Medicare? These are things we all can agree on. Okay, no, except that we can't actually all agree on those things.

Cinema doesn't support allowing the federal government via Medicaid and Medicare to negotiate on this prescription drugs. He, well, I'm inclined to say he knows that, but I don't know. Does he really pay attention to what's being said, even when he's the person doing the same? I will remind you, as we feel contractually obligated to do on a daily basis, that not that long ago, he was calling for $4 trillion in infrastructure spending a number he now calls fiscal insanity. And he's saying the rich have to pay their fair share, which might lead some of the audience to say, well, wait a second, isn't he trying to stop them from getting the taxes to go back to before the Trump numbers? And yeah, it's easy to feel gaslit because he seems to imply that he's a progressive here, Adrian. but we know that we'd already have all of those things that he said if he in cinema weren't standing in the way. What do you think?

Absolutely. No, you're entirely correct. The fact is this man, you really don't really know what his beliefs are because he's continued to say, oh, you know, we can't give too many handouts or we don't want to help the people too much to the point where they don't work, but then saying, oh, well, the wealthy need to pay their fair share. It's just, it seems like he's saying whatever's convenient with the mic in front of him, as opposed to what we're seeing with his actions and behavior because they are standing in the way and they have been problematic along the route, yet now they want to give the appearance, at least, of trying to work it out and do what's best for the people.

Yeah, exactly. And look, again, I guess at least Mansion is saying he wants these things, even if it doesn't really seem to translate into the impact that he has on the negotiations. And even the way he says it, it's like, when you hear like a true progressive talk about these things, You can tell that they really want it. For him, it's like, we want to make sure that at the beginning of your life and at the very end, you're good. But wait, what about the rest of it? Like, am I supposed to just become a war boy in my middle years? Like, what's going to happen between 2 and 80, Joe Manchin?

Do you really care about humans? Or, like, well, you know, the focus groups say that they really like babies and grandmas are popular. I'm going to hit those notes really hard. But anyway, he is at least talking about what should be in the bill. And I think that that's important. We need to focus on that because for the most part, Cinema and Mansion are just talking about the making the bill smaller. Not by saying what they want to cut out really,

except for tax increases on the wealthy. And so I want this to be on the substance. And thankfully Bernie Sanders is going to do that. So he is going to take it back to what these numbers actually represent. What is 3.5 trillion? When you cut it to 1.5, what are you losing? Here he is talking about that. Now, Senator Manchin, as I understand it, talked about today, about not wanting to see our country become an entitlement society.

Well, I am not exactly sure what he means by that. Does that mean that we end the $300 direct payments for working class parents, which have cut childhood poverty in this country as a result of the American Rescue Plan in half? is protecting working families and cutting childhood poverty and entitlement. Does Senator De Manchin think we should once again

have one of the highest levels of childhood poverty of any major country on earth? Adrian, thoughts? You know, I think that Bernie just essentially exposed Joe Manchin for what he really is in terms of his little statement. Sure,

it sounded good, this thought of we need to take care of people take care of children, but the reality is that his actions do not align with that. And I think that's so incredibly important, because I think as we've all heard, you know, how individuals treat their most vulnerable as a society speaks volumes about who that society is. And as we've seen time after time in terms of how our nation treats kids, it's not a good thing. Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad that he's that he's calling it out. Mansion does not want to say, no, I don't, I literally don't want those things as much as you. or I want less of those things.

You know, maybe I want people to be educated, but I'm not gonna, we're not gonna pay that much if that's what's required to do, you know, four years of public college or whatever. Like those are actually his positions to not fund those things, but he doesn't want to come out and say those things. He's not going to come out and say those things. And unfortunately,

none of the theoretical mechanisms that would require him to are actually present. Biden's not requiring them to talk about this in any way. They can mostly do it behind closed door cinema is certainly doing that. The media is allowing it and the voters not like every day are allowing it theoretically. If there's a primary challenge it won't be for years, but these senators clearly feel insulated from popular pressure. They know that these things are popular and yet they're not supporting them. I can only assume that they don't think it will hurt them amongst the voters.

So we have like in theory this is a democracy being against, popular things should hurt you in some way, but they are clearly not people who feel that pressure for multiple reasons. And that produces a political system where a couple of people who represent a very tiny percentage of the American population get to determine what any of us get, if anything. And Bernie has some thoughts on that. My concern with Mr. Mansion is not so much what his views are, I disagree with him. But it is that it is wrong. It is really not playing fair. that one or two people think that they should be able to stop what 48 members of the Democratic caucus want,

what the American people want, what the president of the United States wants. That would be my position. Yeah, and look, Adrian, I mean, clearly they can, like they have the raw ability to do so. And I guess they think, well, if I have power, I'm going to use it. What do you think about that? Well, I think that it would be great if they actually use their power and to do what's right in terms of uplifting our nation. But you know what, I think Bernie, he made just the great observation that this is not exactly what it seems to be. All of this is talking points and they're seeing these things, but what are they doing?

And so when people think of Mansion, when they think of seminar, they need to remember that these individuals here, that this is not what they stand for despite, you know, the words coming out of their mouths. Yeah. Well, that was what Bernie had to say about Mansion. And right before we went live, I saw on Twitter, Mansion's response. Quick recap, Manchin said, hey, we all agree on this stuff, buddy, we got to do this stuff. But I'm not going to actually fund it. And Bernie pointed out, here, do you support these things? Elder care, all this stuff.

Do you actually support it? You call that entitlement. I want those things. People want those things. Mansion said, quote, respectfully, Senator Sanders and I share very different policy and political beliefs. As he and I have discussed, Senator Sanders believes America should be moving towards an entitlement society, while I believe we should have a compassionate and rewarding society.

End quote. I'm trying, like I've been trying to figure out the pettiest part of that, and I think it's, as he and I have discussed, he believes in moving towards an entitlement society. Yeah, that's what the discussion was. He said that. But after all of what Bernie just said, no, it's mansion that's compassionate. It is compassionate to block help, to stand between people. and health care or education, elder care, child care, so that they can work.

All of those things. Giving that to them is feeding their laziness and entitlement, barring them from the help that they need, allowing them to someday go to college or own a home or not die needlessly. That is truly compassionate, Adrian. Yeah, I really do like that because that was nice and petty and how he slipped in those few comments to make himself seem like he is the compassionate do-gooder here. It's just, it's mesmerizing with his entitlement mentality of thinking that people are taking and taking and taking when really it's large companies that are really taking the most from

our nation and the people aren't getting, getting nearly what they should. And that's what Bernie has always stood for. So it's just, it's one of those things seeing mentioned say that. Wow. Well, look, I also want to give some credit to Representative Alexandra Acosta Cortez, who had a similar point as Bernie. She tweeted the media focus, focus on hazy top line numbers is a gift favoring the tiny number of holdouts. It lets them get away with saying, oh, I want X trillion, not Y, instead of actual positions, cut child care, or I want a block making prescription drugs affordable, people should know what they want to gut. And so she's been saying that for some time. I don't know what it would

take if anything could make them do that. Again, cinema isn't worried right now. Like, it's not like she doesn't get how bad the last week or two has looked for her, running away from constituents, some of the right. Like the write-ups that are against her are brutal. The write-ups that are for her are so cringeworthy that I can't imagine a real voter buys them. But that only matters if, in theory, it hurts her in an election, a primary or general election. And see, she's acting like a person that isn't afraid. And, you know, Bernie actually had some thoughts about Senator Cinema as well. So let's go to that. Senator Cinderma's position has been that she doesn't quote-a-quote negotiate publicly.

And I don't know what that means. We don't know where she's coming from. What I have heard, and I don't know if this is awkward, this is a problem. I have heard that she is opposed to having Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry and lowering prescription drug prices. I have heard that she is opposed to asking the wealthy and large corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. That is what I have heard. Maybe I'm wrong. But I think to answer your question, yeah. I would love to see you in the same sense as Senator Manchin. Tell us what you want.

Don't mind. Thanks very much. I would have loved to have gotten some more from him on that. But unfortunately, that was all he had to say about cinema there, Adrian. Yeah, I love it. Because he's indicating the truth, the fact that she's hiding the ball, saying, oh, I don't negotiate in public, all these things. It tells you she probably either doesn't know what she's talking about. He's completely unprepared or is unwilling to step up. and, you know, essentially put her back into it in terms of standing up for what she believes in. You know, it's just cinema seems to bring a whole different level of chaos to Congress that we don't need right now. And then seeing her essentially stand in the way, it's just, it's not a good look through and through. And I really hope her constituents see that.

Yeah, and look, it seems like maybe they do. I mean, her approval rating in Arizona has gone down. The Arizona Democratic Party is doing their, like, or threatening to do their, you know, vote of no confidence and all that. So all of that exists, but I don't know, it's a couple of years until any primary would actually happen. I mean, a contender wouldn't necessarily even show their face for a year, a year and a half, or be considered a serious contender until that point. And like, let's say a year and a half goes by and someone, I don't know, people talk about like, I think Representative Gallego possibly, I think it is running against her.

What's the Democratic Party going to do? They're gonna like remember that she doesn't stand with them and that they she was really frustrating. So you know what? We're gonna support a primary against a sitting senator. Are they actually gonna do that? Is Feinstein gonna fundraise against her? If she successfully takes the bill and effectively neuters Biden's first term, we got the COVID bill and I think there was a hate crime thing and then that was it. No small part because of her. Is he gonna help recruit a primary challenger? Or are they going to line up and say, hey, at least she's a Democrat, I guess. We don't want to take the risk of Megan McCain running or something. What do you think about

that? I think I think we kind of know the answer to that. Unfortunately, you know, those Democrats are not the most robust when it comes to standing up and having a spine. So I do think it will be a shoulder shrugs. At least there's a D next to her name as opposed to lets the substantive look at what she's done. Do you actually think it's going to that they would stand up and go against her? I don't know, man, we'll see. Like, I think if you have like a solid year of it looking like she would lose a general election if she were the candidate, I don't know. You know, I was going to say maybe then, but I don't know, look at some of the people they support in open contests. They support moderate Democrats that have no chance of winning.

So, you know, honestly, God only knows. We'll have to see as we go. I do want to mention one of the thing, though, especially because of the context of what's been going on in places like Texas. One of the things that apparently is a sticking point for Joe Manchin when it comes to the infrastructure bill is whether the Hyde Amendment will be included or not. President Biden was asked about that. Progressives wanted in there, but Joe Manchin has said he does not want it in there. I want to get the bill passed. So how would you sign it if the Hyde Amendment is included?

I'd sign it either way, because the Hyde Amendment is anyway. I don't know what that last word was. it's, I don't know, man. I'm tired as hell. It's late. Look how dark it is. I should have been asleep two hours ago. Anyway, look, Biden for a long time supported the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funds going towards abortions. He has recently, due to progressive pressure, gone against that position. And you can tell he's at a real change of heart when he doesn't care whether it's in there or not. But Mansion is insisting that it be in the reconciliation bill. I think this is particularly important, Adrian, in light of what recently happened in Texas

and other states, other Republican states moving in the same direction, effectively getting rid of women's reproductive rights. What do you think about this debate happening in the Democratic Party right now considering the context? I couldn't agree with you more. The fact is that we have right now going on in the backdrop is we have Texas essentially attacking abortion rights and undermining Roe v. Wade and it's sitting before SCOTUS now with these cases coming up for the fact that, you know, what the federal government does to show its support for abortion rights is so incredibly imperative right now. And to have Biden say, we'll see, it's good. I can do with or without. It really doesn't signal that much, you know, trust in what is going on here because we really want

support. Are you kidding? Yeah, yeah. So imagine, like the party only gets to be as good as its worst member. That's fun. Anyway, we're going to take our first break. We come back. We're going to give you an update on the raid of an NYPD union headquarters tomorrow. We can't tell you find out one of the people they were apparently looking into. He's got a checkered past. We'll have that for you after this.

Welcome back to The Young Turks, everybody. I'm John DeRola. Adrian Lawrence joins me. We've got more news to talk about. But before we do that, I want to let you know. about a few of the things that are coming up soon on the Young Turks. Tomorrow, on the Young Turks with Jake and Michael Shore, you know who'll be joining them? Andrew Yang!

Andrew Yang's going to be on there. 6 p.m. Eastern time, 3 p.m. Pacific to talk about his new book Forward and much more. I mean, I'm assuming the launch of the party as well. So that should be an exciting conversation. Also tomorrow, you can tune into Power Hour with Nina Turner at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, 5 p.m. Pacific Maybe you can back to back those. Nina Turner, Jank Yugar, has been a ton of fun. You know it's gonna be.

You can sign up for membership to get access to this by going to TYT.com slash join. I don't think you're gonna miss it. Adrian, with that, you ready to talk about some news? Yeah, let's get it. More specifically, are you ready to talk about some cops? Anyway. I could do that.

Okay, I could do that. Let's do that. I think we probably can. We want to give you an update on an FBI raid raid of a New York Police Department headquarters that happened just yesterday. One of the men who's apparently at the center of this raid and the investigation attached to it has now stepped down. This is the sergeant's benevolent association president Ed Mullins resigned at the request of the union's board. They said that in a letter to their membership

late yesterday. Now we don't have a lot of very specific granular information about the objective of the raid or the investigation attached to it, although we do know that it's connected to an investigation by the FBI, as well as the public corruption unit in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan. That's according to two different sources. And even the board seems to be a little bit in the dark. They say the nature and scope of this criminal investigation has yet to be determined. However, it is clear that President Mullins is apparently the target of the federal investigation. We have no reason to believe that any other member of the SBA is involved or targeted in this matter. So why don't we start with that, Adrian? Again, we don't know much. I just sort of assume for better or worse that, you know, because this involves like the public corruption unit, the FBI and that sort of thing that you might have more information than me.

Other than the fact that there seems to be a corruption angle to this, have you picked up on anything? You know, like you said, I don't know much, but I know somebody's probably going to go to prison, that's for sure, because the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York, they do not play. And also the fact that he stepped down after his home was also raided yesterday, Mullins, you know, what I'm smelling right now is what they call Rico. I can just see all sorts of charges, all sorts of corruption, racketeering. It's going to be a good old time. They're really, they're going to be up in court. It'll be dockets for days. Mullen's, I'm sure, is lawyered up. These are just my suspicions, knowing how it works with the U.S. Attorney's Office and also for FBI raids and also to raid a police union headquarters and the union headquarters head guys home. No, no, no, no, no. It's going to be good times.

This is going to, you know what it will do? It will spark a lot of law and order episodes. That's what we'll have. Okay, well, you of your suspicions, I have speculations, and my favorite brand of that is baseless. So look, they're the fifth biggest cop union in the country, I imagine that attached to that is quite a bit of money. That seems to me as a person who knows very little, like the most likely part of this is misuse of funds, something like that. I don't know. Does that seem likely? Oh, I could definitely see that. I could see some kind of organized corruption ring going on, whether it includes funds.

or maybe pay for play kind of situations. I just think that whatever is going on, that there are a lot of people involved, and people will be cutting deals right and left, because the FBI would not go this far unless they had something. And also, we have to remember, this is law enforcement on law enforcement. How likely is that to happen

unless there is truly a guilty verdict coming out of the back end of this? Okay, and you'd love to see it. Well, okay, let's try to get a little bit more information about what might have been included, bearing mind the person that this is focused on. Now, first of all, to be fair, the union's board had a letter that said this. Like all of us, Ed Mullins is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and we ask you to withhold judgment until all the facts have been established. No. However, the day-to-day functioning and the important business of the SBA cannot be

distracted by the existence of this investigation. That's fine. You go back to doing whatever you're doing. I don't know what that is, but I assume it's probably bad, not in the of people who aren't cops. In any event, they say that he is entitled to presumption of innocence. That is a statement that I'm going to challenge because everyone technically is entitled of the presumption of innocence.

That's true. But in practice, obviously we get to evaluate what we know about people. And so we're going to provide a little bit of information about Ed Mullins. And I'm going to try to not say Ed Rollins every single time here. One thing that this apparently is not attached to,

although it would be spicy if it was, spicy if it was, is this news from a few days ago, headline de Blasio vows full investigation after data leak appears to link to NYPD officers to the oath keepers. So the good news is that it's not attached. The bad news is that, man, there's multiple scandals hitting them all simultaneously. In any event, Mullins, this is not like the first time he's made news as the head of the SBA. So back in 2020, he posted the arrest report of de Blasio's daughter, Chiara de Blasio, on social media following her arrest during George Floyd protests. Mullets was hit with departmental charges for the violation of NYPD rules.

So he just decided that he would personally take this and post it on social media for people to read and gloat over Adrian, I guess. This is a, it's a weirdly specific and flexible flex for a guy who's been the head of this major union for close to two decades at that point? Yeah, because she had participated essentially in the marches of last year. I'm sure it's an effort to try to dox her in some way. But the thing is, you know, Kiera de Blasio, she is a citizen, she's entitled to speak out and to use her First Amendment rights.

And so to punish her by putting her information on blasts, this just speaks to the kind of man Mullinses. Yeah, exactly. And look, look, people get to participate. Like she, as a citizen, might go to one of these marges for Rachel Justice. Lots of cops participate in the insurrection. I mean, everybody participates in their own way, Mullins. It's America.

Yeah, one's illegal and one's not. Exactly. Oh, that's true. I suppose that's important context as well. Now, let's see. In another instance during the pandemic, this is all recent stuff, by the way, for Mullins. Mullins tweeted that the city's health commissioner was a bitch who had blood on her hands after she sparred with NYPD over half a million hospital grade face masks.

So cool. Look, I don't know his own personal position on some of the stuff related to the pandemic. I do know anecdotally that police departments seem like of all government agencies the least interested in complying with any of this or taking the pandemic seriously. That's sort of what I've picked up over time. And I will also point out that the whole de Blasio thing seems kind of personal to Mullins. So at one point, the SBA NYPD Twitter account had tweeted saying it was his comments. Mayor de Blasio, the members of the NYPD are declaring war on you. We do not respect you.

Do not visit us in hospitals. You sold the NYPD to the vile creatures. The 1% who hate cops but vote for you. So NYPD cops have been assassinated because of you, this isn't over, game on. And this was following a shooting, I believe, in February of 2020 that targeted cops. So Adrian, he's a real piece of work. For real, and I don't know who tweeted that out. Was that an intern?

It's just like, are you kidding? What is going on here? Not the most professional response on the platform, no matter how you feel about the mayor. But I think Mullins, he's not a good look for the organization. The union, it's, I wonder what is going to happen here. I do, as I've indicated, think a lot of Heads will roll. But as far as Mullins goes in the FBI, the FBI, you know, they really don't come to play in this kind of situation. And I think the investigation probably has been going on for months.

Sure. So having all of these things also come out, it just really shows you that they probably, you know, they might know what they're doing. Okay. Well, I'm going to give you two more fun little tidbits. before we move on. One is that Richie Torres, a Democratic representative, tweeted Ed Mullins, who famously called me a first-class whore for daring to ask questions about the SBA,

just got a first-class raid from the FBI. That's just fun, I just like that. That's good. That's Ken Klippensteinian. And also, to give you an idea of who this person is, is it possible that something on a mug could tell you everything you need to know about a person. Like, I don't know, is it? Like, I don't know, you can tell from my mug that I drink too

strong coffee. Some people prefer to talk about other parts of their personality or their worldview. So, back in July 2020, he gave an interview with Fox News and totally accidentally, in the background, you can see something. Do you see it? Do you see it? It's a QAnon mug with the hashtag, when we go one, we all go, crazy and, you know, estranged ourselves from our families. Yeah, that was just in the background. But even if it was accidental, that's bad enough. I have a feeling that was intentional. He's trying to send a message to these crazies that he's one of them. That's fun, Adrian, for a guy heading up one of the biggest cop unions. Seriously, he's going from crackpot

crazy mugs to what, bad mug shots, I'm sure, soon. Unless he gets it together. Did you like that? You're a regular Richie Torres. They wanted them too. Yeah. And, you know, not to spoil the fun, but it's one thing for a random crazy to be a fan of the Q&on thing. But when you're like a leader of cops, law enforcement and all that, I do want to remind everyone that the core of the Q&N thing is that inevitably there will be a great storm where all of the evil people are rounded up and executed. So having, you know, the guy used to be. be a cop believing it and still leads cops up until today. That's fun. That's fun. Anyway,

that's not the only horrible people we have for you. Why don't we turn to this next one? On Hollywood Boulevard, not far from here in L.A., there was an anti-vax protest, and one of the anti-vaxxers decided to use an unhoused individual as effectively a prop in their propaganda, and And this happened. You're vaccinated, you dumb F? It's just the best, Adrian. I apologize, Adrian. What are your thoughts?

I need to collect myself. Hey, I still like it that the un-housed people in L.A. That they got, you know, they're quick on it. That's fantastic. I just don't understand people out here nowadays. I really don't. Yeah, I don't either. I love the response, the quick narration there.

But anyway, it is a serious topic, not just, you know, anti-vaccine, misinformation, that's serious. You get that we take that seriously at this point, but also the situation of the unhoused, both in terms of access to vaccination, so that individual is vaccinated. But according to the LA County Department of Public Health, the rate is pretty big between the unhoused and the county at large. 43.5% for the unhoused, 60.6% for county residents overall. So that is a fairly big gap. And one study has showed that the mortality rate of homeless people in New York was 75% higher than the city's rate during the pandemic. So like for her, it's a punchline, I guess.

Or, you know, it's even darker than that. She's trying to imply that if it hasn't killed even the homeless, how could it possibly be serious? But it has been killing a lot of unhoused individuals. And it has left many with long-term side effects. So the reality is a lot darker than the sort of attempted co-opting of this individual by that one person. And it's so unfortunate too because there are so many unhoused populations that have suffered with this pandemic. And then in addition to that, to be able to provide the COVID-19 vaccine,

it requires, you know, the individual come back in two weeks and to get another follow-up shot. And the thing is, is when you are unhoused, you may be more likely to be transient. And so to know when to go back and also to be able to access it and get back, that can be very difficult. So to be able to provide them with social services where they get the information, the knowledge, they can be contacted and get the follow-ups that's necessary. That is, it's something that really needs to be focused on and more governmental bodies need to take an interest in because we are all in this together. Yeah. And look, we've, you know, we've been aware of multiple populations that the country, whether it ever wants to admit or not, just decided, now we're not even going

going to worry about that during this whole thing. Like you remember the spread of COVID in prisons, Rikers getting absolutely overwhelmed immediately. The country just decided screw it. I mean, even outside of pandemic conditions, they don't care what happens to people in prisons. And they certainly didn't during this. And that was also, you know, in a lot of cases, the national focus during this as well. Like, do you have access to group shelters? Is there room? How do you socially distance. Do you have regular access to PPE if you start to feel sick and you might be more likely to be chronically ill, how available is testing for you? And as you pointed out, the ability to not only get the first shot, but to know when to get the second, to have the ability,

to have the medical records, all of that. It's just devastating. And we know, we covered on the damage report this morning. Very little information is even available about how many unhoused individuals have died as a result of COVID. The numbers that exist are believed to be significant undercounts and that we really have no way of knowing. And some of the experts, they don't believe that it's like a 30% undercount. They think in some places it's like a 99% undercount. There are areas where virtually none of the excess deaths among the unhoused in some cities had significant increases in death month by month during the pandemic, something like 4% were registered as due to COVID.

Who actually believes that that's the case? But again, it's a thing where does the country even care enough to find out? It's difficult to find out for a lot of very obvious reasons. But do we even care to try, let alone to protect people in these sorts of circumstances? No, and we'd also consider the circumstances they're under. I think it was back in 2018 or 2019. They found typhus and typhoid out there on Skid Row and several LAPD officers end up contracting it. It's the fact is that we are not taking care of our own house population to begin with.

And so when we see this uprising of certain illnesses that have been, you know, we thought we got rid of and whatnot, you know, the black plague will show up at some point in time by virtue of the fact that we are not taking care of people. So if we really actually want to get rid of this virus and end this pandemic, we will actually invest for that everyone has access to the vaccine and also that everybody's taken care of. Exactly. Yeah. Well, it is time for a second break. Let's see. When we come back, should the unvaccinated receive organ transplants? One hospital system has decided that they are not going to be doing that. We're going to have a little debate about that after this. Welcome back to the Young Turks, everybody. John and Adrian. Adrian will very soon be taking over. and Jared Jackson will be joining the show. It's kind of expected. It is Big News Wednesday after all. That said, Adrian, are you ready for potentially our most controversial topic of the day?

I think I can do us. I think it'll be fun. I think so. Let's talk about this. Colorado's largest health care system has a new policy, and it has to do with organ transplant surgeries. Effectively, if you are not vaccinated, you're not going to. they get one, not in the near future anyway. They say that this rule is to protect patients, but of course any denial of service, especially something as significant as organ transplants,

is going to make this very controversial. And so people have strong opinions. So let me give you their argument for why they're doing this first, and then we'll have a little debate. So UC Health put out a statement saying for transplant patients who contract COVID-19, the mortality rate ranges from about 20% to more than 30%. This shows the extreme risk that COVID-19 poses to transplant recipients after their surgeries. They said the purpose of the vaccine policy is to protect the health of its patients and that transplant centers across the U.S. have such requirements in place. So to give you an idea of the context, in Colorado right now, they have about 62% of their population

vaccinated, just a little bit higher, I think, than L.A. County. At least one woman who has, as right now, stage five, renal failure, she had been apparently months away from getting a new kidney. But now with the new policy, neither she nor the kidney donor are vaccinated. So unless that changes, and she apparently is being given one month for that to happen, she will no longer be eligible for that transplant. And at least the donor says they are not vaccinated for religious reasons, I believe. The individual getting it isn't vaccinated, but we don't exactly know why. So we have some more information on this, Adrian, but what do you think about the decision by UC Health here?

You know, as much as I want to say that I completely understand and I think it's a great idea to encourage people get vaccinated, at the same time when you have people here who've been on these lists for a long time and they're looking for that hope to survive, I don't know. I think that's a tough one. I really do. I do. And I'm trying to grapple with it. I mean, certainly you could have had a grandfathering in clause in theory. Like in terms of the actual human cost, not allowing someone to get it done isn't substantively that different from someone was about to get it done and now you've stopped them. In both cases, the person doesn't get the transplant. But as you point out, you know, if you got a donor, like, It's already so unlikely to happen.

People die every single day for not receiving an organ donation. That would be on a personal level, on a family level, particularly devastating. Yeah, and I'd guess there'd be exceptions for what if you cannot even get the vaccine because your immune system is too compromised in some way, and you just can't get it medically, then will they withhold you from being able to get, I really don't know what their exceptions would be. But this kind of seems a little on the cruel side. Yeah, I don't know. In this particular case, I didn't see anything about them being physically unable to get vaccinated. They just seem to not for religious reasons or something else.

And I would, just out of your own personal human curiosity, I would be interested to find out exactly why. Because what's the worst thing you could be afraid of of the vaccine is that, you know, after the nanobots take over your body, it kills you. inevitably. It's going to kill all the vaccinated. Well, not getting the organ is also probably going to kill you. So kind of seems like that would wash out. But anyway, I cannot speak to these individuals. Now, in terms of the argument, it seems to be twofold. So one is after a transplant, your body is more vulnerable. And so there's a variety of things that could be more dangerous for you than it would be for someone who had not just received a transplant. That mortality rate is very high. If you receive COVID and we're in a spike right now, if you're not

vaccinated, there's, you know, not insignificant chance you could get COVID. The counter argument to that would be, well, if you don't get the thing, you're going to die anyway, not all transplants are necessarily going to be that cut and dried. But so that's sort of a patient focused part of this. The other is if we have a limited supply of each type of organ, which we do, there are not enough organs to go around. They already limit a lot of stuff about you. You're expected in many cases to be on particular diets, to stop things like drinking, smoking, to exercise, a variety of things to make it most likely that you won't, you know, reject the organ, which would be catastrophic for you, and also, in hindsight, a waste of the organ that could have gone to someone

else. So if they can make those sorts of requirements already, this seems like a pretty significant one in terms of the likelihood that you might die and thus have wasted the organ. Does that sway you at all? I would honestly say to some extent that does because by virtue of the fact that you can end up wasting the organ because, you know, your immune system will be lowered and there's a chance that, you know, your body may not take it, you know, it should go to someone who has a higher chance of actually being able to survive with the organ because of the choice that they made to get the vaccine. So I could see that as being a persuasive. element, but definitely not to encourage someone to get the vaccine or to punish them for not

having it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, also importantly, and I should have mentioned this before, but one of the things they already require is taking certain vaccinations. So taking a vaccination to get it again isn't a new thing. Now, I know we've had versions of this for things like the military being required to get vaccinated or vaccinations for overseas travel, things like that, it has always felt like it should be more persuasive than it is that you already get vaccinations to do things like go to school. Unfortunately, it falls apart in that they believe that these are different, either because they're too new, regardless of what the FDA said, or because they're MRI, although again, not all of them are, that isn't persuasive to them.

So, yeah, I mean, to me, the fact that you already are required to get vaccinations, or to take particular types of medication. They require you to take things that would suppress, for instance, your immune system to lower the chance that it rejects the organ. You're already, they have control exerted over you about what you put into your body if they're going to put this organ into your body. So is it just, like we feel uncomfortable, a bit queasy, we cringe at it, but is it substantively different than what already existed pre-COVID? No, not at all. No, I don't think it was at all. Yeah, I don't know, I'm uncomfortable about it. You might not, like people in the audience might think, well, John, you've been like more frustrated than anyone about people who

refuse to, you know, do what's necessary. But I don't know, it is when it's about an organ, when it's about living or dying, it makes me uncomfortable. But again, I'm not necessarily convinced it's different. I really wish that we should do a poll on this. Should you limit organ transplants as a result of that? We might work on that. And by the way, about 17 people die every day waiting for an organ. So we don't necessarily always end every story with telling you what you can do to help, but it's pretty clear that becoming an organ donor could help in this particular case, because long after COVID's not a thing that we're talking about anymore, there are still going to be people that need these organs. They are still going to be

dying a dozen or more every single day. And by becoming an organ donor, it's an easy, cost-free way to potentially help with that. Oh, wait, we do have a poll for this, actually. I should scroll down more. Oh, what do you know? They've really thought ahead. Thank you, Brett, for not cheering in my ear about that. Anyway, you get at t.com slash polls.

The question is, are hospitals right to deny transplants to the unvaccinated in almost all situations? So I am, and there's nothing I love more than the polls where I honestly do not know where the audience is going to come out. And so we'll have to see about that. Okay, we have a few minutes left. I had a little bit more on COVID, but I want to make sure that we get to at least a little bit of this next story. So why don't we jump directly into this? Republican Nikki Haley is seemingly always about to run for president. And she has had this really weird position in the party where, look, if Trump had never existed, she would pattern herself or she'd be proud to say that she is an old school Republican, more like a modern Reagan.

but she has had to exist under Donald Trump, initially being critical of him back during 2016, then working with him while he was president, then criticizing him after the insurrection. But if she decides to run, she's either going to have to beat Trump, which she seems unlikely to want to do, or get his approval so that she can beat other candidates. So it's a very interesting position. So her messaging, I think, is interesting to get in her head and see what she actually thinks about Trump's role in the party, what the messaging should be for Republican candidates. So let's roll a little bit of her describing her worldview.

The barbarians of the world fear nothing more than a confident and strong United States with the courage of our convictions. The most important mission of our time is to stop our national self-loathing and to regain our courage and renew our convictions. Have things gotten so badly wrong in our society that we are unable to resist the forces of evil? For many Americans, the answer would be yes. A large portion of our people are plagued by self-doubt or even by hatred of America. It's a pandemic much more damaging than any virus. Every day more people think living in the land of the free is a curse. Not a blessing.

You hear it on the news. You read it on social media and in school curricula. You see it in rage and riots on our streets. That's fun. The partisanship that we're experiencing is a pandemic worse than COVID-19. I mean, I can't speak for everyone. But COVID took a member of my family, and tribalism hasn't yet. But she thinks it was a good line anyway, Adrian.

What do you think about this plight of people? doubting themselves and hating their country. Well, you know, Nikki Haley, much like Reagan, is a decent actor. Like get out of here with that line, you know, trying to distract from the fact that COVID is significant and it is potentially fatal and fatal in many circumstances that that is a huge significant threat that we're facing and trying to minimize it and to suggest that, oh, people, you know, it's their criticism of the United States, that's the real problem. Yeah, right, we love the country and thus we

criticize it. Also, it's just reminds us that January 6th is just as problematic as the people up there on their pulpits, essentially, you know, just advancing these lies and propaganda to try to sway us. Yeah. Yeah, and look, everybody criticizes stuff about America. That is true of literally every person. We might say, well, our healthcare system absolutely sucks, we should have Medicare for all. They might put a hat on that says America's not great. it needs to be made great again. Clearly you didn't think everything was hunky dory. But she goes on to say that anger towards America has become the bedrock belief of the American left, I guess, I didn't know that, I should put that in my bio now, adding that Democrats don't

even believe in America and have given up on America as a colorblind society. That took a very particular turn there at the end, Adrian, that this is what we should be working towards. She apparently says that that message was our message first as Republicans and we must take it once again to the American people. I don't know if this is like trying to get into the whole the backlash against CRT thing. Is that what she's trying to appeal to? I'm honestly not sure. Yeah, it's trying to create that whole narrative that people who are criticizing the United States or who speak up against the systems of oppression that for some reason they don't love America enough and that the real way to go about it is to put on blinders and to pretend that the oppressions that people are calling out that they don't really exist. It's just pushing more of that us, them narrative and trying to maintain the

status quo. Yeah. Well, look, she also gave some quotes that we unfortunately don't have time to cover, implying that she might well run for president, which, I mean, when they say they're not going to run for president, there's like a 75% chance they're going to run for president. If they're saying they're going to, then they're definitely going to if they think they have any chance. So this is just an early preview for what she's going to be about based on the speech that I just listened to, they're not going to elect her. Like, there's going to be someone who's going to give a pure, more frothing at the mouth version of that speech. This is a party of Marjorie Green and Matt Gates. I don't think they're electing her, but I don't know, maybe I'm

wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they're going to take a hard turn back to the 80s. Anyway, Adrian Lawrence, that is all the time that we have. I know you're going to be taking over very soon. Jared Jackson's going to be joining you. What's the first story you're going to be covering? Oh, well, we are going to be talking about Grisham and the book. Awesome. You're going to see a few little tidbits out of that. Anyway, that's going to be coming up in just a few minutes. Thank you for joining me in this first hour.

Feel free to tune in to the damage report tomorrow and always. We might have Brett Ehrlich tomorrow. We're not entirely sure. But if we do, that's a treat. Tune in for that. And we'll have more show for you after this. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to

apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon