The Young Turks - ""Imminent Threat""

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that Russia's ramp-up of forces around Ukraine over the past few days indicates Russian President Vladimir Putin could give an order for military action ""essentially at any time."" Support for former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election has more than doubled that of President Joe Biden — among people who did not vote at all in 2020. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it clear that “defund the police” is not the position of the Democratic party, amid a renewed push from Cori Bush. Elon Musk’s brain-chip company Neuralink is facing a legal challenge from an animal rights group that has accused the company of subjecting monkeys to ‘extreme suffering’ during years of gruesome experiments. An Ohio mayor says it's a slippery slope from ice fishing to prostitution. 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. Well, the young church, Jake Eugenicist, oh my God, we're 20, jeez-em, Lord of the Young Church, Jake Euder, Anna, and his parent with his. Oh my God, we're 20. cheese them Lord mercy

can't even drink yet okay that's well that's true that's true but it's been a long 20 years

and we've snuck in a couple of drinks along the ways but we are the OGs of digital media we've been around

all this time first original talk show for series satellite radio been on Air America MSNBC current TV

you name it we've been there even AOL news blog back in the day. I remember those days. That's right. Old friend Tommy Christopher now at Mediite also from there.

We helped him get on there. So a lot of things along the ways. But we're going to reminisce about all of that in the 20th anniversary special, which is right after the Young Turks. So stay right here and it's free available to everyone, even though it's a bonus episode. We're opening this up to everyone to celebrate. So stay right here at 8 o'clock Eastern tonight, and we'll talk about all the good old days. old days and the impacts that we've had in the amazing 20 years that we've lived.

Now, having said all that, will you have a show to do today? And it's also amazing. So without further ado, Anna Gisperry. All right. Well, the United States is continuing its escalating rhetoric toward Russia. And honestly, it's interesting because I don't know how much is really changed in the dynamic between the United States and Russia. There are a few updates that are worth knowing about, namely the fact that the United States

is repeating that they believe that Russia could attack Ukraine within this week. There are also some mixed messages. For instance, Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky, that's the president of Ukraine, released a statement saying that an attack could happen within two days. But then there are also some messages coming from both Ukraine and Russia indicating that they want to move forward with a diplomatic approach, the United States for its part has deviated from that kind of messaging. But here's what we know so far. First off, Ukraine has said that it is likely to back away from joining NATO, at least any time soon. That's a major

concession, a concession that the United States and other NATO countries were unwilling to make. However, Ukraine is free to make that decision for itself. And it seems like Zelensky is, you know, hinting at this concession in an effort to move toward a more diplomatic approach. Now, I'm going to now go to an interview that National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan did over the weekend on Face the Nation. And his rhetoric, a little different when it comes to how the U.S. would like to approach this. Let's watch. You said an attack by Russia could happen as soon as this week. Are you seeing Russian troops move into tactical positions?

We have seen over the course of the past 10 days dramatic acceleration in the buildup of Russian forces and the disposition of those forces in such a way that they could launch a military action essentially at any time. They could do so this coming week. But of course, it still awaits the go order. And so therefore we cannot predict the precise day or time that they may take action. We also are watching very carefully for the possibility that they there is a pretext or a false flag operation to kick off the Russian action in which Russian intelligence services conduct some kind of attack on Russian proxy forces in eastern Ukraine or on Russian citizens and then blame it on the Ukrainians. So that last part is a repeat of an allegation that the US government has already made against Russia. In fact, Pentagon officials had been challenged on that. false flag allegation and they were unwilling to share any type of evidence indicating that, you know, the allegation is true or credible. And, you know, going back to what Ukraine is doing

and what we're hearing from leadership in Ukraine, Zelensky, that's again, the president of Ukraine, said Monday that his country might have to abandon the possibility of joining NATO, a central Russian demand in a confrontation that threatens the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II, Zelensky, saying that perhaps the notion of NATO membership is for us like a dream suggested that his country might make the kind of concessions it has staunchly resisted so far. And again, the United States and NATO have rejected Russia's demands, but they proposed several other concessions, including nuclear arms control and limits on military exercises where they were willing to negotiate. So they're saying, listen,

we're not going to stop Ukraine joining NATO if Ukraine wants to join NATO. However, if you're worried about your security, we're willing to be a little more transparent in regard to what we're doing. It's unclear whether or not Russia has accepted that yet, but there is more in terms of what Russia is willing to do to move forward in a more diplomatic approach. Okay, so two things. First off, I want to be clear about something that's been bouncing around the media. Zelensky said that the invasion might come on February 16th, that's two days from now. But he was joking. Yeah, he was clearly joking. And he was referring to to a national unity day and he actually wants people come out on February 16 with Ukrainian

flags and celebrate their diversity together, all different parts of Ukraine and different ethnicities in Ukraine. So I don't want that to be misinterpreted. But more importantly, as I hope most of the news will clarify that, look at him, the president of Ukraine joking around about the Russian invasion. We have said from day one on this, it seems like the people that were least concerned were the Ukrainians. And the Russians seem to be very concerned as they amassed now 130,000 troops on the border.

The Americas appear to be very concerned based on all their rhetoric and honestly war mongering and pushing Russia and everyone else into further conflict. Yes, we're doing that here as America. Our press is oftentimes an abomination. Here they've been mixed at best. And so if you live in America, you might not realize that we've started a lot of this conflict. I want to talk about the root cause of that in a second. No, your comment about the media is so accurate because every report that I've read today from like legacy media outlets took what Zelensky said about February 16th at face value.

They did not report it as him joking around. Yeah, and so now they have begun to fix that, retract that, but only half the organizations. and that is not a thing that you should get wrong. Right. Russia and America could start World War III, and Ukraine is caught in the middle. So when the Ukrainian president is kidding around about war, as opposed to saying the Russians are going to invade in two days, that's not a little difference. That's not a difference in degree.

That's a massive difference, okay? One seems to indicate we're about to go into catastrophic war. to others seems to indicate there's very little chance of that, right? So now what do I think this is about if it isn't about Ukraine, and apparently even the Ukrainians think it's not about Ukraine. So Russia has a pipeline going into Germany of gas, and we apparently have put a way to get gas into liquidified natural gas into Germany from the northern side of Germany. And guess who has been shipping tons and tons of that recently now that there is a potential conflict between Russia and Europe? All right, us and our top ally, Qatar, okay? So Qatar and the U.S. now making billions instead of the Russians making billions.

Now look, I don't know that that's 100% of the reason, but I'm giving you all of the relevant factors. And usually billions of dollars is a highly motivating factor for a lot of politicians, including, by the way, the top Russian oligarch, Vladimir Putin, but also including the United States government. Now, that's context you don't often see in the American media. Thank you for bringing that up. And that's happening with the backdrop of Americans paying higher and higher prices for energy within our borders, right?

And so why are we so focused on exporting the resources that we could be using to actually lower prices for American consumers? Like it's just, that's what's going on, right? Anyway, so let's move on. And no, but let me add one quick thing here because there's no one's innocent here. Russia, meanwhile, has slowed down the gas to Germany and Europe, partly to warn them, hey, you better not mess with us. Imagine if we cut the whole thing off, if you guys are going to be in a world of trouble, right? But also partly to drive oil prices and gas prices up because the lower the supply, the higher the price is going to be. And that also winds up punishing the American people and making Putin and his fellow oligarchs a ton of money in the meanwhile.

So understand all those financial motives which for which everyone outside of reporters understands is highly motivating for normal human beings. Well, with that said, I want to go to the next video because China is also now in the mix, not in terms of engaging in military actions or war or anything like that. But China has kind of come in to defend Russia, especially against the biggest threat that the United States has issued additional sanctions against Russia. Let's hear what Jake Sullivan had to say about that. Well, China and Russia say it's a new era. They're joining alliances.

So you are threatening to hurt Russia financially. they seem to be indicating there's a new world order where they're not so worried about that threat. Well, first of all, Margaret, China will not be in a position to compensate Russia for the losses that it will endure in the event that the United States and its allies impose economic measures on Russia. Second, and maybe more importantly, we all have to have a bit more confidence in ourselves. The United States, the West, the leading democracies of the world, we're more than 50% of the world's economy. China and Russia are less than 20%. We've got innovation, we've got entrepreneurship, and yes, we've got freedom. Yes, but I think part of the challenge with the discourse in Washington right now is there's so much emphasis on China and Russia's leverage and not nearly enough on our leverage, our capacity, our power.

Our capacity, our power. Now, what Jake Sullivan is saying there is there's a kernel of truth to it. So the biggest issue for Russia would be the export of fossil fuels, right? If the United States implements additional sanctions, first of all, let's not assume or pretend like that would be a diplomatic approach. The sanctions that they would implement would hurt the people of Russia, not just the oligarchs, not just government officials. So I want to make sure that people are clear about that. But let's say they do implement that. And let's say Russia is no longer able to transport gas or export gas to Germany with Nord's

extreme. Okay, well, China would be the monopoly buyer from Russia and they could charge Russia. Or they can, you know, they can, yeah, charge Russia whatever they want. They can determine what the price would be. So Russia would be at a significant disadvantage because it would just have to go along with whatever Russia would be willing to pay for those fossil fuels, right? So there's a kernel of truth to what Jake Sullivan is saying there. But there's also this notion that, no, the United States is the biggest, we're gonna have the

most impact, even that kind of alliance isn't going to harm us or really help Russia much. Russia does have some leverage here with its alliance with China. So now let's go back to what this was theoretically about, which was, are the Russians going to invade Ukraine? Well, the Russians have really had basically one demand that Ukraine not join NATO. And given that Ukraine's right next to Russia, having a military alliance that threatens it and backed up with missiles all over, including in other now NATO countries like Poland, where we've planted a ton of conventional missiles, now we've moved more nukes into the UK, etc. But mainly right on their border, we wouldn't tolerate it in Canada

or Mexico. We didn't tolerate it in Cuba. That was what the Cuban missile crisis was about. So my honest opinion is that their ask is relatively easy, and it doesn't cost us anything. And the Ukrainians today have indicated that they agree. They should not be in NATO. So this thing should be completely resolved if it wasn't for whatever economic forces are driving both governments to continue this standoff. And hopefully not an actual conflict. Hopefully after both sides have made enough money, they can leave the rest of us alone and not kill us all. Yeah, I think that's a good place to leave it. Well, why don't we move on to some domestic politics, namely how things are looking for Joe Biden if he's planning on running for

reelection in 2024. More polling indicates that Joe Biden is in fact in hot water if he plans on seeking reelection in 2024. Now of course, the normal caveats were still years away from the election. A lot could change. But based on this administration, basically looking more and more like a sinking ship. And the fact that the Biden administration doesn't really want to recalibrate, again, things are not looking good for him. So one poll by CNN, for instance, indicates the majority of Democratic voters do not want Biden to be the Democratic contender in 2024. In fact, 51% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say they want someone else to be the party's presidential nominee in the next election, compared to 45% who say they would like Biden

to run as an incumbent. Now this is definitely unique, it's different from what we experienced from the past two presidents. For instance, former President Barack Obama had the backing of 79% of Democrats to run for re-election in March of 2010, while Trump had the support of 77% of Republicans in March of 2018. None of this is really that surprising to me, Jank, but what are your thoughts? Yeah, so 45% is a disastrous number. You remember Biden was part of the Obama administration where they were sitting on 79%.

So does age have something to do with this? Sure, everybody thought Obama was gonna run again because he was a young president. Biden, on the other hand, is approximately 200 years old. And when by the way, when we pointed that out in the primary, the media as well as Democratic hacks all yelled at us and said, no, he's a spring chicken. And by the way, all of our previous attacks about how old Bernie Sanders was, ignore that. You're not allowed to talk about Biden's age. But we said, look, the voters are going to think about it, whether we are allowed to talk about it or not. And guess what? They're thinking about it. And they're saying, look, congrats, you got Trump off of our back. That's the main reason we voted for you. You've been weak, ineffectual, and largely napping. And now a lot of us, and majority of us, say he shouldn't be you. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris's numbers are not much better. No. And so have establishment Democrats gotten the message in DC? Of course not. Biden is going

around saying, we promise we won't be more progressive. But brother, that's not a poll of Republicans or independence. That's a poll of Democratic voters. Yeah, that's exactly right. And just like this unwillingness to really reevaluate what this administration is up to, this is a little bit of a tangent, but it goes along with what you're saying in regard to Biden's age. Remember, Biden's the one who nominates people, points people into his cabinet, right? Javier Bacera, his name is pronounced Javier Bacera. He recently called him Javier Baccaria. Jesus Christ, okay.

It's just- But it goes on and on. Look, everybody knows it before we were the bad guys for pointing out the obvious. Now everybody says, oh, well, that's so obvious that, you know, it's not worth mentioning. No, it's worth mentioning. Anyway, but guys, don't get distracted though by the age. Age is clearly an issue here for the Democratic voters. But if that was all, the numbers wouldn't be like this at all, right? We've had plenty of older presidents that were incredibly popular like FDR. FDR died on the job. He was that old, right? And he didn't have any problem with this popularity. So the other half of it is that Biden didn't do anything. And they think

It's just a marketing issue. If we just yell at people enough that we did something when we didn't, we'll trick people. And to be fair to them, that is how it's worked for the last 40 years. And they had mainstream media as their complicit ally who told everybody, oh my God. Oh, when Obama passed the Stock Act, that totally stops insider trading in Congress. It's historic reform. And we were here saying, no, it's not. that doesn't even have any enforcement provisions.

And lo and behold, all these years later, it turns out there's no enforcement provisions and they've never enforced it on anywhere. And it wasn't historic reform. It was window dressing. But window dressing isn't working anymore. And so mainstream media is not the only game in town. So people are getting the word that you guys did nothing.

And it's glaringly obvious when you don't do the bare minimum, like $15 minimum wage and pretend that you never promised it. And of course, voting rights. I mean, that was humiliating. Super humiliating, absolutely. No, I mean, it's, so you say that the Biden administration did nothing. And I'll play devil's advocate and then squash the devil's advocate because it's a garbage argument. No, no, no, you don't get it.

They passed COVID stimulus in the beginning of the administration. Honestly, so did the Trump administration. Biden's was a little better. It included one year of that child tax credit, so I want to be fair and mention that. However, the one thing that they plan on campaigning on is the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which, look, infrastructure projects take a long time to carry out, so people are not going to experience how that bill is benefiting their lives until years from now, let's be clear. It is a corporate handout bill, we've talked about that a billion times.

But more importantly, something that Biden's ignoring, something that the rest of the country is ignoring. Right now major corporations like Facebook and Microsoft had to put their headquarters construction on hold because guess what? Concrete workers in Seattle have been striking for months, for months. So major construction projects around the country are being delayed as a result of that. No, you know, no attention paid to that. You know, Biden, it's all lip service whenever it's politically convenient for him. But if they're planning, if Democrats are planning on just leaning into the bipartisan infrastructure

bill to win re-election, they're in a lot of trouble. Yeah, look, I have to confess that I never thought that progressives had a chance in 2024 in a Democratic primary after Bernie Sanders lost in 20. Why? We didn't have a giant star like Bernie teed up to go in 24. And the press would just eviscerate any progressive that came out against a Democratic incumbent president. The press would say it's out of bounds. They're radical. They're the worst.

They're trying to ruin the Democratic Party. The press are the thugs of corporate Democrats, okay? They're their enforcers. And so with not enough name recognition and the whole weight of the press against you, I thought it was near impossible to get a candidate by 2024. I am now amending that because Democratic voters all across the country are saying, no, this is stupid. This is definitely not enough.

And so if you're going to pretend this is enough and you're going to lie to me, no, I want someone else. And so if they're looking for someone else and that's someone else ain't Kamala Harris, well, now progressives are back in the ballgame. So there's your silver lining for Biden's incompetence. Well, let me give you some other findings. So we talked about the CNN poll. There was one other poll done by Redfield and Wilton Strategies. And what they found was that Trump has more than doubled Biden in one subgroup, people who didn't vote in 2020.

Among that group, 34% said that they would vote for Trump in 2024 if he's the candidate, while only 14% of people who didn't vote in 2020 said the same about Biden. And only 19% said it about Kamala Harris, so she doesn't do much better. So now, why the giant difference? Well, first of all, you shouldn't be overly concerned because that was the highest turnout we've ever. had in the presidential election by a lot, and those folks still didn't vote. So they're not likely to be voters next time around. But what that does show you is Republicans have become more populist because the disaffected of the ones that don't vote, they're not the elites, that almost all the elites vote, right?

And so the Democrats have become the party of elites. That is a nightmare because there's a lot more non-elites than there are elites. And so that's the sand trap that we find ourselves in, but the establishment doesn't even realize it's a sand trap. They think, oh, everyone I know that went to Yale and Harvard is voting for us. So I guess we're about to get 99% of the electorate. No, no, people that are not in your circles now think the Democrats stand for the rich and the powerful. And in a lot of ways they do, but the Republican Party is even worse. there, but the Republican Party's built for the rich and powerful, yet the Democrats, again,

and their infinite incompetence, are letting the Republicans grab the populist mantle at a time when populism is taking off like a rocket. This spells doom for the country, but you can't get a single Democrat in Washington to realize that, because they're in their own bubble where they think, we nail this thing. Well, you didn't, and you're about to get slaughtered, and you're endangering the Republic with your incompetence. Pass something. All right, well, we got to take a break. They won't.

We got to take a break, but when we come back, we'll talk about Nancy Pelosi's recent statements in regard to defund the police. And I'm going to explain why I actually agree with her. We've got that story and more when we come back. All right, back on TYT, Jank Anna. on our 20th birthday slash anniversary. So that's an amazing thing.

TYT has outlasted almost everyone in the industry. We'll talk more about that in the special. It's coming up right after the main show here at 8 o'clock Eastern. So stay right here. All right, Casper, what's the next? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw cold water on the notion of defunding the police while speaking with George Stepanopoulos over the weekend. Now she has demonstrated that she is,

actually, for the first time, maybe, connected to what the temperature is among voters. And I'll explain what I mean by that after we watch the clip. The other thing that's weighing on people right now is rising crime. And there appear to be some divisions among Democrats about how to handle it. Your colleague, Karen Bass, running for mayor of Los Angeles, is trying to increase the police force in L.A. Cory Bush, Congresswoman from Missouri, is saying it's time to defund the police. He's sticking by that.

Here are the Speaker. How do you think Democrats should address rising crime? Well, with all the respect in the world for court push, that is not the position of the Democratic Party. Community safety to protect and defend in every way is our oath of office. And I have sympathy. We're all concerned about mistreatment of people, and that's why Karen Bass had the Justice and Policing Act, and we would hope to get some of that done, whether it's no knock or Joe Colt, or some of those issues, even if we can't get it all done. But make no mistake, community safety is our responsibility. I also don't want you guys to make the mistake of thinking that this Congress is going to pass any type of reform whatsoever,

whether it be no-knock warrants or chokeholds. On a federal level, it is unlikely that we're going to see any change in regard to reforming, policing, or combating the crime wave that we're experiencing right now. But I think what Pelosi said there, for the most part, demonstrates that maybe for the first time in a long time, she's kind of reading the temperature in the room. And even among Democratic voters, there is significant concern about the crime, the spike in violent crime. And she is essentially rejecting the notion of defunding the police.

She's rejecting that slogan, which of course isn't really just about defunding the police. reallocating resources to some social services in order to ensure that there is a more robust way of handling things like someone having let's say a mental health issue or something like that now she was responding to what Cory Bush had told Axios recently she said defund the police is not the problem we dangled the carrot in front of people's faces and said we can get it done and that Democrats deliver when we haven't totally delivered so there's a lot of truth to what she's saying there as well, but I would say that it's in regard to the social spending bill that

was, you know, debated and negotiated for months and led to nowhere. I think it's also true when it comes to the voting rights bill. But let's be clear, I do agree with Pelosi that defund the police is not a slogan that's going to be winning, a winning one for the Democratic Party. I actually think it's been counterproductive. So I said that in the beginning and I took a lot of heat for it because it's, oh yeah, now you don't get to tell us our slogan. And so first of all, when people say our slogans, it's incredibly arrogant as if they are the chosen ones to do to represent everybody in the country or represent certain groups. I'm gonna give you the polling in a second that shows you that they were wrong and they were always wrong and so but the reason it's counterproductive is because there needs to actually be massive police reform in this country, but when you call a defund the police, it leads people to thinking that they're There's anarchy, it makes them afraid, makes them less likely to do police reform,

not more likely to do police reform. Now oftentimes, Nancy Pelosi yells at progressives in Congress, and she's full of it. And we explain to you guys exactly why she's full of it on every occasion, right? But this is a rare situation where she isn't. Now, why? Is it that we get to determine, oh no, we like Pelosi's opinion and we do on this one, but we don't like it on others? No, I'm saying it based on the polling.

So on other issues, Pelosi will be like, no, Americans love insider trading. We're not going to do what the progressives want, right? Oh, no, Americans don't want lower drug prices. Whatever, whatever things she's making up that isn't remotely true as she's yelling at progressives, right? But in this case, Americans do not like the slogan of defund the police or the idea of decreasing spending on policing. You actually could get them to like that idea because actually is in a lot of ways a good idea. So I don't disagree with the content so much, but the question is what's the content? And you have to be a lot more specific.

It's not randomly cutting police budgets. It's saying, hey, some services like mental health counseling and mental health professionals can do some aspects of policing better. But again, that isn't even the biggest police reform. There's so many things we need to do to reform the culture and the training of police in this country. And none of it is being addressed because we've gotten distracted into. this issue where we're on the losing end for no reason at all. Yeah, so I'm gonna get to the polling in just a second because Pew Research asked voters

and also asked based on race how they feel about the notion of defunding the police. But to your point, Jank, I mean, the idea of allocating more resources to social services to help with criminal justice obviously makes a lot of sense. But in order to reform policing, you actually need more resources, right? I think there needs to be better vetting of police. I think the training needs to improve. These are things that require more money, more resources. And so, and there is, look, there is a problem with certain communities who don't have enough

police, right? So you call someone and they're not there for you. They're not willing to respond to certain calls. That is a problem. So the idea, again, of the social services, getting more. funding makes a lot of sense. But if we want to actually reform police and make sure that they're doing the proper vetting and proper training to ensure that we have people who are actually concerned with protecting and serving, it does require more resources.

Yeah, this gets to the same big government, small government argument that I, where I use this curious analogy, well, what kind of pipe do we need? When I ask an open-ended question like that, you're gonna ask me, well, it depends, what job are we doing? We might need a small pipe, We might need to live a very large pipe depending on the job. So to me, talking about how much resources we should give the police totally misses the point of the conversation. The question is, what are we giving them the funding for? So I don't know how much to give them if I don't know what they're going to spend it on. If they're going to spend it on military equipment and to bulldoze us and to kick the living crap out of us and to kill African Americans at a disproportionate rate, no, then I don't want them getting more funding for that.

But if they're going to spend it on transitioning to social services rather than nonstop abuse of minorities in this country, well, then I don't mind more spending. So the substance is what we should be focusing on. Meanwhile, the killings by police continue unabated throughout the country while we're talking about nonsense issues and never actually passing any bills. Yeah, you're exactly right. The situation just keeps getting worse. And I wanted to give you that polling that I referenced a little earlier. So this is from Pew Research, it's several months old at this point, but I thought that it was interesting and honestly surprising. So the share of adults who say spending on police in their area should be increased now stands at 47%.

Up from 31% in June of 2020, that includes 21% who say funding for their local police should be increased a lot, up from 11% who said this last summer. This is last summer, that means 2020. This polling came out in late 2021. 15% of adults now say spending should be decreased down from 25% in 2020. And only 6% now advocate decreasing spending a lot down from 12% who said this in 2020. And what about black voters? Because what we keep hearing from lawmakers, including Cory Bush, is, listen, when I say defund the police, I'm representing the best interests, the desires of my constituents.

She made the comments about defund the police during a call with some of the black voters in her district. But here's the reality. The share of black adults who say police spending in their area should be decreased has actually fallen 19 percentage points since last year, from 42% to 23%, including a 13 point decline in the share who say funding should be decreased a lot from 22%. to 9%. Among Democrats, black, 38% and Hispanic, 39% of adults are more likely than white adults, 32% to say spending on police in their area should be increased. So guys, those polling is determinative, that polling is, that polling is. So first of all, I told you earlier this framing was never popular, and we just showed you that at its peak, it got to 25% popularity.

That's a terrible number. It's now down to 15%. You don't want to go into a political battle where you're starting at 15%. Especially when the majority of Americans actually agree with you that the police should be reformed. Just not in this weird way, right?

Where you're not saying how to reform them. You're just saying, I don't know, cut their budget. So, look, to be fair to Cory Bush and other progressives, They have a whole laundry list of very good reforms. All I'm saying is you should focus on those instead of focusing and doubling down on this slogan, which clearly is not working. And it has to work so we get actual police reform. Now the final thing is, to Anna's point, there's a lot of elites in Washington who claim to represent an entire group, okay? And so they've been, some of them have been saying all along, no, no, black people want to decrease funding to people.

Well, that's just not true. It's just not. It's never been true. And now it's down to 23%. So I don't care if the person you're debating is Asian and you say you don't speak for black people, I do. No, neither one of you speaks for black people. The poll does. And you can say, oh, I don't believe in polling.

That's nonsense. It's scientific. And if it isn't 23%, it's 25%. It's not that big a difference. The bottom line is it is definitely not popular among African Americans. So stop pretending that it is. Okay. If you said to African Americans on the other hand, hey, we're gonna change police training

and culture and we're to train it so that they do not abuse minorities and here are the specific steps that we're going to take, that would be incredibly popular. So why don't we focus on that? Right. It's not that hard, guys. Exactly. All right, well, we gotta take a brief break. When we come back, we've got more news including pretty serious allegations against Elon Musk

and NeurLink. It involves pretty severe animal abuse. I also want to give you guys a warning about that story. But it's an important one to know about we've got that and more when we come back. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys. We're about to give you one of the more disastrous stories in our future. Yeah. Well, one of Elon Musk's ventures has led to allegations that there's been cruelty done.

to animals that the company is testing on. This is one of the less well-known projects that Elon Musk has sought out. It's known as Neurrelink, and basically it's known as a brain-machine interface. More details on that in a moment, but they're essentially testing this out on monkeys, and it turns out that allegations indicate that these monkeys were pretty severely abused. Many of them died as a result. So in one example, a monkey was allegedly found missing some of its fingers and toes. By the way, warning, it's very graphic what I'm about to read, possibly from self-mutilation

or some other unspecified trauma. The monkey was later killed during a terminal procedure, the group said, in a copy of the complaint shared with the post. Now, what's this group that's making these allegations? Well, it's an animal rights group that is basically claiming that taxpayer money is being used to perform these experiments on these monkeys and people should know about it considering there's animal, alleged animal abuse involved. In another case, a monkey had holes drilled in its skull and electrodes implanted into its brain, then allegedly developed a bloody skin infection and had to, to be euthanized according to the complaint. And we've got one more example to give you.

In a third instance, a female monkey had electrodes implanted into its brain, then was overcome with vomiting, retching, and gasping. Days later, researchers wrote that the animal appeared to collapse from exhaustion and fatigue and was subsequently euthanized. An autopsy then showed the monkey had suffered from a brain hemorrhage according to the report.

Now, all the monkeys that died, at least 15 of them either died or were euthanized by 2020, had this neurolink chip implanted into their brains. And so there's the project itself, which I think deserves its own discussion, but then there's also the animal cruelty involved as well. Yeah, so wow. Why do they drill into the skulls of the monkeys? Because that's what they're going to do to you to implant the chip in your head. I'm not exaggerating, that's how it works, but they, Elon Musk says, no, we're going to get more precise with the drilling and with the wiring and with all of that. And so don't worry, it won't be too intrusive when we plant a chip in your brain. Guys, this is literal.

And what's amazing is that since certain groups of Republican, usually men, are enormous betas, they will follow any billionaire. And as soon as a billionaire says, give me all your money, they go, I'll right away. I give it to you, and I trust you no matter what. So that group of Republicans says, I'm not taking the vaccine to save my life. It has microchips that get into the blood and are activated by the 5G from Soros and Hugo Chavez, right? Meanwhile, they're like, oh, Elon Musk is going to put an actual physical chip in our brain. Yay! Are you serious?

Yeah, look, to be fair, at least online, I definitely see right-wing men constantly simping for Elon Musk. So you're right about that. But in terms of people in positions of power, I haven't seen Democrats complain about this. Oh, well, Democrats are never going to do anything. No, I mean, there's been no pushback whatsoever. Oh, of course not. He's rich. The Democrats are probably going to kiss his ass.

They love just as much, come on. No, not just as much. No, and in this case, I don't care about the parties. They're both so desperately and hopelessly corrupt. No, I'm talking about the actual voters. Like, for all the fanboys of Elon Musk, who are worried about a non-existent microchip in the vaccine, how could you possibly be in favor of this? I mean, you want to talk about taking away your freedom.

Now, let's talk about the actual chip. In a sense, I don't know if it could go both ways, it might, and so what do I mean by both ways? One part of it, we already know, which is that it's going to record, or one of the Its plan is to record your thoughts. And one of the things that it can do, according to Elon Musk, and I don't really know that I believe him, but this is his plan, is transfer your thoughts onto a computer. Dude, that's reading your mind. Like literally. Sounds like a great idea.

Yeah. Now, guys, especially those right-wing men who are big fan boys of Elon Musk, pause and think about the things that go through your brain, the things that you don't want. want other people knowing, they're going to get recorded onto a computer. Are you insane? Yeah, and look, Silicon Valley types love to market these types of projects or technological advances as something that's going to overwhelmingly improve our lives. So the PR that they're putting out there in regard to this, you know, Neurlink project is that, no, no, this is all about helping people who have suffered from traumatic brain injuries. So let's say you've suffered, from a traumatic brain injury, and as a result, you have lost memory or you've lost

your ability to move certain limbs, that kind of stuff. This chip would help to mitigate that. But to be honest with you, after seeing so many of the failures from Elon Musk's various ventures, including, you know, the one that really got a lot of attention was when he's like, look at this glass, you can't break this glass, it's unbreakable. He said that on a stage and then proceeded to break the glass. I'm not interested in having Elon Musk not only develop this technology, but more importantly, just like willy-nilly test it on animals like this, especially knowing how many of these monkeys

either died or were euthanized in like the most cruel and inhumane ways. And by the way, how do we know about all of this? I wanted to give credit to the organization that's putting these allegations out there. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, this is an animal rights group, says it obtained records showing the monkeys experienced extreme suffering as a result of inadequate animal care and the highly invasive experimental head implants during the experiments. So Anna, that's a great point. And Musk has done this many times. And in reading this story, I had kind of a premonition. Like, there's some chance that Elon Musk is going to accidentally kill himself doing one of his own experiments. He's not going to test on himself. Well, maybe, maybe not. But that dude is touched. Okay, and so, so let me explain a little further.

So a lot of these, his experiments are failed and the event, by the way, some obviously have had some spectacular success in the long run. So it's a mixed bag, don't, it's not binary, don't, we don't live in a black and white world. And a lot of those SpaceX ships, you know, blew up for a long, long time before they got it right. And so, and again, that's part of how you get there, I get it, right? But then some of it, it just seems like weirdo scams.

Like in Vegas, he promised kind of a quasi hyperloop. And then he just built an underground tunnel, which is potentially a death trap because people can't get out of it. And it's just as slow as the regular traffic about, it's not a hyperloop at all. It's like, and he does the thing with like, this glass can't break, his antiport. And then he hits it and it broke. And he's like, awkward. Okay.

And so if you thought the experiment. experiments where they implant this and the monkey's heads were bad, wait till they go to human trials. Yeah, and by the way. That's super dangerous. They've hinted that they want to go to human trials. And look, I don't take what Elon Musk says at face value, same with any other billionaire, right? What's really going on?

There are allegations that this is really about Elon Musk trying to get an upper hand in the development of AI, artificial intelligence. I think that probably has a lot more to do with it. Just think about all of the cute little stories that Silicon Valley CEOs have sold us over the years. Oh my God, this is going to democratize everything. That's going to democratize everything. Crypto is the new frontier. All of this stuff that's supposed to allegedly improve our lives.

But behind the scenes, the motive is all about self enrichment. It's about gathering data. That's a huge part of everything Silicon Valley does. So just obviously, don't take what they say at face value. When they talk about, oh, this brain chip is going to be so great, it's going to help cure Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Sure, okay. And if there is an experiment or any type of development like this, I would rather have it be done by individuals who do not have a profit motive in developing the technology. All right, one more thing.

It does remind you of don't look up a little bit because so the vaccines were tested and retested by thousands of doctors and scientists all across the world with different financial motives and no reason for them to all lie together in unison. And when you put them all together, millions of doctors and scientists. This is just one guy pushing forward an idea that would further enrich him. So you don't believe millions of doctors all across the world that have completely different contexts and situations. But you believe one guy who's a billionaire and who wants to make more money off of you. So that makes no sense at all. So again, we don't live in the non-binary world. So if you could find and the FDA approves, et cetera, of a situation where this chip could help someone with brain trauma, okay, we're willing to have that conversation.

But guys, I didn't tell you the second half. I mean, I don't know that it could do this, but if it could record your mind, the thoughts in your mind and transfer it onto a computer, could it then transfer ideas from a computer into your mind? Okay, maybe, yeah, that's a possibility. But also, everything gets hacked, right? Yes. So if this gets developed by Elon Musk, you think he's going to take the necessary precautions

to protect your privacy? In your brain? Come on, guys. You don't think he's going to use that data to his advantage or sell that data to a third party? Come on, it's a private company. It's, anyway, it's a disastrous idea. It starts off with insane animal cruelty,

and that's what's getting the headlines for good reason. But I think the overall project here is something that we should be suspicious of. Yeah, one small last thing. I think part of his motivation is a lot of these rich folks just keep dreaming about how to keep themselves alive. They're obsessed with it, right? And I get it, they have all the money in the world, so the only thing they're missing is time, right? Because we all have a shelf life. So part of what they're trying to do is transfer their thoughts onto an artificial being

so that they could stay alive. So that's part of the reason why he's pushing so hard on this. But the dude cuts a lot of corners, and I wouldn't want those corners to be inside your brain. Musk has said humans are already cyborgs because of access to smartphones and computers. Neurrelink, he says, will close that gap and prep us for the future. No thanks. Yeah, no, my phone is not the same thing as putting a chip in my brain. And the guy's out of a science fiction horror movie, wake up America. Yeah.

All right. This next story is fun, mostly because this person is no longer a threat. He has stepped down. But nonetheless, let's talk about it. An Ohio mayor resigned earlier over the fact that he had made some pretty insane remarks about ice fishing during a council meeting. So he makes a slippery slope argument, which is already pretty weak argument to make. But this is a slippery slope argument on steroids. Without further ado, let's go to the mayor of the former mayor now of Hudson, Ohio and what he had to say about. restricting ice fishing.

Additionally, if you open this up to ice fishing while on the surface it sounds good, then what happens next year? Does someone come back and say, I want an ice shanty on Hudson Springs Park for X amount of time? And if you then allow ice fishing with shanties, then that leads to another problem. prostitution and now you got the police chief and the police department involved just data points to consider

okay so I'm not in favor of shanties I had one more thing okay so that was now former Mayo Mayor Mayo that was now former

mayor of Hudson, Ohio, and his name is Craig Schubert. And I do want to watch the video again, but a different version that zooms in on the gentleman next to him, because as he's making the argument, that that man is feeling what we're all feeling. Let's watch. Additionally, if you open this up to ice fishing while on the surface it sounds good, then what happens next year? Does someone come back and say, I want an ice shanty on his Springs Park for X amount of time. And if you then allow ice fishing with shanties, then that leads to another problem. Prostitution. And now you got the police chief and the police department involved.

Just data points to consider. That was awesome. My favorite part was when he, okay, so that gentleman next to him, Like, no, this is a bad argument. But at some point, the now former mayor looks at him for like validation. He's like, stop it, get off of it, get off. You could see it in his face. Like stop talking. Yeah.

This is ridiculous. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, if you watch all the way to the end of the clip, when the other guy makes a joke about why he's been opposed to shanties all along, this guy then pats the mayor on the back like, it's going to be okay. So he doesn't hate the guy at all, right? He's not necessarily opposed to him. He's trying to help him out.

Right, I don't know they're politics, but he's, but he's just like the whole time you can see his facial expression is, please stop talking, please stop talking, this is madness, there he is, you see that like, oh brother, oh brother, what have you done? Disaster, I mean, it's the weirdest slippery slope argument I've ever heard, especially in a political setting, and he later tried to clarify his statements, but he didn't have to, he didn't have to go there. Right? So the community is concerned about ice fishing in a certain area because it's a safety risk and they're worried about the town having to deal with the liability of that. Just explain that. We can't have people getting injured or dying around here, okay? We don't want to pay for that. We don't want people to get hurt. Move on. Why do you have to go to prostitute? It's like weird fear mongering out of nowhere. No, no. Some right-wingers are obsessed with sex and they will bring everything back to sex, including this guy, by the way, given his history, will come back to that in its next. Yeah, it's coital recall all day, every day. Totally. So, but I didn't even know there were ice shanties. I didn't know if that was a thing.

Yeah, yeah. What are we in Frozen Three? No, come on. You got to get with it, Jank. Okay, as someone who is familiar with ice fishing myself, sometimes you want to set up a shanty in order to, you know, find shelter as you're on an ice fishing trip, duh. Okay, I hear you.

I hear you. By the way, I know nothing about that. I read about it. No, no, I'm with you. And one tent, you can call it a shanty by a shanty by a, Okay, that's what you do for ice fishing. No problem, although it has his own set of issues, right? But he seemed to be imagining a shanty town, right?

Yeah, yeah. Like, and then obviously if you have an ice shanty town, then prostitutes will show up on the ice. Will they? Will they? Is that obvious? Who are these legendary ice prostitutes? No, it's, so let me give you his clarification on the statement. And by the way, the amazing thing about this story, I guess they don't play in Hudson and

Ohio, right? They take their ice fishing seriously and they don't mess around with any foolish arguments because he stepped down after this. He stepped down. But before stepping down, he released a statement trying to clarify what he was saying. He said, my comment about ice fishing, the permitting of shanties on lakes and prostitution stems from my experience as a former television news reprim, I'm sure it does, covering law enforcement agencies, which have made arrest for acts of prostitution and ice fishing shanties. When discussing proposed legislation, it is wise to discuss the potential for unintended consequences. My statement was to enlighten counsel that the future permitting of ice shanties may lead to other issues. But wait a minute,

if the prostitute's going to show up in the middle of an ice shanty, Clinton, wouldn't they also show up anywhere else? Is it like, oh no, I can't go to the local corner or to or online? The only place I can sell my wares is in ice shant. No, I love that argument. I love the argument. No, everyone, we need to implement vaccine mandates because if we don't, it could lead to prostitution. There you go. Okay, I mean, look, it does start with drilling holes, but I don't know if that's where his mind went.

No, but his mind is constantly there, right? Yeah, yeah, he's in an official government setting. And he's thinking about, he's got prostitution on his mind. It's insane. Yeah, so tell us about his fore. Tell us about his former comments because it gives you a sense of how this guy is constantly going towards, in the words of Charlie Kirk, sexual anarchy. Sexual anarchy. So in the past, he had fearmongered about high school seniors reading a book that talks about human anatomy and thus has, he thought that it was like an obscene book, right?

So I want to go to that. He said this, it has come to my attention that your educators are distributing a sense. what is child pornography. No, Jesus. It was not child pornography, okay? It was literally a book that talked about human anatomy. I've spoken to a judge this evening. She's already confirmed that. That wasn't true.

So I'm going to give you a simple choice. You either choose to resign from this Board of Education or you will be charged. Well, no board member was charged. No board member resigned over child porn because that child porn didn't actually exist. Summit County prosecutor Sherry Walsh said that Schubert didn't understand child pornography laws and that he wants to create a public battle over censorship.

She also called his actions reckless and said they lead to threats to the school board members, making some too frightened to leave their homes. Like, it is amazing to me that he didn't resign after making those insane comments. Because that's now become normal in the Republican Party. It is, yeah. Yeah, because, so look, I looked at the examples, and it's a textbook that has, a lot of different exercises and some of them are a little racy and weirdly so if you ask me but it's not the end of the world but the but in this district they weren't teaching any of

those so he went and found in a problem that doesn't exist yeah the book by the way wasn't assigned to the to the seniors yeah so it's it's it's like a sexual problem you know solution in search of a problem yeah right he's like okay look you gotta watch out for the ICE prostitutes and the child porn in the books that aren't being taught. Yeah. And so why? Why are you always constantly making them? Because it's in his mind.

And that's why, as we'll talk about later in the show, Charlie Kirk sees Snoop Dogg and Dr. Drain, it's like, sexual anarchy. What are we doing? Right? And so, because they're obsessed with it. And that's why they're always trying to like say, oh, don't do that. You're not allowed to do this. You're not allowed to do it in that position.

We don't want you to do it. You know the Republicans fairly recently. It's a guy that worked in the Trump administration. We're still trying to ban sodomy that's anal and oral sex for every American. I mean, they're right up in your bedroom, okay, and in your privacy. And they're constantly thinking about sex as they pretend that they're the ones trying to protect you from the evils of sex. You know, it's interesting because I just remembered when I was in high school, one of the programs that my high school had was instead of like an elective on campus, you had the option of either interning somewhere or they would drive you to the local community

college so you could take classes there. And when I was in high school, I took a human sexuality class at Los Angeles Valley College. And like we literally, I remember, watched porn in like one of the classes. And like, look at how I turned out. I have the most boring life. I'm married. Like, you know, everything's okay, guys, all right? It's not going to be the end of the world if a high schooler learns about sex. I guarantee you they've already learned about it. It's better to learn in like a more educational environment if you ask me. Yeah, no, it was college for me too, but you happen to be in high school taking a college class, but I took human sexuality. You know the topic was, sexuality, okay? Which we have

as human beings. Everything's gonna be all right. You need to just stop freaking out, okay? In other words, let it go, let it go. Oh my God, all right, well we gotta take a break. When we come back for the second hour, we're gonna dunk on Lindsey Graham because how could we not? He keeps making a fool out of himself. And we will be talking about Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens. Their reactions to the Super Bowl and more. Don't miss it. Sexual Anarchy. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.