The Young Turks - Incareration Nation

Episode Date: September 20, 2022

Hurricane Fiona is ravaging Puerto Rico and has caused an island-wide blackout. The Young Turks interview Olayemi Olurin on prison abolition. Starbucks is being greedy again and withholding more benefits from its workers. President Biden is in hot water because he told 60 Minutes “The pandemic is over.” Host: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. On July 18th, get excited. This is big! For the summer's biggest adventure. I think I just smurf my pants. That's a little too excited.

Sorry. Smurfs. Only dinner's July 18th. All right on the young Turks, Jake Uyghur, Anna Kusperin with you guys, We're ready to have rock and roll, have some fun. All right, you know, usual disaster stories, fun stories, ridiculous stories, Republicans admitting, but I'm dumb. So what do you want for me? I'm actually super excited for the show today. It's a good mix of the substance, okay? I'm talking about super vegetables. You're eating super foods on the show today in the first hour. We're

going to have an excellent interview with a prison abolitionist, someone who I actually deeply respect and I think would be a great person to share her point of view and the point of view of prison abolitionists on the show. So we'll be doing that in the first hour. Second hour though, dessert. We're gonna we're gonna eat dessert. That's what we're gonna do. Chocolate cake, whatever your vice is. Okay, you like ice cream. We'll give you ice cream. It's gonna be a good time. Okay, Cremberle second hour. But for now, um, who's literally disastrous news. Yeah. Pulito Cirino says he was sleeping when the winds tore the roof off his house.

The storm dumping torrential rain across much of the island. Watch as raging floodwaters sweep away this bridge, reportedly newly constructed after Hurricane Maria. You just watched the devastating damage done by Hurricane Fiona, which of course has now come to Puerto Rico, So less than five years after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, the entire island, as we speak, is without power. About 1.4 million customers to their power utility have no power whatsoever. And it's likely going to take a few weeks, if not a few, I'm sorry, a few days, if not a few weeks to get that power back. Now, Fiona has led to catastrophic flooding. And the fact was, undeniable as the governor of the U.S. territory experienced everything firsthand.

I want to go to this next video to give you some more visuals of just how bad the situation is on the ground in Puerto Rico. So as he was giving that press conference, you could tell that the power went out and the power remains to be unavailable to the entirety of the island. Just to give you some more details on what's happening on the ground, Luma, the private consortium contracted by Puerto Rico to manage its electrical transmission and distribution system, said the deteriorating weather and strong winds were extremely dangerous and impeding our ability to evaluate the entire situation. Luma said it could take several days to restore power.

And I want to just take a moment to remember that we heard similar stories after the power went out following Hurricane Maria, but much of the island went without power for far longer than a couple of days or a few days. So it's important to be realistic about the situation. The governor of California and New Jersey have committed to sending help to Puerto Rico as as soon as it's safe to do so. There are currently some evacuation and rescue missions taking place to rescue anyone who might be stranded as a result of the floods. Some parts of the island were just battered by high winds as fast as 100 miles per hour.

Some parts of Puerto Rico experienced more than two feet of rainfall in a short period of time. So as you can imagine, the infrastructure wasn't prepared for it. homes were absolutely destroyed, it's just complete devastation. And clearly this, this island, U.S. territory desperately needs America's help, right? The U.S. government's help. And I think the one thing that's different today versus what happened following Hurricane Maria is we don't have Donald Trump, who seemed to have a weird antagonistic relationship with Puerto Rico and its government officials. It seems like President Joe Biden is taking this far more seriously than Trump did. And he's not using this tragedy as a way to retaliate against Puerto Rico. So that gives

me a little bit of hope. But to be frank, it is just absolute devastation on the ground there. Yeah. So look, this is a category one. So believe it or not, it could be worse. And it has been worse. It was in 2017. Unfortunately, probably will be worse again. But as I saw the the significant flooding in Puerto Rico and, and, you know, the damage done again. And I mean, like, just guys, imagine it for a second, all of the power is out on the entire island. You know, on the mainland, we're not as used to that. And that's a hell of a thing, right? And so that's pretty dire straits.

But I kept thinking about, man, not just Puerto Rico, because of climate change, some significant islands will be wiped out. And this stuff's getting very, very real, and soon the flooding will wash away some massive islands and countries in this world. And you know, look, I'll tell you one more depressing thing, Anna, unless it happens directly to America. And I think for a lot of Americans, unfortunately, Puerto Rico doesn't count. I think it counts, but I know how right-wingers think, certainly. And unless it happens to America, we don't really care. I mean, a third of Pakistan was underwater, no one in America cared, the media didn't care. So this is the Puerto Rico, this is, you know, obviously a territory, it's covered a little

bit more, but not anywhere near would it would be covered if it happened in Texas or Florida. So, well, it's going to keep happening. Let me not only double down on what you're saying, but come from an even more pessimistic perspective, because I don't know why you're under the assumption that these tragedies in the U.S. mainland would somehow be taken more seriously than what we're seeing in Puerto Rico. I mean, the fact of the matter is, yes, there's more of an effort to provide emergency relief to whichever state is experiencing an extreme weather event or some sort of natural disaster. But where I would look to to see if the country is really taking the situation seriously is to see if we're

actually doing something to mitigate the damage we're doing to the environment, which clearly exacerbates these natural disasters, right? And so there's been some efforts by the Biden administration. You know, he passed his so-called inflation reduction act, which I think is just poorly named. But nonetheless, it deals with climate change to some extent, but understand that the bar has been so incredibly low because the United States government hasn't really done much prior to that in terms of responding to the climate emergency. But I should also note that Biden immediately approved the Puerto Rico's emergency declaration to free up federal resources. And that's what I was referring to earlier, Jank, that with Trump, he really used

Hurricane Maria as a political opportunity for himself to make what he thought was some sort of great political point about mismanagement in Puerto Rico. At the end of the day, you want to have a discussion about potential corruption in Puerto Rico or mismanagement in Puerto Rico, fine, I guess. But immediately after a disaster like Hurricane Maria, not just going with what you can do to help the U.S. territory, I think speaks volumes of who Trump was. Remember, that's where he gave that incredibly embarrassing speech, where he's throwing rolls of tissue paper and stuff, or paper towel, I should say, at people who are begging for help. He was talking about Hurricane Maria in an incredibly sophomoric way, referring to it as an island

surrounded by water, big water. I mean, it was just embarrassing. And it seems like at least now you have Joe Biden taking the matter far more seriously than what we saw during the Trump administration. Yeah, that's true. And let me be perfectly accurate about that quote. Puerto Rico's an island surrounded by water, big water, ocean water. And the magnet crowd was like, oh my god, how did he know? Okay, so that's, by the way, that's literal, that's what he said. Okay, now look, one last thing, but sometimes if it's related to the disaster, there is a time to talk about maybe even things right or wrong,

and not to just blame people based on racial failure done, right? case, we now have a private energy company in charge of the energy, the electric utilities in Puerto Rico. And I immediately thought, uh-oh. And the governor said, well, you know, they're on probation now that we've lost power to the entire island. So if they privatized electricity, there's no way it's going to work. Because for those of you are unfamiliar with that and you've just grown up with corporate media propaganda here, but oh, private industry better, right? No, private industry takes the profits, but doesn't want the costs. So they build flimsy stuff that breaks as soon as there's trouble. And then they go, well, I don't know you pay

for it because they know the government's going to pay for it every time. So here we go again. I actually want to go to the last graphic real quick, Jen, because I'm curious what you think about this. So the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, which is a state run utility provider, was awarded, $9.4 billion for projects to, quote, transform the island's electrical system. According to FEMA back in 2021, this year FEMA announced 15 new projects totally more than $107 million in funds dedicated to making Puerto Rico's power grid more reliable. Now, if this is literally a category one hurricane, which I'm questioning, okay, because if you read the interviews of people living in Puerto Rico, what they've, experienced with this hurricane, they do compare it to what they experienced with Maria. And they argue that this is actually worse, because with Maria, they dealt with high winds.

With Hurricane Fiona, they dealt with extremely high winds in addition to extremely heavy rainfall. And so the question about mismanagement, I think is okay. I think that's a legitimate question, especially when you're talking about tens of billions of dollars allocated to make their electric grid, a little more robust, a little more stable, was that money mismanaged or spent inappropriately? I have no problem with some sort of audit looking into that, especially if this is actually a category one hurricane. Yeah, no, no, I don't want people to get the wrong impression. That has not really started yet. So that's a massive project that's going to take a long time to put into place. That is not what's currently in place. What's currently in place

is the private energy company. And in fact, here I'll quote one of the journalists at that press conference that you showed where the lights went out. The governor has already said that Luma Energy, the private company in charge of transmission and distribution of electricity on the island is on probation with him. And so it was Luna that created a, well, at least a second disaster here, which is the electricity going out for the entire island. the public project to rebuild their infrastructure so this doesn't happen again, I think it's actually a wonderful thing. Okay, well, one final thing I'll all say in terms of commenting on this. You know, after Hurricane Maria, you had just a perfect case, a perfect example of disaster capitalism, right? where you have moneyed interests pouring into Puerto Rico and taking advantage of property on the cheap.

And considering now, the entire island is without power, I would really love to hear from those moneyed interests who never miss an opportunity to pour money into a devastated region of the world if they think that it's a good investment for themselves. So I'm curious about that. I'm definitely going to look for stories related to that. And Jank, do you have any final thoughts? Yeah, one last thing. I mean, look, connected dots, right? So in Texas, we had the freezing weather, boom, private utilities fail. Why? They kept the cost low for themselves and then Texas taxpayers had to pay for. In California, PG&E would not bury their telephone lines because it costs too much. And it created nonstop fires. Here we go again, Luma Energy in Puerto Rico. It's down. They never ever built something decent because they know we're going to pay the bill. And they're going to keep all the profits. So doing these private public partnerships on utilities is a demonstrably bad idea. Everyone knows it's a bad idea. But the politician continue to do it. And the media almost never calls them out on it. And that's because the media is corporate media. And their job is to hide scams like this and to do corporate propaganda. So that's part and parcel of it. And that's why you're seeing the misleading news that you do. I want to move on to labor related news because Starbucks is still very much engaged in some pretty severe union busting. They've been called out by the National Labor Relations Board.

And I want to give you the latest on what's transpiring. So let's talk about it. Management over at Starbucks continues to retaliate against workers who have voted in favor of unionizing. Now, 230 plus stores have voted to unionize. I'm sure Starbucks isn't so happy about that. And their actions certainly prove it. Now, not only have they tried firing organizers who were working at Starbucks as a way of retaliating against them, they've also denied unionized stores. certain benefits. And that's what I want to talk to you about today. What are the benefits that they're denying these unionized workers and what's their excuse for doing it? So one of those benefits actually had to do with paid time off if you happen to test positive for COVID.

Now, they had a far better policy in place, but they're now wrapping that policy up. They're replacing it with a different benefit. But it's important to keep in mind, all the workers get screwed in this regard, but the union heist workers get screwed even harder. So according to more perfect union, which has been doing a great job reporting on this story, temporary, they sent a memo to their workers saying temporary self-isolation pay, vaccine pay, and side effects pay will conclude for all stores with the close of fiscal year on October 2nd. The company wrote in this memo to its store managers. With this change, partners may use a available sick and vacation pay if they are required to isolate and will continue to follow

COVID-19 self-isolation guidance as well as the existing illness policy. Now the important thing to keep in mind is that the current guidance does indicate that individuals who test positive for COVID should absolutely self-isolate for at least five days. And so whether you want to or not, it's what you're supposed to do. So the idea that workers have to use up their paid vacation time to do so, which by the way, they have to work to earn, I think is terrible. But it gets worse. Currently, the company offers two rounds of isolation pay per quarter to store workers that test positive for COVID-19 or are exposed to someone that tested positive. Each round lasts five days after which workers must

use their paid time off. Okay. So that's what their current policy is. They're scrapping that now. Starbucks also provides two hours of paid time off to receive COVID vaccinations and boosters as well as four paid hours to cover side effects from the vaccinations. Now though, the workers will still have to self-isolate for five days, but will not be expressly paid for doing so. Meaning if they have any paid time off that they've accumulated through working, then they'd have to use that in order to get paid while they're recuperating from COVID. Now, that's obviously bad enough. But now let's go to what's going on with the unionized

stores. These new policies will completely exclude the unionized stores, right? So part of what they're doing is they're speeding up the process in which workers can accumulate sick days, but that process will not apply to the unionized stores. And the argument that they're making is, well, I mean, we're just, this is what federal law entails. They say, quote, at stores where workers have union representation, federal law requires good faith collective bargaining over wages, benefits, and working conditions, which prohibits Starbucks for making or announcing unilateral changes, including with respect to sick time accrual. Now, the argument here is, well, if we provide these new benefits to these unionized workers,

then it's going to send a message that we're trying to dissuade them from being part of the union because we're taking care of them so well, which I'm not buying that argument, especially since the National Labor Relations Board has already weighed in on this and has even reprimanded them for denying certain benefits to these unionized workers. They say that they're actually breaking union, I'm sorry, labor laws. But Starbucks disagrees with that. So look, I know what they're doing. It's so clear. It's clear in the number of organizing workers they fired. It's clear in how they're going about this. It's clear in how they brought back an old CEO to come in and engage in union busting in the interim. So these are all things to keep in mind. But it seems as though the

workers, Jenk, are super undeterred and they're moving forward with their efforts to organize the workplace. Yeah. And so, and that's a great movement overall. So there's a, as But there's two different issues here. I'm a little bit more mixed on the union issue on this one, because Starbucks can also say, well, look, you guys want to negotiate a contract. So why are we giving you something ahead of time? Let's negotiate a contract. Now, has Starbucks been that open to negotiating contracts? No, they've been delaying it and delaying it. So don't get me wrong. There's significant hypocrisy there. And so, but I think the larger issue is the first one. in this story, where they're ending the COVID policies. So that actually gave you a decent amount of time off, but not for time off, but if you got sick, right? And so now they're back to the draconian policies of if you get sick, that's your goddamn problem. And it's going to be unpaid time off. So good love with that.

And so you might have seen, and we're going to cover later in the show, that Biden came out with an interesting statement in the 60 minutes that everywhere. where he said basically the pandemic is over. Well, don't think that that came out of nowhere. So it partly has to do with politics and before the midterm elections. Like I said, we'll talk about it more later and we should check out all the clips on our channel. But it also partly has to do with business interests,

putting pressure on them. They want to take away all these COVID policies and make it again the miserable workplace that everybody has where they can barely take any time off and buy, It's helping me to come to that. Well, and one other thing, Jank, I mean, think about how short-sighted this new COVID policy is. Because if you've worked really hard to accumulate paid time off, are you going to want to use up that paid time off while you're sick with COVID?

No, I think it's going to discourage workers from taking that time off to recuperate. They're probably going to show up to work and we don't want that. We want to discourage people from doing that because of course, this is still an incredibly contagious virus. And while, you know, the likelihood of you getting hospitalized or extremely sick, if you're vaccinated is low, there are still people who might have other, you know, immune issues, immunity issues. And I'm concerned about that as well. But look, as we know, corporations want their workers back to the minds. And they certainly do not want to provide additional pay time off. Yeah. And the last thing on that is that they want to redistribute costs. And under corporate rule, that's what they do systematically. So since they own own, all the politicians, they get to pass laws like this, in conjunction with the politicians, as Biden says is Starbucks changes policies. So what is the net result of that? In every instance, the corporations dump their costs on us, whether it's oil companies that go, hey, you pay the

cost of climate change. Or in this case, hey, I'm not paying for their time off. If the government wants to provide Medicaid to them, that's their business. If you guys need to, you know, take time off because you're sick, I want the employee to pay for it, not Starbucks to pay for it, right? And if they come in sick because they have to, and they sneeze all over your coffee and you get sick, good, you bear the cost of that, not the company. All they're doing is constantly redistributing its costs. It's not specific to Starbucks. It's what corporations in America do on a regular basis because we don't really have a functioning democracy and our government lets them. Absolutely. Well, we're gonna take a quick break, but when we

come back, a fantastic conversation about the prison abolitionist movement. What does it mean? What is the goal? How do they get there? We're going to have a great conversation about that coming up. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. All right, welcome the Young Turks, back on the Young Turks. Okay, yeah, we're having some tech issues, as usual. So, but we got a great discussion for you guys, so let me just pitch it to hand. All right. Well, we're about to have a conversation that I've been really looking forward to.

The prison abolitionist movement is definitely gaining a little bit of steam. The debates and conversations surrounding it have been kind of front and center on social media. And I think it's really important to understand what the abolitionist movement is, what they want to do in terms of criminal justice reform. And joining us today is someone I deeply respect, a wonderful woman by the name of Ole Emi, Aluren, who is a public defender for the Legal Aid Society in New York, and also a political commentator. Oleg, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you all for having me. I'm excited. Let me just start off by saying thank you so much. I know I thanked you on social media, but I want to thank you. now that I get to talk to you because this has been something that, to be fair, I think the

way that I communicate and frame things was not friendly to people who identify as abolitionists. And so I think it's easy to immediately attack and dog pile, but you were the one person who didn't do that and you actually provided some information, some answers to our questions. That was so helpful. So I thought it would be better to have a more elaborate conversation about it on the show. And so let's start off by kind of understanding what is the prison abolition movement? What would that ideally look like? All right. So first of all, thank you all for having me. I didn't dog file. I did not attack because I understand that it sounds wild. It sounds wild to anybody the first time you hear it. Even as somebody when it was first presented to me that abolition

was even a concept, I was in the middle of writing a thesis about how the criminal system is racist and unjust and even I was like abolished all the prisons. That seems absurd. And my professor, my professor presented me with reading materials. And it was a process. I can't tell you what day I woke up and decided it. But I recognize that, listen, we all are raised in a society that tells us prisons are fundamental. One of the first things we learn, you know, cops, robbers, police are good. We need to know 911. We think of that that way. So we see the criminal justice system like water, oxygen, air, and these kinds of things. And so I expect people to have pushback. I expect it to sound absurd because my mother tells me it's absurd.

every other day. So I do get it. So I wasn't upset. But what it really is is it's a vision of tomorrow. Three people here and you know, abolish prisons now and they think we mean open up all the prisons, close all the courts and it's done tomorrow. We recognize realistically it does not work. But what we're saying is, listen, we currently have a massive prison industrial complex. This is a country that once went from what, 200,000 people maybe nationwide being in prisons and out two million people. More prisons against more prisons. They make more the more we incarcerate, the more they continue to incarcerate and police these same kinds of communities. But yet, every day we say crime is getting worse. We don't feel any safer. We have the same exact

hysteria, despite constantly giving more money to police, constantly putting more money into the criminal system. So what we're saying is instead of the resources that we've placed in building this large prison industrial complex, let's instead rest the root causes of crimes. Because I know people tend to think an abolitionist is an anarchist, you know, the purge, we want danger. That's not what it is. What we're saying is the same communities that are being criminalized, the same communities that you're calling the criminal defendants. Those are the victims too, right? It's the same communities being over-police or the same police communities being over-incarcerated. So they're also under-resourced. As a public defender, I could say the vast majority of the

people in the criminal system live well beneath the poverty line. And when I say well beneath the poverty line, I myself identified the poor and I would not be able to afford my own services. I mean, completely destitute. And so if the majority of the people in the system are this, they're under-resourced in that way. And the issue, and the issues that we're having are coming out of those communities and not having the resources for mental health. You know, there are more people in America. There are more people suffering for mental health issues in prisons and there are in mental health hospitals. But we have that. We're saying, okay, let's start taking that money away from the police. We have over inflated

budgets. We have large police forces so much that one would argue that this is a police state. If by over time, over time we start taking this money away and instead putting it into the community infrastructure, we will eventually have a society that doesn't rely on mass incarceration. So it's a step-by-step process like that. So Oleg, I think there's a couple of different issues here, right? So the politics and the policy, right? And there's a bunch of things we obviously agree on. So for example, would I abolish some type of prison? So obviously I want to get rid of private prisons tomorrow. It make no sense. It's all the wrong incentives.

We're basically paying people to take away people's freedom. So they're going to do that at a larger and larger rate to profit off of it. So there's plenty of circumstances where some form of abolition makes sense. And I think that at the end of the day, we'll probably agree on a great majority of things. But help me understand what the long-term vision is. So you explain how we're going to get there. But one of the issues I have with the abolition movement is people are reluctant to say what the final product is. So is there no prisons at all? Or is it a prison under a different name or reduced prison? So let's get clarity on that.

I think, let me just say, I am not the full architect of what are the visions for every place, right? But I think we do want to get to a place where you say, all right, warehousing people, warehousing people isn't addressing the issues. I recognize, while I do believe that we have a country in a society that sensationalizes crime, what people think people are in the prison system for, what people are being charged and incarcerated for, is not what it is. I've represented over a thousand people and I have yet to. to meet this big, bad, evil person as someone who I couldn't see, I couldn't see exactly how they ended up here and what different institutions have failed them.

That being said, obviously we need community involvement with communities think they need. That's the first thing on how we address these different issues. And oftentimes we do have that. When it comes to, I know we're thinking of the serial killers, the type of these kinds of, you know, who will pick up very few, very few of anything you ever see. I've never seen them. I think I can't say whether or not it's going to be they abolish all the prisons or what that's going to look like the day that comes to abolish the implementation, what system we're going to come from. But I do think we are, we do have to start looking to different countries that don't have the prison industrial complex we have, whose prisons don't look like what we have these kinds of side effects and seeing how they address these issues and what we could have, what kind of infrastructure we could have in place.

But I do think as far as it currently is, the mental health problems are exacerbated. We still have those people. We're still as a country, we're paying for all of the big, bad. evil people that we're putting and we quote unquote put on business. We're paying for all of that. We're not exactly solving the problems and all of the issues that are still recycling. So I can't say specifically what the structure would look like. I think that's going to require the communities themselves to decide, you know what, how do we address? We best address the problems. What do we think we have there and what we would have happened to these people? So I can't definitively

answer you, Chink there, but I do understand that concern. And I think a lot of that does come to maybe some misconceptions we have about crime and who's in the system and who's the majority of the people there and for what yeah look I I totally agree that you know I think poverty is a pretty good indicator of whether someone has committed a crime you know like you can tie it to those root causes so I totally understand that in fact you know one of the things that LA actually did right but it was kind of destroyed by COVID was you know Los Angeles had a pretty big problem with gang violence right we're seeing it become more

of a problem again because the programs, like the diversion programs that were implemented that were so successful were no longer available during COVID because people were, you know, they had to isolate themselves in order to prevent the spread of COVID. And so I think that there are certainly programs that that can address those root causes in a meaningful way. But I think, I feel like sometimes when it comes to this debate, we're kind of talking past each other because of the terminology, right? So what I like to think about is, when I think about the ideal, I wouldn't say ideal, I'm sure it has its own flaws, but when I look at models in other

countries that seem to have worked, I look to Norway, which I will say when I first heard about Norway and the way they do things with their criminal justice system, I found it, this is like years and years ago, I thought it was super questionable, like Anders Breivik getting sentenced to 21 years, and he has like a night. situation with like a PlayStation that isn't updated enough for him. He wants the latest model, but you look at their recidivism rates and the recidivism rates are so low compared to the United States because we don't rehabilitate. So would you say that a model like one that's being implemented in Norway is a good goal to work

toward or does the abolitionist movement want to go further than that? Let me, so I think a fundamental component to why people argue abolitionists, abolition, it's not because it's not an unwillingness to embrace reform. It's not this inherent issue with reform. It's recognizing that the criminal system in the U.S. is not a mistake. You know, the actors and the powers that be wanted to operate the way it does, people are always willing to advocate for reform. As an abolitionist, I'm constantly, listen, I have to spend my days fighting bail reform, fighting for bail reform and fighting to defend it even once we get it. Oftentimes, what happens is even the modest, the most modest of reforms that are suggested even make it,

you see the exact actors that be, you see the lawmakers, you see the police unions, you see them fight you tooth and nail, because they don't want the system to change from what it is. So it's not that an abolitionist has a problem with reform, and they don't think models like that work in places. The difference is those countries have a very different focus. Maybe in some places where you see they have a rehabilitative criminal system, it's not an accident. You know, it's not an accident that we have the criminal system we have and they have that. It's because their intentions are different. What they use the system to do are different. Here in America, we have a, The prison industrial complex is just, to be frank, it is nothing more but, you know, illegally sanctioned slavery. That's what it is. We have massively incarcerated in police particular communities. We use them for prison labor, regardless, private or public prisons. People are used for prison labor. We take the poorest of the communities and we put them there and we charge them with major fines on top of, on top of the time that they've spent, the psychological impacts of that on them and their families, the long, their long lasting effects of criminalization and having a criminal record. And that does that because it's

keeps particular communities and people subjugated. So it's not that I don't believe in a different world where we had a Nordic model, we could help the people incarcerated. What I'm saying is the criminal system we have is not designed to help those people at all. In fact, even talking about it from the perspective of the people, all of the people in the system being the problem, they all need rehabilitation. But in fact, that's not often what it is, is that they're in the position in the first place that they live in communities that aren't helped in their profile and they're targeted in a particular kind of way. I just came home on the way here and there were over 10, on the corner of Flatbush Junction, just harassing black kids playing and arresting them because they said they felt soda splash on them. And they arrested them. And that's what's happening

in black communities like where you live. So it's not that I disagree with you, Anna, that a Nordic model could be effective. It's that America doesn't have any interest in implementing such a thing because they want the system to operate as it is. So that's why people want the system abolish. Because it's saying what it fundamentally is designed to reproduce this kind of injustice. Okay. So in the meantime then, so let's say, there's enough of a fight where people are on board for the abolitionist movement, right? In the meantime, as those root causes are being addressed, what does happen to perpetrators of violent crime? And I want to be specific about the types of individuals I'm talking about, right?

Like, I do believe that we overincarcerate. I do not think that most nonviolent offenders should be in prison. And when I say most nonviolent offenders, keep in mind, I'm considering like Wall Street goons who completely devastated our economy and led to countless foreclosures, I think people like that do deserve to deal with some punishment, right? They typically don't. But just to get back to the question, so I'm a little concerned about what happens if living in California, living in Los Angeles, where we have a massive homeless population, many of whom have severe mental health issues that go untreated, undiagnosed, that is a result of the deinstitutionalization that started actually under JFK, right? Yeah. And there was widespread support for doing away with

these mental health facilities because of all of the issues they had. They were abusive. There were terrible, terrible examples of abuse. And so everyone was on board to do away with them. And the whole idea was, okay, we'll replace them with community-based mental health. But that didn't end up happening. So we ended up throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if you were. So I think about how this would play out if we applied it to prisons. And I think about people who do mass shootings on elementary school campuses. And those people need to be incapacitated. So what happens with people like that under a system? And how do you avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater? No, I think I usually don't get into a conversation that deserves.

That's not something much I think about because I think oftentimes that's what leads to carcule responses. Listen, I'm a human being like everybody else. They're going to be people and things that I see and my initial reaction is throw them under the jail. You want to feel that in your spirit. But what I want to focus on is what I think is better and what ultimately will prevent these kinds of issues from reoccurring.

And oftentimes incarceration is just simply not the answer to that. I rarely, rarely do you see somebody go in prison or in jail in this? situation becomes better. And in fact, even the few people that you see that do survive or that come out and do other things, it's usually in spite of it and some other, you know, miracle scenario. So when it comes to that, I don't, I don't like a conversation that deserves. I like a conversation of what I think will help. But as far as throwing at the baby in the bathwater, listen, like I said, this isn't, this isn't something that happens tomorrow. And in any, even with the most modest of reform efforts that you even see

to be proposed, because reform is we're walking, right? If you look at it as a long journey, we're walking from reform to hopefully this ultimate dream. They don't start off. They're not going to start off with the, what should call it, the school shooters and these people. Who are, by the way, anomalies. Those are not the people that are representative of who is mostly in the criminal system. It's just not. The most people you walk into a court, you're just going to see poor black and brown people there for like familial squads, squabbles they're having issues they're having in their relationships, you know, these regular things.

But it's not going to be that. But it's not a matter of recognizing that these people aren't bad or bad or they haven't done. something terrible or they don't deserve punishment. It's a requirement, I think we are required to interrogate how we got there. I think oftentimes, even when you see, if you even take the school shooter examples, right, or the amount of those we get recently or the amount of shooters, mass shooters, we have period. And you see they have manifestos, they have agendas, they have this. These are not people that are just jumping out the window like Batman villains.

These are people that are coming to, they are making decisions to do things based on fundamental ideologies, different things that they think and believe. And I think we have to interrogate those as a society and root that out. Because the reality is whether or not we have prisons don't have prisons, if we allow for these same things that cause it to exist, that we're going to keep getting this. We're going to get these school shooters. We're going to get these mass shooters, no matter how we deal with them. So to me, those questions require us to say, okay, let's look at these bodies of alarmist criminals we like to think of in these examples. And let's try to figure out what they have in common. Because right now, the majority of the people in the criminal system, all they have in common is poverty and, you know, being of marginalized communities. But as far as these shooters, let's let's interrogate how they got there, what's helping them get there.

usually access to guns, widespread gun manufacturing, all these kinds of things. So my answer is still, let's figure out how we prevent it from reoccurring. but it's also a discussion, right? So I want to be clear about my thoughts on it and then ask your question. Look, I think that if you say let's reform prisons in a massive way, I totally wrong people are being in prison. Totally agreed. Let's go to the root causes. Totally agree. By the way, I wish the prison abolition movement would have a much more sound plan A, B, C, D. This is exactly how we're going to get to the ideal end goal. And people constantly saying, well, I don't have all the details, partly I understand that, but partly it's incumbent

upon you if you're in that movement to come up with a workable plan. And you need, and especially as you said, Olae, in the beginning, if you're doing something that sounds as extreme as abolishing prisons, you better have an excellent plan. And so far, I haven't really heard that. But if you want me to join that pathway in that plan, I'm happy to do all of the first steps, right, reform prisons in all the ways that we've discussed in this. But I don't believe in a utopian end goal where there are no prisons. I mean, and that's, and that's fine, listen, that's fine. I want you to know that's fine. I don't need you to believe it, to believe in that or come off this phone call, this chat thinking that you're in abolitionist. Now, honestly, what really becomes a hindrance,

if we agree, if we, listen, there's going to be a whole large side of this spectrum. And I believe, I want to believe we're ultimately fighting for the same things. If we recognize that we have this prison system and it doesn't necessarily amount to public safety that we recognize that there's systemic racism and injustice is coming from it. If we could at the very least work together to accomplish to get this, it's about how we speak about what the other people are doing. You know what I mean? If you ultimately recognize you can share in this larger vision, at least you might not be leaving a utopian society, but you recognize that there's something wrong and fundamentally we want to rid ourselves of those wrongs. If you recognize the people

working on that or doing that, it's about not speaking out against them. One, too, as far as the The work you're doing the interim is about understanding your place in a movement. For me, in particular, I'm a public defender. How I go about this is, one, beyond representing people in criminal court every day and trying to get them out. I'm very involved in policy and reform movements and trying to change the system that we're currently in to work towards that. So today again, I want to op-ed on bail reform. I'm actively pushing bail reform, drawing attention to the Rikers crisis and doing these things. So I wouldn't say that the organizers on the ground, they are involved. All these different movements that you see that you have to fight for

on the day to day basis, those are very much so the steps and how we're working towards that. If you see all these community initiatives trying to get mental health in one of the states, they just recently made it so you can, you have a mental health first responder, you see different people advocating for taking police off of traffic infractions and these kinds of things. All those different movements and initiatives you see with people trying to divest from policing and instead build up community resources and you see those, that is people working towards abolition. But listen, I respectfully understand where you're coming from, Jay. So Oleg, I appreciate that, but we also have a short term problem, okay?

So like I also don't agree in a utopian society where we do not put people in prison in the short term and hope that, that hey, hopefully the system will catch up to the ideal. No, no, no, no, no, no. We're gonna, if we're gonna do it at all, we have to do it step by step and we need, I want to get to the Norwegian model, not to abolition, right? But even if you want to get to the Norwegian model, you have to go step by step, you have to have to have, the mental health treatment, et cetera, in place before, before we say, hold on, guys, let me finish. Before we say, hey, you know what, we're not going to put these folks in prison. Because, Ola, right now, what we did, I was massively in favor of bail reform. I mean, the thing I was wrong. And why? And reducing some crimes. Look, it makes a lot of sense because the current, the things that the sentences we fought for,

Are you a public defender? So you'd have an interesting perspective on this. The sentences we fought for, I think, are the better sentences, the more just sentences, the ones that are reduced. But the problem is the prosecutors are need room for plea deals. And since they don't have room for plea deals, they're bringing them all the way down to almost nothing. So then the prosecutors aren't bothering to prosecute these crimes. And the cops aren't bothering to arrest people. And Oleg saying it's not happening is, it's not productive. It's definitely. You want to say, you're telling me it's not productive, but I'm actually the person that represents people in Gordon as a like a literally living array of what the system looks like. And I can tell you that one, their arrests are happening. Two studies have already come out and show that in terms of being re-arrested for violating pretrial bail conditions, that has not changed. Whether or not crime rates check, that is, that is simply the case. But here's the thing. I just I want to I want to circle back to my original point earlier with why even the modest reform efforts to get us towards people. People criticize abolition when people say the system is not broken, it is intended. We're going to keep recycling these exact same effects. And I say the problem is not that people would not get on board with reform. Abolitionists is that we recognize that even the reform, even the most modest reforms, risk experience this kind of pushback and lack of support. So I want to say that one. Two, when it comes to bail reform, if we want to look at a place like New York City, right? The majority, we have 10 million people in this city,

42% of which are white, yet over 90% of the people at Rikers are black or brown people. Rikers is a pretrial detention center. It was built a whole 3,000 people. It holds 5,000. We had modest bill where we had bail reform come in to make misdemeanors, only misdemeanors, not misdemeanors, not completely nonviolent crimes, traffic infractions. These things not bail eligible, because despite the fact and the sensationalism, you see from New York Post, any particular occasional cases, they highlight,

that's not what the majority of people are sitting in Rikers farm, just so sorry to tell you. And so that we get overcrowding, we get people dying. We have, we had the largest amount of deaths in 2013 last year, 16 last year, we already at 15 this year. So this continues to happen, and that happens at pretrial, pretrial detention centers all around the country. And in terms of plea deals and pressures for plea deals, most things in the criminal system don't end in the criminal conviction, right? Most things in the criminal system never see the light of a trial. What happens is they arrest poor people, they're able to place cash bail on them. And because these people, they can't buy their freedom, they

accept plea deals. They take time served. They accept criminal convictions just because they want to get out. Even though if the system actually were allowed to play out the way it's supposed to and afford them their rights, that wouldn't have happened. And then they get out. And now they have a criminal conviction that makes it worse. These were already the poorest people in society of the fact that the court recognized when they assigned them a public defender and when they gave them bail. And yet these people now have a criminal conviction that prevents them from getting any kind of job. They usually lost the job that they have. It affects their housing. There's orders of protection. And their lives have changed in fundamental ways that

no longer just impacts them, but impacts their family. And a cycle of that contributes to violence. It contributes to crime. And it doesn't help anybody get anywhere. So as far as what you're talking about with bail reform. The reality, despite the fair mongering and everything that's happened, is it hasn't changed our crime rates. People who are being released from Rikers or they're not being detained because their cases are not. It's junk, you don't have to agree. You don't have to agree with me. But the reality is I have experience with it. So wait, hold on. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but Ola is responding to me shaking my head off camera, which she can see. And I'm happy to do it on camera, right? So look, first of all, number of people have re-arrested awaiting trial is

all the way up to 33% of the detainees in New York. And so the idea that it's not happening is just not true. And you have your perspective on it, which is really valuable. And that's why we're having this discussion, Olai is telling you in her experience, that is the recidivists, etc, are a tiny minority, the overwhelming majority are poor. Chang, do you believe in a presumption of innocence? Yeah, of course I do. Do you? Yeah, I do. I do. Hold on, let me finish. But Oleg, you're invalidating the experiences of all tons of middle class and working class and poor people in this country who are saying there's a guy on the corner selling fentanyl, I'm calling the cops, they're not coming. There's a guy on the corner with a gun, he's pointing it at me as I'm walking

into my apartment. I call the cops, they're not coming. And they're not coming because they say, and by the way, I think the cops are terrible. I think they should be forced to do their jobs. And if they don't, they should be fired immediately, okay? But they say, hey, listen, the prosecutors aren't prosecuting. And the prosecutors are saying we don't have enough room for plea negotiations. You're saying that's, I don't know what you're saying. You're saying to me, you're saying that we're saying to me that we need to have a cash bail system so that prosecutors can better co-wears people. No, hold on let me just let me, let me, let me respond to this. It sounds like you live in Gotham City, Shank, but I live in New York

City where people can, you can, you can call the police and you will be, you will be very much so arrested. I don't know what you're talking about. We have massive amounts of cases. We have people being arrested 24-7. Bail reform does not affect people being able to make arrests. Like I said, felonies, violent crime, cash bail is still being set on these things. The only things cash bill is not being set on are the small amount of misdemeanors and low-level traffic infractions.

We very much, so we just not only do we have a massive, we have over 35,000 police in NYPD, but we recently hired more. We increased their $10.4 billion budget to $200 million more. So I don't know why we're talking about the police, like they are handicapped and like arrest aren't happening. Additionally, you're saying I'm invalidating the concerns of of poor people and black people. I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm a black person that lives in Brooklyn in Flatbush. And I don't know many black people that are fully in favor of the massive police state we have or the criminal system that affects us. And importantly,

as much as we talk about this, we have this alarmist discussion of crime. And the people that are experiencing the most crime, the people that live in these communities, high crime areas, these highly profiled. They're the same people that you're the same people that are the victims of crime, the same black people that are victims of crime, brown people that are victims of crime, the same people you're criminalizing and vilifying and saying, okay, we shouldn't have these systems in place so that prosecutors can barely better, better, put it course them into plea deals or get them to do these things. It just, I also think, I think you're relying on a lot of what is just ultimately copaganda. That is a thing. They put out these articles. All right, Jake, but

Okay, hold on, let me jump in, please, please, please, please, let me jump in because I'm dying too. I actually, look, I don't have a problem with bail reform. I actually think using bail as a way to determine whether someone gets to go home prior to the trial is ridiculous, right? And it's a way of kind of determining whether or not someone is a risk, right? And so the judge is trying to determine, well, this person seems risky. So what's a high amount for bail so I can prevent this person from being able to post bail and get out early? I think that whole system is messed up. So I have no problem with doing away with cash bail.

But I do think it's important for the judge to have some discretion in regard to individuals who are accused of committing violent crimes. Right? And you don't have that discretion. No, no, you're right about that. Okay, you're right about that. But I think that there is a misunderstanding. And I've been reading and researching about this because I've been trying to figure out why is it that in some parts of the country where they've done bail reform specifically for misdemeanors, you have examples of judges giving alleged violent offenders no cash bail. Like, why is that happening? And it's because they it seems like they have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the bail reform is supposed to entail. And I watched a great talk that you did in regard to Illinois and their safety measure, which, you know, they're applying this no cash bail method to nonviolent misdemeanor crimes. And you made sure to emphasize this is about misdemeanors. This is not about, you know, violent crime or violent offenders. And so it seems like you are honestly on the same page, right? I mean, I would like to see something else in place other than bail that determines. whether or not an individual should be released. And one other thing that I don't think gets talked about enough is, why is it taking so long for the trial to happen? I mean, people are behind bars for years before they even get to see the first day of their trial. It's insane. And I'll tell you why,

because the system is deliberately punitive, right? What happens is the majority of people in our criminal system just would not, if we actually were able to prosecute every single case, everybody was able to go to a trial, everybody's able to have their hearings, evidence was to be able to present it and everything. Most things simply just would be thrown out. They wouldn't be able to get criminal convictions. So what often happens is throughout the process, they make the process as laborious and punitive as possible. Let's keep adjourning it. Even though we'll, there are cases we have at arraiments. We know it's sad on the record. They will not be able to prosecute this. There's the alleged

victim is in the audience saying absolutely not. And they say, you know what, let's still going adjourn to this state. We'll work it at another time. We adjourn and we adjourn and we make this this way because what happens is the time you have a criminal case open, your life is completely, it's completely changed. And if you can't have your trial, If you're waiting in on jail, what happens is before you were trial, you've served the time, even though eventually you might, you know, they'll throw it out or they don't have the evidence or they'll the kind of prosecute or you go to trial, but you've already suffered all the consequences, all the harm has actually been implemented. So that's why.

Oleg, I wish we could spend the rest of the show talking about this. This is incredibly important. And I hope you'll come back on because we didn't even get through half the questions. I wanted to ask you. And thank you all for having me, honestly. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, no, I hear you. Ola, look, I love that you came on. I love the discussion, even when it gets heated. And I appreciate that you made as good a case for it as I've ever seen. Definitely. Yeah, having said that, I don't agree. I didn't think you would, Shank. I did not come here expecting. I did not think you would. I am just here to put the information out. I will be happy if at any point in time in the next month you say to me, if you say me to him, like, you know what? I thought about something you said. That's all I'm hoping to get. You know what I mean? And I just caution everybody. First of all, don't, don't tell people who've been the toughest on cops in all of media that they're doing copaganda. I'm just kidding to keep it real. I think

that's out of balance, to be honest. You know what I mean? Yeah. Me? I don't say not going to you. Yeah, you said that I was doing copaganda. So, and look. I didn't say you were doing copaganda. I said, I think you're reading. I said, I said I thought earlier, you mean during the segment, I said I thought earlier that I said I think you're reading of propaganda. That's what's being put out. That wasn't at you, Cenk. That wasn't some personal attack towards you. Yeah, and please, look, I hear you. And let's not get policy and politics mixed up. Policy is one thing, and these discussions are good, and it's going to get us to the right solution. And if we're all lucky, we're going to get to the Nordic model, and it's going to be infinitely better than what we have now.

Okay, but at the same time, do not get this involved in politics today. It will destroy our chances of winning there the country is not ready for it if I don't have time to reply to this right like I mean you I mean you don't think anyone should run on this that's I mean that's just automatic loss right I don't think I don't I'm not sure to be at the time to have the discussion that I like the discussion on this because I think this is really going to come to where our place is in a movement I I'm not I'm not very I'm not my primary My primary focus is not really right now Democrats versus Republicans is what can be done to keep black people in the best position in marginalized communities.

They're not that they're not being railroaded by a criminal system, that they're not being profiled on the streets, that they're not being murdered on the streets. And I'm very interested in recognizing that a system that I get is being built and maintained on the backs of black people and perpetuating that injustice. It is fundamentally, it has to go in the same way that, and I get that that might not be popular initially. I don't think any status quo like systemic racism in America survives by not being, you know, fundamentally ingrained and being supported in some ways in these systems and people finding that outlandish. But my role there is not to do what I think is best.

So what the Democrats or the Republicans most want to hear are this voters discussion. My move where I'm at in this movement is what's best for getting us forward. And I recognize that it might sound crazy to you now, but in 20 years and 10 years and five years, it's not going to sound that crazy to people coming up and being educated to push back against the status quo. But thank you all for having me. Thank you so much, Ole. I really appreciate it. Yes. Thank you all right. We got to take a break. We're massively out of time. But we'll be back

with some more news, probably going to come back, make a few announcements, and then take another break because we're massively out of time. But that was a great conversation. Thank you for watching it. We'll be right back. All right, back on T.I.T. Chen canana with you guys, Anna's got more news. Well, we've got an update on COVID that was a little shocking, surprising, especially coming from Biden. So let's talk about it. Over the weekend, 60 minutes aired an interview they had with President Joe Biden. And in the context of that interview, he felt the need to declare that the coronavirus pandemic is over. Now, he was speaking to Scott Pelly, and he says,

said the following, quote, the pandemic is over. The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We still, we're still doing a lot of work on it, but the pandemic is over. Now, he qualified the statement about the pandemic being over by saying that they're still doing a lot of work on it. But I want to remind you all that the federal government has certainly taken a step back from providing any type of aid to ordinary Americans, especially when it comes to testing, they're no longer sending free tests to people. Individuals who have no private insurance are very likely going to pay for vaccinations and boosters out of pocket. So to say that they're doing a lot of work is interesting, because

I don't know what he was referring to there. Even the CDC in regard to the data that they're releasing says that they're going to be scaling back considerably. Now, Biden pointed to maskless attendees at the Detroit Auto Show where the interview was conducted to make his case. And he says, if you notice, no one's wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it's changing. And I think this is a perfect example of it. Now, that led to a lot of backlash from progressives, including Medi Hassan, who says one of the many reasons they're not wearing masks is because people like Biden keep falsely telling them the pandemic is over. I just want to give you one more point of criticism.

Biden is saying the pandemic is over as transmission rates stay high, as Americans with long COVID outnumber immunocompromised Americans, as 4 million workers are sick, as at-risk people scream for safe access, transportation, and education. Make this make sense to me. And she does have a point, especially when you look at the number of Americans who are still dying from COVID, an average of 400 people a day. And I'm happy to get into that data with more detail in just a moment. But Jank, I wanted you to jump in and share your thoughts.

Yeah, I'm really conflicted about this one. I don't think it's straightforward at all. In fact, to the point where we have a poll on it, I know that the poll lacks subtlety. But hear us out and then vote on it. And we'll put the link down below in the description box on YouTube and Facebook. It's at t.com slash polls. Is COVID-19 pandemic over? Yes or no?

Look, the part of the reason I mentioned the poll firsthand is because with all the nuance, notwithstanding, if I'm going to vote on the poll, I vote, yes, it's over. So now let me explain. As I said earlier in the show on a different story, Biden is partly doing this to appease business interest. They want to be able to take away your sick pays and sick days and all that, right? So I'm not unaware of that, and I don't like that, right? But at the same time, COVID is not over, but the pandemic portion is over.

So, you know, if you've got a preexisting condition or you're older, et cetera, and there's good reasons why you want to wear a mask, bless your heart. And if you ask me to wear a mask around you, I'll do it in a second, happy to do, okay? But otherwise, what are we going to do? Are we going to still quarantine? Are we going to still wear a mask around even if we don't have any symptoms? No, of course not. That's absurd. And I think it's pretty close to the flu now. And we don't do that for the flu. It's not. Okay, all right. So yeah, so I looked into the data because, Jank, just to be clear about where I stood, I mean, I thought that the number of people dying from coronavirus was pretty

low, right? I thought maybe it's comparable to the number of people dying from like the common flu. If you believe that, you would be mistaken. So I specifically looked at CDC data. I wanted to compare data from the same organization. And they put out numbers in regard to people dying from the flu in the United States. And they looked at October 1st, 2021 through June 11th of 2022. And these are preliminary numbers. It's important to keep that in mind because as you can see, the number of flu deaths in this fiscal year is 5,000 to 14,000. So they're still looking over the data to determine what the exact number is. But that's the ballpark, right? Then I looked at the CDC data specifically for COVID deaths in the exact same period. And here's what we know.

So in that same period, a whopping 312,100. No, let's put that down for a second. That's the wrong graphic. Okay, I'll go to that. I'll toss to that. Okay, so in that same period, there was a whopping 312,117 Americans who died from COVID, according to the CDC. So compare more than 300,000 Americans dying from COVID to, let's give it the highest estimate, 14,000 Americans dying from the common flu. So clearly it's still, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, sorry, but that, So that's a really good fact, and it's interesting, and it gives you good context. And overall, it does go a long way towards convincing me that we're not at the flu stage yet. But it has two giant holes in it. Number one, it's over a period of years where COVID

was ranging. It's not talking about today, right? So if you had 5 to 14,000 flu deaths going stretching all the way back into the middle of 21 to the middle of 22, yeah, of course the COVID deaths would be way, way higher, right? And then secondly, it also doesn't take into account the jackasses that aren't taking the vaccine, which are the great majority of the people who are dying. So if you want me to wear a mask while you're not taking a vaccine or wearing a mask, my answer is a super hard no. Yeah, look, I get it and I understand the frustration. To me, it's not even about whether you wear a mask or not, right? I have no problem wearing a mask if I'm asked to wear it because I want people to feel safe, even if it's people who are being in

annoyingly stubborn and refusing to get the vaccine. My issue is the federal government taking a massive step back and pretending as if there's nothing going on. Like everything's back to normal when it's not. And people need resources in order to, we want to encourage people to keep getting tested. And people are not going to go out of their way and spend their limited resources on tests if they have to pay for them out of pocket. I'm concerned about the federal government backing off of providing that resource. I'm also concerned about the federal government completely backing off of providing compensation for the vaccine. So individuals who do not have private insurance won't have coverage and they'd have to pay for the vaccine out of pocket. And so if you think

it was already difficult to persuade people to get vaccinated and boosted, it's going to be even more difficult to do it. And you're right, Jank, what is the motivating factor here? And at the end of the day, I think it's politics, and it's to help Biden's corporate buddies out. And that's not okay. Yes, but Anna, there's a couple more things there. Look, so first of all, is it mainly for business interests, as we talked about earlier in the show? Yes, because they want to be able to take away their COVID policies and point to Democratic presidents say, hey, it's over. So I'm not going to give you as many sick days anymore, right? So I know the primary reason behind it. And I'm against that and I'm against cutting off the resources. But as a matter of optics, and I don't say that

but lightly, I'm really against taking away the resources. So these days you have to repeat things like eight times for people to not mischaracterize what you're saying. So but as a matter of optics, the Democrats are constantly screaming. Oh my God, the pandemic is raging. When that's not the experience of real people in the country, it doesn't help. It doesn't look realistic. It frustrates people, it makes people think we're, you know, the Democrats are using it for political reasons. So we have to find a better balance here in terms of both the policy and the politics. All right, we got to take a quick break. We'll be back for the second hour of the show, kind of and we'll lighten things up a little bit. After we talk about an incredibly abusive

pastor, come right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.