The Young Turks - Indisputable

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

73% of Republicans blame 'left-wing protesters' for Jan. 6 attack. Just 23% blame Trump. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema beg the GOP to support bipartisan Jan. 6 commission. Second Denver sheriff's deputy dies from COVID-19 in less than two weeks. Neera Tanden is back. Could she be more powerful? Biden holds list of Republicans who opposed COVID relief but bragged about benefits to constituents: 'some people have no shame.' 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. Be my feet. Bexie. Dropy, Dreamy, Dreamy, Dreamy, Speed Like, Cheese, Speed My King, Drop it. All right, welcome to the young church. Jake and shout out of Dr. Rashad Ritchie.

This panel is indisputable. Nice. And afterwards, the Republicans will be doing a damage report. Okay, I keep going on it. All right. All day. All right. Big show ahead for you guys.

Republicans are nuts. You knew that, but we give you details today, including polling of their unbelievable beliefs, let alone the unbelievable things Matt Gates and Marjorie Taylor Green said that we'll get to later in the program. And then, of course, there's Democrats. So lots and lots of news to get to. So let's do it. John Iderola, take it away. Okay, let's jump into it.

Today, as they are in Washington, we're going to be talking about political violence. What happened on January 6th and what the American people think about it, what they know about it, and some of the misconceptions that they continue to hold. And mainly, we have to talk about the results of this fascinating poll that was put out by Yahoo and YouGov asking the American people and breaking them down into different groups about different facets of January 6th, some of the common misconceptions. Hold on your butts, things are about to get a little bit wild. Let's bring up one of the infographics and we'll see what we can learn from this. Now I guess, you know, sort of mile high view, the purple dot is the one that you're gonna want to focus on.

That's all US adults and then we can get down into the Democrats versus Republicans so that we can fundamentally lose any remaining faith we have in humanity. But overall, the American people believe, the majority, slightly more than 60%, that it was Trump supporters who gathered at the U.S. Capitol because of course that's what they were. They had the flags. They went to the speech. They loved the man. They did what he told them to do. All of their social media data backs it up. But then once you look at the Democrats and at the Republicans, very big divergence. Close to 90% of Democrats acknowledged that it was Trump supporters who were there. Just slightly more than 40% admit that at least some of them

were Trump supporters. And you can see the same sort of gap when it comes to the election being stolen, obviously. You know, Republicans believe that it was stolen, who sort of led to it, inspired it in some part. And the Republicans there don't want to acknowledge that. They don't want to talk about the fact that weeks worth of propaganda from right wing media, Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ferris, all of those other, Jenna Ellis, I should say, all of those others might have inspired that. So they weren't involved. It wasn't that bad. But if it was bad, it was probably Antifa, as we'll get to. So anyway, look, later on the show, we're going to get to the actual effort to set up a January 6th commission. But right off the bat, you can see that

It seems like the American people are in need of some accurate information because they've come to some fairly insane conclusions. Yeah, this is not a thing that's a dispute. I mean, look, most of the things that Republicans believe are not in dispute. But this one is brazen because they were literally waving Trump flags as they were entering. And it's not a, like we all saw it. So sometimes they'll get completely different news on Fox News or Newsmax or OI.N. And they're notorious liars and they'll have conversations about whether Hugo Chavez who died years ago actually rigged the election and stuff. And they'll have, but you don't see Hugo Chavez.

And a lot of them don't know that Hugo Chavez is dead and totally irrelevant to our elections. But we saw the flags. We know that Trump gave a speech. We know that was the day of the certification. And the Trump people were mad. And the left wing was not mad. And they were not there. Yet nothing matters, including what you can see with the naked eye, what you could, I mean,

they're right there. And so, nonetheless, three quarters of Republicans. I mean, look, here, let's get specific about this, right? We have, in terms of, yeah, it's about three quarters, three quarters of Republicans saying, I'm not full, 73% pin, quote, some or a great deal of responsibility on left-wing protesters trying to make Trump look bad. That's just nuts. That's just nuts. There is no other explanation, and there is no, all my opinion is this, and we can agree to disagree.

It feels like Ron Burgundy here. No, this is not an agree to disagree. This is your frickin' nuts, and it's not even disputable, if you will. Rashad, take it away. I think I figured it out, okay? So here's what's happening. If you will believe that Jesus is a white dude from Europe, contrary to historical evidence or anything else, you will probably believe anything. And I think they're taking advantage of these folks.

But there was a time, man, we said things like the truth needs. needs no defense. That's a damn lie. We are obviously living in an era where the truth needs to be defended more than anything else because of what's happening in the tribalism of politics. You have clear and concise factual information, you have data, you have eyewitness testimony, and you have video. You get no more clear than that in this era. However, the vast majority of Republicans, and look at this disconnect, the vast majority of Republicans, of Republicans are still believing the lie, the lie that's contrary to the truth, the lie that was placed by a strategic narrative that said what is is not and what is not is. And because of that, what Republicans have figured out, and Trump figured this out a long time ago, he can literally say anything. And there's a section of the Republican Party that will believe him. Now remember, guys, this was at around 30 to 35%. Yeah. Now you have six. to 80% of Republicans believing the lie when the truth is in front of them.

Yeah. Can I, it's so frustrating. It's so frustrating. You laid out perfectly, but the Antifa thing is really amazing. They say it was all left. Like think about all of what you have to believe for any of that to make sense. The different like twists and turns your brain has to make. So Donald Trump spent literally weeks going around the country telling people that the election

had been stolen and that the six was going to be a day when finally, that theft could be avenged. And he told all of them weeks and weeks. The Stop the Steel people told them weeks and weeks. Rida Giuliani was going around. Linwood, all of them, going around. Everybody, go to D.C., go to D.C., go to D.C. So they did all that. Nobody

showed up. No Republicans, no Trump supporters. They just abandoned him leaving room for all left-wingers to come in. And the left-wingers went to a Trump speech and they cheered at all the lines and he loved the reaction he was getting. Or in theory, some Republicans showed up, but then when Trump said, okay, now go to the Capitol, they all just, again, abandoned him and walked away to be replaced by left-wing protesters. And then the left-wing protesters who had bought the Maga hats and the flags and all of that, who had spent months prepping for this, filling their social media feed with stuff about how much they love Trump and how Republicans are great and everything, then are so invested in this that they're willing to get arrested by the hundreds and are now paying the price at,

And that is the cost they had to pay to make Trump pay. But despite that, for some reason, the Capitol Police and the Democrats who are trying to get as many of them arrested as possible are not doing a good thing, even though they're arresting left-wing Antifa provocateurs. So I don't know how any of that makes sense, but that's what they say. And I think that's really how we have to put it. I still have some faith in polls. I think that polls can teach us things, but not necessarily the things that they imply. I don't think three-fourths of Republicans believe that it was left-wing provocateurs or whatever. I think that they will say that to pollsters because they have absolutely no respect for pollsters,

science, facts, whatever. They don't answer things as a reflection of what they really believe. They answer it like they want. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't matter that they answer that. Because I don't believe that they actually think it was left-wingers. But I do think that they don't care that it happened. They're not worried about it. They're not scared at all.

And the difference between what they seem to be saying and what they actually say, I think matters. Because if we believe that they're just wrong, we might put time into trying to change their minds. But their minds don't need to be changed, nor can they be changed. They know what they want. And what they want is permanent Republican rule with Trump as their figurehead. And to some extent, while I care about the truth and I like doing fact checking, wasting our time trying to change the minds of people who are fundamentally lying about literally everything is like Joe Manchin's strategy of finding 10 good Republicans out there. And they're kind of working in the same direction. We don't need them, nor can we get them, in the same way that Joe Manchin doesn't really care about and isn't going to get Republican senators on his side.

What we need to do, hopefully, is get Democrats to set all that aside, realize that they were voted in office to accomplish things, and make it happen, whether that's a January 6th Commission, the Four of the People Act, an infrastructure bill, whatever. It's the same issue. It's just obstruction. It just comes in multiple forms. So, John, there's parts I agree with parts I disagree with, actually, in what you said. I agree with you that they're not scared of these people at all, because when they see those people, they see them, right? They think, well, those guys wouldn't harm me. They are me, right? If they saw Black Lives Matter protesters storming the Capitol, it would scare the living bejesus out of them. If they thought they were really Antifa, they'd be like, oh, my God, they'd buy three locks, four shotguns, et cetera.

they're coming to my house, I'm not going to let them, et cetera, but they're not doing any of that. So at the same time, and I know that these are two thoughts you cannot have at the same time, but I think the Republican mind is broken. And so I think it's possible to have two thoughts that are completely contradictory in their mind at the same time, which is, no, I'm not scared of these people, they look like me, they are me, they wouldn't hurt me at all. We would hurt people together, okay? But at the same time, I think they really believe, no, we are above fault. We are beyond reproach.

We would never do anything wrong. The only people bringing the law are black people and left-wingers, by definition. So it must have been left-wingers. But I think that's consistent with them not thinking that what was done was wrong. No, no, they don't think it was wrong at all. And in fact, now we share the poll's incredibly scary poll from yesterday saying that over 40, percent of people who consume far right wing media. But by the way, so that's not Fox News, that's News, that's Newsmax, et cetera, et cetera. But for Fox News, 27 percent, these are giant

numbers saying that it's time to resort to violence. The right winger is saying, time to resort to violence. Now, Matt Gates today talked about resorting to violence. Like they're talking about Second Amendment against the government, et cetera. No, it's over. They think they've lost for good in a democracy. And they're now literally rising up against. our democracy and try to install authoritarianism and treating them like the old ways where we think, oh, he said, she said, I can't, oh, let's be, no, no, no, guys, our democracy's in mortal danger, especially with Democrats being this incompetent in charge, because those guys, all those Republicans, they're going to show up to vote again.

No question about it. The only question is, are Democrats and independence going to show up? And if we do nothing, we endanger the republic. Yeah. Rishat. Yeah. So what you're describing is actually indoctrination. And indoctrination is when you're unable to critically think about what you believe.

And so indoctrination exhibits itself in contradiction. That's how it expresses itself. So you could literally have variations of thought that are at face value. contradictory, but because you are indoctrinated and unable to critically think about what you actually believe, all of these thoughts can coexist at the same time. And you have now devolved into a reactionary individual based on stimuli of your atmosphere regardless of truth. You're not seeking truth. You don't care about truth. You have now been desensitized to truth. And I think that's what you're seeing. And we saw it systematically happen. Donald Trump, let's be very clear about

who Donald Trump is, and I hope history gets this right. Donald Trump radicalized American citizens to become domestic terrorist. That's what actually happened. Now, we can keep calling them protesters. It doesn't fit. They acted and engaged in acts of terrorism because terrorism is defined as criminality, aggression, and all of those elements to persuade influence politics. That's exactly what happened. Well, who radicalized this group? Donald Trump did. And I know we look at the speech, and we say, man, he gave this speech, and that speech

is what became the catalyst for them to do what they did on January 6th. No, he gave speeches for five damn years. This man has been giving speeches for years before president and while being president. And then he indoctrinated this group, radicalized this group, and created American terrorists out of this group. And they did exactly what he told them to do. Those are the facts of what happened with Donald J. Trump. We literally had an American president who became a terrorist leader in the United States of America. And look, when you look at the polling of a giant chunk of Republican voters saying

it's time for violence, and that's exactly what Rashad's talking about. And it's indisputable. And that number's going up, by the way. That number will not go down. That number will go up. Yes. And guys, if you say, well, okay, but 73% of Fox News voters don't yet want to do violence, good, good.

But are you comforted by 27%? Are you comforted that it's over 40%? I forget if it was 41 or 48, but over 40% of people who watch Newsmax O-I-N, list of the bright part, who said, those guys, they're nearly half saying, let's go, let's go to start commending violence against the left, against the government.

Matt Gates talked about, no, no, no, you should use the Second Amendment now against the government. It's not about hunting. It's not about sports. He just said it. No, they're all going in a violent direction. Or against Twitter. Yeah.

Or whatever. Yeah. And it never takes the majority. The majority is never the prerequisite. When you look at uprisings that have happened in this nation and also against, let's say, the Native Americans, let's say against blacks who were slaves, it was the minority of the population who engaged in actual violent criminality. The real question is, the real question is, how many of that 70 plus percent are willing to sit back and say absolutely nothing? Because that's how the violence prevails if you have people who are not engaged in the violence willing to allow the violence to continue. Yeah, and last thing is, Rashad, again, put it so well when he said they were desensitized to the truth.

Because now you've seen a thousand of these polls, but here's another one confirming them. Only 18% of Republicans. This is not people who watch X, Y, or Z, all Republicans. 18% say that Biden won the election fair and square. Two-thirds, 64% believe the election was rigged and stolen from Trump. 64%. And even more, 72% say they had. that enough fraud occurred in 2020 to influence the outcome of the election, okay?

But let's take the 64% number. Two-thirds of the Republicans say, no, no, literally, literally stolen from now. Donald Trump is the actual president, and Joe Biden and God knows who else, Hugo Chavez, et cetera, rigged the machines, and he's not actually the president. That is super dangerous, because I know how livid I would be if I was positive that they had stolen the election. If Trump stole the election and became basically authoritarian and said, I don't care who, like on January 6th, let's say they took the cap, whatever, however they did it, if I thought it was stolen, well, then I would be beyond furious. And they got them to actually

believe that the election wasn't real. So no wonder, they're saying, well, what do we do next? We couldn't win through politics. So the only thing left is violence. And that's where we are as a country now, thanks to the grotesque lies of Donald Trump, and the weak, pathetic Republican politicians who catered to him, who became dogs to him, but finally, it is a full circle. I want to explain that this is important. Donald Trump is a con man. He would not have said those things to Republican voters if he didn't think they would be well received. Yep. He would have said different things because he's looking to con them. so that they give him power and money.

And he got a sense, and this is the only thing he's good at. He got a sense that I can calm these people if I give them what they want. And what they want is to rule over everyone else that does not look like them. They really, really wanted. That's what they've always wanted, and they do not want to lose that power under any circumstance. Democracy in America be damned. Unfortunately, that's the current state of the Republican Party right now. And whether it's mainstream media or whoever else, they need to wake up and see it.

I mean, the people that need to see it the most are Mansions, Sinema, and Biden. You're not going to work with people who are now beginning to think about your violent overthrow. When is it going to get through your very, very thick skull that this is not the Republican Party you grew up with in 1868 or whatever, actually? That would be a very different Republican party. Mitch McConnell, but yeah. Yeah, no, this is not Bob Dole, okay? This is, this is not George Romney. There are no Rockefeller Republicans left.

So both the Democratic leadership and the media have to wake up. This is a super dangerous situation. And the only last point that I want to make is, and to piggyback on what Rashad said, those other movements in other countries that we might have seen, you know, that have been able to overthrow governments or whatever. You think of them as fringe things, communicating through underground radio and pamphlets or social media more recently. But this one has the biggest media apparatuses in the country.

Like the single biggest cable news show is a constant apologist for their acts of terrorism. And he would be if they had succeeded. If they had killed Mike Pence, he would have still done a sympathetic monologue about them. When they try again in the future, Tucker Carlson will defend them. They are not going to be just sort of hoping to get through as mainstream media crushes or whatever. They have the mainstream media on their side as they move in this anti-democratic and violent direction.

In any event, we just take our first break. When we come back, let's see what the Senate is going to do about it after this. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers.

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Check it out today. You know, I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. Back on TYT, I'm going to start with Twitch again today. Axi Mom gave a thousand bits and said, just got here, missed most of the shows this week. But hot damn, look at the power on this panel. Damn.

Why, thank you, Axie Mom. We appreciate it. Tell me what to put in 500 bits. Bless your heart. It sounds amazing. Shane Nugs says, hashtag Bezos Bucks Bebe

Baby. Happy Friday my favorite true screamers. That's awesome. Seahawk Dragon says six months using Bezos bucks. Sawya gifted five subs. So did Obie Mom. Dave Schmidt gifted a sub and Melissa

the Defender Dragon gifted five subs as well. You guys are all amazing. Peter Hamby on YouTube Super Chat says to Dr. Rashad, how common are indoctrination and cults related to related and does

spreading speed affect the impact of their cultures. So that's a complicated question. I don't know if you want to tackle it right now in the middle of the break. Yeah, but go. Yeah, absolutely. It is the same. So the indoctrination and occultic behavior is one and the same. In order to exist in an occultic environment, you must first accept indoctrination.

That's the only way it can exist. What's the second part of that question, Jank? And does spreading speed affect the impact of their cultures? Does spreading speed? Like to how fast it's going? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. And remember, you had basically five years of the spread with Donald Trump.

So that definitely had an impact. And the impact is based on repetition. And I know this because I studied it based on gang deprogramming. It's the same methodology for gang programming and gang deprogramming. is indoctrination and a cult-like behavior. That's amazing, actually. That's a really interesting analogy. Peter, great questions.

Just to be clear, it's Dr. Rashad Ritchie. You said Dr. Rashad, but it's Dr. Ritchie. So it's okay. God bless. Thank you for the question. And British 32 says, hi, T.YT. Another great combo for show. Looks like bipartisanship is going like Biden Mansion wants it with this commission vote.

By the way, can we turn John's nickname from Dragon Daddy to double D? like people recommended on TDR. I got nothing to do with that. I have nothing to do with that. Yeah, I don't want any part of double D or anything like that. That's up to you guys. Whatever nickname you want. I've already given him like 28 nicknames.

I'm done with that. Yeah, I look back on those fondly now. Rose Jackson and Sanji Boy Dead just joined by hitting the join button below on YouTube. You guys are amazing. We have an excellent bonus episode for you guys soon. Cofefeve 19 said in our member section, if Republicans actually believed it, believed it was Antifa behind the capital riots, they would bangazi the hell out of it and ask for investigation after investigation.

That's a great point and a point we're about to make it the next story. So you're a little bit ahead of us. And Mr. Lundberg's asked us to not call to Q&Auman, a shaman anymore. He says we should refer to him with dances with Karens from here on now. I'm going to be able to be. All right, back on TYT, Jank, John, and Rashad with you guys. So a lot more news, John, let's do it. Let's do it.

Okay. So we've been on the edge of our seat waiting to find out will enough Republicans cross over to help establish an investigation into what happened on January 6th? Well, the breaking news this morning was that there had been a procedural hiccup and we would have to wait to find out, you know, it's complicated, will that, no, they blocked it. They stopped it. It's as of right now not going forward with them, Senate Republicans, and not just Republicans, honestly, helping to block the creation of that panel. The Senate vote was 54 to 35, six short of the 60 needed to take up the bill that had already

been passed in the House that would have formed an evenly split 10-member commission. It came a day after emotional appeals from police officers who fought against the rioters, The family of an officer who died afterward and lawmakers in both parties who fled Capitol Chambers as the rioters broke in. But all of that emotional stuff has nothing to do with the orders that were given to them from Donald Trump. So they were able to ignore all of that. Really fast, though, I do want to just give a little bit of credit to Ryan Grimm, who rightfully points out that it is amazing that on something fairly important like this, a 5435 vote can be described as a stinging loss or a stinging defeat there, because that's a thing. how America works. If you can hold on to about a third of the country, you can do whatever

you want, you can stop whatever you don't want. But as I said, it was not just the lack of Republicans crossing over. In the end, a bunch of people didn't even show up to vote. Six Republicans did vote with Republicans, 11 senators, including nine Republicans and two Democrats, just missed the vote entirely. Maybe they were still so terrified of being in the Capitol that they refused to come back. But I found one interesting inclusion on that list. And it was pointed out in a nice little back and forth by Jesse Rodriguez. It points out that before the vote, Senators Mansion and Cinema joined together to put out statements saying we employ our Senate Republican colleagues to work with us to find a path forward on a commission to examine the

offense of January 6th. But if Republicans did try to work with Kirsten Sinema, they found it difficult since she didn't even show up for the vote. She didn't even take part in the end. No, there's a good chance she's going to become a Republican. I was wondering why in the world would any Democrat miss this vote? It's not like they're on the campaign trail or anything along those lines. And so remember if the two Democrats vote, it's 56. They still don't have enough.

But it, oh, to me, was a seventh Republican who also didn't show up, but bothered to say, yes, I would have voted yes. Right? So that would have been 57. So it wasn't like a foregone conclusion that Democrats were going to lose. Cinema didn't show up anyway because she didn't want to be on the record. Those nine other Republicans definitely didn't want to be on the record. They're like, look, if the coup goes the wrong way, we don't want to seem like we were part of the coup. But if it goes the right way, I want to say, oh, yeah, yeah, of course. I voted against that January 6th Commission, dear leader. And I'm totally in favor of your authoritarian rule. So those are the cowards in the Republican Party. But the most important part of this vote, guys, is that's it. Any talk of the Republicans working with Democrats on any agenda is gone, gone, gone, going.

Anyone going forward that is talking about that is a 100% liar. Because at this point, even they know that there's no hope, no prayer of the Republicans ever voting with the Democrats on anything, unless, by the way, the Democrats actually passed a Republican proposal, then they would be in favor of it. And then at that point, barely, right? So this was the easiest one, because not just because, hey, look, they came to try to kill us, maybe we should investigate the people trying to kill us. It doesn't get any easier than that, right?

But also because they gave the Republicans every single thing they wanted. They wanted, not to be fair, there's one thing that Kevin McCarthy wanted. It's like, can we also investigate other random acts, not related to January 6th? But outside of that, they gave them everything else. They said evenly split, you guys can, they could have tanked the commission because they had the same number of votes as Democrats, even though they don't control the House or the Senate. They said, we'll give you even coverage anyway. They could have blocked all witnesses effectively.

They could have done anything to block it. And they still voted no because the dear leader wanted them to vote no. So there is a 0% chance. They're going to work with Democrats on a meaningful infrastructure bill. Police reform? Joe Biden, you're still talking about police reform, that the Republicans are going to work with you on that? Gun violence? I mean, come on. This is insanity. They're not going to vote with you on any of that stuff. If you are expecting 10 Republican votes, you might as well make Mitch McConnell president, because that's the only way you're going to get 10 Republican votes on anything.

Yeah, and a few things happen here. So one, hopefully Democrats can use this as your case study to get rid of the filibuster. because you're not getting legislation like this again or an opportunity at legislation like this again. Republicans have proven they are incapable of operating in good faith with actual bipartisan legislation. Remember, the 10-person committee was literally a bipartisan committee. Even though Democrats technically control the Senate, they got the House, they got the presidency, they were willing to still give Republicans five appointments and Democrats five appointments. And that's it. Just to investigate what happened on January 6th. Let's go a step further. Here's what else we have seen. Republicans are now on record for being anti-good cop.

There were Capitol police who were injured, dead. They're connected to families. How are you pro-police? But your anti-good police are good policing at the Capitol. They have gone on record and said they are actually anti-good police or anti-good policing. But they're pro bad policing. These are the same Republicans that would defend a cop for killing an unarmed black man or black woman. These are the same individuals. These are the ones getting in the way of police reform, even though 94% of Americans say it must happen. 58% of Americans say it must be dramatic. Even 51% of Republicans say it needs to happen.

So this is what has happened on the record. You have a Republican Party who has not operated in good faith as it relates to the American people. Now, are we going to be able to do something with it? It's the question, can Democrats, Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and others, can they create a messaging technique to let the world know? These individuals are so unreasonable. It's time to get rid of the barrier. And that barrier is the filibuster. And almost every piece of legislation I actually care about must have a super majority of the barrier.

of the Senate. I'm tired of this. These guys will not loose from Donald Trump. Trump is pulling the strings. He will continue to pull the strings and he will pull the strings until our democracy is not even recognizable under democratic leadership at that. Exactly. So I just so Dr. Ritchie was bringing up, you know, the prospects possibly for this demonstrating how, even though doesn't need to be demonstrated how the filibuster has to go. We already know that. We already know that they're lying. And Joe, I'm not going to read Joe Mention's comment because he said in advance, you know, we can fine 10. They didn't. He's not going to learn because he wasn't expressing an actual position. He was making noises at a reporter. That's it.

But I do have another senator with a really frustrating stance on the filibuster that I'd love to hear your reactions to. So Sahel Kippur asked Diane Feinstein, if the filibuster stopping the establishment of the commission would lead to her being willing to get rid of the filibuster. She said, I don't see us abolishing the 60 vote threshold. I don't. This is the first time I've heard it. No one has proposed it. No one has talked to me about it. So it's a non-issue. Yeah. Nobody has mentioned the possibility of reforming. I mean, we can bring up her statement from her office in March where she talks about the potential need to reform or eliminate the filibuster if the Republicans continue to abuse it.

She says, I'm open to changing the way the Senate filibuster rules are used. But apparently, that statement was not delivered to Diane Feinstein, so nobody's talked to her about it. No, guys, this is, it's not even, no, but seriously, it's not even funny. She, you know, we talk about, or people in politics talked about, oh, hey, does Joe Biden have dementia, does Donald Trump have dementia, they're both in their 70s, etc. There is no question that Diane Feinstein is in mental decline. I'm not saying it because of the story. We covered it before.

People in the Senate will go talk to her. She will not remember what they said earlier in the day. She will not remember what they said the day before. She will say things and then not remember the thing that she said. No, it's over. I don't know what it is. Technically, dementia, Alzheimer's, whatever it is. This is not a political trick.

This is not anything. She's a Democrat. She has mental health declined. There is absolutely no question about it. Gavin Newsom has already started talking about who to appoint in her place, even though she never said that she was going to step down. The Democratic Party is all 100% aware that Diane Feinstein is not mentally healthy at this point. Okay.

And it's super sad to say it. But the corruption in D.C. is so deep that you can never remove an incumbent. And so Diane Feinstein was in bad shape when she was running for her. re-election in 2018. We said it, and by the way, it wasn't just Democrats. It was the media that yelled at us. And they said, no, no, she is in great, great shape. She, oh my God, she's such a respected, wonderful, progressiva. What are you guys doing? No, no, no, no. It's now it is abundantly clear to everyone. You must get her out of office. Democrats, have you no conscience, have you no conscience, right? And it's not even fair to her. For God's sake, her staff, her family,

You've got, she, I think she had a terrible career, okay, but I am in the minority. Everyone in Washington will kiss her ass. But while she still celebrated among people who matter, have her retire, right? I don't know that, I don't, I think Gavin Newsom is a corporate Democrat. I'd be shocked if he put a progressive in there. He should put Barbara Lee in into that seat and she's earned it. She's an amazing woman. And he said it should be an African-American woman.

Perfect, perfect, right? And it would bounce out. She's as progressive as we're going to get in California. California is incredibly progressive. The voters are, et cetera. But I don't think he'll do any of that. Yeah, that'll bar her. Yeah.

And so, but this is not about that. We cannot have fine signs for getting her own position and then coming out against the filibuster. That's insane. And you're right, John, about Manchin, and he calls this vote unconscionable. Unconscionable for what? What are you talking? You're unconscionable, right?

But these guys, Manchester, sit them on, apparently, Feinstein, they're going to destroy our government. They're not going to let the Democrats pass anything. And it is an absolute guarantee that the Republicans will run and say, see, the Democrats didn't pass anything. That's exactly what they all say. Yeah. And so, and look at how, I mean, to Rashad's point about how much Trump is taking control of Republican Party, McConnell said Trump should be investigated, right after he voted to clear him on impeachment, He said, no, I'm asking for an investigation.

He has now turned around. He actively lobbied against his phone and said, please, please do not investigate Donald Trump. That's because Mitch McConnell is a coward, has no leadership left, to a total loser, and is now just another servant of Donald Trump, just like Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, and the others. But when Biden listens to Mansion, who listens to McConnell, and Biden is ceding his presidency to Donald Trump.

What the hell did we all vote for? What the hell did we all vote for? Biden, look, I don't care about the people in D.C. We're so polite. Oh my God, hey, be careful what you say about the powerful. Oh, no, no, no, no, I don't care. I don't care. Do something now.

Otherwise, you're incredibly weak. Incredibly weak. And you're going to let them destroy every part of your agenda if, in fact, it's your actual agenda. What I'm worried about is you ain't weak. It isn't your agenda. You want to actually deliver for the people you said you deliver for. or your donors when you told them nothing would fundamentally change. Yeah, I read that he was FDR 2.0 and in fact might be doing too much, too fast, actually.

Pop the brakes a bit, buddy. Anyway. Okay, let's move on to, we have to break. We're good? Okay. Just do one more story. Let's do this. Okay. We have a very tragic story to talk about and it involves a COVID death. A COVID death of a sheriff's deputy in Denver, and this death was announced on Twitter

by the Denver Sheriff's Office talking about the fact that he had passed away tragically from COVID complications. His identity, by the way, is freely available, both in their statements and in the social media posts will be showing you. But I feel, look, as a person who lost a family member to COVID, while I find this particular story to be very revealing about the effect that COVID. misinformation being spread by incredibly powerful people has had, resulting in deaths like this deputy, I still feel uncomfortable on behalf of the family or for the sake of the family. And so

we're going to be obscuring the identity. That said, this sheriff's deputy did pass away. And in fact, that department had lost another deputy just two weeks earlier to COVID. Now, I know maybe you're vaccinated. Maybe you live in a part of the country where it kind of feels like the pandemic has passed that 33 year olds shouldn't be dying of COVID, but they are still dying of COVID. Many people are still dying of COVID, and many of them are dying needlessly. Now, sheriff's deputies, like other first responders in the state of Colorado, became eligible for the COVID-19 vaccination back in January, and were among those allowed to have vaccines as the very first wave of doses were available in the state. But the shots were not

mandatory. And it turns out that as is true with many, this deputy was opposed to the vaccine, according to public posts on his Facebook page. He posted multiple images and comments about mask wearing and the vaccine. So it wasn't just the vaccine. It was the measures, all of what was being done to stop the spread of the virus. He posted things like, before you shame me in public, for not having a mask, ask yourself one simple question. Will this mask stop an uppercut? The joke being that he will punch you in the face if you point out that he's exposing himself to a virus. In response to a comment that said laugh it up as the next wave hits and everything gets closed again because it's unfortunately we are seeing numbers climbing again. Sorry to be a downer, but it's true.

One month ago, he responded, I'm not afraid of the last wave or the next one. And he wasn't. He had been convinced that it wasn't a big deal. But it was still a big deal. In America, a lot of people are still getting COVID. We're going to get to those numbers in one second. I wanted to show you one more image that was being spread by a friend of the network, Ken Clippenstein. He had posted a meme saying, I don't care if you've had your vaccine. I have an immune system.

With the issue with that being that the nearly 600,000 Americans who've died of COVID and the millions of others who will suffer life-changing side effects of having had it, They had immune systems too, and it wasn't enough to save their lives as it was not enough to save his life. And so he passed away. And he's not the only one. It's not over. 23,000 Americans are still getting COVID every day or being tested positive for it, at least. That is down, but it's still a lot. And we're still averaging 667 deaths every day. Which seems like a lot when the number was going up. But now that it's going down, people are pretending as if that might as well be zero. But it's not. This deputy was just one of those

667 odd deaths in any given day. And it's looking like based on what we're seeing from his activity didn't have to be that way. He was led to believe insane things about COVID as so many generally conservatives were. And that is how you get to 667 deaths a day. That's how you get to 600,000 deaths overall so far in the pandemic. So this is mainly to try to help right wingers. So they'll never believe it. But most of the left wing is already vaccinated. I'm vaccinated, over 60% of California is vaccinated.

We're fine. And if you get vaccinated, even if you get the disease, you get a small viral load and you're very likely to be fine. So we're actually trying to help the people who are not vaccinated like this officer. But they just don't want it. They just, they don't want our help. They would rather have lies that endanger their lives than to believe the truth. So we're, you know, protecting his name, et cetera, because it's...

You feel bad for the family. Of course, and I feel bad for him. I feel bad for him that he joined a cult psychologically, and that cult convinced them that to, like, almost literally drink the Kool-Aid. And so... And it did something more. Yeah. It also convinced them to tell other people that they are somehow dumb or silly or wrong if they take care of themselves. And I want us to see how ironic it is that no one talks about not getting a cancer screening the same way.

Nobody talks about not going to get a checkup the same way. Like these are medical things. These are health-centric elements that all of us engage in on some level. But this one thing is so important to some people that they must share their health care advice or their indoctrination to the rest of the world and tell people, this is the equivalent of telling people, oh, don't get their prostate exam. Don't do that, right? Or don't get your annual checkup. Don't do that. You don't need to do that. But they're saying don't wear a mask. Don't get the vaccine. And they become part of the ecosystem that creates death. And yes, it's tragic, it is sad, but it needs to be revealed because opportunities like this teach lessons. Yeah. And there are people that were around him that believed him. They don't believe him anymore.

That's why this story needs to be told. Another brilliant point. I had not thought about it that way. I mean, who would go around going, don't get cancer screenings. You don't want to find out if you have cancer. I mean, that would be the craziest thing you ever heard. And here they are doing the craziest thing you ever heard. Exactly.

Yeah, I was just reminded of John Kerry's line, not when he was Senator, but when he came back from Vietnam, and it was arguing to end a war. And he said, how do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? And right now, the right wing, probably the most predominant person in that culture is at this point, Tucker Carlson. Even Donald Trump has said take the vaccine. But multiple times. Yeah, but Tucker Carlson is spreading anti-vaccine propaganda nightly on his program. And he's basically asking you to be. be the last man to die for a mistake. And unfortunately, this officer was one of those men, but he isn't the last man. There's going to be 667 tomorrow and the day after and the day after. Imagine if you had 667 people die in a mass shooting in one event, it would be the largest news story for now, I hope. I assume that'll become commonplace.

But when it happens for COVID, there's a third of the country saying, no big deal. don't believe your lying eyes and it's okay if our family members die it's amazing I've never seen anything like it it's Jonestown on a mass scale yeah okay we got to take a break so when we come back

more shocking news unfortunately we'll be back Thank you. Thank you. All right, back during the social break here, Gabby Marita in our member section says, I'm so ready to live in a universe in which our daily political dialogue isn't wholly dominated by by the ravings of a toddler brain man baby, Twitter troll turned Mara blogger. But it really is sad.

I mean, this man of incredibly low IQ, whose only talent is being a conman and a bully, has taken over the country, even when he didn't win. He's still ruling. And the weakness of Democrats knows no bounds. Crunchberry Dragon says right-wing-owned media radicalized the Republican voting base before Trump. He just ramped it up. Rush Limbaugh was beginning the radicalization process of his listeners at least 30 years ago. Yeah.

That's exactly right. Good point. That's true. And Snowdrop says, how do we fight Fox News? On top of the Dems like cinema and mansion, mainstream left media does a terrible job at calling out the right. Look, today, there was a news story that Jake Tapper said the Republicans had no excuses for voting. on the January 6th commission because they had gotten everything they wanted. That's a news story when a news, one of the most prominent news anchors on one of the most

prominent media stations in the world, but it's particularly in America, actually says the truth. That's breaking news. Like, it's the most obvious thing in the world. Of course, they're probably that everything they want. Wanted to invote a no anyway. Pointing that out shouldn't be an exception that's noteworthy. Every person in media should have pointed that out. But that's a breaking news. Hey, somebody in media said something that's true about Republicans. Whoa, they're getting really brave. By the time the revolution's over, they might be super brave in their cells.

Anyway, Meg says they've got a point. If the left didn't exist, then Trump would have won again, and his fans wouldn't have had to do an insurrection. It's the good old, abusive. Why did you make me hit you? And yeah, a lot of them think that way. You know, if the Democrats are just given the election to Donald Trump, like we asked them to, or if Mike Pence had just said, it's not a ceremonial rule anymore. There are no laws in America, and there's no Constitution.

And he ripped up the Constitution on live television and said Donald Trump is now king. Well, then we wouldn't have had to hit you, right? And yes, they believe in saying things like this. Oh, I'm going to be out of time here. Guys, don't forget, we're going to kick off Pride Month with an annual LGBTQ Pride special that we've got. That's going to be on June 1st at 8 p.m. Eastern. And it's just a great show and John's on it as well. We'll be back.

All right, back on the young Turks, I have a fun of you guys that I want to talk to you about. So coming up on June 7th, we're going to have a new show premiere. It's with, oh, Dr. Rashad Ritchie, he's right here. We just took him off as we were saying that. Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Ritchie. It's an eight-week summer series, and it's going to be on YouTube and our platforms. Overall, it's weekdays every day at 2.30 p.m. Eastern. So make sure that you're subscribing to YouTube.com slash indisputable, T.YT.

By the way, in the first week, he's going to have Killer Mike and Senator John Ossoff on. Damn. He has a much more low-wadage guest than the first show on June 7th. I'm going to come in and be with him on the first episode. But Rashad, it's just so great to have you in the network. Man, let me say this, Jank, I have been a fan of yours for years. So I feel like I have arrived, brother. And I'm thankful for the opportunity.

It is humbling. Also to my big homie, John, this all started on your show, brother, about a year and a half ago, man, and I became a semi-regular guest, you and I, we vibed, and here it is. So I'm thankful for the opportunity, man, looking forward to doing what we always do, and that's tell the truth. Of course, you were doing amazing work long before those appearances, but it's been a pleasure to have you on during that time. Thank you.

Look, we've talked in the past about all the awards that Rashas won. and his great shows in Atlanta, and it goes on and on. But look, he is so strong. That's what I love about his, both him and his show. And it's called Indisputable. How can I not love that? Right. It's a great name.

And I got to give all of the credit, man, to the team. Like the team came up with some great ideas, and we vetted those names. And TYT has the absolute best production staff in America on the planet because everyone leads not only with their talent, but also with their heart. And so it's an amazing atmosphere. All right. So everybody, you've got to check it out. 2.30 p.m. Eastern starts on June 7th. Make sure you subscribe now.

And by the way, Rashad also battles conservatives. You're going to love that. You want to talk about indisputable. Those are great, great moments. So don't miss a minute of it. Okay, all right, John. News. Okay, I am fascinated to see what you're going to have to say about this. This is like Taylor made for you.

Well, Joe Biden has apparently found backup positions for a few of his key allies who were blocked in their initial quest to enter his administration. That would be Nira Tandon and a little guy named Rahm Emanuel. So let's start with Nira Tandon. So her nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget was derailed by bipartisan opposition in the state. Senate. She'll be becoming a senior advisor to President Joe Biden, two White House officials told NBC News last week. So initially wanted to run the office management budget. What will she be doing now? Well, she'll be responsible for preparing for different contingencies. This is like a sentence designed to make you fall asleep and not follow what it's saying.

Responsible for preparing for different contingencies that could result from the Supreme Court's consideration of Republican lawsuits seeking to strike down the Affordable Care Act. She's also going to launch a review of the United States Digital Service, which the White House says has a crucial mission of making government accessible to the American people online. So I'm sure there's some overlap between how that job will function and how running the OMB would, I guess, management skills will come in handy. But it is fascinating that, man, once you want to get into the government, it's just whatever, you know. I want to be president. I'll take transportation. Whatever. Same thing. It's so weird how that works. But anyway, you probably, of course, remember she got into trouble during her hearings because of some of her social media posts with Republicans suddenly pretending that people being mean online is a really bad thing and they would never stand for that. That's not actually why she was blocked.

But what do you think about her new position as a senior aide to Joe Biden? These are her roles right now, but that could morph into virtually anything. So I have mixed feelings about all of this. So number one, in the old days, near Tandon and the likes of Rahm Emanuel would have run any Democratic administration that came in, especially one of historically conservative is Joe Biden. And so now Rahm Emanuel is probably going to get ambassador to Japan. And so that's a thing that makes, you know, is a constellation price. And so he gets to call himself ambassador for the rest of his life and he'll feel good about that. And most of these guys in politics only care about ego, right?

So that'll fulfill his ego a little bit, but it is irrelevant in terms of policy. So good, Rahm Emanuel is not in charge, right? So now near attendant then, another would call him moderate, but I would call them economically right-wing Democrats, got blocked by the Senate. Now, this is where it gets complicated. I disagreed with the Senate blocking him, blocking all of the picks because they were all very safe, very moderate, near tendons, more modern, more corporate than almost any of them. And they said she was too extreme, right? And so no, that's absurd to think that she was too extreme for Republicans. And I didn't want the Republicans- Or too profane.

Oh, come on with Donald Trump as president. Come on, come on, come on, come on, right? So I didn't want to set the precedent that the Republicans get to pick Biden's cabinet. So I thought they should have fought more for her. But not based on her or her ideology, but that principle that the Republicans should not set the cabinet. But once they lost that fight in the and Biden withdrew her, then I got no interest in Neera Tannen. I don't want Neera Tannen to be a senior advisor to Joe Biden. She'll probably be his most conservative advisor. And in terms of what's more powerful, OMB director is very powerful because it controls the budget.

But remember, it doesn't really control the budget. It controls the first draft. That's still a lot of power, right? The first draft is very, very powerful. But at the end of the day, they're going to make joint decisions. Senior advisor means you're in the room. And they found an excuse to put her in the room, if we're being honest about it, right? And we are, the rest of the media won't.

But she's going to deal with if the ACA, the Affordable Care Act gets knocked down in part by the Supreme Court. And she's preparing ahead of time for the, that is a super vague role. And then she's going to do digital blah, blah, blah. No, no, no. Just hang around. Yeah, that means hang around. And she's in the White House every day and the daily briefings every day and give me conservative pro-corporate advice. No, that gives her more power, not less power.

And so I do not like this development at all. I don't think New York Tannen should have gotten that job. But it's not up to me. The Shiva staff, Ron Clayne is old friends with her. They worked together before. And they were going to get her in by hooker by crooks. So this means, unfortunately, Rahm Emanuel getting sideline was good news. I was hoping that this, she would get a minor role, and it would be generally good news.

Progressives are rising a little bit. And the conservative Democrats are falling a little bit. But given that she's going to be in the Oval Office every day, no, it is not good news. They are not falling. Conservative Democrats still very relevant in Joe Biden's circle. Yeah, I agree with you on her 100%. Let me go to Rahm Emanuel. I don't like him.

He's the worst mayor of Chicago has ever had. He has engaged in systemic cover-up, the murder of Laquan McDonald. He did some other things that were contrary to growth and progress in that city. When Rahm Emanuel's name came up during the election of Joe Biden, black folks made it very clear, Joe, don't go there. This is a guy that we have deemed to be a no. Okay? He disappears for a moment, and after Joe Biden gets elected, because a whole lot of black people showed up in places like Canler Road in the state of Georgia, the Democratic primary in South Carolina that changed the entire trajectory for Biden.

When things like that started happening, we made an assumption that Joe Biden would listen to black folks. And then Joe Biden, when he finally makes his acceptance speech, he uses the term or the phrase, you had my back to the black community and I got yours. Well, Joe, this is not having our back, Mr. President. We don't want Rahm Emanuel anywhere near government. I get it. Being ambassador to Japan, that is kind of a sideline position. I feel like these guys are somewhere fiending for government jobs.

And it's almost like, just give me whatever you got, right? I'm tired of it because it sends the wrong message to the group that you need to come back out and be excited to vote for you. We're not excited about voting for you again or people connected to you when you give positions of nobility and power to individuals who have been contrary to the progress of black Americans. And that's the reality of this big to me. That's just the fact. Yep. And so, and Joe Biden forever thinks he's balancing interests. And I get the urge to do that when you're president.

But there are such things as red lines. And there's a very good reason for Rahm Emanuel to be a red line, both for progressives and African Americans. And why? Why would you pick a guy so conservative that he is universally despised, not by Republicans. Republicans are generally fine with him. There's all this talk about how tough Rahm Emanuel is. He's never, ever, ever been tough to a Republican. I've never seen one instance of it, and I have followed the news with microscopic attention.

He's only been tough to progressives. He's celebrated for being a person who hates progressives. And he was awful to African Americans in Chicago. So what do you owe him? And why do you owe him so much that you're willing to go against your base, your core of your base, to give him this job? And the reality is they just can't let go of the past. So they love conservative Democrats, they love corporate Democrats, and this is Joe Biden showing that love to them. Yeah.

Yeah, and it's believing that positions in government, a government salary is just yours to hand out. I mean, how many times over the last four years did we get enraged at the corruption and grift of the Trump family, handing out things to his family members, giving them position? they weren't qualified for. This is the same thing. Ron Manuel's not Joe Biden's brother or anything, but it's our resources, our tax dollars being put into a guy who's just getting something because he's been around for a while. He didn't earn it. He's not going to work for it. He's just being given it. We should be as angry as we were back under the Trump's. Yeah, and he doesn't have a history of success. I could understand if some individuals probably may not ideologically aligned with my full agenda, but they have a marked history

of success somewhere. You have, with this cat, a mark history of failure, and you're still making him win somehow. You're still creating positions for him to win. There are people that are actually winning who are progressives, who have great ideas, who have been able to implement and execute these ideas, and you are universally known to the vast majority of them because they're not your buddy, buddy. And here's what's happening at Democratic politics, and it happens in Republican politics. It's a good old boy network.

That's what it is. This is the good old boy network democratic style. It has a little more swag, but it's the same thing. 100% right. All right. We got to end the first hour. Second hour has amazing stories. Matt Gates is calling for violence,

Marjorie Taylor Green being overtly out of control, racist. It goes on and on. But before we let John and Rashide go, obviously check out damage report wonderful show john's killing it on that show uh but june 7th indisputable with dr rashad ritchie starts uh 2 30 p m eastern every day 2 30 p m eastern every day so go subscribe right now at youtube.com slash indisputable t yt all right john rashad you guys are the best thank you thank you man everyone all right we'll be right back episode of the young turks support our work listen ad free access members only bonus content and more

by subscribing to apple podcast at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon