The Young Turks - Is THIS Trump's America?

Episode Date: June 27, 2019

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not only to the Young Turks, but the Young Turks on debate night, the first Democratic debate. Get ready. There's 500 candidates, 1,000 debates. We're going to be here for the rest of our lives. I'm Johnny Rolla. And not only is Brooke here, who was also my co-hostess a couple days ago on the damage report, but Ashley Murray Preston as well. Welcome back. Thank you for having me. Good to have you here. I know you must be excited because the candidate you endorsed is actually having her first debate tonight. Elizabeth Warren. Absolutely. I think that it is an exciting time for the debates, but I think it's a little unfair to the people that may be there because a candidate of Senator Warren's caliber is definitely going to wipe the stage and I'm not, you know, I'm just saying the thing that we're all thinking, but like nobody wants to say because we don't want to repeat a 2016, so. Well, we'll see.

I mean, there's a lot of people up there and all of them have got to sort of break out. and we're gonna see what the different strategies are. I do wanna give you an idea of how not only the show is gonna go because it's a non-traditional show, but also our coverage throughout the night because I wasn't 100% joking that we're gonna be here for a very long time. We will be here for a while. This is the first debate night special and our coverage is gonna start of the debates immediately after the debates, roughly 8 p.m. Pacific time, that's 11 Eastern.

It'll go until at least 10 p.m. Pacific, 1 a.m. Eastern and there will be a period at the And starting at 9.30 Pacific, that's 1230 Eastern. Jesus, that's like, that's going to be for members only. So if you're not already a member, you should go to t.com slash join so that you can have uninterrupted coverage. There's a good chance, by the way, that Jank Huger is going to be Skyping in to give us at some point his overall impressions of the first night. There's a good chance that'll be in that member's only section, so you're going to want to be a member. We're going to be covering the debate in two locations here and in Miami. Here it's going to be Brooke, myself, and Mark Thompson.

In Miami, we're going to have Jank Yugar, and we're also going to have Anna and Emma Vigland from Rebel H.Q that's going to be, they're going to be giving us their impressions of different sections of the debate, too. Jank is actually going to be roaming around the spin room floor talking to candidates and trying to get interviews with them, get them on the record. And actually, right now, Revolution Rally is underway in Miami, and later on we're actually going to be talking with Jank in about a half an hour. He's there with TYT Army and some candidates.

He's going to be telling us what's going on there. Actually, later on the show, we're going to have a short speech by Marianne Williamson, and there's a good chance, Andrew Yang, we're going to have a section of one of his speeches as well in the second hour. So that's a million things. I think I got it all right. I hope you caught one of them, okay? It's a big day. Yeah, a lot to get to, lots to get to.

So with that, I mean, we got a ton of stuff and more stuff. So we're just going to jump into it, okay? Let's do it. Let's do that. Okay, situation at the border is a daily series of tragedies. And in many cases, these tragedies involve very large numbers, numbers of people being held, numbers of families being separated. But we've got a tragedy for you today that involves the number two, two individuals

that we want to tell you about. One is Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, who was frustrated because his family from El Salvador was unable to present themselves to U.S. authorities and request asylum. so he chose to swim across the river on the border on Sunday with his daughter, Valeria. He set her on the U.S. bank of the river and started back for his wife, Tanya Vanessa Avalos. But seeing him move away, the girl threw herself into the waters. Martinez returned for her and was able to grab her, but the current swept them both away, and they both tragically died while trying to exercise their 100% legal right to apply for asylum in the United States.

A right that has become increasingly difficult to exercise because of choices made by Donald Trump and his administration. We want to show you the picture to drive home how serious this tragedy is, but we want to warn you that this is obviously incredibly graphic. And with that warning, here is the photo that has been running since this morning. Those are two people who were fleeing horrific circumstances in their home country and just wanted to come to the United States because they believed, I hope not 100% falsely, that a better life potentially awaits them here.

That has been the dream of the United States, if not the reality, for literally centuries. But now we have people in power that are trying to make sure that that is not the case. And so situations like this, while they can't be directly linked to any one action, are 100% natural consequences of the choices our country has made in terms of our immigration policy. Now as sad as that image is, I want to show you one that in hindsight seems even sad or a photo of the family together. Here you can see all three, father, mother, and two year old child as well.

And think about if the situation had been differently, if we had been a little bit more inviting in this country, how much we could have been strengthened as a society by having those three beautiful people be a part of America. But we chose to go in a different direction in our country. So sorry, obviously incredibly dark material, but that's the situation. It's so much darker than even just the picture. I can't stop thinking about, you know, this mom watched this happen, you know, and this little girl. Like, drowning to death, you know, like drowning, but drowning and, like, things, like, suffocating.

Like, those have to be the most horrific, like, slow deaths ever. And a two-year-old, an almost two-year-old, had to suffer that. And also, a part of this that I think is important about this story is that I was reading this, a bunch of articles that have said that he was unable, the family was unable to apply for asylum. And so I started thinking why and Dan actually found an article that had the information. They had gone to the bridge. And remember, we hear constantly this talk about you've got to go to the appropriate ports of entry.

You have to do it the legal way. They did that. And guess what? They were told this port is closed. Come back after the weekend. Yeah. And so they have nowhere to go. You know, they're stuck in Mexico and they want to apply for asylum.

So they were forced to swim. They were forced by the government that had the bridge that they're saying, come to shut down. Yeah. It's, what do you do, you know? When someone tries to do it the way that you're asking for and then you find a way to shut that down. I just, this is horrible, you know, and I hate, I wish that we didn't have to consistently see

graphic images like that to care, you know, a long time ago when somebody said, hey, this is bad, that's it, that's all it should have taken because you should just care about humans. But it has to come to a point to where you have to shake people by showing them that. That's horrible. I think we're better than that. We should be. I think it's about the point of entry in breaking through the apathy. My heart is absolutely broken every time I watch people demonize families for trying to provide better for their own.

You have to ask yourself what conditions are taking place on the land for a family with a child to deem the caution of the water as safe. And I think that these stories aren't new. I think the national conversation around these stories are definitely opening people's eyes up to the xenophobia and racism that exist in the United States. I had the pleasure and a joy of going down to the border when Trump and the administration met family-seeking asylum with tear gas. And we went to Camp El Baratal and we took. diapers and food and medication and tents and anything they would possibly need to make that journey from Mexico into the United States a lot better. There, there, I don't, I, I, I, it's so difficult because this morning I was walking the dog

and there are seven brown children who live next door and they're all under five years old and they came up to the dog and started playing with the dog and one of them was telling me about his pet bird. And I went into the house and I immediately started bawling because I don't see how people can see the babies here any different from the babies at the border. They all deserve a childhood. They all deserve better opportunities. They all deserve to live in safe conditions.

And I think that when I see people even like Nancy Pelosi talk about, well, we'll try to work through this and we'll figure out a way. It's simple. impeachment, when we do not stand up for what's right, and when we do not exercise our social responsibility to stand up for not just all Americans, but all human beings who inhabit U.S. soil and surrounding, we're supposed to be the world leader. Yeah. Yeah.

And I don't see that now. Yeah, and instead, we're allowing Donald Trump to have the policy he wants. And it necessitates these sorts of outcomes. When you tell people, as you pointed out, you have to go to ports of entry, even though you don't, that's not a legal requirement, you can go literally anywhere you want. They tell them that so that it's easier to deny them. Because now it's not just, oh, they got in, we have to hear them out, it's we could just put up a gate here and then we're gonna turn them away.

The policy is to force people to wait for weeks or months in Mexico. People who, I know you probably assume have tons of money, tons of resource, it turns out actually they don't, it's designed to cause them to lose hope and turn back. And if that means that some of them get robbed or assaulted or raped or murdered while they're waiting, that's how you make an omelet, I guess. That is the policy. The policy is, it's designed to create suffering, as we've pointed out. And the vigilantes too, there's, I'm so sorry, there's also people aren't realizing,

I heard this firsthand from some of the families seeking asylum in the U.S. that there are US Vigilani's people who are taking weapons and they're going into the desert, they're They're going near the border, they're hunting people who are seeking asylum. So many of these families, they're thinking if we can get to that bridge or if we can get to the border, we have an opportunity. But they're also aware that there are people that are hunting their lives out there. Yeah, absolutely. We already talked about, was it New Mexico or Arizona?

The self-professed leader of the militia was arrested and later we're able to find out that the border patrol there was allowing it to happen, this behavior. They were kind of like knowing what was going on, watching it, and just not doing anything about it. Yeah, yeah, and look, obviously this image incredibly, you know, it affects you. You can't help it, but those are not the only individuals that have died in recent weeks. Two babies, a toddler and a woman were found dead in the sweltering heat, three children, an adult from Honduras died in April after the raft capsized on the Rio Grande.

A six-year-old from India was found dead early this month in Arizona, where temperatures routinely sore well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and we know that a number of children in our custody have died in facilities where there is literally no reason for them to die. So they're safer, to some extent, if they can get across the border and be taken by border patrol, but not necessarily out of the woods there. And although it is exhausting day after day to try to get, like to tell people who have no empathy, to feel empathy, and to tell people who refuse to use common sense to have it, and they will say, well, why are they doing this?

Why are they risking, like imagine doing something that could result in your two-year-old daughter dying? But don't just say that. Actually imagine it. What would the situation at home have to be to get you to do that? Do you really believe, does anyone seriously believe that, ah, they just really want Social Security? That's why they're willing to see their children drown.

They just want to take some of our resources. That's why they're willing to be victimized along the way for literally thousands of miles. No, people only leave when the situation is scarier at home. There's a poem, I saw a section someone had tweeted out where it's like, people only put their kids on boats if they fear the land more than the water. They would not do this unless they had if they had any alternative and they don't. And now they don't even have the natural alternative of being able to turn to the United States, the richest society and the history of humans to help them. And why are we pretending it only goes as far back as their family tree? When I see all of these wealthy white people talking about them coming over here and them creating

problems and bringing diseases and bringing crime, all of England and Europe's most notorious criminals piled onto a boat, came over here, raped, pillaged, committed genocide, enslaved. The Italians. I agree. And it just, it just, I don't understand how we don't see history repeating itself and And how also we're not taking a look at the nuances here. Like, there's, I don't, I don't understand, there are no substantial facts around how immigration is harmful to the U.S.

What it does show is an uptick in our economy. It does show that they have contributed not just this year, not just last year, but for generations, for hundreds of years, they have contributed to the American, to the American economy. So I haven't heard anybody really talk about the harm. Yeah, and yeah, it is important to know. Kids don't even want to leave parents home to go to college. Nobody wants to leave their home just thinking about how sad that is, how they don't want to leave their homes, they have to.

And another part of this that just makes it awful is we do know how bad things are that it's making them want to leave, need to leave, because we're the reason why things are so bad. Our history books are very, well, our history books are. But- The real history. Right, we're the reason. This country is the reason why a lot of these countries are where they are now or in

the state they are now, why people are needing to flee them. Yeah. Because of something that we did. Yeah, yeah, it's the international version of the sorts of policies that result in gated communities. Just to make these people suffer long enough. And eventually if we get enough guns and big enough walls, we probably won't have to deal with it, right?

Now, I want to give you the update as of today, there was effort in D.C. to try to put some money into this situation. And so the House and the Senate have both passed bills. The bills are not the same, however. We're talking about similar amounts of money. One is $4.5 billion, one is $4.6 billion. But the actual wording of the bills are very different in terms of how much leeway the Trump administration would have to use the money in the way that they want.

Now some members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus oppose the Senate bill that was passed, arguing it allows the administration too much leeway to spend the money on purposes they oppose. The bill passed Tuesday by the House includes stricter conditions on facilities that hold migrants and excludes money for the Defense Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency contained in the Senate bill. Now, what was really interesting is the House version was almost in total party line. It was almost no crossover Democrat or Republican in terms of who voted for it.

The Republican leadership of the Senate says that House bill is an obvious non-starter. And anyway, the restrictions that they put in there aren't necessary because we're only going to use the money for the things that we say we're going to. Well, then why are you fighting against the legal requirement to do that? If you don't want to put this money secretly into building a wall or God knows what, why are you fighting against the requirement that you do what you say you're going to do willingly? Right, it's always like that. That's always a situation. No, we just don't want that written down.

What? We just oppose long bills, I guess. And so as of right now, we don't know. There's not that much time before a 10-day recess in DC. And so it's possible that they could do recommendations. reconciliation between the two bills, it's possible that you could see the Senate or the House blink, or it's possible that nothing could happen and the money doesn't get spent. Yeah. Okay, with that, we're going to take a little break. We're going to get ourselves

together and we're going to come back. And Emma Vigeland of Rebel HQ, she's been talking with some supporters of Elizabeth Warren at a big Elizabeth Warren rally in Miami. We're to show you some of that video, including some surprises. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fing the Republic or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom.

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Welcome back to the first hour of the Young Turks with me and Brooke and Ashley. In just a little bit coming up, we're gonna have both Emma Vigeland and Jank Yugar, who's gonna be coming to us live from the site of the debates. But first, did you know, it's member appreciation week. It's day three, and on this particular day, the way that we would like to appreciate our TYT members is by providing for you free shipping on all orders at shop TYT over $75. You can find more details and the special code for this one day promotion at TYT.com slash notice. And so, you know, if you're going to be doing like watch parties for the debates and stuff, you want a nice shirt to wear, maybe go to shop TYT and save on shipping. We also had a lot of comments from members.

I want to read a few of them about the story that we talked about. Meg said, heartbreaking, such senseless deaths, shame on the United States. That is certainly the case. We're writing a dark history for ourselves right now that someday we're going to have to teach our children. And, you know, some of us are fighting against it in every way that we can, but it is still happening. Rod said the U.S. caused most of these problems in Central America and is now completely unwilling to be responsible for their guilt. The greatest country ever?

And Stewart similarly said, I wish that the mainstream press would cover the actual conditions in places like El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. They need to show the gang violence, high murder rates, and the children being pressed into gangs. I feel like saying that the conditions in these countries are bad isn't enough. The problem is that the people who don't find a more casual description of it to be convincing probably would not watch an actual in-depth explanation of it. And the only other thing I wanted to say was, you know, I saw a little bit of Rush Limbaugh

talking about that death and a little bit on Fox News about it. And it's all excuses. There's not even a brief acknowledgment that like, God, this is a tragedy. This is horrible. Like, not to mention the fact that literally every single one of the people on the right, you know, on those sorts of shows consider themselves a good Christian, you know, who cares about people. certainly cares about the lives of children, but they can't even stop to pretend that it bothers them that these people have died.

It is instantly explicitly political partisan commentary. No emotions, no values. Incredibly frustrating. Okay, with that, why don't we move to the topic of the day, and that is the prep for the debates and what people are expecting. Revel HQ's Emma Vigland went to a rally by Emma, by Elizabeth Warren, and it's written wrong here. Elizabeth Warren had a rally yesterday in advance of today's debates, obviously, and Emma did what she did, which was get a feel for the room. The supporters, what do they actually

want? What are they thinking? And here is some of what the big Warren supporter said. Is Elizabeth Warren your number one candidate, would you say? I would say she's in my top two. Who's the other one? Can I guess? Is it Bernie Sanders? No, not Bernie. Kamala Harris is my number too. My alternative would probably be Kamala Harris. I kind of want to learn more about the other candidates. She's my second and then I would say I want to learn more about Yang. I think it comes back to the kind of the similar reasons why I was a big Hillary supporter.

I was raised by a single mom and I guess through the eyes of my mom. I kind of understood the unfair struggles that, you know, women have to go through it. The 2016 election was so divisive and tore apart the Republican Party and because, I I mean, the Democratic Party, and that is part of the reason that we have Trump in the White House. And I just think that it's really, I mean, it's just not the right time. We've got to get rid of Trump in power. And I don't believe that having Bernie in the mix is a good thing for the party. A lot of people would say that Bernie Sanders is closest to Elizabeth Warren on policy.

He's not in your top three considerations? Just from what happened in like the previous, you know, presidential run, I was for him for a while, but I feel that his values are a little too extreme for me. Okay, so that's, you know, a few individuals. It's obviously not the same as doing, you know, a broad-based survey or anything like that. But Emma was obviously surprised by some of what these people were saying. And, I mean, I guess, I guess people are different. But it seems like if you have, you know, a broad range of ideological positions, and some people

are closer together, and some people are really far apart, you'd probably like in clusters. But not the case, Kamala Harris-Elizabeth Warren, fairly interchangeable to some people. Now, nothing gets us people. I understand that policy's not the only thing that people vote on. We don't want to do any vote-shamed or anything, but I was surprised by some of those answers. I'm not surprised. I think, what am I try? I feel like I've been saying this for a long time.

You can't, people who don't like a certain candidate aren't just stupid. They aren't just, you know, blind to what's going on around them. And that's- Be fair, that's exactly what I just said. No, that's not talking to you, I don't know I'm talking to you. But I'm trying to get to, I think this is why we get to this point, is that where you have two people who are similar and a lot of people only like one, and then go all the way across the board to find their number two. And the reason is that I think that there's too much time almost like shaming those

people instead of figuring out why I'm not connecting. Because you're right, if these two people are very similar, you should like, you should feel like, oh wow, look at this, have a great option here, second great option here, but instead they're like, okay, like this person and this far as, okay, this is my second. And I'm not surprised, people have been saying that since 2014. So I don't know, I'm not surprised at all by this. There's a disconnect that is not being given enough attention, I think. I'm kind of not surprised because I actually see Harris and Warren is two completely polar opposites.

I feel that Harris is a bit more establishment. And whereas I feel that Warren's strategies are completely outside of the traditional box. And it's the very thing that's getting people excited about her candidacy. I know the last time I was here, I said something about Warren is what Bernie was in 2016. and I got crucified by both Bernie supporters and Warren supporters. And what I meant to- Oh, both. Yeah, both of them. Like, the Bernie supporters were like, yeah, right.

Like, she, like, whatever straw man arguments they had. And then the Warren supporters were like, how could you compare her to him? And I think there's this race to see who's the most left and radical. And I think that both are very strong women. In fact, the thing that people don't think about it is that Warren has a lot of relationships with some of these other candidates. In fact, Warren is the candidate that they would vote for if they weren't running, to be quite honest with you.

That's an interesting point. Yeah. Yeah. Probably, yeah. I guess, look, we all come at, we all come to the candidates from a different perspective. For me, like I, I mean, my front two are Bernie and Warren. And what consoles me about any one of the two losing if they were to and the other one were to win is like the big ticket things that I want that they've proposed, I'll get a version

of it from the other one. most part, there's exceptions, and we'll get to that in just a second, but if it was like, well, you know, I love Bernie and there's something about Buttigieg, it's really like Buttigieg, okay, that's fine, but like if Bernie loses, I don't get really anything that I wanted out of Bernie with Buttigieg. You get other things fine. I know there's booty, I don't want to get the Buttigieg squad on me or anything, because there's a long list of candidates in this race already that if you say one negative

thing about them, they will pillory. Well, not only that, it's really unnecessary. I think they're busy. I think they're busy trying to get their candidate to do something about the police That's true. That's true. That's true. They can't get on you.

They're busy right now. Okay, good. That's good to know. But I think the other piece too is that like the thing is that we're going to support whoever takes home the primary. So it's a lot easier to do that if you don't have to walk back all the crap you talked. And to be honest, if you have a candidate that's as strong as you say they are, their policies and their work is going to speak for itself.

So we don't have to take cheap shots. Yeah. Yeah. say, we have constant discussions about toxic fandom, basically. Like, thankfully, a lot of it's not about politics. It's like, hey, a new Star Wars movie is coming, so get ready. Some of those fans are gonna get you. But, like, you hear, you saw a couple of those examples that Emma talked to, were turned off by what they felt was the base of a candidate.

Now, I'm a gigantic Bernie Sanders supporter, I was one of the earliest people in media to talk about and support Bernie Sanders in that last election. And I think that a lot of what people think about the fandom was created early on by people that despise Bernie Sanders. I find the idea of the Bernie Brod to be completely offensive and to totally misrepresent who actually supports him. But to the extent that any of our individual activity can make people a little bit more supportive of a candidate or at least accepting if they were to win. It doesn't mean that they're gonna support them, but they're not gonna fight them.

We should do that. And that's not just a problem of Bernie Sanders. make your candidate look like if they were to win, it would be a terrible thing because you personally as an ambassador for them are awful. You know, not just in politics, but in politics as well. That's your point. I just think that I don't think that it's just made up. I'm not saying it's 100% made up, but I think that the concept of the Bernie Bro, the idea

that you can, with a term like that just completely throw into the shadows a lot of people that do not fit that stereotype, I find to be offensive. And I definitely feel it, it was a designed thing, it was not some sort of organic thing. It was an attempt to make you feel bad if you supported this candidate. I don't think so. I think it was a description of a lot of what they had been seeing. We talk in absolutes all the time, but no, we don't mean them. Yeah, I would need another example.

Like when someone says white people, you don't run around saying, but not me, not all white people, not me, not all men, you don't do that. I'm having a hard time- Because you're just generally like assume they're not talking about everybody. No one ever really is talking about everybody. I think that the concept of the Bernieboro is designed to make you think that this This is the prototypical supporter of this person. I don't think that that's true.

I think it's a reaction. And I think especially like- It's not gonna change if you don't acknowledge though, the truth. I don't think that you can just say that it's just a reaction when the people who were pushing that initially. And you can see the first people that were using in their articles and stuff were hardcore opposed to Bernie Sanders. They were not unbiased sources and were like, you know, I just like a lot of people.

And whoa, this is toxic. It's like they really wanted him to fail. Like, anyway, I think that we were over right. So we need to go to it? Can I get a confirmation? Okay, so we're waiting to see, we should be connecting with Jenk Uger in just a little minute. And stay tuned a little bit later on.

Okay, so we're gonna have a little bit more from Emma there. I would really like to see, what I found so surprising about that was the early polling of if you like ex candidate, who's your second place. One of the most interesting things I saw there was the people who like Bernie Sanders, a lot of them, their second choice was Biden, and a lot of the people that like Biden, their second choice is Burning Sanders, which I think. That is sexism. And I honestly, I want to just say something that may not feel there is any substantial

evidence around. We have to stop pretending like there isn't this idea that America must have a white man running the country in order for it to be run. A lot of people only feel safe when that's what the story is. Yeah. For sure. And the thing is, I think that we definitely are creatures of habit. And so the idea of a woman or the idea of a member of the LGBTQ community or an idea of

of a person of color, even post Obama. In fact, we're still paying for Obama being president with this current one. Like for him slipping through the cracks. That is a big reason why we have Trump. Yes. A lot of those people who love to say I voted for Obama, I hated it after they did it. And it just makes me cringe that the fact that, again, Elizabeth Warren, it isn't just about being a woman.

And I told her to her face when I met her. I was like, you never could have paid me to think that I would live to see two black candidates and I vote for the white woman from Oklahoma. But it really wasn't about identity politics. It is about the fact that that woman from day one has been able to go to the work and show, go to the board and show her work. She speaks to all these issues. She spells it out.

She doesn't rely on these cheap platitudes that, you know, we tend to do in political pageantry. But she is the ideal candidate. And yet she has to work five times, ten times as hard to get an ounce of respect. And I think her sex has to do with that. Okay, we're going to return to that topic. But we do have Jank Uger in Miami joining us now to break down the situation. ahead of the debates, Jake. What's going on?

Hey, John, how you doing? We're alive here in Miami, obviously. We got the TYT Army behind us. Okay, okay, okay. Bring it down. So there's a lot of different supporters and protesters and unions out here. We've got people trying to shut down what's happening in homestead and a disaster. And over there is where they're going to have the debate at the ARF center.

And Anna and I have been in there already. We talked to some of the press, including Ed Henry from Fox News. He says hi to the TYT Army. Okay. And so we're pretty psyched about this whole affair. I love that these guys are out here. But I also love the spectacle inside. And I can't wait for the debate.

And I'm pretty psyched about it. I want to hand it over to Anna for a second and get her point of view. So I can't hear anyone in the L.A. studio, but I'm just going to quickly talk about how amazing this has been so far. Jank and I landed just a few hours ago, and to see this type of political activism, obviously among our group here is incredible, but everyone here is so energized and it's really good to see. You see so many people wearing t-shirts representing progressive candidates, and you can't. really see how powerful, you know, the progressive voice is at this particular event so far. Yep. There are not a lot of supporters so far for more establishment or centrist candidates.

John Delaney's got a couple of people out here, but outside of that, it appears to be more progressive supporters, which makes sense because they have more grassroots support. Yeah, so that's sort of what I'm interested. I mean, right now, as of the most recent polls I've seen, Joe Biden is still at like 25, 26 which would imply since he has the most support he should have the most representation outside of a big debate like this. Have you seen anyone who's like Biden, Biden? Yeah, they're chanting like crazy out here going status quo Joe, status quo Joe. No, there's not a single person for Biden here.

And that makes sense because his support is super soft. It is people who generically know him and they know his name and they have good feelings towards Obama and Biden together, but they're not motivated to come out. Nobody's like, oh my God, I got to make sure Joe Biden wins so that he'll take corporate donations from Republicans and Democrats, right? So the people in the streets are almost all progressive. And so I know that you're planning on attempting to talk to some of the candidates later on. Anything in particular, I mean, we have to wait until we actually see the debate to know

for sure, but anything in particular you want to get some of these candidates on the record on? Well, so some of the people who signed the pledge like Marianne Williamson are going to come talk to the TYT Army in a little bit, and Andrew Yang is going to come tomorrow, which is kind of amazing because he's got to do the debate tomorrow. So he's going to come out here right before he does the debate. When we're in this spin room later, obviously we want to ask them about the pledge for those who are still on the fence, whether it's people like Kamala Harris and Booker and Gillibrand, who've said, things that are aligned with the pledge, so I don't know why they wouldn't sign it unless they don't want to fight for those things. So we'll ask them, then obviously there's the people who are not progressive, and that's okay.

When I'm in the spin room, if I can get those candidates, I'm going to ask them tough questions about where they stand, and they should be proud of where they stand. Otherwise, they should switch their stance. That seems to make sense. Has there been outside of you, you said you had individual supporters of different progressive of candidates. In terms of organized, like, either like groups that are protesting outside of the debates, I know that the Sunrise Movement was planning on having a showing there. I'm hoping that that much public pressure will put pressure on the moderators to ask questions about the climate

crisis. Did you see any of that sort of organized showings? So we walked around the block, and I have not, Sunrise is not supposed to be here. They did a protest in front of the DNC just the other day. About a hundred of them showed. up there to try to pressure them into a debate. And Tom Perez, who is here, said that he will not give into that pressure and he's not going to do a debate just on the climate crisis. Sunrise is planning to a big movement in Detroit. So that's the next debate.

But they skip this one, so they don't have a presence here as far as I know. And Tom Perez came into the debate hall and says there's no candidates and nothing else to talk about, all the press gathered around him. And I talked to a reporter there, I don't want to name, but he peels. out and he said, man, things are really dull in the beginning, so everybody's excited to see Tom Perez. That's how dull it is, in the beginning. Now that, mind you, that was like four or five hours before the debate.

Okay. Hey, Jing, so since we're here in LA, we're not out there seeing anything. Anything surprised you or shocked you so far as what you've seen since you've been in Miami or everything just looking good and kind of what you expect? Yeah, I don't know what I expected. I'll ask Anna, too. But so far, I think I would have expected a little bit more candidate supporters here because of what we experienced in Iowa.

In Iowa, there was arguably a lot more supporters, and that was a much smaller event. There seems to be more organized protesters like from the unions, et cetera, than there are for the candidates. And outside of that, I just, you know, it's a great question, Brooke, because I feel like I'm trying to figure out, has it started yet or has it not yet started? Because it is like two hours, two hours and 20 minutes before the debate. So I don't know if all of a sudden name a candidate, Klobuchar supporters are going to swarm here, unlikely, but you never know.

But so far, it's a little bit more subdued than I would have expected. Anna, what do you think about your expectations and what it is? So, I'm going to get to the politics in just a second, but it's so hot that I'm starting to understand why some people in Florida act the way they do. You know how, like, heat can make you like angry at times. But anyway, no, this has been, look, I can't compare it to Iowa because I wasn't in Iowa. So for me, this is like, wow, this is so electric. It's amazing. And it's been a really great, I mean, it's been great in my perspective so far.

I just love seeing how politically active people are. I mean, I don't remember seeing this in the last general election, you know? There was a lot of anger. There were a lot of conflicts, but there are people here who are just so passionate about not just the candidates, about the issues. So right in front of me, there's a wall. It's like a fence to make a point about the children that are being kept in the cages. And they have quotes of what the children have told the press.

You know, one quote says, I cried every day because I didn't want to be there. Like, it's just a really creative way of getting a message out. And I just like that they're focusing on the issues along with the candidates because that's what really matters, the issues, the policies. Yeah, and one more thing, guys. In 2016, when I was in front of the debates, it was really just two camps, obviously. It was Hillary and Bernie. And here, it's more bedlam, right? It's just a creative, chaotic mess.

but in a kind of a fun and interesting way because there's so many different candidates. And we should enjoy this while we have it because the field is going to get winnowed pretty quickly because less and less people are going to make the debates as we go on. So I like this creative mess that we're seeing here. And look, we've got a big presence here, not just with the TYT Army,

but as we walk through Beto supporters and Tulsi supporters and Warren supporters, honestly they all they all said hi right and so keep in mind that as as sometimes we tweak some of the candidates because that's our job we still got a lot of love in those communities and so it's great to see better supporters so animated about the young turks and so it's and it's hard to see that unless you're in the field and so and it's great to see it here so you guys won't one champ before we go Yeah, let's hear. Yeah, we do.

What do you got? All right, they want to chant, guys. You guys ready? All right. What do we got? TYT signed the pledge. All right, go. You lead.

TYT, sign the pledge. TYT, sign a pledge. TYT, sign up pledge. DYT, sign a pledge. DYT, sign a pledge. DYT, sign a pledge. DYT. sign a pledge.

TYT, sign the pledge. Okay, I'll sign it, geez. You already signed it. Oh, wow, we kind of, well, thank you. I don't know if they can still hear me, but if they can, thank you, Jank, and thank you to everybody who showed up. You're going to have a lot more opportunities with a lot more debates to continue to do that. And as Jank pointed out, there's no good reason why a lot of these candidates won't sign

the pledge when they say they support these things, but don't appear to want to put their name down on a piece of paper actually proving it. In any event, we do have to take a short break. We come back, more to get to. 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 and selling 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 activity more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercriminals. And it's, It's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important.

ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired Magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today.

In the meantime, enjoy this free section. Welcome back, everybody. We've been having fun and there's a lot more. Where that came from? Not during the break. You know what I love is talking right up until they on the break and then the people not knowing what we were talking about. So we're gonna pretend that we're still friends.

So this is member appreciation week. Last Friday was fantastic Friday where we did a sort of telethon in support of our partnership with Aspiration, which if you didn't watch it, there's a lot of great content up on the channel that you should definitely see, people were wrestling, I arm wrestled Jake, there was a dunk tank, JR's eating crazy spicy wings and stuff, it was a lot of fun. But anyway, if you did not take part in that, there is still time to put your money where your values are by going to Aspiration.com slash TYT and signing up for a free checking account at Aspiration. If you do it for a limited time, you'll actually get 30 days of membership with TYT, so you'll get

access to all the content and everything like that. And as we talked about at the time, like, if you're a progressive watching this right now and you have your list of progressive values, there's a very good chance that while you are voting based on your values, you're talking to people based on your values, you're consuming news based on your values, your money is probably sitting in the financial institution that's using it to support things that are diametrically opposed to your values. So you can be talking about climate change, but they're investing it in dirty fuels. You can be talking about the concentration camps at the border, but they're putting it into those detention facilities. So make sure

that while you're talking to talk, your money is also walking the walk. And you can do that by going to aspiration.com slash t-y-t. We also had some member comments. Eric Raffaffer He said John just coined a new Fox slogan, no morals, no values. I was trying to work on a second version of that. I think it would be like, we like religion for the prophets, not the values, but spelled, you know? I think it could be a t-shirt. Yeah, something like that. Let's see.

Nicholas Ward said, I wonder if that son of a single mom knows that Kamala Harris fought to pass a lot of jail parents for the truancy of their children. Not plenty of punches there. Joe said, let's be real. The negative media spin on Bernie effects people, I think that's made a huge difference in Warren's recent polling eyes. That's possible, but she's been doing a good job. Let's not take anything out of her. She's been doing the work. I mean, I don't understand the cognitive dissonance is just, like, I don't understand how people don't see the work that's being done. How many other candidates have come to the table and done that? And they want so bad to make Bernie and Warren enemies.

But to your point, it's a win-win. To me, as long as we get someone who is outside of the traditional establishment framework of doing things, then it's going to bring about the change that we've been waiting for. Yeah. And I happen to think that that's Warren, if Bernie happens to be that person when the time comes, I will support him, like, period. Yeah, and it's not to say that there aren't differences between the two. I mean, we didn't have time to get to Emma's second video, which was about Elizabeth Warren

seeming to vacillate a little bit on Medicare for all, but she didn't sign the pledge saying that she would fight for it. So that's something that we'll get to in the future. And on the interstep, Naomi Klein had a great article about the attempts from outside to get Warren and standard supporters to hate each other and who that. actually benefits? Turns out it's not either of the candidates actually. But we'll see as these debates go on.

And at some point they will be on the stage together and we'll see what happens then. With that, why don't we turn back to the news? Over the past five years, Americans have grown increasingly prejudiced against a wide range of different demographic groups, which is sad to admit, but the evidence is there. Let's look at the results of a public religion research group study showing that more than one in five is 22% of Americans say small businesses should be able to refer to. refuse to serve Muslims on religious grounds. Men in this particular case are more likely than women to agree with 25% of men a full quarter

of all men saying if it's a Muslim, you don't have to serve them if you don't want to. So that's one particular aspect of religious prejudice, but it's now up to 19% from 12% just a few years ago who say it's fine to deny service to Jewish Americans and 15% up from 10% a few years ago saying it's acceptable to deny service to African Americans. So this is both religious, but also racial prejudice that is not only higher than we would want or possibly expect, but raising over the past few years. Yeah, and all of those homophobic people of color who were in full support. Do you remember when Marcus Bachman was in Michelle Bachman, we're talking about religious

freedom? This was a long time ago, but Marcus Bachman, always on my mind, but I just, they were saying like, no, yeah, that's a Christian thing, you should be able to. And so many smart people were saying, no, watch that because that's going to trickle down to you. And it seems that's crazy. You can't say you can't sell a black person, a cake. They will, they'll try.

It's the same thing. And not that you even have to say, it'll happen to you so don't do something bad to them, but my point is just, duh. How are we saying increasing though? Increasing? I think they feel more supported in their ideologies. The only difference is that the KKK went to bed, bath, and beyond and traded in their sheets for Tiki torches. And they went to a men's warehouse and asked for the Lindsey Graham special.

But other than that, these are the same people that have always been here. I think the most dangerous thing is that we have abandoned the promise of separation of church and state. And we continue to pretend that it's about religious values, but it isn't. Because when you look at even conversation around pro-life, but then we have these children at the border and these families and their lives don't matter. So it's- Also, these people who put their religion and say that, you know, this is my reason why I want to do this and that, they don't act personally as if they've ever read the Bible. That's it, you know, like they don't.

These are evil people that don't act at all like they live by the Bible. So definitely not the New Testament. I don't know, you know, I just think that, I don't know, this is, duh, but it's frustrating. I'm mainly joking and you'd never do this, totally wouldn't be constitutional or anything. But like, imagine if I said that I was a big fan of Harry Potter, but I think that like Hogwarts is dumb, I don't like Hufflepuff, wizardry is stupid. Am I really a fan of it or am I just saying that because it's popular? At a certain point, you can't be like a devoted adherent to the Bible just when it comes

to not giving people cakes. At a certain point, you kind of have to care if the kids are dying or if refugees are coming to your borders and you're telling them to go F themselves, have you really read it? And then especially when they're talking about advising people from the church not to go to pride. And it's like kids are safer at pride than they are in some of these Catholic churches. So like how is it that we're looking at these communities like demonizing? It's really scary because it reminds me of what took place in Germany right before the Holocaust.

People are really upset when you mention that because they're like, wait, don't compare that to Hitler. Don't compare that to, as we see with AOC, she's getting like a lot of fire about calling them concentration camps. But the thing is that we're seeing history play out right before our eyes. And if we continue to be inactive and indifferent and lean into apathy, we're going to be very sorry sooner than we think. No, I know exactly what you're talking about, a group of people who, a large majority

of people who felt like it's not my problem because it's not happening. to me or I'm not a monster, I'm just not going to do anything about that. Right. Yeah, and I mean, I don't want to give too much credit to one person, but when AOC started talking about that and everyone, like not everyone, but a lot of people on the right were like, how dare you say that? And then some of the people who despise literally and everything that she says are like, oh God, how stupid is she?

Look at how much of a fool she made ourselves. Well, she called them concentration camps and in the week since then, the head of Border Patrol is stepping down, billions of dollars are being routed over there, reporters are starting to show up again. Doctors are doing investigations of the conditions the kids are being held under. This is a pretty significant reframing of the debate and getting people interested once again in a bad situation. So thank you, AOC is long and short of it. I want to give you just a couple more numbers because there are other groups that are much hated in this country. And I want to show you, by the way, that while it is definitely a problem of Republicans, Democrats respond to this

poll also have some issues. Republicans are more than twice as likely as Democrats. to support religiously based refusals to serve gay or lesbian people. That's 47% Republican, 18% Democrat, transgender people, 44% Republican, 19% Democrat, atheists at 37 and 17, and Muslims at 32 and 14. So, look, having half of Republicans say that amongst lesbian and transgender people, you know, the rights should be formalities at most. But Democrats, you got almost one in five, saying the same thing, holding, you know, So if we can identify that as a horrendous belief for a person on Fox and Friends to hold,

we shouldn't hold it. One out of five of Democrats should not hold that position either. This is why I'm always dragging people within the party sometimes because it's this idea that it's solely partisan, but it isn't. It's based on people's values and beliefs. And I think that my own experience as a black trans woman quite personally, there were more Democrats in my way who were at the helm of some of these organizations and conversations that could have brought about a shift in the social ecology, and they did not.

I really don't have that many Republicans in proximity to me. So I think it is a conversation about the way that we have Republicans who are closeted progressives. And then we have Democrats who are closeted conservative-minded people that are only about lining their pockets and making it convenient for them. We also have to continue to keep separate, basic humanity. And politics. And this is shocking to people because those numbers and how it's not zero on the democratic

lines is shocking to people, some people out there. And I think people just when you talk to them like, no, no, no, not us. Yeah. Because like racism and homophobia and religious, actual religious freedoms, like being able to wear a burqa, like those have nothing to do with politics. So there are people who are racist on both sides. Like, do you know what? Of course.

Yeah, there are people who hate black people and Trump. There are, like, it's, yeah, that happens every day. Yeah, that is the case. We only have a couple more minutes, but with the limited time that we had left with you, I wanted to give you an opportunity. You are a supporter of Elizabeth Warren. She is in, you know, she's taking part in this first debate. You predicted at the beginning of the show that she would moth the floor with the other nine

people there. That remains to be seen, but if you had a last opportunity, you had a last opportunity. to give her some advice. What does she do tonight that causes her to continue going up in the polls, potentially catching up with Joe Biden in a couple of weeks? I think she just continues to whip out the plans. I think she continues to have conversations and meet people at their point of need. I think that she continues to really think about it as a collaborative campaign, from everyone on her team, down to the people who volunteer, down to the people who tell their own personal stories of tragedy, struggle, triumph, she's really invested in the people. And I think that we have

to have someone that's on the ground, that's in the trenches, that's going to have a visceral connection to the voter because otherwise we're going to continue to hear all of these platitudes and we're going to continue to get what we've always got. I think Elizabeth Warren, for the most part, It's one of the most brave, courageous people that I've ever seen. Like, to be quite honest, even some of the other candidates from the past, I love Obama, you know, and even she's going, she's not leaving any rock unturned. And I think that we need someone who's not intellectually lazy and who's going to do all of the work. And I'm really excited to see what she has to bring because she's the only candidate that's actually drawn it out like that.

I do agree that she's not leaving a rock. What was that phrase? Rock unturned. Yeah, because the other day I saw that she was talking about how much money the federal government owes LGBTQ couples and back taxes because of all of the years they weren't able to legally get married. And I was like, oh my gosh, she never even stopped that. Because she's having conversations with the people who are being directly impacted

by those things. That is the difference. It's the difference between us looking around and saying, okay, well, what is Bernie talking about? What is Pete talking about? What is she's not waiting for someone to chew her food for her? She's actually going down and- That's an interesting expression. Yeah. I've never heard that one before.

Okay, interesting. Well, hopefully Elizabeth Ward was watching and got some advice from you there. There are nine other candidates though, and some of them, this might be their last chance on the debate stage. So if they're gonna continue, they've got to come out swinging. Some of them like Beto O'Rourke have had a moment and if they want another one, this would be a great time for them to stand out. I could run for Senate. Again, that's a cool moment.

That would be true as well. I try to tell them that on Twitter and we'll see if you listen. But anyway, we're gonna take a short break when we come back. Brooke is actually middle-in-ups through the second hour. I would like to call it a collaborative effort. Let's talk about this during the break. No, no, I want to put the success or failure on you. If this thing goes down in flames, I don't want any responsibility.

As always, thank you for joining us on the show. It's always a pleasure. Thank you. Great to have you here. And we'll see you after this. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.