The Young Turks - Jesus vs The Vaccine

Episode Date: August 12, 2021

Rand Paul revealed Wednesday that his wife bought stock in Gilead Sciences – which makes an antiviral drug used to treat COVID-19 – back on Feb. 26, 2020, before the threat of coronavirus was fully understood. Mississippi asks the Biden Administration to send military hospital ships. Laura Ingraham forgets the meaning of irony. Dan Crenshaw gets heckled by a monster he helped create. 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. What is up? What is up? Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm Anna Casparian, and I'm super excited for today's show, because Charles Coleman joins me. He is a civil rights attorney and a former prosecutor and someone who I've enjoyed on the show, particularly the Friday Power Panels. And I've been really excited to get an opportunity to host with you. So Charles, thank you for joining us.

Thanks for having me. Anna, so glad to be here and really looking forward to today's discussion. Everyone, please follow Charles on Twitter. You can find him at CF Coleman Jr. That's C.F. Coleman Jr. Give him a follow on Twitter. You won't regret it. And you certainly won't I don't regret watching today's show. We've got so many stories to get to that I think are important, substantive, we've got some fun later. We're going to discuss something that might infuriate both me and Charles simultaneously in regard to Laura Ingram. And the lies that she tells regarding children wearing face masks in schools, I mean the commentary, just when you think she can't get low or any lower, she finds a way, she finds a way, it's miraculous.

In the second hour, we'll discuss the latest news with Rumble, one of the social media platforms that is growing and now offering six-figure salaries to people that we used to think were journalists to spread all sorts of whatever. But one thing that makes Rumble stand out from all other social media platforms is that they don't try to check any of the disinformation in regard to the coronavirus pandemic. But that's an hour or two. That's when Lance from the service will be joining me. Right now, though, why don't we talk a little bit about a common problem in Congress, and that's potential insider trading. Rand Paul's wife purchased stock from Gilead Sciences, and Rand Paul, who's supposed to report that, didn't do so. In fact, he didn't report it until 16 months after the deadline to do so, which does certainly raise some red flags, but the timing of the Gilead share purchases certainly also raises a red flag, and let me give you those details. So Rand Paul revealed that his wife bought stock

in Gilead Sciences, which makes the antiviral drug used to treat COVID-19 on February 26, 2020 before the threat from the coronavirus was fully understood by the public and before it was classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Now the timing is important, especially because you had members of Congress, certainly various committees in the Senate, who were briefed in non-public meetings on coronavirus. So they had information about the severity of the pandemic before the general public did. The purchase was of between $1,000 and $15,000 in stock in Gilead, which makes the antiviral drug known as Remdesivir.

The company's stock was worth $74.70 per share on the day of the purchase and rose above $80 in March. It has since fluctuated and was worth $69.84 on the day of Paul's disclosure more than a year later. So again, it took him 16 months to report this. He missed the deadline. I think that's a huge problem. But what I would argue is a far larger problem is that we have members of Congress and the spouses of members of Congress who are able to invest in individual stocks. That in and of itself is a huge problem. Even if this gets investigated and there's no evidence of insider trading taking place, the fact that you have congressional law,

and their families invested in individual stocks certainly serves as a conflict of interest. And so was there insider trading taking place? We don't know yet, but we do have a few more details. Paul is a member of the Senate Health Committee, which in January, in January hosted Trump administration officials for a briefing on the coronavirus. So this briefing happens in January, and then his wife, Rand Paul's wife, decides to buy shares of Remdesivir, which was later used as a treatment for coronavirus in February. So I want to get your thoughts, Charles, because this is an issue that's been pretty infuriating.

I mean, when you really look at how widespread this problem is in Congress and how much it impacts some of the policy decisions they make, it shows you that this conflict of interest really does work against the best interests of the American people, and the very individuals who voted these congressional lawmakers into office in the first place. So sure, there is a sentiment among many people that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And so examples of stories like these are just fuel for the fire that suggests that there is going to be a class of people who will continue to have and a class of people who will continue to have not. And when I talk about haves and have nots, I'm talking about information as much as I'm talking about money. And you went as far as to say that members of Congress and their families or their immediate families should not be allowed to,

trade publicly. And while I also, you know, sort of had that in my head in terms of something that I was mulling over, I wasn't prepared to go that far how, you know, I was going to say that maybe there should be tighter restrictions. But the reality is when I think about it and I think it through, there's been story after story after story where we have seen that with the restrictions that are currently in place and the attempts that people have made, the, the ethics committee in both houses of Congress in terms of trying to create transparency around reporting, and things of that nature. We still have continued violations. Right now, Senator Richard Burr is still under investigation from the FEC around potential violations with respect to insider trading.

And he is one of the remaining senators, some of the other ones Feinstein and others were Laughler and others were cleared during the initial probe that took place in the wake of a number of stocks being dumped immediately before the announcement of coronavirus and the pandemic. I say all that to say that what we've seen over and over again time and time again is that unfortunately people in positions of power, at least not in the United States Congress, can be trusted, cannot be trusted to make good decisions when it comes to trading and having access to information. And obviously in many cases overwhelmingly having the means to take advantage of that information in the market. And so this is an example of something that unfortunately

supports your position, in my opinion, because, you know, one would like to think that if you put out stricter regulations for people in power, that that would be enough. But what we are seeing is that, unfortunately, that is not the case. And so you may be right in as much as perhaps the solution is just an altogether prohibition for that, for members of Congress and their immediate families and or spouses, you know, in order to curtail this. Because I don't. I don't see it changing anytime soon. And Rand Paul, at the end of the day, not only should he know better,

but quite frankly, he did know better. Yeah, of course he did know better. I think it's, I mean, the fact that he waited this long to disclose that his wife purchased this particular stock, I think is, again, it's a huge red flag. But this goes beyond Rand Paul and his wife. And I also want to just clarify, when I say lawmakers and their families,

I'm not talking about extended families. I'm certainly talking about their immediate family, their spouses, because they live in the same household. And so if their wives or their husbands are buying shares of a company, it still has the same impact as it would if it were the particular public servant doing it him or herself. And that's the thing, I would like our public servants to live up to that title. Being a public servant means that you have to sacrifice things, including investing in individual stocks for companies that you are going to make legislative decisions about.

And I love that you brought up Senator Burr, because that was really the story that forced me to kind of explore how widespread this problem is. And I want to share this video with you all because it gives you a sense of how widespread it is and how much of a problem it becomes in terms of governing. In March 2020, news spread that four U.S. senators, including Burr, were being investigated for insider trading. All ahead of the drastic escalations in this pandemic, while still reassuring citizens that the U.S. U.S. was prepared. Senator Burr vehemently denies the allegations against him, but here's what we know. On January 24th, the Senate's Health Committee held a briefing with CDC director Robert Redfield and White House pandemic advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, according to the Washington Post.

About two weeks later, Burr and Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander wrote a Fox News editorial that the U.S. was better prepared than ever to deal with a pandemic like the coronavirus. Less than a week later, the Dow set an all-time record, hitting just the U.S. over 29,551 points. On February 13th, Burr sold between $630,000 and $1.7 million worth of investments. He did it in 33 separate transactions, and he didn't buy a single share. Perhaps worse, Burr may have discussed the stock sales with his brother-in-law and others, according to reporting by ProPublica and a secret recording obtained by NPR.

There's one thing that I can tell you about this. It is much more aggressive in this transition than anything that we hear. seen in recent history. It's probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic. So Burr implicated his own brother by having that conversation. He, it appears, acted on insider information while downplaying the coronavirus pandemic to the general public. Kelly Leffler did the same thing.

Thankfully, she was elected out of office in the Senate runoff races in Georgia. And when it comes to holding these lawmakers to account or ensuring that they're not engaging in insider trading, how does that investigation go down? How do they determine whether or not there's any wrongdoing? Well, this next video will give you a little more information on that. Insider trading isn't just done by wealthy financiers or celebrities. Politicians have unique insight into what most outsiders don't. The size and scope of what Congress is involved in has broadened dramatically. I mean, whether it's health care, whether it's defense, whether it's financial markets,

and they have market-moving information, and they're going to act on that information. I mean, information is king. A groundbreaking 2004 study by a group of professors and researchers examined the records of U.S. senators between 1993 and 1998. The study found that a portfolio tracking the stocks that the U.S. senators bought during the same time period outperformed the market by 85 basis points each month. In a portfolio that tracked the stocks that the senators sold during the period, lagged behind the market by 12 basis points.

The study concluded that the senator's new appropriate times to both buy and sell their common stocks. The Stock Act is enforced by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. And where do they get their funding? They get their funding from Congress, which is the very body that they are supposed to be regulating. So the Stock Act is good, but I think we need to do a whole lot better. I mean, Charles, I mean, when you think about how Congress makes the, decisions regarding appropriations for the very bodies that do these investigations into insider trading and when you also consider that they do

these Senate ethics committee investigations meaning that their colleagues conduct investigations into what they've been doing and it's very likely that their own colleagues are engaging in the same behavior the investigators are likely engaging in the same behavior I mean it's all a farce it's all insanely ridiculous that the investigations go down the way they do And so after the Senate Ethics Committee, Senate Ethics Committee looked into Leffler and Feinstein, they argued that no, no, no, we can't, there's no evidence of insider trading, not at all, nothing. Come on. No, you're, you're absolutely right. And I think that at the end of the day, Congress has a decision to make with regard to public transparency and civic engagement. And this is a larger, broader, more ideological conversation. But it's still one that's relevant. And it's relevant because if we think about what we think about what, what we saw in January 6th, if we think about what we have seen in the wake of last year's

election in terms of their people still who do not want to accept the results because they believe that our democracy was hijacked, right? There is this this overarching sense of misinformation and lack of transparency. And when you connect the dots across these things, what you will find is you cannot have it both ways. You cannot put forth a system where the game appears to be rigged against folks. And then, you know, lambast the people, people who don't trust the system and think that the game is rigged. That's what they're seeing and that's what you're showing them. So if you want people to participate in earnest and you want people to trust the system and have faith in it and believe that it operates in it

with integrity, then you have to avoid situations like these where it appears as though you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. And I think that's part of the problem that we don't necessarily make connections to. We need to understand that these have broader implications beyond just Ram Paul or Richard Burr or anyone else on the individual level, but that it really does damage people's level of faith and integrity in the system that you are asking people and, quite frankly, requiring them to participate in as a cornerstone in how we live and operate as Americans. I think that's such a great point. I mean, we're seeing the consequences of the lack of trust in our institutions. You know, when we look at, you know, groups of conspiracy theorists

and all of that, and we wonder like, why won't they believe the information? Why won't they believe the evidence? Well, they've lost trust in institutions, including our, you know, government, Congress, and this behavior certainly doesn't help to mitigate that or alleviate that. Well, let's move on to our next stories. Oh, go ahead. No, I was just going to, you know, add a moment of levity to this before we move on. Imagine getting information and then betting on the wrong horse when doing it. I know, I know. You think about Reserva and Rand Paul's wife, she actually is losing money now, which actually,

you know, which sucks quite frankly, but I think that's the sort of silver lining to the story is kind of like, imagine you got the inside track and you bet on the wrong horse to win. And that to me just kind of makes me laugh. I know, it is pretty amazing. I love that they're also using that as a defense, by the way. It's like, no, no, we didn't do anything wrong. We're losing money from this. But it's not money, so it's okay.

Yeah, obviously it's not okay. But we'll see what happens. I mean, I don't have a lot of faith considering the outcome of the investigation into Leffler and Feinstein. I know Burr is still being investigated because his case was even more egregious than others. But we'll see how it plays out. I just think of the best way to prevent any type of speculation of wrongdoing is to prevent these public servants and their spouses from engagement investing in individual stocks. It's that simple. All right, well, let's move on to coronavirus updates on the pandemic.

And more importantly, what we're seeing in some of these states that unfortunately didn't take the pandemic seriously. The very states that fail to take coronavirus seriously are now tragically and unfortunately suffering from high cases, new spikes in coronavirus cases. Mississippi is one of them, for instance, where now hard hit Mississippi has requested that the federal government send a military hospital ship as the U.S.N.S. comfort. The University of Mississippi Medical Center also has 127 COVID-19 patients, including 26 kids, minors. And they've also said that about 90% of the people that they're bringing into the hospitals are unvaccinated. And so you, look at Mississippi, then you look at Arkansas where the governor seems to have had a change of heart recently in regard to vaccinations and masks. And unfortunately, there's a lot of pushback if the Republican governor wants to pivot to a more responsible way of handling and responding

to the pandemic. So Asa Hutchinson, who is in fact the governor of Arkansas, held a town hall meeting to encourage his constituents to get vaccinated. But he was met with a lot of backlash, including from the woman you're about to see. When I was a pediatric nurse, I have given thousands of doses of vaccines until I learned that some vaccines are cultured in aborted fetal tissue. Currently, every SARS-2 COVID vaccine that's available on the market is manufactured using aborted fetal tissue. As a result, some Christians and other faith don't feel that it's biblically acceptable for them to participate in the vaccine. Much like in the book of Daniel, these Christians are forced to either bow to the authorities who are wishing to persuade them to do something

they feel is immoral, or they need to obey God. So, Governor, I have been praying that God himself will step in so that Christians are not forced by their employers and a mandate to get the vaccine. Yet, even if God does not, I will not bow. And with all respect, and with all respect, Governor, we love you and appreciate you, but God will not hold. you guiltless if you fail to stand up for the Christians who believe it is in their right to abstain from the vaccine. No fetal tissue is used to create any of these vaccines. Let me, there.

The gentleman who tried to, you know, rebut the allegations that fetal tissues were used, the response to him reminded me of how health experts were treated at a similar event in Tennessee, it got a little more rowdy where the health experts were actually threatened. But Charles, I want to bring you in because, you know, you watch that. And clearly this woman genuinely believes what she's saying. I don't think she's a bad person, but she has bad information. You know, I spend a number of years as an employment attorney. And so I have a significant amount of sympathy and support and understanding for people who operate under religious exemption laws. And the protections under those laws exist for a reason.

I believe that people who have sincerely held beliefs about who they are and what it is that they worship in their faith should be respected. So in that respect, I do feel for this woman and I do support the notion, the spirit, of her passion. She is clearly convicted about something. However, when I look back at it, the reality is, as you said, Anna, they just have bad information. Like, you don't have a mastery of the facts. You're not speaking the truth. And these are things that are easily, easily dealt with. These are things that you could easily find out. The problem in a larger sense is that on both sides of this equation, we have been politicizing this virus from the outset. And unfortunately, I have to point that out on both sides. This virus has been politicized in a number of different

ways for convenience from both sides of the aisle, perhaps more on one side than the other. I won't argue that. I won't argue that, right? But I think that larger issue is what has happened is people have gotten so much misinformation under the banner of politicization that they don't know what to believe. And so they have come to accept pretty much any and everything that will affirm whatever confirmation bias that they need in order to dig into their position. And that's why you have someone standing up in a crowded room of people saying, you know, every virus, every vaccine that is out there on the market contains aborted fetal tissue. And now you'll have another room full of people who will be there, hear that, go back, tell their friends that, and so on and so forth and around and around we go. So I think that's one element of what we're seeing here is just that we allow this virus and the entire situation in terms of the pandemic to become over politicized far too early and far into a much greater degree. And that led to a huge misinformation campaign that has confused a significant amount of the American public.

That's part one. Part two, and I have to quote one of my good friends, Dr. Rod D. Ferguson, who talks about the death of expertise. I have this conversation on a regular basis. Your Google search is no match for my law degree. I'm sorry, it just isn't, right? And I am not an infectious disease specialist. Therefore, I can't go on WebMD and feel like now I have enough information to challenge Dr. Fauci or whomever else it is that is responsible. for giving the public information about infectious diseases and vaccinations. I cannot believe that in an hour and a half of research online, I have somehow now amassed a formidable amount of knowledge such that I can challenge the professional opinions that have been formed by physicians and medical professionals for the past 15 to 20 plus years

in this space. And I think that that's part of the problem as well. We live in a world where anyone feels like they can just Google or look up whatever it is that they want and become a subject matter expert in a matter of minutes. And that has led to a lot of people feeling like they can challenge the stuff that they're hearing from actual experts who have done actual work. So when I think about that young woman, I think about her statement, I think about her conviction, I'm reminded of both of those things sort of converging in the same space because of what it actually does to the public and what it's going to continue to do. And the worst part about it, the most sad and tragic part about it, Anna, is that people are going to continue

to die and lose their lives because of it. And I find that to be incredibly tragic. I know, I mean, I could not agree with you more. That's why I go from feeling complete sadness and almost like, if you find myself in a depressive state to feeling absolute rage, and it depends on who's spreading the disinformation or misinformation. In this case, I think It's just someone who genuinely believes what she's saying. She's been exposed to bad information. I don't think she's a bad person. What gets to me is when you come across people who are intentionally spreading

disinformation that's getting people killed. Like for instance, Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, who is threatening the pay of public school administrators who want to implement mask mandates to keep children and educators safe. And he just, why would he threaten their pay? He knows that the masks keep people safe. But he also knows that his supporters, the people who vote for him, don't like the masks. So he's literally going to lie, not just to the people of Florida, but to the American people about the efficacy of wearing masks. And he's going to go so far as to punish administrators who are trying to do the right thing.

That's when I feel complete and utter rage. Later in the show, we'll talk a little bit about Laura Ingram. and the disinformation that she's been spreading, which is going to get children killed. I'm not even kidding. I mean, we're seeing higher numbers of children being hospitalized with coronavirus. This is no joke. And so we've got more video on this. I don't want to get off the story yet. We do have to take a break. So why don't we do that? When we come back, I'll show you guys some more video from this town hall. And we'll also get to that Laura Ingram story. Stay tuned. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and Charles Coleman Jr. with you.

We were just talking about this town hall meeting that Asa Hutchinson, governor of Arkansas, was holding to encourage his constituents to get vaccinated. He got some pushback. There's more video I wanted to share with the audience. So why don't we get right to that? So while Asa Hutchinson was trying to encourage his constituents to get vaccinated, he had one person after the next stand up and basically push back. The next video is another good example of the type of misinformation that some people have unfortunately bought into and the arguments that they used against Asa Hutchinson. Let's watch. So explain to me why there are so many that have the vaccine that are getting the virus. I think that we all know what the truth is.

And it is times to start accepting what the truth is. We know that this is the emperor who has no clothes, and we need to accept that. We know what the survival rate is of COVID. Do we really want to go back to where we were? Do we really want to go back in lockdown? What can't burst, COVID or the vaccine? Just curious, because I'm pretty sure that these vaccines, these M RNA vaccines, actually have patents on them. So they were actually patented in long before COVID.

And I don't think that they were designed to actually get rid of COVID, right? I'm not sure if the real issue here is that people live in their own ideological bubbles. and so they're only exposed to one perspective. Or if the CDC and our government officials have just done a poor job in communicating the facts of how the vaccine works, where the vaccine came from. I mean, yes, you can certainly experience a breakthrough infection if you've been vaccinated. The point of the vaccine is to ensure that you're not hospitalized and to ensure that you don't die. if you do experience a breakthrough infection, which is why the vast majority of people who are being

hospitalized with COVID right now happen to be unvaccinated. And the question about the MRNA vaccine and when it came about, I actually think that was a fantastic question. And there isn't enough, I think, public campaigning education about where the vaccine came from. Because the fact of the matter is, this is a publicly funded vaccine that was the framework of it, the MRNA framework was developed in universities. It was publicly paid for. And it was just languishing in universities because there was no point to develop it for something. There was no reason to develop it fully for a particular virus.

And thank God that they had been working on the framework for the vaccine ahead of time, Because sure enough, now we're dealing with a pandemic where that vaccine and the framework that it uses has become incredibly useful. It's saving people's lives. But I don't begrudge that woman for not knowing that. I mean, to be honest, I mean, I work in news and you don't really hear many conversations about how the vaccine was developed. Charles, what do you think?

No, I think you're absolutely right. And I think that that is what I talk about when I talk about the idea that this needs to have a greater sense of transparency attached to it in terms of the conversation and we haven't really valued that at the appropriate level and frankly we're seeing the consequences of it. As far as challenging and inquisitive as that group is, I would really be curious to know how many of them ever like passed AP Bio in high school, however. But I do think even as I make that slight dig, I think that in a broader sense, there is an important conversation here for people for people who call themselves progressives or see themselves as being on the left.

And that is, it is really, really tempting and easy and seductive, even I fall into it from time to time to dismiss these people in certain states, your Mississippi, your Arkansas, your states that have lower vaccination rates and say, you know, these people are not well educated as compared to per capita, the amount of education or the years of education held by people in other places with higher vaccination rates. The problem is from a larger political space, what that does is it affirms the notion that progressives and liberals can oftentimes be a bit pious, a bit disconnected from what the average American feels and how the average American thinks. And so we have to be careful not to simply just dismiss folks based off of the idea that we don't think that they're that smart or that intelligent. Because as you've pointed out, the truth of the matter is that we haven't as a whole. had a ton of information that has been accessible to the public in a way that's been transparent and allowed a lot of us to really know the truth about what's going on. The last thing now I want to say is that even as someone who has a background in liberal arts and soft sciences, as people would call them, I'm a little bit lost on the Emperor's Clothes reference. And I would love to, I would love it if you could break that one down to me. I mean, I am familiar with the story of the Emperor's Clothes, yes, but I am not quite sure as to the analogy that the woman in the

video was making. So I would love if anybody like on Twitter wants to shoot me a note and sort of bridge that gap, please do. Otherwise, what I will say is no, you are correct, Anna. A lot of it folks cannot necessarily be blamed for because the information has not been readily available. And then on top of that, a lot of outlets where people have gone to, where they have trusted them, certain outlets on cable news, certain very, very popular outlets. outlets on cable news have been rife with misinformation and sort of throwing out fuel for a lot of conspiracy theories, such as the ones that we have been hearing over and over again, even today in the videos. And so shame on them for neglecting and evading their responsibility as members of the media to pass on accurate information, because now we're seeing what the effects of those are. And they are very, very real. Absolutely. All right, well, let's move on to our next story because Laura Ingram is part of the problem and in my opinion very intentionally spreads disinformation about this pandemic. So Laura Ingram, who literally makes money instilling fear

in Americans in regard to immigrants, Black Lives Matter, black people in general, now apparently thinks that Democrats should be looked into for the fear that they instill in shape. children when they insist that children wear masks when they go back to school for in-person learning. So does she have a case here? Why don't we hear what she has to say? Our so-called public health officials, all progressives, are turning our young people into COVID paranoiacs. Dear superintendent, Dr. Green, and school board members, I would like to encourage the requirement of masks at school in Duval County. I'm so worried that if masks are not required. My brother could go to school one day and the next to be dying in the

hospital. At school, I wear two masks because I want to make sure I don't get sick. Now, this is so sad. And I blame the parents, but mostly I blame the Democrats. They want everyone scared. They want you in hiding. They don't want you to talk to your neighbors. They don't want you to go to church. They want you to be waiting for the next order from the CDC. It's cruel. The road to hell, it's paved with, please keep your distance stickers. No, I would argue the road to hell is paved with the likes of people like Laura Ingram, Tucker Carlson, and all the other goons who have, it seems like a financial interest in lying to the American people about something that they need to protect themselves from. So the video that she showed featured a 12 year old girl in Florida asking that her school implement a mask mandate so her 10 year old brother who cannot get vaccinated doesn't get sick.

And the concern is real because with this delta variant we're starting to see an uptick in the number of children who are being hospitalized with the coronavirus. Now let's also take a step back and look at the bigger picture. It's still far less likely to impact children the way it's been impacting adults. However, we don't know what the future holds with these mutations. We already see that the virus has mutated into something that is far more easy to get infected by, it's far more contagious, and it's starting to have an impact on younger patients. And the fact that she's making this out to be like, oh, you're just instilling fear in children.

Charles, what is what does Laura Ingram do on literally a nightly basis? You know, you started off the segment and took the words right out of my mouth in as much as Laura Ingram is content to hustle and peddle controversy for profit. She is more than fine, fear mongering for viewership, for followers, for her audience in a way that is, quite frankly, harmful, dangerous, and disgusting. I've said on this program a number of times before, and I will say it again, you cannot hustle controversy for profit because you are playing with forces that you can't control. And in this case, with Laura Ingram, what she's doing, and it's also very subtle, in my opinion, and very, very nefarious. In the entire Laura Ingram clip, for as much as she has had to say about mask mandates and fearing the Democrats and, you know, people socially distancing and Democrats want to

keep you away from your neighbors, she also simultaneously acknowledges that this is a very, very transmittable disease, but yet has no solution for containing it and avoiding further spreading and lengthening of the pandemic. So you have all of these criticisms for the Democrats and all of these criticisms around social distancing and all of these criticisms around mass mandates and all these criticisms around different measures that are genuinely intended to help keep people safe, but you don't have a solution. You don't have an alternative.

All you're doing is pointing at Democrats, at the left, as, you know, these are the boogeymen, these are the people you need to be scared of, and saying, well, these are the people that are trying to make you scared. So it's like this really not subtle, not that clever trick that she's invoking. And I just think that given what's at stake here, it's pretty disgusting and very, very unfortunate. And another thing that I wanted to say, Anna, is this comes up a lot. People like to talk about the relative mortality rate or survival rate from the virus. When did death become the bar? It's amazing. Yeah, no. Why is like, I survived or you're likely to survive, but that's not the standard.

That's not the barometer for, you know, a strong public health, right? Like, we still do not know what the long term effects of contracting this virus can be. We still do not have an appreciation for the level of impact, the crippling level of impact that this virus has had on our infrastructure, our healthcare infrastructure in the country. and what may continue to be a problem going forward. And yet and still, one of the most prevalent arguments that I hear, that's not a good argument is, well, you have a high likelihood of surviving. Right. Why is that the standard?

There's so much that we don't understand about this virus, right? And I say that because this situation is fluid, clearly. I mean, things have changed and we have to kind of adapt to the changes because this is a novel coronavirus, we're dealing with variants of it. And we don't know. There's a lot we don't know, including what the long-term effects can be on people who do contract it. But, you know, I want you to hold that thought because I think that the next clip makes your commentary even more relevant, because my personal opinion is the second part is what infuriated me. So let's just take a quick look at it.

But thankfully, parents nationwide have finally began to fight back as they did in Tennessee yesterday. No more mess. I'll see you on court. Yes. My child will not be here. Dr. Fauci would be so disappointed in you people. Like I don't know why Dr. Fauci needs to be the boogeyman.

Like the, look, Dr. Fauci has had a few missteps of his own, including discouraging people from wearing masks in the early days of the pandemic because there was a mask shortage in the country and we needed healthcare workers to have access to them. He shouldn't have done that, he should have just been honest with the American people. But outside of that, the guy is trying to give people information to keep themselves and their loved ones safe. And Laura Ingram in that video decides to give props, a round of applause to the lunatics who decided to threaten school board members and also health experts who showed up to that school

board meeting to give their medical advice in regard to a potential mask mandate in Tennessee, in one school district in Tennessee. In fact, let me remind you of the kind of threats that they threw at these health experts as they were trying to get away from the scene. That is what Laura Ingram is applauding. Let's take a look at that. No more. We know who you are! We know who you are! We know who you are!

Keep it calm. Keep it calm. No more mask. We're on these guys' side. They are not. No, they're not on our side. The police are on our side. We just calm down.

We know who you are. We know who you are. We know who you are. You can leave free. You will find you and we know who you are. You will never be allowed in public again. You will never be allowed. You never let it be allowed.

I know who you are. Let them out. Let them out. We know where you are. We know where to find you. Those are threats that, again, Laura Ingram herself, you just heard it, decided to applaud on her show. And that crowd of people who are getting rowdy and violent toward health experts who are just trying to keep their children safe, Laura Ingram is partly the blame for that.

She's the one who encourages it. And they love it, they love it. It's part of their profit motive. They have an incentive to do it. It keeps their ratings up. One more video from Laura Ingram, and this is the one that really did the trick for me. Let's watch. By the way, why wasn't Dr. Fauci and Francis Collins constantly lecture

kids about mass during the nasty 2019 flu season when a record 188 of them died. Yeah, you know what, why don't we look at the numbers? Since Laura Ingram, who has unlimited resources at this well-watched cable news network, doesn't have the ability to look it up, or have one of her minions look it up for her. So why don't we do it for her?

Maybe we can educate Laura Ingram on what the reality is of the flu that she's talking about, the flu season that she's talking about, that she's talking about compared to what we're experiencing right now with this coronavirus, which could have easily been over by now if people wore their damn masks and took their damn vaccines. Okay, but hey, you know, we want to talk about freedom. The freedom of those who are doing the right thing and getting vaccinated, their freedom doesn't matter. It's all about the freedom of lunatics who absorb garbage content like what we just saw from Laura Ingram. Let's

look at what happened in 2019 with flu season. During the 2019 to 2020 influenza season, CDC estimates or estimates that influenza was associated with 38 million illnesses. That's a lot. 18 million medical visits, 405,000 hospitalizations. That's a lot of hospitalizations, and 22,000 deaths. There were 22,000 deaths. Want to know how many Americans have died during the coronavirus pandemic? 617,000.

Let's look at how many children died. A hundred ninety nine child deaths were reported for the 2019 to 2020 season as of May 27th, 2021. Okay, so that's tragic, right? That is tragic. Why don't we take a look at how many children have died from coronavirus so far, so far. Who knows how many more are going to die in the near future thanks to these variants and these mutations that continue to come about because people refuse to wear their masks, people refuse to do what they're supposed to do because again they've absorbed the garbage coming from people like Laura Ingram. So look at this chart, it's from the CDC and it breaks down the number of coronavirus deaths

by age and also by gender. So for males between the ages of 0 to 4 years old, 76 of them have died, males between the ages of 5 and 18, 157 died. For females, 0 to 4, 55 deaths, for females 5 to 18, 135 deaths. That's a total of 423 deaths. It appears, it appears, I could be wrong, Charles, but it appears here that coronavirus is a little different from the typical flu that we experience every year. It appears that it's more contagious and more deadly.

I don't know, I could be wrong though. I mean, I'm not a mathematician. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the producer's over at Fox know better than I do. Yeah, you know, There is a little thing called logical fallacy that people tend not to understand or employ when considering the garbage that is spewed over there, oftentimes, because one of the most popular logical fallacies that people employ these days is called false equivalency, and that's

what we've just seen. We've seen her make a false equivalency or attempt to make a false equivalency in comparing the flu virus to the coronavirus, which all viruses are not created equal, and they are not the same and do not have the same capability and devastation. So just the idea that you would sort of put them on the same playing field is absurd to begin with. But I do want to go back in a larger way and talk about something from the second clip, because it struck me as I watched it again. First and foremost, let me say this. I understand that there are a number of people who have serious reservations about whether they want to take the vaccine. I respect the fact that it's an individual choice and that people are hesitant.

However, you can't just be out here without a solution around what it is that you were doing to prevent the spread of this virus and the pandemic. So if you're not going to wear a vaccine, I feel like you have to at least invest in some other method of protection, whether it's agreeing to social distance or agreeing to wear a mask or doing something that is going to help stave off what it is that you're not willing to do with respect to the vaccine. Are you willing to stay home? Are you, you know, and part of the problem that I see from that side is that the discourse is absent with what the actual solution that they believe is acceptable to, number one, keep people safe while also respecting their actual civil liberties as they are putting it. But as it relates to that second clip, Anna, the big thing that I wanted to say is, you know, you pointed out rather astutely that that crowd was becoming violent and that that crowd

was becoming angry and that that crowd was actually making threats against public health officials. They did so in the presence of law enforcement. And law enforcement did nothing about it. That's right. When you talk about what it is to have an insurrection and how that is egged on, Fox News has already been sued for how harmful, on a number of different occasions, for how harmful their rhetoric is and how dangerous it is. And in a case like this, when she says, kudos to the parents, her actuals were, her actual words were who decided to fight back. And then you see that resulting. There's no, there's not, it's not a huge stretch to draw a line between that and riots and violence and all sorts of other things. And then you don't get to

stand up and wash your hands of it and say, I have no idea how this happened. This is not what I was advocating for. You absolutely were. You absolutely were applauding this. You absolutely were okay with this. You absolutely were egging it on. You were fertilizing the ground that these seeds were planted in so that when something like January 6th happens, you do not get to stand up and say, I have no no responsibility here. You absolutely have blood on your hands almost in the literal sense when acts of violence do occur, when people are threatened. And so I think that as I watched that video, I was kind of thinking to myself, we haven't learned anything from the things that we've seen over the past year. No.

We haven't learned any lessons and we refuse to change our ways. And I just keep wondering to myself, what's it going to take? What's it going to happen? First, we thought, you know, it was terrible with Charlottesville years and years and years ago, right? Like, oh, this is getting out of hand. And then we saw incident after incident of civil unrest over and over again. And, you know, oh, this is getting out of hand. This is getting out of hand. And then we come to January 6th. Like, and now we're still doing the same thing and allowing the same thing to take place because to me, that's very little not at all different. There's very little difference between the the rhetoric that she put out in response to that meeting. And Donald Trump saying, you know, we gotta fight like hell to preserve out democracy. There's very, very little difference in, in those remarks and in that rhetoric. And it's equally as dangerous and nefarious. And so my question is, what's it gonna take before we say like enough is enough?

And this has to stop. That's part of the problem, I don't know. And you know, with all the news that we cover, on a daily basis, for the longest time, I felt like, no, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. There are solutions. This is one of the issues where I don't see a solution. I don't see an end in sight. And the second that I finally felt a little bit of relief is people were getting vaccinated, that moment of lightness, of, you know, seeing that light at the end of the tunnel, that was just completely destroyed. And I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of it.

Because the very people who are whining and crying about having to wear masks seem to fail to realize that if they just, they just work together, if we just could do something in a collectivist way in this country, we could combat this. We could be done with it. But unfortunately, we've got all sorts of propagandists working against that. We got to take our second break of the hour. So why don't we do that? And when we come back, Dan Crenshaw, a Republican lawmaker, is now having to battle a monster. that he partially helped to create. We'll be right back. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian. And Charles with you, Charles Coleman, of course, and just wanted to remind you all that you can follow his work over at Twitter

and his handle is C.F. Coleman Jr. That's C.F. Coleman Jr. Make sure you give him a follow. All right, Charles. Let's get to our next story. Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican, was confronted by a Magachud who doesn't like the fact that Crenshaw refuses to repeat lies about the 2020 election being rigged and stolen from Donald Trump. This was during a fundraiser. Let's see how the conversation went down. Don't kid yourself into believing that's why we lost. It's not.

You're wrong. I'll tell you openly. You're wrong. And I'm not wrong. Yes, you are. I have proof. I have proof in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. You did the Maricopo. Yeah. And guess what? It's going to turn out and it's going to flip. Okay.

Do you watch? We're going to see first. And you've got to flip all five states to me. You know how they're stealing the elections? All right. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to say this. This is something like, I'll say hopefully,

this is something government except is there a lot of voters. He is right. That's not. You'll see. Absolutely not. Five different states? Yes. So this was during a fundraiser on Wednesday night of this week.

And the person that you hear on the other side of the camera is actually a candidate for the U.S. Senate. He's running in Illinois. His name is Bobby Pitten. And clearly he is either delusional or is just trying to pander to Donald Trump's base because he knows that he's running for Senate. But Charles, I want to bring you in because I do find it funny when the The very people who enabled Donald Trump along the way are now dealing with this monster

that they can't contain. Well, I mean, that's the price that you have to pay when you play this game and when you get into this dance. Now that, and I think that's really what it is, you are dealing with a, you fed a beast. You fed a monster, you fed a system for as long as you did, and it was fine when that beast was protecting you. It was fine when you were benefiting from the beast clearing the land in front of your. you and you trotting out goofily behind it in order to sort of claim what you thought was yours.

But now that that situation is not what it was previously, you have to deal with the consequences. And so there's very little sympathy that's there because it has grown to a place that you cannot control it anymore, that you don't have any sort of say so. But yet and still there is this public sentiment, this following, this group of folks, this demographic, that is hell bent on quote unquote supporting the lie and supporting this fantasy in such a way that you can't turn away and you can't get them to turn away either. And it's causing problems. And so on one hand, you know,

it goes back to one of the most basic principles, which is you're reaping what you have sown. And, you know, there's no way that you can sort of argue and wonder, well, I wonder how did this happen? I wonder how did we get here. You are part of this. And you don't get to divorce yourself from it now that it doesn't work to your advantage.

And now that people are coming to your rallies, heckling you in the spirit of what it is that you helped to enable to begin with. And it's really unfortunate because people have to understand that their decisions in terms of who they align with politically, ideologically, they all have consequences. And you can't wait until it's too late to say,

I was wrong about that. I made a mistake about that. Like you can't, you can't sort of play with that in hoping that you're going to be able to siphon off one last bit of support, one last like, one last donation from a constituency that is really, really dug in and taking everything that was said previously to heart in such a way that they won't change their mind. So, you know, it's unfortunate, but it is a catastrophe of his own doing. Absolutely. I certainly agree with you on that. And while it

might be amusing to watch it happen. And, you know, I hope that there are Republican lawmakers who learn lessons from it. The fact of the matter is, Republican lawmakers are in an incredibly difficult position, because even if they are principled, even if they didn't engage in enabling Donald Trump, to the extent that, let's say, Kevin McCarthy did, or some of his more rabid fans in Congress did, like Matt Gates is another example, they still find themselves having to appeal to Trump's base because the vast majority of Republican voters still have an incredibly favorable opinion toward Donald Trump. I mean, it's to the point where I even question if there will be a Republican primary in the 2024 presidential elections. Because who would

be stupid enough to run against Donald Trump, knowing that that cult of personality is so dominant with the Republican Party? That's a very interesting question. And I mean, I mean, I do think that there are going to be folks who are questioning whether if he runs, and quite frankly, I expect him to, whether he's beatable. I think that it's going to drive a huge rift within the party because there are going to be people who feel like he's our best shot. And then there are people who are going to be feeling like he will damn the party to hell forever and ever. And so he had already begun to sort

of tear the party apart at the seams prior to him being ousted from office. And I think if he does decide to throw his name into the hat again, and he's able to capitalize on the momentum of the people who truly believe that this election was stolen, and he's able to capitalize upon the momentum of the 70 plus million voters who did vote for him in the previous election, what you will see is a very, very significant rift within the GOP, because people will have to choose sides. There will be no sort of towing the line, so to speak, because there won't be any room for it. You're not able to do it.

You will either be firmly and completely entrenched in the doctrine of Trumpism, or you will have to reject it entirely and put forth that this is the only way that the Republican Party will be able to survive. So it's going to be an interesting, and by interesting, I mean, scary thing to watch, especially when we see him announce and get back into the fray. Absolutely. Charles Coleman Jr., civil rights attorney, and also a former prosecutor. Thank you so much for taking the time to do the show with me today. I really, really enjoyed it.

And I hope the audience did too. Everyone go check them out on Twitter at CF Coleman Jr. That's CF Coleman Jr. Thanks so much, Charles. Thanks, Anna. Enjoyed it. All right. When we come back from the break, Lance from the serfs will join me for a discussion on the next wave of free speech grifters.

We'll be right back. thanks for listening to the full episode of the young turks support our work listen to ad-free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon