The Young Turks - John McCain, Possible Resignation, and Waffle House Police Brutality

Episode Date: May 11, 2018

A portion of our Young Turks Main Show from May 11, 2018. For more go to http://www.tytnetwork.com/join.  Hour 1:Cenk , Ana, John Iadarola, Jules Suzdaltsev. More attacks on John McCain for his lack of support for Gina Haspel. Rumors of a possible resignation surface at the Department of Homeland Security.   Hour 2:A man is choked by police at Waffle House.   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. Thank you for watching or listening to this free podcast of the Young Turks. We want to make sure that you get some portion of the show every day. But if you want the full show, which is actually five segments, come become a member and support independent media as well. TYT network.com slash join.

Meanwhile, enjoy the free podcast. Friday, power panel, drop it. All right, well, that was five words or less, an homage to pop trigger, if you will, okay, for the beginning of the power panel today. John Ider all unknown as Johnny Pye, True North, Johnny Ty, and the list goes on and on. Jake Eugert, look at this, Jules is here. Now, Jules'all's last name is Sousdolz. You got it.

That was really impressive. And it's experience with us, but let's go back to Jules for a second. He's a political journalist who's worked with Vice Discovery, now this, and is currently editor-chief of Prompt Media. So that's already awesome. Secondly, when you were with Vice, apparently you were to try-anything one sky, which sounds fairly disastrous. Yeah, that was a tough run.

What? What did you? Tell me one of the things that you tried once. Oh, my God. Well, I did a few kind of standouts. For a week, I had an all-alcohol diet where I just drank, no food, no water. That sounds like something vice would do. Yeah, yeah. And it was, it was as bad as it seems. I ate, like, gourmet dog food once, which was actually terrible. It was the worst. It was one of the worst things I've ever done. And then I try to get drunk off kombucha. So that's... And this sounds like rush week more than anything else.

Yeah, it felt like a hazing. It felt like a two-year-long hazing. Right. How drunk were you throughout the week? Or did you like pace it and actually never were drunk? Honestly, what I found was that at the first few days, I actually didn't get very drunk at all. But it's, you know, when you don't eat for a week, that's really what hits you. And then, you know, if you don't eat and you eat a bunch of, or you drink a bunch of alcohol, you get really, really drunk.

So by day, like, three or four, I was, like, wasted afternoon. Yeah, that makes sense. And we actually had Jimmy Doer try something similar, where he did nothing but smoke pot all week. Oh, he just did that on his own. Yeah, I got you. By the way, you might not know, but back during the RNC when a psychopath stormed our stage, in that video, right off to the left, it's Jules. Yeah, it was right there. Yeah, he was right there, working for discovery.

Yeah, we had done a panel with both of you guys, and I think I also did a panel with you guys, and like right after that was that crazy, I have a really good video that I took from that. Oh, really? Oh, really? I want to see that. That's fantastic. I'm like right up to it. I'll send it out. I'll send it out to you. Oh, that sounds good. That sounds good. All right, well, that's a lot of excellent trivia that Malcolm Fletchner will use later in some sort of band contest. Anyway, speaking of viewers, the TYT app is out. Everybody know about it. TiT.com slash app. It's for the iOS. You can go to the app store, type in TYT or TYT Plus. Not a big deal, but kind of getting Rave reviews. Everybody kind of loves it.

And some of you are already watching this show right now on the app. Hello! Okay. Download it again. Yes. John's going to see Infinity Wars again, he just told us. Okay. So why not download the app twice and give it to five-star ratings?

I don't know. Can you even do that? You can't do that. No, I'm sure. No, that's not how that works all. But try it, okay, figure it out, and I need you to vote early and often. Okay. All right, lots of stories today.

I'll tell you, though, there's, as usually, you know, we're going to have two power panels. And so I'm going to tell you that I love something we're to talk about in an hour and a half. There's a couple of stories. The next hour is going to be mostly a waste of time. Yeah, there's a couple of stories at the end, but definitely the Metcona. I knew it. I love that story. It's so good.

I love it. Okay. I've just got political BS for the next hour. No, no. And the Kirsten Gillibrand story is super relevant that John's going to give you in a little bit. And of course, Trump betraying his promises one more time, which Anna is going to give you in a little bit. All right, let's get started. John, when you go?

Okay, let's do that. Another day, another attack launched from the right against Senator John McCain over his call to block Gina Hasbill from becoming the next of the CIA over her history of support for torture, and also her history of torturing people. He's not a fan of that, and the right's not a fan of him for not being a fan of that, although he himself has been tortured, so you can sort of understand why he's coming from where he is. Now, this time, the attack is actually coming from inside the White House. It happened at a communications meeting with several dozen people present, and what's the first name. Kelly Sadler said this. It doesn't matter. He's dying anyway. And this is according to a

source at the meeting. And just as a general bit of advice for the White House, if you have a meeting and there are two dozen people there, don't say anything you don't want being in the Washington Post the next day, because there ain't no chance that it's not getting leaked. But she apparently said that. And another source confirmed it. Both sources said they believe the comment was intended it as a joke, but that it did not go over well with others at the meeting, and it was described as uncomfortable afterward. Well, that's good news. I was worried that everyone would have just laughed uproariously. Yeah, well, I guess that is slightly good news. By the way, it's absolutely confirmed. She then called and apologized to Megan McKay. Even though others attempted for a while

to pretend that it hadn't happened or that it was just an allegation. Now, she initially didn't respond to a request for comment, the White House put out a statement, sort of a general statement of support for John McCain that I thought it was interesting. Nobody signed. It was just the White House. Perhaps they were wondering where Donald Trump would come out on this whole thing and they didn't want to be on the wrong side of it. Can you consider yourself a conservative who's so-called pro-life if you joke about someone dying of cancer? Well, is there, I mean, what are the positions that people in the Trump White House actually hold? Who knows?

More money. Yeah, more money for us in particular and no one else. That's definitely a position held by the White House, and that's about it. She apparently worked for the Washington Times before, so one of these right-wingers, zealots, et cetera, so not very surprising. Her job is to fight against illegal immigration, as they frame it. Again, not surprising that you would find a vicious person to hold that job. But I have a slightly different take on this. Look, on the one hand, they're just so terrible at McCain over and over again, these right wings.

I mean, I thought we were at the bottom of the barrel yesterday with Fox News saying that he was songbird John and gave away our secrets to the North Vietnamese when he was tortured. Which he didn't, to clarify. But as I've told you a million times, there is no bottom to that barrel. So then Kelly Sadler goes, oh, yeah, Fox News? Hold my beer. Yeah. Now, so, yes. On the other hand, they do far worse.

And so it was a stupid joke in the midst of this thing. It shows how callous they are. But I feel like it's not one of the more important things. I agree. And it goes towards one of my pet peeves about media coverage, which is that they are so obsessed with civility and part of why they can't stand Trump. but to the detriment of substance. So the fact that Jeannie Haskell ordered to torture people and then destroyed that evidence to me is a billion times more important than a stupid and thoughtless and callous joke

that some staffer made about John McCain. But for the press, they're like, oh, John McCain is beloved. This joke is unacceptable. And to be fair, they do talk about torture. A lot, a lot. They do, a lot. I'm not a fan of her. Right.

But stuff like this gets huge, huge attention. The destruction of the tapes, they almost never talk about. And that, to me, was the most illegal and most brazen things you did. So, look, I have to be honest, the coverage that I've seen in regard to Haspel has been good. They have talked about the tapes. Maybe they haven't talked about the tapes as much as we'd like. But it's always mentioned in the media coverage that I've seen. So I want to give them credit for that.

New York Times did a good job in covering it as well and getting very detailed about what happened under her watch. Now, with that said, though, I think that this story is important. I think that it goes further than, you know, wagging our finger at people and telling them to be civil. I mean, the discourse that you see in the White House has already spread throughout the country and the fish does rot from the head down. We are incredibly vicious little animals and, you know, Trump has opened the floodgates to the point where people think it's okay to openly joke about someone who's dying of cancer. So I think that we need to take a step back as a country and, you know, really have a discussion about whether or not this is the kind of conversation we want to be having, or if this is the way we want to be treating each other over a political disagreement. And really, you're that loyal to Trump that you're going to turn around and, you know, say these vicious things about a man who not only served in the military, you know, went to Vietnam, but was a prisoner of war for years and still didn't cave under that kind of pressure, right?

And by the way, you're doing that to be loyal to who, to someone who's a draft dodger? We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-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. In each episode of Un-F-The-Republic or UNFTR, The host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity,

the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational. aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime.

So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. You know who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth? Like, it's just pathetic and disgusting. Well, that's the thing about it. I know. It's pathetic and disgusting, but we've become so, you know, it's become so normalized. And it's frustrating that this is what we're looking at, that when there's a bully making these horrible jokes in public and on Twitter,

that his administration does this, that people who work under him are encouraged to act like this. And it's frustrating. And then there's a flip side to it where anytime anyone makes even the slightest joke, you know, the Michelle Wolf Correspondents in her, the outrage from the right about how dare, you know, she call Sarah Huckabee Sanders a liar. She's a liar. Like, that's fine. It's almost not a joke. But, you know, when it comes to something like this, like we have to, I don't know, we have to deal with with this kind of bullying. and not be able to fight back, it's frustrating. I think that we need, so I think there will be some on the right who will either not understand

the difference between those two things, the reaction to this and the reaction of Michelle Wolf, or at the very least we'll pretend to not understand it on TV because that's their job. So I'll explain it to them. It's not the joke that's the problem. We're analyzing what is the foundation for the joke. If Michelle Wolf makes a joke about Sarah Huckabee Sanders burning facts and creating a perfect smoky eye, the foundation is the press secretary is a gigantic liar and we need to be clear about that. So you could say that the joke's a little bit weird, maybe, but the foundation is

strong. What is the joke about this from Kelly Adler? The joke is he's against torture and so screw him, screw his entire history, nothing that he has ever done matters, and he'll soon be gone. It's not the joke that's a problem, it's the fact that the Republican Party is so willing to turn on one of the Republicans that they almost made president a few years ago because he doesn't like Trump and he doesn't like torture. And those two things, or either of them is enough to make you irrelevant in the Republican Party. Yep. Look, in a sense, Trump has tortured a national conversation.

And so it's gotten uglier. And that's why even me today, I think like, oh, they're laughing about how John McKean's going to die. I find that to be kind of a perfectly normal story coming out of the Trump administration. And in the old days, it would have been outrageous and unthinkable, et cetera. but it's it all the fish rots from the head down he is the guy that during the campaign said I prefer people who weren't captured and to Anna's point into this from yesterday when we covered the Fox News story about McCain um torture doesn't work when John McCain was tortured he gave his other he gave up the names of the other members of the squadron he named

the Green Bay Packers offensive line it just at least a false information. But as long as it makes you feel good because you're being vicious and you're taking out your frustrations, as Gina Haspel did, she authorized the waterboarding of Abu Zubata 83 times. If it worked, why did you need to do it 83 times? So they know that it doesn't work, and they do it because they are vicious. So them celebrating it internally is unsurprising. Do we want to go to an early first break? No, let's keep on. I'll say the second sort. Okay, let's see about then. Donald Trump, Donald Trump has apparently become frustrated. about higher recent rates of border crossings and also his difficulty in fully building the

border wall in the first year of his presidency. And apparently he's been taking his frustration out on his employees. And not just low level ones, it goes all the way up to his interactions with Homeland Security Secretary Kirsten Nielsen. Trump was apparently furious, according to a source with Nielsen telling her he didn't think she was doing enough to secure the border. But Nielsen stood her ground, citing the law in certain instances, the source said. White House official confirmed that Trump exploded over immigration in front of the cabinet. The official described the remarks as, quote, angry and heated, but also is fairly typical for Trump on the issue. And in response to that, two people told the times that Nielsen, the

cabinet had to oversee agencies responsible for immigration enforcement and border security, drafted a resignation letter. And there were a few specific cited. One was, she apparently was somewhat resistant to or hesitant when it came to the separation of families coming across the border. He was not a fan of that. And he doesn't like specifically, and they sort of referenced this, that during the first year of his presidency, border crossings dipped down significantly, but now they are starting to inch up again. Not at historic levels or anything like that, but a little bit higher. And he finds that to be incredibly frustrating. I just have to quickly comment on the fact that she has mentioned some reservations about

separating family members at the border. This is something the Trump administration has been in favor of because they see it as a deterrent. If you know that your child is going to be taken away from you and you're going to be turned back at the border, well, you're less likely to try to cross as a refugee. Now, think about what happens. Oftentimes these kids get taken away. Oftentimes they're babies. And then they're in U.S. custody while the parent is shoot away. So what happens to that baby? What happens to that child? Oftentimes they're just in detention indefinitely, right? Like, it is a hideous, horrendous thing to do. So the fact that she has voiced any reservation about that is a good thing.

But Trump sees that as, oh, now it's time to berate her. Yeah, and just to be clear, I mean, they had originally said in response to that she drafted a resignation letter. In the initial narrative about this, the White House attempted to fight back against that idea, there was a statement put out by a DHS spokesman who said, the New York Times article alleging that the secretary drafted a resignation letter yesterday and was close to resigning is false. The secretary is hard at work today on the president's security focused agenda and supporting the men and women of DHSGov, which is interesting because later

on, John Roberts had the scoop. John Kelly told me this afternoon that after yesterday's cabinet meeting where real Donald Trump berated Secretary Nielsen, Kelly called Nielsen to implore her not to quit over it, which is an odd thing to spend your time doing if she had no cause to quit. I had expressed no interest in quitting. So once again, these official statements coming out of the White House would mean absolutely nothing. I mean, the White House denied it, so it's confirmed true. Like basically, that's how it works now. John Roberts, he's at Fox News, right? Yes. Okay, well, they do have some sources inside the White House, and so that's a pretty good

indication that she had done the resignation later. And which makes me respect her a tiny bit more. She works in the Trump administration, so I can't go that high. So I think there's two parts of this story. One is Trump yelling at people when he doesn't know anything and doesn't understand the complexity or nuance of any issue. And if you have an ounce of self-respect, you, of course, immediately think about resigning. Most of the people who work for Trump do not have an ounce of self-respect. So they just take it from King Joffrey sitting there making a jackass of himself while having no idea that he doesn't know what he's talking about and yelling at people that are far more intelligent than him. We might disagree with some of those folks, but clearly

some of them are bright and obviously way, way brighter than Trump. So in this case, it might that there are certain migration patterns that affected there might be conflicts in Central America that lead to an increase in immigrants crossing the border having nothing to do with the policies, right?

It might have to do with socioeconomic conditions. It might have to do with legal precedents and decisions that are being handed down. So as Nielsen probably tried to explain that to him, the man child probably grew angry. No, I just want it down there!

I mean, how much can you take of that? I mean, I couldn't take any of it. Look, do you want to know what's actually happening or do you want to scream like a total idiot, right? That's what I would ask him. And so, but they have to sit there and take it from a guy with not only an inferior intellect, but almost no intellect. So now there is a second part of it, and this is where it's a mixed bag for Trump. Look, he thinks there is something you can do. and he wants the people that he picked to be as vicious as he is.

He's like, I want you to separate the families, and maybe that'll affect things. And to be fair to Trump, maybe it will. Maybe if you're that vicious, I mean, to flesh out what Anna was saying, like, the mechanics of how they split up the families is interesting. There is a rule that kids have to be released within three weeks. But now the new rule, the sessions is trying to enforce is that the adults be imprisoned for up to six months. for crossing the border.

Before you would say, okay, you cross the border illegally. Now we're going to send you back where you came from. And we wouldn't bother wasting resources on imprisoning people who were trying to improve their lives and bring hope to their family. Now we can't have it because it's illegal to cross the border. But we didn't waste resources. Now Trump is saying, no, make sure you punish them and split up their family. And God knows where the baby or the kid goes when they were released in three weeks

and their parents are still in a U.S. jail. I mean, that is unreal to a normal feeling human being. But Donald Trump has no empathy for anyone that isn't named Donald Trump or perhaps Ivanka Trump. So now, that's both being fair and unfair to Donald Trump, fair that, hey, Nielsen, I hired you to be a terrible person. And if you're not going to be a terrible person, I'm going to fire you and get someone who will be sufficiently barbaric. That is fair in that that is his purview. He's allowed to do that as president. But he also fails to understand how our system of government works, which is really pathetic

considering the fact that he is the head of the executive branch. She can't unilaterally do things that Congress is supposed to vote on. Congress is supposed to vote on policy decisions or legislation. And they are complete and utter failures when it comes to the issue of immigration because they haven't succeeded in passing anything of substance. So she's, look, she's not. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the way. ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us

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extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash T-YT. Check it out today. of border control. You know, she's not able to wave a magic wand and do whatever hideous thing Trump wants her to do. There are limitations to his power. There are limitations to her power. And by the way, they are separating families. And yes, I know the law is supposed to work that way where the children are released within three weeks, but it doesn't often work that way. Oftentimes, they attempt to find a family member in the United States who is a U.S. citizen to release the child to. And then when they're unable to do so, what do they do? They just keep

them indefinitely. That is a disastrous policy. And by the way, a disastrous policy that ends up costing you, the taxpayer, even more money if you're concerned about the economics of all this immigration talk. And it's just one more quick thing about that. Look, I know right wingers love punishment. They like being mean to other people and they get great joy out of that. But have you ever had kids? So imagine taking a three-year-old and because there's no family in the U.S. and you don't know where they send them and you've locked up their parents for six months, then you have to keep them into a three-year-old in prison for six months with no access to their parents. In some sort of, whether you call it a prison, a detention facility, whatever you want to

call it, with guards guarding the three-year-old. You know what that's going to do to a three-year-old? I mean, that's, I mean, what parent would say, yeah, I mean, how dare they try to pursue their American dream? They did, they technically violated their law crossing the border, trying to improve their lives. Let's crush the three-year-old and give it some trauma that it couldn't possibly recover from. So, okay, I guess that's what you signed up for. I hope you're really, really proud of that. And we also can't continue compartmentalizing all these political issues that lead to people wanting to seek refuge in the United States. If we genuinely want to convince people, hey, maybe it's better for you to stay in your own country, let's stop perpetuating a drug war

that leads to these emboldened cartels in Central American countries. That's where the violence is coming from. We need to strip them of their power, and the best way to do that is to legalize drugs. Like, I know people don't want to have that conversation, but let's look at the root of all these issues rather than putting band-aids at, you know, gushing wounds. That's what's happening right now. Well, look, I mean, to Donald Trump's credit, what he's doing is making the United States a place that you would not want to move to legally or illegally. So, you know, maybe it's not intentional, but the things that he's doing are so, I mean, they're horrific. you know, jailing children, separating families.

Like, you can't, you know, if I heard about that happening in Spain, I wouldn't go to Spain just in case that, you know, they made a mistake in my papers and they separated me from my kids or something like that if I had kids. But it's just what he's doing to the United States as a whole is making us weaker. It's making us worse. And if I lived outside this country, I wouldn't want to move to it. Yeah. Yeah.

And one, I'll be quick on this, but while he wants to. his secretary of Homeland Security to become vicious. It might work in the long run. Certainly many of his aides are, but we also know that that effect is being felt throughout the country when many of his supporters are becoming far more vicious. I mean, we talked this week about the number of threats against abortion clinics has tripled in the past year. The number of extremist groups is skyrocketing of various forms. I mean, it might be that he was just appealing to some of the darkest historic tendencies in America when he became president, but he's clearly exacerbating them now. He doesn't just shed light on these things. He makes them actually

worse in a number of different ways. Yep. Yep. All right. Now I'm going to take a quick break. A lot more to come, including what I was referring to with Gillibrand. I think that that story about immigration is positive in two different ways, including how progressives are really, really starting to have an effect in the Senate. We're starting to move people, I think, in a substantial way. So that, I think that's wonderful news. Let's talk about that when we return. You're right in the middle of this podcast. We've got another great segment coming up for you. If you'd like the full show, which is actually five segments, go to t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. You become a member, you support the show, you support independent media, and you get the whole two-hour show ad-free every day.

Let's go do it now. All right, back on a young Turks. Everybody remember we're doing Bernie. Town Hall on Iran on Monday. So we'll have the show start normally at 6 p.m. Eastern. I'll do an hour with you guys. And then at 7 o'clock Eastern, the town hall begins. So instead of the second hour of the show, we'll have Bernie's Town Hall. And then we'll have analysis afterwards.

Me, Anna, and Maz Drabrani will be here to help with the analysis. Bernie's got some excellent guests lined up for that town hall, excellent experts. in the field. So you want to check that out. Why it's such a disaster to rip up the deal that we had with the Iranians. I interviewed Bernie Sanders about it earlier this week, which you can check out on our app. So go to the app store and type in TYT and get our app and check out my interview with Bernie on that issue of Iran. And make sure you check out the town hall on Monday right here on t.com slash live. And I'm just going to read one YouTube super chat for you guys. Jessica Martina's writes in about the Waffle House story with a very simple message.

This is America. Yep. So, excellent reference to Childish Gambino and what's happening right now in the country. All right, now we go to a totally different story that I will be outraged at for different reasons. All right. If you want to offend devout Muslims, draw photos of Muhammad or pictures of Muhammad. If you want to offend Christians in America, have a themed Met Gala that centers around Catholicism.

Now, Brie Payton, who writes for the Federalist, had a little bit of a tizzy about the Met Gala because it was religiously themed. In fact, the theme was Heavenly Bodies, fashion, and the Catholic imagination, right? So, look, I'm not upset about what she wrote. I'm amused by it, especially the format in which she wrote this piece, because she lists all the offenders, and then she explains why what they're wearing is offensive. So I'm going to give you a few examples. First, there's Rihanna. She writes, Rihanna, who is co-hosting the affair, dressed as a sexy version of the Pope. So let's look at a picture of the sexy version of the Pope.

Well, indeed, that is sexier than the current Pope. He's a good Pope, but he's not quite that sexy. Now, here's what Peyton writes about why this is offensive. She says, as the head of the Catholic Church, the Pope retains authority over the church. Catholics believe this authority has been handed down to him from St. Peter, who Catholics say was ordained as the first head of the church by Jesus Christ himself. Turning the Pope into a sexy look for a night out says that the position Jesus created to lead the church is just a club dress. Yes, that is what it says.

Anyway, I don't know. Look, I'm not religious, so I was offended by the Met for other reasons, which we'll get into it in a sec. But, yeah, I get it. You don't have to give us a Catholic history. We all know, right? And the Pope is the head of the Catholic Church. Oh, really? And so basically, they don't, she does not like them using art to depict Catholics in a different life.

Well, I mean, they'd be using art in religion in art for centuries upon, centuries upon, have you ever gone to a museum, right? No, but, Chink, that art has minimized religion to paintings. Now, when I think of Catholicism, I think paintings. That's what's all I think. You know what I want to know is, like, super religious people, which I was raised by super religious people, why are you keeping up with the Met Gala? Like, why are you, like, researching what Rihanna wore?

It wouldn't even be in my radar when I was so, you know, because I'm not, I wasn't allowed to be like this. But what I thought was funny was that I love to hear people be so outraged when you disrespect the Catholic Church. I want to read an article that she wrote about trying to get some of those priests who molested. children behind bars. And I want to see the type of, you know, that type of outrage behind that. Yeah. Let's hear a little bit more about St. Peter. And anyways, okay, so then she moves on to Lana Del Rey. Another example. Lana Del Rey dressed as Our Lady of Sorrows, a depiction of Mary in which she has daggers in her heart, each representing a difficulty Mary experienced as the mother of Jesus. There's Lana Del Rey, daggers in heart and all. And,

And here's what she had to say, Peyton had to say about why this is offensive. Her role as the bearer of Christ makes it possible that men and women might be saved by her son's blood. The pain she endured throughout her son's birth, life, and death are part of what makes salvation possible. These sufferings are not a costume. There's actual artwork of this. Yeah. But the problem is that somebody in your contemporary period is wearing it. an outfit like that or is just keeping a tradition alive. I think they want things ossified

into a very narrow and literal understanding of a time frame. No, but this is what it's really about. Like, let's keep it 100. Like, there's a lot of disdain toward or a lot of disdain for people in Hollywood because they identify as liberal. Right. You know, they have this themed Met Gala. I don't think that they did this with the intention of insults. anyone. And this is a form of art. Regardless of what you feel or think about fashion, this is a form of art. This is a form of expression. I don't think anyone had the intention of criticizing religion or making a mockery out of it. And look, the point that I want to quickly make is, I think it's ridiculous that devout Muslims get as offended as they do

when there are depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, right? Now, of course, there have been cases of some taking things too far when they've gotten offended, but you can't criticize, you know, the cultural issues there when you yourself get offended by something like this, right? And by the way, when I'm incredibly secure about something, someone's criticism, even if someone outright criticizes that part of me, it doesn't get under my skin because I'm confident in it, right? And so, for instance, when people say things like, you're dumb, okay, all right, you think I'm dumb. I know I'm not dumb, right? So I'm not going to get offended by those kinds of comments. But when it comes to religion, for some reason, people don't seem to be very secure in their own faith.

No, I know why. And, of course, that's exactly what you're pointing to, which is that they don't actually believe it. So, for example, I'm agnostic. I don't believe in any of the religions. So if you wore an outfit that disagreed with me, I would laugh and laugh. I don't care what you're wearing. What would that have anything to do with my beliefs? I might beliefs are based on logic and reason. They're totally detached from the fashion of the day. What a preposterous thing to think. That's because you don't actually believe it. And you're a special little snowflake who wants to be a victim.

Because in fact, your religion is centered around this victimology. Like, oh my God, they suffered, Lady of Sorrows. And we were saved by your blood. What a weird, weird idea. If you're not brainwashed into religion, it sounds. insane. Oh, she's suffering and her son was drenched in blood and that was great for the rest of us that we were saved by it. What? Okay. And if you wore an outfit I didn't like so that affects my religion. All of it sounds cuckoo for cocoa puffs. But now I'm going to shock the world.

I do think that they do make one good point. And I know why. But she said, look, if they had the similar outfits about Islam or Judaism or anything else, it wouldn't fly. And that is true. If they in in, like, rabbinical outfits and dress up as Orthodox Jews, people would be like, what on God's green earth are you doing, right? Now, the reason why they wouldn't is because Christianity is the dominant religion in America, and they have power, whereas the other religions don't, and they're minorities. So historically, they've been picked on, so you don't want to pick on them, and it's easier and makes more sense to, you know, to focus on the dominant religion. But still, that that is a fair point. Well, I mean, I would disagree with that. I would say

that was the charge that she was using. And I have so many instances of the ways that either white women have appropriated wearing the headscar for whatever political reasons. But it, yeah, I would push back on that point a little bit. I hear you, sister. In fact, we're out of time, unfortunately. I know. I know. I was going to keep going. Sorry, all right. Bye-bye. Thanks for watching. We're listening to this free version of the Young Turks podcast. You know that the full show is at t-y-tnetwork.com slash join. If you become a member, you get the full show ad-free. We love you for watching or listening either way. There's going to be a new free podcast tomorrow. you can keep on doing that, but if you want to get to full show ad-free,

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