The Young Turks - Kabul Falls

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

The latest on Afghanistan: chaos at Kabul airport as Afghans try to flee the Taliban. A tropical depression threatens further devastation in earthquake-hit Haiti. One person was stabbed as anti-vaxxers and counter-demonstrators clash in front of L.A. City Hall. The Dallas school district plans to enforce its mask mandates for the school year despite the Texas Supreme Court siding with Governor Abbott. The GOP finally backs unemployment benefits, but only for the unvaccinated.  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. All right, welcome the Young Church, Jane Huguer and Experian, you guys. So tons of white flags being waived today, including in domestic policy circles, but obviously in Afghanistan as well. So a lot to get to, especially on the withdrawal. So let's get right to her guys. Anna's got the news on that, and we'll take it from there. Let's do it.

Hundreds of Afghans running alongside and trying to grab onto a U.S. Air Force jet as it attempted to take At least three people died after falling to their deaths while clinging on to a U.S. plane. Another died on the tarmac. Afghan stormed Kabul's airport in a desperate attempt to flee the country following the Taliban's ability to control or take control of the capital Kabul over the weekend. This follows the U.S. troop withdrawal after 20 years in this war, this forever war in Afghanistan, has finally come to an end. come to an end. Now, there were some awful and pathetic takes in regard to the U.S. troop withdrawal, which we'll get to a little later in this segment. So hold before we get to that. But first, a little bit of context for you. President Ashraf Ghani fled the country

as the insurgents entered Kabul on Sunday. Taliban leaders ensconced themselves in the palace only hours after Ghani fled, taking control over what was once one of the most secure locations in the country. And you know, just before the weekend, Ghani had alleged that he was going to do whatever it took to fight back against the Taliban and its attempts to take control over Kabul. But apparently he fled and the Taliban was able to gain control of that area. Now, Afghan officials in other cities were filmed handing over power to insurgent leaders. Former President Hamid Karzai said he had formed a council with other political leaders to coordinate a peaceful transition to a new Taliban government.

But of course, it hasn't been all that peaceful. There were already several examples of retaliation against officials from the now former government of Afghanistan, the government that was propped up by the United States and the troops on the ground there. Previously, President Joe Biden made it appear as though the Taliban would not easily take control of Afghanistan. Here's the statement from July 8th. Is the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable? No, it is not. Why?

Because you have the Afghan troops have 300,000 well equipped as well equipped as any army in the world and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable. It's kind of incredible, just how inevitable it was. There were some suspicions that maybe it would take several months for the Taliban to take control of Afghanistan after U.S. troops left the country. But it's clear that it was only a matter of days that it happened. And now, because there's this desperate attempt to get U.S. allies and remaining U.S. citizens out of the country, the Biden administration is sending thousands of troops back to Afghanistan to help with that. specific effort, Jank.

Okay, so there's some ironies here. First of all, Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan is 100% correct. And the first irony is that this debacle proves how correct it was. Turns out we stayed there 20 years and got absolutely nothing done, nothing at all, okay? And would they take Kabul in three days? Let's be honest about the incredible failure of the United States military, the incredible failure of neoconservatives who said that we could turn Afghanistan into a democracy, and this is important, the incredible failure of the defense contractors that we spent trillions of dollars in American resources to who said, oh no, oh no, we'll stand up to Afghan army. The Afghan army will be brilliant. Second core issue, first core issue, should we have withdrawn? And now I've got neo-conservatives and centrist and conservative Democrats all over the place saying we should have stayed another 20 years.

You see this shows if we just stayed another 20 or 200 years, this all would have been fine. Look, they live on a different planet than we do. Okay, but the second core issue is did they screw up the withdrawal? First obvious answer to that is yes, we can see it with our own eyes, but it is more complicated than that. in that. As you can tell, I got no love for defending the establishment Democrats, including Joe Biden, who's part of the Obama administration. But if you're being fair, overall, you'll note two facts. Number one, Biden never agreed with Obama to do a surge in Afghanistan. Another side note here, mainstream media, has anybody noted that Obama's surge over a decade

ago was a miserable failure? It was just preposterous. It didn't work at all. It was ridiculous. total and utter failure by Obama on that count. Now, by the way, Bush started the failure. We're a fair show, we got no need to beat up on Obama, but that is reality. And Biden was not in favor of that search, so you have to give him credit for that. Biden asked for, and I'm now read enough details to that you don't, you obviously do not trust the Pentagon from the get-go, but it appears that they did a bunch of contingency planning, okay?

Was there contingency planning good enough? Well, obviously not. Well, you got people falling off of airplanes in a mad, insane scramble at the airport, let alone how quickly the Taliban took over the country. But did they tell Joe Biden that, yes, we think we have this withdrawal and all the contingency plans figured out? It appears that they did. So that would be the 28th time or the 280th time that the Pentagon screwed up and is a total debacle. So I'd like to know when the mainstream media is ever going to say,

oh, by the way, you know who's at fault? apparently the idiots at the Pentagon who had 20 years to figure this out and their idiot corrupt friends instead that are the defense contractors and they never figured out an inch of it 300,000 in the Afghan government as Biden just said in the Afghan military

they all laid down their weapons immediately. By the way, what happened in Iraq? Something very similar. Why? Because they don't want to fight for us. They just want to take our money for 20 years and then join the Taliban as soon as we can And by the way, Lockheed Martin and all your other contractors and Pentagon, brilliant job in making them the most well-equipped army, guess what? The Taliban now has all of that equipment.

Yeah, that is, that's an excellent point that no one is making. If you watch specifically Jake Tapper's coverage of this, I mean, as someone who presents himself as like this straight news guy, he does quite a bit of editorializing on this particular topic and he seems to think that this was a massive mistake by the Biden administration. I completely disagree, especially given the fact that when you look at the true objectives of this war, was it really about democracy building? Was it? Does anyone really buy that? Or was this just another hollow effort meant to funnel more money, redistribute more taxpayer money to the very private contractors who took in literally a trillion dollars during this war,

right? I mean, the reason why this kept going, even after Osama bin Laden was assassinated, was because you have private contractors who wanted to keep it going, and you had senators and lawmakers who were receiving campaign donations from these very contractors and essentially carrying out their wishes. This is a failed war because the actual objective was really never about democracy building. And there are consequences to that. Look, do I think that this is going to harm Joe Biden politically? If I were to guess, no, I don't think it's going to harm him.

Americans barely care about fellow Americans. I don't think Americans genuinely care about people in Afghanistan. But there are consequences to that, Jank, because whenever we have this surge of so-called terrorist activity, American pundits then turn around and say, why do they hate us? Why do they hate us? Do they hate us because of our freedom? Do they hate us because of who we are? No, they hate us because of what we do, what our government does in their countries. We have left Afghanistan in absolute turmoil. People are doing what they can to flee, but the US has taken control of the airports. There's certainly the airport in Kabul. They have canceled all

commercial flights making it impossible for the Afghan people to leave. And they took control of the airports because they want to ensure that US citizens are able to leave safely. Now I want to go to this next video because it features a young Afghan woman who did manage to flee. She's in India, I believe, and she's talking to the media about what she has on her mind. And I think this is exactly the kind of voice we should think about whenever we consider invading another country to build democracy. Let's watch. I can't believe the world abandoned Afghanistan. Our friends are going to get killed, they're going to kill us.

Our women are not going to have any more rights. So, I mean, it's a horrible situation for women in Afghanistan. There's no question about that. We didn't actually prop up or build a real government there. I mean, I just think this was nothing more than an effort to funnel money to defense contractors. And I think that's pretty clear. pretty clear. 20 years, 20 years they can't build something sustainable? Yeah, come on. So, a lot to comment on that. Number one, the military is not the solution for everything.

That's what the media tells you in this country. That's what all the propaganda says in this country. You got a problem? The answer is the United States military and all the defense contractors at a couple of trillion dollars. Well, no, if we're being honest about the problem in Afghanistan, and there is a massive problem in Afghanistan from where my perspective, It, it's a cultural one. Now you can get angry at that and I don't care if you're on the left and oh no, well, we have to respect all cultures. No, we don't.

So that's a fundamentalist culture that the Taliban are in that don't get women equal rights. Not even close, not even within a million miles of it. But you're not going to solve that by murdering more of them. You're going to solve that by changing the culture. Changing the culture is very difficult. It's in some ways more controversial, but one thing we know for sure, And that's very different. I'm not saying you can do it easily.

And I'm not saying that it can even be done at least in the short term, right? I believe it can be done in the long term. But what makes no sense is, let's kill our way out of it. It doesn't make any sense at all. That's why the ones that were in the military, the theoretical Afghan military, their culture had not been changed either. That's why they largely agreed with the Taliban. That's why they immediately gave up and handed all of our weaponry to the Taliban.

So constantly saying, let's bomb, bomb, bomb, no matter what the solution is, is really, if it was honest, it would be pure idiocy. If we had an honest media in this country, they would have told you how moronic that was decades ago. But the reality is the media is filled with neoconservatives. They love war. They always champion war. Whenever they see a clip like that, we show you the context and we see our heartbreaks for her And a way to do to effectuate change there is cultural.

The military, the mainstream media looks at that and goes, aha, if we had stayed another 20 years and killed more Afghan civilians, then her problem would have been solved. That's just not true. And Jake Tapper is a joke. They're all jokes. So look, but we do nuance on the show. On the other hand, the female reporter CNN is on the ground.

We're going to talk more about her a little bit later in the show. One of the bravest reporters I've ever seen, and I give her all the credit in the world. You have to judge case by case. So why do I say Tapper's a joke? I've never seen him disagree with neo-cons. He's always, a war's always a right option. Oh, why didn't Biden do more military? Why didn't Trump do more military?

More military, more military. Here, let's bring on generals. So we're now, by the way, with defense contractors, but we won't tell you that we'll lie and we'll do propaganda on their behalf, as you always do. And another opportunity they're taking now is they couldn't wait to both sides of it, right? They beat up Trump all those years and they were right to. a right to. Now the Biden's in office, they couldn't wait to say, oh yeah, look at how fair

we are. We'll unfairly criticize Biden too. No, that doesn't make you fair at all. You should do honest commentary. And I would believe that you were fair the minute you actually said anything against the establishment. And I've never seen that on cable news. So I see a bunch of liars. Nicole Wallace now is talking about, oh, you know, the American people agree with Joe Biden. Well, that's true, both the right wing and the left wing agree that we should have left. Now let's remember that Nicole Wallace is the same grifter who helps start the war in Afghanistan. Absolutely. And continue it for nearly a decade when she worked as the literal mouthpiece, the spokesperson for George W. Bush.

Now we're supposed to believe that she's a progressive on MSNBC. Who are you guys kidding? And when I worked at MSNBC, whenever we covered foreign policy, they would make me stack the show with generals. General on top of general on top of general, because when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like nails. And the underlying reason for that is corruption. The money's got to get funneled to the defense contractors. That's why everything's got to seem like a military problem.

Now let's move on to the hot takes because following news that Kabul was controlled by the Taliban, you have a number of right wingers, even some Democrats coming out with some takes that I'd like to respond to. Why don't we start off with former secretary of, I'm sorry, Mike Pompeo, why don't we start off with Mike Pompeo, who wanted to jump in and comment on why he believes that Biden's withdrawal has been a failure? I think weak American leadership always harms American security. So this is in the context of a Biden administration that has basically abandoned the global stage in favor of climate change, right?

They've been focused on critical race theory while the embassy is at risk. So former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argues that, well, you know, it's Biden's focused on critical race theory and climate change. First of all, as we all know, anyone who's actually paying attention and living in the real world, the Biden administration certainly is not focused on climate change, certainly not to the extent that he needs to be focused on climate change, especially considering all of the natural disasters we've been dealing with recently, but let's put that to the side. When you're a Republican in America and everything is seen through this framework of culture

wars, even when it comes to something as serious as foreign policy, even when you're talking about a former Secretary of State, they decide to latch onto critical race theory to explain the failures in Afghanistan. I mean, it's pathetic. Now, all the Republicans have is distraction. Why does Pompeo want to distract you there with critical race theory, which Biden hasn't brought up, it's right winger after right wing or bringing it up when it's not even taught in any public school. Every part of that is a lie. I'm sick of their lies. So, but why does he

bring it up? Why does, as soon as you see a Republican say squirrel, understand that they're the ones at fault and they're trying to cover something up. Well, it was Trump who decided to withdraw and set an earlier date than Biden. I don't blame him for that. You go back and look at our coverage. I gave him credit for that. I said, we should withdraw. And I don't care that I despise Donald Trump. That is the correct decision. Because on the this for show we are fair and we are objective. And we knew the 21st year in Afghanistan wasn't going to make any goddamn difference. Because we're not like the rest of the media. Who's like, oh, I don't know, man. Maybe the 22nd year was the lucky year. No, it's absurd.

It was never going to work. But Pompeii can't come back on here and go, oh, it wasn't me. Dude, you were the Secretary of State that negotiated a peace deal with the Taliban. And that's okay. Just own it. And actually, I'd give you credit for it instead of squirrel, critical rights theory. No, it is amazing because Pompeo was the one during the Trump administration who was like, no, no, the Taliban's going to help us with this withdrawal. They're totally agreeing with us. They're negotiating with us in good faith. So, I mean, it certainly takes a Trump administration official to then turn around and pretend

as though he could read the tea leaves from the very beginning. Now, let's move on to Mitch McConnell, who would much rather remain in Afghanistan. He says via a statement that he released, the United States had the capacity to avoid this disaster. We still have the capacity to dampen its effects, but without a presence on the ground or local partners defending the homeland from a resurgent al-Qaeda from a resurgent al-Qaeda will be far more difficult. So much like a John Bolton, for instance, Mitch McConnell would much rather have boots on the ground forever, indefinitely. If that's a decent option, when the people of Afghanistan certainly did not have a favorable view of the United States and its invasion of Afghanistan, they actually considered American troops as occupiers.

Of course! Because they were. They were. Look, guys, I gotta give you a little bit of history here, because it's so important. So we invaded Afghanistan. First, let's note, people are surprised at the reaction in Afghanistan. We invaded Afghanistan. It's not like they invited us, and they were like, oh, come.

welcome. We'd love to have you. Right. No, we dropped bombs on their heads and invaded them. And then on October, that was on October 7th of 2001. So it was less than a month after September 11th. They were sheltering bin Laden and al-Qaeda. That is true. And but what a lot of people leave that is that on October 14th, a week after the invasion, the Taliban offered bin Laden to America. But Dick Cheney and George Bush said, no, why? Because they wanted more war. Now, everybody's leaving this out. It's a New York Times piece. You can go back and read it yourself. In 2005, they wrote a piece saying that actually Don Rumsfeld had bin Laden cornered in Tora Bora. Well after the offer that the Taliban had, we had him. We had bin

Laden. And Rumsfeld told a top American general to not pursue bin Laden because it wasn't that they were trying to end the conflict and accomplish our mission. The mission for Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney was more war so that their friends could get richer. By the way, You say, well, they're friends. Are you sure they're their friends? Dick Cheney ran Halliburton, which was a defense contractor. They gave him over $30 million in a golden parachute. That money was to start a war just like this, and the one in Iraq.

And Cheney accomplished that mission. So we had bin Laden eight different ways to Sunday. We could have left almost a week after we entered. Instead, we stayed 20 long years so that some of the worst, most corrupt, people in the world, not in Afghanistan, but here in America, the most corrupt people in the world, the defense contractors and their scum politicians who get paid by them could continue that war. How many thousands of Americans did we lose? How many tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of civilians did we lose in Afghanistan for this obviously hopeless war that the media

cheered on the entire time? Let's do one more Republican hot take before we show some love to a Democrat. Senator Rick Scott weighed in on this and said after the disastrous offense in Afghanistan we must confront a serious question is Joe Biden capable of discharging the duties of his office or has time come to exercise the provisions of the 25th Amendment. Oh shut up. You supported a mentally feeble man who thought injecting bleach into our bodies would help with coronavirus. That guy is to say that he's mentally unstable. or unwell is the least, the best thing I could say about Donald Trump. And Rick Scott's like, yeah, okay, bleach, yeah, let's do it. And now you're going to talk about the 25th Amendment, you moron. Second of all, I don't know if you know this, but your buddy, Trump is the one that authorized withdrawal in the first place.

He wanted it done earlier. And now the hilarious right-wing talking point that I see now, oh, Trump was in office. He would have handled, he would have planned for this better. Trump plan. Plan. He didn't plan for anything. He didn't even plan for his own election. And he said, oh, I lost? I don't know. Let's start a coup. I don't know. Let's shoot your get vigilante's attack the capital and destroyed democracy. I don't know. I didn't plan. I didn't plan anything. He was going to plan better at you insane. I'm going to do one surprising defense of Biden on the planning. Look, he said during the press conference today, I asked our Afghan allies many times, can you handle this and how long do you need, etc.

And they said over and over again, do not plan for us to withdraw because it'll create a crisis of confidence. It'll make it more likely that there will be a bigger surge against us and more likely that we lose. Now, those guys were apparently liars and fools, and they got destroyed instantly, right? And by the way, of course, you probably have heard the president of Afghanistan ran, tucktailed and ran instantly. Oh, they entered Kabul. He's the same son bitch who told Biden, oh, I got this. Oh, do you? Now he's got it in the, there are varying reports that he either ran away to Tajikistan or Uzbekistan.

So he's got this from the Tajikistan, okay? No, you never had it. All you did was suck more American money into your pockets. He probably has billions stashed away. I'm sick of the corruption, whether it's in Afghanistan or in America. It's not the United States role to build democracies. Clearly, that was not the objective in the first place, as I mentioned. If that were the objective, the United States wouldn't be doing constant business with governments like that of Saudi Arabia's.

And it's not our job to change cultures in other countries either. I think that the role of the Pentagon and the US military is supposed to protect national security, not to go into other countries and tell them what they should be. they should be like and what type of government they should form. So that's my final opinion on the war overall. It was a complete and utter failure, clearly an effort just to redistribute more wealth to private contractors. And now, as Jank perfectly mentioned earlier, you have the Taliban with weaponry that was

given to them essentially by the U.S. government. I mean, it's just, it's absolutely shameful. By the way, Anna, it's exactly what happened with ISIS. Oh, the Sunnis inside the U.S. inside the Iraqi military. will be loyal to the Iraqi state. No, they instantly handed over the weapons to ISIS, the weapons that we gave them. By the way, again, a super ironic defense of Joe Biden,

it's not even ironic. I actually think on foreign policy, he voted for all the wars. He was terrible on that. We called him out on that. But after the war started, he was a rare voice of reasoning. You can see it here because he's like,

I don't give a damn, I'm withdrawing. This is BS. This is never going to work, right? And on Iraq, he said, we should split it up into three countries because the Sunnis will never be loyal to the Shia who run Iraq and have the, majority. And that's exactly what happened. He was absolutely right about that. And so my final

point, though, is back to what a failure the Pentagon is. So they told Joe Biden, we got this, too. It wasn't just the Afghan leadership. It was the Pentagon. They said, we did all this planning, and we did all the contingencies. And we had, if I'm Biden, I'm furious at the Pentagon. I thought you said you had all the contingencies covered. You never once considered that the Afghan government was entirely full of malarkey, as Biden would put it. And you never once said to the, hey, what if we got to get this thing out in a couple of days or a week or so? And by the way, if you want to get Biden fault for that, yes, of course. He said in the press conference, the buck stops with me, and that is correct. So he should have held the Pentagon's

feet to the fire earlier, knowing what colossal failures they are, that they were never going to do anything right. They proved it in spades here, both in the 20 years. stay where they got nothing done, nothing at all, zero. And in the exit, which was a international humiliation for America, brought to you by the Pentagon and every corrupt defense contractor in the country. When we come back from the break, we'll talk about how Ted Cruz thought he could dunk on a CNN reporter who's actually on the ground risking her life to get us this news. But CNN hit back.

So come right back. We've got that story for you and more. All right, back on CYT, Jankanana with you guys. A little bit more in Afghanistan than we have other devastating stories. All right. So Ted Cruz decided to go after a CNN reporter who's on the ground in Afghanistan. As she was reporting, she mentioned the fact that there were Afghans behind her chanting death to America, but she also said that they seemed friendly at the same time. Now, Senator Ted

Cruz's response to that was, is there an enemy of America from whom CNN won't cheerlead in mandatory burqas, no less? Okay, so why don't we respond to that before we get to CNN's response to Ted Cruz? Because it seems as though Ted Cruz has a difficult time separating the disdain that citizens might have for a government versus the people of that said government, right? So the people who have to live under that government. So I wouldn't want the Afghans to judge me personally based on the decisions that are made by the American government. It's similar to how I feel about, let's say, the Turkish government. I don't judge Turkish citizens, but I certainly judge the Turkish government and the actions that they take. And it's just, anyway, but Jake,

Why don't you jump in before we get to CNN? Yeah, she's in the streets of Kabul, risking her life, demonstrably so. It's obviously so. And you don't want her to wear a burqa. You want her to what? You want her to wear a miniskirt? You want her to wave an American flag. You, what do you, she's a reporter.

She's not a cheerleader for the Republicans or for the American government. That would be insane to ask her to do anything else. And by the way, Ted Cruz, I mean, your ass loves to flee whenever there's an emergency. You're questioning her? She's a thousand times more brave than you've ever been on your best day. So please spare me. And look, there's just, the guy's a snake. He never, you know, disappoints you if you think he's going to go lower.

He always goes lower. And so this profile encouraged, by the way, of course, After his Trump said his wife was ugly and his dad was a murderer, phone bank for Trump. So spare us any conversation about her incredible courage to report from that situation. I mean, honestly, when I think of the most cowardly members of Congress, Senator Ted Cruz is way up top on that list. I mean, we're talking about a man, the example you gave is perfect, Jenk. Someone who can't even stand up for his own immediate family and immediately

coweres to the likes of Donald Trump, who later in his presidency turned out to be nothing more than a bunker boy. And then let's move on to CNN's response, because I think that they actually hit them right where it hurt. They argue that rather than running off to Cancun in tough times, Clarissa Ward, that's the CNN reporter, is risking her life to tell the world what's happening. That's called bravery. Instead of retweeting a conspiracy theorist misleading sound bite, perhaps your time would be better spent helping Americans in harm's way. Yeah, so that's a great, you know, clapback as it were. And I'm glad CNN is instead of being, well, look, most of the mainstream media, when Republicans attacked in my whole

lifetime, have been cowards. They count, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we'll do whatever you want. We'll call it 50, 50, okay. Our own reporters did betrayed America. This has honestly been 98% of the reaction the media has had for, I guess, or towards Republicans when channels like this. So I'm glad that CNN stood up to him. But more important than that is nuance, which no one apparently can manage in media or politics. So first on our take on CNN, I think CNN's coverage is overall incredibly pro-military, pro-war, unquestioningly so, regurgitates Pentagon talking points as if it's as if they're true. It's ridiculous. I think their coverage overall is embarrassing. But Clarissa Ward is an incredible exception to that.

Right. She's actually reporting things that are true on the ground, right? Like, whether it's favorable to us or not, whether it's favorable to the military or to the establishment or not. So we can use normal human judgment and go, she's doing a great job. The pundits on air are doing a terrible job. Exactly. I think there's a difference between field reporters who are on the ground gathering the data and the information necessary for us to know what's actually happening. They're different from the hosts on cable news and the panels that they typically bring on. And so credit where credit is due. I mean, it is not an easy situation to be on the ground in Afghanistan right now, especially given the chaos, the fear, and the fact that she's literally

standing in front of a group that is, in fact, chanting death to America. It does take courage. And so for Ted Cruz, who has shown himself to be a coward over and over again, it certainly is rich for him to put out a statement like that. Yeah, and then one more thing on nuance. It's actually the heart of what she explained in her news story that Ted Cruz either purposely ignored or, no, he's not a stupid guy. He purposely ignored. I think he's pretty stupid. I'm not going to. Yeah, well, okay, that's an interesting debate for another day.

But I think he's just an unct to a snake. But so she was reporting on the ground. They're chanting death to America, but here I am an American reporter, and they're generally friendly to me. That's weird. And she used the word weird, right? And by the way, it's not just Ted Cruz. Almost every right-wing pundit jumped on Twitter like, oh, yeah, I guess they're really friendly. There's a killer ghost.

No, you idiots. She just told you. They're chanting death to America. This is an incredibly dangerous situation where everyone's lives are in danger. yet it is weird that they would be, you know, not outwardly hostile to an American news crew. If you, your simple, simple mind cannot understand that. There's something wrong with you. You should go get help.

So she's actually reporting things that are straight. For example, you know what? It reminds me of, funny enough, is MAGA crowds and how they respond to CNN reporters, just like her. Jim Acosta would go to Trump rallies, and they would yell at him and threaten to kill him. And afterwards, they'd come and try to take pictures with him and get his autograph. Why? Because it's wrestling to them. And in their mind, Jim Acosta is a heel, et cetera. And it's amazing to see that unfold also in the streets of Kabul.

No. See, that's an really interesting news story if you're an intelligent person. No, I mean, I actually have a better example. Because just over this past weekend, proud boys, during an anti-vaccine protest that they were taking part in in Los Angeles, decided to attack two local journalists. I bring that up because, you know, there tends to be this effort by conservatives in Congress to paint individuals in the Middle East as violent, as dangerous, as backwards in so many different ways. But when you really look at who tends to physically harm journalists, you look at our context

here in the United States, I mean, how many examples do we have to provide of journalists being specifically targeted with violence? Well, I mean, look, the right wing is the same everywhere. There are different degrees and severity, no question, but who's against women's rights in America? Right wing. Who's against journalists in America, the right wing? There's nothing wrong with critiquing journalists. We just did it, right?

But they're against journalism, period. They're like, oh, wow, we want our propaganda. We don't want you to tell you the truth. And so who's against science? Well, the Taliban and our right wing. Who's against doctors, the Taliban and our right wing? We can go on and on and on. So we have our own Taliban here, and they also physically attacked journalists as they did this weekend.

Anna's right about that. And if you're a right winger or you want to cry about it, I don't care that you're crying. What you should do instead is do a little self-reflection. Wait, why do I agree with the Taliban so much? Why are they religious fundamentalists? And I'm a religious fundamentalist. It's just a different, you know, it's not even a different God that you're praying to. It's the same God.

Allah just means God in Arabic, right? It's just different prophets that you're praying to. But your positions are incredibly similar. Again, the severity is worse, obviously, for the Taliban when you get to the extreme acts of violence that they do. Of course. But here in America, the ideology that your religion should rule all of us, and specifically women, that is shared by the right wing in America. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll give you more details about that anti-vax protest that took place in Los Angeles. Don't miss it. It's an important story. We'll be right back.

All right, back on the Young Turks. Jay and Anna with you guys. All right, now let's go to fighting within the country. Fun. All right, a violent clash broke out in downtown Los Angeles over the weekend as anti-vaccine protesters, mostly proud boys decided to take to the streets and they were met with counter-protesters. So of course violence is going to break out. Look, we'll give you more details, including Fox's ridiculous framing and headline regarding what took place.

But before we do, I can't help but show you probably the most embarrassing jump kick fail of all time, which happened to take place during this protest. Take a look. Oh, get them. You know. Oh. Oh. Hey. Yeah.

You got them. Don't mask up. Don't mask them. Don't mask them. You. Unmas them. Amask them. Give them.

Get them. Come on. Give them. Come on. Miss them all. B. Bish them. Oh.

Let's go. Bring his ass. Bring his ass. Come on. I gotta say, watching that violence is infuriating. So the failed jump kick was necessary. It was necessary for a little bit of comedic relief. Jake, I'm not gonna go to you yet because we're gonna take one more quick look at that jump.

Yeah, let's do it. All right. Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I love it. Okay. The whole melee was almost worth it for that failed drop.

I mean, epic fails of, you know, a term that's been used for a long time on the internet. But it was kind of invented for that moment right there. Allah! Bam, down he goes! Oh man, that pretty much describes the whole right wing proud boys nonsense group right there. Like swinging at nothing for no reason and falling on their ass. And also we can't help but point out the irony that they're wearing masks to an anti-vaccine and anti-mask protest.

So let's take a look at one of the images. But you know, one could make the argument that they're doing so because they planned on engaging in violence and wearing a mask, including those incredibly embarrassing sunglasses is one way to hide your identity. Now let's talk a- 100%. And if you notice that picture, there was a white pride sign as well. Right. I mean, it's just, come on. So look, nothing breaks my heart more than seeing these goons in downtown Los Angeles. But they exist. The proud boys, unfortunately, also exist in Los Angeles. They're going to take to the the streets like massive dorks and try to get all the attention that they so desperately crave as these loser men who have nothing better to do. But what's also frustrating is that

they were met with counter protesters who should have just left them alone so they do their dork protest by themselves. They would largely be ignored and we wouldn't be talking about this today. But unfortunately, someone ended up getting stabbed, okay? The extent of the injuries were serious enough that the individual, we don't know his identity, we don't even know the full extent of his injuries, had to spend a night in the hospital. He was recently released. We don't know if the victim was a proud boy or one of the counter protesters. We don't know the person's identity, so I want to be clear about that.

But we do have some other details about violence that took place that day, including two different journalists being attacked. One of them is Tina Desire Berg with the District 34 podcast. The other is a KPC reporter. That's a local radio station. KPC reporter Frank Stoltz could be seen walking out of the park near City Hall being screamed at by anti-mask protesters. One man can be seen kicking him.

Stoltz later told a police officer he had been assaulted while trying to conduct an interview. Spell confirmed that a police report. was taken. As far as I know, no one has been arrested in regard to these attacks. And Stoltz said this about the attack. Something happened to me today that's never happened in my 30 years of reporting in L.A. I was shoved, kicked, and my eyeglasses were ripped off my face by a group of guys at a protest outside City Hall during an anti-vax recall Gavin Newsom pro-Trump rally. That's the full name of the protest. Yeah. So, lots of different angles to this story. First of all, look, we're all tired of the anti-mask,

anti-vax clowns. And right now, there's still about 500 people dying every single day from COVID in America, and they're almost all unvaccinated. So congratulations on your anti-vax and anti-mask positions. It literally gets you guys killed. Okay. So, We're worried that it's going to spread to us as well, but mainly you're taking the brunt of damage. It's kind of like that drop kick. All you're doing is causing your a ridiculous fall and fail on your part, okay? But now to go to the counter protesters, guys, what are you doing there? Look, when I see a lunatic, I don't go and engage the lunatic, I quietly walk away from the lunatic because I don't want trouble for myself or my family.

Now, it doesn't mean you don't fight back rhetorically and politically, that's what we do here, right? And that you should engage in that way, but in ways that are productive. And it doesn't mean that you don't do self-defense. If you see these sons of bitches coming for someone you know or care about it or don't even know, okay, then you then surround them the person who's being attacked and help them and defend them, okay? But don't actively go to their rinky dink protests. Look, guys, people think that I'm saying this like, ha ha, rhetorically, we punch back, blah, blah, blah, right?

No, I'm pretty close to literal. It's like walking into an insane asylum and saying, trying to see if there's a fight you can have. Right. No, you don't walk into an insane asylum and try to see if the lunatics will attack you. And I feel bad calling the people in the asylum's lunatics because they're acknowledged to have mental health issues. Right. Whereas these proud boys guys do not acknowledge their massive mental health issues. But I mean, think about how irrational they are.

We want to die. We want to get the vaccine to smear it on us and maybe smear it on you. Why would you ever even talk to those guys? The only terrible things can come of it, let alone standing off against them, I think, gratuitously in this case. Look, and more than anything, what the counter protesters end up doing, while I know that this is not their intention, is they feed into what these anti-vaxxers, what these proud boys desperately want. They want to be in the headlines, they want attention and coverage, and they want to frame the counter-protesters as the dangerous, violent ones. And guess what? We're talking about

police in Los Angeles, and honestly across the country, that have proven over and over again that they are on the side of these insane right wingers. We've seen it during Black Lives Matter protests. We've seen it in various instances. So you know the cops aren't going to come to your rescue. And they certainly did not in this case. They didn't. They just stood by and let it happen.

But that was to be expected. Okay? So people end up getting hurt. And then you have the media that frames it exactly the way the proud boys want. Let's go to this Fox News headline, Antifa Thugs clash with anti-mask protesters in bloody skirmish, one stabbed. What a joke. What a joke of an organization. Take news out of your goddamn name. Just call it Fox or Fox propaganda or Fox lies or something. And then we're okay with it. Okay, then I get it. You're a conservative. You're allowed to do media if you're conservative. Okay, and you lie and we tell the truth and we battle over it and eventually we win. And that's what happens every time. News, news. It makes it sound like Antifa did the protest.

Right. And out of nowhere, Antifa came and attacked these guys when they're the ones that started it in the first place. Now, look, as always, there's some right-wing provocateur in there that has one out-of-context video. So were all the counter-protesters perfectly peaceful? No, that's why we're partly saying get out of there. And you shouldn't be there in the first place, let alone being aggressive in any way, shape,

perform so we're fair, we're honest about it. You think they're fair and honest about it? They took the, they take misleading videos and Fox News then makes it seem like that's the whole story. And Anna's right, when you go to counter protest, come on, you know, like, you know something's gonna break out and you know the media is gonna frame it as you guys did it. Yet you walk into that ambush.

Exactly. Right? So, but- It's so frustrating. Yes. All right, look, the last thing for me is, well, I'll give the last word actually to the members because they said a couple of interesting and funny things. But for me, look, guys, I'm worried, man.

Like, yeah, those are small groups there. But we're all getting at each other. Today was the first day of school. Parents against parents, things are starting to devolve. It's not, if it was just proud boys in Antifa, maybe, you know, cordoned off and it just happens rarely, et cetera. Nah, we're all starting to get at each other. And it's because we can't stand them. Then their total lack of logic and they said, well, I get to spread disease on you.

No, that's not part of your freedom. And they can't stand us. They think, oh man, they're taking my freedom away, man. I just wanted to make them sick and make me die. That's my freedom. And they really believe that with all their heart. And they believe we're coming after their kids and all sorts of insane conspiracy theories. How long is this powder egg going to go before it blows in a giant way?

And I'm super worried about it. I think it's only going to get worse from here or not. But on a lighter note, we'll end on the members. T.y.t.com slash join to become part of the show because we do read your comments from time in time. Colorado Blue Blazor Regular Road in that failed drop kick is a perfect metaphor for these jackholes. Totally. Mr. Arrigan said they're also getting out their anger issues that they're too proud to go to therapy for. Totally right to, right.

Therapy, they do it in a rational way. No, me go do dropkick. Me, fall on ass, me feel really good about it. But actually, the best comment comes from Nevinix, who actually corrects us. And I like that, too. Well, you guys are in a sense our editors, right? I don't like it that much. Okay, no.

I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. No, I love it. And you guys are great about it. Nevinix writes in, let the record state that it is a failed roundhouse kick. Oh, thank you. That's a good correction. It's not, it's an accidental drop kick.

He didn't mean a drop kick. He meant a roundhouse kick and he just fell on his ass. So thank you for the important correction. Look, if you're going to be attempting those roundhouse kicks, you better work on that core. You know, got to have good balance. And that guy, no good balance. Maybe spend more time at the gym, less time at these ridiculous protests. Just saying.

Anyway, let's do one more story before we wrap up our first hour. Conservative Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney-Barritt handed down a decision that is shocking. Now this had to do with a vaccine mandate at Indiana University, and this case made its way all the way to the Supreme Court where students were hoping that the Supreme Court would block Indiana University's vaccine mandate, but that is not what happened. Coney Barrett rejected an emergency request by a group of Indiana University students who were seeking to block the school from enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for the coming semester. She denied the request without comment and without referring the matter to the full high court for consideration. I have to be honest, I am pretty surprised by that because, you know, the whole point of ensuring that you install these conservative justices is so they carry out this, you know, vision of America that's deregulated, it's all about the individual, but that is not what happened here. Now look, if we were talking about corporations, I guarantee you Amy Coney Barrett would vote in a way that would not shock us. But let me give you more details.

Lower courts actually declined also to block the policy, saying the students were unlikely to prevail on claims that the mandate violated the Constitution. And just to give you one of the comments from a judge in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he's from the lower courts, of course. He argued a university will have trouble operating when each student fears that everyone else may be spreading disease. Few people want to return to remote education and we do not think that the Constitution forces the distance learning approach on a university that believes vaccination or masks and frequent testing of the unvaccinated will make in-person operations safe enough. Now the school states that if you refuse to get a vaccine, you have to wear a mask at all times when you're on the campus and you have to submit to COVID tests on a regular basis. But of course the students don't like that, which is why they made this a big case in the first place.

Okay, so first of all, Easterbrook is right. He's actually a storied judge and one of the brighter judges we have, whether you agree or disagree with this, the judicial philosophy. And he's saying something really simple. Of course institutions have a right to stop the spread of disease at their institutions. Who would say that they don't have the right? So let's say that the plague is back and we can't control it. That killed 75 to 200 million people. So is the university supposed to say, oh yeah, come on in with the plague, no problem. You don't have to wear a mask,

you don't have to be vaccinated, just have the plague and smear it all over the rest of us. Are they allowed to then spit on us too? Freedom, freedom. Well, but in a situation where where you have a contagious disease, breathing on us is actually similar to spitting on us. And so that is, that's just a fact. And it's an uncomfortable fact, but it's true, right? And so this is not the plague, but over four million people have died. And especially in modern times, that is stunning, absolutely stunning number. And in America, over 620,000 people have died. If you're a university and you're not trying to stop that spread on your campus, you are negligent and incompetent. And so, of course, this is the correct decision.

By the way, quick fun note on freedom, I think that the right wing would agree that one of the guys who gave us freedom was George Washington, one of the founding fathers and the general of our army that won freedom. he vaccinated his troops because the British had already had an outbreak and were pretty much immune from smallpox at the time and if he had and vaccines back there were brutal and really risky and he vaccinated his whole army anyway otherwise we're going to lose to the British and never have America in the first place so read history and then finally on Amy Coney Barrett Anna I think you hit it is she's ruling this way in the case of the University. Exactly.

Sure. But the very next case is going to be corporations. And so when it comes to corporations, they're, this, she dismissed it so out of hand. She did not bring it to the entire court and she said they could not win on the facts no matter what, basically. She didn't even give reasoning. Like she just was like, no, sorry. Like it was as much of a rejection as you could possibly have on the Supreme Court.

And one of the reasons is, because these conservative gentlemen. judges are just pro business. They are in favor of giant corporations. That's why they were selected by corrupt politicians. And so when corporations come and say, we're going to do a vaccine mandate, trust me that Barrett and almost all the other right wingers are going to be like, yes, sir, absolutely, sir. Corporations can do anything they want, sir. And that's a preview for this. Exactly. And look, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas should take note because he has implemented an anti, basically he has banned mask mandates. Now, the Dallas School District has decided to ignore his ban.

The Dallas Independent School District in Texas will maintain its mask mandate for students despite Texas's Supreme Court ruling that upheld Governor Abbott's ban on such measures. So who knows if this case is going to make its way to the Supreme Court. But at this point, we have precedent based on the way that Judge Amy Coney-Barrant, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett handled the Indiana University case. So we'll see what happens. Yeah, and by the way, look, in the bonus episode for the members, I'll tell you a story of my kid's first day at school and a little bit of drama that happened there in LA. Hit the join button below if you're watching on YouTube and you can get that bonus episode. But just think about

what Abbott is saying in Texas. If you have decided that your school is going to be safer with mass. I'm not going to let you make that decision. That's banned. Yes, I'm going to ban you from being safe. So now imagine you had your kids in that school and the people running the school said, we're positive. They'd be safer if everybody was wearing mass. And a bunch of people said, no, we don't want to. We want to endanger your kids. This is a recipe for disaster. And these are the guys who said, oh, we're in favor of local rule. Nope, nope. The minute you disagree with local rule, you're in favor of basically what you would call tyranny. That ain't freedom.

Right, and only 45.3% of Texans are fully vaccinated. One of the lowest vaccination rates in the country. So keep that in mind. And by the way, one of the worst outbreaks in the country and the most amount of deaths in the country. Way to go, Texas. You really got this thing figured out. Keep voting for Republicans.

See how many more people can die. All right, that does it for hour one. Stick around for hour two, where we will lighten things up. See you then. 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.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.