The Young Turks - Labor Of Love

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

Trump’s team has been barred from agencies amid a legal standoff. A Fox News contributor made an impassioned case against Pete Hegseth, citing her own experience as a rape victim. Trump has chosen Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer as his pick for Labor Secretary." HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com 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. USA, USA. Baga! Thank you. All right, welcome to the Young Turks. Jank Uger, Anna Kasparin, with you guys, live from the Polymarket Studio in L.A.

So lots of news about Donald Trump's appointments, of course. And lots of populace versus establishment, interesting. And the different groups are beginning to disassemble before they reassemble. Okay. So there's a bit of a realignment going on. No, no, he said it. He said it. So I will do something that would have seemed surprising before in supporting something that Donald

Trump has done a little bit later in the program. Uh-oh, drops. Where's the red hat? Where's the red hat? Just calm down there. There's no red hat. Okay, so we'll explain as we go. So a hell of a show, fascinating show.

Let's get going. Quite a bit of controversy in regard to Donald Trump's transition team, how they are transitioning. And I wanna get into that, but before we get into the controversy, let's talk about how Americans feel about how Trump is handling the transition. Brand spank a new polling from CBS News indicates that the majority of the American electorate does in fact like the way Donald Trump is handling his transition into the White House. But there might be trouble brewing behind the scenes, which we're gonna give you the details of in just a minute, but first let's dive into this polling.

So this new CBS poll from the weekend found that 59% of Americans approve of Trump's moves in the weeks following his election victory, while 41% disapprove. Now that was an interesting outcome of the poll, like they're looking at his various appointments, they're seeing the way that he is handling the fact that he won the election and what he claims he's going to do in his next administration. And overall, nearly 60% of Americans like what they see. However, this polling was taken from November 19th to the 22nd. So it's a snapshot of how the American elector it was feeling, you know, a little temperature

check on them. And remember that Matt Gates, who was Donald Trump's original attorney general pick, decided to withdraw from consideration on November 21st. So again, the people who were questioned or who took part in this survey were questioned between November 19th and the 22nd. Now, public opinions seem to differ a little bit when it came to specific appointments by Donald Trump, so I want to give you some of those results. For instance, when it comes to some of the controversial picks, let's start with Robert F. Kennedy

Jr. for HHS secretary, H.H.S secretary. 47% still the majority feel that it was a good choice by Trump. 41% though feel not a good choice. When you look at Marco Rubio, and I thought this was super fascinating, considering the fact that you have the, you know, America First crowd who do not favor the neo-conservatives like Marco Rubio, you can see that kind of reflected in the results in the poll here because 44% say good choice, 25% say not a good choice. So still the majority favor Marco Rubio, or at least say acceptable, but a lower. percentage than you see for RFK Jr. And then finally, let's go to Pete Heggseth for Secretary of Defense. 33% say good choice, 28% not a good choice. 39% of them say that they haven't heard enough about him to form any opinion at all, which I think is interesting. But that's where

Americans currently stand on how this transition is going. What do you think, Jank? Okay. So I think that a lot of people in the establishment would be surprised by this poll and are surprised by this poll. Why? Because they've been saying, oh my God, Matt Cates, disaster, you know, Hexif disaster, this disaster, that disaster. Oh my God, RFK Jr., biggest disaster there is. And so I'm sure the American people, once they realize who Trump is nominating, are finally going to hate him like we all do. Well, it turns out, sorry, no, that's not how it's going, 5941, right? So, and they saw all that. And as Anna pointed out, for half the people that answered this poll, Gates hadn't even withdrawn yet. Right. So, okay, so first of all,

that should reassemble your mind in terms of what the American people actually think, as opposed to what the people on TV tell you that they think, right? So, and whether you like it or you don't, by the way, that you just got to be realistic about the facts. Now, number two, along those lines, just to be clear, and this is not being clarified in other places, too, for the people saying, oh, well, that's it, the American people love Trump and all of his appointees. No, usually what the American people do, and it's a kind of a wonderful grace that we have, when a new president comes in, their poll numbers move up, and everything about them moves up, because that's the American people going, give them a chance, okay? And Barack

Obama, after his inauguration, was at a stunning 83% approval rating. So that was the American people, including tons of people who voted against them, tons of people who are now MAGA, who said, give the brother a chance, okay? So that's part of what the American voters are doing now when in answering polls like this. Okay. But when you dive into the specifics, I think there's a second layer of interesting material here. So how unpopular Hexeth is, I find to be super encouraging, because I think Hexeth is one of the worst picks and a guy who talks about domestic enemies and the left is the enemies within. And we're going to get to it a little bit later in the show, but even says that maybe we should use Israel to attack enemies within.

So that's insanity. And so I'm surprised that many people know how out of control Hegsiv is. I doubt it. I think that they just see him as a Fox News host and maybe see that as too extreme or too biased. And so that's interesting so far that he's the worst polling candidate. But thank you, America. You're exactly right. Now when you get to the other two, that's, okay, Mark Rubio, I'm not surprised by it at all.

He's a generic Republican senator that's gotten usually nothing but praise from corporate media. So you, I would expect 44, 25 there. But they really know almost nothing about the specifics of Rubio. And by the way, he's a neocon establishment guy that actually even mager guys would hate. The left hates. He's not a popular guy at all. But the media has hyped them up so much. I'm not at all surprised by these numbers.

Now, finally, the most surprising of all the numbers, whoa, look at how well RFK Jr. polls, right? And again there, I'm surprised by that. I'm not surprised by Rubio. I'm a little surprised by Hegsith, not surprised by the Trump numbers. But RFK Jr., given this like the nuclear blast of he's going to kill us all with the vaccines and the fluoride and all of that, for it to still come out as 4741 in favor, given like that brother's taking several hundred million dollars in negative media, maybe up to a billion in negative media. And he still standing at 4741. Okay, you got to tip your hat to that, whether you like it or you don't. For me, what this reflects is how much the American electorate has been wanting change

and wanting to be open-minded in regard to non-establishment players serving in these cabinet positions. But it's clear to me that they also have their limits. So once you get to Hegsith, which is not a traditional pick for defense secretary by any means, it appears that the electorate feels that Hegsith is a bridge too far. So we'll see how it plays out. But one thing that's also been clear to me, based on these various Trump appointees, is that he is really picking people, yes, based on, you know, the transactional nature that we see from Trump. So if you've done me a favor, I'm going to reward you with a cabinet pick, or listen to you if you have suggestions for cabinet positions, but the other thing about Trump is he tends to, you know, listen to his

supporters, which is a good thing. And he has people across the ideological spectrum. If everybody who's currently been appointed by Trump gets confirmed, I mean, his cabinet would be pretty diverse in terms of their thought, right? Diversity of thought, as opposed to oftentimes what we see from Democratic administrations, which is, you know, we have diversity in terms of race, or, you know, identity with Trump. I mean, you've got Tulsi Cabard, you got RFK Jr. You have a neocon like Marco Rubio. You have a hedge fund guy who he tapped for his treasury secretary.

We're going to cover that on the show in more detail in just a minute. So I'm curious to see how this all plays out because there are ideological conflicts among these people. And I'm very curious to see if they could actually work together for a successful Trump second term. Yeah, so the Democrats often do, well, to be fair, not just Democrats, the establishment politicians in both camps. True. Do like a fake team of rivals, like Obama famously, say, I'm going to do a team of rivals,

and put one Republican in the cabinet who was a corporate Republican who agreed with everything the corporate Democrat said. So team of rivals my ass. I never saw them disagree about a single thing. And in fact, in previous administrations, whether it was Bush or Obama or Biden, if you ever disagreed with the principle on anything or the establishment on anything, you would immediately be removed from office. Team of rivals was such a joke, total utter joke and mythology put out by corporate media

You're going, oh, my God, they're so wonderful, considering other people from other parties. Same with Bush, when he would pick one Democrat who agreed completely with them, right? It was always fake. This is an actual team of rivals. And I don't know which way it's going to shake out. So you got a whole block of neocon warmongers in there, Rubio Stephanic, how could be in walls, okay? And then a couple of others is in there. You got a bunch of corporate goons like the Treasury Secretary.

Susie Wiles is a very competent chief of staff and not a madman, so that's good, but she's super pro-corporate, pro-donors, et cetera. So you got the donor wing, the corporate wing. Then you've got, you know, the labor secretary is flat out pro-labor, nearly progressive. Whoa, Tulsi's is non-ideological, whatever the hell she is. RFK Jr. is an actual former Democrat, actual former environmental lawyer. And again, does not fit in any of the pre, you know, set ideologies that people have. So we've got people all over the board here.

And then you got Bondi and Hegsith who have other problems like corruption and blah, blah, blah. But they're loyalists and that's what they're mainly known for. Cash Patel might go in and he's a loyalist to Trump. And what I mean by lawyers, they're all loyalists. But I mean like they're very core of their existence. The reason why they are here is that they're defining. trading is being a loyalist to Trump and nothing else. Exactly.

So how is that going to work? I don't know. I don't think Trump knows. I don't think anybody knows. Is the establishment wing going to win? Is the populace wing going to win? Which portion of the populace wing? Because there's great things in there.

There's terrible things in there, right? Yeah. You know, last week, there was a lengthy piece written in the Washington Post. I even referenced it when we were covering a story jank. And the piece was mainly meant to warn the American people that Donald Trump, and his incoming administration is poised to essentially gut the labor department. But then over the weekend, you get this nomination for a labor secretary. She's a member of the Republican Party. She's in the House.

She narrowly lost her reelection bid out of Oregon. But she's one of three Republicans who voted in favor of the pro act. She has done other things. They're on her record in regard to being very pro labor. her father is a teamster. So yeah, she's conservative in some ways, socially speaking, which is why she's in the Republican Party. But I don't care.

I mean, what I care about is a pro-Labor secretary serving as the labor secretary. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I want that. And to me, that was a clear signal that Trump isn't looking to gut the labor department as the Washington Post was warning about. But nonetheless, obviously, I'm. I'm not naive, but I also want to say I feel cautiously optimistic in some ways. That's so interesting. You said that I'm about to read one of our member comments who said something similar.

And then I want to explain why I think we feel that way. First, though, Jenks left triceper fury rodent was the polling done at a MAGA rally? No, no, no, guys, I want you to understand that. This is a real poll. And so don't ignore things that seem wrong to you because of the bubble that you're in or We're in together, right? When you see a poll like that, you shouldn't dismiss it. You should go, huh, I wonder what I'm missing, right?

If that's what the generally speaking, roughly speaking, where the American people are coming out, I wonder why I'm not there. Are they wrong? Am I wrong? Open up your mind in terms of that analysis. So now to Anna's point, Haseus take the wheel, said, is anyone else strangely optimistic lately? The Democratic establishment has never been lower than it is right now, and I'm here for it.

And I totally agree. So before I explain that real quick, if you want to be one of our members, do the show with us, hit the join button below if you're on YouTube. Or if you go to t-y-t.com slash team today, you get 20% off monthly membership. So check that out if you can. Okay, now why I read Hesus Take the Wheels comment, and I was going to go to that comment, Anna, before you even use the word optimistic. I'm now hearing that over and over again from people who are truly on the left

and who are truly populist progressives, okay? Why do we feel that way when Trump won and we didn't want Trump to win? Because for the first time in my life, I feel like the wheel has been broken, right? Even when Trump won the first time around, he didn't really break the wheel. He brought in almost purely establishment guys. And there was some good parts of that because they sometimes were a check on him when he wanted to bomb nuke hurricanes and stuff and wanted to do things that were totally wild and out of control. But the establishment was still firmly in charge.

What did we mainly get? We mainly got corporate tax cuts, right? And you still couldn't dissent. You couldn't descend in the Democratic Party and then the Republican Party was kind of a mess. Now you could dissent everywhere, okay? It's not just that the Democratic establishment loss. Remember, Trump earlier broke the Republican establishment. They're still there, but he broke them in half.

And so now wait a minute, the Republican establishment is in big trouble. The Democratic establishment just got humiliating. in this race. And yeah, for their diehards, they'll never let it go. Blue and on will be is now talking about how Kamala Harris should run again. Okay, but those folks are, I mean, I love you guys. You know, we probably vote the same way a lot. But if you think Kamala Harris should run again, you're nearly hopeless in your political analysis, okay? So, so that group still exists. But the majority of Democratic voters, I feel, are like, oh, you're going to tell me to vote for Hillary or Bind or Kamala Harris next time and tell me that you know

what you're doing and that Donald Trump is, oh, this time we're going to beat the bad guys. If you just pick another robot that we anoint for you. And I feel like that's not going to fly, man. That's like they're going to try that. They're going to put billions of dollars of propaganda into it between now and the Democratic primary. But I feel liberated. I don't like, so before if you ever criticize Democratic leadership, the media and everybody

would come crashing on you. like a ton of bricks. How dare you say that about Nancy Pelosi or the beloved Joe Binder or the beloved Kamala Harris? Well, they're not so beloved anymore. And so, you know, I said it despite the fact that they came down on us like a ton of bricks and so did Anna. Right. But it took tremendous courage to to say that. Now, anybody can say it. I know. It is, you're right. I mean, I felt liberated almost immediately after the election results, mostly because everything that we had been saying, a lot of the things that I had been warning about especially, like ended up being validated, whereas prior to the election, everyone thought, oh, well,

you're just, you know, a secret right winger, you're a secret MAGA person, that's the reason why you're saying these critical things about the Democratic Party. But no, what Trump was selling, you know, the bill of goods that he was selling during his campaign didn't appeal to me. But the problem was, I would look at the Democratic Party and what they were selling, and that didn't appeal to me either. In fact, they were engaging in a lot of toxic, you know, culture within the Democratic Party that I thought really needed to be rooted out if they were going to ever be clear-eyed about what the electorate actually wanted and where the American people actually stood on

a lot of these different issues. I don't know if they're going to reform or change, Jank, but I do feel happy that now there are more and more, you know, hardcore Democratic loyalists, certainly in the media who are willing to like look at the Democratic Party with a more sober perspective and call a spade a spade. That's so necessary right now. And finally, and we'll get to this later in the program too. Now for the first time of my life, I feel like the establishment media monopoly is broken. So, and that might be the most important part of it all.

Because before, there was only one funnel through which you got information. And that funnel was 200% corporate. And so told you the corporate Republicans, the corporate Democrats like Marco Rubio and Nancy Pelosi, et cetera, were gods, demigods, amazing, wonderful. And if you said anything in dissent, they crushed you. They never allowed you on television. They never allowed you in mainstream media. And they sent you to the hinterlands of the online world. Well, guess what?

Now the hinterlands are in charge. So now they're in our jungle and they hate it. And my God, they were like morning Joe, as we're about to show you a little later in the show. Oh, he's furious about it, that the online media might be stronger than establishing media. And now they can't keep our messages out. We just put our message on online media and it goes like wildfire, right? And before, they had it all bottled up so you couldn't rebel against the establishment. And now we're an open rebellion.

And in that open rebellion, a lot of things are going to move around. But guys, that's a wonderful thing. It doesn't mean that yay, Trump won. It doesn't mean, yay, he's going to do amazing things. No, he could still do terrible things, and we need to brace for impact on that. And we need to be clear-eyed about it and not naive. But it does mean we're in the jungle now, and they might hate that, and it unsettles them. But this is our jungle, okay?

This is our playing field. And in our playing field, the populists are going to win. And I think that's why we feel liberated, and that's why we feel optimistic, even if we were not in favor of Donald Trump winning the election. All right, let's take a break when we come back. A Fox News contributor explains why Pete Heggseth should not be the next Secretary of Defense while on Fox News, which is Hegseth's place of work. An incredible segment. Can't wait to share with you. Come right back. All right, back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys. Joseph Mankelis, thank you for joining by hitting that beautiful join bottom below. And Don Whitehead and Box, thank you for gifting membership. You guys are awesome.

Anna. Let's get right to our next story. I met Pete a long time ago. We spent middle of the night waiting to go on during 2016 before the election. with all due respect to my former colleague. We know that there were three cases of adultery for Pete Higgs. And it is relevant. And the reason why it's relevant is Article 134 of the UCMJ considers adultery against the military,

which the Department of Defense is part of. You can't lead an entire organization and all these people if you can't lead by example. Well, that isn't the only reason that Fox News contributor Leslie Marshall believes that Pete Heggzith is a terrible pick to be Donald Trump's secretary of defense. In fact, she engaged in a pretty impassioned argument against the idea of Hegsith serving in that position. And I just want to note that she was making this argument on Fox News, which of course is the place of work for Pete Hegzeth. who hosts the weekend version of Fox and Friends. But I want to give her a lot of credit because she opened up about her own personal experiences and why she believes that he would be a terrible person to lead the Pentagon.

It all started, though, with Howard Kurtz, host of Media Buzz on Fox, detailing how Mediaite obtained the police report, which described Hegsith as, you know, very drunk and more. And of course, that police report had to do with sexual assault allegations. So let's listen to his framing before we get to more of what Leslie Marshall had to say. But Leslie, media, I'd obtained this police report from California authorities from back in 2017 and says, you know, Heggseth, Pete very drunk. He got into a fight with Jane Doe. That's how she's being referred to, that she repeatedly said no. And a rape kit confirmed the sexual encounter. Again, Pete Hegssev says this was consensual.

So I just wanted to show the framing of the question because, you know, oftentimes when we think of right wing media, when we think of Fox News especially, you know, you hear one side and it's typically the side that's more friendly to the right wing. In this case, you have Howard Kurtz just very frankly explaining that the police report said some pretty terrible things about Pete Higgs-Zt, so I want to give him credit for that. Now, with that in mind, after Leslie Marshall explained, you know, issues with Hegsith's, you know, infidelity and marriage and all of that. She then went on to talk about something far more serious.

Let's take a look. I'm a rape victim, and I can tell you there's a reason one in ten rapes go unreported. And it's very difficult for a woman to go in and have a rape hit done. It's physically, mentally and emotionally very difficult to go through that process, as I have. And I can tell you that just very personal in my deep core, somebody doesn't do that with their husband and their kids in the hotel, texting their husband. Somebody doesn't go into the hospital and subject yourself to that. And I have to say, as a woman and as a victim, I believe the victims.

And this is a problem for me, the sexual impropriety. And then on top of that, although Pete has an incredible military career, he doesn't have the leadership career in the military that I feel the Department of Defense requires as their head. So she really seems to side with the alleged victim in the sexual assault. And I do think she brings up some important points here, right? Like the idea that a woman would go put herself through the process of a rape kit if she was blind. about the alleged rape, the fact that she was at this conference with her husband and how weird it would be to engage in a consensual extramarital affair with your husband at the conference.

But as Jenck and I talked about previously when it comes to these allegations, we really have no way of adjudicating it. We're not equipped with that ability. And so we don't know for sure if he did it or not. She seems to lean in the direction of, it's likely that she's not making this up, okay? And she also notes that he's not really, he doesn't really have the experience in order to have such an incredibly important title and role within the upcoming administration. And I agree with her on that.

He might have served in the military, he might have done well in the military, doesn't necessarily mean that he is well equipped to lead the Pentagon. But I'm curious what you think, Jenk, because she came out there likely expressing this to an audience that might not be so receptive to the message. And she did so while disclosing that she herself was a victim of rape. Yeah, I thought it was courageous of her. And it's an interesting perspective. And it affects me a little bit in terms of whether I think he did it or not. But it's super hard to know.

As we discussed earlier, there is evidence publicly that it did it, that he did it. He did something wrong. There's evidence that he didn't. And I'm not in that investigation. I cannot judge it. We just don't have enough information. So I understand what she's saying. The reason it moves me a little bit is because she's like, look,

the pattern fits someone of who was assaulted, not a pattern of someone who wasn't assaulted. Okay, that has some degree of credibility to it. and that my that moves me in terms of how I view it a little bit but it doesn't move me enough for me to say I know definitively because I just don't right so I don't know what to do with that so that's point one and guys I always think and I know sometimes it drives folks crazy but I always think shoe on the other foot what if this was a great candidate that we loved on policy and HECCP is not and I'm going to get to how terrible HECS of this is on other matters in a second but if he was on our side and we loved his policies and these same exact charges came out. What would we think? And I have to tell you, I would say inconclusive. It's just literally no way of knowing. And she mentions her own rape. That's very courageous of her and I appreciate her doing that. And it's relevant because of how she views those patterns, right? At the same time, obviously Pete Hexeth didn't

do that. Somebody else did that. So I'm just keeping it, you know, just trying to level with you guys on how to view that, right? I don't want you to then go, oh, okay, then Hexeth's a bad guy because she was assaulted, right? It's not the same. person by another person, right? The infidelity point is another interesting one that I'm not overly moved by. So yes, she's right, the military has a rule that you cannot commit adultery. And so he has committed adultery on multiple occasions, apparently. And so three, at least that we know publicly, that I don't think he denies.

He certainly doesn't deny this one. He said this was a consensual affair, the one that happened in 2017. So I get that that's a rule in the military, I don't really care about that rule at all. And the reason why that rule existed was because it could be used as blackmail. But he can't be used as blackmail if he said it publicly already. So again, if we had a great candidate on our side and he had committed adultery or she had committed adultery three times, I wouldn't care, okay? So, and then the last one is not that experience.

Another one where I have to say, I don't overly care because if you put, let's say, you know, We were saying during the break, one of our members wrote in, David Sorota applied to be part of the Department of Governmental Efficiency, right? And does David have experience in the Pentagon? No, not really. He runs the lever now. He's a former speech writer for Bernie Sanders. Why is he one of the best reporters in the country? If somebody said, hey, would you take a random establishment guy at the Pentagon who knows defense really well?

Or David Sorota at the Pentagon? Sorota, right? not even close. So my, so okay, to me, although what she's saying is powerful and courageous and I appreciate her for saying it, especially to that audience, I don't think it's as germane as the other terrible things about Pete Hexon. Yeah, because the other terrible things about Pete Hegesith are confirmed because they're terrible things that came out of his own mouth. And they very much do conflict with what the majority of Trump's base wants, which is

America first foreign policy. Pete Heggzith doesn't really seem to agree with that based on some of the things he said about foreign policy in the past. And on top of that, you know, look, I don't know how real it is. Okay, so I'm not going to be naive and say, oh, Trump is definitely interested in unifying the country or Trump's base is interested in unifying the country. What I am noticing, though, is that this time around does feel different from 2016 in that, you know, since Trump has broadened his coalition of support, there are a lot of

people who voted for him this time around who are not alt-right, who are not, you know, Nazis or extremists or anything like that. these are people who are fed up with establishment politicians and are taking a bet on someone different. And Trump is a little less, I mean, he's still combative, don't get me wrong, but he's a little less toxic and divisive compared to 2016 in the aftermath of the election. We're going to see. I mean, he's much better after he wins than after he loses, right? Yeah, I'm talking about 2016, though. After he won in 2016, like, you know, he was ready to go to war. But put Trump aside, it's more about his base and the way they're behaving.

And I really do think that there's a possibility of pushing this country to a better place where people will disagree, but it won't be as dangerous as it was in the past, like as we were barreling toward a potential civil war. Yeah. Dangerous. Yeah. So look, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. I just know that some of the things that come out of Pete Higgs's mouth goes against what I'm noticing right now with the Trump base. So that's exactly right. Trump and his base are different. And his base is very varied.

It's not a monolith like it was in the past. But we're going to talk a lot about that as the Trump administration goes on. I want to just really quickly get to, if you haven't seen all the terrible things about Hegsith, the Guardian summarizes book. And I'll just give you a couple of quick parts that we did a much larger segment on it on Friday, which you should check out. They explained at various points of that book, Hexit describes leftists, progressives, and Democrats as, quote, enemies of freedom, the U.S. Constitution and America, and counts Israel among the, quote, international allies who can help defeat such domestic enemies. So apparently Pete Hegesith would use Israel to defeat domestic enemies on the left here in America. I don't know how he would use them. And at his confirmation hearings, I hope to God that he's asked, would it be the IDF in

the streets and arresting Americans like we're Palestinians? Or what does he mean that Israel can be used to defeat the left here in America that he describes his domestic enemies? And my guess is that no one will ask him, because that's the part of the book that the Democrats and Republicans both probably love. Yeah, I mean, look, it's anti-American, right? Like if there was someone on the left, let's say Bernie Sanders, right, which I can't even imagine, but Bernie Sanders saying that a foreign country should step in and help us defeat

our political opponents in America, our fellow brothers and sisters, we might disagree politically, but that a foreign country should come in and help us defeat them, I'd be disgusted with Bernie Sanders. I mean, I give you an example that make your heads explode if you're on the right or really anyone, but imagine if Bernie said, oh, if I win, I'm going to pick a defense secretary who's going to have the Cubans help us to defeat. the right wing domestic enemies in this country. No, that would be insane. Okay, right, everybody would, but Hegson says it about Israel and everybody's,

my guess is it won't even be mentioned in the hearings. All right, last couple here, so you get a full sense of how much he hates half this country. Elsewhere in the American Crusade, he writes, and yes, it's called American Crusade. Quote, the hour is late for America. Beyond political success, her fate relies on exercising the leftist specter dominating education, religion and culture, a 360 degree holy war for the righteous cause of human freedom. And he continues, our weapon is American nationalism. The left is tried to intimidate us into thinking that nationalism is a relic of a bygone era.

But as he says it in the context of a holy war and a crusade, it sounds like Christian nationalism, which means, no, if you're Jewish, Muslim, atheist, whatever the hell you might want to be, You don't get freedom. You get a holy war led by Pete Higgsiff, the frickin' lunatic, against half of this country when he's supposed to be our defense secretary. And finally, he says, for leftists calls for democracy represent a complete rejection of our system. What?

Republican legislators should draw congressional lines that advantage pro-freedom candidates and screw Democrats. That is him saying, I'm against democracy, and we should rig the system. So we always win and the Democrats are screwed over. No, my answer to that is, hell no, screw Pete Hegs if I don't want any part of him. And I hope to God that he's not our defense secretary. Yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly. And I don't think it's gonna be beneficial for Trump to have someone like that in his administration.

I have no doubt that he'll probably get involved in something that'll be controversial. And it'll be a headache for Trump. I think that there are better appointees, I'm sure he'll pick someone else that I don't favor And it's not about me, right, but at least pick someone who isn't interested in engaging in that kind of disgusting, toxic, divisive rhetoric, especially at a time when Trump has managed to increase his support among people who traditionally didn't vote for him or support him. So something to keep in mind. All right, we got to take a break. But when we come back, my favorite story of the day, Sean O'Brien deserves a lot of credit.

Anyone who came after him for the political maneuvering that he engaged in during the election was wrong. and I'm going to explain why when we come back. Luddite 11 said, this is my last month because I'm not finding some weird both sized crap displaces turned into. You don't let's see what they can do with pure loyalists or a child sex offender like Gates. It's disgusting. Okay, no problem, brother.

And I hope that you come back when you realize we were right, okay? But right now we're not both sides of anything. We're telling you what helps the populist progressive position, a labor secretary that is relatively progressive and the most we could have asked for in being pro-laced. is not both-sizing it. It's saying, let's take the win. Cutting the Pentagon is not both-sizing it. It's saying, let's take the win, right? So if you say, no, I don't want to do progressive things. I don't want to do populist things. I only want to do things that make the Democratic establishment happy, then okay, then we're going to have a disagreement on that. And I hope

you come back when you realize we were right, okay? And but you always get the judges based on what we do and what we say, and we say a lot, right? So you have plenty of, you know, things to come back to and say, if we're wrong, oh, thank God I left, right? Because it turns out they thought this and they were such suckers or, oh, it turns out they were grifting and now they're like pro-corporate tax guts, right? Pro-military industrial complex. Okay, then you come and judge us, everybody leave, et cetera, right? But we're going to do what we think is right and what we think is honest and what we think

is going to help the progressive populist position, the economically populist position. That's what we're going to do. And so if you don't trust us on that, I love you, brother, no problem. A lot of people don't. They go, they come back, et cetera. But we've been around 22 years for a reason. Because people find out eventually, oh, right, they were pretty right, weren't they? Oh, they were pretty honest, weren't they?

So let's keep doing that, Anna. All right. Well, let's get to some reason to be at least a little optimistic because one of my fears was that Trump would gut the labor department, but now it appears that's not going to be the case. Trump made a surprise pick following some heavy lobbying from the Teamsters Union, choosing Republican congresswoman from Oregon, Lori Chavez de Reamer. She will be his labor secretary. Chavez de Riemer was one of few Republicans to co-sponsor the Pro Act, which protects and strengthens workers' rights to organize. It is a pro-labor pick. And this is a victory for Sean O'Brien of the head of the Teamsters who advocated for, spoke at the RNC, as you mentioned, and went in big for this. And he got, as Sean O'Brien did, got opposed. by much of the conservative movement, competitive enterprise institute, Grover Norquist group, all came out against Sean O'Brien's in Dreamer. And Trump wouldn't win with him. And I think

we all know why. He said, hey, I'm going to do something for my friend Sean O'Brien, which is great in the W. You just heard from Faj Shakir of all people. He's the head of pro-labor media organization, More Perfect Union. And I'm really happy to hear his commentary there because I agree I agree with him wholeheartedly. So he joined MSNBC to explain why Trump's choice for labor secretary, Representative Laurie Chavez de Ramer, could be a win for workers. And it's because of the fact that she absolutely is pro-labor even as a Republican House member.

Now, she was one of only three Republicans in the House to co-sponsor the Pro Act, which of course would gut these so-called right to work states, which makes it incredibly difficult for workers to organize their workplace. It essentially strips unions of the necessary resources they would require in order to carry out advocacy on behalf of their workers, labor contract negotiations, things like that. And so I'm really happy to see that Trump's transactional nature worked out to the benefit of the Teamsters and of workers in this particular case, and that is if DeRamer does end up getting confirmed, and I don't really see why she wouldn't. Chris Murphy, a Democratic lawmaker also applauded this pick. And she stood alone as the only Republican, by the way,

to vote against the small business before bureaucrats act. And that would have increased the amount of revenue a company would need to make in order for the NLRB to get involved in labor disputes when they arise for the company. Now, Chavez de Ramer's father was also a teamster, and she has absolutely courted union support. She has also co-sponsored bills supported by pilot and flight attendant unions and railroad unions, as well as a bill to allow workers to receive tax deductions for union dues. And she has written or signed onto several letters supporting unions in their negotiations, urging the port of Portland to end restrictions on picketing at the Portland airport and asking

for increased funding for the National Labor Relations Board. So look, I've looked into her. I wrote about her recently for my substack, and I think that she doesn't just talk to the talk. She walks the walk, and her record shows that. But I want to jump ahead and talk a little bit about Sean O'Brien, head of the Teamsters, who definitely dealt with quite a bit of backlash from the Democratic Party over his decision to speak at the Republican National Convention. He spoke as one of the headliners on the first night of the convention.

He also got a lot of backlash for his refusal to have the Teamsters endorse a presidential candidate in this election cycle. Democrats feel entitled to the Teamsters endorsement, but that didn't happen this time around. And he did that. he made a bet for two reasons in my opinion. Number one, the majority of Teamsters members actually supported Trump over Harris. But I think the real reason was O'Brien was smart enough to see the writing on the wall. He probably knew that Trump was going to win. And so he probably

also recognized that Trump is a very transactional individual. And by avoiding an endorsement for Kamala Harris, that would give him some leverage to actually make a suggestion for labor secretary pick for the Trump administration, and he's the one who recommended Chavez de Ramer for this position. And Trump, you know, gave him the reward of naming Chavez de Ramer for labor secretary. So this is good news, guys. And I'm actually really proud of Sean O'Brien for being willing to walk through fire in order to get a win in an upcoming Trump administration. Right. Okay, so first I want to talk about Representative Lori Chavez-Dramer.

I officially endorse her. Okay, does that mean anything? I don't know. But I do it because I think that I want people to understand that the populist left and the populist right stand united on this issue. She is by far the best choice we could have possibly had in a Trump administration. And yes, I agree with Anna wholeheartedly, tip of the hat to Sean O'Brien, We did a brilliant job with this.

Now, I want to tell you about her, and Anna outlined some of the things that she's in favor of for unions and labor, et cetera. And she's for the Pro Act, which is unprecedented for a Republican legislator to have been in favor of the Pro Act. So that's amazing, and that obviously tells you something. By the way, people have wrote an in like Charlie Zoo on Super Chat saying, well, she voted if she was against some of the NLRB rulings, whether I was probably against some of the NLRB rulings. I don't know which ones you're referring to in specific. He and he said he voted,

she voted against Medicaid in different times, et cetera. She was a Republican. She's a Republican. Yeah, let's be clear about that. Yeah. Right. So I'm not vouching for every vote she's ever had and everything she's ever done, right? Well, what I'm saying is it's not even close. This is by far the best person we'll get from a, from a Trump administration. And so take the win. Now, let me explain to you guys who her opponents are and who's backing her. Her opponents are the Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity, that's the Koch brothers group, Grover Norquist, that's Americans for Tax Reform, that's the richest people in the country that always want corporate tax cuts and tax cuts for the wealthy and hate

the workers, almost all the corporate Republicans are against her, all of the Murdoch enterprises, Fox News, New York Post, Wall Street Journal, all coming out against her. most of cable news coming out against her. These are excellent enemies to have. 100%. Okay, so now who's on her side? Well, Fastly here that we just showed you as former campaign manager for Bernie Sanders. And a lot of not just progressive Democrats, but more mainstream Democrats like Patty Murray

are on her side saying, oh my God, I can't believe Trump picked her. Yes, my answer is yes. Maybe that'll sway some of the Kamala Harris people like, oh, don't worry some establishment Democrats are also on her side. Does that make you feel better? Okay. But that's not all. Not only is Sean O'Brien and the team service on her side, but almost all the unions are

on her side, including the teachers union, Randy Weingarten, et cetera. If you're asking for a pick better than what all the unions and Randy Weingarten and the teachers union, et cetera, say is great and that they're thrilled to have, not only are you unreasonable, you probably have this thing that I didn't think actually existed, but I'm now beginning to believe does, Trump derangement syndrome. Oh, it totally exists. Like, if you say Trump is giving us exactly what we want, and I hate it, no, brother, you lost the plot at some point, right?

Sorry, but that makes no sense at all. Take the frickin' win. And if you don't, and you fight her and you join the goons like Mitch McConnell and Grover Norquist and Carl Rove and Charles Koch, and you defeat her, what you're going to get is an infinitely worse labor secretary that is going to do massive damage to the workers in this country. And by the way, the populist's right at this point because Trump picked her is with us in fighting back against the Koch brothers and Mitch McConnell.

So if you think I lost the plot, no, you lost the plot if you're on the side of Mitch McConnell and the Koch brothers. I want to end with more from Faz Shakir, who has worked closely with Bernie Sanders in the past. And like, this is not some secret, you know, corporate Republican. Okay, Faf Shakir is as left wing as you can get, especially in terms of workers' rights and making working conditions better for Americans in this country. So with that in mind, let's take a look at more of what he had to say while on MSNBC. The hostility that surrounds her is real. You got Elon Musk. You got Russell, what we were just talking about. You've got Wall Street

hedge fund guy, Scott Bassett. These are not people who are. ready to go flying with the pro-labor agenda. So she's got her work cut out for her, but it is at least one voice at a table where she is outgunned by very Wall Street-friendly people who's going to have at least a labor voice. And there's moments where, of course, I think it could be helpful when workers go on strike. I will just note that, you know, in order to support the Labor Secretary, you also need an NLRB, National Labor Relations Board support. And so who Donald Trump picks for that needs to complement this direction if we're going to carve into being a pro-labor.

Yeah, and I agree with Fashikir when it comes to the NLRB. And by the way, I mean, in his first term, Donald Trump didn't have any of the influence that he's currently getting from Sean O'Brien. So hopefully Sean O'Brien is working with Trump in deciding who will serve in the NLRB because I think that this role is important. And look, I would love nothing more than for Trump to prove everyone wrong by having a a good national labor relations board, a pro labor, labor secretary, especially when before he named her as labor secretary in his new administration, you know, there were all these

stories being published, including one in the Washington Post that talked about how the upcoming Trump administration is going to gut labor, doesn't seem like he's looking to gut labor if he's willing to appoint, you know, a pro labor, labor secretary like Chavez de Ramer. Okay, last couple things here. Look, I know his record. in the past on labor has been terrible. So we're not naive about it. So could he go back in that bad direction? Yes.

Of course, yeah. If he picked another labor secretary, he would definitely go in that direction. Since he picked this labor secretary, we're hoping that maybe he doesn't go in that direction. So please encourage that. And as I said, FAS was the campaign manager for Bernie in 2020. It's not like, oh, every progressive in the country just got hoodwinked overnight. Right. Right.

No, we know their track record really well in terms of these candidates. And we're telling you, this one's, a good one. The idea that you should maximal, be maximalist in your resistance to Trump and even disagree with him on things that he agrees with us on is irrational. And I, and I can't stand it. It makes no sense, which leads me to my final point, which is, look, Sean O'Brien had a lot of courage to do what he did. And what you don't know, but I do, because I've been through it, is that that burns a lot of your bridges and it expends a lot of your political capital and he would be persona non grata in democratic circles after giving that speech at the

RNC. And so it would cost them, I would be very surprised if it didn't cost them personally, it didn't cost him his contacts, it didn't cost him a lot behind the scenes. But he took that step because he thought he could get something positive like this out of it and he was right. And when someone is right, you should give them credit where credit is due. So thank you Sean O'Brien and Teamsters for getting us this pick. Let's wrap up the first hour, when we come back for the second hour of the show, I want to talk a little bit about the scathing message that Senator Bernie Sanders put out over the weekend in regard to the failures of the Democratic Party.

We're also going to talk a little bit about the insane brain rot over at MSNBC. As one of their anchors, Jonathan Capehart, celebrated Donald Trump's treasure secretary pick over just simple identity, right? Doesn't matter what he stands for, does it Doesn't matter that this is a hedge fund guy who's very much in favor of some of the economic policies the Democrats are supposed to be against. Did you know he's openly gay? And apparently that's all that matters. So we've got that and more coming up.

Don't miss it.