The Young Turks - Let Them Fight!

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Republican Party IMPLODING, Kevin McCarthy Loses MULTIPLE Votes to Become Speaker of the House | Vaush Joins TYT to Discuss Why Young Men Feel Alienated in the U.S. | Hope Hicks Throws Trump Under the Bus In Leaked Texts | Trump's Top VP Choice Elise Stefanik Wasn't Always MAGA Host: Ana Kasparian, Farron Cousins 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. Woo! It's up! What's up? Welcome to TYT. You're watching TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian. Jank is out for the night. But the lovely gentleman next to me, Farron Cousins, was kind enough. to dedicate some time to do the show with me, even though he's not feeling so well today.

Ferran, thank you for coming on. No problem. Always a pleasure to be here. Well, we've got a great show ahead for you today. We begin with Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the House-related drama. Oh, that story's so good. I can't wait to just dig into that and tell you guys what happened today. Really embarrassing for Kevin McCarthy and the Republican Party in general. Later in the hour, I'll also be interviewing a pretty popular Twitch streamer, you might have heard of him. He's known as Vosh. And he was trending recently over a Twitter thread involving the left's unwillingness to grapple with a crisis that young men are facing in the country today, a crisis of alienation and loneliness. I want to talk to him about

what his thoughts are. And more importantly, what he thinks the left should do to respond to the crisis effectively. And in the second hour, Wazni Lombre will join me for some more news, which I'm really really looking forward to. So if you're watching us live, please like and share the stream. It's a great way to get the message out of TYT, get more eyeballs on the show. And it's an easy way to help support the show. And you can like the, not only like the stream, you can also join as a member by going to TYT.com slash join. We will have a bonus episode today. It will be insane. Bad Bunny did a very bad, bad thing. We'll tell you what that is. But first, why don't we start off with the biggest news story of the day, Kevin McCarthy and his drama.

First round of balloting for the speaker, and it's clear that Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, does not have the votes. There were 19 defections. 10 Republicans voting for Andy Biggs of Arizona, nine voting for others. It looks like we're headed towards another round of votes. Oof, it is not a good day for Kevin McCarthy, who of course is seeking to be the new Speaker of the House. Now, not only did he lose the vote, meaning he lost and did not meet the 218 votes necessary to become Speaker of the House, he lost it three times, three times. I'm going to go over to you right away, Farron. There's a lot of context to get to,

but I want to get your first reaction to this. Stop the count is my initial reaction. No, this is absolutely, not only is it historic, right? Somebody that hasn't happened, you know, in over 100 years. In fact, the losing it three times. I don't think that's ever happened, but it just shows this complete disarray. Kevin McCarthy spent the last two weeks during this break, meeting with Republicans, talking them, giving away the farm, you know, everything you want to do, I will let you do it.

You just got to vote for me. And as we know, too, it erupted in this shouting, profane shouting match this morning behind closed doors. And he ended up losing support, right? We thought it was only going to be that gang of five. And now it's a gang of 19 and getting worse on subsequent ballots. So he's going down in flames. And I don't know how he or even the Republican Party walk away from this looking like normal, rational adults. I don't think they can.

Well, let me just start off by saying that when I woke up this morning and saw that this was really the top story and that we would have to talk about it on the show, I was bitter about it because I don't care. I don't care about Kevin McCarthy. I don't care about these ridiculous power struggles because it's not about the American people. It's about these elite individuals looking to accumulate more power for themselves and their political careers. But I do want to thank the Republicans in the House for making this story a lot more interesting. So I would at least be able to talk about it enthusiastically. So not only did he win, not only did you lose once, not only do you lose twice, he lost three times. And you're right, Farron, this is pretty unprecedented. In fact, the house, the last time the house had failed to elect a speaker was in 1923. So you're right in that it's been about a century since something like this has happened. Now the contingent of the far right representatives who are steadfast in opposing, opposing him did in fact secure some massive concessions from Kevin McCarthy. And honestly,

to me, it's pretty unclear what their issue with McCarthy is. Some are saying, oh, he wasn't loyal enough to Donald Trump. But to that contingent of the right wing, I would just say, maybe it's time to move away from Donald Trump, especially seeing what a liability Trump and his endorsed candidates were during the midterm elections. Later on in the show, we have a story about Trump now blaming the anti-choice activists for the midterm election losses. It's just, he just refuses to ever take any responsibility. But remember, Kevin McCarthy was pretty damn loyal to Donald Trump and critiqued him here and there just a little bit. It wasn't like he was some fire breather against Trump.

He certainly wasn't Liz Cheney or some other, you know, Republican who's now voted out of Congress just because of his, because of their, you know, protests toward Trump and some of his actions. You know, you brought up a really good point there. What exactly is their problem with McCarthy? You know, Matt Gates has been obviously one of the most outspoken about we got to make sure McCarthy doesn't get it. I want my friend Jim Jordan. But he's never actually articulated what his problem is with Kevin McCarthy.

You know, look, I don't like McCarthy either. I wouldn't vote for the guy. But you guys are in the same party. You're putting up these objections. You've been going around for weeks, gathering up all these people. But you can't even tell us what the problem is. This morning, Gates comes out and he says, you can't drain the swamp when you have the biggest alligator out there running it. Okay, but what does that mean? That doesn't mean. Yeah, that's just a metaphor you've created. And it works down here in alligator country, but it doesn't mean anything. You have no legitimate grievance with this man other than I guess you just want your good

friend Jim Jordan to have the job. And I don't know, maybe he gets something special out of that. But none of it makes any sense. He's putting up a tantrum for the sake of having a temper tantrum. That's what Gates and his little Freedom Caucus freaks are doing right now. And speaking of Jim Jordan, who people like Gates want to serve as the next speaker of the house, for a Republican-controlled house. Picking Jim Jordan is fascinating from a guy who purports to care so much about, you know, victims of sexual abuse and grooming. Jim Jordan is accused by multiple

wrestlers of essentially covering up the sexual misconduct that was being, that was allegedly being carried out by the wrestling coach. I believe at Ohio State. I'm, don't, yes, at Ohio State. sure that I'm right about that. But anyway, moving on, let's just take a look at a few photos of what the house floor look like. And in particular, what Kevin McCarthy looked like as he, number one, lost the first round. So there he is. You can see that Kevin McCarthy got 202 votes. He needs 215, I'm sorry, 218 in order to move on. And so they had to take the vote again. and he only gained two additional votes. In the third and final vote of the day, McCarthy got 202 votes.

Jeffries got 212 and Jim Jordan got 20. So among the most vocal in their opposition to McCarthy is in fact representatives Matt Gates, who we've talked about, Andy Biggs, Scott Perry, Lauren Bobert, and Ralph Norman. Now, when it comes to Lauren Bobert, I remember she made clear that she needed a concession from Kevin McCarthy in regard to being able to do away with him if the Republican caucus is unhappy with the work he's doing. Well, he did offer some of those concessions. And it appears that it's not good enough for Lauren Bobert because, in my opinion, this is really about getting your name in the paper. This is really about focusing some media attention on yourself as someone who's

anti-establishment, when in reality. I mean, what does that mean when it comes to the Lauren bobers of the world. I mean, the pro-corporate, you know, anti-worker rhetoric that we've heard from her. I don't believe for a second that she has a real issue with the Republican establishment. And when it comes to Matt Gates, I will be fair to him in noting that he has been a proponent of getting money out of politics. But if that's the motivating factor here for Matt Gates, so you're going to endorse Jim Jordan for the role? What? What? It just makes no sense. And I want to go to shockingly, one of the biggest defenders of Kevin McCarthy, and that's Marjorie Green, who typically is an ally to Matt Gates. Let's watch.

But in that conference meeting there, we found out that there were several members, three in fact, that went in last night and were demanding positions for themselves, demanding gavel positions, demanding subcommittees, demanding for people to be taking off committees and people to be put on committees. Three, three Republicans out of our 222. I want you all to know, I have not done that for myself. I have an for one thing for myself, and I'm the only Republican that has zero committees. So there's not going to be a tiny little group that is going to demand their way because they want subcommittee chairs and they want certain power positions. That is not how this works. And that is the worst thing they can do for the country. And I'm furious over it, and I'm going to continue calling them out. Let us just dispel the notion that Marjorie Green is not in any way driven by some

self-interest because she is in fact supportive of Kevin McCarthy as the next speaker of the house after he committed to reassigning her committee assignments after it was previously stripped from her due to her anti-Semitic remarks and conspiratorial remarks. You guys all know about that. So she's, look, they're all motivated by self-interest, every single one of them. This isn't at all what they claim it's about. It's not some effort to switch the Republican party from a pro-corporate pro-establishment party to a working people's party. That's not what they're fighting for. They're fighting for their personal power accumulation. They're trying to make it appear as though they are fighting against the establishment. Because fact of the matter is fair and everyone's sick of the establishment. Working people are sick of the establishment. But the political elite love the establishment, love the pro-corporate tone of the establishment and go along with what the establishment wants in vote after vote. Yeah, and I think that's kind of the humor of this as well as looking at the voting

records of all of these people. They all vote together with the exception of obviously this McCarthy vote, but you put any issue in front of them, these Republicans are all lockstep. You may have one or two detractors every now and them, but when it comes to, you know, supporting the American people or benefiting corporations, they're gonna make sure that they all vote together to not help the people, to help the corporations instead. Marjorie Taylor Green is as much a part of the establishment as McCarthy is, as Matt Gates is, as Lauren Bobert is. They're all cut from the same cloth. They just think they can pull the wool over everybody's eyes and convince them that they're not. Now I do want to say too, another interesting person who's kind

of emerged as bizarrely enough a voice of reason for Republicans is Dan Crenshaw. You know, He came out this morning and he also hit on that same fact that you brought up that these people are just seeking attention. They have no idea what they actually want. They just know that they want to get out there in the media to talk about it. You know, book me on your show one more time, Crenshaw says of these people. And then we'll tell you why we oppose it. And it's just Crenshaw somebody, he's horrible beliefs, right? Bad, bad Republican beliefs. But he has become so sneaky with his ability to shrug off the MAGA folks that he originally was a part of, that just as an aside, somebody to keep an eye on in 2024, because I really do think, I really think that he is

positioning himself to be the, yes, I'm friends with these people, I'm friends with these people, but at the end of the day, I think he's gearing up for something bigger. I really think that's what he's about. We'll see how it plays out, but I will say straddling doesn't typically work in this political climate, right? So half measures trying to play both sides, which I believe he's trying to do as we speak isn't going to bode well for him. We'll see how it all plays out. But I think he has made a calculation that doubling down on MAGA republicanism might not be the right future for the Republican Party, right? Now to your point, I do want to talk about the asks from McCarthy and the concessions that he did agree to. So for instance,

He took a hard line against legislation that would fund the government and avert a shutdown unless Homeland Security Secretary Alejandra Majorcas resigns. And so there's going to be a government shutdown. I feel like we're headed in that direction, regardless of what happens with Kevin McCarthy. Also over the weekend, he unveiled a package of rules governing how the house operates, including the so-called Holman rule, which allows lawmakers to use spending bills to defund specific programs and fire federal officials or reduce their pay. And then this is the biggest one, okay? His biggest concession was agreeing to a rule that would allow five lawmakers to call a snap vote at any time to oust the speaker, but it would not, but it was not enough to

appease the right flank of his party who wanted any single lawmaker to be able to force such a vote. I mean, look, I think his concessions were pretty huge. But it's not about about the concessions. I really do think this is about garnering attention for themselves, the naysayers, those who are against Kevin McCarthy. I just think it's hilarious. And power struggles are really just about the individual seeking power. It's not about the American people or what these lawmakers intend to do to improve the lives materially of American people. And I do think it's also interesting. Clearly Lauren Bobert, who just barely made it back to the house, like she learned nothing.

I mean, a couple weeks ago, she was fighting for her political life. Voters rejected her in her deep rent. I think it's a Republican plus eight district and barely made it by a couple hundred votes because they were sick of her extremism and her embarrassing behavior is what the voters said. So she goes right back in day one, embarrasses everybody again. She's incapable of learning from her mistakes and you know, it could be setting her up. up hopefully for a dare I say normal Republican to primary her in two years. But it's just so funny to watch these people continuously make the same mistakes over and over and over again

that we just saw a couple weeks ago destroyed their party. They don't learn. And, you know, the American people, it's going to be a rough two years, right? Like we're not going to get good things. Like you said, there will be government shutdowns. People will suffer. Definitely. But if they remember this, we can avoid this disaster again in 2024, but we have to remember it. People have a very short attention span. So we have to carry it with us. The Democrats need to put this in their messaging from now until 2024 to make sure people don't forget about what happened. Because they do forget.

Believe it or not, they do. They do. So what happens now? Well, the House has adjourned today's session. So they have to continue voting until an individual gets the majority. So who knows how long this is going to go on? And look, guys, the real issue here is that the House of Representatives can't do anything until they determine who the next speaker of the House is.

In a situation where we have like both Democrats, both chambers of Congress controlled by Democrats and there's some possibility of passing important legislation, I'd be more concerned about this, but we're already dealing with gridlock, with the Senate being controlled by Democrats and the House being controlled by Republicans. I don't think anyone was really expecting any legislative work to be done in the next two years anyway. So at the end of the day, the big silver lining, in my opinion, is that the Republican Party is in disarray, it's entertaining to watch, and it doesn't really impact the lives of ordinary people. That's my takeaway from this. Final words, Farron?

Yeah, I mean, the only good thing about it is they can't do damage while they're still fighting with each other. You know, things I guess can't get worse. So yeah, if there is a silver lining, that's probably it right now. But again, I wish the Democrats would would run political ads, not just during election seasons, but put this in an ad and go ahead and run it across the country like for the next week. Let's make sure everybody's paying attention, to how dysfunctional and incompetent that Republican Party is. That's what needs to happen. Totally agree with you on that.

All right, well, we gotta take our first break of the day. When we come back, I will be interviewing Vosch about the crisis among young men in America. What should the left do to respond to it effectively? That and more coming up, don't miss it. Welcome back to TYT, everyone, I'm Anna Casparian, and we are about to have a fantastic interview about an issue that I've been trying to think about more, grapple with more, and it has to do with the crisis among young men, specifically in America. So let's talk about it. Recently, there were some statistics, by healthcare company Cigna indicating that men are the loneliest generation. In fact, 18 to 24 year olds are lacking friends, intimate partners, they're feeling increasingly

alienated from society. And when you look at statistics in regard to their education, whether or not they're working, more and more of this data reinforces that there is something awry. And addressing it doesn't mean that you turn your back on issues, pertaining to women, but it does mean that we should be focused on what it is in society that is leading to this epidemic, what the left can do to offer solutions, and how we can basically fight back against the more nefarious figures who have filled the void that men are struggling with, people like Jordan Peterson and what have you. Now recently, Vosh, who's a popular streamer had tweeted this thread that I think is really, really important to address.

He writes, I cannot stress enough how important it is to understand that 12 year old white boys on Twitch are not being pulled into fascism because of some Machiavellian desire to preserve and expand their privileges. It's because the right talks to them and the left doesn't. He continues to argue that leftists and progressives have absolutely no idea how unnecessarily repellent they come off to so many people and they get angry at the idea of being a more effective social movement because they don't want to share their social spaces with people who might have gone another way. But the criticism for leftists continue. And to be honest, I agree with a lot of what Vos says here. He says leftists will write master's thesis on the effect of socioeconomic conditions on crime and then shrug when 10 million, more young men fall into fascism because their boy brains must just be innately fascist and they choose to be evil. And there's no way this could have been prevented. And then the final tweets, because I want to make sure you guys get a full look at what he's thinking here, this is always

a good topic to feel smug over because the replies and quote tweets are saturated with people who literally think, quote, we should care about men's problems and offer them advice is a dog whistle for we should build a Fourth Reich, thus proving the problem. Now, joining us today to talk about this is the man behind the Twitter thread, Vash. And I want to thank you, Vash, for taking some time to talk to us about this today. Oh, it's an absolute delight. Don't mind the cam, by the way. Like young men, my camera encoder is alienated, just in this case from Skype.

It is a pleasure to talk with you about this. So this is something that I've been thinking about a lot because I've been just noticing it. in the community around me, you know, just like the loneliness and how atomized men are. And I don't see it as, you know, addressing it isn't, in my opinion, a right wing perspective or right wing task. I think that there are issues that the left would do a far better job in addressing as opposed to more nefarious right wing figures like, let's say, Andrew Tate or Jordan Peterson. So before we get to all of that, what the potential solutions could be. Talk to me about what you see, what you think the problem is right now with young men feeling alienated in the United States.

Well, I think a lot of it comes down to something leftists tend to be more comfortable talking about, which is toxic masculinity, you know? Male loneliness is often emergent property of toxic masculinity, which is, by the way, nobody likes this term, right? The right gets really upset when you say toxic masculinity because it sounds like you're upset with masculinity in general. And it's a really vague term. So let's just say, I think a lot of guys can be kind of antisocial because they're taught that sort of independence is a masculine virtue. They're taught that, you know, there's value in keeping your feelings bottled up. Now, obviously, it's pretty harmful. It makes people feel kind of lonely.

It makes them bad at reaching out to others, connecting, sharing their interests, building friendships. I think it's one of the reasons why guys tend to view dating is sort of adversarial because they don't think of like a woman as like, oh, you know, well, maybe we'll just get along on some shared interest. Maybe we'll have something in common. They think of it as this like a mating battle, which I don't think it has to be. And as a product of that, a lot of guys feel like they have no social inroads and they're kind of drifting through life without connections to people. It really sucks. And the left could, you know, use that as an opportunity to maybe improve some people's lives, introduce them to some other ideas. So just full disclosure, you know, when the statistics first

started coming out and they focused primarily on the lack of intimate partners. To be fair and completely honest with the audience, I was definitely more dismissive. But then when you see the other statistics, including the lack of friends, workforce participation for prime working age men between the ages of 25 and 55 has actually decreased significantly and specifically in the United States. And so, you know, there have been some arguments that, oh, it's the advancement of technology. It's because of video games. Well, all of these technologies exist in other countries and they're not experiencing the same decline in workforce participation. In fact, to give you a specific number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics,

about 7 million prime working age men are not working and they're not looking for work. They're also self-medicating quite a bit. A huge portion of them have reported that they're taking painkillers daily. Deaths of despair are very prominent and pronounced among the male population versus the female population. These are huge issues. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also noted that when it comes to unemployment among working age men, we have a 1937 economy, okay? And again, this is not happening in other rich developed countries, right? So there is a crisis happening. And I'm trying to figure out what is it exactly,

right? The right wing will say, oh, it's feminism. It's because women don't want to stay at home and raise kids. They want to be independent. They don't want to enter, you know, romantic partnerships, blah, blah, blah. I don't buy that for a second. I do agree that some of the rhetoric is a problem, you know, statements about toxic masculinity, a lot of generalizing about people. I also think that there's a misconception that this is an issue that predominantly impacts white males, but that's actually not the case. The largest population that this impacts is actually black men in America. And so this is a huge problem. And what do you think we need to say or frame or how can we frame this issue so it's more palatable to the left who you know generally

do want to ensure that every community is looked after that everyone feels that you know they're living a happy prosperous life it's it's a tough sell you know people feel these issues in their gut when we talk about the kinds of things that drive people out to vote or even to throw revolutions we're usually talking about very basic gut level problems that political analysis gets added to, you know, for a long time in this country and many others, anti-immigration sentiment has been built on the anxiety of working class people who feel their jobs are threatened by immigrants. Often the data doesn't bear that out, but it's their fear that's used as a catalyst to push those politics. The anxiety, the loneliness of young men,

this has historically been used as catalysts for, well, I mean, basically everything from the Bolsheviks in Russia to the brown shirts in Germany. It's just a. large and often unaddressed demographic. This isn't a competition thing. We're not talking about giving up on feminist analysis or saying it's like, well, actually men have it worse than women. It's not about that. It's just you want to reach out to people where they are. And to start that process, you know, with a lot of young guys, I think it would help if lefties were willing to acknowledge this sort of natural conclusion of toxic masculinity as like a mode of social analysis, which is if men are socialized in certain ways and treated in certain ways socially,

it necessarily follows. They must have specific problems. And if those problems are the product of social systems that are out of their control, I don't know why we wouldn't apply the same basic sociological lens of analysis to that as we would with literally anything else. Patriarchy, racism, transphobia, no individual has control over these systems. And we try to interweave analysis with our compassion for and respect for the individual problems people have. We do this all the time with other issues. And to an extent, we do it with men. But I feel like we lean off that a little bit, maybe because men's rights as like

a sort of a nominative thing, you know, like how it's referred to usually refers to misogynist or insult communities online. So it's like, oh, well, men's rights, you actually mean like this or that. Well, leaving aside the baggage, right? you can call it what you want, men's advocacy, whatever, just common decency, it's still worth pursuing. Yeah, I think the phrasing men's rights, men's rights activists, it does unfortunately make one recall some of the most unsavory individuals imaginable, right? Some who think that rape should be legalized. So I don't like thinking about that group when it comes to this

particular issue, because I don't, I don't think this is about male entitlement. I don't think this is about men feeling or fighting for a system in which men get to feel entitled to certain things in society, including, you know, certain sexual acts, whatever it is. This is really about making sure that people don't feel lonely, feel that they have purpose in life. That's the other thing. An increasing number of young men feel like they have no purpose in life. And I think that it has to do with the fact that for the longest time, they were conditioned to believe that they are supposed to be the breadwinner in a family. family. And when they are lacking this educational attainment necessary to get the kind of career that makes the kind of money that makes them feel like the breadwinner, well, then it makes

them feel like they're not really worth anything. I see a lot of that going on as well. When you look at the number of college educated men, that has declined significantly. And so some of the solutions that I've heard from people who do take this seriously on the left is that, hey, there's a lack of male role models in the public education system. There's a huge disparity between female and male educators in the public school system. Curious what you think about that. Yeah, no, I agree. It is, I do think it's unfortunate that we consider education such like a feminized profession,

not because there's anything wrong with female teachers or whatever, but obviously people take a lot from their education and any significant disparity in representation is going to reflect some kind of social value. So, I mean, we can see the need for this reflected in the fact that the like two of the largest breakout conservative figures in the past five years, respectively, Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate both became powerful in exactly the same way. That is to say, they postured as like self-help gurus for young men who felt like they'd been failed by society and left no options to better themselves otherwise. Now, the prescriptions those two offer are garbage and completely irredevable. You know, I think Jordan Peterson said you should clean your room. You can do that. But apart from that, don't listen. But it shows what people are going for, right? And frankly, you know, it doesn't

take a lot of internet sleuthing to find out that a lot of people are feeling really listless these days. You have to give people identities and aspirations. I see a lot of this discussion with young women. One of the discourse bits that always comes up, it's how do you be a good feminist, but also like what about this feminine wiles thing, right? Or like how do I balance my progressive attitudes on gender with this, that, the other attitude I have on, on, you know, what it means to be a woman. It's an interesting topic. I have no skin in the game. Good luck, right? I don't know how often that gets resolved in left spaces with guys, because it is a good question. How do you resolve, you know, progressivism with like, well, being a masculine guy. A lot of women you

might want to date kind of do like manly guys, at least some of them, right? But, you know, what does it mean to be manly in a context that isn't, you know, Andrew Tate or Jordan Peterson? Just having the conversation might get a lot of folks invested or they might understand that the left is interested in these issues beyond a sort of like token, like surface level political skim where they're trying to get people off the top. Compassion. Yeah, compassion is. the right word, I think. And you know, you got a lot of backlash for talking about this. And you know, you might tweet about it, but where I've heard you actually talk about this issue at length is on your streams. And I think you're thoughtful in the way you talk about this issue.

But you still get hit with, oh, you're just a secret right winger from your critics, right? It's, yeah, it's been known to happen. I know what's behind that? Because I feel like that is what most of, at least the online left. I don't know if I can say that about the left in general. They seem to spend a lot of time going after one of their own who might have some ideas that are a little different or might have concerns that are a little different from their own. Well, the gatekeeping tendencies of the left or how you know you're a leftist, right? If you're a good leftist, the people you hate most should be other lefties. It's the only way to know. I'm a great leftist then. We're phenomenal leftists. You know, I think I think there's

kind of like, I don't, I don't want to overuse the term or maybe use it lightly, the term trauma. But I feel like after the past decade of online discourse, people are very sensitive, especially on the left. People are very sensitive to the idea that we need to treat men better, not necessarily because they disagree with the idea of treating men better. That seems like a nice thing to do broadly. I would hope a lot of people would agree with that. But rather because we need to treat men better has often been couched in this very ideologically loaded set of policy and social prescriptions that usually have to do with undoing the gains of feminism or at the very least negating the harms that women experience socially because of, well,

you know, patriarchy or inequality. I fully sympathize with the sensitivity. I mean, I've been online for a while. I see how the discourse tends to go. But we have to be strong enough to understand when a dog whistle isn't a dog whistle, when it's just a term. I would hope that, a lot of lefties could understand, you may have an aversion to the capital M, capital R, men's rights movement, a justified one. But to the outside, when you seem to be taking a stance against the concept of men's rights, people who aren't as familiar with the context of that discourse might interpret that as you literally politically being opposed to like men doing all right, which doesn't do great for them recruitment numbers. We could really use those things.

in the country aren't going great right now and bereaved masculinity is basically the front line. It's the bulwark of the fascist movement that's growing in this country. Steve Bannon was specifically recruiting from in cell forums. Those Andrew Tate 12 year old TikTok flossing tweens or whatever are not going to grow up to vote for Biden when he's 105 years old. There is a trend that's happening right now. There is a group of people looking for answers, and that's young men who do feel listless, and you can watch them be pulled away by a multi-million dollar effort from the right to appeal to their insecurities, or you can try to do something about it. And to me, there is an obvious right answer here. I agree with you on that.

I'm going to leave you all with one final statistic, and this is incredibly alarming. A May 2021 poll from the survey center on American life revealed the number of American men who view themselves as having no close friends quintupled over the last 30 years, increasing from 3% in 1990 to 15% in 2021. So for anyone who thinks that this is just about male entitlement to sexual activity, you're mistaken. Open your eyes, look a little harder. Because if you consider yourself a progressive or a leftist, the whole ideology is to want to uplift people, pick people up when they're down, and immediately dismissing this very clear issue that continues to grow in the country, I don't think is the right way to go. I think the left needs to offer better solutions.

And to be completely frank, I don't know exactly what those solutions are yet. But I want to have more of these conversations moving forward. And Vash, I'm grateful that you took the time to talk to us today. And I'm incredibly grateful that you reached out and gave me the opportunity. Thank you very much. And yeah, it's it's not a zero-sum game. It's really not. We lose nothing by trying. And the advice, the engagement, it's just, it is at par with what we're willing to do with basically every other group, every other social issue, you know, just the decency to give it a little bit of a sociological look over and maybe arrive at some prescriptions. I think we can do that. And I think People want to do that, too, once they get past the cloud.

Absolutely. All right, everyone. Vos, thank you again. Everyone, we are going to take a brief break. And when we come back, Farron Cousins will rejoin the program and talk a little bit about how health care lobbyists are terrified of Bernie Sanders. Welcome back to the show, everyone, Anna Casparian and Farron Cousins with you. You could check out his work over at the Ring of Fire, Fair and Balanced. Tell the audience where else they could find your work, Farron.

Yeah, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, all of those I'm at Farron balanced. And of course, you know, the big YouTube channel, the Ring of Fire, and then I have my separate YouTube channel, which is Fair and Balanced. So I'm all over the place, except on TikTok. I do have a TikTok, but there's pretty much nothing there. But in the new year, I'm totally gonna be doing some TikToks. Just you just wait. That's your resolution.

You know, it's good to hang out with the young ins on their preferred social media platform. So I hear you on that. All right, well, let's move on to our next story because we are learning a lot more about one of Trump's top advisors, advisors, Hope Hicks. I'm so mad and upset. We all look like domestic terrorists now. Trump's most loyal advisor, Hope Hicks was the one who wrote that text message. And she wrote it on January 6th as the Capitol rioters broke into the Capitol building and

proceeded to riot while threatening to hang Mike Pence, the vice president at the time. Now, the January 6 House Select Committee has released text messages featuring Hope Hicks and her exchange with Trump's chief of staff at the time, a woman by the name of Julie Radford. And during the exchange, Hicks wrote this. In one day, he ended every future opportunity that doesn't include speaking engagements at the local proud boys chapter. And all of us that didn't have jobs lined up will be perpetually unemployed. I'm so mad and upset. We all look like domestic terrorists now. I like that that was the moment she realized that the Trump camp had issues. Had issues, especially with the way that others perceive them. Radford also responded to that saying, yup seemingly agreeing with her.

Hope Hicks also said, quote, this made us all unemployable, like untouchable. God, I'm so effing mad. Radford responded by saying, oh yes, I've been crying for an hour. I know like there isn't a chance of finding a job, Radford said and indicated she already lost a job opportunity from Visa, which sent her a blow off email. And what's really interesting is while these two are engaging in this exchange about their futures, about how this is going to impact them personally,

they seem pretty judgmental toward other Trump administration officials who dipped out before the riots took place. Hicks says, Alyssa, meaning Alyssa Farah, who was, you know, part of the communications team, looks like a genius, an apparent reference to her resigning from her post as the White House aide one month before the attack on the U.S. Capitol. And they did not like that Carly Klaus, who is Jared Kushner's brother's wife, had tweeted that the riots were undemocratic. They claimed that it was unreal, self-serving. But again, the only thing these two, who were really concerned about was their future careers, not the impact on democracy with a group of Trump supporters attempting to overturn the election. Farron, it's just, it's incredible stuff.

I think the funniest part to me is that these folks actually thought they were going to get good jobs after working for the Trump administration to begin with. The entire four years that Trump was in office, and I know because I covered just about every one of these stories as they came out would talk about one, how miserable the Trump staffers were, but two, they couldn't go anywhere else because nobody would hire them. This was not your run-of-the-mill presidential administration. It's not like these people were getting good on-the-job experience. They were learning from somebody who didn't know what he was doing. This isn't how politics work, so you can't take those skills and go to a new job with them. So the job prospects for these

two individuals were already slim to none. But as you pointed out too, like, we're witnessing history take place because your guys' people are attacking the capital of the United States. There's more important things happening and whether or not you're going to go work at visa next week. You know, we're changing the course of this country for the worse. And no, it's all about what about me? You don't even think about how this is going to affect my future and my job. Listen, you had your chance to walk away at any point in those four years. You could have walked away when we saw the photos of the kids in cages. You could have walked away when his trade war sent farmers into bankruptcy at rates we have not seen since the Great Depression.

You could have walked away when he was making racist comments. You could have walked away when he was attacking people for their appearance on Twitter. You stood by him for all of it. You deserve everything that comes from that. Oh, I agree with that a thousand percent. In fact, what's interesting is even when it came to individuals who resigned at the tail end of Trump's term, they're like bitter about it, even though they could have done the same thing.

The two women also discussed the resignation of Stephanie Grisham, who served as chief of staff to former First Lady Melania Trump. She was also very briefly, the White House press secretary, it did not give a single press conference, which was hilarious. Radford texted that Grisham's decision seemed, quote, self-serving. Okay, I mean, sure, you could have that perspective. It's, look, all of them are self-serving, right? I would have never joined the Trump administration to begin with. But they were the ones who didn't dip out, didn't even issue a public statement on the day that the riots were happening. I mean, they're having this text exchange privately, but they won't publicly denounce Trump.

They were all terrified of him. They all bowed down to him. And they calculated that Trump would create a wonderful, you know, career path for them because they served in the White House. And look, to be fair, some of them did go on to have lucrative careers as CNN contributors. But in this case, I really don't know what Hope Hicks is going to be up to. I think she's going to be fine, but it's not about Hope Hicks, it's not about Radford. It's about what Trump attempted to do and the damage it caused, you know, to our electoral process,

people's faith in our electoral process. None of that matters to them at all. It's just, I don't even know if it's like second in line in terms of their priorities. No, that's not even something that crossed their minds that day. I guarantee it. And more to just this selfish mentality they have. Did they not look around and see what happened to everybody else? I mean, Sean Spicer, who eventually did land a job over it. Was he newsmax or one of America? I think he's newsmax. But it took years for Sean Spicer to be employable.

He was begging the networks to give him a job. And they all said, no, everybody that has thrown their lot in with Trump, well, I shouldn't say everybody. I should say, nobody gets a happy ending, right? There is not this big fairy tale, oh, everything worked out for me in the end. Ask Michael Cohen, ask Rudy Giuliani, ask John Eastman or Sidney Powell. You know, all of these people that threw their lot in with Trump, their lives have become pretty bad. You know, Michael Cohen, obviously he did his time. Things are better for him now.

But he'll be the first to tell you, this is what happens when you stick by this guy through thick and thin. You pay the price, not him. Absolutely. And we've seen that happen with so many people. You're right about that. All right. Well, let's move on to one other right winger before we wrap up our first hour. And it's a lengthy profile on Elise Stefonic that I thought was excellent.

Republican congresswoman Elise Daphonic is thought to be on the top of the list as Trump's running mate in the 2024 presidential election. But she wasn't always a MAGA Republican. In fact, if you asked her for her honest opinion without it going out into the world, she probably would tell you that she despises Trump. But she did a complete 180 for her political aspirations. So let's talk about it. So in a brutal profile on Elise Stefanik, the New York Times went through her political evolution, if you want to call it that, although I would argue she devolved. She started off as someone who was not in favor of Trump and then turned into one of Trump's most loyal, at least publicly, defenders.

In fact, one Arkansas state senator, Clark Tucker, says this, I suspect there are a lot of of Republican members of Congress who take positions on Trump that they don't hold privately for their own political security or gain, Elise, meaning Congresswoman Elise's Stephanic, is the only one I know for certain who has, as for her third term, as it unfolded. As her third term unfolded, the party was now firmly controlled by Trump, a populist president she didn't like or respect, a whack job as she once described him in a message obtained by the New York Times. So I want to be clear the New York Times didn't base this solely on, you know, anonymous sources, people who don't want to go on the record. They actually had like written exchanges,

text exchanges between Stefanik and her friends. And we're going to go through some of those examples in just a moment and just how egregious like honestly the political class really is because it's not about serving you. I mean, they're supposed to be public servants. It's all about serving themselves, Farron. Yeah, and I think in addition to Elise Stefanic, it's also a Lindsey Graham situation too. Oh, for sure. I mean, that tweet, if we nominate, that was floating around Twitter again today. But all of these, not all of them, but the people that we've seen make this like crazy 180 suddenly like, oh, no, I've seen the light.

He is the greatest. It's so transparent for those looking from the outside. Like we see you, we see what you're doing. and we know why you're doing it, but they just pretend like I'm so smart. I'm just loving Trump and I'm gonna get all the rewards and accolades for it. And it doesn't quite work out that way. So far, Stefanik of course, has kind of failed upwards, you know, taking over that leadership role that Liz Cheney was booted from. But it's not gonna take her any further. And that is the thing that I think she's now trying to grapple with, as so many of these other folks are, like,

Oh God, this is tainted goods. My name is all over it. Where the heck do I go from here? And they don't have an answer for that. Well, it's interesting because since January 6th and since members of the Republican Party have slowly but surely started to turn on Trump, Elise Stefanik has decided to double down. To me, it's clear that she's calculated that he is still the leader of the Republican Party and has a future as the leader of the Republican Party. As the New York Times writes, Stefanik has only doubled down, betting that her alliance with Trump will carry her further still to a job in his cabinet, perhaps, or even a slot as his running mate in 20204.

And there's a lot of rumors about that in the right wing space. In November, even before Trump made his bid for reelection official, she became one of the few senior Republicans to endorse him. Republican voters determine who is the leader of the Republican Party. and it's very clear President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party, she said. Now, two weeks after the just insanely tragic and gruesome shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, she went on to essentially accuse the victims. She, well, she didn't, I'm sorry, let me rephrase that. She didn't accuse the victims.

The shooter in that case accused the victims of trying to replace white people in the country. was a racially motivated shooting in a predominantly black neighborhood at a grocery store that mostly black residents in the area shop at. It was chosen for that reason. And instead of speaking out against it aggressively, Stefanik endorsed call Carl Palindino, a developer and Trump friend running for Congress who had suggested online that the Buffalo grocery store massacre might have been a false flag operation meant to help Democrats revoke the Second Amendment, within days of Stefanik's endorsement, audio surfaced of him praising Hitler as the kind of leader we need today. So like she went from, I am a moderate Republican who was, you know, mentored by

Paul Ryan of all people. Paul Ryan now calls her a disappointment, one of the biggest disappointments in his political career. She went from moderate to now endorsing people like Palladino who praises Hitler and makes excuses for an insanely gruesome shooting that took place, a racially motivated shooting. And in August of 2015, she told a New York radio station that Trump was insulting to women. And that is candidacy would hurt the party's efforts to attract female voters. Like you see the 180 happening in real time for anyone paying close attention. And Farron, my question is, does this matter at all for the Trump supporters? You know, when do they ever look back at a politician's history to determine whether or not this individual is

actually loyal to whatever cause they're pushing for? You know, I think it's kind of the same way a missionary would go and try to recruit people into a religion. So once you finally get them hooked, once they say, yes, I will accept your God as the God, nothing that person did prior to that matters. It's all, you've got a new life now, you've seen the light, you are born again. And you really have to apply that to some of these Trump people because they have become born again Trump supporters. So all of these past statements, none of that matters. If they can show that they have been loyal, you know, ever since their conversion, we'll call it, then they're in good standing. And so it's it's the cult mentality. Part of that is with it as well. As long as you

accept my guy, I will accept you. You know, and I want to bring up Matt Gates again, because remember a couple of years ago, Gates, I forget what package he voted against, but it was something Trump wanted. It was to limit military power. Trump was furious. The MAGA people were furious at Gates. It took him months to get back on Trump's good graces again. And Stefanik and many other Republicans saw that. And they realized, okay, I can't even step out of line for one moment with a out getting ostracized from this community. So I know what I have to do. They're all working from the same playbook. They've seen the same things we have. And that's who they are now. And if it costs them in the future, good. I hope it does. But they think they're just riding this nice

wave all the way to prosperity, I guess. I think the born again Christian comparison is such a good one because, yeah, I mean, even if it's clearly obvious, as is the case with Stefanik, that this is just self-interest. She's motivated by her own, you know, personal objectives in her career. They don't care. As long as you're willing to do the 180 and continue promoting Trump the way that they would expect and want from you, then they'll give you a green light. So we'll see how it plays out for Stefanik. But she better be careful what she wishes for. maybe she should have a conversation with Mike Pence about what it's like to be Trump's vice president or running mate for that matter. There's no winning with Trump, even if you're

as loyal as you possibly can be. All it takes is one perceived slight. And Trump will turn on you in a second. I mean, she's still going after Mitch McConnell. And Mitch McConnell helped him confirm so many of his judges. It's insane. So, all right. Well, Farron, unfortunately, we're out of time. Thank you so much for joining us today. Everyone go check out Farron's work. And any final thoughts before we go? No, it's been a pleasure here. Hope you have a great new year. Great to be here on one of the first shows back. So thank you very much for having me today. Thank you so much, Farron. All right, everyone, we're going to take a brief break. When we come back, Wazni Lombray will be joining us for the second hour and members-only bonus episode.

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.com at apple.combe. I'm your host, Jank Huger, and I'll see you soon.