The Young Turks - Liar Liar

Episode Date: February 4, 2023

Donald Trump and his cronies were caught on tape strategizing on lying. AOC is fiercely coming after the GOP for their latest stunt. The DNC refuses to block accepting dark money for campaigns. The house just passed a resolution to denounce socialism. The Biden administration just pitched a major Alaskan oil project. Host: John Iadarola, Cenk Uygur, Max Burns 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! All right King, Dream-My-T, Street, Street, Street,

Street, Big-a-T, Big-a-T, All right, All right. All right, all right, drop it like it's a Republican IQ point.

All right, all right, power, power panel. Jake, you're John Idol, a host of damage report. And Max Burns, a contributor at Rebel headquarters. Max, how are you doing, brother? Doing well, doing well. Like the feds, I have my eyes on George Santos. I'm up here in New York, so he's sort of a local thorn in the side. But it's looking rough for him. Who knows what happens. Yeah, well, we got Santos in the show. He's got an interesting new pin he's wearing. We're going to discuss it later in the program. A lot of the Republicans have decided to celebrate

massacres because they're Republicans. So, but before we get to that, John's got a lot of news. What do you got you? We do. We have too much probably too much. Let's get rid of like half of this, but I guess we'll keep the front half. Newly uncovered audio tapes show that the Trump campaign back in Wisconsin in 2020 seemed pretty aware that they had lost the election, but they also knew where the spirit of the campaign and the party was going. They were just going to lie about it anyway. This is courtesy of the Associated Press, Trump, Wisconsin campaign chief, Andrew Iverson, you'll be able to hear him in this tape. We continue to fan the flame and get the word out about Democrats trying to steal its election.

We'll do whatever they need their help with. Okay, so just be in stand by in case they're doing stunts, we need to poll. Okay, so there's a lot out there. But the idea that it's like, I guess, I guess we'll fan the flame. We might need stunts. Not we're going to follow a reasonable, legally, you know, mandated process for, there's clear, there's theft that's gone on. No, it's just, we're gonna fan the flames.

There's crazy's out there, we're gonna keep inspiring them, we're gonna pull stunts. That's what we're gonna do. It gets even worse though in this second clip. Look, guys, at the end of the day, like this operation received more votes in any other Republican in Wisconsin district, like, and it wasn't even close. Guys, we outperforms the president's team by just over 200,000 phones, right? Like, say what you want, our operation turned down Republican or DJT supporters, Democrats have got 20,000 more than us on Bay County and other

shenanigans in Milwaukee, prepaid and Dane. So there's a lot that people can learn from this campaign. Well, we're learning something today actually. No, they acknowledged. We lost by 20,000 votes. It was somewhat close, I guess, across the state. But no, it was blown out in those particular areas, it wasn't enough. They didn't have the votes. And that all, by the way, comes from the 5th of November 2020. This is two days after the election. Donald Trump is already gearing up for a week long. Each day it was getting worse and worse, the denials of what had actually happened, the inspiring the crowds, which were still in the streets, by the way, in a number of different areas. Some of them telling people to count the votes, some of them

telling other people not to count the votes depending on where they were up and where they weren't. And it was clear to the people who had been charged with actually doing this campaign, making it happen, that they had lost, that it wasn't super close. But they also knew that Donald Trump was not going to accept that. And so they were prepared to be a part of that. All right. As usual, I will have a controversial position, but I would say that this is mildly controversial. So I don't care about the stunts and the fanning the flame stuff. I know that that's the lead for a lot of people, but, oh, Republicans do.

different stunts during elections or after elections. Wow, that is news to me. Now look, this is when mainstream media say both sides do it. And then I respond with, I wish. I don't know that Republicans have any stunts up their sleeve at all, ever about anything. But no, these guys having a frank conversation about, you know, what they're ready to do and what propaganda marketing, whatever you want to put it to do is, is to me not that But you see there, the head of their Wisconsin operation clearly knows they lost. They lost by 20,000 votes and he knows it for a fact, right? Now later of course, all Republicans would pretend that they didn't lose.

To me, that's the giant story, right? And so, and remember it's November 5th, by the time you get all the way to January 6th, a lot of terrible stunts have happened, but they're mainly driven by Trump and the national lunatics, not necessarily the ground force in Wisconsin, etc. I also have thoughts about how the Democrats only won by 21,000 votes in Wisconsin and nearly lost this election. That's another interesting topic. But first, Max. Yeah, what blows my mind here is that there are still Democrats today who say that Joe Biden should be working with these Republicans on bipartisan election protection legislation. I mean, it's delusional. These are the people who have

written election denial into their 2020 platform that they used it in 2022. And guess what? They're going to do it again in 2024. And it's not going to stop there either. You have Donald Trump now asking for supporters who are willing to go out in the streets and physically fight for him in 2024. My only question is to the Justice Department of where do you think this ends? What is the benefit in delaying all of these investigations so long that we're allowing this to become just the political narrative? It's crazy. Yeah, yeah, 100%. We're supposed to hope that they're going to find this perfect middle ground between, well, it can't be right before the midterms and we're busy afterward.

But if we wait too much longer, then it's really close to the 2024 election. So I guess you can't do anything then. There are all these massive periods where nothing can happen. Have you noticed that? And it kind of feels like that they're strung a long end to end off. into eternity, at least in so far as Merrick Garland seems to understand the severity of the situation. I know, I'm going to jump in, I think. First of all, fill in the blank on any issue, okay?

But certainly on this issue. Voting rights, the number one issue, easiest thing to do. Every Democrat agrees, and they couldn't get the bare minimum passed. They're not going to do anything. You know, here's a sign that they're not going to do anything. As Max pointed out, they're waiting for permission from the Republicans. Newsflash, they're the ones who tried to steal the last election.

They're not exactly interested in election integrity. I mean, you'll only say that if you're one of the dumbest people on the planet, or you know that you don't want to do anything. And so you use Republicans as an excuse. Oh, golly gee, the people were trying to steal the election and do a coup. They don't want to fix the election integrity issues. Well, I got, I want to never know. I mean, is Merrick Garland and Joe Biden that stupid? I don't know, you tell me, maybe.

Yeah, but what if Joe Biden has them over for lunch at the White House again? Oh, that'll do it. Remember what Obama? Yeah, when Obama did the beer summit? That's true. Oh man, that's when the fever broke and the Republicans became more reasonable. I think that's when the fever broke and then they molted into Donald Trump. I want to ask you a question, though, about your controversial position.

Maybe I'm, I'm, maybe you don't put the blame, I guess, on them. So you're speaking specifically about Donald Trump. But when I think about them fanning the flames and all that and their stunts, like the initial stunts, some of them were just, you know, embarrassing, I guess. But there were a lot of like election workers who were like wildly harassed. with death threats and all that. Like, even like Raffensberger and all that, his wife was getting death threats and places were shot at. And you know, like the January 6th was one of their stunts as a result of them fanning the flame.

So I think now look, it might be that Andrew Iverson didn't do that. But if that's so, it's only because Andrew Iverson was not asked to. Yeah. Andrew Iverson would have done whatever was asked of him. He just wasn't influential enough nationally to have been the guy to call for Mike Pence to be hung. But he was clearly on board for whatever they were going to allow him to do. I don't know that that's clear. So I'm going to make the distinction between three different types of Republicans.

Republican leaders, so Trump, the pundits as well, Tucker Carlson, et cetera. The people setting the agenda, right? Republican soldiers like Iverson and are in Republican voters. So the level of culpability is very, very different at each level. Remember guys, I know it's near impossible to believe, but 66% of Republican voters genuinely believe that Trump won the election and the vote was rigged and Biden cheated. Now, for the rest of us, we know that there were 60 court cases. They didn't present any evidence. They're total and utter liars.

But those folks, they don't know it. And it's become like a religion. First, all they heard was right wing media. Those are the right wing leaders that I'm talking about, telling them stolen, stolen, stolen, and they believed it 100%. By the time they heard it wasn't stolen, they had already been inoculated to the actual evidence. And they had a talking point for every single piece of evidence. Oh, 60 judges in a row, including Republicans, including Trump judges, they were intimidated by

black people. They were afraid they were going to get killed by black people if they voted the other way. Like, okay, so are the Republican voters not guilty? No, of course they're guilty. I mean, who would believe such a terrible talking point? Such a weirdly, obviously racist talking point. And it's nonsensical. But whether we like it or not, they think we lost our democracy back then

because Trump had actually gotten more votes. Okay, so, but when you go to, then you go to the Republican soldiers like Iverson. Remember, the critical fact for me here as to why I'm not. not blaming him that much is because it's November 5th. If he's part of a fake elector plot in December or January, no, then he's 100% guilty. But on November 5th, they haven't even planned the coup yet. The coup is not January 6th. The coup is the fake electors, right?

So when you go to do the fake electors, anyone involved in the fake elector plot, I would have already put it in prison, probably for the rest of their lives. But Merrick Garland's like, what is a prison, can I buy a clue, can I call a friend? What is a prison? I know, I know, what is a Republican? The real guys who are super, super guilty, of course, are the leaders. Sure. And predominantly Trump and guys like Bannon and Navarro that plan the fake elector plot.

The fact that they're not in prison is, is itself a crime. I mean, so now next time any coup is possible. But this dude's a rando foot soldier after the election going, yeah, we lost, we obviously lost. Oh, by the way, they also joke around about, hey, it's the first time they ever talk to black people. And that was a new thing for them. But I'm used to Republican foot soldiers being idiots. And look, let's think for me on this. You know, we all, yes, 7 million more votes for Joe Biden, right?

But almost all the 7 million were on the coast, a lot of where we live, right? So some of you obviously live in the middle of the country, but a lot of the progressives live on the coast, right? In the middle of the country, I mean, the electoral college, Biden only won by 43,000 votes, 21,000 was in Wisconsin. Democrats nearly blew it. They nearly lost the Trump twice, even though he's a clown maniac. Okay, but don't worry, they're going to run the same guy again. So, good luck.

At some point I just have to ask, I agree. I agree with you that there's distinctions here. But you know, if you don't handle these foot soldiers, then they come back the next cycle. They become lieutenants and then they become captains. And at some point, we're sort of just making a distinction between different kinds of venomous snakes. And we don't want democracy to get bit by any of these people. The challenges you said is the DOJ doesn't seem to take this as a crisis. Yeah, and it might be that we'll never hear from him again or whatever.

He is apparently right now, though, the Midwest regional director for the Republican National Committee. And they had a fun little game that they played when this whole thing was revealed, and it's incredibly damning, that at least as you know, in the early parts of the effort to overturn the election, and bear in mind, Donald Trump had already been saying for months, and many of the Republican pudents have been saying for months, they're going to steal the election, they're going to steal the election, they're going to steal the election. They reached out to him for questions.

He deferred questions to the RNC. Okay, so he's not going to answer it, even though he's the guy on the tape. The R&C spokesperson, Keith Shipper, declined to comment because he hadn't heard the recording. Oh, so I guess we're good then. I guess we're just going to move on. You couldn't listen to it clearly, and then answer. And the first guy, he doesn't have to answer because he told the guy who hadn't read it, he hadn't listened to it to answer.

So I guess we're good. And if I had been involved in the opening steps of a movement that resulted in the attempted sacking of the Capitol and multiple people had died, and you asked me, hey, do you like regret any of what you look like you were actively participating in? And I just said, go talk to someone else. We're good. We're good with that guy. I don't know. I kind of feel like I would want to be on the record as, no, I don't believe this massive conspiracy theory that the election had been stolen. But sure, he isn't Donald Trump. Donald Trump and others are obviously more culpable. That said, you know what? We're going to take a little bit of an early break because we've got a monster block coming up. Not only do we have

the Republican Party as well as the vast majority of the Democratic Party having this ridiculous condemnation of socialism in Congress. We also have Representative Alexandria Ocasa Gortez versus Marjorie Green. We'll have that and more after this. All right, back on TYT, Jank John. I'm Max with you guys. John's got more news. I do. It's terrible, but here it is.

I rise in support of the rule to bring up to the House concurrent resolution number nine denouncing the horrors of socialism. Young people in America are being brainwashed by the news media and academia into believing that socialism is an economic model for the greater good of all Americans. And the problem is that they are falling for it. They're believing it. It is a real play. I can't go two minutes watching CNN without hearing about how great socialism is and how we should convert instantly as a country to socialism. New York Times front page, just constant socialist propaganda. No, that's nonsense, but it is also what you should expect going forward from the Republican Party. They might campaign on, oh, there's these forgotten silenced conservatives. They've been left behind by the elites on the coast. So here's a vague condemnation of a global ideology. That'll put food on your table and it'll give you dental insurance.

It'll help you retire with dignity. But that's what they're doing. Maria Elvira Salazar is the sponsor of it and had more to say about the resolution. Almost 40% of Gen Z and millennials think the communist manifesto written by Karl Marx, the father of Marxism, is a better defense of freedom and equality than the Declaration of Independence. written by Thomas Jefferson, one of the creators of the American experiments, the American exceptionality. Worse yet, in a recent poll that shows that 40% of Americans of all ages, not only the youth, 40% believe that socialism is good, while 33% of them say that they are

likely to support a member of the Democratic Socialist of America, the organization that that has shaped the ideology of many of our colleagues with the poison of neo-Marxism. Okay, so there's a lot there. Not a lot of research, a lot of knowledge, but there's a lot that was said. So we're gonna get into some of the ridiculous components of this. But first, we should jump forward to the fact that tons of people voted for it. So take a look at this. It got 328 votes, which means it wasn't just Republicans. In fact, it was many, many Democrats. 109 of them, which is more than the number that voted no. At 86, 14 voted present, very, very bold.

All 219 Republicans voted in favor. The surprising thing perhaps is that amongst yes voters, you have Mary Paltola, Richie Torres, Ruben Gallego, and Representative Ro Kana. That one is pretty shocking. What am I to do with these people? All right, so number one, in my lifetime, maybe it has. And I missed it, but I covered the news every day. I've never seen a single American politician or a single member of the mainstream media

ever defined socialism. We always just talk about socialism. And in this resolution, they mentioned like North Korea and then Mao and all this stuff. And then they say socialism in all its forms. Wait a minute, Sweden is socialist. Denmark is socialist. Is Denmark and North Korea the same thing? Why are we having this like literally insane conversation without defining anything?

I mean, it's crazy. I don't know what they're talking about. Do you mean communism or do you mean socialism? They don't know. They have no idea what either of those things are or the differences between them. But honestly, the Republicans are purposely obfuscating. They're trying to make it seem like Democratic socials like Bernie Sanders, are the same thing as North Korea. And mainstream media also does it on purpose.

That's why Chris Matthews, when Bernie Sanders started winning in the 2020 primaries and had won Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada said, if people like Bernie Sanders had won, they would have taken out a lot of people to Central Park and executed them. And I would have been included. Who's they? Who, like, what the hell are you talking with? He's comparing Bernie Sanders to Stalin. These people are lunatics. But that's the mainstream. That's the mainstream. Okay, now we move to the Democrats.

Put a bunch of losers, total cowards. What are you doing voting yes to this resolution? They're terrified. They are. They're so scared. They're so scared. You know what guys? Well played because you know one thing voters really like is cowards.

Oh, they love them. When you show incredible weakness, they're like, I can't wait to vote for this guy. Okay. No, you losers, why don't you get up and make doing it? speech about what are you talking about? What do you mean by socialism morons? Okay. So, and then finally, although it definitely won't be fine. I'll have more to say. She cites all these stats. Oh my God, 40% of the young think that the communist manifesto is great. Holy cow, 40% of the whole country thinks socialism's pretty good and maybe better than capitalism. Did it ever

occur to you that if socialism is as evil as you think it is, that maybe people are really, really dissatisfied with the current system? That's why they're saying that it's 40, you think socialism is the same as Mao and Stalin murdering tens of millions of people, right? And you think 40% of the country thinks that's better than the current system. And instead of fixing the current system, you're doing nonsense votes like this that don't affect anyone's life. and are just complete political theater. Well played, Max. Now, these kinds of votes are the Republicans bread and butter?

I mean, it beats governing. And like to your point, when we talk about these things, these Republicans say with such concern that, you know, 40% of Americans are down on capitalism, do they ever stop and wonder why? Because, you know, we live through 2008. We've lived through jobs that don't pay a living wage. We've lived through economic crises that have robbed working people of their dignity again and again and again.

And instead of even attempting to make any changes that may make this a more equitable system, they pass resolutions like this that compare 40% of America to Joseph Stalin. These are the people who got outraged when Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters deplorables. And they're basically calling 40% of the country Stalinist. It's a shocking lack of self-awareness. Yeah, 100%. And look, I'm not, I'm not blind to, again, it's like, like, you know, Rokana is just, he's worried about being criticized as supporting Mao or whatever, whatever stupid, which like you could, you could maybe have a conversation if doing

this would defend you from that, but it's not going to. All the members of squad voted against it. And if we can jump ahead of just for a moment, to last graphic, here's why. Or, this is not the only reason, but it would be a good reason. Summerlee tweets, they're going to call you socialists anyway, and AOC responds, yep, because that is the most obvious thing in the world. If the Democratic candidate is Pete Buttigieg in 2024, they're going to call him a communist. That's what they always do because they don't care if it's accurate or not.

They don't care about what vote you made. They do stupid things because it works for them. In any event, let's talk a little bit more about what's in the bill. It says socialist ideology necessitates a concentration of power that is time and time again collapse in a communist regime's totalitarian rule and brutal dictatorships. Oh, well, if it has a concentration of power, we wouldn't want that. That would be such a change from America's egalitarian distribution of wealth. But here's the thing.

I'm not trying to convince like a progressive listening to this. That's ridiculous. capitalism concentrates power and wealth, that's literally what it's designed to do. Conservatives supposedly believe that there is an elite cabal of the over wealthy that control everything in America. They exist under capitalism. So what is this thing about concentrations of wealth under socialists? You already say that you believe that's what we have right now under capitalism.

I'll never understand it. They go on and they list all the people, Fidel Castro, Paul Pot, exactly the same as Bernie Sanders, obviously. But importantly, and this is what Jenk was alluded to earlier, Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, whatever, we don't care, we're not going to look them up, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America. And so, look, I don't think that this bill passing or not is going to modify what the Republicans are going to do, which is deregulate corporations and pass tax cuts for the wealthy, that's going to be it. But if you're a conservative who's watching

this. Like, you think that you voted someone in who's going to have your economic interest at heart. I don't know why you think that, but you apparently think that. Well, they came in and immediately started talking about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which many, many of you rely on. And now they're saying, we're going to stop socialist policies. And what do you think they mean when they say that? They're not talking about concentration camps. They're talking about anything that would actually benefit you or your family. That has been incredibly clear. I don't know how that hasn't gotten through to you yet. All right, you're forcing me to say 12 other things. All right, number one. You're not obligated. Donald Trump, no,

I am. Donald Trump called Kamala Harris a communist. She was a district attorney. She's a cop, okay? She's a communist, apparently. Obama was called a Marxist on Fox News tons of times. Marxist. The guy's a conservative Democrat. He, he, his big giant Obamacare was copied from the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. And that was the most progressive thing he did. But he's a communist. You think they're not going to call you a communist? Of course they are.

Every single one of you is going to be called that, you idiot Democrats. Look, to defend Roe, we're picking on him because he's such a surprising name on that list, okay? But all the conservative Democrats, it bro's a progressive. That's why it's a mistake for him to do that. But for the conservative Democrats, there's probably high-fiving. Like, oh, yeah, well, the voters who are now going to know that I'm not a socialist. Oh, the left sucks. They said I voted against the left.

Hey, which side are you on? The left. Oh, okay, moron. Nice job. Okay. By the way, I call myself a Democratic capitalist. So I don't call myself a socialist. But yet you see me defending the idea of socialism in some form here, right?

Because it's not all the same form. And guys, what difference does it make? Okay, so look, in the book, Justice is coming. and it is soon. You can pre-order, link down below. I explain what Democratic capitalism is. It's just capitalism checked by democracy, so it doesn't run amok.

You need cops on Wall Street like you need cops on Main Street, okay? That's very close to democratic socialism that Bernie Sanders has. You know why? Because it's a mixed economy. Every country has a mixed economy, almost every country. North Korea doesn't. How's that working out? But the rest of us have mixed economy.

economies, where some things are run by the government, some things are run by private industry. I say this with force and passion to try to make up for every idiot mainstream reporter and anchor who has never, ever, ever explain that to their viewers, okay? And look, why do you think people are so mad? To Max's point, it's not just 2008, it's not just the economic crisis. The walls are closing in. We, for the rich, and Ray Dolly, one of the richest guys in the world explained this. Since about 1980, their wealth has tripled for the top 1%.

For the top 10%, it has doubled, okay? For the rest of you, it has been absolutely stagnant. It hasn't moved at all, even though your productivity has gone up by about 100%. So that means you're working literally twice as hard and not making any more money adjusted for inflation than 1980. You know what that is? That's capitalism run amok. It's become corporatism.

Corporations have taken over everything, and they're squeezing us and squeezing us. And that's what's driving the right wing nuts. They don't know how to fix it, but they're super angry. And now tons of the left, especially the young, are super angry. Yeah.

And what are these idiots in Washington doing instead of talking about wages or health care or anything, anything that can help the American people to go, I have voted against socialism? Oh, by the way, Social Security has the word social in it. So they're like, oh yeah, remember how dangerous socialism is. We might take the very last thing you have that could give you peace of mind when you retire. Yeah. Because apparently the corporations don't have enough yet. They have 98% of everything and they want 99.9% of everything.

And these losers in Congress, almost every one of them is corrupt. They all take money from those same corporations and they're the ones crushing your soul. And I mean, listen, to your point, to your point, especially among younger people who identify a socialist, I've met plenty who have no problem talking about, you know, the challenges of socialism or talking about the Soviet Union. But I have never once met any of these capitalism at all cost clowns who's willing to even engage the idea that there could be a flaw in capitalism. I mean, it is a religious level of fervor. And I'd like to see that discussion on the floor of the House instead of these Democrats validating this Republican fantasy as something legitimate, which is exactly what they just did. Yeah, 100%. I'm gonna take us out with one more comment, just to like last ditch effort to get through to like poor conservatives who might be watching this. Like I alluded to earlier, how they're coming for those programs that you rely on.

And I want to be very clear that we are not just implying that this resolution is designed to announce they're going to get rid of those things. Representative Mark Takano, who's a Democrat, saw an amendment to it to say, okay, we'll say that we're against socialist policies, but I want to be clear that that doesn't include Medicare and Social Security. And the Republicans voted it down. I don't know how more specific they can get. They're coming for Medicare and Social Security. Anyway, with that said, let's go a little wild. Starting with this. One of the disgusting legacies after 9-11 has been the targeting and racism against Muslim Americans throughout the United States of America. And this is an extension of that legacy. Consistency, there is nothing consistent with the

Republican parties continued attack except for the racism and excitement of violence against women of color in this body. I had a member of the Republican caucus threatened my life. And you all, and the Republican caucus rewarded him with one of the most prestigious committee assignments in this Congress. Don't tell me this is about consistency. Don't tell me that this is about a condemnation of anti-Semitic remarks when you have a member of the Republican caucus who has talked about Jewish space lasers and an untired amount of tropes and also elevated her to some of the highest committee assignments in this body. This is about targeting women of color in the United States of America. Don't tell me because I didn't get a single apology. My life was threatened. Thank you.

It's a great defense of Representative Ilhan Omar by Representative Alexandria Casa Cortez there, pointing out the two decades of rampant Islamophobia that's become totally normalized in America. No one in the Republican Party, no one on Fox News or independent Republican media feels at all worried at all about trafficking in the worst sorts of Islamophobic hate and all of that. When it comes to Representative Ilhan Omar and they got what they wanted yesterday, Representative Omar was kicked off of a committee that the Republicans say that she's not qualified to be on because she dared to criticize the Israeli government, which isn't allowed. That's the part of cancel culture that they're perfectly happy with.

You will be canceled if you criticize this foreign government or a particular politician or a particular party inside of it. You can't do that. And interestingly, when talking about qualifications, they think that she's not qualified to be on that. I think that AOC did a great job of pointing out that someone like Marjorie Green is on homeland security. It is designed to protect the homeland and its security in all of that. And yet she says things like there's space lasers that are starting wildfires. How is she qualified to do that? Now she hates when you bring this up, she said in response to it, there's people that think that I said a phrase called Jewish space lasers, a phrase that I never said.

As a matter of fact, it was created and invented in a story that a bunch of people read in the news. I don't hold any beliefs like that at all. Now it is true that she did not literally say the three words Jewish space laser back to back, But you can go, and we'll bring up this, you can see her Facebook rant that she went on. She said back in November of 2018, there are too many coincidences to ignore with the wildfires. And she repeated theories about, quote, lasers or blue beams of light causing the fires in a conspiracy being linked to the Rothschild banking dynasty. So she did not, in fact, say Jewish space laser. She just said there are lasers in space and it's the Jews who are shooting them.

But even if it wasn't anti-Semitic, how riddled with parasites does your brain need to be to believe that the most likely cause of wildfires is a space-based laser system? Even if she wasn't anti-Semitic, which she definitely is, she is in no way qualified to evaluate, let alone deal with threats to our homeland security when she's getting her advice on what to watch out for from 1980s James Bond movies. I'll think. Look, it's weird that I'm not more animated about this one, and I get animated. And my background is Muslim. I guess I'm less animated because I just find all this to be so obvious. So we're talking about how Ilhan Omar was too anti-Semitic because she did a tweet saying it's all about the Benjamins when referring to lobbyists. Whereas, let's be fair, though, Marjorie Taylor Green, maybe she meant not Jewish space lasers, but Jewish bankers firing blue beams from space.

Could be? Could be. Okay, how about Donald Trump, the glorious leader of the Republican Party? He had Nick Fuentes and Kanye West two guys who have both said how much they admire Adolf Hitler and the Nazis over for dinner. We're having a conversation about saying that lobbyists are interested in money being equivalent to that. Are you insane? So no, no, we're not having this guy. I'm not even angry about it.

It's so dumb, right? So I, like, I almost don't want to engage in this. Republicans are obvious liars, even debating it dignifies it too much. I just go on TV and say, if you think that every Republican isn't an enormous liar, you do a joke of a show. I'm not even interested in that debate. Anyone who compares Ilhan Omar to Marjorie Taylor Green or Donald Trump is lying by definition. I mean, no one in their right mind could possibly think those two things are equivalent.

Max. Well, I think now that you know, Marjorie Taylor Green is Kevin McCarthy's puppet master. She's trying to run away from all these things she said, but I agree with you. I mean, I let Republicans have this fight for me just a month ago. Lauren Bobert called Marjorie Taylor Green out for being anti-Semitic. I mean, when you're members of your own party are calling you out for your Jewish space laser insanity, there's not really much we have to do. But I think AOC got to a larger point here.

which is that these Republicans, when they show up at all, show up to make clips for Fox News, they disrupt proceedings, they're trying to do their best to break government so they can sell to their voters that government is broken. They're not a productive presence. They're, if anything, the hardest part about keeping government running right now. And it was, AOC, I think, was great to say that. Yeah. Can I just say it too on the Muslim issue?

Are we having a conversation about whether Republicans hate Muslims? Look, if you're a Republican out there, you know you hate Muslims. And you'll say, oh, no, I'm not racist or bigoted. I mean, but Muslims are different, man. Do you know, there's religions really violent, man? Okay, having never read the Old Testament, let alone the New Testament, even Sam Harris on the show, who despises Muslims, admitted, yes, out of all the religious texts, by far the most violent is the Old Testament in the Bible, right?

But it doesn't matter. They've never read anything. I've never read a children's book, let alone the Bible, let alone the Quran. So the idea that Muslims are not bigoted against Muslims. I'm sorry, Republicans are not bigoted against Muslims is absurd. Of course they are. And in that case, it's not a small number. I would reach a giant number.

The great majority of Republican voters hate Muslims. Anyone who denies that is being insane and absurd. I'm not having that debate. 100%. And by the way, while, you know, I think she rightly focused on the, just explicit Islamophobia in that. AOC also went on CNN later on the day. We don't have time to play the tape.

And explained how much of this is about the often unspoken rule that you just do not criticize a particular right-wing party or leader inside of Israel. That's, you do not. If you make any criticisms whatsoever of specific policies or specific rhetoric, then they're going to refer to it as anti-Semitism. It's very clear. We make that point very often. You don't often hear it made by politicians. I just want to end with Marjorie got mad, obviously, AOC had said. So she tweeted, Representative AOC, I've repeatedly asked you to debate me, but you have been a coward and can't even respond. But you go on CNN and lie about me. Even though, again, we've already pointed out, it's true. You can see her messages up there. It's not even the craziest thing she believes. When are you going to be an adult and actually debate me on policy instead of run your mouth like a teenage girl? So first of all, I, I don't want to see them debate. I don't want to see Marjorie Green legitimized in that way.

But if you're going to have a debate about the merits of whether there are lasers in space, I guess that could be at least a little bit interesting. And AOC points out, in case you forgot, we sit on the same committee, which debated for the first time this week, I don't blame you if you forgot. You spent almost no time there. In a few minutes you did show up, you claimed one elementary school got $5 billion to teach CRT. Because again, Marjorie Green doesn't know anything. She doesn't care about being involved in governance. She went there to make her little prepared remarks, and then she left because she's not interested in accomplish anything. Okay, I just got to say.

First, I want to give tons of credit to AOC. There's a good fiery speech on the floor of the House, excellent and courageous points on Sienna, not often made, especially about Israel. But I love that last week, because there's two members of the House. one challenge the other to a debate. Hey, good news. You're in a body that is supposed to debate for a living. You go and debate her on the floor of the house on every issue. You want a debate on a $15 minute wage?

Great. Let's introduce a resolution on a $15 minute wage or Medicare for all. And then you guys can debate it all day long in the house. Nope, no, it's not, yeah, it's not going to get me the clicks online. I need the clicks. Who cares for policy? By the way, so far, what have they done? Socialism bad, these are the two things, and Ilhan Omar bad.

And by the way, Schiff and Swalwell, too. They weakened the Ethics Committee, that's good. Weakened the Ethics Committee. Are you guys ever going to introduce a resolution, Republicans, about the American people? Are you guys to help them? I know you're planning to cut social security in Medicare. That doesn't help them. And by the way, again, every reporter in this country sucks.

Does anybody want to ask the Republicans? Are you ever going to introduce a bill that helps the average American? Ever, ever. You've never talked about it. Not once. Not once. Isn't that amazing? Hey, Republican voters, you schmucks, why don't you ask your representatives?

Hey, when are you going to help me and my family? I get it. I hate Omar too. Ah, Muslim, I hate them. I'm sure you agree with that. But when are you going to move on to helping your actual voters? Go ahead. I dare you to ask them, because every Republican is going to go, uh, I'm helping you by owning the

libs. Losers. Jesus, okay, we're going to take another break. We come back. We're going to talk about the Democratic Party's stance on money in politics. So if you think Jenk is already fired up, wait until we come back from this. All right, back on TYT, Jank, John, and Max with you guys, but also lots of you. So I got to do this real quick.

Progressive Kinnock, thank you so much, gifted a Young Turks membership on YouTube. LaShawn Hill just became a member, so the cleric of truth. Jeez, them. That sounds perfect for us. And then, hey, business is the prompter. you girl read it, poop messiah has become a member. So welcome. And Robin Anderson Wood upgraded membership, which we really appreciate you. You can do that through the join button underneath the video on YouTube as well. I wrote in a very nice comment. Jake,

you're my hero, your rant speak to the core of my being. Well, that's incredibly nice. Speaking of incredibly nice, Jessica Smith and other YouTube member said, I love Max. He's so smart. And Azroll Dragoon, happy birthday, Johnny Pie. So everybody gets a little bit alone. Thank you. We appreciate it. All right. John, my dear. Okay, we're good. Let's do this.

We have some breaking news. You're going to want to sit down for this. The Democratic Party still corrupt. No. For the second time, in less than half a year, the Democratic National Committee has been given the opportunity to vote to ban dark money in primaries, and they've declined to do so. According to D&C member, R.L. Miller, the founder of Climate Hawks,

vote. Not a single person on the Resolutions Committee dares move to even put it to a vote just like summer 2022. Well, it's convenient. If you don't put it to a vote, then you don't have to vote against it, which is nice. You can have your dark money and eat it too, I guess. So back during the last meeting, which was in September, the panel also unanimously declined to let the proposed dark money ban advance to a vote. As ENC doesn't publicize the membership lists of its committees, which is weird, but reporting from 2020 identified at least three corporate lobbyists who were serving on the resolutions panel at that

time, but they probably were totally unbiased when it came to the subject. The committee's obstruction of the proposed dark money ban comes in the wake of the most expensive U.S. midterm cycle on record. According to Open Secrets, Super PACs spent an astounding $1.35 billion during that election, which I will remind you was a midterm election. It wasn't even presidential. They still spent way over a billion dollars. And a ton of that obviously is coming from wealthy people. And when I say wealthy people, I don't mean casually wealthy people. I mean apocalyptically wealthy people. A report by Americans for Tax Fairness released shortly before the election found that just 465 American billionaires had spent the better part

of a billion dollars, 8881 million. That was just by the end of September. By the time the election was actually done and all this stuff after it, it could have been well over a billion dollars. That is 465 people. You could put that in a big room, a ballroom perhaps, and they spent enough to sway countless elections. And sway they did. You'll be shocked to find this out, but an open secrets analysis done shortly after the election found that 96% of the House races that have been called at that point were won by the candidate who spent the most money. And by the way, the thing that was being requested was a dark money ban in primary elections. It wasn't even as all-encompassing as perhaps we might call for. It was just specifically,

can we not have these billionaires and mega corporations and lobbyists and maybe other countries, God only knows, choosing who the Democratic Party's candidates are. One would think you'd want to have control over your own party, but they declined to do that because they want the wealthy to be able to choose who they have. Yeah. So first of all, why are those 465 million, I'm sorry, 465 people spending so much money on politics. They must really care about the general welfare. They want to be so charitable to the rest of us. I'm sure they didn't ask for tax cuts where they would wind up getting a lot more money back than the one that they put into politics. Hold on Jake.

I apologize for interrupting you. I don't want to Don Lemon you. Can you imagine just asking a reporter, why do you, like questions you just asked, why do you think they spent the better part of a billion dollars. Yeah. I would love to see them try to explain it. Yeah. Like I, by the way, when I ran for Congress, I asked it all the time and not a single reporter would ever print it. I would ask the, the politicians that were in the running in the race, I would ask the reporters, they never, under penalty of law, they were not going to print that question. Why do you think they're spending the money? Do you think it's for the general welfare? Do you think it's for charity? I mean, some of the corporations that spend money are, so you've got the individuals,

know you got the companies. ExxonMobil. Do you think ExxonMobil is doing it for the general welfare? Because you know, they weren't feeling charitable that day. Only a lunatic would think that. I mean, literally, if you said yes, I think ExxonMobil is doing it for charity because they love the American people so much, I would get you under clinical observation, right? And yet, that is the assumption that they write into every effing story. It's a mental, and I'm going to tell you why in a second. But so once you get past those 400 some of people, then you've got the dark money super PACs. They spent 1.35 billion in this last midterm election. She's not even presidential midterm, okay? That's well over a billion. But that's just a part of it, right?

When you put in all the super PACs, all the different outside forces and the individuals, all of it together, in the last midterms, they, there was $17 billion in the election, spent on the election. 17 billion, okay? So why doesn't the media talk about the overwhelming most obvious factor in politics? And guys, I say this all the time too. To be fair to the politicians, if like Sheldon Adelson, for example, three different times gave over $100 million to the Republicans. If someone gave you $100 million, would you do what they said?

Probably, right? I'd be tempted to do it. Right, I've turned down a lot of money in the past and a hundred million, that's a lot. I've done a lot worse for a lot less. Yeah, I mean, if somebody gave you $10,000, you'd be tempted to do it, right? Okay, so of course the politicians are just working for these donors. But the reason why the press doesn't talk about something so obvious is because almost that entire $17 billion goes to the press. it goes directly into advertising, advertising in media, and most of all, in newspapers

and television. And guess who never, ever, ever, ever criticizes money in politics, newspapers, and television. They've got 17 billion reasons not to. So mainstream media, including the New York Times, including CNN and all these things that are beloved by establishment Democrats are at the heart of corruption. They purposely avoid the largest topic in politics. Now, turn to the Democrats in this particular vote.

So I used to think, look, you got to introduce bills first. You got to somehow bills amendments. You've got to get money out of politics. I don't know that you should do unilateral disarmament before you've actually passed any bills prohibiting the other side from doing it as well. I no longer think that. Why? Why? Because now it's kind of so comical that the dark money that the DNC wouldn't even vote on and is accepting is coming, a lot of it is coming from Republican donors.

Why are Republican donors giving to the Democratic National Committee? Because they're saying you must use that against progressives and primaries. So the dark money now is used not to fight Republicans. It's coming from Republicans into the Democratic Party to fight progressives. So in that scenario, oh hell no, of course I don't want him taking dark money. And that's exactly why they wouldn't even vote on it because they're so deeply corrupt. I'll get to the reaction from Bernie Sanders and others in a second. But Max.

So the ridiculous thing here is in the same breath, the DNC then asks, why is there an enthusiasm gap on the left for Democratic candidates? And maybe it might have something to do with the fact that they stand up and say, we have to stop the corrosive influence of money in politics and then throw open the doors for any billionaire who's bored to funnel money in. And what ends up happening is exactly what we've seen. They use that money to drown grassroots progressive candidates. They pick whichever establishment Democrat is cloned out of the DNC candidate program. And then that establishment corporate dem loses a winnable race. These people expect us to believe that they're

going to pass campaign finance reform in Congress. We can't even get campaign finance reform in the Democratic Party. So it's no surprise to me that the left is furious about this. And it's the only shame is no one at the DNC is listening. Yeah. So by the way, you might be wondering Why are Republicans giving Democratic incumbents? That seems even to run against progressors and primaries, but still they're Democrats, right? Well, that's the point. Republican donors have made the calculation that mainstream Democrats are identical to Republicans, that they have the same exact economic policies.

They can blah, blah, blah about race and religion and all the culture war stuff. But at the end of the day, they're now convinced that the Democratic, party will do whatever Republican donors tell them to do. By the way, one of those Republican donors that gave to dark money the Democrats was Sam Bankman-Fried, the guy who did the scam at FDX, right, and got caught. He pretended to be a Democratic donor. Later when he got caught, he admitted, no, he gave money to the Republicans and gave to the Democrats as PR and to destroy progressives. He didn't say destroy progressives. He said for PR and, of course, implicit was to make sure that neither one of these corrupt clowns, clown parties regulate me. Okay. And if his whole

thing hadn't crashed, no, the Democrats would have never regulated them. And neither would the Republicans. They like criminals like that run around all the time until they lose everybody's money. Okay. And then lastly, what I promise you guys, Bernie Sanders with a strongly worded tweet against the DNC, I want you to blah blah blah blah blah blah. Didn't name anyone blah blah blah blah blah blah. it floated into the sky. It was useless, totally useless. Has Bernie ever championed forcefully ability or an amendment,

which is what you really need, do you get money out of politics? No. Has Elizabeth Warren? Elizabeth Warren, remember her on the campaign trail? Oh, that's why I loved it. Corruption, legalized bribery. She used those words. She goes back into the Senate after she ran for president.

Never said it. Gone. Gone. Never talked about it again. Wait, you mentioned it a thousand times when you were trying to win our vote. And then all of a sudden you stop running for president and you don't give a damn anymore? You know what that tells me? That tells me you're a fraud.

But look, my own justice Democrats that I helped start, AOC and the rest of them. Have they championed a single bill or a single amendment to get money out of politics? Nothing. Nothing. So they don't get it. They're not bad people. AOC, Bernie Sanders, as I said,

they're not at all bad people. They're wonderful people. I don't know, maybe they're just a little slow. Do you not get it? The real issue is money in politics. By the way, if I ask you, you say, yeah, the real issue, jank, is money in politics. Then how come you never do anything against it? And I'll tell you, I'll give you the answer.

Here's the secret. Because it would offend their effing colleagues. Oh, you don't want to hurt their feelings. You guys have to get along so, so well. Bernie's friends with Biden and all of these new Justice Democrats are now great. friends with a lot of their democratic colleagues and they're in caucuses together and they have tea and crumpets together. You wouldn't want to offend them. I got news for you. They're corrupt and you're never going to say it because you care more about yourself than

you do about the voters. I'm being honest and if that hurts your feelings, that's kind on you and not on me. I think that's all the time we had. Damn it. All right, Biden's going to screw over Alaska. He's going to do drilling. We're not going to get to it. It doesn't matter. of fraud, if you don't know that by now, you'll never, ever know me. All right. All right, everybody check out Max Burns on Rebel headquarters. He's fantastic and just like the viewer said, very smart. John is on damage report and also smart.

I have my moments. All right, much love, happy birthday, John. We'll be right back. Amazing stories in the second hour. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.