The Young Turks - Lies and Greed

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

On Saturday a Colorado gunman intentionally targeted the LGBTQ+ community by open firing in a gay nightclub. The GOP’s reaction to the tragic shooting in Colorado Springs is everything you would expect it to be: disgusting. Trump snubs Twitter even after Elon Musk reactivates his account. A predatory action by real estate investors could lead to hardship for the buyers. Anti-abortion groups are blaming the GOP midterm defeat on the silence they kept on the abortion topic. Host: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur 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, well, I'm the Young Turks, Jane Q. Granik is sparing with you guys, lots of news. As usual, drama, hypocrisy, nonsense.

We'll bat it all down for you guys, Anna. We begin with yet another mass shooting. This one seems to have a hateful intent. All of them do, but this one specifically targeted a gay club. So without further ado, let's get to it. I popped my head up over the booth and I saw like the barrel of a gun like like poked into the patio room. I saw just the tip of it and it was at that point that I legitimately thought I was about to get shot.

Michael Anderson was working as a bartender at the Q nightclub in Colorado Springs, which unfortunately was the target of a mass shooting. Five people died as a result. Dozens of others are injured, some of whom are currently in critical condition. Now, what we know so far is that the suspect used an AR-15 style rifle. The shooting took place over the weekend on Saturday night and authorities have placed the shooter in custody. He was injured and is currently in the hospital, but is facing 10 felony charges, including murder and hate crime related charges. Now, why would they charge him with a hate crime? Well, it's because of the fact that Q nightclub is an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs. The mass shooting occurred just before the transgender

Day of Remembrance on November 20th, an annual observance that honors the memory of the transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence, according to Glad. Now, the suspected shooter has been taken into custody, and it turns out that a bar patron, or as many as two bar patrons, were able to subdue him. As people were running out of the club, two others decided to run toward the shooter, and they managed to subdue him. In fact, in the next video, you're going to hear from Mayor John Suthers of Colorado Springs, who says that the person who subdued him is a hero. Let's watch.

The call came into the police at 11.57 p.m. Police were on the scene by 12, an amazingly quick response. This incident was over by 1202. And that's largely because of the intervention of at least one, possibly two, very heroic individuals who subdued this guy appears to have taken his handgun. He had a handgun with him and used it to disable him. And so not shoot him, but to hit him with the gun and disable him. But for that, as tragic as this incident is, it's a horrible crime. It could have been much, much worse, but for these heroic actors.

So if it weren't for those two nightclub patrons subduing him, he could have killed more people. Now of the 25 individuals who are injured, 19 of them are suffering from gunshot wounds and authorities have identified the 22-year-old shooter, Anderson Lee Aldridge, who had at least two firearms with him, one of which was the AR-15 style rifle. The other was a handgun. Here are a few more details about the suspect from CNN. Police have identified the suspected shooter as 22-year-old Anderson Lee Eltrich. Police say he entered the club just before midnight on Saturday and began shooting immediately with a long rifle. Two weapons were found at the scene.

More details are emerging about the suspected shooter, including a 2021 arrest for felony menacing and first-degree kidnapping according to a news release at the time. after his mother says he threatened her with a homemade bomb and other weapons. Now, there are murky details about the run-in with police that he had in 2021. For instance, we know that he had five felony charges, but the prosecutor, the district attorney, decided against prosecuting him. His mother was the one who called the police on him. She was later posting on social media asking for help to find legal counsel for her son. But that's what we know so far. I have a few other details to share. But Jenk, I want to get your thoughts first.

Yeah. So every person who is a right winger who advocated to give for laws against LGBTQ folks is guilty. Every religious person who said that homosexuality is a sin is guilty. So now, important caveat, I was religious. I know what religion's like. I know what growing up in religions like. And so I know that not all of you meant it in a hateful way. You were taught that. But I'm here to be honest with you guys. You were brainwashed. You were brainwashed into this hatred. And you keep saying it over and over and over again. Do you know what's wrong with homosexuality? Nothing. Zero. Nothing. According to your own ideology, God created them that way. What could possibly be wrong with God's creation? Are you saying God made a mistake?

Are you that arrogant? Are you that opposed to God according to your own ideology? So no, you have pastors and you look, people who watch the young church for many years have seen me say this a thousand times because there's a very good reason for it. There's a thousand things in the Bible that your preachers and your right-wing evangelical leaders ignore all the time because they don't give a damn what's in the Bible. It says in the same Leviticus, you shall not lie with a man, and you shall not eat shellfish. Red lobster, shrimp, crabs, whatever.

Have you ever, ever heard a right-wing evangelical leader say that? No, because they're liars. You think they haven't read it? You think they haven't read the Bible and all the things that are an abomination? So why do they ignore the parts that are not focused on hate, but then take the parts that are focused on hate and glorify it? You think this is an accident that he did in the most conservative area of Colorado, a lunatic goes and targets gay people to murder. It's not at all an accident.

It's driven not by, hey, you know what, Trump said this and the lunatics on the right said that recently. Yes, sure, they have massive blend. The Republican Party is 100% guilty. They have passed over 600 laws against the LGBTQ community just since 2018. 100% guilty. If you're a Republican, you drove this hatred. You drove it. It's your fault.

Okay? But it's, but my point overall is, guys, it isn't just the last couple of years we they drove that hatred. My whole life, my whole life, right-wing religious leaders have said, hate gay people, hate them, hate them, hate them. Oh, I'm not saying hate the sinner, but they're sin, they're sinning. It is not a goddamn sin. It isn't.

If it is, then eating shrimp is just as bad and you will roast in goddamn hell for it. Are you, did you ever hear that? No. Because for God's sake, they're lying to you. Stop murdering gay people because your leaders are hateful. They're drenched in blood. You think there's not going to be another shooting at a gay club or anywhere else involving LGBT people?

You're crazy, of course it's going to be another shooting. And of course it's going to be a right winger. right winger. And of course it's going to be a right winger that was taught. It's a sin. It's a sin. It's immoral. The people who taught you that are at themselves deeply evil. And in your lingo, they're satanic. They're hugely immoral, despicable people. There's absolutely nothing wrong with homosexuality or the homosexual act. If anyone tells you that, tell them that they're an agent of hate and you will not tolerate it. So when it comes to public figures who decided that they would spend all of their time campaigning on anti-transgender, you know, vile anti-transgender garbage, yeah, I think that they are absolutely responsible.

And for anyone who might be offended by that, I mean, I just would like you to recall when, you know, there would be ISIS-related terrorist attacks either here or in Europe. And the right wing wanted every single Muslim person, even if they had nothing to do with it whatsoever, even if their interpretation of their religious doctrine was very much different from ISIS. Even if their belief in Islam differed from that of ISIS and the terrorists who would commit these vile acts, conservatives wanted Muslims to answer for it, to apologize for it, to condemn it, right? And they had nothing to do with it. In this case, you literally have endless campaigns of hatred toward the LGBTQ community, and as of late, mostly toward the transgender community, right?

And that's what they campaign on. That's what they hang their hand on. That's what their political action really centers on. There's nothing else that they want to offer their constituents or to the American people. It's just hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, while they, of course, in the background, assist corporations in robbing you blind, right? Yeah, that's going to lead to, in a country full of, people who don't have health insurance, who don't have health coverage, and who have mental

health issues that go undiagnosed and untreated, yeah, this stuff happens. It happens more often than we, I mean, it happens way more often than we could have even predicted, honestly. And it doesn't matter. They're not going to stop. They're not going to stop. They don't care, they're not going to stop. I don't care either.

And let me explain something, I don't care if they're offended. I don't care at all. If you're a right-wing religious person who your whole life has been telling people, you're gay people are sinful, they commit sins, sin, sin, sin, sin. Okay, you are a terrible person. Maybe you didn't know you were a terrible person, but I'm telling you now, wake up. Did you ever go tell people that are eating lobster? You're sinful, you're going to goddamn hell.

No, you never did because you're an effing liar. Okay, so wake up, and I don't care if you're offended. I care that those people are dead, and you're going to get somebody else killed. When you keep talking about how people are immoral just for who they are. You don't get it. You're the immoral one. If you're a right-wing evangelical religious nutcase who is constantly talking about how homosexual acts or sins, you are evil.

You're the definition of evil and you get people killed. All right, one other thing I wanted to mention. And this doesn't necessarily mean anything in regard to the shooter himself, but it doesn't give you some background in regard to who he's surrounded with and what kind of political beliefs exist within his family. So it turns out that his grandfather is an assembly member here in California, a Republican who actually just got voted out of office during the midterm elections. His area was redistricted, which forced him to run against another Republican and the other Republican won. Now, Randy Vopal is his name. And as you can see in

the image, he is very much a MAGA Republican who spews all sorts of terrible things, including he likes to provide cover for the January 6th, you know, rioters. Of course, he loves violence. He's a Republican. So Aldrich is the grandson of outgoing California Republican State Assembly member Randy Vopal, the former mayor of Santee, California. Vopal represents the 71st District in the San Diego area, there were calls to expel him from the state assembly after he made comments comparing the January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capitol to the revolutionary war. And he was quoted as saying, this is Lexington and Concord, first shots fired against tyranny. So, I mean, it gives you,

like just completely in agreement with what the rioters did. Tyranny will not follow in the aftermath of the Biden swear in on January 20th. According to the San Diego Union Tribune, Vopal later tweeted that he condemned violence and lawlessness. Yeah, except for the parts where you were celebrating it. By the way, there's another code word for you guys. The tyranny of government. When the right wingers talk about that, it is always attached to the Second Amendment. The tyranny of government that you must fight back through with your guns, right?

Guns, guns, guns, go kill, go kill people, go kill people. That's what Republicans say all the time. That is the talk of you must fight against the Second Amendment is for the tyranny of government. Oh, they're oppressing me. Oh, my God. I have to go murder them. I have to go murder them. That's what the right wingers teach you.

And then when they have their most unstable lunatics go and actually commit the acts, they act all surprised. Oh, my God. Did we have you guys murdered again? Oh, it's another mistake. It's our 1,000th mistake in a row. I guess our deranged lunatics thought we meant it when we said go grab your guns and kill people. Oh, it was gay people.

to people we've been demonizing for hundreds of years, thousands of years, and we directed them right towards the target, and then we're going to pretend to be surprised. Oh, did they kill you guys? Ha ha ha ha. I bet you guys had a good laugh over it. No, the right wing in this country are monsters. Are you offended? Are you, your whole life you've been telling people that they're immoral by nature?

Now you're gonna get offended? Please, go ahead. I hope your heart breaks with how offended. did you are. I'm sick of you guys getting people murdered day in and day out. By the way, all those hateful stereotypes against gay people too, who are the biggest heroes in the country? They went and tackled them with no guns, no nothing. The two guys that were in that bar, presumably they're in the LGBTQ community, and they tackle them because they're brave, they're brave, and they save God knows how many lives.

All right, well, let's move on to Lauren Boberts' reaction to this, because she tried to kind of change what was really going on here by providing some cover for right-wingers who have been spewing hatred. As a Republican congresswoman from Colorado, Lauren Bobert, thought that she would provide some cover for herself and fellow conservatives who have been spewing vile anti-LGBQ garbage. And of course, this is after the nightclub shooting, gay nightclub shooting in Colorado, where five people were gunned down, dozens of others were injured. She says of that shooting, the news out of Colorado Springs is absolutely awful. This morning, the victims and their families are in my prayers. No, they're not. Shut up, Lauren Bobert, you liar. And then she finishes with this lawless violence needs to end and end quickly.

Okay, well, so what she's trying to do here, it's very clear. She's trying to blame this, which is already being investigated as a hate crime. The shooter is currently facing five hate crime charges, right? She's trying to make it seem like, no, it has nothing to do with hate crime. No, it was just, it's part of this crime wave, that's what this is, right? The lawless violence. No, why don't we talk about your rhetoric as a United States Congresswoman toward the LGBTQ community and specifically the transgender community?

Because the shooting happened just as they were supposed to celebrate the transgender day of remembrance, which takes place on November 20th. It's an annual observance that honors the memory of transgender people whose lives were lost with anti-transgender violence, right? Well, let me show you what anti-transgender rhetoric sounds like, which tends to lead to insane lunatics committing anti-transgender violence. Let's watch. Lauren Boberg, getting a lot of attention for her strong views on the Equality Act and plenty of pushback as well. There's nothing about equality in that act, if anything.

It's the, it's, it's, it's supremacy of, of gays and, and lesbians and, and, uh, trans-sex. Where is the equality for women who have been sexually assaulted? Under this legislation, their crisis counselor may be Alexis, who was actually born Alex. And they'll have to talk to him about their assault. It's kind of like what we've been seeing on the national news, you know, when a common athlete decides he feels pretty and wants to be a girl, then he can go and beat girls and win national championships. Where is the equality in this legislation for the young girls across America who will have to look behind their backs as they change in their school locker rooms just to make sure there isn't a confused man trying to catch a peek? It puts little girls at risks allowing confused men to go into women's restrooms. I mean, I don't want little girls, you know, watching their back, seeing if a man is trying to catch a peek at them.

So you have Lauren Bobert repeatedly making transgender people out to be sexual predators. At the same time, you have people like Matt Walsh constantly talking about genital mutilation of children, genital mutilation of children, general mutilation of children, general mutilation of children, over and over and over again. That is all they talked about in the lead up to the midterms. It is all they care about or at least pretend to care about because what else would they campaign on? What else would they talk about? Would they talk about corporations robbing you?

Would they talk about the economic inequalities in this country? You know, issues that actually matter to ordinary people? No, they wouldn't. They wouldn't talk about that. They need something to hang their hat on. So they're bigoted anti-transgender hate is all we've been hearing about for a few years now. So is it any surprise that that would lead to individuals carrying out acts of violence toward a group of people that Republican politicians and conservative media figures

have been fearmongering about for years now? Is it any surprise? Yeah. So guys, first, let me say something to everybody on the left. Stop caring about right winger's feelings. Like, this is the gaslighting 101. They will say something deeply hateful about you. And then when you say, hey, that sounds hateful, they will say, oh my God, I'm so offended.

Oh, I can't believe you said that. And what happens with people on the left? We're generally nicer, right? So then we worry, oh my God, are we offending them? Is that a problem? Is it our fault, right? It's not your fault. You're being ghastly.

Okay, so Lauren Bober, Joe Rogan and all the other hateful people that talk about in Matt Walsh, etc. That talk about trans people as if there's some sort of demonic creatures. No, they're deeply immoral people. They're sick people. There's something wrong with their heads. You should never be embarrassed to say that. Whenever you see somebody like Lauren Bobert, you should say, you're a hateful person. And I reject your hate, okay?

So, but they'll say, oh, no, you don't understand. Oh, my morality says that I'm more moral than you for hating gay people. Oh, I don't hate them. I just want to ban them from here and ban them from there and make sure nobody ever talks about them. And that we tell kids, they're so dangerous that you shouldn't even talk about them in school. shouldn't even mention their presence. That's who despicable right wingers are. So just tell them who they are.

Be honest with them. And don't care if they cry. If they come out, oh my God, I'm so offended. Good. I'm super. Your offense soothes my heart. I love to see you get offended. Because for once, you might begin to understand how it feels to be us.

Like when they say, oh, let's ban Muslims. They never think, hey, I wonder how Muslims feel. They think, oh, yeah, those Muslims are evil and wrong and immoral. Oh, gay people, oh, we got abandon from here and here and here. And I'm supposed to care about your feelings? No, I don't. I don't. I hope you're miserable in your self-loathing that's driving all of this.

So one more thing. That bathroom's scared. I'm so sick of it. So let's be clear about what they're actually saying. They're not worried about a trans person going into a girl's bathroom to take a sneak peek as Lauren Bobard says. They're worried about a straight man, a pedophile, who's straight, going to a girl's bathroom, pretending to be transgendered. So be more accurate in your discussion.

A transgender person, by definition, wouldn't be sneaking a peek at a girl if they're going into a girl's, a woman's bathroom. They view themselves as women. No, you're only talking about your sicko, depraved, very likely right-wing men. Husband. Probably husbands, probably boyfriends. But I don't know who they are and I don't care. They're perverts and they're almost definitely in the right wing who dresses transgender people to look at little girls. That's at least 98% right wingers.

So be accurate about who you're criticizing. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, my favorite story, Trump is back on Twitter. We'll talk about all of that and the freak out that has ensued following. Elon Musk's decision to reinstate him. That and more coming right up. Stone just became a member. Look, every member helps us get this voice out. If you don't like the voice, then don't support us, no problem. But if you do like it and you like someone standing up for you, then become a member. We appreciate it. T.wit.com slash join. All right,

Anna. Lots of Twitter updates, beginning with this. Truth social has been very, very powerful, very, very strong. And I'll be saying that, but I hear we're getting a big vote to also go back on Twitter. I don't see it, Because I don't see any reason for it. They have a lot of problems at Twitter. You see what's going on. It may make it. It may not make it.

But the problems are incredible. The engagements are negative. And you have a lot of bots and you have a lot of fake accounts, which I think they should get on. There you have former President Donald Trump pretending like he doesn't care about Twitter. Has no interest in posting on Twitter. But over the weekend, when Elon Musk put up a poll asking Twitter, Twitter users, whether or not Donald Trump should be allowed back on the site, Trump posted about it on truth social, saying, vote now with positivity, but don't worry, we aren't going

anywhere. Truth social is special. It's special, all right, just not in the way that he thinks it is. But nonetheless, if he doesn't care, why is he asking his fans and followers to go participate in the poll. In the end, about 51.8% voted yes, and Elon Musk did in fact unbanned Donald Trump from the platform. Now Musk is desperately trying to get Trump to post on Twitter, which I don't really know why, but Trump so far has resisted. In an interview at the Republican Jewish Coalition conference over the weekend, Trump tried to explain why he would not be tweeting and briefly forgot the name of his own website in the process. Let's watch. What do you think about Elon Musk buying Twitter? And if you are reinstated, will we see you

back on Twitter again? Well, I like that he bought it. I've always liked him. I got along with him very well. He did put up a poll, and I hear it's very overwhelming, very strong. But I have something called Trump. If you look, it's Trump-owned, but it's really fantastic truth, social. And truth social is through the roof. It's doing phenomenally well. The press hates to talk about it, but it's doing phenomenally well. I think engagement is much better than it is with Twitter. And it's taking care of voices that really want to be taken care of and really smart voices, brilliant voices.

Truth social is not doing really well. And if you want to talk about engagement, keep in mind that while Trump had 80 million followers on Twitter, over At truth social, it's down to five million. Now technically speaking, Trump is allowed to post on other sites. His agreement with truth social opens the door for Trump to engage extensively on other platforms. Trump is obligated to give truth social a six hour exclusive on any post, but is free to post political messaging, political fundraising, or get out the vote efforts on any site at any time, according to a May SEC filing. Now that he's officially running for president, though, he could argue that anything he posts is political and should be allowed on any

site at any time. And Trump's following, again, it's not even quite 5 million, it's 4.59 million on Truth Social versus the 80 million on Twitter. So my prediction is probably by tonight, probably by the time you watch this video, Trump's already posting on Twitter. But as of now, he hasn't done so yet. Now, Truth Social is having lots of financial issues as well that I want to kind of draw a little bit of attention to. Trump has told his allies that he can't leave truth social because he's propping it up and he doesn't want a site so closely associated with his brand to collapse, according to people familiar with his thinking.

Because you know, things that Trump has launched, businesses that Trump is associated with never collapse. So he wouldn't want to start now, right? I mean, he's only gone bankrupt six different times. More than 1.3 billion in financing for the platform is dependent on the completion of a planned merger between Trump media and blank check company Digital World Acquisition Corp that currently must be completed by December 8th. The deal is facing investigations by federal prosecutors and securities regulators that could force digital world to liquidate

in early December, which could put an end to the merger. But there is one way that Elon Musk is trying to get Donald Trump to start posting on Twitter again. And it's through this, I guess, somewhat lewd content that he posted on Twitter. So for religious folks who are easily offended, look away. For everyone else, this is what he posted, Elon Musk says, and lead us not to temptation. With Donald Trump being represented by Jesus, and then Jesus kind of salivating and trying to tempt, trying to resist, yeah, resist the temptation to, I guess, have sex with that animated figure. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. Okay, so look, one of our members has it exactly right, which is unsurprising.

Richie had poor on Twitch said he won't be going back to Twitter because Spack can't get sued, can get sued by its investors and he'll go bankrupt again. I love our members. You guys are so smart. That's exactly right. And so now, Anna's also right that he might not be able to help himself anyway. Exactly. But I guarantee you that his advisors have told him a couple of dozen times. Now, Mr. President, remember, we have this SPAC that we're doing, and the whole value of this true social, and yes, it's called true social, not Trump by guy the social to social okay he doesn't even know the name of his own company so dumb okay and the reason they have to tell him dozens of times is because he's dense and he's acts irrationally like like a child he's impetuous he's like oh i want to be on Twitter oh that looks kind

of naughty i want to do that right so they'd say mr former president oh sorry you're still president or whatever you need. Remember, the whole value of your company is dependent on you being there so that all the right wingers come there. If you're on Twitter, they don't have to come to true social. Remember, we told all of our shareholders that you would post on true social. That would be your platform. That's why they should come to it. If you then go to Twitter, the shareholders will say, hey, wait a minute, we were misled. We thought you were going to post on true social and not only will the price collapse, but you'll get sued personally. It's like there's no, he'd be nuts to post on Twitter. Look, this SPAC, if he had put a

competent person in charge instead of Devin Nunes, it could have been worth up to $10 billion by now. He could have actually gotten to the place where he was pretending to be all along. But already through his incompetence, he's bungled away most of that, right? By hiring complete incompetence running a totally ridiculous organization that did not give confidence to shareholders being erratic, saying terrible things, etc. But now he could still rescue a significant amount of money if he just has a discipline to stay on his own platform. He's going to be posting on Twitter by tonight. No, he's going to post on Twitter. Like you think when has an investigation, criminal investigation ever stopped him? When has a lawsuit ever stopped him? He doesn't care. He thinks

that he's entitled to do whatever he wants with impunity. And guess what? For the longest time, he's been able to do whatever he wants with impunity. So like, I know, but there's one wrinkle here. And I'm not saying that he's not going to, but he's going to blow big time. It isn't about, oh, hey, lawsuits, he's going to lose the lawsuits. That is real and could happen. But mainly the price is going to fall, right?

You mean you mean Trump might be swayed by a smart financial decision, the man who's gone bankrupt six times? No, my point is, like, I get it, I'm agreeing with you that he's not going to be able to help himself, but he will see his money flowing out the door as he does it, like in real time. Yeah. And so, okay, and he's probably too stupid to help himself. Excellent. He should have been promoting it all along. He waited for months before he even sent out one post because it's obvious that he despises his own platform. Okay, so just be done with it right.

And I'll give must credit for this. He's basically going, come here little boy, he's basically dangling candy in front of him while saying come into my white van. You'll love it in here. And Trump's like, oh, candy, somebody said candy. Okay, so of course he's going to do it. He's a moron. Yeah, so we'll see how it all plays out. But I find it all very amusing.

And look, anyone who's still on Twitter who might be hyperventilating about this, stop hyperventilating. about it, okay? Donald Trump was eventually going to be allowed back on Twitter. As soon as Elon Musk actually went through with buying Twitter, which was kind of shocking, I had no doubt that eventually Trump was going to be on it. Trump will probably dominate headlines with his tweets as soon as he starts tweeting again, which was probably the most annoying thing about Trump being on Twitter. But this is, this is it. I mean, Elon Musk, How is this man the head of multiple companies? He is like, when you say terminally online, you should think of Elon Musk.

There should be a photo of Elon Musk in the dictionary next to the wording terminally online. The guy spends all his time on Twitter. Yeah. So that's a huge issue. And in fact, that's why Tesla has lost so much value over the last six months. That's why overall Elon Musk has lost $100 billion in net worth. And even his own shareholders are saying, will you get off of online for one second and go do your other job? The job that's like worth 10,000 times more. Twitter's barely worth anything no matter what you paid for it.

So that's definitely true. But I want to agree with you on one other thing. The media hyperventilating about Elon Musk. Okay, I got it, guys. He bought it. Move on. Yeah, is he was he ever going to do a, what was that BS thing, content moderation council or whatever thing he was going to? He pretended he was going to do, oh, advertisers.

And he's liked Trump a little bit, too. He's a rash little child. He's like, oh, advertisers, don't worry. I've got to put together this wonderful blue ribbon council. And I'm not going to decide who's going to be on. They're going to decide. And then he's like, no, I'm impatient. I want to do it now.

I want to do it now. Trumpy, you're back, you're back. And then he does a stupid ass poll of his own right-wing followers. It's a very strong poll. It's a very strong poll. But the engagement is negative. It's negative 13. That's what the people are saying.

I don't know what that means. So in a lot of ways, they're the same people. So I will say this, though, just a quick observation. And maybe this is a testament to the coders over at Twitter building something that's sustainable enough to, you know, I guess deal with the incompetence that we've been noticing with Elon Musk's leadership thus far. I mean, Twitter seems to be chugging along. No, yeah. Right? I don't know if and when it's going to fall apart, but it's, did 88% of the employees actually leave? Because if they actually left and it's still running, that's a little bit of a

minor miracle and something that is not, I mean, it's just, it's something to watch out for. That's all. I can't believe it. And it's not good news for employees if 88% of them can leave and the thing doesn't fall apart. Well, I mean, look, I'm just being honest with you. That's the conclusion people are going to draw. I don't, I don't like that conclusion. Well, okay, so what I'll say about that is, you know, there's Twitter functionality and the employees who are kind of in charge of that. And then there are other teams of workers who focus on things that aren't related to Twitter's functionality. So, for instance, there was a group of employees that were tasked with human rights issues.

Now, why would they need that? Well, Twitter is an international platform. So when you're dealing with some of these countries that don't have the free speech rights that we have here in the United States, you know, you need a group of lawyers and counsel that can kind of navigate those issues and deal with those human rights concerns when it comes to their platform. So those types of employees gone, gone. And Elon Musk, I mean, he's made it abundantly clear that while he pretends to care so much

about free speech. In reality, he doesn't think that these types of workers are really worthy. He doesn't think he needs them. So sure, get rid of them. But you're going to run into issues once you, I don't know, someone hits you up from, let's say, from China's government and says, we're going to block your site unless you do X, Y, and Z. Those issues come up all the time. Yeah. And so, look, part of the people that he fired are folks like salespeople that you don't need to run a company, but eventually you'll run out of revenue. But the Twitter machine is not going to fall apart if the salespeople are not in the building. Part of the stuff is, part of the employees are folks that eventually, not on day one, but on day 12, day 37, something's going to fall apart.

Something's going to fall out of the car and it's going to be real bad, right? So that hasn't happened yet. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, but it's only been a couple of days. So let's see if something does actually fall out of the car. On the last thing on the mainstream media hyperventilate, they're like, oh, can you believe this? You know, advertisers are not going to go back for this kind of immaturity and putting Trump back. And I'll be honest, it's Don Lemon on CNN that said it this morning, right? Okay, come on.

But Don, you live in a glass house. CNN propelled Donald Trump to where he is today. CNN hired a bunch of Trump administration officials to be contributors. What are you talking about? What are you talking about right now? No, I just, I can't. I can't with these people. And the reason is because they're mainstream media and they look down their nose

at any kind of new media, including social media, and they're like, oh, Twitter is so unsurious. That's not where serious advertisers should go. They should know here at CNN, we value advertisers way more than anyone else on the planet. That's why, for example, we'll lie on their behalf and try to torpedo Medicare for all so that they could charge higher drug prices. Do you see how morally uncompromised we are at CNN? Please, spare me. When we come back from the break, we'll talk about the latest scam in the mortgage industry. It's called Contracts for Deed. And later we'll also talk about the brewing infighting within the Republican Party between the politicians and the activists over the anti-abortion issue.

That and more coming right up. All right back on TYT, Jank and Anna with you guys, but also Shane just became a member. And so did Steve Hutchinson. So Shane and Steve, welcome guys. We love having you with us. All right, Anna. Well, let's talk a little bit about how Somali is. immigrants are being targeted with risky loans that they don't fully understand because

they're not being, you know, protected by consumer regulations. Let's get to it. An incredibly risky way to purchase homes is making a comeback following the 2008 housing market crash. And many buyers are signing contracts that they don't fully understand thanks to the lack of regulation in this area. They're known as contracts for deed or lease to sell, or lease to buy, I should say. Now, an alternative way to purchase a house, a contract for deed, is a financial agreement

in which a buyer pays the seller directly in installments, no mortgage, no bank. Now, people who tend to have either no credit or bad credit sometimes rely on this method of buying a home. But it comes along with many risks. And for a lot of people who sign on the dotted line, they don't fully understand what the risks or the terms really are. So again, it seems like an appealing deal. Some people make it work, but there is a catch or many catches. So for instance, until the final payment is made, the seller holds the ownership papers to the property and the contract can be canceled by the seller if the buyer falls behind on their monthly payments. If that happens, the buyer forfeits all the money they've

put into the purchase, including the down payment. The seller could then evict the buyer after as little as 60 days. Okay, so understand how these contracts for deed differ from a traditional mortgage, okay? Let's say you qualified for traditional mortgage, you were able to close escrow on a property. You are able to, let's say, sell that property later if you built equity on it and you've made some money, right? Or let's say you want to take out a HELOC loan, meaning you borrow against your home if it has accumulated some equity to do home improvements

or whatever you have a family emergency that you have to pay for. That's what you can do with a traditional mortgage. Under these contracts for deed, you don't have that right because you don't really own the home. The seller is the person who owns the home, has all the documentation indicating that he or she

owns the home and they can actually pull the rug under you at any time in some states because there are so few regulations dealing with this. Let me give you some other examples. Unlike a mortgage from a bank, which typically needs to be paid off in 15 or 30 years, contracts for deed often come due in five or 10 years. Some contracts reviewed by ProPublica and Sahan Journal were even shorter, an assessment of the value of the house known as an appraisal is not required to determine the selling price. The buyer is responsible for all repairs and renovations as well as insurance costs on the property. So think about that. An appraisal is not mandatory, which is already a massive red flag. And what's happening is some of these sellers will buy a home

with a traditional mortgage, and in some cases, on that very same day, they will then sell it through this contract for deed method after jacking up the price significantly. Like literally close escrow on one day, and in that same day, sell it to someone who might not have good credit or no credit at all through contract for deed. Now, many buyers mistakenly believe, this is the most important part, by the way. Many buyers mistakenly believe that if they make the monthly payments stipulated in their contracts, they will successfully pay off the home by the end of the contract term. But those payments may only add up to a portion of the price of the home.

And the buyer is expected to make up the difference with a lump sum payment known as a balloon or by refinancing the loan. The lenders almost have an incentive for the contracts to fail. They get the home and they get to pocket the payments. So think about that. I mean, it's making money essentially off of kind of scamming people, right? Because if you're not clear about the terms of the agreement, a lot of times the buyer is unaware of that balloon payment at the very end. And sometimes that can run them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If they can't afford it, they lose the home and all that money they put into the home leading up to that point. So this used to be called loan sharking, basically. and it was made illegal, and the mob used to do it. And so we then passed some regulations to protect Americans for whether it was extremely high interest rates of the payday lenders were charging or scams like this where you're lulled into false sense of security,

oh, come here, come this way, oh, it's going to be great in the beginning, and then at the end it balloons and you're screwed and you have no rights, right? The government used to protect you because it used to be a democracy. And now it's not a democracy anymore, it's just an open auction. So right before the election, the lever, David Serota's organization, broke a story about Ted Bud.

And he was running for Senate, North Carolina, he was already a congressman. And he wound up winning that seat. The Democrat in the race didn't use this against them. But he took a lot of money from organizations that drive up interest rates. And then he got them, he pushed for a multi-billy, about a nine. billion dollar break for them. Now somebody estimated at much higher, but they're just buying our politicians and our politicians are then telling the regulators, don't regulate, don't. And then they're telling the right wing media, tell them, oh, deregulation is the greatest thing in the world.

Regulation, boo, laws, boo, boo, no, you should let the people at the top do whatever the hell they want, right? So a bunch of people unsurprisingly get together and go, oh, this is a fun way to rip off folks. And again, remember in business, they always do math. What I mean by that is they do the calculation. They go, this is this number of people we know we will drive into bankruptcy and we will get to take or steal their home, depending on how you want to frame it. And we make money in the short term, and then we make more money in the long term. And we have to have the financing cost to cover the first year, 10 years, et cetera, until we can rob them of their home, and then our return will be even greater.

And so they did that math because that's who they are. And then our regulators that were supposed to protect us were sent home by the corrupt politicians. Now, in Minnesota, this scam has really impacted the Somali community because let's keep it real. I mean, they're immigrants, they might want to move into a home, but the housing market is just astronomical. I mean, normal people like can't afford a home in this country, right? So they get lured in by promises of like an easy policy, you know, no interest. You don't have to worry about being approved by a big bank for a mortgage or a loan. You know, you got this, you got this.

And there's a cultural issue at play as well because, Based on ProPublica's reporting, when it comes to Somali culture, you know, they're more trusting through these verbal agreements, right? So they'll listen to the lender in this case, which is the seller of the home, and they just assume that the person is telling them the truth. But you read the fine print, and the fine print indicates that they have this insane balloon payment at the end of their contractual term. and there are all sorts of issues that could lead to them losing the house and the money they put into the house to begin with. And this was a huge problem in the lead up to the 2008 housing collapse. This was a widespread method of getting people to agree to these contracts if they had bad

credit or no credit at all. And a lot of them got foreclosed on because they defaulted when they couldn't afford that balloon payment at the very end. It's just sick. And there's like very few regulations to deal with it. That's the real problem here. And that's the reason why ProPublica was reporting on it. In some of the countries from the old days, old country, right?

That's what I call. I'm from Turkey and I could consider that old country, right? And there are slightly different culture than here, right? So when I was a kid in Turkey, we were taught loyalty. Here in America. There's none. Zero. It's considered actually a weakness in the business community to have loyalty, literally, very.

Very, very, very literally, okay? So there are certain things that you're taught in those cultures, and not all of them are good, by the way, but there are upsides to that. And some of the things you're taught are wonderful things, right? And you come here, and then you expect honor, loyalty from the person you're dealing with, and you come to find out, no, this is America. Nobody has honor, okay? You just, you have to make sure you read the fine print.

Otherwise, they will definitely rob you. Thousand percent. And in fact, the whole system is incentivized to rob you. So be really, really careful. It might be a land of hope and opportunity for some, but it's also a land of robbery where it's not the people who needed the most that do the robberies. It's the people at the very top that needed the least that do the robberies, and they pay off the politicians to make sure there are no cops. Thousand percent. So be careful.

All right, well, let's end the first hour on a delightful story about GOP infighting. It's been my favorite trend as of late, but there are some parallels with the left on this issue, not on this particular issue, but when it comes to infighting. Nonetheless, let's talk about it. There's growing tension and infighting between Republican politicians and conservative activists. And it has to do with abortion messaging and abortion policy. While Republican candidates and lawmakers have come to terms with the lack of popularity surrounding anti-abortion policies, conservative activists are demanding that they put these issues front and center

and actually do more policy-wise to make abortions even more restricted in the United States. As political rights, some of the largest anti-abortion groups are lashing out at Mitch McConnell, the person arguably most responsible for securing the Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe for keeping the issue at arm's length, while voters in his home state considered, and luckily rejected, a Republican-sponsored ballot initiative limiting abortion rights. In fact, Frank Cannon, who's a political strategist with an anti-abortion group, says, if the argument is that this is a state issue, McConnell was not in the state arguing for the ballot initiative. By the way, that ballot initiative would have stripped their state

constitution of reproductive rights. So that's what Mitch McConnell wasn't doing any campaigning on and the activists are very, very upset with him on that. But let me continue. There was nobody in the state making it clear what was at stake. The pro-life movement has to do a better job and the political element of the pro-life movement has to step up. Without that, we're going to be in trouble. Well, hey, Frank, have you considered that, you know, various polls have indicated that the vast majority of Americans do not want to ban abortion, and politicians who aren't looking to, you know, commit political suicide, want to run away from that issue to avoid losing elections? Has that, has that ever? But that's the thing, that's the disconnect

between the politics and the activists. And on the left, we've got our own flavor of that. Okay, not on the abortion issue, but on other issues. And so that, that tension continues. It's really interesting. Well, so that's the really frustrating thing about progressives or people claiming to be progressive leaders these days. Because some of our issues, most of the great majority of our issues are not at all like this abortion issue. So for example, they say, oh my God, can you believe that all the Republican politicians aren't actively supporting the 15 week law that Lindsay Graham wants to push at the national level that would ban all

abortions after 15 weeks why don't they go out there and make a strong case for it and then they will convince the whole country now that's what we also say about $15 minimum wage so you might say wait a minute maybe you guys are both just as extreme no but wait in there's a giant difference that's where the mainstream media will leave it and go you see those two extremes right no but $15 minimum wage polls at around 67% So two thirds of the country definitely wants that policy. Whereas this loses in Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana.

It just happened. It lost significantly in the deep red state of Kentucky. That's why they're mad. So your proposals are deeply unpopular. Our proposals are deeply popular. So does that make a difference? Of course. But the thing is, their proposals get put into law and ours don't.

So now those same activists are saying, yeah, they want the Republicans to push harder, rhetorically, politically, et cetera. But at the same time, at the end of the article, they expand, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no more ballot measures. Oh, so you know you're deeply unpopular. Yeah, they do. So you know that no matter what state, no matter what state, even the reddest state, if you put it to the people, they will vote in favor of keeping abortion rights.

So they've now switched their tactic to, no, capture the state legislature. as we have been and then force it down their throats because that way we don't have to ask the people and we can put our unpopular positions in place. Meanwhile, Democrats go, oh, our super popular positions paid family leave, $15 minimum wage, et cetera. No, let's sit on our ass and not do anything because our donors told us to play a kabuki theater game here where we pretend to be in favor of it, but at the end we never actually do it. So those popular provisions never get done and these things do. So there's more on that, but go ahead. Well, I mean, I want to some examples of specific races where the anti-abortion activists think that the lack of

anti-abortion messaging is really what led to Republican candidates losing. So one example is Dr. Oz. And this quote really stood out to me from a so-called pro-life activists. So she says this. Dr. Oz was as articulate on abortion as his opponent, John Federman, was during the debate, said Christy Hamrick with students for life, comparing Oz's reluctance to speak on the issue to Senator-elect John Federman's verbal struggles after his stroke. Running away from the pro-life issue like that really discourages a very motivated core of voters. This year wasn't the time if this year wasn't the time if you were trying to draw a distinction to back away. So it wasn't popular. Banning abortion wasn't popular. And Republican candidates, including Dr. Oz, wiped their

campaign websites of any mention of their anti-abortion stances because it was unpopular. In fact, it wasn't until Dr. Oz moved away from that issue and focused his campaigning on, you know, the crime messaging where he was finally able to close that massively that John Federman had on him. But it wasn't enough for him to end up winning, luckily. But I just love. I love how, like, that's the thing, and Jenks says us all the time. He says people have a difficult time seeing outside of their own perspectives. And that's really what's happening here. So these activists are endlessly steeped in this one issue, and they're surrounded by like-minded

individuals who think banning abortion is the most important thing in the world, and it's very, very popular because I have surrounded myself with a bunch of people who also say that it's very, very popular to ban abortion. Yeah, but you don't live in reality. Your little activist anti-abortion bubble is not representative of what the electorate thinks. And upward of 70% of the electorate does not want to ban abortion. But they don't want to accept that. And so the tension continues.

And honestly, I'm kind of enjoying it. 100%. So look, guys, first of all, if you're an anti-abortion activist, the country is just not that into you. And so, number one, there's literal votes, ballot measures in the, states that you picked. We didn't pick Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, you picked them. And you utterly failed in the reddest states there are because they don't agree with you. Get it? And by the way, every poll in the case. I don't believe in polls. Well, here's elections. And I know what you're going to say next. I don't believe in elections. I know, I know. You're right wingers. You want

dictators. I get it. Okay. But by the way, unlike the right way and unlike anyone else in American politics, we're actually fair and honest. So for example, are there progressive positions or positions that people are calling progressive that are unpopular? Yes, there are. So defund the police is a disaster. It polls terribly. And when someone runs on it, in the beginning, in very small races, they can win like city council. But once you get to the state or national level, they get annihilated because it is a very unpopular position. So now when you say this in the left, it causes blowback. There'll be people on the left that'll see this and go, how

dare you? How dare you? What? I'm telling you what is a reality. Those are poll numbers. Those are election numbers. You can choose to stay in your own bubble and say, no, I bet defund the police polls at 98%. And I'm going to run my campaign on it. Have at it, Ha' bad it, hoss. It's not going to matter because you're not going to win. And so

you can get super mad at me, but that's a reality. For these anti-abortion people, nobody ever tells them the truth. Because remember, they live in a bubble filled with nothing but lies. They've been lying the whole time about, oh my God, the Democrats are going to have abortions up and through birth. Well, I mean, if you guys are built your whole campaign on lies, of course you're not going to know what reality is, right? Nobody says that people should be allowed to get abort. For sure, as well, after birth abortion is the- It's called

murder. If you believe that there's such a thing, you're so beyond help. No, but you know what's amazing, Jank, in this political piece, the activists say that banning abortion within 15 weeks or at 15 weeks doesn't go far enough because they acknowledge that the vast majority of abortions happened in the first trimester. Yeah, of course. No, I just love it because for their propaganda, they use that lie about after birth abortions and they make it seem as though like, oh, actual like healthy living, breathing babies are being aborted. No, I'm not. that's not what's happening. They know. Their admission in this piece makes it abundantly clear that they know that the vast majority of abortions happen in the first trimester.

No, but remember guys, literally everything the anti-abortion movement has done is predicated on lies. Oh, Democrats are killing babies. They will set up entire clinics, pretending to be doctors wearing white lab coats. We've covered it before. You can read the articles, you can watch our videos. Crisis pregnancy centers. Crisis pregnancy centers. They're all across the country. There's hundreds of them, right? You walk in, you're thinking you're talking to a doctor. No, they're all liars. None of them are doctors. None of them are in the medical field at all. And they speed you a bunch of lies about if you have abortion, you're going to get breast cancer later or whatever weird made up things that they do.

And then they're shocked to find out that their version of reality wasn't real at all. Of course. You built your entire position on lies. It's not surprising. And so, and then finally I come back to, look, if you choose to have unpopular positions, you will lose elections. That's how democracy works. And you could think, like, for example, if you're a prison abolitionist on the left. You can think my position is awesome.

I'm positive of it. And I'm positive that I can convince everyone that everybody's going to be better off if there are no prisons at all. We just let everybody go. Okay. Have that it, host. Go for it. I believe in a free country. But you're not going to convince people of that.

And it's just not going to work. So stay in your own bubble if you want. That's your choice. But understand, you're definitely in a bubble. And by the way, the mainstream media and mainstream politicians in the biggest bubble of all. Oh, yeah, paid family leave and Social Security and Medicare, I bet they're not popular at all. We should cut those things. We should cut everything that helps the American people.

Oh, Americans love it when you give it to defense contractors, trillions of dollars at a time. They're in the biggest lying bubble of all. Just keep it real. All right, Samuel Alito is probably behind a massive leak in the Supreme Court. that story and more coming right up. 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.