The Young Turks - Lies & Deception

Starting point is 00:00:00 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. We're going to be able to be. Welcome to Young Turks, Jake Ugar and Akisperin with you guys. Well, we've got a lot of news, text and text and tweets. That's the theme of today's show. So with that for-

Starting point is 00:01:33 It's a theme of our political system. These days, it certainly seems that way. And of course, there's always money, money, money. Yeah. All right. Text first. All right, let's do it. CNN has obtained thousands of text messages that former chief of staff Mark Meadows

Starting point is 00:01:51 had provided to the January 6 panel. And boy, are these text messages, dozies, including some updates on Marjorie Taylor Green and which she was communicating to Mark Meadows on the day the rioters storm the capital, causing mayhem and absolute chaos. And it's relevant considering the fact that Marjorie Taylor Green is currently being questioned in regard to whether or not she can seek reelection due to her part in the January 6 riots. Now, she had texted Mark Meadows as the riots were taking place. Quote, Mark, I was just told there is an active shooter on the first floor of the Capitol. Please tell the president to calm people. This isn't the way to solve anything.

Starting point is 00:02:40 So the fact that she wants White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to reach out to Trump makes it abundantly clear that she knows the rioters are there on behalf of Trump. They want to overturn the results of the election. And it's very different from what she said, under oath in the video that you're about to watch. When you were notified that people had entered the capital illegally, did you also understand that point that there had been violence at the Capitol? I only knew what I was told. I'd heard a gunshot. We all heard it. And we were so confused. We thought Antifa was breaking in or BLM because of those were.

Starting point is 00:03:27 the riots that had gone on and on all throughout 2020, day in and day out. Just horrible riots all over the country. And that was the only thing that made sense to most of us. She lied. She lied. That's flat out lie because, again, on January 6th, Jenk, she text messages Mark Meadows to tell him to communicate to Trump to make it stop. Yeah, if you thought it was Antifa or BLM, how would Trump make them stop?

Starting point is 00:03:55 Trump saying don't do it would presumably make them want to do it more. So it just betrays the bias that she has, of course. She sees somebody breaking the law and she thinks it must be black people, it must be left wingers, even though she saw that it was a giant Trump crowd earlier in the day, right? She just can't believe her lying eyes that it would be her beloved white people and what right wingers that are causing the violence. But of course, another giant thing here is now all the right wingers are downplaying January 6th, no big deal. But on January 6th, Marjorie Taylor

Starting point is 00:04:30 agrees like, please tell the president, he's got to comment down. They're all literally scared to death. There's an active shooter. She's terrified about the active shooter. I mean, and she should have been, as every other member of Congress was as they're stuck in that building with all this chaos unfolding. And by the way, that text message to Mark Meadows did not end up getting a response. So Mark Meadows didn't respond to her there. Now, Green actually helped craft various strategies to prevent the certification of the election. That's also revealed in these text messages. And it's also very relevant to the fact that she's being, her reelection bid is being challenged as we speak.

Starting point is 00:05:10 Now, on December 31st, Green reached out to Meadows for advice about how to prepare for objections to certifying the election on January 6th. Good morning, Mark. I'm here in D.C., she wrote. We have to get organized for the sixth. I would like to meet with Rudy Giuliani again. We didn't get to speak with him long. Also, anyone who can help, we are getting a lot of members on board and we need to lay out the best case for each state. So she was very much involved in the planning, in various strategies to essentially go against

Starting point is 00:05:45 the will of the people to ensure that Donald Trump, who was not elected as president, remained in power. Meadows does not respond to that text message either. By January 17th, so this is obviously 11 days after the riots took place. Green was suggesting ways to keep Trump in office telling Meadows, there were several Republicans in Congress who still wanted the then president to declare martial law, which had been raised in a heated Oval Office meeting a month earlier. These are all incredibly relevant.

Starting point is 00:06:16 Okay, so one more text I want to read from Marjorie Taylor Green. She wrote, in her private chat with only members, several are saying the only way to save our republic is for Trump to call for martial law. I don't know, I don't know on those things. I just wanted to tell him, they stole this election, we all know, they will destroy our country next, please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else. Yeah. Okay, so lots of stuff there. A couple of things that actually are on Marjorie Taylor Green's side and then a couple of things disastrously against her. Why do I say that?

Starting point is 00:06:59 You can see from the text that she did, which she clearly thought would never be revealed. Otherwise, she wouldn't have said the other things in the text that she genuinely thinks that the election was stolen. So this is what we're talking about at the end of last week. The only issue Kevin McCarthy will have with Republicans is not because he was brazenly lying about what he said on January 6th, which got revealed at the end of last week. They don't care about lying at all. He would get in trouble because he's not a genuine lunatic unlike Marjorie Taylor Green. And here she shows she is the real deal.

Starting point is 00:07:32 She genuinely believes that without any evidence at all, that the election was stolen. She further says you should declassify the materials because she believes that there is actual evidence that Trump can declassify that would show that the election is still on. Now, Trump knows there's no actual evidence. That's why he didn't declassify anything before he left office, because there was nothing to declassify. Does it look like Trump didn't want to try everything he could to stay in office? No, he clearly, whatever he had, he threw the kitchen sink at it, okay? The reason he didn't declassify anything is because there wasn't anything. There was nothing to declassify. Okay.

Starting point is 00:08:11 So now on to the disastrous parts of Marjorie Taylor Green, when people say, and again, a slight defense here in the beginning, I've seen some people put it in headlines and I think it's misleading where she says organized for the sixth in the quote that Anna read you, right? She meant not organized for the riots that happened to be fair to her. Now, but to be fair to the rest of us, what she actually meant is organized the actual coup, okay? guys, we've been telling you this, and I feel like we're the only show that it clarifies this.

Starting point is 00:08:43 There's two different things that happened on January 6th. One was the riot, the violent breaking into the capital. Then it had a zero chance of success. It's not like they were going to violently take the capital and we couldn't remove them with weapons. Right. Then there's that second thing that they were trying, which is the actual coup, with fake electors. And Pence was supposed to say, oh, the legitimate electors are not going to be seated. we're going to put the fake electors in.

Starting point is 00:09:09 Jim Jordan wrote a huge text that we're going to talk about later in the show related to that. And Marjorie Taylor Green's in the actual coup camp. She's like, let's organize for January 6th. And she talks to some of the texts about how, you know, they're going to try to make sure that Biden doesn't get seated. That's the fake electorate strategy. That is way, way worse. But no one focuses on that in Washington because that involves actual elected officials. and Donald Trump, and the Democrats would wet themselves if they tried to actually hold anyone

Starting point is 00:09:42 in power accountable. They'd be so afraid that it would come back to them. The elites are their friends, and they view Marjorie Taylor Green is so much a bigger part of who they are as an elite. She's a sitting congresswoman. They would never, ever take criminal action against her, right? Because they'd be worried about their own asses. But that's the actual coup.

Starting point is 00:10:03 Navarro, Bannon, Jordan, Green, Trump himself should all be a real. arrested for trying to subvert democracy. And finally, well, we have incontrovertible proof you just saw it with your own eyes. She said declare martial law. No, that's a coup. That's a literal coup where you say, no, we will not seat the guy who won in a democracy. Instead, we will have military ruled. And look, for the right witness, I know you don't care about facts, logic, hypocrisy, or any of that.

Starting point is 00:10:30 But think about, I'll try one time anyway. Think about when Gore had actually won the election in 2000, later, when it was recounted, he'd won the electoral college too, but it was too late. But at the time, he had an excellent case, obviously, that he had won the election. He'd won the popular vote by a large margin. Imagine if Bill Clinton, who was a sitting president at the time, said, no, we're not going to sit George W. Bush. We're going to do martial law, have military rule, and Al Gore will be president.

Starting point is 00:10:56 Well, they don't have to worry about that kind of stuff, obviously not retroactively with what happened in the past, but certainly not in the future with a flaccid Democratic party that's scared of its own shadow. We're dealing with an asymmetrical situation here where you have one party that is willing to do anything and everything, including dismantling our whole democracy in order to maintain power in the most authoritarian way imaginable. Whereas the Democratic Party is sitting there, you know, playing patty cakes,

Starting point is 00:11:26 doing their, look, the panel, I mean, it's the panel investigation is ongoing. But what is the point of that panel investigation? You know, people got mad at me because I called out the panel for refusing to refer criminal charges to the DOJ in regard to Donald Trump and his criminality in all of this. Like, well, you know, we don't want to get, if we do that, it might seem too political. So we're just going to, we're just going to hope, we're going to hope that Attorney General Merrick Garland figures out on his own that he should prosecute Trump criminally for what he did. Is Merrick Garland going to do that?

Starting point is 00:12:02 Zero percent chance. Zero percent chance. We have weakness on top of weakness, on top of weakness in the Democratic Party. And so when you say, oh, to the right, the right, those questions, jank, those thought experiments don't work with them because they know that they don't have to worry about it. Yeah, they're not at all afraid that Democrats would use their power. That's why it's hilarious that whenever they're like, oh, the Democrats abuse of power, where?

Starting point is 00:12:27 Maybe against progressives within the Democratic Party, yeah, that's why. That's where they're tough, that's where they use dirty tricks, they use corruption, they use all those things. That's when their real interests are at hand, because they could lose power to progressives within their own party. But when it comes to fighting Republicans, they have the same donors. They're never going to fight those donors. It'd be fighting their own boss, and they're in the same club, and they don't want to expose

Starting point is 00:12:52 that club to any criminal liability. So they'll do absolutely nothing about it. But our job is to inform you guys. So this is the news today, Marjorie Taylor Green is a traitor who planned a coup so that America would be ruled by military rule. It's in the text. So but as Anna said and I've said, that's not going to affect our voters at all. They kind of like that idea.

Starting point is 00:13:17 If you told them martial law by a Democrat, they'd say, we knew it, they're gonna run our lives, big government, I can't believe it though it's so oppressive tyranny. I'm gonna grab my weapons. You say martial law by Republicans. When? Let's do it. I can't wait. I mean, all we heard over and over again during the Obama administration was how authoritarian he was due to his executive orders. Yeah. So just think about that.

Starting point is 00:13:43 Obama authoritarian due to executive orders, unilateral action. But these are the same people who have absolutely no problem with essentially going against our democratic process, the will of the American people, just to ensure that their side and their favorite little daddy is able to maintain power in the most undemocratic way. It's sick. Okay, one last thing. Why did they need martial law? Well, because they were going to put in fake electors who were not at all real electors. They had them sign fake documents. These are all, it's all on the record. In fact, Navarro and Ben brag about it.

Starting point is 00:14:16 Navarro wrote a whole book about it, okay? So, well, when they bring those to court, even that Trump appointed justices and judges, etc were saying no this is absurd this is not anywhere near legal right in terms of the other cases and presumably when they brought the fake collectors and the court would have said that even more stridently to give the court system credit here because they they really held up the conservative judges did and so did the trump judges during 2020 they all unanimously said Trump has no evidence everything about their charges were lies so when they went to the courts they would have definitely lost.

Starting point is 00:14:55 That's why they needed military rule to say, we don't care what the courts say. You're now living under military rule and we'll do whatever we want. And Trump is president. And that always turns into president for life. Well, let's get to that part of the story because there were more than 2,000 text messages, a lot of different angles to tackle this story from. And I want to talk about what Trump's campaign was actually discussing behind the scenes while publicly they were pretending as if the election was stolen from Trump.

Starting point is 00:15:53 And what we discover is that there were Trump campaign officials, in fact, officials at the very top of Trump's campaign, who not only acknowledged behind the scenes that there was no voter fraud, but were communicating with other Republican members of Congress that there was no evidence of voter fraud. So as CNN writes, on November 6th, Jason Miller, Trump's campaign spokesman, texted a group which included Ivanka, Ivanka Trump, of course, Kushner, Hicks, Stepion, Scavino and Meadows suggesting that the numbers in Philadelphia didn't back up claims about election fraud there, okay? So I'm gonna give you the text message specifically from the campaign spokesman Jason Miller. He writes, one other key data point. In 2016, POTUS received 15.5% of the vote in Philadelphia County. Today, he is currently at 18.3%. So he increased from his performance in 2016. In the state, as it currently stands, Philadelphia County only makes up 10.2% of the statewide vote tally. So POTUS performed better in a smaller share. Senator Rick Santorum was

Starting point is 00:17:06 just making this point on CNN, cuts hard against the urban vote stealing narrative. So essentially he's saying, yeah, it turns out that there wasn't really voter fraud in Philadelphia. So there's one amusing thing about that Jason Miller text. It's still in an era, even though it was under Trump, where he thinks they have to bother being, like attaching a giant flotilla of lies to a dingy of truth. Okay. Now they're untethered from that completely. They don't need any kernel of truth at all. So it's kind of quaint that he's like, oh, we're saying black people stole the election, but Trump's share the vote actually. increased in black areas and their share of the vote overall decreased so our

Starting point is 00:17:52 arguments full of crap and it'll easily be proven to be full of crap so we should switch to another argument that'll be harder to disprove right but no Jason how quaint you don't need any facts at all so the and by the way the number one thing that right winger say when I interview them about the fact that they had no evidence at all lost 60 cases in a row in the courts is I was black people. They were intimidating the judges. That's why all the judges were afraid for their lives and voted even though Trump had all the secret evidence, right? So no, Jason, you don't need any evidence at all, but that is one of Trump's top aides saying we are full of crap behind the scenes.

Starting point is 00:18:31 I will say, like, I'm actually shocked at how many nefarious individuals, including Miller, are actually like behind the scenes saying things that are kind of reasonable, right? Because if If you would have asked me, if you quizzed me and said, like, okay, who secretly behind the scenes was actually trying to throw cold water on all of these election fraud claims, I would have not guessed that Jason Miller would be in that camp. No, but to be fair to Jason Miller's right wing credentials. Do we want to be? No, no, no, to his right wing credentials.

Starting point is 00:19:05 He's trying for different ways to steal the election, and he thought that one was less credible, right? So he's not making the mistake of being an honest and decent person. He's making the mistake of thinking that facts matter at all the Republican voters. I mean on face alone, like honest and credible person. Okay, well let me give you more. A week later, according to CNN, Miller wrote to Meadows again, this time saying that campaign research did not find any evidence of a conspiracy involving Soros, a Democratic donor. Miller also said he was concerned about sharing the findings with Trump because he's afraid

Starting point is 00:19:41 of daddy. Daddy will get very upset. He might give me a spanking. What am I going to do? Tell him the truth. Can't do that. But Anna, that goes to the point you were just making, which is that almost everyone in the text from the least unhinged to the most unhinged, all refer to, yeah, but be careful and sharing with Donald Trump, because they all, to the person, think the most unhinged in the administration is Donald Trump himself. And so they're like, be careful about telling him the truth. he's going to get really angry. And a couple of them acknowledge, we got nothing, right? But don't tell Trump, he'll lose it, right?

Starting point is 00:20:19 So they all know that they're working for a madman. So are the alpha males back? I'm just curious. Because it looks like they're all betas to Donald Trump. Yeah, no, I want Gorka to tell me. Gorka, I know you blocked me on Twitter, even though I've never tweeted to you in my life. But, no, are the alpha males back? Are these the alpha males that you're referring to?

Starting point is 00:20:37 It seems like a bunch of weak, pathetic, sniveling little clowns who can't handle Donald Trump's rage. It's unbelievable. Yeah, I think I might have said this on Friday show, but alphas need betas. And so the reason why a lot of these Republicans are massive betas is because they're in search of an alpha. That's the way it works in the animal kingdom. They're like, who's strong that I can give all my bananas to? Because I need protection because they're so psychologically weak. And that's what you're seeing in all the texts as well.

Starting point is 00:21:06 Now, in regard to Jason Miller throwing cold water on the notion that Soros had helped to steal the election, he had texted this. Lots there regarding functionality problems, not much there on Democrats, Soros conspiracy connections. We'll defer to you on whether or not to share full report with POTUS. POTUS is clearly hyped up on them, not just from his tweets, but he also called me and Justin separately last night to complain. So in other words, he's saying, look, it's sorrows did. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now. I get a free Tilly Dog.

Starting point is 00:21:52 Not included. The Naked God. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. We all know he didn't do it. But you're never going to convince Donald Trump because Donald Trump is freaking crazy. So be careful about even telling him anything that's

Starting point is 00:22:06 remotely true, because he'll lose his mind, whatever little there is of it. So let's get back to Meadows and the text messages he was receiving in regard to some decisions that were being made, right, following the election, following the riots. In fact, let's go to before the riots happened on November 20th. Meadows was asked by a Florida contact, how confident he was about fraud related to Dominion. Meadows did text back saying Dominion, not that confident, other fraud, very confident. Which other fraud doesn't say. Right.

Starting point is 00:22:41 But Dominion is supposed to be the main thing. Oh, they rigged the voting machines. Right. Even Mark Meadows trying to orchestrate this coup, says Dominion, not at all confident. You know why? Because they had zero evidence. Now, one of the ludicics spouting nonsense about Dominion was Sidney Powell. And Ginny Thomas, the wife of Clarence Thomas, wanted to know why the campaign was distancing itself from Sidney Powell.

Starting point is 00:23:10 Two days later, Ginny Thomas messaged Meadows with apparent concerns asking, quote, trying to understand the Sidney Powell distancing. Meadows responded, she doesn't have anything, or at least she won't share it if she does. And in response, Ginny Thomas just texts back. Wow. That was so surprised to you, Jenny Thomas. Wow. Yeah, look, Jenny, the Sydney Powell was a lunatic on TV at the time, going around saying, oh, I have the crackin, I'm going to release the cracking.

Starting point is 00:23:43 I have all the evidence. And then she would say other lunatic things. And anyone's sane realized, of course you don't have anything, right? And, and meanwhile, the White House was in the beginning back, you know, and then they backed away. So you see here the White House chief of staff saying to as big an insider as it gets, no, Sidney Powell is full of crap. She doesn't have anything at all because probably internally, genuine schmucks like Marjorie Taylor Green and others were probably asking.

Starting point is 00:24:11 Okay, Sydney, so where's the Cracket? And then she's like, duh, I'm lying. Of course I don't have anything, right? And they're like, oh, golly, gee. Wow. Okay. Wow, she seemed like a totally mentally stable person. on TV, how could she be lying? Now I want to go to a few more things from this report, including

Starting point is 00:24:31 one of the few text messages that Jared Kushner was implicated in. So in one of the few messages Meadows received from Kushner, Trump's son-in-law shared a fact check on December 4th, debunking one of the most prominent election fraud claims from Georgia. The article showed that despite inflammatory claims of poll workers stashing suitcases filled with ballots under a table that did not in fact occur. So it seemed like, you know, Kushner, you know, to give him a little bit of credit, I guess, was just trying to steer this whole situation in the right direction. Like, here's some fact checks. Stop. This is embarrassing. But obviously none of this persuaded Trump to stop with his election lies. And then finally, I do want to get to the orchestrated messaging that

Starting point is 00:25:18 took place after the riots on January 6th. They quickly started crafting a narrative. And we saw that narrative play out in real time. At 3.45 p.m. Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller suggested to Mark Meadows and Trump aide Dan Scavino that Trump should tweet, call me crazy, but ideas for two tweets from POTUS. Okay, these are the suggestions. Bad apples, likely Antifa, or other crazed leftists infiltrated today's peaceful protest over the fraudulent vote count. Violence is never acceptable, MAGA supporters embrace our police and the rule of law and should leave the capital now. And then two, the fake news media who encouraged this summer's violent and radical riots, they're talking about BLM, of course, are now trying to blame peaceful and

Starting point is 00:26:07 innocent MAGA supporters for violent actions. This isn't who we are. Our people should head home and let the criminals suffer the consequences. So as we know, Jank, the only criminals that suffered the consequences were Trump's pawns who decided to storm the Capitol. Some of them are facing very serious prison sentences as a result of all of this. Trump, of course, marched back to the White House, sat his ass down on a couch, and watched everything unfold on television. So earlier we had Jim Jordan texts for other investigations. And Jordan also was backing the coup attempt filled with, hey, don't make sure Mike Pence

Starting point is 00:26:46 does not certify the actual electors. We'll just call them unconstitutional and throw away the actual votes. And instead, what we'll do is we'll put in, he doesn't use the word fake, but the plan to put in the fake electors. And so, and then you see Mike Lindell in the text as well. And he's saying, use the military, you go to martial law. These people all are 100% against our democracy. But what's also interesting is that in none of those texts, hundreds and hundreds of texts, you see a whole bunch of things where surprisingly, people on the inside are saying,

Starting point is 00:27:22 no, source conspiracy isn't true, the Dominion conspiracy isn't true, the Philadelphia conspiracy isn't true. You see all these things where they explain that their internal stuff shows that what they're saying externally, none of it is true. But there's not one text with one piece of evidence that the election was actually stolen. Exactly. Is that amazing? Right wing, where the hell is it? Right?

Starting point is 00:27:45 No, there is no evidence. They just hated that they lost the election. And for right wing authoritarian people, like the Jordans and the Trumps of the world, they prefer power to democracy every time. All right, we got to take our first break. But when we come back, we have more news, including another huge story today. Elon Musk has closed a deal with the board over at Twitter. meaning he will be the sole owner of the company.

Starting point is 00:28:14 What does that mean for the future of a social media platform that's already pretty awful? We'll give you the details. Come right back. All right. with you guys, law more news. Let's do it. We're finally going to have our free speech rights, you know, re-implemented now that one incredibly wealthy man, in fact, the most wealthy man on the planet will be the sole owner of Twitter. That's what people genuinely think. And yes, turns out that Elon Musk has

Starting point is 00:29:02 struck a deal with the board over at Twitter, allowing him to purchase the company and take it from being a publicly traded company to a private one. Now, under the terms of the deal, shareholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter stock they own, matching Musk's original offer and making a 38% premium over the stock price the day before Musk revealed his stake in the company. Also, the deal, which was unanimously approved by Twitter's board, is expected to close this year. It comes after Musk, revealed last week, he had lined up $46.5 billion in financing to acquire the company, an apparent turning point that forced Twitter's board to seriously consider the deal.

Starting point is 00:29:49 Now, Musk has come out with some statements about what he plans to do with Twitter, and to be honest, some of it sounds pretty good, but you should be skeptical because anyone who's under the assumption that the richest man on the planet being the sole owner of a company means that it's going to be a great, wonderful, free open forum, you might get duped in the future. But here's what he says. In his statement Monday, Musk said he wants to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, including the algorithms open source to increase trust, or making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, which sounds really good, and authenticating all humans, which honestly,

Starting point is 00:30:33 that also sounds very good. Separately, he said in a tweet Monday that he hopes, even my worst critics remain on Twitter because that is what free speech means. So look, my whole take on the free speech thing is I'm not buying it, especially when we're dealing with book burnings at school districts across the country, where books that haven't even been assigned to students are being banned from libraries across the country, it's just fascinating that all the attention for the right wing, including people like Elon Musk is, I want free speech on Twitter.

Starting point is 00:31:07 I mean, this is an important, it's the, you know, public square. If you really think it's the public square, then make it a public utility. Don't put it under the control of one individual, particularly the richest man on the planet. It might seem like he has other, you know, priorities in mind. But we'll see how this plays out. I don't really have high hopes. Okay, let me tackle this from a business perspective first and then get to the content. So he got 46.5 billion in financing, but he only's around 44 billion to buy it only.

Starting point is 00:31:37 38% premium on the current price is literally irresistible. Twitter was put in a situation where they almost legally had to sell. Because if they didn't sell, then they would face tons and tons of lawsuits because yeah, that's your fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit. And if somebody offers you 38% more than the shares are worth, then you all pretty much have to sell if you're a public corporation. So this was nearly inevitable once he decided to buy it. I have to confess, I mean, I don't want to encourage them at all.

Starting point is 00:32:13 But I was kind of surprised that the mega rich like Musk and Bezos, et cetera, haven't bought more media. So Bezos bought Washington Post. They haven't, like you haven't seen a lot of stories come out about how they're doing pro Bezos or Amazon stories. But what you don't see is the omissions. Is there a lot of tough stories against Amazon on Washington Post? I haven't seen them, right? Is there skepticism when Bernie Sanders and Roe Kana pushed for $15 minimum wage at Amazon?

Starting point is 00:32:45 Yes, deep skepticism. But to be fair, the Washington Post was always. conservative economically, right? So but when in the case of Elon Musk, so he, he can buy almost anything. So he goes and buys this. Now he can do almost anything with it, especially because he's taking it private. There's real legitimate business reasons to take it private. If you're going to clean out all the bots, for example, the number of users you have is going to plummet. If you were public, the stock market would punish you deeply for that. Because they like the lying and the ruse.

Starting point is 00:33:20 They like the inflated numbers. The inflated numbers. Yeah, that's all it is. You got to hit the 15% every year. Every year you got to hit the 15%. Give me more inflated numbers. I don't care that they're fake. They're obviously a giant number of fake accounts on Twitter the most of anywhere, right?

Starting point is 00:33:34 So in order to clean it up, you almost have to take it private. But once you take it private, well, then almost no one can see what you're doing. He says there's going to be transparency. But when a corporation's private, there's usually, well, not usually almost always, less transparency. So do you know that he won't rigged the algorithms in favor of the right wing or in favor of people that he supports or in favor of crypto boys, right? And he does a lot of crypto stuff on not only the buying selling, but he does a lot of what looks like manipulation. It is manipulation. He's manipulating cryptocurrency through his tweets.

Starting point is 00:34:11 Through his tweets, let alone what appear to be bots and spams on his side, bots and trolls on his side. Okay, but I don't know if he, so that has not been legally adjudicated. That's why I say I don't, you can't be positive. So now if he buys it and he actually does what he says in that tweet and he authenticated everyone on Twitter to be human beings and he gets rid of the spam bots, that would be awesome. We're here for it, right? But the right wing does not have a good track record on hypocrisy or lying, right? So now people will say, oh, Elon Musk, I see, I saw this all day today.

Starting point is 00:34:50 He's not necessarily right wing. Really? Okay. Look, just a couple of years ago, Ben and I were joking around on one of our shows, old school. And we did a poll, Elon Musk, yes or no. So just a couple of years ago, it was unclear. It was still a conversation and debate, right? Since then, the last two, three years, has he ever said one left wing thing?

Starting point is 00:35:11 Has he ever pissed off the right wing in any way, shape, or form? I've seen him say dozens, maybe hundreds of right wing stuff. So, and in our experience, the right wing is filled with liars. So you put out a statement like that, if you're a right winger, it means you're going to do the exact opposite. You're going to load up Twitter with bots, and they're all going to be for your own financial benefit. You're going to manipulate everything in the world and then say, oh, nobody can see it. Oh, trust me, I'm so good, because since I'm rich, that must mean I'm right. and so the track record does not give you a lot of confidence that what he's saying is true.

Starting point is 00:35:46 But if it is true, that part would be great. I also think, you know, making vague. about the importance of freedom of speech is empty and doesn't really persuade me that you're on the side of free speech when there are so many brazen Republicans across the country that are, as we're speaking, literally like they are violating constitutional rights because we're talking about the government violating constitutional rights. I mean, Ron DeSantis, retaliating against Disney for speaking out against the so-called don't-say-gay-bill in Florida. Isn't it Disney's right to speak against legislation they don't like?

Starting point is 00:36:46 Is it, I mean, first of all, I thought corporations were people who have protected free speech, right? Yeah. And if that's what the standard is, based on the Supreme Court's ruling on that issue, does Ron DeSantis as a member of the government and the state legislature in Florida have the right to basically punish someone or punish a company over its free speech? So look, the right wing loves cancel culture. They love it. They love it, they do it all the time. Or you say something against Israel will cancel all your contracts, et cetera. You do a protest of an oil pipeline, we'll pass a law saying people can run you over in the streets and murder you.

Starting point is 00:37:21 They love cancel culture, right? But they're also massive hypocrites. Almost every social media platform started by the right wing in the last five years has said, oh, this is about freedom of speech. And the first thing they do is they ban anyone criticizing them. True social Trump's platform, same exact thing. They're like, you're not allowed to criticize Trump on here. What happened to free speech?

Starting point is 00:37:45 Trump was president of the United States. He was the government official. Criticizing government is the very, very, very essence of the First Amendment. They're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. We meant you can't cancel our freedom of speech. But we're going to cancel your freedom of speech left and right. And then they said, oh, you can't criticize this, you can't criticize that. They've become cancel factories, all those right-wing social media.

Starting point is 00:38:07 And Elon Musk hasn't spoken out against any of that. He seems to be totally fine with it. So this whole free speech narrative, I'm not buying it. And the only, honest, like, the only place where I've seen him be very specific is Twitter banned Donald Trump, free speech violation. Well, look, you're taking a publicly traded company. You're now making it private under your leadership, under your ownership. And there's literally nothing standing in the way of you.

Starting point is 00:38:37 violating people's free speech on Twitter because there's no constitutional protection against it. If people are serious, if people are serious, okay, if they're not just saying it and they're genuinely serious that they see Twitter as the public square where free speech should be valued and protected, the only way to ensure that our constitutional rights of free speech are applied to Twitter is if it is a, you know, if it's a public utility and it's treated as such, not a private corporation. But that's not what's going to happen here. Again, it's going to be under the control of one individual, the richest individual.

Starting point is 00:39:14 And if anyone thinks that that leads to more freedom, I have a bridge to sell you. I have many bridges to sell you. Please give me your money. Yeah, and last two things here. So, you know, all the, I'm a free speech absolutist. They'd love to say that. Right. Okay, but wait, even if you take out the hypocrisy, which you shouldn't because they never

Starting point is 00:39:33 mean it, right? But let's talk about what that means. So there's two things that are of concern. No real person on the left thinks you should ban speech because we don't like it. Or it's, by the way, let me retract that. Some do, but we're definitely not in that camp, okay? And I think those people are totally extreme, right? No, there's only two standards.

Starting point is 00:39:54 One is don't call for violence. And two, if you're a public figure, if it's a lie that could get other people in danger, et cetera, et cetera. like what Trump did, you know, encouraging the riot on January 6th, et cetera. Now, you can even have arguments around the edges on that for sure. Okay, now, is he saying, no, I don't care about those two categories, but hold on. If you say that, what if somebody like Trump said, hey, you know what? The Jews are going to attack your children tomorrow and they're going to drink their blood. That's blood liable.

Starting point is 00:40:27 It's not like people haven't said it before. They've said it for centuries. And it's not like Q&N doesn't say that powerful people in the kids. country are going to attack your children and drink their blood. They literally say that, right? So is he not going to ban that? Is that going to be okay to do on Twitter now? The worst, most odious lies you've ever seen in your life? And then the second one is the one, you know, I tell you about rebellion pack all the time. The person who runs it is Brianna Wu. She's actually one of the main victims of Gamergate. So she was actually quoted in a lot of the stories

Starting point is 00:40:57 today. And she makes a terrific point. She's like, so are they going to allow rape threats again on Twitter? Oh, for sure. I mean, first of all, like, they barely even tried to get rid of the rape threats to begin with. But do you think that any of that is going to be moderated under Elon Musk's leadership? Of course not. They don't care about that. They never have. They never will. But, you know, the thing that I want to just really point out here is that there are two different groups of people in this country. There are people who are actually harmed by that kind of speech, by those kinds of threats, because they don't have the resources to protect themselves. They can't afford private security.

Starting point is 00:41:35 They can't, you know, afford the protection necessary to protect. Like the Posner family, who was targeted by Alex Jones and his lies about Sandy Hook. I mean, they had to move seven different times. And like, they're lucky that they had the resources to move to escape the threats that they were dealing with. Elon Musk doesn't have to worry about his life being in danger. If you have QAnon conspiracy theorists throwing all sorts of defamation and libel in his direction, He's good. He's rich. He's got his. He's got his protection. It's really the people who are usually harmed by all of these threats and all of this so-called speech that are probably going to suffer the consequences of them. Yeah, you threaten a random woman or female journalist on Twitter. Elon Musk is definitely going to let that stand. That's what he means by free speech absolutist. If you threaten Elon Musk, is he going to let that stand?

Starting point is 00:42:28 if instead of saying, hey, let's go rape a female journalist, you said, let's go rape Elon Musk. Now, God, don't say that. I don't want anybody saying that. And then you gave his home address. This is things that right wing did on a regular basis. That's why social media started passing rules in the first place. Hey, you're not allowed to docks. You're not allowed to threaten violence like that. Is Elon Musk going to be like, oh, yeah, threaten my family. I don't mind. Yeah, here's my address. I don't mind. I'm a free speech absolutist. Zero percent chance he's going to allow that. And then so then you're going to have an uneven field where you're, He says, you can do this to those guys, but you can't do it to us.

Starting point is 00:43:03 But hey, I would be super happy if he proved all of that wrong and actually had balanced rules and showed us, got rid of anonymity, which allows people to put their hood on before they make comments, and cleaned up Twitter, I'm super happy to come back on. Look, I can prove it, Tesla, they do electric cars. I love that they do electric cars. So you give me a good product, and I'll tell you, hey, he did it, right? But right now, I wouldn't believe a word he's saying. All right, we got to take a quick break when we come back. Ben Shapiro and that inconvenient thing about the free market when that whole Disney Florida situation's unfolding.

Starting point is 00:43:41 We'll give you his statement on that and more. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Jank, Anna, Monica Hollebird and Paratrooper Chad, because they just joined. So all of our members help us do this show together and we read your comments throughout the show. So hit that join button below on YouTube like they did or t.com slash join Anna. Let's get to our next story. I am the most free market person on the right. I'm an extraordinarily pro free market person. I don't believe that generally the government should crack down on the operations of businesses.

Starting point is 00:44:34 I think more freedom for businesses are good. I think that lower taxes for business are good for the economy of Florida, for the company, for the economy of the United States more broadly. However, however, Ben Shapiro is about to tell you when he's in favor of regulation and it has to do with his feelings getting hurt over opinions he disagrees with. Corporations have to stand up for their own free market bona fides. And they have to not become tools of the people who wish to destroy freedom in this country on behalf of leftist group think. If you decide to just become a woke corporation that does the bidding of your Democratic taskmasters, don't be surprised when you get clocked with a legislative two by four.

Starting point is 00:45:18 F around and find out. F around, and that's what Disney did. Disney decided that it was going to inject itself into social politics in the state of Florida. It decided that it was going to try to use its massive corporate power in the state of Florida. It employs tens of thousands of people here. It was going to try to use that power in order to cudgel the state government of Florida to do the bidding of executives in New York and Burbank, California. And instead, what it is finding out right now is that the people of Florida are not up for it. All right, there's a lot to unpack there.

Starting point is 00:45:46 Let me just say, shout out to Burbank, California. Am I right? Go San Fernando Valley. Although I think it might be its own area, not part of that. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Like to hear a shout out for Burbank. But anyway, putting that aside, Ben Shapiro also has shown us the seriousness of that legislative four by four, which Cody Johnson reminded us all of, you know, under that video on Twitter.

Starting point is 00:46:12 Just want to show you that legislative four by four from Home Depot of all places. We've got a graphic, but I guess we're not going to go to it. There it is. Anyway, so let's also talk about the actual issue at hand here, which is, man, it's interesting how much conservatives love the free market until these corporations might have a political opinion that goes against their conservative ideology and might even threaten to withhold campaign donations from politicians who push for legislation that they condemn. And that's exactly what happened here with Disney speaking out against the so-called don't-say-gay-gay bill. Florida and the government in Florida decided to retaliate against Disney for doing so, which might have some free speech implications there, First Amendment implications. But it is interesting to see these people, Jank, twist themselves into a pretzel in regard to

Starting point is 00:47:06 regulation. If the corporations are abusing you, if you're working full time at Disney but aren't making enough money to afford housing and have to live in your car, which by the way, There are plenty of Disney employees who are dealing with that. Ben Shapiro thinks that's good. It's good. Free market is good in that regard. Companies abusing you, good. No regulation.

Starting point is 00:47:27 Companies speaking out against terrible, bigoted laws? No, we got to regulate. We got to crack down. Yeah. So first, the amusing stuff. A two by four is what, for example, Hacksaw Jim Duggan used to use back in the old WWF days. And he'd come out with it.

Starting point is 00:47:44 It's a significant piece of wood that you hit. hit people with, right? It's not a flat board like that. He doesn't know anything. Okay, he's like, oh, I went and bought a two by four. No, that's not a two by four at all, brother, at all. Try harder. Okay, so now, onto the substance, like they used to call him intellectual.

Starting point is 00:48:05 I don't know if New York Times is still doing that. God, they, New York Times loves the right wing. There isn't a right wing guy online that they haven't fluffed, right? Here he is admitting, oh, I have no principles at all. Like the whole thing was like, oh, I'm an intellectual because I have principles and I can talk about my principles all day along. Facts don't care about your feelings. Yeah, facts don't care about your feelings. Well, dude, you're either say that the government should regulate companies or they shouldn't.

Starting point is 00:48:31 It's not a principal thing to say we shouldn't regulate them if they're hurting the workers, they're outsourcing jobs, et cetera. That's their beloved right as corporations. But if they hurt my feelings and they support gay people and I hate gay people, we should. should hit him with a two by four. You can say a lot of things, but that you can't say that's principled. That's just you saying, I don't, all the things I told you before, I was totally full of crap. I didn't mean any of it.

Starting point is 00:49:00 It's all about my feelings. So I want to get to the context of what's transpiring in Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis has signed the legislation that does away with Disney's self-governing rights. So although Florida Republicans say that the move against Disney was made to eliminate corporate perks, critics argue that the legislature only acted after the company announced it would no longer make political contributions. Ah, and that's what Ben loves when you could do political contributions, what is otherwise known as legalized bribes. He loves that because that rips you off and makes corruption a thousand times worse. But God forbid, Disney should say,

Starting point is 00:49:43 hey, maybe we shouldn't despise gay people. He's got his principles, hilarious. And remember, in a state like Florida, Disney gives pretty equally to Democrats and Republicans, the remaining Republicans, I mean, remaining Democrats in Florida at least. And the threat here is, well, anyone who pushed for or supported this legislation, we're going to stop donating to, which, by the way, they're responding to their own employees who demanded that. And Republicans aren't in favor of it.

Starting point is 00:50:11 Obviously, that would give it a financial advantage, at least, to the few democratic lawmakers in the state legislature. But the point that I really want to drive home here isn't just that Ben Shapiro's a hypocrite on corporate regulations, right? Of course. I mean, that, in my opinion, at this point, is a pretty boring argument to make. It's par for the course. But I do want people to be very aware of what the right wing is willing to regulate corporations for. and what they're willing to allow corporations to get away with. As they notice this populist climate in the country, obviously they want to tap into that

Starting point is 00:50:52 for political reasons. And what you hear them say over and over again is these corporations are too woke. They don't want to hold corporate power accountable for the abusive work environments that they've created. They don't want to hold corporate America accountable for having employees that literally work full time, yet don't make enough money to afford basic housing like a one-bedroom apartment in the area that they're working in. Okay, Ben Shapiro, along with all the other Republicans in the country, had no problem with Disney employees in Orange County, California, living

Starting point is 00:51:26 out of their cars, even though they were working full-time jobs. They don't care about the economic anxiety of Americans, which is what's fueling the populist climate in the country. They want to co-opt it, But they do so with a completely different talking point, which is these corporations are out of control. Yeah, they abuse their employees, but we kind of like that. We want to support that. That's the free market. But if they speak out against our ideology, if they're too woke for us, that's when we retaliate. That's when they should be held accountable.

Starting point is 00:51:59 And I think that says a lot about where right-wing populism really stands. Yeah. Now, one more thing about his hypocrisy, if Disney's responding to their own employees, they're making a business decision that, hey, our business is going to be more hurt if we lose valuable employees because of our position here. Ben Shapiro is saying, I don't care about your business decisions, even though you're a private corporation or a public corporation, but you're running in the private market, right? You should do what I say, because I'm offended by your feelings.

Starting point is 00:52:31 I don't care if it hurts your business, I want the government to regulate and force you to make business decisions that might be counter to your actual financial interests. That's the big government two by four that he's talking about. That is counter to every single thing he has ever said. Okay, now to Anna's point, so when a corporation, the corporations in mass do trillions, literally trillions of dollars in tax loopholes, which then redistributes the tax burden onto all of us. The middle class, the poor, and by the way, the upper middle class, it redistributes to the doctors, accounts, lawyers, et cetera, right? He's totally fine with that.

Starting point is 00:53:17 Hey, hey, hey, let him take as much money as they want. They don't have to pay their fair share. You should pay it instead of them, even though they're the richest corporations in the world. When they outsource jobs, he doesn't think they should, the government should use a two by four at all. That is their God given right to take American jobs and ship them to other countries. But if they dare say that gay people are equal to straight people, then all of a sudden big government and the jackbootiv thugs of tyrannical government should come into Disney's headquarters and change all their policies. So thank you, Ben, for proving that you never meant anything you ever said. You have no principles at all.

Starting point is 00:53:56 And your ideology is, I want power and I don't want you to have it. And I don't really like the private markets or the free markets. I don't really like democracy. I really don't like any of this stuff. I just want to be able to enforce my ideas on other people. All right. That does it for the first hour. We got to take a break.

Starting point is 00:54:18 But when we come back, we still have some serious news to get to, including an analysis of the French election. Emmanuel Macron has been reelected. But there are some implications from the results of that election. I want to give you the details on that and more. And then later, we are going to lighten things up a little bit to talk about how one family did secure a $5 million payout from a country club because they were terrorized by golf balls. I'm not even kidding, it's an amazing story. We've got that and more coming up.

Starting point is 00:54:54 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 slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.

Your Ad Here

The Young Turks - Lies & Deception

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.