The Young Turks - "Mainstream Democrat"

Episode Date: January 21, 2022

Senate Democrats made the case for legislation to counter an onslaught of new voting restrictions around the country, but they failed to overcome a Republican blockade or unite their own members behind a change in filibuster rules to pass it. Texas' GOP attorney general told Steve Bannon on his podcast “we're done if anybody can vote” after a recent court ruling. President Joe Biden doesn't believe public opinion polls that show his popularity waning among voters who identify as politically independent. Biden also declined to say if the upcoming election would be fair and legitimate without voting rights reform. The FBI visited the Texas home of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) as part of a “court-authorized law enforcement activity. Hosts: Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Biden will get nothing done going forward. It will be three of the most disastrous years you've ever seen. So in that post-apocalyptic world, we present to you the news. Very exciting. Good stuff. Indeed. Biden has now officially entered the lame duck portion of his presidency. And we'll show you the receipts and explain why, of course, throughout the show. But the news from yesterday was expected because it turns out that if you have an agenda,

you kind of have to fight for it. You can't just assume that it gets done magically without applying any pressure to the corporate Democrats who are standing in the way. But who knows, maybe this is the outcome he actually wanted. So, Jank, are you ready? You want to get to our first story? Hell yes. All right, let's do it.

Corporate Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema decided to vote, along with GOP lawmakers in the Senate to maintain the legislative filibuster, which effectively blocks any piece of legislation that would actually improve people's lives or could even make our elections freer, fairer, and open to people who are eligible to vote. Now, this all happened as part of the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's plan. His idea was, well, why don't we take up a vote on the voting rights bill? And if Republicans block it in the Senate, which of course they did, well then we will force a vote on altering the filibuster, which of course, as you guys know, the legislative filibuster requires 60 senators to vote in favor of legislation in order for it to pass. You're never going to get that with Republican obstructionists. And so earlier in the evening, the Senate failed to pass a cloture motion to end debate on the freedom to vote, John Lewis. Act, named for the late Georgia congressmen, Republicans filibustered it by voting unanimously

against cloture. Now at that point, there was a vote on altering the filibuster to allow for the passage of a voting rights bill with a simple majority. But Mansion and Cinema had made their opposition to changing the filibuster clear. But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer decided to put them on the spot. Even doing so had no impact, the two Democratic holdouts responded by. voting to keep it. And so again, there's no voting rights bill. The filibuster is still in place. They wouldn't even support a carve-out jank, just one teeny little carve-out to allow for the passage

of a voting rights bill, which is important at a time when we're seeing voter suppression in red states, when we're seeing gerrymandering that gives Republican lawmakers the upper hand in re-elections, gives Republican candidates the upper hand in elections. And so, this is how it goes. Looks like Senators Joe Manchin, Kirsten Cinema, support that undemocratic system. Yeah, so let's be clear on a couple of things. First of all, we always tell you the reality behind politics, the rest of the media pretends its debate about ideas and protecting Senate traditions on principle. Hilarious. It has nothing to do with it. Let me read you a quote from the Chamber of Commerce. By the way, Daily poster, Davis-Roto's site is where I'm getting this from,

and they do great journalism. The chamber wrote, for example, within two months, the House of Representatives has passed a $15 national minimum wage and a radical rewrite of the U.S. labor law known as the Pro Act. This is in the beginning of the Biden administration, they said this. And quote, because of the filibuster, neither can become law as currently written. In a world without the filibuster, both might be the law of the land. In other words, you are to not allow the filibuster to go,

way because it would interfere with our corporate agenda of keeping wages lower. The quote I just read you is from the Chamber of Commerce is not Progressive's interpretation of it. They say publicly, we are instructing our senators and in fact, we will grade the senators on how they vote. That means if you get marked down for voting yes on killing the filibuster, you will get less money. This is just, it's a direct. direct auction guys and and they're brazen about it. And if you vote no one killing the filibuster, we will hand you bigger checks. They then later bragged and shared an article where they said that they influence the politicians

and that the politicians basically do as they're told from the chamber of commerce. They spent $170 million on lobbying. So this is just outright bribery and that's the filibuster has. nothing to do with voting rights. Voting rights is collateral damage in the bid to keep the filibuster so that they do not increase your wages or give you health care or do anything else that helps you but hurts the corporate bottom line by one red cent. That's what happened yesterday. Joe mentioned in Christmas cinema, neither Republicans nor Democrats. They're corporate politicians that represent corporate America. They hate their own voters who overwhelmingly disagree

with them under great majority of issues. And again, the mainstream media barely ever reports that. And they're in the, you know, incumbent protection racket. So what's happened here with the filibuster is even more devastating. Anna's going to give you some quotes about how feckless and weak and Joe Biden is in his second in dealing with mansion and cinema. But understand that right now, it's not that they didn't just end the filibuster. They didn't even do a democracy exception that could have just applied to voting rights. That's the exception I thought they were going to use to basically cheat and protect corporate interests while protecting their own power through the voting rights legislation.

But they didn't even do that bare minimum. But on top of that, talking filibuster failed. Wait a minute, you know what a talking filibuster is? A filibuster. That's actually the tradition of the Senate. Now they're pretending, no, you don't even have to talk in a filibuster. You just wink at people and corporate interests win. So Biden's terms completely and utterly over.

Without him winning on the filibuster, he'll win on nothing going forward. And you'll have three years of pathetic excuse making from now on. No, I mean, to that point, the ridiculous media drama and soap opera continues, where they covered one of Biden's answers during his press conference yesterday. And he was asked about the social spending bill, that package that has failed as a result of the filibuster in the Senate. That's a social spending bill that had all of those, you know, provisions that would actually improve Americans' lives, universal pre-K, expansion of Medicare. You guys get the picture.

He argued, well, you know, we might have to break it up into several smaller bills and pass it out. And the media covers it as if that's really something that's even possible at this point. No, nothing will pass the Senate as long as that filibuster is in place. And even with a bill that could pass through reconciliation, meaning it could pass with a simple majority, you still need corporate Democrats in the Senate to vote in favor of it. And as we saw with both Mansion and Cinema, they have no problem standing in the way because they know that there are really no consequences coming from the executive branch. And I want to get to that point now, because while, yes, Mansion and Cinema certainly deserve

blame, remember, the buck stops with the president. The fish rots from the head down. He is the leader of the country. He is the head of the Democratic Party. And I want to show you the fecklessness, the weakness coming from Joe Biden on several issues. He will not hold their feet to the fire. He will not hold them accountable. He will not apply any pressure. So last week, Senator Sinema actually went up on the Senate floor and gave a speech to make it abundantly clear that she's going to do right by her corporate donors and keep the filibuster in place. Now, she didn't use that wording. She tried to make herself out to be some warrior for democracy, someone who wants to ensure

that there's unity in the Senate, that there's bipartisan in the Senate. And let's keep it real. That's nothing more than an excuse. That's nothing more than cover for her corporate donors. and their fears that even creating one carve-out for the voting rights bill could be a slippery slope and that their profits could be at stake. Now, here's her speech, and then I'm going to tell you how Biden responded to it. Let's watch.

And while I continue to support these bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country. The debate over the Senate 60 vote threshold shines a light on our broader. challenges. There's no need for me to restate my longstanding support for the 60 vote threshold to pass legislation. There's no need for me to restate its role protecting our country from wild reversals and federal policy. It is a view I've held during my years serving in both the U.S. House and the Senate. And it is the view I continue to hold. So for cinema, maintaining the legislative a filibuster allegedly is important because we want to make sure that our agenda keeps running into Republican obstructionists again and again and again.

By the way, the same Republican obstructionists that they fearmonger about when they're running for their reelection campaigns, but then when push comes to shove, they pretend like we're all comrades, we're all good friends, we want to work with them. We all know it's BS, we all know that this is really providing cover for corporate donors. Now with that said, what's important is how the president of the United States, who allegedly wants his agenda to pass, reacted to it. How did you respond to it? On that same day, January 13th, after she gave that speech, Biden met with her.

On January 13th reports time, Biden returned to Capitol Hill this time to make a show of strong arming his party senators to pass voting legislation. Biden spent several minutes reminiscing about the days of Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond, senators reported afterwards. Cinema did not speak up in the meeting and Biden did not call on her to explain herself. One senator told time the president was quote soft spoken and difficult to hear. Immediately afterward, Manchin reaffirmed his opposition as well. All right, so all those Biden supporters, everyone who rallied to his defense after I criticized him for being pathetically weak, you're proud of your guy?

You're proud of this weakness? You're proud of him turning his back on the very people who got him elected in the first place? Remember, Biden was the one who was boasting about the power of persuasion and how, you know, he's a master of the Senate. He knows how that animal works and he knows how to get people on his side. He has been a complete and utter failure, especially on the substantive issues that organizers and activists put in the work on the ground to get him elected for. So I'm sorry, I'm just, I'm done with the apologists, I'm done with the Democratic Party and their fecklessness. It's embarrassing. Who would want to be associated with this? It's absolute garbage. Okay. So there's only two possible answers here. Let me eliminate one option from

the board. I don't even think a Democratic consultant could make a case for this with a straight face that Biden has a four four dimensional chess strategy where he lets cinema humiliate him and doesn't challenge her and then Manchin sees how weak he is and then he humiliates Biden and then there are no consequence for that but secretly there's going to be a consequence what three and a half years later a couple of decades later is he going to get them you know after they're out of office, there's no strategy here. So that leaves you only two options. Either he's enormously weak and completely out of touch. Oh, you know, in the old days, I had

drunk Robert and Mick McConnell. And I'd give them whatever they wanted and then we would make a deal and I'd get marketing out of it. Well, okay, number one, it doesn't work that way anymore. Number two, you've already given them everything and they've given you nothing back. He doesn't have a plan B. He doesn't. It's super obvious. His administration is completely over. He, in that call that the reporters are referencing there, he didn't know it at the time, but that was his surrender to Mansion and Cinema and the corporate Democrats. It was basically his concession speech saying, okay, I, you win, I'll do nothing more. I'll just be a doormat from now on. So that's a fact. Okay, but to be I said there was a second option.

It's brought to you by one of our members, sexy speed racer wrote in, but isn't Biden's true agenda, nothing will fundamentally change in a Biden Harris administration. So from that perspective, he's been wildly successful at fighting for that non-change.

Now that is an excellent point, point we've been telling you a long time. I think the answer is both. He is really weak and that's why the donors picked him because he said nothing will fundamentally change. And you can see with your own eyes, I'm totally weak. I won't be able to stand up to anyone.

So don't worry, you'll steam roll me and nothing will change. Well, in that case, the promises were kept. They were just kept to the donors. So we always, we told you from day one in the primaries, in the general election. The question is Joe Biden has made two different sets of promises. One was to the voters, oh my God, I'm gonna change things. I can't believe Trump did this and that and we're going to change all that stuff. And to the donors, he made a completely different promise that nothing would fundamentally change.

Which one is the real Biden? Two-time Biden. We told you from day one that it's the one that it's gonna appeal to the donors and not the voters. And we were right and the rest of mainstream media that kisses Democratic Party ass was obviously wrong. The proof is in the pudding, they just voted. They just voted to say yes, TYT was 100% right. Progressives are 100% right. Joe Biden isn't going to do anything because his real audience, the people he actually serves is the donor class. He's just the servant for them. There's a few other things that I have to get to because it's just incredible how on policy

and actually getting it done, yes, Biden is weak. But apparently he also has fragile feelings. Now first I want to start off with his delusional behavior in regard to the Republican Party. something that's been incredibly frustrating about Biden since he was campaigning for president in 2020. He said during his press conference that he noticed something shocking about Republicans. Let's watch that video. Crickets, yeah, crickets. They had no answer. I did not anticipate that there'd be such a stalwart effort to make sure that the most important thing was that President Biden didn't get anything done.

Think about this. What are Republicans for? What are they for? They mean one thing they're for. I don't know, Biden. Why don't you tell me what they're for? You served as vice president under the Obama administration for, I don't know, only eight years where the Republican Party did what? Oh, that's right.

They were obstructionists. How are you shocked or surprised by this? Did you just forget the eight years that you experienced? And by the way, it's not just that. those eight years, we saw what Republicans were up to before then, what they've been up to since then. Oh, I just didn't see it coming. I didn't see it coming. By the way, I was the most qualified to be president. Please pick me because I'd be the most persuasive. Biden claiming that he'd be the one to unite the country and actually succeed in passing an agenda.

What did he really succeed in? Embarrassing everyone? Pretending as if he didn't know what Republicans were really all about? And by the way, this timepiece that we've been citing is a a must read, because it really gives you a sense, like a detailed description of just how pathetic this administration is. Reporters clustered around Biden seeking his perspective on the way forward, a plan. He offered only a shrug. I hope we can get this done, the president said, but I'm not sure. And then get a load of this. A lot of people have been very blunt with them about what a terrible job they're doing, a congressional Democrat says of the White house, but they're very sensitive. Oh, are they? Are they very sensitive? Yeah, very

said that if you're sensitive, how about don't run for office? How about sit your ass at home, don't waste our time, and certainly don't waste the time of the activists and organizers who do the work to put you in that position of power in the first place. Oh, they're very sensitive. F off, absolute pathetic behavior. Anna, you will have made them even more sensitive with those kind of harsh words. Go cry about it. Go cry about it. Okay, and they will. I assure you they will. Yeah. They will spend a good deal of time crying and blaming us instead of actually doing their goddamn job. So guys, did you know that the Republicans were going to obstruct them all the way? Literally everyone

in the audience do, right? And you don't have to be progressive. Republicans know you guys were going to obstruct them, right? Independence knew it. Everybody knew it. The only people who didn't know it are people that work in watching the. Reporters are like, Republican parties have structured. I didn't know that. I didn't know. Joe Biden's like, Oh my God, the Republicans are the opposite party? Holy cow, how come nobody told me that? Guys, part of corporate media is they do myth making. One of the myths is that the people in power are great, that they're brilliant and incredible and accomplished and competent. It's a myth to keep the people in power in power. So it makes you go, oh, well, I mean, they must know what they're doing. No, you just saw it right there.

That's the man behind the curtain. He has no idea what's going on. Completely. befuddled. Mr. Magoo is in charge. They're not great men. They're just men willing to serve the interest of the people who pay them. It's not at all complicated. That's exactly what happened here. That's all that ever happens in politics. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling you a bag of goods and they can't do a bill of goods. And those are the guys who will tell you like, oh, no, wait, you shouldn't say that. People in Washington will be very offended. They are sensitive. We don't care. The truth is, Biden has no idea what he's doing and his administration is over. And he's actually not that upset about it. No, he's not. He actually thinks, hey, you know what?

I made a couple of deals. I got a corporate backed infrastructure bill passed. I did the bare minimum COVID good enough to retire on. And that's what he'll do. He'll retire because there's no way that guy's winning in 2024, let alone running. All right. Well, we got to take a break. When we come back, we're going to have a fantastic interview with Jessica Cisneros. She is running to primary Henry Quayar in Texas's 28th District. And yes, we will also talk about the FBI rating his home and office. What was that all about? We'll give you those details and more. Come right back. it away. All right. The FBI issued a or the FBI obtained a court warrant and proceeded to raid and search the home of Democratic representative Henry Quayar. Not only his home,

but his office as well. And this news was first reported by reporter Valerie Gonzalez with the monitor. She put out a series of tweets letting the public know that agents are still in around the home. Some more, some showed up a few moments ago, can't see what's happening inside, but some agents came outside with a clipboard and camera to snap pictures of the two trucks out front. In a later tweet, she writes that by around 7.30 p.m., a group of agents loaded large bags, plastic bins, and a computer into a federal vehicle. Others appear to be logging the items. So as it stands today, we don't have full detail. on what this investigation is about.

There are a few clues, so I want to give you the information we do know. FBI spokesperson Roseanne Hughes confirmed law enforcement's presence in the area but did not clarify what authorities were investigating. Hughes said it a statement that the FBI was present on two streets around Quayar's house in Laredo conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity. And the office of Quayar issued a statement indicating that Congressman Quayar will fully cooperate in any investigation. He is committed to ensuring that justice and the law are upheld. Now, what that justice is in relation to, we don't know yet, but here are some clues on what we do know.

First off, it is important to note which portion of the Department of Justice is conducting this investigation. agents were seen taking cases and other items from the congressman's home. FBI officials were also present at a downtown building owned by Quayar that reportedly houses his campaign office, as well as other private businesses. He also has, of course, a campaign manager. He's running for reelection. Colin Strother is the name of the campaign manager. And his Twitter account was deactivated, where uncertainness.

to whether or not that has any connection to this, but it was a little strange and the timing was a little interesting. Also the Department of Justice's public integrity unit is involved in the investigation, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. The public integrity section handles cases involving elected officials, including, this is the important part, campaign finance and other investigations. So that's all we know as of now. Of course, the story is developing and we'll give you more details as we learn that. But here to help us talk about this story and also talk about her, you know, attempts to primary Quayar in the upcoming midterm elections is Jessica Cisneros.

She is running to primary Quayar in Texas's 28th Congressional District. Jessica, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Happy to be back. Happy to have you. I'll start off with the first question. You know, obviously at this point, all you can really do is speculate about what's going on. But one thing that we do know about Henry Quayar is how often he votes along with Republicans.

He was notorious for voting along with Donald Trump during the Trump administration. And a lot of that seemed to be influenced by money in politics. So can you talk a little bit about that and how it kind of encouraged you to run against him? Absolutely. I mean, it was a major reason why I decided to run and throw my hat into the ring last cycle. I announced back in the summer of 2019, I was actually with you all on that first day. And a lot of it was motivated by the fact that we knew that Kuea was not representing and fighting on behalf of South Texans. We knew that he was out there doing the bidding of his Republican corporate interest donors, you know, whether it be big oil, the NRA, the Koch brothers.

the private prison industry, I mean, so many bad guys that are behind him. So although it's still shocking, right? Because I don't think many of us have their members of Congress get rated by the FBI. It's not surprising, right? Because a lot of people know that Kuea has been in Congress for too long. And that there's been a history of corruption during his time in Congress due to his special interests. So Jessica, the FBI rating, you know, United States Congress person's house is no small thing.

They're not going to do that unless they've got a lot of evidence already. Because look, keeping it real, prosecutors and FBI agents are very concerned about their careers and their track record and whether they could win a case, right? So they're not coming unless they think they're winning and that they have overwhelming evidence. This is all in prelude too. So given that they've got giant amount of evidence, Does anyone know publicly why this is happening? No, I mean, we're as clueless as everybody else. We're just waiting monitoring the situation because it's already been around 24 hours

since the investigation started, since the rate started happening. And we still don't have any details. I mean, I think that we as residents of Texas 20th Congressional District need to know what is happening, what are Congress members being accused of. And we hope that the investigation is very transparent. We think that that's what Poitad owes his constituents and we hope that he's going to tell us, like what this investigation is about. But in the meantime, we are absolutely focused on making sure that this is our opportunity

to make sure that Queer is in an office and that we come out on top on March 1st. So in fact, let me just follow up on that real quick, Anna. Sorry. Look, if he, it's not just the FBI we're waiting on. Jessica couldn't Quayar himself say what this is about because he doesn't have any duty to hold his secret. In fact, he has a duty to share with his constituents why he's being raided. I mean, in fact, it might even help him because right now we have no idea. We don't know if it's murder, robbery, or just simple corruption.

Now, I don't think it's the first two, but I don't know. why doesn't he answer it? And he could say, hey, look, it's corruption. And people have been accusing me of being corrupt for a long time. It goes back a decade. And I'm not, okay, fine, make the statement. So has he not said anything? Does it look like since you're opposing him in the primary year,

I figure you would know best? Are they just running for the hills? Has there been any response? Or are they going to try to keep it secret for the whole campaign? Not sure. I mean, I know that various news outlets have reported. have reported on just the facts, the ones that were mentioned earlier during the segment. And that's all that we know, Goyat hasn't made any, you know, response other than the statement

that he put out yesterday. So I guess it's just the waiting game. But again, in the meantime, we are trying to make sure that we're focusing on winning, right? And letting voters know, right? Like, this is, he's getting investigated for a reason. We don't know what that reason is right now. But let me tell you about these other instances where Poyat has been doing shady deals, has been taking money from, you know, all these groups that don't have the best interests of our working class South Texans in mind. And we're already hearing it from so many voters, right? Like, yes, Boyat has been in office for too long. This isn't, again, it's not, it's not surprising, but it's still shocking, I guess, to see an FBI raid happen to your member of Congress.

But we're hearing that a lot of folks are like, this is it, like Jessica Cisneros, you know, needs to be given a chance and we're going to do everything we can to elect her on March 1st. You know, it's interesting because back in 2012, there was a piece written over at My San Antonio in regard to some pretty shady, you know, American residents, but they're Mexican citizens who apparently were laundering money for the Zet. drug cartel, and some campaign contribution was made to Quayar and also to his brother, which they both had to return as a result of the negative press surrounding that big scandal or that big story. Now, it was a small campaign donation compared to some of the figures that we've seen with legalized bribery in this country. But my point in bringing that up is, you know, with this system of legalized bribery, you're going to have all sorts of shady moneyed interest pouring money into campaigns and one of the best ways to keep

yourself and your campaign clean is to reject that kind of money whether it be through corporate packs or through big donors and you know you've really made a name for yourself for rejecting the system of legalized bribery can you talk a little bit about how you know your campaign is is going now versus is the first time you attempted to primary Henry Quayar. Absolutely. I mean, last time around, even though we did come up a bit short, we were able to earn 48.2% of the vote. I was the first time, 26 year old candidate, never done this before, had virtually zero name ID, you know, compared especially to someone like Kuead, who has been representing my hometown of Laredo in various capacities since before I was born. At one point, he was Texas Secretary of State for Rick Perry, and then he ran for Congress.

So he was very much entrenched. But the good thing is that this time around, you know, we know we're not starting from scratch. We know exactly what we're doing. We know exactly what the issues are that are threatening everyday people. And we know that because we are out there knocking on doors. We're calling voters, asking them directly, like what, you know, what are the issues that are affecting you in your day-to-day lives? And it's no surprise to anyone, especially now after this terrible pandemic that we're still in the middle of, health care and jobs and increasing the minimum wage are the top issues that we're hearing on behalf of voters. So for us, it's about drawing a strong contrast between ourselves and Kuea and one of the first things that is out of our mouth as soon as we talk to voters is like we are not taking a single dime of corporate pack money because we want to be.

accountable to you and to you only. And we've seen what happens when our elected official, in this case, Boyad, is taking corporate PAC money and the corrupting influence that it's having on his votes in Washington. And for anyone who's interested in supporting Jessica, you can go to jessiccasisneros.com. That's jessiccasisneros.com because her campaign, of course, is funded with small dollar donations. And final question for me, you know, has more to do with what we've been experiencing in Congress during the Biden administration, particularly in regard to the social spending bill. You know, it's easy to criticize corporate Democrats, we do it all the time.

If you were elected into Congress, how would you as a progressive rally progressive lawmakers to handle the situation differently? I mean, I think it also comes down to the fundamental issue that Guad, I mean, was one of the handful of people, right, who were clearly obstructing this bill from getting passed and was doing the bidding of, you know, no labels in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who bought their vote, his vote last time around during our primary, since they were the ones who endorsed him or one of the groups that endorsed him during our race last cycle. So it wasn't surprising to seek way out, you know, try to obstruct the promises that so many

Democrats, including President Biden, ran on. And if it was up to me, obviously if I was there, then Democrats would have had that vote and done everything that we could to stay and hold the line and make sure that this compromise that was already agreed upon by both chambers that both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the spending budget we're going to get past at the same time. So this is why the stakes are so high in this election because we know that we have to win here because even if Kuead, who still has $2 million in the bank, he still has that money, he can still use it. And I think it's a do-or-die situation now. So he knows that he's backed into a corner.

If he's able to squeak by a win, there's a possibility that we lose the opportunity to have not just progressive representation in Congress, but Democratic representation in Congress. So we need to make sure that we are doing what we can and not take this opportunity for granted. And we need all hands on deck. We need people helping us, volunteering, sending what they can to our campaign because it's imperative that we win and we have progressive representation in Texas 28. All right, Jessica, one last question for me. Does it really matter too much if he's taking bribes from drug cartels or drug companies? Because I would say, look, Oxy has killed more Americans than the Zetas have.

So it would be awful if he was taking money from drug cartel. But he takes money from drug companies and it's not like the drug companies are giving them, giving him money for any motive other than what the drug cartels are giving him money for. Do as we tell you, we give you money, you do as you're told. So when he does it on behalf of giant American corporations who also get Americans killed, is it any better? I mean, I'd rather a congressperson that's not going to be bribed in general. I think we should probably be fighting for that and make sure that again, that

We come out on top on March 1st because, yes, I mean, we have not been receiving the representation that we deserve down here. And we came so close last time, 2,700 votes made the difference. And we don't want to wake up on March 2nd and think, man, it was our race to win. And, you know, we weren't able to deliver. But I'm confident that we can do it if everybody comes together. And especially because this is one of the first races that is coming up in the midterms, we're going to be able to set the tone, that this is our year as progressives to make sure that we're electing representation that is going to be having the best interests of our constituents in mind in Congress.

All right. I just want to let the audience know about the website one more time. Jessica Sissneros.com. And Jessica, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. Good luck to you. Thank you all so much. Take care. Take care. All right. We're going to take a brief break. But when we come back, we're going to get right back to the Biden administration. And his response, once he was accused of moving the country too far left, he took a little jab at Bernie Sanders there. We've got that story and more when we return.

All right, back on TYT, Chink and Anna with you guys. Anna's got more news. If there's any concern that Joe Biden is a progressive or a socialist, he wants you to know that you should not be concerned about that. He is an ineffective, feckless loser instead. So let's talk about that. Americans were sold a lie about Joe Biden when he was a candidate in the 2020 election. Certainly when he was running against other Democrats in the primary, he claimed that being a moderate means that he can strike deals with the GOP. He can really get the democratic agenda through Congress. Well, that hasn't worked out. And guess what? Despite all of his

pro-moderate or pro-centric marketing, the right wing still tries to paint him as a socialist. And that was certainly the framing of Peter Ducey's question during Biden's recent press conference. So let's take a quick look at that. Why are you trying so hard in your first year to pull the country so far to the left? Well, I'm not. I don't know what you consider to be too far to the left if in fact we're talking about making sure that we had the money for COVID, making sure we had the money to put together the bipartisan infrastructure. That part of his answer was fine. I wanted to show that beginning part, mostly because

of Peter Ducey's framing there, because there is literally. no indication that the Biden administration has even attempted to move the country to the left. I mean, if you want to look at the coronavirus stimulus bill, which was paired back considerably from what it initially was, it wasn't really very different from what the Trump administration had supported in the previous stimulus bills. So it's nonsense framing. But the part of Biden's answer that got under my skin was how he decided to throw Senator Sanders under the bus. Let's watch. You guys have been trying to convince me that I am Bernie Sanders. I'm not. I like him,

but I'm not Bernie Sanders. I'm not a socialist. I'm a mainstream Democrat, and I have been. And mainstream Democrats have overwhelmed me. If you notice, the 48 of the 50 Republicans, Democrats supported me in the Senate. I'm virtually everything I've asked. So how is that worked out for you, Biden? How is that worked out for the Democratic voters who were absolutely convinced that the moderate approach was the right approach? Did it get you the voting rights bill?

No. Did it get the passage of any social spending that would address really important issues like universal pre-K, free community college, you know, lowering prescription drug prices, expanding medicates. Did you do any of that? No, it didn't. It didn't do any of that. But I'm really glad that he felt the need to call out Senator Sanders and make him out

to be something that Biden would never want to be associated with. He likes him, he likes him. But he's not some like socialist that would actually, you know, maybe fight to get things done for working people in the country, Jank. Yeah, guys, look, I know that everybody in Washington thinks that you should kiss the ass of the powerful. So they're going to be outraged at what I'm about to say. But every one of you is going to know that it's obvious. Hey, Joe Biden, you're supposed to be on the left.

You're not supposed to help Fox News frame the left as weirdo radicals that you're not part of. He asked you, have you gotten too far left? The correct answer is, God damn right, I'm on the left because I wouldn't want to be part of the monsters that are on the right that believe that black people shouldn't get as much as much of an opportunity to vote as white people. That's why they've passed all those bills in all those different states. I wouldn't want to be part of the right wing that supports Donald Trump, who is against our democracy and tried to destroy it, who are in favor of corporations robbing you blind over and over again, who gave $2 trillion in Texas to the richest people. people in the country. I'm not on the right. I'm on the left. Next question, okay? Instead, what did he do? Oh, I'm sorry for being on the left, but I'm not too far left. I'm not sure to Godfogs. I'm not too far left. The right wing is definitely right. But you know, I'm going to please, please don't put me on the left. I wish I was a Republican. I wish I was. I'm so sorry. That was what you saw there. It's that's this subliminal message he's

delivering with a, it's not even a dog with a whistle. It's like a giant, human whistle saying, I don't want to be on the left. The right wing is correct. Don't you know anything about framing and the correct answer is no, because those same idiot Democrats have been supporting Republican framing their entire careers, assuming that the country's right wing one, it isn't. Remember, Schmuck, they elected you, not Donald Trump. You are on the left, Trump is on the right. I have to remind him and talk slowly, because apparently he doesn't understand it at all. No, he doesn't. But to be fair to Biden, if you want to call it that, I think he said what he genuinely believes. He's certainly not on the left. He's just not. I mean,

the fact that he told his corporate donors during the election that nothing would fundamentally change. These are specifically Wall Street donors he was speaking to. The reason why he answered that question the way he did is because it doesn't want to upset his donor. Who cares if he upsets the left, meaning, you know, voters who identify as on the left? Who cares about that? He doesn't want to upset the moneyed interests that promoted him, funded him, the moneyed interests that have a huge influence over our corporate media as well. I mean, this is who he is.

He answered honestly. And so I guess credit for being honest about how much of a failure you are, about how much you've abandoned any policy that would actually improve people's lives, policy that you claim to be supportive of? I mean, it's just, all of it is pathetic. The framing of the question is pathetic because there's no reason to believe that Biden has really promoted anything that is on the left or fought for anything that's on the left. I mean, he put out that policy, the build back better agenda, but he's the one who pushed

to decouple physical infrastructure from the rest of the social spending. He knew what he was doing. He knew that the fate of the social spending portion of that legislation was doomed the second that they did that. When people tell you who they are, just believe them. This is who Biden is. This is who he is. Yeah, look, guys, here's another easy way you can tell.

If someone like me was in that position, do you think I'd hesitate? You know, if I had an agenda, I would aggressively fight for that agenda. You might say, hey, listen, Chang, there's a reason why you're not in that position. you didn't kiss corporate ass and take enough money and the media hates you because you're against the status quo. And so, yeah, that's all true. That's all true. I'm just saying in the hypothetical where you had someone, anyone, however they got there, that actually believed in what they were saying and believed in their agenda. They would fight for it. You know that if somebody said, hey, money in politics was the big deal. I'd rip their heads off politically, right?

And rhetorically. And I would explain why money in politics is so corrosive to our democracy. It's toxic. It's obvious legalized bribery. Now, I give you that as a juxtaposition. Because when you ask Biden about anything, you get, I'm sorry for being on the left. I love Republicans. I love Republicans. Okay. Well, all right. Well, okay, fine. Then I'm the bad guy. I'm the bad guy for saying that Joe Biden is weak. Okay, well, Biden, show me strength. And don't attack the left. That's not strong. That's what you've done your whole life. You think that their left has no power. That's why you keep kicking them.

That is not strong. That further proves how weak you are. Attack the other guys, the ones on the right, Joe, the ones you are opposed to in elections. And when someone asks you about your agenda, show some goddamn passion. And the reason you don't is because you don't really care. It isn't your agenda.

Your agenda was to get elected president and worry about your legacy, because like every other politician, you're obsessed with your ego and you couldn't care less about policy. And you never believed in your so-called agenda. We told you from day one that corporations weren't going to allow that. And he works for corporations. They're the one who gave them, they literally gave him hundreds of millions of dollars to run for president. So you'll get a pat on the back from your boss.

Go find a CEO, Joe, do you think you're doing a great job? Way to bend down and kneel, Joe. Show me your agenda. Prove me wrong. Fight for something. You'll never do it. And I'll be 100% right. All right.

One final Biden-related story before I lose my mind. But this time, we're actually going to defend Biden, believe it or not. Joe Biden was asked about the upcoming midterm elections during his recent press conference. And the question was really about the legitimacy of election. given the fact that Democrats have been pushing to pass a voting rights bill to mitigate the gerrymandering and the voter suppression that has passed in several red states, or I should say purple states. And he answered the question in a way that could have been clearer. But the media is now just completely manufacturing a soap opera around it in an effort to compare

him to Donald Trump and his claims of voter fraud. Now, I'm going to give you the full context, show you the videos, and then I'll go to the examples of, honestly, like, mainstream media figures really blowing this whole thing out of proportion. So first, let's give you the context about what this was all about. Ask out of news briefing, if he believes the election would be fair if Congress doesn't pass voting rights legislation, Biden said that, quote, it all depends on whether or not were able to make the case to the American people that some of this is being set up to try to

alter the outcome of the election. And of course he's going to say that. He's allegedly currently pushing for a voting rights bill. Now here's more of what he had to say. Remember how we thought not that many people were going to show up to vote in the middle of a pandemic? I mean the highest voter turned out of the history of the United States of America. Well, I think if in fact, no matter how hard they make it for minorities to vote, I think you're going to see them willing to stand in line and defy the attempt to keep them from being able to vote. I think you're going to see the people who are trying to keep from being able to show up, showing up and making the sacrifice that needs to be make in order to change the law back to what it should be. And but it's going to be difficult. I make no bones about that.

It's going to be difficult. But we're not there yet. We've not run out of options yet. And we'll see how this moves. All right. I would venture to say that that answer sounds nothing like Donald Trump. And keep Donald Trump in mind as you watch the next video because a reporter felt the need to ask a follow-up question.

Apparently, that answer wasn't clear enough. And so here's what the reporter had to ask, and here's how Biden handled it. You were asked whether or not you believed that we would have free and fair elections in 2022 if some of these state legislatures reforms their voting protocols. You said that it depends. Do you think that they would in any way be illegitimate? Oh, yeah. I think it easy to be illegitimate. Imagine, imagine if, in fact, Trump has succeeded in convincing

tense to not count the votes. Imagine if. In regards to 2022, sir, the mid-term. Oh, it's 22. I mean, imagine if those attempts to say that the count was not legit, you have to recount it and we're not going to count, we're going to discard the following votes. I mean, sure, I'm not saying it's going to be legit is the increase in the prospect of being illegitimate is a direct proportion who's not being able to get these reforms passed. Now, Joe Biden is not a great speaker. I mean, he's stuttering, he's fumbling, mumbling, like, I get it. But I think it's clear what he's trying to say.

We need to pass a voting rights bill to mitigate the damage that's being done by bad actors, who obviously want an undemocratic system in place that gives Republicans the upper hand. That's different from what we heard from Donald Trump leading up to the 2020 election and certainly following the 2020 election in which he lost the presidency. But none of that matters because here's how the corporate media has interpreted Joe Biden's answer. Let's start off with Savannah Gunthrey, Guthrie. Another comment the president made. He openly cast doubt on whether the 22 midterm elections would be legitimate.

He said it all depends, which is astonishing to hear a president question whether our elections will be legitimate. We've heard it before, but not from this president. Astonishing, we've heard it before, but not from this president. But it didn't stop there. he or CNN. What he said was actually the entire thing, but the first part was probably the most jarring to hear a president of the United States who is not Donald Trump even suggest ahead of time that an election isn't legitimate.

Jenk, this need to equate Biden's rhetoric to what Trump has said and done, in regard to our democratic process is ridiculous. It's completely manufactured, just 100% manufactured. I don't know, am I wrong? Am I misinterpreting something? No, they're silly people. They are desperate to prove how neutral they are. They don't even understand journalism.

Journalism isn't neutrality. Well, I saw two different things. I saw one thing happen. People describe it in two different ways. What am I, a reporter? I'm not going to tell you which one's right. I'm just going to say, oh, these are two different ways that people describe it. So here they're trying to be like, oh, I am so neutral.

You know, I criticize Trump. So now I'm just making you up a criticism of Joe Biden. I'm going to call it astonishing, jarring. Okay, what are you talking about? Look, here's a show that all of today has been ripping Biden to shreds. So why are we defending Biden here? Because truth matters. He didn't say that he thinks that if we don't win the elections,

I'm just going to call them illegitimate like Trump did. And I'm not going to seat people. I'm going to decertify the license. He didn't say any of that, nor did he imply any of that. If you said, look, the guy's got like age issues because that was a bumbling answer about 2020 when that wasn't a question at all, that's a fair critique. But if you're pretending that he said that I'm not going to certify the elections if we lose and I'm going to call them illegitimate, well, you're a dishonest actor.

You're doing that so you can, because it's about your bona fides. Oh, everybody to come, I was so neutral to everybody. I was neutral to the truth, didn't care it all. I criticize Biden for irrelevant things. By the way, why don't you criticize Biden on relevant things? Right. It hasn't got anything done. But you like that because you're also corporate media and you love the status quo.

So instead you have to pick on nonsense stuff like this. Okay, so one more time. Okay, for example, what's the difference between Hillary Clinton complaining about 2016? And Donald Trump complaining about 2020, because apparently people are slow, so you have to explain very carefully to them. Hillary Clinton said, oh, it sucks that I lost. I think I blame it on my dog, the weather, the Russians, Wisconsin, the voters, the left, Bernie Sanders, etc. That's excuse making. It's annoying. But she didn't say, I actually won to decertify the votes of the states. She'd destroy democracy and make me president. She didn't say any of those things. I can't. Hillary Clinton, but she didn't. She just whined. Donald Trump said don't certify the election,

pulverize our democracy, shredded to pieces, pretend I won, lie about it. That way we'll destroy America. Oh damn it, my corrupt politicians weren't as corrupt as I wanted them to be. Hey, everybody raid the goddamn capital. And while you're doing it, instead of discouraging you, I'll encourage you. And I'll have phone calls with the guys inside worried about losing their life and make fun of them and say that the rioters are more American and patriotic than they are. You can't tell that difference. You can't tell the difference between a bumbling Biden going, hey, maybe we should actually

not restrict voting because that would seem anti-democratic. And Trump's saying, oh, do you want, screw democracy. I just won it even though I didn't win. If you can't tell that difference, you're not a reporter. You're not a reporter. Well, that does it for our first hour. We're going to take a brief break. And when we come back, we'll talk about how news.

Max decided to feature a Hungarian politician who said some pretty awful things about the LGBTQ community. But more importantly, we're gonna juxtapose that with the treatment of the, you know, of Latin American countries electing leftist leaders. The media has been very critical on that. It's an interesting story. So come back, we'll give you that and more. 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.