The Young Turks - Manchin Leaving?

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Joe Manchin threatens to leave the Democratic Party. Biden discussed a $1.9 trillion top line number for the economic package and told Democrats free community college is out. John Deere workers strike as company rakes in record profits. After a tweak was made to the law that allows the Pentagon to give war machines to local police depts, many are now citing natural disasters and climate change to get the equipment, only to use them to intimidate and attack citizens. Hosts: Ana Kasparian Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Welcome, Friends, you're watching The Young Turks. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and I wish I could promise you an uplifting positive show. But this show will be full of a lot of rage, a lot of resentment toward the Democratic Party and the complete and utter weakness that we see from its leaders. And yes, the Joe Biden administration as well. But don't worry, there's plenty of negative commentary for Republicans as well.

But later in the show, when John Iderola joins me for the second hour, we will mix it up a little bit. There are some fun stories in the rundown, including what one art museum decided to do once it realized. that TikTok was censoring its nude art, and I'm just talking about statues and the things. But they found a solution. They found a solution. And I'll tell you what that solution is later on in the second hour. But in the first hour, that's where there will be fire and fury, because many concessions have been given to Joe Manchin. Biden is apparently more interested in appeasing the desires and the demands of Mansion and cinema, so I'll give you the details on what those concessions are. Also, there are some rumors brewing regarding the affiliation,

the political affiliation of Joe Manchin and whether he will remain a Democrat, so that's a big story today as well. And then later in the show, we'll discuss why exactly our local police departments are as militarized as they are and how they're using the excuse of climate change to become more militarized. It's an insane story. So before we get to all of that, as always, just want to encourage you guys to like and share the stream. If you're not a member, you can become one by clicking on that join button if you're watching on YouTube or by going to you or by going to t.com slash join. And as always, we deeply appreciate our members because without them, this show would not be possible. So thanks again. With that said, let's move on to

our first story of the day. And it is not a good one. There we go. All right. So, conservative Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who sounds quite a lot like a Republican member of the Senate, apparently has been speaking with his close confidants and advisors and telling them that he's thinking about switching parties. Now he denies this publicly. After an article was published about it, he claims that it's all BS. But let me give you the details and you can judge for yourselves. Manchin has told associates that he is considering leaving the Democratic Party if President Joe Biden and Democrats on Capitol Hill do not agree to his demand to cut the size of the social infrastructure bill from 3.5 trillion

to 1.75 trillion. Now he has mentioned the possibility of switching parties to Joe Biden, according to reporting by David Korn over at Mother Jones. And that makes a lot of sense because just today we learned about all these concessions that Biden was, Biden was making in regard to the budget reconciliation bill, that's the bill that is also referred to as the social infrastructure bill, with all sorts of provisions and programs meant to actually materially benefit the lives of ordinary Americans rather than corporations.

Now whenever corporate interests are at stake, it's much harder to pass legislation, especially when you're dealing with an insanely corrupt Congress and senators like Joe Manchin, who's far more interested in enriching himself from fossil fuel companies than doing what's right by his own constituents. Now let's give you some more details on the story. Mansion has said that if this were to happen, he would declare himself an American independent. And he has devised a detailed exit strategy

for his departure. So what exactly is that exit strategy? Well again, according to this report from Mother Jones, first he would send a letter to Senator Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, removing himself from the Democratic leadership of the Senate. He is the vice chairman of the Senate Democrats policy and communications committee. Mansion hopes that that would send a signal.

He would then wait and see if that move had any impact on the negotiations. After about a week, he would change his voter registration from Democrat to independent. And by the way, the report was unclear in regard to whether Manchin would plan to continue caucusing with Democrats. That's an important element to all of this, because if he would refuse to caucus with Democrats, then Democrats would immediately lose their very slim majority in the Senate. Remember, there's a 50-50 split among Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaking vote. Now here's the thing.

Mansion, according to this report, wanted to see if the threat of leaving the Democratic Party would maybe move the needle in his preferred direction in regard to the budget reconciliation bill. And turns out that it worked because again, now you have Joe Biden making all sorts of insane concessions to Mansion. Okay, the concessions include refusing to increase the corporate tax rate, more details on that later in the show, cuts to the more popular programs, including the child tax credit, elder care, community college, I mean, all sorts of things are now no longer going to make it in the budget reconciliation bill. And that's because Biden, very likely, was terrified of this threat that this corrupt politician in the Senate was going

to switch his party from Democrat to American independent. Okay, it's incredible. Now, after this news was published, Mansion completely denied it, flat out denied it. Let's hear what he had to say. I can't control rumors and it's bull-shapple spell with a B-U-L-L-L-Tapital B. I mean, someone give that man the Oscar. It's such a great actor, right? No, it's not BS. This is something, I wouldn't be surprised if his aides or people close to him leaked this to Mother Jones with the hope that this type of article would be published. I have no doubt that this kind of threat is what does end up moving the needle in his preferred direction in regard to the budget reconciliation bill.

And sure enough, the first story that was published in the news today, the big headline today, was that Biden was making all these concessions. Now, we're in a strange place right now, because Biden makes these concessions for Mansion. It's unclear whether Manchin even supports the bill now that these concessions have been made. That doesn't answer any questions about what Senator Kirsten Cinema is going to do because she's also against the budget reconciliation bill because she refuses to increase corporate taxes because she's a bot politician who's looking out for her corporate interest. I mean, she's spent so much time fundraising as this debate has been brewing. I mean, she took the time she had off from the Senate recently to go to Europe and do some fundraising in Europe.

That's what her priority is. As far as Mansion goes, he's even more corrupt because it's not just about the corporate donors. It's about his personal financial investments. The fact that he is making money to the tune of half a million dollars a year from a coal company that he founded then passed on to his son. But he's still invested and he's still profiting off of it. So when we're having discussions about what we're going to do in regard to this climate emergency and reporters engage in their coverage by pretending as if Joe Manchin is just a good old boy from West Virginia.

He's just looking out for his constituents. He's worried about coal jobs. No, he's not. No, he's not. 3% of jobs in West Virginia are tied to the coal industry. Just 3%. It's not about jobs. Joe Mansion had no problem with a pharmaceutical manufacturer shipping jobs abroad to the point where

unionized workers in his state lost their positions. He had no problem with that. It's not about jobs in his state. It's not about fiscal responsibility. Reporters need to keep it real about what Mansions real incentives are. The incentives are in the wrong place. And to be Be quiet frank with you guys, we give you the facts, we tell you how the negotiations are going. But the truth of the matter is, there will be no progress in this country unless members of Congress are banned from investing in individual stocks until we get money out of politics, until we have organized powerful labor that can do strikes and essentially hold corporations

and politicians feet to the fire. These are things that we need. else, right? Like the electoral politics, they matter, but to a very limited extent. Because think about what Biden ran on. Biden had a lot of tough talk when he was running his president. A lot of tough talk about reversing Trump's tax cuts for the rich. But his first proposal out of the gate wasn't even to reverse the corporate tax cuts. So corporations are paying 35% as they previously were. Now, the effective tax rate has always been much lower because of loopholes and all of that, but you get what I'm saying.

His first proposal was, yeah, maybe not 35%, maybe 28%. That's not a reversal. So look, when he was telling his corporate donors, when he was telling Wall Street donors while he was campaigning that nothing will fundamentally change, he meant it. He meant it. This country is not governed by politicians who are looking out for their constituents best interest. It's ruled by corporations and it will remain that way until we change the power structure and change incentives. The incentives are in the wrong place.

And so Joe Manchin is governing out of pure self interest. That's it. End of story. And no amount of negative reporting about him, no amount of pressure is going to change that. Because he's a rational actor when you really think about it. When you really think about it, he's a rational actor. Would you turn around and reject half a million dollars a year to do the right thing for your community? I mean, I'd like to believe that most people would, but I'm also realistic and a little pessimistic about humanity.

You've got to change the incentives. Right now, all of the incentives tell our politicians to work against us, not for us. And that's the real issue here. Doesn't matter if they're Democrats, doesn't matter if they're Republicans, doesn't matter if they're Republicans, they are completely taken over by the same corporate interests, by the same corporate donors, and that's where the real problem is. All right, well, with that said, why don't we move on to the details regarding Biden's concessions to Joe Manchin?

So, President Joe Biden, who campaigned on reversing Trump's tax cuts for the rich, who claimed, who claimed to care so much about the working people of America has now turned around and offered all sorts of ridiculous concessions to corporate Democrat Joe Manchin in the Senate. Now, these concessions don't really seem to move the needle much for Joe Manchin. He still hasn't committed to voting in favor of the budget reconciliation bill. Neither has Kirsten Cinema, but we can now see clearly what direction, this bill is going in. It will be watered down, and it will do away with many of the provisions that were not only popular,

but incredibly necessary to improve Americans' lives. Now, Biden discussed a 1.75 to 1.9 trillion price tag for the sweeping spending package. Remember, the initial price tag was 6 trillion, then it was lower to 3.5 trillion. And now we're talking about maybe, maybe if we're lucky, 1.9 trillion. While the number is not finalized, it is far closer to West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin's 1.5 trillion top line than Progressive's number, which was 3.5 trillion. Oh, thank God. I mean, thank God we're appeasing Senator Joe Manchin.

Thank God. I mean, that's the most important thing here. Now, has he agreed to vote in favor of the reconciliation bill? No. But this story gets far worse. First off, corporate tax hikes, gone. There will be no corporate tax hikes. Biden is willing to avoid increasing taxes on corporations.

When Donald Trump came into office, the corporate tax rate was 35%. Because of his tax cuts for the rich, they were lowered to 21%. And then Biden, who claimed that he was going to completely reverse them, came out of the gate. As soon as he was inaugurated, puts on a proposal saying, we won't raise it to 35% like it was before Trump came into office, but we'll raise it to 28%. And then you have Joe Manchin crying and whining about it. Not just Manchin, of course, Republicans, but remember, Democrats have a slim majority in the Congress. If they really wanted to get something past, they could.

But you have Mansion and cinema whining about increasing the corporate tax rate. At one point, Manson's like, I don't know, maybe we could increase it to 25%, but no more than that. Now, forget about it, no corporate tax hikes. Washington Post reported that today and so one of the major pay force for the budget reconciliation bill is cut. So if you're gonna cut the revenue that was meant to be raised to pay for the bill, what's gonna get cut from the bill? Well, I hope you guys are sitting down because it's a lot of really important stuff. Now, Biden informed House progressives that the final bill to expand the social safety net is expected to drop tuition free community college. Oh, thank God, thank God.

Yeah, you know, offering two years of free community college was just too much. I mean, you don't want American students to get too entitled, do you? I mean, who do they think they are? Two years of free community college. I mean, that wasn't even a half measure. It was less than a half measure coming from Biden. But it was the bare, it was just the bare minimum. Two years of free college because we're drowning in student loan debt, $1.6 trillion in student loan debt, debt that people cannot get rid of, even if they file for bankruptcy, thanks to Biden's bankruptcy bill. So it's debt that puts Americans, workers, in this awful position for many, for the rest of their lives. And he was just willing to do the bare minimum to alleviate that.

But now he's backed away because we've got to appease Joe Manchin. But he goes further. Moreover, Biden indicated, I can't believe this, Biden indicated that the child tax credit, a key Democratic priority would likely be extended for one, for one additional year, much shorter than what many in their party wanted. The child tax credit will also likely be means tested, keeping with what Mansion had wanted. Remember, Mansions, he's the guy running the country. He's the president. He's the guy who apparently got elected. in the executive branch, right? Unbelievable. The child tax credit was supposed to lift 50% of children out of poverty who are currently in poverty.

So in my opinion, I would like our government to be a little more ambitious than that, but they can't even get that. They're not even willing to make the child tax credit, which is tremendously popular for obvious reasons, a permanent program. So instead of being permanent, now it will be limited to one year. Biden also indicated that the group, or to the group of progressives, I should say, that they would reduce the proposed funding for so-called home care for the elderly and disabled, down to less than 250 billion.

Democrats had wanted to keep the funding at 400 billion. I told you guys, this was just going to keep getting worse. I mean, think about where the priorities are. No, we need to provide less support in regard to elder care. No free community college. What are you talking about? We got to maintain the corporate tax cuts, a system that allows for the most profitable corporations in this country to not only get away with paying nothing in federal income

taxes, but sometimes they get massive refunds after they file their taxes. I don't know, we don't, I mean, ordinary Americans don't really get those kinds of tax incentives. There are no loopholes. Ordinary Americans, they pay their fair share. And as soon as there's a program that's meant to offer tax incentives that help raise kids, no, no, we can't, we can't make that permanent. Nope, sorry, sorry, one year program max, if that, if that. And by the way, Mansion, after all these concessions, still refuses to commit to vote in favor of this legislation. But there's more. The president told progressive lawmakers that negotiators are weighing, reducing the duration of paid leave benefit outlined in the package to four weeks

down from the proposed 12 weeks. So now we're going from a, I think generous, common sense, paid family leave proposal to now, if you're lucky, if you're lucky, maybe three weeks, maybe, or four weeks. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised at this point if the final piece of legislation doesn't even include that. Four weeks, that's it, if you're lucky. And what about Medicare expansion? Which, by the way, cinema is against, mansion is against.

The president said that they plan to keep an expansion of Medicare, which includes hearing, dental, and vision in line with what the progressives want. I don't believe him. I don't believe him. We'll see about that. But we know how powerful pharmaceutical companies are. We know that it was something that, again, mansion and cinema pushed back against, which is exactly why neither one of them, even after these concessions, has agreed to support

the bill. So I don't believe Biden because Biden is weak. He's fundamentally weak. He doesn't know how to use sticks and he's getting bullied by the likes of Joe Manchin. It's really sad, it's incredibly pathetic. It's frankly quite embarrassing. Now he allegedly also wants to keep the universal pre-K and the investments to help combat climate change. But remember, Joe Manchin personally profits and benefits from dirty coal to the tune of half a million dollars a year.

So if you plan on maintaining the climate provisions, do you really think that Mansion is going to play ball? Of course he's not going to play ball. I'm telling you all this because you can read the tea leaves. Those climate provisions ain't going to make it. In fact, here's Mansion this morning who was asked about the, the provision. A vision meant to tax carbon emissions, let's watch. Are you okay with the carbon tax? No, no, we're not talking.

That's, we haven't talked about that. Are you saying you oppose a climate tax or that you just aren't talking about it right now? The carbon tax. Carbon tax. Yeah, no, we're not. We're not. Carbon tax is not on the board at all right now, okay? That was the president of the United States.

I mean, not officially, but Joe Biden's getting slapped around by Joe Manchin. Mansion. One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off. But here's the good news. This doesn't have to be the story of your next chapter. Hormone Harmony by Happy Mammoth is an herbal formula made with science-backed ingredients designed to fine-tune your hormones by balancing estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and even stress hormones like cortisol. It helps with common issues such as hot flashes, poor sleep, low energy, bloating, and more.

With over 40,000 reviews and a bottle sold every 24 seconds, the results speak for themselves. A survey found 86% of women lost weight, 77% saw an improved mood, and 100% felt like themselves again. Start your next chapter feeling balanced and in control. For a limited time, get 15% off your entire first order at happy mammoth.com with code next chapter at checkout. Visit happy mammoth.com today and get your old self back naturally. He's selling out his own supporters, the people who went out of their way to canvas for him, to campaign for him, to support him. Even progressives who didn't really favor him as the Democratic candidate, you know,

went out of their way to make a robust case in favor of getting that man elected. Because hey, you know, Donald Trump is such a threat. Donald Trump was a bad dude, okay? He cut corporate taxes and Joe Biden said that he was going to reverse that, but he didn't do it because he's a coward. The president of the United States is a coward. He gave Joe Manson's wife a cushy little job, okay, appointed her to a cushy little job. Carrots, carrots, carrots.

Where are the sticks, Biden? You're the president of the United States. But here's the problem, they're all emboldened to engage in this garbage because they all have the same corporate donors. Biden's cabinet is full of the corporate elite. There's a few good, you know, appointments there. But at the end of the day, really, I mean, rhetorically speaking, Biden seems better than Mansion. But did he really want these provisions? Because I would argue that a politician, a president who genuinely wants to fundamentally change the country,

who really wants to improve Americans' lives materially, wouldn't cower to Joe Manchin. Joe Manchin loses his mind the second a Democratic politician writes a strongly worded op-ed about him in a West Virginia newspaper. Do you know how easy it is to bully Joe Manchin? to beat him to submission politically, but he won't do it. Biden won't do it because he doesn't really want it. Either he doesn't really want it or he's just a coward, terrified that Manchin might leave the Democratic Party. So what is the establishment Democrats case going to be in 2020 when they want to get

reelected, when they don't actually offer their constituents much to improve their lives? What is their case going to be? More fear mongering about Republican candidates? Good luck with that. Good luck with 2024. And we'll see how progressives play this, but honestly, it's really not looking good. All right, we got to take a break. We'll be back with more. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian with you. Look, the show started with some pretty negative news, But there is a story today that uplifts me and should uplift you as well. More importantly, should inspire you to organize your workplace.

So let's talk a little bit about the labor activity that we're seeing, labor activity that I'm super excited about. Let's focus a little on John Deere. 10,000 John Deere workers are on strike in states like Iowa, Illinois, and Kansas. The strike began on October 14th and is open-ended until the workers secure a contract that they're actually happy with. Now previously there was a contract offered to them. It was a contract agreed upon by John Deere and the United Auto Workers, the union representing the workers. But the workers were unhappy with it because of the fact that John Deere is making record profits.

And they wouldn't even be able to make those profits if it weren't for the work, that the workers do. The revenue is generated by the workers. And they've decided, very smartly if you ask me, to take advantage of the tight labor market to apply pressure to John Deere to secure a better contract. And I love it. The strike came after workers overwhelmingly voted down a first tentative agreement negotiated by the auto workers union. Among the over 90% of members voting, 90% voted no. And by the way, Jonah Furman, who writes for labor notes, has done an excellent job reporting on this daily. Lots of details. So I highly recommend following his work. I love seeing reporters cover these types of stories. Now, deer is in the midst of the most profitable

year ever. The farm and construction equipment manufacturer expects to rake in 5.7 to 5.9 billion in net income this year, far exceeding its previous high of 3.5 billion in 2013. In fact, here's a report detailing more of the profits that John Deere's been making, but more importantly, why their workers are unhappy with the contract offer. John Deere's profits grew by 61% in recent years. You point that out in your articles, and their CEO's salary grew by 160% during the pandemic. So why aren't employees getting a piece of those profits for the labor that they do every day? That is the question. I mean, shareholders are getting a piece of the profits. The stock price has doubled since the pandemic.

Dividends were hiked recently by 17%. I think that's a great question for CEO, John May, and the company to answer. The pie is growing. There's a bigger piece that could be handed out to workers. There definitely could be a bigger piece handed out to workers, but that's not what we're seeing from John Deere. So what did John Deere offer? Well, Deere initially proposed ending the plant closure moratorium, doing away with overtime pay after eight hours, eliminating seniority-based wage progressions, forcing workers to pay 20% of their health insurance premiums and many other traconian concessions. By the way, there are some trends happening among corporations right now that some of you might have already experienced, but I just want to make sure that everyone's aware. One of the things that's been happening lately is workers haven't been getting paid during

training. So while they're training for a job that they just got hired to do, you're seeing more and more of these companies refuse to pay their workers as they're in the process of training. There hasn't been a lot of reporting on that, but it is a trend that I've noticed, and if they can get away with it, they're going to keep doing it. In this case, just take a look at what they wanted to do. They wanted to do away with overtime pay. And you're also seeing that trend become more widespread right now as the labor market is in fact tight, because workers are demanding more. They're not just taking any job with awful working conditions and awful pay.

And so the workers who remain are forced to do overtime. And John Deere's like, yeah, we want them to do overtime, but we don't want to pay them more for the overtime. And what I love is these workers who have a little bit of a safety net with this union are like, nah, nah. If I'm working longer than eight hours a day, I deserve more pay for every hour that I'm working in overtime. And they're absolutely right about that. Deer backed down from most of these concessions at the bargaining table. The agreement members rejected on October 14th, though, would have maintained the current premium free health insurance plan. It also would have reinstated the cost of living adjustment, which was eliminated in the previous contract.

But it introduced a new major concession. No pensions for new hires. And they don't want it. They're like, no, we don't want this. And keep in mind, the union leadership agreed on this contract offer with John Deere. But the rank and file union members are like, no, absolutely not. And what I love is that they already have a two-tiered system that they've been trying to do away with in terms of the way people are paid. You know, new hires don't get paid the same way, that people with seniority get paid.

And they wanted to introduce yet another tier to divide the workers. And they're like, no, we don't want that. We want solidarity in the workplace. And I think that makes a lot of sense. More on some of those details in the next clip. Over the weekend, 90% of workers rejected an offer that John Deere had made. and the union, the UAW signed off on, were you expecting that, you know, many workers were going to vote no? And where does the union stand today? Did they misread their members?

Yeah, I think that's a big part of the story here, too, is that United Auto Workers National Union is going through a lot of turmoil. And clearly they were not on the same page as these 10,000 John Deere workers who voted 90% no on this contract with 90% turnout. So it's not a small group that disagreed with the deal that the union brought back. I think the bigger context is a bigger conversation in the labor movement of which direction we're going to go in right now. There's a referendum happening in the national UAW where a million united auto workers members and retirees will be receiving a ballot next week that is about electing directly the top officers of the union to put an end to a recent cycle of corruption and decades of concessionary contracts. I mean, I think these strikes are also

a reaction to bad deals made in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s when companies cried poverty. And for a lot of these workers, it's transparent that that moment has passed. We are in a, you know, pandemic moment where these corporations have done really well. And the unions need to be going to the table for more if you talk to these rank and file members. See, when you have some labor power, which these unionized workers do have, they can understand that we're experiencing a pivotal moment with a tight labor market. And they can use that leverage to apply pressure for better work conditions and better pay. At Deere's tractor cab and assembly operations in Waterloo, Iowa, for instance, the 8,000 tractor line, which workers refer to as the money maker, and in fact is, was already over 800 units behind schedule at the start of the

strike. I'm sure that hurts. That line produces tractors that can cost up to $800,000. So the workers understand where the power is. Once you start threatening the profits of this corporation, maybe they'll take the negotiations a little more seriously. Right? Because look, when you really think about it, this is the system we're living under. This isn't, this isn't crony capitalism. This is capitalism. This is how capitalism works. And I explained that during my debate with Ben Shapiro. And he seemed to agree to an extent. Now, watch, because I want you to think about what's happening over at John Deere in the context that I explain in this video. As an employer, right, it's not that you have to be awful to your employees, but you have

a fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders to return, you know, to provide a return on their investment. That's literally like it's baked into the system. That's true. And so as a result, I mean, what's the most expensive cost within a business? It's always labor. It's always labor. So when we talk about exploitation, right, exploitation always makes. makes it seem like you're actively brutal and awful to your employees, which in some cases, that does happen. But it doesn't even have to get that far. The whole point is to extract as much labor for the lowest possible price. That can only happen in monopolistic situation. Increase profits and provide a return of investment to your shareholders. That's just the way the

system works. That is just the way the system works. So executives over at John Deere are fulfilling their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. And that means cutting costs as much as humanly possible to return as much money to shareholders as they can, because that is their fiduciary responsibility. And by the way, to return money to themselves as well. Because oftentimes the way executives are paid isn't even through a salary, it's through stock options. And so if they can make the shares more valuable, that means they can pay themselves quite a bit more. And the system is intentionally set up that way, guys, which is why it's so important to ensure that workers have a seat at the table, that workers have some power. And in this case, they do.

For instance, there are a lot of threats. I mean, look, I also want to say, even with union representation going on strike, workers put a lot on the line. And right now, John Deere is threatening the striking workers by taking away their health benefits. And as Senator Bernie Sanders mentioned on Twitter, John Deere's profits have exploded by some 67%. But workers who spent years with the company are now being forced off their insurance. That is beyond outrageous. John Deere is a hugely profitable company and workers must be allowed to keep their health care during the strike. But here's the thing, they do have a little bit of protection because the United Auto Workers is prepared for things like this.

Let me tell you how. The company plans to cut off workers health insurance by the end of October. The United Auto Workers, which has a $790 million strike fund, is picking up COBRA payments and providing strike pay of $275 per week. So when we have these discussions about strikes, I know there's some talk of a general strike online, it's not that easy. There has to be an infrastructure in place. There needs to be a plan in place. There needs to be tough work done in the form of organizing to ensure that there's some form of relief, some sort of safety net to allow for the workers to really hold the corporate executives feet to the fire. I'm really happy to see that John Deere is

able to do this strike. This is the first strike since 1986 over at John Deere. And it's because they're organized, they have some power and this moment is in fact pivotal. This tight labor market provides the avenue for them to do what they're doing right now and more power to them. They deserve to benefit from the increased profits at that company because they're the ones doing the hard work. All right, we got to take a

break. We'll be right back with more stories including why we're seeing more and more militarized police across the country. Welcome back. Let's get to our next story. So we've been hearing a lot about police reform and supposedly we had Democrats that were going to do something about it. Turns out, no, they've completely dropped the notion of reforming police. But let's talk to. talk about why local police departments have become as brutal as they have been and how they become more and more militarized year after year. Police in Iowa have been using a massive, mine resistant military vehicle to intimidate protesters and also to do things like serve

warrants. Think about that, they're using military vehicles to serve warrants and to intimidate protesters who are supposed to be protected under our first amendment. But when the Johnson County Sheriff's Office obtained that military vehicle, they told the community, and they also told the Pentagon, where they obtained that vehicle, that they needed it to help the community in the event of an extreme weather condition, in the event of a blizzard or a flood. they're essentially claiming that they need militarized equipment to fight climate change, to respond to climate change. Are they not merciful?

Now, of course, that's not really what they used this military vehicle for. Now, the sheriff at the time said this. Essentially, it's really a rescue recovery and transport vehicle. It didn't really turn out that way. In reality, Iowa City police who share use of the vehicle, with the sheriff's office, staged it near last year's racial justice protests, where officers fired tear gas at peaceful protesters for refusing to disperse. And this May, residents fumed after police drove the former war machine through a predominantly

black neighborhood to serve arrest warrants. Awesome. Now why is this happening? It's actually common sense when you really think about it. For far too long, Americans have kind of been complacent. They've turned the other way as our government has poured so much of our resources into defense spending. As the country has, the government, I should say, has engaged in war after war, conflict after conflict. And of course, all of that is meant to drum up more support for more military spending. But when you spend that much money, think about it. We're going to spend $7.5 trillion on defense over the next decade. When you spend that much money to enrich defense contractors, the military is going to have a surplus of weaponry of these types

of vehicles. And what are they going to do with all that stuff? Well, they're going to look for a place to sell it, a place to, you know, store it. And wow, why don't we just give it to local police departments. And so throughout the years, police have become more and more militarized because they're literally taking military equipment and weapons from the Pentagon, which has this surplus. I'm really glad that this country's got its priority straight, right? Well, you have all of these lawmakers, democratic lawmakers, pretending to be so concerned about the $3.5 trillion price tag attached to the human infrastructure bill, the bill that would have actually improve Americans lives, behind the scenes, they're like, yo, can we get a little more

funding for defense? Because my defense contractor friends are legally bribing me to provide more money for them. Okay. So now the city council in, you know, Iowa City is trying to figure out what to do. They want to do away with this vehicle. In fact, one Johnson County city council member says this, it's a vehicle made for wartime circumstances, and in my honest opinion, it doesn't belong here. You know what? Janice is right. It doesn't belong there. And if you don't believe me, why don't we take a look at what these vehicles look like. Now, this video is from the Palm Bay Police Department in Florida, but it's a similar militarized vehicle. It's known as the MRAP. Let's see if this belongs in city streets, in suburbs. If this is

is really what we want our police departments to have. A lot of the equipment that came on the vehicle was standard. We'll start here. Here is the wench that came with the MRAP. Here are the siren boxes that we had installed after. You can see here, one of the light bars that was installed and a heavy, heavy floodlight on top over the two windows there. On the very, very top is our turret, which also has ballistic properties,

as well as the windows, as well as the armor that surrounds and frames out the windows. The windows there serve as observation for the operators are inside the vehicle, especially since the truck is so high. So if you look up there, we have a turret, which is a good observation point that is used by some of the operators during particular scenarios where we have to drive the truck up nice and close, Get a good vantage point. The MRAP provides that for us. Oh, ballistic properties.

Awesome. So think about that. Our tax money gets redistributed to private defense contractors, makes them incredibly rich. And then the machinery, the weaponry that they produce for the military, then gets transferred over to local police departments and gets used against us. Awesome. The program is known as 1033. It's the 1033 program.

And believe it or not, as bad as it was from the very beginning, it's only gotten worse because when no one was paying attention, Congress decided to loosen up some of the regulations associated with the Pentagon giving this type of stuff to local police departments. Last year, Congress made a little notice tweak to the 10, 33 program to give priority access for armored vehicles to police and sheriff's departments that claim to need them for disaster-related emergencies HuffPost has learned with few checks on how the vehicles are ultimately used.

Look, I mean, there's gridlock in Congress unless it comes to brutalizing their own constituents with military-grade machinery. HuffPost exclusively obtained hundreds of requests for for armored vehicles that local agencies wrote to the defense department in 2017 and 2018. And in contrast to just a few years earlier, when almost no law enforcement agencies mentioned natural disasters, there were agencies from virtually every state pleading for help with disaster preparedness. They're just looking out for us, okay?

This is America's version of responding to the climate emergency. Duh, that's what this is about. And before Congress had even made any changes to the 1033 program, the Pentagon was already giving police some cues, okay, within the past few years, on the forms that police and sheriffs must submit to justify their request for armored vehicles, the Pentagon began to list natural disasters as an example justification. By the way, they can claim that they need this equipment, these vehicles, these weapons, whatever it is to respond to anything, even if they claim that they're responding to the climate

emergency. But there's no oversight, like there's no regulation, there's no way of ensuring that that's what they're using it for. So they can lie, and they can use the MRAP for whatever they want, serving warrants, intimidating protesters. Last year, while there were protests in every major city in this country to reform policing, we didn't get police reform from Congress. There was no movement on a federal level. But they did pass this. Congress passed this. Think about the timing of this. And it tells you everything you need to know about how things really work in government. It's unbelievable, except it's really not. None of this should surprise anyone. No one should be appeased by a Black Lives Matter mural in front of Trump

Tower. That's just meant to give you the illusion of change and reform. It's just an empty gesture. Let's just keep it real, guys. You know it, you know it. Okay, members of Congress kneeling in kente cloths is insulting because it's nothing more than performative garbage to try to placate voters, when in reality behind the scenes, they're they're signing off on this kind of stuff, making it easier for local police departments to obtain military grade vehicles to terrorize their own communities that they're supposed to be serving and protecting. That's the way Congress really works. So anytime you see a democratic lawmaker engage in any type of people, you know, any type of

pandering for any type of marginalized group. Be super skeptical about it because talk is cheap. What are they actually doing legislatively? Because police reform seems like it's a thing of the past. They're not doing anything about that. But they had no problem loosening up restrictions to pass off Pentagon equipment to local police departments. All right, let's talk a little bit about

member of Congress who's been indicted. Some pretty serious charges here. Republican Congressman Jeff Fortenberry has been indicted on federal charges for allegedly lying to the FBI. Now this has to do with some of the campaign donations he received and how he proceeded to lie about those campaign donations. Keep in mind, this is in America where we have legalized bribery. But there are still some rules in place and Fortinbury allegedly broke those. those rules. Fortenberry was expected to be arraigned Wednesday, meaning today, on charges that he lied to federal investigators about illegal campaign payments funneled to him by

a Lebanese Nigerian billionaire. In a video, Fortenberry maintained his innocence. He is blaming the prosecution on politics, even though the investigation actually began under the Trump administration. So I have more details on what he is accused of, of what he's been indicted on. But before I do that, I do want to turn to the video that was referenced in that graphic. This was Fortenberry trying to get ahead of the story. Let's watch. I wanted to send you a video because we do have something hard to tell you. About five and a half years ago, a person from overseas illegally moved money to my campaign.

I didn't know anything about this and used some other Americans to do so. They were all caught and punished, thankfully. About two and a half years, years ago, I had a knock on my door on a weekend. They were FBI agents from California. I let them in my house, I answered their questions. Later we went back and answered further questions, I told them what I knew and what I understood. They've accused me of lying to them and are charging me with this. We're shocked, we're stunned, I feel so personally betrayed.

I thought we were trying to help. Fascinating that he's shocked because apparently he was notified of the illegal campaign contribution but didn't do anything about it, said, you know, essentially through his actions that he didn't really have much of a problem with it. Then he lied to investigators, allegedly, which is why he's been indicted. So the amount of foreign money funneled into his campaign amounted to $30,000. Was it worth it, really, $30,000? Okay, despite learning about the illegal campaign contribution,

Fortenberry did not file an amended report with the Federal Elections Commission. Then he lied about what he knew about the scheme in two different interviews with the feds. One that took place in March of 2019, the other took place in July of 2019, when Donald Trump was president, by the way. So to say that this is politically motivated is clearly ridiculous. Now, TYT Investigates also broke a story that found that Fortenberry is a member of the family. That's the rabid right wing group behind the annual prayer breakfast. And the prayer breakfast is essentially an opportunity to do some more lobbying.

Democrats unfortunately have attended it. Democratic presidents have attended it. But through TYT investigates reporting and some pressure, some congressional Democrats have now said and pledged that they won't go to the annual prayer breakfast. Now I want to give you more details about his ties, Fortenberry's ties to the family. So Representative Mark Sillinger went to jail for funneling funds tied to a terrorist organization through the family. He was pardoned last year by Donald Trump, of course. The family also played cameo roles in the sex scandals of then governors Mark Sanford,

who apparently really loves to hike the Appalachian Trail with mistresses. Then Senator John Ensign and others. Now Fortenberry has publicly defended, he has defended the National Prayer Breakfast after multiple reports identified the lobbying that transpires there. Common political parlance would call these engagements back channels, Fortenberry wrote. We call them friendships. Yeah, those are his real buddies, you know, the people lobbying.

people lobbying, engaging in the bribery. Those are his friends. Now, unlike other members of Congress who attend the breakfast, Fortinberry is actually able to invite people to the National Prayer Breakfast. And I want to give you a sense of who this guy is and who he tends to invite. One was controversial Archbishop, Timothy Broglio, who leads the military archdiocese and who recently bucked the Pope to oppose vaccine mandate. in the military, he too was invited by Fortenberry in 2016.

Broglio had come out alongside evangelical causes before. He supported President Trump's ban on transgender troops and tried to rile up American troops against Obamacare. So there are many issues with the family and the National Prayer Breakfast. There's the corruption tied to it. The National Prayer Breakfast has one funder. funder, this was a story that also broke with TYT investigates, and that funder is right winger Franklin Graham, just rabidly anti-LGBT. In 2017, Nebraska Family Alliance executive

director, Karen Bowling posted online that she had been invited to the National Prayer Breakfast by Fortenberry. Bowling's organization opposes LGBTQ and reproductive rights. So look, one thing that we know through TYT investigates and its reporting is that there are a lot of shady and nefarious foreign figures that also attend the National Prayer Breakfast. Now, I'm speculating here and I want to be clear about that. But I do want to understand a little more about Thorntonbury's relationship, I'm sorry, Fortenberry's relationship with this Lebanese, Nigerian donor who, legally contributed $30,000 to his campaign. Remember, the family was also associated with that effort in, I believe it was Uganda, yes it was, in Uganda to pass this awful,

awful bill, it was referred to as the kill the gays bill that would implement the death penalty on anyone who was found guilty of being gay. I'm not even kidding. Luckily, in the end, that bill was watered down to, all right, we won't execute gay people, but we'll put them in prison for the rest of their lives. Later, the Ugandan Supreme Court struck it down. But understand that evangelicals who are part of the family, okay, were lobbying for that bill in Uganda. That's what this organization is.

So for Fortenberry, it's, yes, it's about the criminal activity that he allegedly agreed. engaged in with this campaign donation, but aside from that, his ties to the family make me question other activities. So the investigation is ongoing. He was expected to be arraigned today. He has been indicted on these criminal charges. We'll see how it plays out. But there's no Donald Trump to protect him or pardon him. We'll see where this guy ends up, but it's not looking good for Fortenberry, who's completely pretending to be surprised by these charges. All right, that does it for hour one.

We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, John Ida Rola will join me for more of the news. Don't miss it. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you, soon.