The Young Turks - McConnell Dunks on Trump

Episode Date: January 20, 2021

McConnell outright says Trump "Provoked" the rioters who stormed the Capitol. Trump's talk of pardons intensifies as he reaches his last 24 hours in office. 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. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going? I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nissan. Buy your tickets now.

I get a free Tilly Dog. Chilly Dog, not included. The Naked God. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. Welcome, everyone, welcome to TY Welcome, everyone. Welcome to TYT. I'm Anna Casparian and joining us for today's show is D.C. Bureau Chief for the Intersect and TYT contributor, Ryan Grimm. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us.

Last day of the Trump administration. Good to be here. I know, I know. It's good to have you. And lots of, you know, today's rundown is a little different from what we've experienced over the last four years, where it's mostly just terrible news. But we do have some positive news to share with the audience. I'm really glad that you're here to break it down with me. Before we get started, though, let me just make some programming notes, since you did mention that today is the last full day of Trump's presidency. Tomorrow, of course, President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated. He is our new president.

So we're gonna provide some live coverage of all the events surrounding that. And you can check us out on all of the platforms that you already watch us on. We'll begin coverage at 11 a.m. Eastern time, 8 a.m. Pacific, and we're gonna have a fantastic panel of guests, including Jank Uger, John Ida Rola, Frederick Joseph, Ida Rodriguez, and Dr. Richard Richard Ritchie. So please make sure you check it out. You can watch on t.yt.com slash live, Twitch, Facebook, and linear programs, and Roku as well. So, yeah, join us for our coverage, and we'll fill you in, if anything new arises about our live coverage tomorrow, but it should be really good. For now, though, why don't we talk a little bit about what we're

expecting to happen at some point today, although as we talk about it, we don't know exactly who Trump will pardon, but we are expecting pardons. So Donald Trump is now on his last full day of his presidency, and of course he's expected to pardon dozens of his friends and political allies. Now, as we speak about this right now, announcements regarding these pardons have not been made yet, but there have been some hints in regard to who Donald Trump is willing to pardon and who he has no interest in pardoning. So just to remind you all, he's already pardoned, you know, individuals, friends of his who were implicated in the Russia investigation, with the exception of his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, corrupt Republican lawmakers

such as Duncan Hunter, Chris Collins, and Steve Stockman, and of course, how can we forget, the Blackwater security contractors who purposefully murdered civilians. But now some of the upcoming pardons can include honestly some people that I did not expect. As the Hill reports, the rapper Lil Wayne, who has pleaded guilty to possession of an illegal firearm, and former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who was found guilty on public corruption charges and is imprisoned in New York. So those are reportedly among the first wave of pardons, Trump will issue. I will note, this is the last day he can do it, and it's getting pretty late in the day. There's also a lot of pressure for him to pardon Julian Assange, who of course

is currently facing attempts by the United States to extradite him to the country to face charges for leaking classified information, something that we've disagreed with. Hopefully Trump does issue a pardon for Julian Assange in that case, because the very specific thing they're targeting him for should be protected, especially considering it was information that was related to our, you know, the wars we engaged in abroad. Some of the war crimes that our military was engaging in at the time. And it was important for the American people to know about it. And to persecute Julian Assange for that specific reason is wrong. But again, so far we haven't heard anything from Trump in regard to pardoning Julian Assange. And Trump has liberally, as we know,

granted pardons to political allies, raising questions about whether he will preemptively pardon his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, or his former advisor, Steve Bannon, who is charged with fraud over his association with a group that was raising money to build a wall along the southern border. So, Ryan, I want to bring you in and kind of get your thoughts about the names that have been floated. It is pretty late in the day. Do you think that, you know, these pardons are going to be, you know, announced later tonight? I mean, Trump loves to hold everything until the very last minute. It's, it's part of his showman reality TV style.

So, you know, theoretically, you know, he could wait until 1159 a.m. Tomorrow, Eastern time before he actually released them and they, and they would, and they would still be legal pardons. The Sheldon Silver one is interesting. I mean, this is pretty wildly corrupt. New York Democrat, who has had quite the odyssey of going through prosecutions, mistrials, guilty verdicts, appeals, in and out of prison. To have this end with a Trump pardon is almost kind of like a perfect ending in a lot of ways. And I would love to read the story someday

about how this came about. Like who does Sheldon Silver know? Does Sheldon Silver, I'm sure, actually, knows Donald Trump quite well because Sheldon Sober's a man, he was a state center for Manhattan. And so he clearly, you know, has known Trump for a very long time. How did he get to him for this pardon weird? Lil Wayne, okay, you know, pardoned. Okay. But the question of Assange, people around him, people around Assange at this point are quite pessimistic about the possibility of the last minute pardon for him. And I think a lot of this turned on the last week and also

the storming of the capital. And I think this redoubted very poorly for Assange in this sense that Trump is never going to take a risk for somebody else. That's just that's just not who he is. If you want Trump to do something for you, you have to convince him that his interest align with your interests, that doing that thing is going to help you. But more importantly, it's going to help. It's going to help Trump. And so the argument that everybody was making to him was like, look, all of your enemies hate Julian Assange.

The entire deep state, the Bushes, the Cheney's, all the Democrats, Hillary, everybody hates Julian Assange. So if you pardon him, you will anger all of these enemies of yours, and you will you will show your supporters that you're not afraid to take on the steep state, the establishment of both parties, and that'll help you in either pretending to run a 2024 campaign or actually running a 2024 campaign. That was a reasonable argument, and it was the kind of thing that Trump could understand, and that's why there was so much optimism that he might do it. But once this attack on the Capitol happened, and it became clear to Trump that he was now

in jeopardy of being impeached, which happened, in jeopardy of being convicted of impeachment, which very well might happen, could be, you know, disqualified from running for future office and could be open to criminal charges for, you know, all manner of things as his power drains. Now all of a sudden, he's much less inclined to tick off those, those people who now hold his fate in his hand. So now Assange's supporters are relying on the courage of Donald Trump. And that's never a position that you want to be in. No, that's never a good idea. But I do love that you mentioned, I mean, the possibility of Trump being persuaded to avoid certain pardons because he's looking to the future. I mean, when I think of someone like Donald Trump, I don't really think

of, you know, someone who's thinking ahead and planning ahead. But, you know, you're right in mentioning how self-interested he is. So if he does get convicted in the Senate, based on the impeachment charges that the House has agreed to, well, he can't run again in 2024. And so he might be thinking about that. And we'll see if that persuades him in, you know, a direction that Julian Assange's supporters are hoping to avoid. But you also mentioned something that I think is is really interesting, that he will never take risks for anyone else. However, others have taken tremendous risks on his behalf, namely Republican lawmakers who decided to go along with this narrative of widespread voter fraud, a narrative that consists of unfounded claims. There's no evidence

of widespread voter fraud. But nonetheless, these Republican lawmakers went along with it. CNN's Caitlin Collins reported today that several Republicans alleged to have been involved in the rally that preceded the deadly riot have sought clemency from Trump, but after meeting with his legal advisors for hours on Saturday, the president isn't expected to pardon them. So, you know, you have these lawmakers who went along with the sham, you know, some of whom I think did so for their own political purposes, people like Senator Josh Hawley, who's, you know, trying to appeal to Trump's base, certainly. But it's just hilarious. to me that they went along with Trump. They licked his boots as much as they possibly could. And then when Trump has an opportunity to, I guess, preemptively pardon them, he refuses to do so. And before I get your thoughts on that, Ryan, I do also want to go to a speech that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave today in regard to naming names and placing blame on individuals who he believes provoked the violent riots that took place about two weeks ago. Let's watch. The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.

And they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government, which they did not like. But we pressed on. We stood together and said an angry mob would not get veto power over the rule of law in our nation, not even for one night. We certified the people's choice for their 46 president. Tomorrow, President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris will be sworn in. Now, I would have liked some of that strong language condemning Donald Trump's behavior prior to, you know, the last day of his term. But what Mitch McConnell did there was named Trump by name, which I think is important. But when he says by other powerful people, I mean, we all know.

who he's talking about. He's talking about Republican lawmakers who engaged in this and enabled Donald Trump in provoking this violent mob. But Trump's not planning on pardoning them. The question is, will Democrats actually push forward in trying to hold these Republican lawmakers accountable? It was, yeah, what's so interesting about that McConnell's speech is that it seems like he has finally decided that he has Trump and maybe the Trump movement at a place where it's weak enough that if he strikes at it now, that and do it serious and irreparable harm. Because, you know, McConnell has been in an interesting place where he, you know, he considers his number one enemies to be Democrats. And so if he can, if he can, he'll align

with whatever movement exists that will empower him to go for what he what he wants, which is basically tax cuts for the rich and expanding his own power and expanding Republican power. But as he was helping to empower that wing, that Trumpist wing of the Republican party, he knew very well that he was taking a gamble, you know, that it's the same gamble that people have made all over the world. Saudi Arabia made it 15, 20 years ago when they said, well, we're having a problem with these kind of extremists within our border. Let's kind of fund them outside of Saudi Arabia. And that should kind of solve the problem. But any, and John Bainer did the same thing with the tea party. Like he saw the energy of the tea party. He said, well, let's

Let's stoke this. Let's see if we can harness this and see where it goes. And it's like, you know, whenever you do that, it's like the sorcerer's apprentice. You know, it gets, it gets out of hand. And so it started to get out of hand from McConnell. But now maybe he's looking at this and thinking, this is my chance to actually, you know, to get this animal back in the lab and to kill it once and for all. And so if he thinks that he can disqualify Trump from running in the future, and if he can teach a lesson to the Republicans who went along with him, then it might be in his political interest to do so. The question, though, facing him is, does he have the courage to do that? Because if he goes for it and fails, then he knows that he's going to suffer, you know, blowback like you've never seen before. Right. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good point. But at the same time, there seems to be, I mean, when I compare someone like Mitch McConnell to Lindsey Graham, I mean, there seems to be this fearlessness with Mitch McConnell. And I'm not saying that because I admire him in any way. Please don't misunderstand. But I mention it because, you know, he stands there, gives this speech, names Donald Trump by name, and he's unwavering when he has critique for Trump. He doesn't get intimidated by Trump's base the same way you see someone like Senator Lindsey Graham get intimidated.

And I mean, maybe for good reason, we saw that video of Lindsey Graham being hounded and intimidated by Trump supporters in person while he was at an airport. So I mean, I'm sure that was a terrifying experience for him. But Mitch McConnell has done a better job in kind of striking this balance in criticizing Trump when things are. get pretty intense and extreme while avoiding some of the ire coming from Trump supporters. I don't know, what do you think about that? Yeah, that's right. And partly I think that goes back to, in 2014, McConnell got a very kind of Trump-like, you know, proto-Trump-like opponent in the primary, and he crushed the guy. And so that, and Bevan, who then became governor, it was to absolutely terrible

governor and was beaten by the Democrat, Bashir, who's in office now. But I think his ability to take on that kind of Tea Party wing, that proto-Trump wing of the party in his own state and crush them and survive, gave him a little bit of confidence. Now throughout Trump's presidency, he just sat back and just said, do what you need to do and just keep sending me judges. He was he was completely comfortable with making making that compromise. But he also kept Trump at at arm's length. You know, when there was that super spreader event, which was the announcement of Amy Coney Barrett's nomination for the Supreme Court, that was almost like a perfect metaphor for his relationship to Trump. He didn't show up for

that event because, you know, he knows that they, you know, he's somebody who actually wears a masks and and takes COVID seriously and knows that Trump doesn't, but he doesn't say much about that publicly. All he wanted from Trump was Amy Coney Barrett. That's what he wanted. He doesn't need to actually be there and be around Trump. And so that kind of typifies what his relationship was. And now that he has a chance that he might be able to finish off Trump, it will be interesting to see if he actually takes it. Because he has that opportunity. If he votes to convict, And there are constitutional scholars who think you need to take two votes because there's kind of a comma in the Constitution, a comma and disqualified. So people say you need to take a second vote if you want to disqualify him.

If he votes for that and impeachment conviction on impeachment, then he's really he's really finishing him off because without social media and without the ability to run, he doesn't have the oxygen for a comeback. Yeah, yeah. And honestly, with the social media ban alone, I feel like Trump-related provocations and news has really died down a little bit. And I mean, I particularly enjoy that. But one more point I wanted to quickly make about, you know, this possibility of holding Republican lawmakers accountable for enabling Donald Trump's lies about the election. You know, you heard some strong language coming from Mitch McConnell. However, there is a Democrat in the Senate who's does not want to pursue any type of investigation into these Republican lawmakers. Eric

Wasson tweets that Senator Feinstein doesn't appear on board with punishing Senator Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley for a role in challenging electoral college. And then he shares a quote by Senator Feinstein. I think the Senate is a place of freedom and people come here to speak their peace. I would really like her to resign. I think it's time. I think it's time to go. This is not a a helpful situation having her serve as a senator right now. And it puts all of us in really uncomfortable situations when we have to even talk about this. Because there has been reporting that has come out of her office from her close staffers that she's, she has, and we all know people who have gone through dementia and have aged,

who have good days and they have bad days. And on her bad days, they say that she'll get frustrated, frustrated because, you know, she's not following along with a, with a briefing. She'll ask for a briefing that she just had an hour before. She, you know, she doesn't have, she's not with it in the way that she was for her entire career as a politician. And, you know, constitutionally, she's entitled to continue to serve out her term. But it makes conversations like these so difficult because we have to ask ourselves, Does she know what Holly and Cruz did?

And if somebody said to her that they're suggesting expelling a member of the Senate for something that they said on the Senate floor, well then of course you would say, no, I oppose that. I think this is a, we come here to speak our peace and we disagree and that's how the Senate is. But does she know actually what she's saying? But we can't even say that she knows. I know, and you make such a great point about the difficulty in speaking. candidly about the real issue surrounding Senator Feinstein, her mental health. You know,

you don't want to come across as, you know, mocking her, insulting her in any way. But her fitness matters and her ability to really decipher what's going on with these Republican lawmakers matters, especially in this case where you do have lawmakers provoking violent mobs throughout the country, not just, you know, what we experience in the Capitol. But You know, leading up to it, there were foiled right wing terror plots in this country. There needs to be some accountability. And it's really, really depressing to see that kind of comment coming from a lawmaker who, you know, is very uncomfortable to critique. But I think the critiques are valid. And we're always going to be honest with you guys, regardless of how

uncomfortable it might be to talk about these issues. But for now, why don't we take a break? And when we come back, we'll discuss some very positive news, especially for some climate activists who have fought aggressively to end the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Come right back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-NF-The Republic or UNFTR. As a young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTRTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you'd

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I'm going to I'm I'm going I'm and you're Hey, everyone, welcome to our social break. I'm going to read member comments in just a minute, but we have some exciting news when it comes. comes to our ShopTYT store, some new items, and also a nice little sale to celebrate Biden's

inauguration. So as you know, Joe Biden, President-elect, will be inaugurated as president tomorrow. And to celebrate, ShopTYT is offering a 15% off sale site wide. So it doesn't matter what the item is. If you're into hoodies, which is a pricier item in the store, you can get hoodies. If you want to buy Ryan Grimm's book, We Got People, you can do that as well, and you get a 15% discount. Pretty sweet. Just go to shoptyt.com, and that's it. You get 15% off. It's awesome. So one other thing I wanted to note about ShopT-YT is there is a new, newly released item. It's the United in Progress merchandise, which again, you can find at shopty.com. So it's inspired by the diverse coalition of voters who,

came together across the nation to vote out the orange menace. This design celebrates the brave activist responsible for all the important progressive advances in our nation's history. So definitely check that out. I see that they have women's tank tops in there, which I appreciate. I'm not a t-shirt kind of girl. So, you know, I like the diversity in options over at the shop, TYT store. So make sure you check that out as well. All right, moving on to some member comments, Lil Craby Dragon. It writes it and says, last show of the Trump era, I can't believe we finally made it. So sad, so many Americans have been lost due to his incompetence. Yeah, 400,000 Americans died from this virus.

Irene says that Assange is not perfect, but he's not, don't you dare ever say that Assange is not perfect, because that would be smearing him. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm just, I'm mocking someone. But Assange is not perfect, but he's the one Trump pardon I would be on board with. Yeah, I agree with you, especially when you consider what the U.S. government is going after Assange for. They're going after him because of what he published that shed light on the criminal actions that were taking place abroad. And I think the American people deserve to know about that.

And it has ramifications for journalism overall. So I do think it's important that he gets pardoned. And we have 13 seconds left. So why don't we actually get back to the show? And when we come back for our next social break, I'll read more of your comments. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian and Ryan Grimm with you. Please check out Ryan Grimm's work over at The Intercept, where he serves as the DC Bureau Chief.

All right, let's move on to some positive news. This broke over the weekend. I wanted to make sure to celebrate it with you guys since so many of our audience members took part in demonstrations regarding the Keystone XL pipeline. There's a bit of a victory. So President-elect, President-elect Joe Biden is planning to reverse Donald Trump's efforts to help build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. This is actually part of, you know, several environmental actions Biden plans on taking to combat climate change, which of course is incredibly important. Let me also note that, you know, Deb Holland, serving as his incoming secretary for the interior, could have had some influence on Biden in

regard to, you know, indigenous communities and the need to do something about climate change, to do something bold about climate change. But this is really an issue that many people across the ideological spectrum really agreed on. You have ranchers and farmers, you know, joining this coalition that also includes the indigenous community in order to oppose and fight back against the Keystone XL pipeline. And now it appears that they have won. So the pipeline promoted by the oil and gas industry since it was first proposed about 15 years ago has drawn opposition because it would carry tar sands from the boreal forests in northern Alberta, Canada, of course, to refineries in the United States Gulf Coast. The energy used in

extracting the molasses like petroleum supplies would contribute heavily to climate change. So there were legitimate concerns about leaks, about contamination and drinking water. All legitimate concerns, especially when you look at how the fossil fuel industry due to a lack of oversight has contributed to tainting drinking water in various communities. This is a very real problem that people across the board understood the gravity of. And as a result, I think the messaging was effective and aggressive enough to convince Joe Biden that he needed to immediately undo some of the damage coming from the Trump administration on this. But Ryan, I wanted to bring you in and talk about, you know, some of the messaging we're getting from Biden in regard to the environment. You know, he's not on board with the Green New Deal, but he is pushing forward with a more robust environmental agenda than I had expected.

Right. And Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff in Georgia, you know, wouldn't, wouldn't say that they supported the Green New Deal either. But if you ticked through every single plank of the Green New Deal, they would say, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I'm for all of that. And, you know, Biden has pretty much done the same. You know, he has said it doesn't support the Green New Deal, but he does think that this country needs a new deal and it ought to be green. But there's something about the messaging. And progressives actually should do some reflecting on that. Like, why is it that these, you know, pragmatic politicians who only care about winning and messaging, who will say absolutely whatever they think is the best thing to say to voters to win, why are they so afraid to say those couple of words? Yet they're okay pissing off the oil industry and the other industries that are going to be. that will be so angry about supporting all of the different planks of that platform. There's a, there's a disconnect there that people need to, need to sort through. But this is, yeah, no, that's such, it is an interesting aspect of this because, I mean,

the way I read it is you have moderate Democrats who just kind of want to distance themselves from, you know, the, I guess the left part of Congress, the, the AOCs, the Rashida Talibes, the Ilohan Omar's. And so what do you make of that? Do you think it has something to do with the way progressive lawmakers have messaged these issues? Do you think it has more to do with the fact that progressive lawmakers are like, like they're hounded nonstop by right wing pundits, you know? So what do you make of it?

I think it's actually the latter, the last thing you said, that there is a multi-billion dollar, 24-7 propaganda operation that we can't really fully appreciate because we're not we're not kind of bathed in it because you know we we see Fox News and we and we see all you know all newsmax and everything to its right as it kind of flows into our Twitter feed but we're not we're not we're not kind of you know watching this stuff all all of the time and if you're a politician who runs you know statewide or nationally then you're you And you have to understand, you know, what everybody's media diet is like. And so then you do end up having a sense that, you know, there's a huge portion of the country

that is being told that, you know, these are, you know, on American, you know, insurgents, they're terrorists, they're, you know, they're trying to undo, you know, everything that you love about this country and the Green New Deal is going to, you know, ban cows, going to ban hamburgers, kind of ban airplanes. And that, you know, we see that on Twitter, we laugh at it, but there are millions of Americans who are fed this as part of their daily media diet. And so I think part of what you're seeing is success on the part of groups like Sunrise Movement in pushing forward this climate agenda and success on the part of the waterkeepers and

others who have blocked the Keystone pipeline. And so politicians want to be on the side of that energy, yet they want to not be in the crosshairs of this multi-billion dollar propaganda operation. So they start avoiding words like Green New Deal. And they even like Assoff and Warnock wouldn't say they were for Medicare for all. But they would say that they're for, you know, health health care for everybody, you know, everybody should have. And then they would say that You should have a public, you know, there should be a public plan that should be available to everybody. You know, they would inch right up to it, but they, but there's something about the words. And I think it's what you said that it's related to this propaganda campaign and the, the money behind it.

You know, and it puts Democrats, particularly progressive Democrats, in a little bit of a pickle, because, you know, the online pressure to use certain rhetoric isn't going to go away. And the purity tests that have been incredibly toxic lately, I don't think are going to subside in any way. I think they're going to continue. And so if you have like democratic lawmakers who are pretty supportive of robust policies that help provide solutions to, you know, climate change that help provide affordability and availability to people who don't have health care, you know, any progress they might be pushing for is going to be considered inadequate, you know, selling out, not doing enough. These people are, you know, frauds, whatever it is. And so it's difficult to kind of tow that line where you're trying to

avoid the, you know, anti-leftist propaganda out there while simultaneously trying to appeal to a base of voters who want to see pretty strong rhetoric and robust policies, you know, solutions that come from a more leftist ideology? Yeah, it's an interesting and a tricky situation that we wound up in, because the impulse for these litmus tests comes from a very good place, because you have so many Democrats, establishment Democrats, who will claim to be progressive, but then when they actually have a chance to do, when you put something on the floor, they don't end up, they don't end up voting for and they'll give you all sorts of excuses around this. So the solution was, okay, well,

we're going to come up with these, you know, you have to support a Green New Deal. You have support Medicare for all. And but as the, as the, as you started to get people into Congress that were able to elevate those issues into the national conversation, then you had the right wing say, ah, this is something we can, we can smear and distort. So, and so then you get this feedback of centrist establishment Democrats saying, well, we actually support the elements of this, but we don't support the thing itself. And so what you have to do at this point is just judge people based on what they actually do. Nothing performative, you know, doesn't matter in a lot of ways what they say. It's what's what they actually do. So if Joe Biden shuts down the Keystone

Excel pipeline, then you judge him on that. Because that, That's what actually matters. What words he uses when he shuts it down or if he doesn't shut it down, don't matter whatsoever. What does he do when it comes to direct aid to people? What does it do when it comes to expanding health care? Obviously, he said he's against Medicare for all, but is he going to lower the Medicare age? Is he going to raise the eligibility up to say 25? Is he going to allow everybody who's unemployed to get into Medicare?

If he does those things, then you judge him on that. And so because because there's propaganda flying in so many different directions, you really have to pay much closer attention than you used to. And so labels don't quite cut it anymore. Yeah, no, I think that's a great point. Well, you know, there are other executive orders that Biden's eyeing. So let's talk a little bit about that. And why he seems to have changed course on the usage of executive orders, because he seemed to be resistant to the idea earlier. But now we're hearing that President-elect Joe Biden is planning to sign a pretty impressive number of executive orders after his inauguration this week that are, of course, meant to undo some of the damage of the Trump administration. So, you know, the Washington Post mentioned that the day he takes office, Biden is planning to

return the United States to the Paris Climate Accords and repeal the ban on U.S. entry for citizens of some majority Muslim countries. So that's Trump's Muslim ban, which he implemented early on in his presidency. Biden will also sign an order extending nationwide restrictions on evictions and foreclosures and implement a mask mandate on federal property. Among the other things Biden pledged to accomplish on his first day was to restore federal workers' right to unionize and to issue new sweeping ethics standards that would apply to his administration. So so far, so good. I mean, I'm pretty impressed with his willingness to sign those executive orders. I think it makes a lot of sense. I love the fact that he gave a little

you know, hat tip to unionized workers there. I mean, obviously this would specifically impact federal workers, but nonetheless, I think the message is clear. And I think that pro-union message is important. But I also love the fact that he seems to understand that in regard to this pandemic, he can do quite a bit unilaterally through executive orders to ensure that the average American is protected from getting evicted, for instance. And just to remind you all about a month ago, I believe, I don't remember if it was you exactly, Ryan Graham, but I do remember it was the intercept that broke the story about how, you know, Biden met with civil rights leaders. And during that meeting, he really pushed back aggressively against

signing a bunch of executive orders and doing things unilaterally. Do you think he's changing course? A little bit. Yeah, now that was that was my story. And he, and what he said at the time was, you know, he's okay doing executive orders undoing what what Trump has done but he doesn't want to do executive orders that kind of advance his own agenda because the next president could come in and and just do away with them which does what doesn't make any sense because you know the Congress could come in and undo whatever laws you pass so therefore we shouldn't pass any laws I mean and so I think that people have gotten to him and I think that you know his advisors have gotten to him and I think that his number one priority is to be, you know, have a legacy as a great president.

You know, this, you know, he has, since, since he was elected at the age of 30 to the Senate, he's wanted to be president. And the thing that he wants beyond being president is to be remembered as a great president. You know, he, he talked a lot in the 70s and 80s about FDR and updating FDR for the kind of neoliberal era. Say, you know, we still value everything that FDR has given to the country, but we need to be. smarter about it. We need to be better, you know, and we, and this was all, this was all him trying to cozy up with Reagan and trying to, you know, survive through through this, you know, 30 year shift to the right that he, that he went through. But somewhere in the recesses of his political

instincts is, is that appreciation for FDR, for the New Deal when he talks about, you know, his coming up in Scranton, when he, when he talks about his, you know, his, his, his love for the working person, you know, that's what that's rooted in. And so if he's encouraged every step of the way, you know, every time, you know, he moves in the right direction that he senses that people are happy that he did that, that he's being rewarded politically for it, then there's, then he's going to take another step. And because he is, he's a pure politician, you know, since he was a child, basically, he's been a politician. And a politician is going to keep moving forward as long as the wind is at his back. So, you know, if there's a good reaction to these executive orders, as there

has been so far, there are a lot more executive orders that he can issue on, like you said, because of, you know, John, just because of the pandemic, because the unused power of the presidency, there's so much that he can do. And if he sees that actually doing things is good politically, then we can see him do a lot more. Yeah, I think the positive reinforcement is important. And that's a note that I actually want to give myself because sometimes you can become a little pessimistic and cynical. And there's good reason for that. But at the same time, politics really is this game of carrots and stick. So if you really is going to follow through with the executive orders that are listed here, you know, definitely he deserves some credit for that. Yeah. And I think we have to ask ourselves, what are we in this for? Like, are we in this to look savvy and to look cynical and look smart? Or are we in this to make people's lives better. And if it's the former, then go ahead, you know, have at it because he's going to do something awful every single day. And that should be called out. But if that's,

but if that's all you do, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, exactly. That's such a great point. But you know, this particular story makes me realize that maybe perhaps with enough organizing and with enough applied pressure, you can move him in a better... At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data.

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And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EXPRE S-SVPN. com slash t yt check it out today direction when it comes to policy and i mean i would like to see him go further in regard to coronavirus relief you know he has proposed a 1.9 trillion dollar relief bill which has all sorts of you know components that i think are fantastic including unemployment benefits that would last through september you know the amount would have been it would be nice if the amount was back to $600 as opposed to $400 a week, which is in his new proposal.

But nonetheless, it shows that he has, you know, the ordinary American in mind as he's, you know, proposing this legislation. But remember, Donald Trump actually did something that I thought was smart and was savvy. And I'm sure did garner some popularity among, of course, his base, his base loves him no matter what. But at one point when Congress couldn't pass a relief bill. He decided, okay, well, since the unemployment benefits have expired, I'm just going to go ahead and extend them issuing $300 per week for a limited amount of time. I don't remember exactly how many months it was. But he was just able to do that unilaterally by moving some funds around. And that provided some much needed relief to Americans. So if Trump was able to do that,

I would imagine that Biden, should there be issues passing legislation in Congress, would be able to unilaterally issue some sort of executive order offering more relief. Am I reading that correctly? There's a lot that he could do. He's going to have to be pushed to do it by people on the outside and by his advisors. And I think he'll be more likely to do it, you know, if he feels like he's he's moving in the right direction that he's like i said like that he's that he's got the wind at his back and i i i think what uh what trump did there was he he monkeyed around with the tax code a little bit so you got have your tax rebate a little bit early so biden's going to have to forgive all that

otherwise people are going to have to pay that back which would which would be a mess because you you know you thought you were being given this but of course with trump be careful of what you're being given because it's not it's not actually a gift you know it's It's going to come back around. And I think people are going to should push harder on his advisors and Chuck Schumer and Pelosi should push harder on unilateral debt relief, student debt relief. If they can't get $50,000 through Congress, he can do $50,000. This idea that he has to trim it down to $10,000 or $5,000 is absurd.

And on the $2,000 check, I get what they're saying that the bill that the House passed was $1,400. that you could bring it up to 2000. But at this point, people thought that they were being promised $2,000. They came out to vote for $2,000. You know, don't make the same mistake that Mitch McConnell made. McConnell gave people $600 and he thought that was enough to save his senators. But, you know, once you're in, you know, give people what they're what they're genuinely politically and rightfully demanding. You don't need a nickel and you don't need a nickel and dime this stuff. Definitely. I mean, my biggest advice to Biden on that specific issue is don't be afraid to be popular.

I mean, really, like we're having a conversation about, you know, an additional $600 provided in these relief checks. Just don't be afraid to be popular. Why? Let's not nickel and dime the American people during a moment of crisis. Now, at the same time, I also acknowledge that it was pretty clear from the beginning, honestly, that he was going to propose 1,400. to add to the already agreed upon $600, which would amount to $2,000. But I actually really appreciate that from a political standpoint, in a very strategic way, AOC stood up and said, no, the American people are expecting $2,000 relief checks. That was a political move that I think was smart, and Biden should just go with it. Don't be afraid to be popular.

All right, well, we got to take a quick break. So let's do that. But when we come back, we're going to talk about Janet Yellen. That is Joe Biden's nominee for Treasury Secretary. Her first day of Senate confirmation hearings are taking place today. And we'll give you some details on what she's proposing. We'll be right back. Hey, everyone, welcome to our social break. I'm going to do a rapid fire of member comments, since I didn't get to many of them in the last break. So Gabby Marita writes in regard to Trump's pardons, is Trump holding off on the pardons until tomorrow just so he can be petty and overshadow Biden's inauguration with a list of people that will be both newsworthy and incredibly controversial. Gabby, I mean, I think you probably nailed it. We're going to have

to wait and see if your theory comes to fruition. But I think that there's a lot of a lot of evidence to like reinforce what you're thinking here. of the squirrel squad writes in and says regarding McConnell's statements on Trump. This is really strong language for McConnell. The impeachment is becoming more interesting. I agree. Mickey C writes in and says, are people really worried about Trump in 24? What little mind he has left will be long gone by then. Mickey, come on. I mean, there's barely any mind now, and he has incredibly loyal supporters, which blows my mind. Swifty writes in and says, Thank you, Anna and Ryan, for this thoughtful conversation. I have felt like Biden has actually

been pretty smart about not drawing too much criticism by avoiding the progressive buzzwords that are demonized by the right wing while still moving toward those policy positions. Of course, Biden still has a lot of room for improvement as far as his policy positions go. I'm willing to give them a chance to see what he ends up doing. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I think it's also like a defense mechanism to just constantly expect to be disappointed. But I agree with your take. I did not expect Biden to move to the left in any way. And leading up to his inauguration, it appears that he's doing that. So positive reinforcement, I think, is important where credit is due. No more trigonometry writes in. And guys, just stop deleting comments

while I'm reading them because it moves the page and then I lose my comments. But anyway, no more trigonometry writes in and says, it's been said before, but the term progressive means nothing anymore. You had centrist trying to co-opt the term, and now you have segments of the left who call themselves progressive that are hell-bent on tearing down the only politicians on our side. No more trigonometry. I'm pretty sure you know how I feel about that. But if you don't, I'm in agreement with you. Craig Cray Souffle also writes in and says, I'm sure all those civil rights leaders are saying to themselves right now, see, we told you, you old goat. I don't know if that's what they're saying. But, you know, I think pressure by the very people who were on that

call did work. Representative Clyburn, for instance, one of Biden's closest allies, is really encouraging him to move forward with executive action and not rely so heavily on bipartisan in agreements, I think it's because, you know, they're expecting Republicans to be obstructionists and for Joe Manchin to also serve as a obstacle for Democratic lawmakers. But we got to get back to the show. Let's do that and hear a little bit from Janet Yellen, Treasury nominee. I'm going to be able to be. Hey everyone, welcome back to TYT, Anna and Ryan with you.

Just want to remind you all that TYT will be doing live coverage of the inauguration all day tomorrow, January 20th, of course, and our coverage will begin at 11 a.m. Eastern time, 8 a.m., wait, not 8 a.m. Pacific. Jesus. Okay, great. I don't know how to do math, I guess. There you go. Make sure you check us out live at tyt.com slash live. All right, moving on. Let's talk a little bit about some confirmation hearings that are taking place today. It's not, you know, the top headline, but it's still important to know what's going on. So Janet Yellen, that's President-elect Joe Biden's nominee for Treasury Secretary, appeared before the Senate Finance Committee this morning to make her case in order to get confirmed as Treasury Secretary. She will likely to be she will likely have to answer questions about millions of dollars she made through giving Wall Street speeches through the last two years. But she did have some interesting statements in regard to what needs to be done to offer real economic relief to Americans amid the crisis that we're experiencing with the pandemic and the economic decline for the vast majority of Americans. Let's hear what she has to say. When economists look back on the pandemic, I expect they'll conclude that Congress's actions

reverted a lot of suffering. But more must be done. Economists don't always agree, but I think there is a consensus now. Without further action, we risk a longer, more painful recession now and longer-term scarring of the economy later. The damage has been sweeping.

And as the President-elect said last Thursday, our response must be too. Over the next few months, we're going to need more aid. Neither the president-elect nor I proposed this relief package without an appreciation for the country's debt burden. But right now, with interest rates at historic lows, the smartest thing we can do is act big. In the long run, I believe the benefits will far outweigh the costs.

So there you have it, Yellen mirroring some of the language that we've heard from Biden recently regarding deficit spending. Biden, who has typically been more of a deficit hawk, is now kind of moving away from that messaging to argue that we shouldn't be so concerned about deficit spending when it comes to providing relief to Americans, which of course they desperately need right now. And, you know, Yellen also mentions how, you know, the debt is concerning, but interest rates are at record lows. I have some strong feelings about interest rates being at record lows, because I think that that actually does create a problem for people who just want to save. There's really no incentive to save right now, and there's more

of an incentive to borrow money. And I don't think that's necessarily the right way to go about it. But nonetheless, I think that's a different conversation for a different day. Ryan, I do want to bring you in and get your thoughts on, you know, Yellen statements there. I'm concerned that she took $7.2 million giving speeches to Wall Street over the last two years. But her messaging there seems pretty sound. What do you think? You know, and actually, let me pick up on that point that you made, because we do celebrate low interest rates all the time. Like, that's a, that's like a universal thing pretty much across the spectrum. But you're right that there is a segment of the population that is hurt by that, and that is the elderly who are relying on annuities or

other kind of income-based payment to meet their daily needs. So maybe, you know, a creative solution to that could be that the government offers a limited, you know, higher interest rate place where people can save. You know, you want to, you know, up to a certain amount, you know, maybe it's half a million dollars or whatever, you know, somebody can put into a retirement account, you know, where they're going to get, they're going to get guaranteed, you know, above and beyond Social Security, where they're going to get guaranteed a certain interest rate that rises with inflation, because you're right that there is that small, there is a small segment of

society that does get hurt by these lower interest rates, although they also benefit by the the overall benefit, you know, the overall drive that low interest rates gives to the economy, which is what Yellen was pointing at. And she's in this interesting situation where she did an okay job as Fed Chair the last time, much better for the world, probably, that she got the position than Larry Summers, because who knows if Larry Summers would have just, you know, popped off his mouth at some inopportune moment and sparked some. you know, global financial crisis. You have, you have no idea what crisis might have been averted by Yellen getting that job rather than Larry Summers. But she did at a couple of

moments raise interest rates specifically to, to tighten the economy, to, to, to increase unemployment, to, because she thought that, you know, there were inflation risks on on the horizon. The years after that, after she did that, so she did that in 2016, and arguably, Donald Trump won the presidency because of it. She did it again after Trump was elected, and it certainly benefited Democrats in the midterms, so both sides kind of benefited. Her idea was there's no slack in the economy.

Unemployment can't go any further, and so if you don't tighten the economy right now, then you're going to have inflation. We need to do something about it. That was obviously wrong, because unemployment kept going down at that point. And that challenged all of the orthodox economic assumptions at the time. There were plenty of people and lay people like myself and others who were writing at the time because

you don't have to have an economic degree to understand that there are millions of people still unemployed that are looking for work. And if the economy gets stronger, those people are going to find work. So she was out of touch with the real economy. What she's saying now is that she kind of gets it, that she made a mistake last time, and she has a chance now to make up for it so that her legacy isn't as the person who was kind of the last one who was executing this flawed understanding of the relationship between interest rates and unemployment in a 30-year stretch. But she'd rather be seen as one of the first ones in the new era, where the Fed had a more sophisticated understanding of what the actual natural unemployment rate ought to be.

And that you don't need as much suffering because that's what underlies all of this. They say that it's complicated, but it's not. What economists are saying is that you need a certain amount of suffering, a certain amount of unemployment to keep inflation low. And what the last several years has shown us is that that's actually not true. Unemployment was driven down to previously unthinkable low. and we still didn't get inflation. So economists were wrong.

And she understands that. So now it's up to her to try to execute on that. You know, so she's served some pretty impressive roles in her career. She was part of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors. She also chaired the Federal Reserve, and that's what we're talking about here, from 2014 to 2018. And, you know, the thing about the Federal Reserve that's been frustrating, and it's more pronounced during this crisis is the fact that it just keeps pumping money, printed money, digitized money, however you want to refer to it, to provide liquidity to big banks

and now during this pandemic to corporations that are really struggling. And what that does is it artificially inflates the value of these companies, right? So you look at the stock market, and regardless of what's happening in the country, regardless of how many, you know, tens of millions of Americans file for unemployment in the beginning of the pandemic. And now hundreds of thousands of Americans, you know, filed jobless claims doesn't even matter. The stock market is completely untouched. It's completely disconnected from reality. And there's a bubble, but it seems like that bubble is just ever expanding and that house of cards just continues to grow. Where do you see that going, Ryan?

I'm worried about that, especially when you consider Americans who have their, you know, retirement accounts invested in this like sham, you know, Wall Street situation. Right. I mean, so if you think of it on a very basic level, you know, people, you know, in general, there's two places to put to put investments. So you put it in bonds, you put it in stocks. And so when when interest rates are so low, people aren't putting it into bonds. So that goes back to what you were talking about earlier. If there was a, if there was a government kind of financed place where saving, you know, savings plan where you could put some of that money, that would actually drain a decent amount of regular people's money through mutual

funds and other things, you know, out of this, out of the stock market and into, you know, these safer, you know, something, something much, something much safer, which then would give you a little bit less, you know, less volatility and give people less exposure to the, to the risk that that you're talking about. But you're right, you know, it's, you know, it's a powder kick, you know, and it's hard, and it's hard to know exactly what, because the, the real economy, as you drive around this country is, is suffering. You know, they're, you know, small businesses are crashing all over the place. And, and the, the, the more that these small businesses are suffering, the more that these monopolies like Amazon and others are just are just consolidating

their position. And so you wind up with, you know, what might have been a healthy community in the past that had, you know, several significant employers, you know, now basically just has Amazon. And, you know, an Amazon warehouse, you know, might might lead in the short term to, you know, better service and cheaper products for people in other cities, probably won't in the long term, but also in the immediate term, that's not going to be a healthy, that's not going to be a healthy community. If that's all, if it's just that and a Walmart. And so you're, so there's, there's going to have to be some serious state and local aid. And there's going to have

to be some rethinking about the way that that cities and counties support, support small, businesses. There's going to have to be some cooperative element, some kind of public, private partnerships that say that if you want small businesses in your community and you do because you're not going to be a thriving community without them, then there's going to be some public role to keep those going. Yeah. Well, we got to take a break. That does it for our first hour of the show today. But when we come back, we'll talk a little bit about what we've seen in the aftermath of Donald Trump getting deplatformed, really, really

looking forward to sharing that data with you and later on some updates on additional right-wing gang members who have been arrested for taking part in the capital riots. That and more for you when we come back. Stay tuned. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our

work, listen ad-free, access members only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y- I'm your host, Shank Heuger, and I'll see you soon.