The Young Turks - Mean Mama Bear

Episode Date: December 14, 2024

Benny Johnson suggests there may be a fake alien invasion to ""steal Trump's swagger."" Nancy Pelosi is reportedly ""actively working to tank"" AOC's bid for a top committee role. RFK Jr.'s lawyer is attempting to scrap the polio vaccine. Jeff Bezos' Amazon plans to donate $1 million to Trump's inauguration." HOST: Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur),John Iadarola (@johniadarola), Jayar Jackson (@jayarjackson) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Dropping. Dropping. Look at this beautiful power panel. Jane Cougar, John Iidrola, J.R. Jacks. Absolutely, what's going to. Hey, JR, first of all, I think you got to turn on your mic. Second of all, I think I heard. Is it?

Okay. Okay, I'll say, man. No, no. Oh, I don't have my earpiece on. God, bruh, bra. Oh, it's all J.R. problem. Okay, okay. This framing has got to stop. Hey, JR, it's just going to be me and you for this show. So what's going on, Hegsseth? Doesn't look likely. I'm not sure.

I mean, going down. So while I get my earpiece in, and I'll ask J.R. the question I was going to ask later when I can hear him. John, let's do the first story. Okay, we're going to jump right to that and give a little bit of time. Let's start with weird news. Let's start with this. No one seems to know exactly what they are or where they're coming from. For weeks, New Jersey residents have been raising the alarm about mysterious drones in the sky, and now lawmakers are demanding answers too. Night after night, residents have reported drones, in some cases, swarms of them, hovering over homes, government buildings, even military sites.

Residents say they're as large as small cars, with a hum loud enough to wake you up if you're sleeping. So I think everybody agrees this is a little bit strange and also deeply ominous the longer it goes on. Hearing that there are strange drones flying around night after night that nobody can identify is scary enough. But when you hear that they're the size of small cars, that becomes very scary because all they need to do to do great damage is stop flying. Those things drop and that's a major problem for everyone. But let's see if we can weed through what we've heard and the different information that's been provided to see if we can come to any sort of conclusions about these drones. So we're gonna start with the governor of New Jersey where many of these sightings have happened.

That's Phil Murphy, and here is what he has to say. We don't see any concern for public safety. That's number one. Number two, having said that, it's really frustrating that we don't have more answers as to where they're coming from and why they're doing what they're doing what they're doing we had last night 49 sightings we think these are overstated but they're it's it's a non-zero number i was on with the white house and homeland security leadership literally at the very top yesterday uh pretty much all day i'm hoping we'll get answers sooner than later these are apparently very as i understand it very sophisticated the minute you get eyes on them

they they go dark um and you know we're obviously most concerned about sensitive targets and sensitive critical infrastructure. So we've got military assets, we've got utility assets, we've got the president elects one of his homes here. This is something we're taking deadly seriously. And it sounds like they should. That's scary stuff, particularly the, when you get eyes on them, they go dark. How do they know when you have eyes on them?

All very ominous. Well, let's add a little bit more ominous to this. We have Republican assemblymen from New Jersey, Paul Kenitra, who apparently was briefed by the Department of Homeland Security, you said. These drone flights were coordinated and flew in swarms. They were airborne for six to seven hours, which is classified as extraordinary battery life. Yes, if you know drones, particularly drones of this size, that is very extraordinary. They're only seen at night, although perhaps they're easier to see at night with the lights. In addition, the government's most sophisticated radar, the electro-optical infrared camera, could not detect.

them. Normally, it can detect any drone one to two miles out and 10 miles for larger craft. And bear in mind, these are the size of a small car, so one would assume they'd be detectable. More than a dozen drones were reported to have followed a 47 foot Coast Guard boat on Sunday night. So again, this has been going on for some time. They've gotten close to both military as well as utility assets, as the governor said. So we have more on this, more thoughts, but what do you make of it? Yeah, super interesting and weird. John Kirby's not really helping too much with his vague answers, which we'll get to in a little bit. But he says, don't worry, it's not a foreign actor.

Then he says we don't know what they are. Then how do you know they're not a foreign actor? Okay, so the only thing I could guess at here, and we're all guessing, including not just the government of New Jersey, now the former governor of Marilyn, Larry Hogan, he came out too, and he's like, yeah, I saw them for 45 minutes in the sky. And the fact that the size of an SUV is amazing. Like, what in the world is going on here? So my best guess is it's the Pentagon.

Otherwise, the Biden administration would be freaking out, like that it's some military program of ours, and they don't want to talk about it. That's why they're being so vague. but they're not, but it's so classified, they're not even telling the governors, which is then causing this giant mess. But why would they be doing it so openly that it's just everybody's seeing it, everybody's reporting it, putting it on TikTok, that seems a little. Yeah, I have a good answer for that too, because they're incompetent.

Like, the Pentagon has massive bureaucracy, and apparently they've built this amazing thing, if that's true, again, this is, we've entered the speculation part, right? They don't want people to know about it. I mean, there's only a couple of things that are sophisticated enough to put something like that up. So the U.S. government, defense contractors, and maybe Elon Musk, right? I'm just, these are all wild guesses as to the people who are capable, the things that are capable of putting something like this up, or another government that is an ally of ours. But now you're getting crazy speculation, right? But it's not a rando.

Let's put it that way. me talking foreign actors. I mean, look, foreign. How foreign are they talking foreign? This reminds me of a story I watched, which was reported at the time as well, but over Michigan. There was all these unidentified flying spacecraft. People eventually, as they've accepted through our government, saying, yeah, there's such things as unidentified flying aircraft. They haven't, I don't know if they've had a chance to say, no, it's not those. We literally have seen them as drones. But also, maybe I don't know the terminology, but they said they went dark. Once we got eyes on them. Like, What kinds of eyes, radar, you know, visual, because Larry Hogan saying he saw them, what do they can go dark?

What time of, you know, it's one of those things where I'm not sure the terminology means what I think a lot of maybe folks like me who know nothing about what this could be, take that as they go off of the radar, you don't catch them anymore, or visually you can't see them with your own eyes anymore. What does that mean? How does that work? So, you know, considering the fact that our government has acknowledged that there have been these types of things where we're, We used to previously tell everyone who has seen something that's an aircraft that they didn't really see it and you're crazy. They've acknowledged that now. They might as well, they might as well as I'm sure people would start assuming those things as well that haven't seen it. I don't know. Okay, one more quick thing before we go back to the actual facts.

These are guesses, obviously. Yeah, if aliens were to come, this would be a good time. They're like, okay, the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth has dementia. And then the guy coming in, not the brightest bulb, if we were going to attack, this would probably be the time. Okay, but, and they're in a transition phase. But I'm kidding about all that guys, because I don't think aliens built drones that are very similar to ours. That would be shocking.

They've seen them, right? So they've seen them. Are they pictures? Perfect form. I don't know. Here, I'm going to do a slight spin on that. I'm gonna do exactly what Fox would do if Trump were about to leave office and Biden were coming in office. And look at this, they see a weak president coming in and all of a sudden our foreign adversaries aren't scared anymore.

They were doing these drones when Biden was still gonna be around. But now that it's Trump, they're breaching our borders. This is the insecurity that the president elect brings. They do six hours on that straight. But anyway, it's probably not what's going on. So with that said, why don't we move to a couple more attempts to explain all of this? We have Republican Representative Jeff Van Drew, very confident about the origin of these mysterious drones. qualified sources, very responsible sources, I'm going to tell you the real deal.

Iran launched a mothership probably about a month ago that contains these drones. That mothership is off, I'm going to tell you the deal. It's off the east coast of the United States of America. They've launched drones. Everything that we can see or here. And again, these are from high sources. I don't say this lightly. At this time, we have no evidence that these activities are coming from a foreign entity, or the work of an adversary? Representative Jeff Van Drew, who is a Republican from New Jersey, was just on the air saying that Iran launched a mother ship probably about a month ago that contains these drones, and that

that mother ship is off the coast of the east coast of the United States. Is there any truth to that? You still stick by your comments that you believe, according to your source, that there is a ship off the coast of the United States? Iranian ship? Am I reading that right? Let me be clear, please. I am confident that my source is giving us a real possibility. Could it be something else? Absolutely. Okay, he's dialing back the certainty a little bit. The issue is that we can't look into his theory because, you know, there's no way to find out if there's a ship off our coast. We don't have any spy satellites or

planes or Coast Guard or Navy or anything like that. It's just maybe it's there, maybe it's there. Maybe it's not. But I will say, like in theory, if this was Iran, remember, like everybody's saying they want to take out Donald Trump, they're in New Jersey, they've got drones flying around. There's a 0% chance that it's Iran. What about the mothership? I'll tell you why, other than the fact that that guy's nuts. So Iran has better drone technology than us. And they can build these giant SUV drones that can last six to seven hours.

and we never noticed and the Israelis never noticed. And they brought in a mother ship next to America. And we also didn't notice that. And we didn't notice them launching the SUV drones. And we're not worried about it. There's a zero percent chance that's true. But there's a much higher chance. Now, look, this is speculation, but who are his sources?

Tom Massey said, look, the Nio-Kans are trying to start a war with Iran. Okay? That is indisputable. Now the next part I'm going to say is more disputable. Tom Massey has said that basically every congressperson has an Israeli handler, okay? He called him a babysitter, and they trust them implicitly, and then they get cash from them. No, so technically it's from APEC, right? And so could his neocon or Israeli officials be like, oh, it's definitely Iran.

Tell everybody on national TV, Iran's about to attack you, and you better hit him first. I mean, I mean, you do whatever you're like, but Iran's mother ship is right off your coast. Okay, all right. I mean, put aside Israel. That's what the neocons are spreading. And so that's where he's getting that horse crap. That's my guess. Again, so the Iranian mothership is if you didn't debunk it enough chain.

These are the size of small cars or SUVs. You guys have both said two different things, or maybe everyone has been. Now what, imagine the size of that mothership to have a bunch of SUV or small car size drones loaded on them and then released above, I guess, the coast of the East Coast and they headed towards Jersey. To be undetectable and continue to be that way, just doesn't make a lot of sense. I hadn't actually imagine that it's our own, you know, defense department types of operations or testing or any that stuff, which maybe may be actually the most, you know, the most plausible. thing that we have going here. But I was wondering, yo, I know we do have a new old and new president coming back into the White House. What have they been saying from literally the leadership within the country about this? I don't know, we're too busy talking to Jeff Drew or whoever

that guy. Yeah, super quick on the Iran thing. It's become the new thanks Obama. Like whenever anything goes wrong, it's like, thanks Iran, right? Like, oh, Subway's bread smells a little weird. Thanks, Iran. It's Iran infiltrating our subways. Okay, and you better attack them first. Okay, yeah, yeah, I got it. When it's actually corporate America. Yeah, 100%. Well, why don't we move on to, I know you want to talk about John Kirby. So added wrinkles to the whole drone debacle yesterday, White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said, no, they're not actually drones. Don't worry about it. It's all cool. They're manned aircraft being flown lawfully and I guess just a swarm of manned aircraft following Coast Guard ships and

everybody's cool with that and hanging out at night and just loitering over areas all lawfully. I guess that's what he said. So he eventually got grilled by a Fox News reporter about a letter from Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal asking for the government to take this matter more seriously. Let's watch. Upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully. There has been no evidence of any of this activity in or near restricted spaces.

That's not what the Senators said in the letter. They said in fact that they've been observed maneuvering their critical infrastructure, sensitive locations, including reservoirs and military installations, and cited a concern from law enforcement about public safety threats because a Medevac helicopter was prevented from transporting a seriously injured patient for air because of the presence of these drones. I stand by my opening statement. Can you make that make more sense? Because I think people in New York and New Jersey see drones the size of an SUV over their house every night and think that that doesn't make any sense.

Certainly I understand why people would be looking at this and being concerned about it. We're concerned about it too, which is why we have the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. My goodness, looking at this and we're taking it seriously. We understand that people are concerned. We understand that they got questions. We got questions, too, and we're working hard to get the answers to that. What I can tell you, as we sit here today, you know, at 216 in the afternoon on the 12th, is we haven't seen any indication thus far that there's a public safety risk, and we haven't seen

the government know what they are. We are still investigating this. I can't tell you definitively, I cannot characterize for you definitively what these sightings are. Okay, well, I feel better. We're gonna take our first break. And no, I, why are you concerned and why do you have questions? I thought they were just legally flown aircraft.

Also, I'm not in the military, I'm not the national security, who's it, what's it, or whatever. But I have a crazy idea and here's how I would phrase it. Follow one of them, see where it goes. It has to land eventually, go to it, and then take it and look at it, or if it's a person in it, talk to that person. Just follow the drones. Send your own drones after the drones. Yeah, I have a firm guess and a firm conclusion after that. So it is my firm guess is it is almost definitely the Pentagon. And otherwise, none of this makes sense. Do you know when they started appearing in November? It's December 13th now. And Kirby said in that press conference,

oh, we've been looking at it ever since. We still don't know what it is, but we're looking at it. So you're sure it's safe, even though you don't know what it is, and you've been looking at it for weeks, but have no idea what it is. Now, you know, it's the Pentagon and you're trying to cover it up. Okay, that's my guess, okay? And my firm conclusion is, if it's not something that the Pentagon is testing or has built, oh my God, our government is so incredibly incompetent. Yes, yes.

Okay, Jared. If nothing else that makes it look really bad. Maybe they should offer a $10,000 reward crime stoppers for anyone. they can figure this out, employ the help of the rest of the society to see if we can figure this whole thing out. There's no urgency, there's no concern, there's no worry. Again, whenever something that normally or casually happens in the country and it's the wrong type of person or someone that we should be afraid of, or they let us believe that it's someone that should be afraid of, it's all hands on deck. So they may have been better off not saying anything in this

particular instance because it makes them look worse than not saying anything. You're going to step in front of a microphone, have a whole press conference, talk to this reporter. And she has to keep asking you, can you make that make sense? That's embarrassing, bro. You're here to have a press conference and someone has to ask you, can you make what you just said makes sense? Because it doesn't. And it didn't. So what are you here for? Just go away and act like we don't, we're going to speculate on our own because you've added a conversation where there's going to be more speculation. It seems like the conclusion may be. The fact that there's no concern, we know what it is. And it's something within our control.

Look, the longer they wait, it's amazing it hasn't already happened, but somebody's going to start shooting at them. You see that thing hanging above your neighborhood? Night after night after night, government's not saying anything super suspicious. We're on edge as a nation. We believe literally every crazy thing you can imagine. Someone is going to start shooting at them. Just like in the movie, don't look up.

Yeah. When they started shooting at the asteroid, right? Good plan, but. So, yeah, I agree with John. Excellent piece of speculation. in coming in three, two. It happened in Independence Day. We all know how that ended.

But anyway, why don't we turn to a little bit of fun to close out this section? There was a lot that we don't know about the drones. A lot of theories, many could be true. We have one, it's almost certainly not. And here is Benny Johnson to explain it. Some people, Mark Dice and others, have said, you know, what's gonna happen is they're gonna stage a fake alien invasion to try and, this is just one of their dirty tricks that they're going to use

to try and punk Trump and to try and like steal Trump's swagger and create a emergency that's going to take away, you know, from from Trump's agenda. You can't cut government spending, right? If there's a, if the aliens evade, right? It's creepy, man. And like, could anybody have predicted COVID? Like, they clearly cooked that up in a lab just for this time, just for this moment. Is his neon sign leaking? What, what has he been breathing? He thinks they're going to fake an alien invasion. First of all, if there appears to be an alien invasion, I actually agree, you got to stop with all the talk about cutting the government, because I think we need all the resources we can get at this point. An alien invasion. They're going to,

they're gonna put Adam Schiff in like a green suit or something like strolling down the boulevard to steal his swagger because he's constantly trying to appeal to the kids. That's the dumbest thing I've heard in quite a bit. I can't believe I'm going to bother trying to debunk it for one second. I mean, it's the most obviously ludicrous thing you've ever heard in your life. But okay, Trump's going to be president on January 20th. When they do the fake alien invasion and then he's in charge of the government, why can't he just take their masks off.

And how would that steal a swagger? It feels like it would add to his swagger. Yeah, he defended us against the aliens. Like, they're not even trying to make sense. Yeah, I'm having trouble even criticizing him, because look, I bring up, I brought up the alien. So what do I know? But the one weird thing is, is there's plenty of things that Trump has already can use to punk his own swagger, like him already backpedaling on a few of these things that he promised

to absolutely go his direction just because he came into office. He's backing off those already. Punking is happening on his own. There's none of these things to help him not cut certain government programs that are going to punk him. If he continues to try and go after cutting Social Security Medicare, he's punking himself. So don't worry, he's got it. He's on the, he's on the case. No need for SUV-sized drones to punk Donald Trump to somehow keep him from not cutting essential government programs that go to the regular American people.

I don't see the connection, but I mean, again, we're all guessing. Doesn't make any sense. Also, follow the drones. I would just love for you to follow the drones. Are we not capable of intercepting one of the drones? Is our, did we do we spend about a trillion dollars on defense every year and we can't intercept one drone? No, come on. Oh, that's the agency that'll get cut.

Defense, because they don't know what the hell they're doing. That's what this is John Kirby went up there to go. All right, well, let's hope so. Yes, we can't. Okay, well, we're gonna take our first break. We come back. including fights over future leadership of the Democratic Party. big vested interest in.

Start with this. Nancy Pelosi, that's Mama Bear of the Democratic Party. You don't have it. So that was one of the at least several attempts over the last few years that represented Alexandria and Cassie Cortez tried to make nice with Nancy Pelosi. And we're seeing this week what that actually bought her in practice because Mama Bear has no interest in ever passing the bear torch to the next generation of bear leadership.

Apparently, according to Punchbowl news, behind the scenes, the former speaker is waging a war to stop Alexandria Ocasi-Cortez from becoming the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. She is instead pushing for Representative Jerry Connolly to win the high-ranking role and has been actively working to tank AOC's bid while making calls on behalf of Connolly. So what you should understand is that Connolly is 74 years old, is a more senior member of the committee. He also, I believe last month was diagnosed with cancer, which could theoretically prove to be, you know, a difficulty as, you know, a member of Congress. But he did receive not

only Pelosi's support, but the support of the backing of the new Democrats, the largest coalition of centrist, corporatist democratic lawmakers. And so that's what he has. Now, on AOC's side, she has apparently, according to behind the scene sources, the majority support of the Democrats on the actual committee, but it is going to be the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee that decides who to recommend to the full Democratic caucus to take that position. And so which in the end could prove more influential, some centrists and Nancy Pelosi, or the actual people who have worked with AOC on that committee and think that she would do an amazing job as the head of it.

We'll have to see. Yeah, so here's my thoughts on this. So first of all, I'm in favor of the New Guard, okay? So Jamie Raskin was challenging Jerry Nadler on the judiciary committee. We talked about it here on the show, and I said it should definitely be Jamie Raskin. Good news, Nadler has now stepped aside and said, yes, Jamie, you take over, okay? And that's going to relate to why I'm backing AOC over Connolly here. Number one, Pelosi's on the other side.

So 99 out of 100 times, except for button dropping out, I'm going to be on the other side of Pelosi. And so, but so when it comes to AOC, look, there's some issues I don't agree with her on, on social issues, et cetera, but that is not at all relevant to this job. We all have to be rational and make logical decisions, right? Overall, I agree with her on economic policies. Again, I'm not entirely sure it's relevant to the Judiciary Committee job. So why am I in favor of AOC here other than overall I support her, right? she's on she's on our side of the fence right and she's younger and she's more dynamic

etc it's because I've seen her in these hearings and she asked great questions so Jamie Raskin asked great questions and if we need anything on the judiciary and oversight committees it's great questions right and it's tough aggressive questions now Conley I remember that one time he really lit it no I don't actually I don't ever remember Connolly challenging it any banker or, you know, Republican, et cetera, et cetera, right? I don't remember the old guard doing that ever. It kind of partly depends on your definition of old guard because if you go to the Senate,

then Bernie and Elizabeth Warren are kind of legendary for it. So, so like, again, don't let all, like, hey, do they agree with me 100%? Who cares? What's the job, right? So I supported Bernie Sanders over Elizabeth Warren, but if you say, give me one person in the Senate to ask tough questions of a banker, I'd pick Elizabeth Warren, right? So AOC would be great at this and it should definitely be her. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things, right?

There's a lot of inefficiencies, a lot of things that go by the wayside that, you know, one party gets blamed over the other, but we all know establishment figures no matter which party are a part of pocketing money or doing things for the huge donors that give them the money to do so. Nancy Pelosi, we see why she's not very much behind this. If there's too much of a new guard, I kind of feel like no matter who it is, if they have a newer energy, have a different perspective than the same old politics and the same old approach to things, you know, Nancy Pelosi is going to be against it. It's like with anyone

else. Look, Ms. McConnell can't walk anymore and he won't leave. I mean, I see that he's going to eventually now. But the whole point is to hold on to that power. And even when you don't have the power anymore, and as the Nancy Pelosi, as far as their speakership, it has to be someone that I've endorsed, someone that I want to be there. There's this weird stranglehold and this, this obsession with holding on to power, even though you don't have it, bro. Look, the world is going to change. The world's going to progress. And, you know, only thing that older, especially in this case, politicians do is hold that up for 10 years or so, as long as they can.

For whatever reason, bro, you've already got all this money in many ways that you're making it. And you want to continue holding on some kind of part. Maybe something she doesn't want to have exposed that, again, isn't just about her. It's about all of this lack of accountability and efficiency with the way things work. So if maybe she's worried that new regards are going to ask and answer more questions than they were willing to before, there's a lot of signs behind this. But, you know, I guess she has to continue to put her thumb on the scale to get the people in that she wants. I'm not sure how deeper explanations are going to be that are going to satisfy folks that want to see something different, especially seeing the way this last election came up. Yeah, look, I would say, I think, as you pointed out, this is not the only leadership fight.

So obviously there's Jamie Raskin. There's Jared Huffman got Raul Grahalva to step down for Natural Resources Committee ranking member. Melanie Stansberry is now challenging Jared Huffman. So there's multiple of these. But I think this one in particular, well, judiciary is really, really important to be clear. But I think this one's also super important because like for the next two years basically, the Democrats have very little power in the House. What do they have beyond the ability to ask questions in these committee hearings? And ideally, if the Dems retake the house in 26, to start to do actual oversight of the Trump administration who will at that point have committed, God only knows how many crimes and constitutional

violations. So you should have a person who has a track record of holding these sorts of people accountable. She has been great. I mean, we don't need to cite all the times, but, and I'm also blanky on the former Trump fixer with the podcast, she had great questioning of him that revealed some of Trump's fraud years ago. Michael. Michael Cohen, thank you. And so it goes back quite a while. And so I think on the substance, it's great to have her in this position. But also, like, I think Pelosi might be generally opposed to what she might see as her generation being deposed from these positions of power.

But also, she has always had a particular issue with AOC and with the squad, despite AOC bending over backwards to try to fit in and to placate Pelosi. And I think this fight is about oversight, but I think it's also potentially about 2028. You know, there's not a lot of opportunities in the House to really raise your national profile, but I do think being the ranking member of oversight for the next two, four years could be a good way to do that, to draw a lot of attention by being strong in your opposition to the Republicans and to the Trump administration. And I don't think Pelosi wants AOC being in any stronger position to challenge one of the litany of centrist Democrats that she's probably already

pre-supporting for the 2028 primary. How much do you guys think, sorry, Jing, how much do you guys think that, you know, there's a possibility of something small and personal. Look, ALC went on the view and was talking about she's mama bear and had the huge smiles. I was like something else behind us. This is like a, you know, it seemed fake to me. Like she's trying to butter up, but doesn't really like this woman. So I wonder if there's any behind the scenes, bitterness or disagreements that are never going to be voiced publicly, that it could be as simple as that. Sometimes we overplay the degree of importance that these very important and powerful people have. And it could be as simple as something she didn't like the way she talked to her one

day. How dare you didn't call me Ms. Pelosi? I don't know. I don't know. These people have remember, Jay. What was the first thing AOC did that other than her win in the primary that drew a lot of attention? It was like her before day one protest outside of Pelosi's office with sunrise movement. Yeah. It's entirely possible that grudge has never gone away. Oh no, no, 100%. But guys, it's even deeper than that. First of all, Ryan Grimm wrote about this in his most recent book. And so AOC said that as soon as Pelosi stepped down, that her treatment in the house got way better. And so like the corporate wing never liked the justice Democrats. They always hated the justice Democrats, right?

So that's where it began from. But it was extra personal for Pelosi. She said all those dismissive comments about green dream or whatever, you know, Medicare for all. I have a poster in my basement. And so it, and that's why I thought AOC being conciliatory towards Nancy Pelosi was counterproductive because then you're not fighting for our positions. You're giving you into her. And what I said, and you might remember on air was they're never going to give you anything

back, never. They're just going to fight you tooth and nail and they're going to try to tear you down. So they're not your friends. They're not your colleagues. And look at what they did to Jamal Bowman and Cory Bush. So, and by the way, Marie Newman, everybody forgets about that. But perfectly normal, Justice Democrat, didn't cause any trouble, didn't do anything. They're like, no, eliminate her.

She's a progressive. No, these corporate goons like Nancy Pelosi have always been against them. Now, if you cared about the Democratic Party to, I think, John's point, you would build up your bench. You would build up your younger stars so they could be in a position to take over like Connolly. What is he, 98? Come on. This is ridiculous. So hey, corporate wing of the Democratic Party. I know you want to hold on to power forever and we're going to wheel you guys around in wheelchairs like we did with Feinstein forever and ever. But you got to let go at some point. Yeah. Why don't we take our second break? We'll come back. We're going to talk about disease and how it might be much more common in the near future. Thanks to Trump. All right on TYAT Jenk, John and Jair with you guys and women AF, thank you for gifting 10 memberships. You're awesome.

All right, John. Okay. The lawyer that's currently helping RFK Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has a request of the government. wants them to revoke authorization for the polio vaccine, of all things. And I checked to make sure that this news had just come out and wasn't from 80 years ago. No, it's current. Mr. Siri has also filed a petition seeking to pause the distribution of 13 other vaccines, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria, among them, challenged and in some cases

quashed COVID vaccine mandates around the country, sued federal agencies for the disclosure of records related to vaccine approvals and subjected prominent vaccine scientists to grueling videotaped depositions. But just to make sure, don't you dare say RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine, there's no evidence of it. But anyway, on Aaron Siri, Mr. Kennedy said, I love Aaron Siri. There's nobody who's been a greater asset to the medical freedom movement than him. And if the freedom movement he's talking about is like polio's freedom to move through your body, he's on to something. I think Mr. Siri is a big ally of that particular movement.

And so Mr. Kennedy has maintained during this process, this transition process, that he doesn't want to take away any access to any vaccines. He said, quote, you wanna get the vaccine? It's America, a free country. He actually said that to Arizona legislators last year, of course, the guy who's advising him is trying to stop you from being able to get those vaccines, a long list of vaccines for a number of different medical concerns and so series there with Kennedy, they're the ones who are questioning and interviewing these potential federal health officials. They apparently

are asking candidates about their views on vaccines. So they're trying to make people put their guard down when it comes to this topic, but it's also incredibly clear what the litmus test is for these officials. And to be very clear, like they keep saying, and Trump, is now saying this, we just want these things to be tested for safety, for their efficacy. And I know it's pointless to point this out yet again, but that very much already happens. These vaccines are tested here and abroad before being made available, and they are tested constantly after they're available to see if any of the hypothesized negative effects actually happen. There are more than 20 studies, including one that followed 660,000 children over the

course of 11 years that have found that vaccines do not cause autism. Saying you want them to be studied is just a lie. It's nonsense. It's noises coming out of your face hole that have no meaning because that has already happened on a massive titanic scale and it has not placated any of their supposed concerns. So it's funny that polio is on that list because before we get into our commentary, I want to play the Trump clip because he just said this. So let's take. look here, this. Hey, look, I'm not against vaccines. The polio vaccine is the greatest thing. If somebody told me get rid of the folio vaccine, they can have to work real hard to convince me.

So there you have it, Siri. You've got your task cut out for you. Apparently, that's going to be a hard one. But that's good. It's a little bit reassuring that Trump said that, right? And it's on the record. He said it this week. Okay, so RFK Jr. I am so curious what's going to happen. I'm so curious whether he's going to be nominated. I'm sorry, not nominated, confirmed. And I'm so curious if he's confirmed what actually is going to go down. So look, I'm going to do what I always do with R.K. Jr., because I believe it, and then you can get upset if you like. And both sides can get upset.

He has huge downsides. And he has some really interesting upsides. So now I've talked to you about his potential upsides in other contexts. His housing policy was great, but he's not the head of HUD, right? His anti-corruption policy was great, but he's not doing that either. By the way, I'd love to see the Kennedy files, but he's not in charge of that either. Okay, so in the case of health care, remember, he's a former environmental lawyer. And as an environmental lawyer, what he would do is he would prod these companies that they sued into getting their documents and figuring out what they were actually doing.

And he was really good at that. And the team that he was with was really good at that. And remember, at that point, he's not even at that point. On those issues, he was. was considered very progressive, right? And he was. So that's not BS, right? So that upside is, can he find out certain things that the health care industry and the food industry wouldn't normally tell us? And the corporate establishment certainly wouldn't share with us even if they knew it. And his concern about some of the food additives like high fructose corn syrup is a significant problem in America. And as long as the establishment is in charge, we're never ever going to talk about that, right? Now the giant downsides.

Are we going to question the polio vaccine? That's that's crazy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Look, some of these vaccines, even if you take him away for a little bit of time, it could cause a lot of damage and then in the fluoride in the water and all that stuff. So when they, look, I would say the same thing to him now as I said to him when he was on the show. Brother, why do you, how do you expect us to believe you over 99% of the doctors and 99% of the scientists in the world, that's too big an ask, right? And so, but one more thing

about that, though, which is that if you're like, when it comes to the confirmation hearings, how aggressively are people going to challenge him? And is the healthcare industry then going to spend money to make sure he is not elected? Because the last policy thing is the one that's right in the middle. His main thing is he always talks about, well, for these vaccines, I hate that they have a liability shield. Remember, he's a litigator and a liability shield means that you cannot sue them, right? And for vaccines, there's good reason. Otherwise, it might really hinder us our ability to get the vaccines out if they don't have a liability shield. On the other hand, when industries have liability shields, they start doing a lot of

wrong things. So is that something that's going to get challenged? And how would it get challenged? So that's why as there's big danger there, but there's also some interesting things. That's my opinion. Jared, what do you think? Yeah, I'm sorry. I got to disagree with you on one of the first things you said, Jake. It is not reassuring at all that Donald Trump said, you know, there's the polio thing. And anybody's going to have to take a hard time to convince me against that.

Within a week, he's already backtracked on what tariffs. Him says promise to bring down grocery prices. Oh, and the stock market's actually going to dip here and there. He's nowhere solid on anything. We already know this. So convincing him to go back on something that he said he vows he's all about is not very hard. I still don't think necessarily he'll be able to convince him of that, but not because he's so hard in his principles.

He stands by things that he says. But there's sort of zero alignment amongst this group of people that are going to be in this cabinet in Trump's White House. I've always been trying to figure out exactly how is this going to look. They don't align on many things. They have, you know, they'll count out to Trump's demands because they want to be in positions of power. These are all self-interested guys from seems like from top to bottom. There's the yes man. But they became yes-men so they could get whatever kind of positions they need or whatever kinds of accomplishments they want to come across.

Just for the simple fact of, you know who I was in the White House one time? These guys are not serious people. So what's happening now is there's this whole energy and continuing energy of, they said they're putting these guys. on grueling depositions and everything, we start every conversation now with these people are coming to destroy America, whoever that was going to put them on some depositions, we're going to say they're trying to kill us. Bro, if you have a position where you think that you can convince everyone that vaccines from top to bottom have been the worst thing ever invented in the history of man, you should probably

have some pretty clear and concise evidence to show it. If you're right, that's an easy slug. You're in power. Just show everybody. be like listen you guys have been screwed over this this way in the third and the government has been not showing you these four to five seven eight nine things show us then bro let us know how wrong we've been if they instead they have to go straight to you know who the enemy is it's enemy enemy enemy and it gets to people's emotional and feeling process so they're not thinking anymore

it's like well rfk junior said they're my enemy so forget whatever else someone actually says forget evidence i'm mad now they're keeping that energy going because it's an effective a tool to get people to do a they want. That's that's one of the parts you have to pay attention to. So let me agree with a portion of that and then I got a little bit of nuance. Don't dare. So I don't want anybody to mistake what I'm saying. I think it's slightly positive that Trump is on the record on the polio vaccine. Is Trump, is J.R. right that Trump might back pedal from that anyway? Of course, of course. And like some folks on the right are not catching feelings. that you say, oh, you know, Trump said he was going to lower prices and now he gets into

offices. Well, it turns out that's hard. I don't, I don't know if we will be able to. And so people on the left would be saying, well, so he was obviously lying about that. He was saying he was going to do it. And they're like, how you can't say that he was lying? There we can. Yeah, come on, guys. He said he was going to. And of course, he said, oh, yeah, I'm going to lower price. And then he gets in. And he goes, well, it turns out it's like, of course. That's why saying that you're going to lower prices is like a typical politician thing to say, right?

And so anyways, the thing on what Jay is saying about, hey, enemies, so like if RFK Jr. says that it must be true, anybody opposed to it must be false. But I don't want us making the same mistake. Okay, so look, I knew RFK Jr. when he was a litigator, again, a tiny bit, but enough to have, he asked me about nine years ago, can you put together a debate where I could debate to top level, you know, scientists on these vaccines, and I try to the best of my ability. And nobody would take him, right? And they're like, oh, no way, we're not going to legitimize him, et cetera. But if he's going to be the head of health and human services, it doesn't matter

if you legitimize him. He's in charge, right? So I'm now, I'll reoffer the debate, okay? And I know Patrick, but David, I was on a show, and he's offering like $5 million, is if one particular scientist that's on CNN debates RFK Jr. No, I'll take any credible scientist and I don't have any money. Okay, so I'm not putting up anybody. I'm willing to do the reading. I'll debate him for $5 million. I will do that.

I'll give in. I'll take his side, actually, for the $5 million. I also just want to say, like, look, we all have very different ideas about the utility of these debates, nobody's going to change RFK Jr's mind. If decades of academia, the debunking of the original studies that he still relies on to this day, haven't changed his mind, there's nothing that's going to change his mind. That's the fundamental thing that makes me most worried about him is that he does not actually appear to have a fundamentally open to mind about the things he cares the most about because he has not updated his understanding about this. And that's my, that's my big concern. And my larger concern is, you know, like theoretically, maybe he goes off in some direction on this and we're supposed to hope that like Trump is going to check him. Trump also said in that interview, he wants to look at the chlorine in the water. So like, I don't know how much is left to Trump's brain to even check what's going on. It's not the chlorine. It's the fluoride, you doddering old fool.

He doesn't know. Yeah, all right, super lasting base on what John said. On the debate, the point isn't to get to do a Matlock moment where RFK Jr. changes his mind in the middle of the debate. I hadn't thought of that. You're right. Okay, that's never happened. We'll never. Except in debates at T.YT.

Sometimes Ben or I, Ben Manquitz or I, every once in a while I went, good point, Ben. I want a few good men moment. I want RFK Jr. to yell, I can't handle the truth. But what I'm hoping, and this is also probably a little bit naive, but for the people that are on his side, if they see a scientist making counterpoints that they haven't heard before, that maybe some of them go, oh, how come our side had never said that, right? And again, that might be a little naive, but I think that any debate, any discussion of the idea is a good thing overall. And last positive on RFK Jr. is now all of a sudden we have MAHA, right, or MAHA, I don't know how to pronounce it, make America healthy again. So there was a little bit of magic there. You got to give him credit on this. He took people who were like, Michelle Obama's a dangerous Marxist for planting things in the garden.

Oh, don't try to make American kids healthy. You're terrible. Oh, we want to make everybody healthy again. Okay. And so, oh, my God. you know what's in our food okay well okay good at least you're looking at that slight positive that lack of a black woman in that position did that yeah it's no it's somebody tribalism yeah it's positive tribalism yeah exactly which gives me so much just hurts my opinion of humanity so much that it's that easy to switch things up in that way I want to talk about the 2024 presidential election. Okay.

Personally, I'm also planning on playing a, not playing a significant role in the election. I've done some stuff personally in the past. I'm not planning on doing that this time. And that includes, you know, not endorsing either of the candidates. In fact, we made this decision, it was the right decision. I'm proud of the decision we made and it was far from cowardly because we knew there would be blowback and we did the right thing anyway. Which sounds good unless you're more worried about the blowback that you might get if you

endorse the wrong person and Trump decides to shut down the Washington Post or something. So anyway, there's a little bit of gamesmanship in that. But what you saw was them talking, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg about the fact that they weren't going to be doing endorsements despite some of their past political activity. And they were really hands off and all that. And we had a lot prepared for this. We're gonna have to skim through it a little bit. But what you do need to know is that now that the election is done and Trump has won, their neutrality that was so brave before, that's way gone. They're load, they're unloading money onto Donald Trump for his inauguration. Zuckerberg with a million dollars.

money from Bezos, Amazon is personally investing the million dollars. They're gonna be streaming the inauguration, which you can have a debate about that as like a public service or something, but all of these billionaires are lining up to kiss the ring and more than that to buy a bunch of rings for Donald Trump. And I'm very worried about that. I understand the fear they must all have about Donald Trump's retaliation against their companies. He's a vindictive quasi strong man who wants to be an authoritarian leader.

He might well try to shut down the Washington Post or Facebook or break them. up or whatever. But regardless, they are very much lining up. And whatever checks they might have provided on their platforms or in their newspapers against Donald Trump before, I don't see any reason to believe that that's going to continue into the future. Has anyone ever gone to Mar-a-Lago and not kiss his ass? Like, why can't they just go there and have a normal conversation? No, no, can't do it. So I think, I certainly think it's possible, but no one's done it yet. Are Zuckerberg and Bezos concerned about their business interests? Of course, of course, of course, come on.

And the Washington Post is nothing. It's a microscopic part of Bezos's business empire. So he doesn't really even care about the Washington Post. He just doesn't want the Washington Post. I mean, I don't mean to read his mind and say he doesn't care about the paper at all. I mean, in the context of his business interest, it's a tiny thing. He cares a lot more about Amazon. And Trump had threatened Amazon last time he was in office because of what the Washington Post was writing.

Now, look, these guys are purely businessmen, right? So, for example, I care about ideology, right? Do they care about ideology? Maybe a little bit, maybe around the edges, or maybe they used to, but then they got scared, right? So at this point, are they, if they just went and talked to them, no problem, okay? you go talk to him and then you go off from a million dollars, okay, you're, you're trying to appease him and you're trying to buy favor. But I get it, like they've got billions and billions of dollars on the line, and Trump

is a guy who's not going to follow normal rules. So if all you cared about was your business and all you cared about was money, those guys, anybody would tell them, yeah, go kiss his ass, make sure that your company's not in danger. That's not a good place for America to be. Anybody that's in their business and their money and are billionaires, they know that the game is played by throwing your money around. You think they can go and talk to Donald Trump and not mention money. That's all that they, that's what these, all these guys are about. So, you know, so going that, by the way, he, they say it openly and out loud at the stock exchange.

I think in the interview there when Trump was there ringing the bell, he said, yo, any corporations, So people come here and give me a billion dollars, you're going to have priority over your interest in passing permits and getting whatever the hell you want. This isn't like, this isn't hidden. There's none of this is being said behind closed doors and dark smoky rooms. So if you're going to go to Mara Lago and try and get some kind of curse, some kind of favor or just speak with him, it's one of those things you're like you walk in and he's going to have his handout. Like you think that they're not, this isn't about this isn't the whole thing. That's the reasons why they throw on their money so much. Their control over our politicians.

That's why there's Supreme Court rulings that allow them to do it. This is all right in front of our faces. If you come in with no money, they'd be like, what the hell are you doing here? What's the matter with you? Aren't you a billionaire? So, yeah, I do think it's less about the Washington Post as well, too, though. So it's all about Amazon, whatever kinds of influence or innovations or changes they want to do that maybe you're going to run into some kind of government oversight or regulation,

all that stuff. They have to be in the front line of it. They're watching Elon Musk literally by this now incoming president elect. And they're like, hmm, I mean, I didn't do that. But I mean, I can be second best and still get plenty of favor of my way just from giving this guy money. And then acting like or whatever degree that they are kiss his ass. Do you think they have any kind of actual politics? If there was a Democrat that's acting just like Donald Trump, he has a D behind his name and everything is flipped.

And everybody that's following him are these folks who think that MAGA is this utopia type of dream world. then they don't care if you're Democrat or Republican. Do you have power? And can I buy you and then shape the way that you go about running this country? All they care about. Yeah, I'm going to agree a billion percent with your, are really great points. The minute you said Elon Musk, I was like, oh, yeah, no, I didn't I think.

Of course, because they're looking at two examples. Number one, Bezos is theoretically the second richest man in the world, and Elon is the first. I don't really believe it. I think Bezos is richer. But anyway, that's irrelevant. He looks at Musk, who he's got to view as a competitor, right? And he's like, oh my God, Musk just bought the government.

I didn't know it was that easy. And he bought it for, he seems to have given him around a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump's campaigns. And Bezos has got to be thinking, don't, why didn't I do that? Quarter of a billion dollars is nothing. And Amazon could have, you know what, we could have had a government efficiency department called something with an A, M-A-Z-O-N. called Amazon. But there's a second guy. As soon as you said that, Jay, I was like, they must also be thinking about Jeff

Yaz. Remember Trump when he was in office the first time said he was going to shut down TikTok. He even took some steps to shut it down. And then this campaign, Jeff Yass, I think gave him $1.5 million. I don't know if he put in more later, but a significant amount. And Trump came out and said, Jeff Yaz gave me a strong endorsement. Now I like TikTok, and we're going to keep TikTok, okay? So he's so transactional, he's so obviously openly corrupt that that's why Bezos and Zuckerberger

are like, what are we doing? Of course we should, we should add a minimum appease him. And maybe if we like it, maybe we just buy him and then have him support these things. And you know, if there's any utility and people can debate this about me going on right wing shows, when I mention this stuff to them, so sometimes I'll mention something and they'll go, No, no, no, no, I'm like, why would you arrest Dr. Fauci? They're like, no, we got to arrest Dr. Fauci. I'm like, oh boy, Dr. Fauci's in trouble, right?

So, but on this one, when I mentioned the donors and Jeff Yaz's and the TikTok thing, they're like a lot of uncomfortable. Well, yeah, that's kind of true, right? So it's, everybody knows Trump can be bought. So that's what's happening right now. All right, we're out of time. So everybody check out damage report, John's great show and watch list, J.R. show. So it goes every day, fellas, we break everything down.

That's right. And J.R. has been breaking things down here for a couple of decades. Breaking things all over. Breaking them down, breaking them, every part of breaking. All right. Much love, guys. We got a whole second hour coming up. It's going to be amazing. The Unger taker is here. Brian Unger is going to be joining us. So we'll be right back. I don't know how much. I'm gonna be

Buhn't know Bhopin'n't Bhopin'n'n Thank you.