The Young Turks - Media CHEERS As Pelosi Caves

Episode Date: August 24, 2021

A top U.S. military officer finally admits he was wrong about Afghanistan. Tensions flare in the House of Representatives as moderate Democrats continue to try and hold up President Biden's budget plan. Wall Street wanted millions of Americans to be evicted, and they gave thousands of dollars to Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer. A startup is turning houses into corporations, and neighbors are fighting back. A Proud Boys leader has been sentenced to five months in prison on weapons and vandalism charges.  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. All right, welcome the Young Turks, Jake Ugar, Anna Kusperin with you guys, big day ahead. We're going to break down a lot of mainstream media myths. One of the things that are coming up on the show is if you were on social media at all or watch cable news, you've seen people celebrating the last couple of hours that Nancy Pelosi has become Pope, president,

and profit at the same time because she passed a momentous bill in the House. We're about to show you that that bill has absolutely nothing in it. It's unbelievable. It really is. Let me just jump in and say that every once in a while, and Jank, you know, he jokes around with me about this, when Jank goes on one of his tears about the media and how awful they are and the framing, and sometimes I'd like roll my eyes a little bit because it could sound hyperbolic. No, today in regard to the framing of Nancy Pelosi being some sort of hero in succeeding in passing a $3.5 trillion reconciliation budget bill, it is complete. and utter gas lighting and we'll tell you why, we'll give you the details, we're obviously fair, we were applauding her yesterday when it appeared that she was standing her ground on that issue, but today is very different and we'll explain why later in the show. All right, so and we're also going to break down the media lies on Afghanistan.

In fact, we start with that. Yes, in a rare admission, retired General Mike Mullen has disclosed to the media that our foreign policy in Afghanistan was in fact a complete and utter mistake. In fact, he first confessed this during an interview with Martha Raditz on ABC's this week. Let's watch. I thought we could build the army and give them a chance to create structures which would run a country in a much more modern fashion. That just is not the case.

So when you look back on those years, are you really? kind of beating yourself up over that? Well, I am, yeah. What I thought we could do, and I advise President Obama accordingly, is I thought we could turn it around. Obviously, I was wrong. You've also heard President Biden say,

look, we should have gotten out 10 years ago. We should have gotten out after they killed Osama bin Laden. You were there when they killed Osama bin Laden, and you were the chairman. Should we've gotten out then? I think in retrospect, yeah, we should have. I don't think it was possible for us to just abruptly walk away right after we killed bin Laden, but clearly we could have gone earlier than we did.

Did the mission fail? I think complete failure, no. Clearly taking out bin Laden was a huge impact in terms of al-Qaeda and what was represented there. I'm not inclined to just lay it on, yes, it was a success or it was a failure. I think we're somewhere in between. Now again, that was Admiral Mike Mullen and according to Slate, Mullen, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October of 2007 till September of 2011, is thus far the only senior officer of that period who has publicly admitted that the United States and the U.S. policy that he, of course, was personally involved in, was deeply mistaken. In fact, he says, quote, it's hard to deny the evidence, front of you. Now, we share the fact that he is the only individual who has admitted the terrible foreign policy mistakes in Afghanistan. He is an exception to the rule. If you've been

watching cable news, if you've been watching network news or any of the corporate media, what you're likely to hear over and over again is, you know, various retired generals, various members of former administrations, think that we should remain in Afghanistan, Forever, we should always have boots on the ground indefinitely because we need to be there to prop up a government that clearly was so weak that it immediately started to fall apart as soon as U.S. troops were withdrawn from that country. Now, guess what? Despite all of those awful mistakes, the one thing that I disagree with Admiral Mullen on is the fact that, you know, maybe we should have left 10 years ago, but he thinks we should have left as soon as Osama bin Laden was captured and executed or assassinated. But the fact of the matter is we should have never invaded Afghanistan to begin with, because

the whole point was to bring Osama bin Laden to justice for what happened on 9-11. Well, before we had invaded that country, there was a possibility for that to happen. There was a possibility to avoid war and to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. In fact, let me take you to an excerpt from a piece that was published by ABC back in October 14th of 2001. They reported the following. The United States rejected yet another offer by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden for trial in a third country if the United States presents evidence against bin Laden and stops air attacks. Now, when explaining the Bush administration's rejection of that reasonable offer,

Bush made clear that he didn't believe that there was any need to negotiate with the Taliban to work with them or to take them up on that offer. He says, quote, there's no need to discuss it. We know he's guilty, just turn him over. There's nothing to negotiate about. They're harboring a terrorist and they need to turn him over, so instead Bush decided to go to war. Okay, so the exception proves the rule with Mullen because everyone is noting, oh my God, that's a military official and obviously a very important one, and a rare television, in fact, a unique television segment where they actually criticize the actual war, not the exit, but the war. Isn't that amazing that all of the rest of television never criticizes the war?

Never says something as plainly obvious as we spent 20 years there and the entire time the Pentagon was telling us, oh, victories around the corner, we got this thing figured out. With the Afghan government's in good shape, we rebuilt the Afghan military, they're going to stand up to the Taliban and they collapsed in 11 days. So shouldn't there be people all over television right now saying, what the hell? My God, the Pentagon lied to us for 20 straight years. The intelligence officials were horrific, the Pentagon was worse, and the defense contractors profited off all this death and waste.

Yet it's never said on cable news. And even there, Martha Radd is kind of challenging Adam Obama. Of course. From like, whoa, wait a minute, are you saying that endless war is bad? former chairman of the joint chiefs? Yeah, that's what he's saying. In fact, he said in another case, quote, it's hard to deny the evidence in front of you. Unless apparently you're a reporter on television, in which case it's exceedingly easy, that's

what they're all doing, wall to wall pro war coverage, as all of us are seeing an epic collapse of a 20 year effort that apparently accomplished absolutely nothing in Afghanistan. Remember, they didn't get bin Laden in Afghanistan. They got them in Pakistan. That had nothing to do with the war in Afghanistan. And that happened a decade ago. But here, I'll give you more. Is anybody saying, hey, Trump for four years, oh, was he in favor of Busharler or was

he not? No, Trump did nothing for four years, absolutely positively nothing. Now there's some Trump haters, so you might see that here and there. Eight years of Obama, an obvious failure. Have you heard one person on cable news? Isn't it amazing that Fox News and MSNBC agree on only this? Oh, war is awesome. So we won't even criticize Obama for keeping us there in an obvious mistake.

The most obvious mistake has anybody has ever seen. Nope. The only thing they're criticizing is the exit. Yeah, look, we talk about the financial interests at play. The war profiteers and the fact that those very war profiteers happen to be the sponsors and advertisers for some of these major networks and cable news channels. So to give you an example, yesterday we were talking. talking about how Boeing happens to be one of the advertisers for Chuck Todd's programming

over the weekend. And so, and a long time sponsor for Chuck Todd, for corporate media, basically. And what does Boeing sell to ordinary average consumers? Nothing, but that money does have an impact on the type of reporting that we see in regard to foreign policy. But there's another aspect to it. And that aspect is the access journalism that we we time to time bring up as well.

Whenever there are these panel discussions, whenever there are these interviews regarding foreign policy, they wanna make sure that they talk to either a current general, a former general, one of the people that you're likely to see in the press commenting and weighing in on Afghanistan is David Petraeus. So I wanna give you an example of what kind of opinions and analysis you get from David Petraeus

when he's being interviewed by people, like Katie Couric. Let's watch. What kind of troop presence do you think should have been maintained in Afghanistan to keep things under control? Well, we had somewhere between 2,500 and 3,500 troops on the ground, depending on your accounting rules. Again, we had not had a battle loss in some 18 months or so. that's partly attributable to the deal that we did, a very unwise deal that we cut with

the Taliban during the previous administration, we could have crafted a sustainable, sustainability being measured in terms of blood and treasure, sustained commitment. By the way, a sustained commitment would be the one that would provide the most solid foundation from which to negotiate. Part of our problem all along for three administrations is that we have repeatedly said we want to leave. And then we expect to negotiate with an adversary who realizes we want to leave and is not going to concede anything to us. We got really nothing from the agreement that was signed in the previous administration. But there have been problems with the government and the military that was propped up by the U.S. government. We've known that for

quite some time now. I mean, there were issues with corruption. There were reports on that. I mean, The fact that everything crumbled so quickly as soon as U.S. troops began leaving Afghanistan gives you a sense of how 20 years and $2 trillion later, that nation building project was a complete, nother failure. And what people like David Petraeus are calling for is troops on the ground indefinitely. That's what he means when he says a sustained effort. And what wasn't disclosed at any moment during that interview, or even in the description box in the YouTube video of that interview was the fact that there are financial interests at play

and that David Petraeus has a massive conflict of interest because he works for corporations that profit from these wars. And this is, again, something we've shared with you before, but I want to repeat it because it's so important even in this context. This is reporting from the Intercept. Petraeus serves on the board of Optive Security, a large cybersecurity firm that contracts with the Defense Department and is a partner of KKR and Co, a global private equity firm with assets in the defense sector. He called the Afghanistan withdrawal a Dunkirk moment on Fox News and told BBC, quote, we should literally reverse the decision, adding, quote, I fear we would come to regret the decision and we already are. There are no good outcomes

unless the United States and its allies recognize that we made a serious mistake. So I just, I just don't get it. I don't get it. It should be disclosed that David Petraeus has this massive conflict of interest and should not be weighing in on something, especially when he's calling for, you know, permanent troops on the ground in Afghanistan that he stands to profit off of. Guys, look, the minute you say obvious things, mainstream media becomes a joke, it becomes crystal clear. So for example, Petraeus said we needed a sustained commitment.

Don't you think a normal follow-up would have been we were there for 20 years? What would you consider a sustained commitment? A hundred years? Two hundred years? How many years did you want to stay in Afghanistan if 20 years is not a sustained commitment? And he said, well, you know, they didn't want to negotiate with us, the Taliban, because they realized that we were going to leave. Well, what was the alternative? We're going to stay in their country forever?

I don't know if you know this. Afghanistan is not the 51st state. Obviously, I hope, obviously, we were going to leave at some point. But since Petraeus works for defense contractors, he says, no, basically he's saying right there, we should never leave. And the media applauds. Yay, we should never leave. Look, here, our members are already writing in. It's a funny handle, but Time Potato Road in.

I live in a neighborhood where a lot of Congress people live. If I watch CNN or MSNBC, I get advertisements for weapon systems. Of course you do. Okay, why? Are you going to buy a weapon system? You're not going to buy a weapon system. They're doing it so that the press will go, yeah, war, war kicks ass, right? By the way, did they tell you all these outrageous things?

Fred Kaplan, a great writer, a slate, we've been using it for over 20 years to cover foreign policy and wars and stuff. And we don't always agree, but he has the facts. And in this case, he wrote about, hey, you remember that time that high-level Afghan officials embezzled $850 million, all taxpayer money, U.S. taxpayer money, U.S. tax, $850 million. And the administration chose not to prosecute. So then everybody knew, this is a joke. They're just going to rob all of our money.

They're going to take it. And then we're going to build all these weapons. and we're going to give it to the Afghan military and the government. We know the Taliban is eventually going to take it because this government is a joke. They all knew it. They all knew it. Even Lindsey Graham has, of course, saying what a joke it is, and then you couldn't possibly do it. So has the media in this moment where they are talking nonstop about Afghanistan and said,

obviously, nation building doesn't work, obviously, right? Nope, zero, zero. The closest we could find was that Admiral Mullenclim. That's why we shared it for you. There's nothing else, wall-to-wall propaganda that endless wars are great. They're not manufacturing news, they're manufacturing consent. That's what cable news, and look, everybody on the foreman, I'm preaching to the choir. You guys all know cable news is a joke news, right?

And you know, Fox News is one style propaganda, but so does CNN, MSNBC. The establishment media, there's a different kind of propaganda. And in this case, it's for endless wars. But people above 45 think that they're, these guys are God. Oh my God, what did Don Lemon say? Jake Tapper and Rachel Maddow, oh my God, they're so great. Who should I vote for? Voting against in a turn?

I'll definitely do it. Whatever you tell me to do, I'll vote against progress. Vote against Bernie Sanders. I definitely. Vote for endless war, I love it. And by the way, what does that affect? Honestly, it mainly affects older Democratic voters. So the right wing realizes they're full of crap.

The progressives and young people realize they're full of crap. And I don't mean to indict all older Democratic voters. There's wonderful activists in that. group that are part of our audience and great. But look, guys, everybody in power still thinks these guys are doing news. I know to the rest of us, it seems unbelievable, but these are the guys who won the country. I just also find it fascinating that most of the conversation on corporate media has focused on whether or not we should have withdrawn from Afghanistan.

But, you know, while they pretend to be concerned about the people of Afghanistan, it's telling that they don't really focus much of their coverage on what should happen to Afghan refugees. They might mention it here or there. But to me, it speaks volumes that most of the conversation is about, oh, we need to protect Afghan people by making sure there are troops on the ground permanently. If you care about Afghan people, if you care about those, who have suffered as a result of this war or who suffer as a result of the Taliban,

why aren't we having more of a conversation about increasing the number of refugees that we're willing to admit into the country? It's because they don't actually care about the people of Afghanistan. And that was also abundantly clear as drone strikes were taking out entire families of civilians on the ground. Yeah. So. Look, I'm saying one last thing, and I'll give the members of the last comments here. But the mask is off, basically.

So these, no one could see the coverage on television of Afghanistan and think, oh, this is fair news, this is objective news, talking about the 20 year failure of the Pentagon, the 20 year failure of nation building, it collapsed in 11 days, it turns out every general we've ever had on here, and almost every politician we've ever had on our television airwaves has been lying to us and we can we found the quotes we played them for you the last couple of weeks all the generals all the policies all wrong yet no one on television is saying it all they're doing is criticizing uh the exit and so now you see it for with great certainty that they too have an alternate reality there's a trump alternate reality there's the establishment alternate reality

and then there are obvious facts so last words to the members and if you're a member we read You read your comments and you're part of the show. I am Sakritsyn. Remember how the media said that Donald Trump officially became president when he dropped the Moab, the mother of all bombs? Yeah, I do remember that. And I remember Brian Williams on MSNBC talking about the beautiful bombs. And that was in relationship to Syria, I believe.

But whenever presidents are dropping bombs, even Trump, they're like, Bravo! Bravo! Murder them! Right? Did it ever get you anything? Never! And they never discuss it.

And finally, Jedi Mullet 77 says, for those who wanted to stay in Afghanistan forever, need to be asked, how are we going to pay for it? Never asked, not once, by the mainstream media, because they're not doing news, they're doing compliance. When we come back from the break, we'll tell you how the media is gaslighting you on the infrastructure bill and the budget bill. So stick around, you don't want to miss the details on that. All right, back on TYT, Jankana with you, lots of news.

All right, well, the media is reporting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has secured a win for the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill that includes much of what was stripped out of the bipartisan infrastructure bill. all those provisions that are meant to help ordinary Americans. Well, it turns out that that's not the case, and the framing of that is essentially gaslighting the American people. So I'm going to go to the last graphic here to give you a sense of how this has all gone down. Now, breaking, House votes 220 to 1212 to pass the rule to one, begin writing Biden's $3.5 trillion dollar budget reconciliation package, right?

Guarantee a vote on the Senate approved me. The Senate already voted on the $550 billion infrastructure bill. That's the bipartisan infrastructure bill by September 27th, and then number three vote on the John Lewis voting rights bill. For the purposes of this discussion, let's focus on the back and forth in regard to the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation bill. Now, as I mentioned, the bipartisan bill has already passed the Senate. the corporate Democrats, the conservative Democrats in the House are like, we are not going to

agree to play ball on the 3.5. 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 Gun. Tickets on sale now. August 1st. Trilling Dollar Reconciliation Bill until we get a promise that there will be a vote on the bipartisan. on the bipartisan bill that gives all the goodies to our corporate donors by September 27th. And guess what? Nancy Pelosi agreed to that, meaning they will hold a vote on the bipartisan bill on that date. How is this a win for the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, which is the bill that we need to get passed? They haven't even written it yet. So if they guarantee a vote

on September 27th on the corporate handout bill, which is the bipartisan bill, and let's say it passes the House and it's already passed the Senate and it ends up on Biden's desk, they sign that into law, it's over. Yeah. It's over. So look, guys, there's nuance here. We'll do that as well. But this appears to be a giant nothing burger. And I feel like even good progressives have been tricked into thinking something was actually passed just because of the massive nuclear level gaslighting that's happening by the establishment as we speak. So Christine Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi's daughter put out a tweet saying, she landed the plane. And now I'm searing all over Twitter from other influencers, powerful people, et cetera.

Oh, she landed the plane. She landed the plane. Where's the plane? So look, guys, let's break it down. So here's the new ice. John Lewis bill. Okay, great, we're super happy to have it. But was that in question in the House? Was there any monsters in the Democratic side that were thinking of not voting for the John Lewis bill that it's about voting rights? If they were, name their names, I'd like to know. Because every Democrat pretends to be in favor of it. So the John Lewis bill is great, but every Democrat was going to vote for it. So is that an accomplished for Nancy Pelosi?

No, not at all. I mean, bragging about that is ridiculous. You also breathe oxygen today. I mean, this is what we're bragging about? No, that can't be it. Obviously, that's not it, right? And if it is it, again, name the Democrats who were opposed to it, because we'd really like to know. Okay, now, then you move to the two bills.

Well, everybody's acting like they passed the $3.5 trillion bill. It's not even written. How could it be passed if it's not written? It's just a trick, that's all it is, saying, oh, we're gonna work on it. You know what that means? Nothing. Nothing. Nada.

We're gonna work on it. Okay, congratulations, work on it. And then when you pass it, let me know. They're acting like she just got the king to agree to the Magna Carta. What are you talking about? So the only concrete thing in the bill is the date to vote on the awful version. Yes. And so now when they get up to September 27th, now here's another part of the nuance.

Progressives like AOC say, hey look, we said they'd be a vote on September 27th. We didn't say that we'd vote yes. That's fair and that's true and that's good. And I hope that they hold to that. But I watch politics a long time. I guarantee you what's gonna happen. As September 27th gets nearer, do you think the $3.5 trillion bill will be written and voted on already in the House?

I put that at about a 2% chance. They're about to go on recess. Yeah, they're not gonna do that. That would be record breaking speed. They claim some source they're claiming they'll have it done by September 15th. On which planet? Okay, so hey, if they do and they vote on it before September 27th, then we turn right back around because this isn't about teams and partisanship and being right, etc. It's about

what's true. If they turn around and get that bill done before September 27, the $3.5 trillion one and pass it, then I'm ready to give all the credit in the world. Then I'll say she landed the plane, right? But right now, that's a nothing. But when September 27 starts to come up, everyone is going to start to say, oh, progressives. You said it. You said, you voted for. Remember, are we talking about landing the plane? And now you're going to vote against the Bagnarra. these monster progressives. Vote for, vote for it. Vote for it. Vote for the Republican version. I guarantee you that's what's going to happen. No, it's. So this is actually counterproductive. It's counterproductive. It is. It is counterproductive.

And I think it's even worse than what we've already described. Because again, remember, the bipartisan infrastructure bill has already passed in the Senate. So if they hold that vote on September 27th and let's say progress, progressives cave and they let that bill pass, it's over. There is no reconciliation bill yet, right? So like my point is, nothing in regard to the reconciliation budget, but like has passed in the Senate yet. Like they had a procedural vote on it, but we still have to deal with cinema, you still

have to deal with mansion, you have to deal with the corporate Democrats in the Senate as well. So let's say the House, let's say Nancy Pelosi, you know, does stand her ground, right, and ensures that they have a $3.5 trillion budget bill ready to go and they vote on both bills on that same day, and both bills pass on that same day, the $3.5 trillion bill still needs to pass in the Senate as well. So no, this is kind of disastrous when you think about it. No, I can't stand the media. I can't stand the mainstream media anymore.

Lie after lie after lie, a total alternate reality. And they're tricking good people into thinking it actually passed. It didn't pass at all. It's not even miles from passing. So look, guys, I'm going to say it one more time when we have a petition on this. Go to t.wit.com slash petitions. If they don't vote for the three and a half trillion dollar version one, the Democratic version one first, and they vote on the trillion dollar one, which is actually $550 billion in new money,

That's the Republican version. They're calling it bipartisan, but it's what the Republicans wanted. First, there is a 0% chance the other version is going to pass. I guarantee it. You could write it down in stone. Zero. It's an obvious, obvious lie. It's the most obvious lie I have ever seen in politics.

And so if they say, oh, no, progressives, don't worry, we'll pass it later. I will take a bet with any member of Congress. 535 members, they can name their price. It bankrupt me, it'll be easy, okay? But if they pass the bipartisan one first, the chance of the reconciliation bill passing is 0%. It's not even 0.01%. The conservatives will easily laugh and laugh and laugh.

And it's not just cinema and mansion in the Senate. Godheimer and the conservative Democrats, Stephanie Murphy in the House is a Democrat from Florida. She's saying, my party's wrong about the $3.5 trillion bill. I can't believe how much money it spends. The Republicans are right. She's not going to vote for it. No, it's, and think about, think about what corporate Democrats are citing as the obstacle.

Like, the reason why they have become such a massive obstacle in getting that $3.5 trillion bill passed, it's because they don't want tax cuts for their corporate donors. So think about how that's going to play out politically for the Democrat. Party. You think people are stupid? You think they're not paying attention? They're not going to know why corporate Democrats are holding up this incredibly important piece of legislation. So have at it. And by the way, real quick, the John Lewis Act, let me be clear about that as well. I guess a voting rights act that's been scaled back considerably from the For the People Act is better than nothing. But compared to the For the People Act, it's not great.

It's just not. Let's just keep it real, right? I want them to pass something. So if they've already caved to corporate Democrats on issues like that, I mean, they don't have to cave to anybody, right? They have control of the House and the Senate. This is about their own self-preservation. And they can't get a voting rights act passed, a more robust version of it. It's just pathetic, man. It really is. So Anna, thank you for pointing that out. So the John Lewis voting rights bill, As I mentioned earlier, is an easy one to pass because every Democrat agrees with it. It doesn't mean it's sufficient.

Will I take it on top of four the people act? Yes, I would love to have it on top of the People Act. But if you're going to do it in substitute for the People Act, which is the real bill, which is what Manchin is saying in the Senate, I don't want the real bill. I want the watered down version, the John Lewis version. Mansion order an op-ed about that. So in reality, this entire thing is a Trojan horse to let Manchin and the Republicans get a everything they want. And the final part of this is a quote from Mitch McConnell. So when he

saw all this going down, the Republican leader in the Senate said, I wish the moderates in the House success, referring to the moderate Democrats. He said, I'm pulling for them. We're doing our part. So right there, that is an admission that corporate Republicans and corporate Democrats have been working together this whole time. On economic issues, they're the same party. So Mitch McConnell's saying, Godheimer, Stephanie Murphy, Mitch, and said, I love you guys. Now, specifically we referred to the House there, so let's keep it to the nine conservative Democrats that got this Trojan horse accepted. Now, that doesn't explain why everybody in the media cannot read and doesn't understand simple logic like, how could it have passed if the $3.5 trillion version hasn't even been written? Why are you pretending it passed when it doesn't even exist?

Exactly. Exactly. All right, well, since we're on the topic of corruption within the Democratic Party, let's stay on that topic and revisit the eviction moratorium and the Wall Street interests at play in convincing Democrats to avoid fighting to extend the eviction moratorium. A new TYT investigates piece shows how Wall Street corruption played a massive role in convincing corporate Democrats to avoid fighting to extend the eviction moratorium. moratorium when it had recently expired. Now luckily, the CDC under the Biden administration was pressured to extend the moratorium

because of wonderful progressives like Cory Bush, forcing them to bend to her will. She did a protest where she slept on the steps of the Capitol for several nights, and it embarrassed the Biden administration. So they extended the moratorium, although it wasn't as robust as the previous moratorium. But nonetheless, we're now seeing the figures that some corporate Democrats, including those in Democratic leadership, received from Wall Street interests who seek to end the moratorium as soon as possible. So alongside Pelosi, Democratic leaders, including Steny Hoyer, who's the House Majority Leader,

and three other Democratic leaders issued a statement calling for action, but then pass the buck to the White House and blame the Supreme Court for inaction. But remember, the Supreme Court also indicated that it was up to Congress to do something about the moratorium. So to pass the book to the Supreme Court is laughable. So why? Why did that happen? Well, turns out that there was quite a bit in the form of campaign donations to people like

Steny Hoyer. In the 2020 election cycle, the House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer took money from several Wall Street firms that have been buying up single family homes in the last year ahead of the looming eviction crisis, the firms include Vanguard, Goldman Sachs, Carlisle Group, and Invesco. To give you some specific numbers, Hoyer took $5,000 from Vanguard's PAC in the most recent election cycle. Vanguard Group has index funds that account for almost 12% of all shares of American homes for rent. According to data compiled by the private equity and corporate landlord tracker, American homes for rent filed more than 100 eviction.

this past year, even when it was wrong to do so based on the eviction moratorium that was in place. But part of the problem is the eviction moratorium doesn't get enforced, certainly not in a uniform way throughout the country. And despite the moratorium, many eviction cases are still in process. Princeton University's eviction lab found that more

than 6,000 evictions were filed last week alone. Why aren't these members of Congress who purported to care about Americans during this pandemic, getting involved to ensure that these eviction moratoriums are actually being enforced properly. Carlisle Group has also been directly involved with evictions despite the moratorium. According to the tracker, the investment group

opened 250 eviction cases in the past year. Steny Hoyer took $2,000 from Carlisle's pack in December of 2019 alone. And just one more figure to give you guys, because I think it's important. Hoyer also took $5,000 from Goldman Sachs in 2020. And every year, by the way, since 2007, that's according to FEC receipts.

So, TYT is one of the few organizations that actually report on money in politics. And so I love the TYT investigates, which is our objective arm. We're objective here with the facts, but we add commentary and analysis on top. But the reporters at TYT, they just cover the facts. And those are facts.

Hoyer takes money from people who are in the real estate industry. And then he is basically going along with Pelosi and not really doing anything about the eviction moratorium and passing the buck, as Anna just explained to you. Those are facts. They're uncomfortable facts. If you ever want to get an interview with Steny Hoyer, and he did not respond to us, of course, You don't write a story like that because then you'll get cut off. And they think, oh, I need sending Hoyer for access.

Do you? For what? Is he ever going to give you actual news? No, he's going to give you his point of view that he's pushing out in the form of a leak. And that's the access that you'll have as mainstream media. Why don't you just do your jobs and actually report on why they vote on bills? You think that all that money, and we told you before about the millions of dollars that have been poured into the Democratic Party overall, and this is Hoyer's version of it.

If you're a reporter, are you really going to stay with a straight face that those millions of dollars do not affect them? What the Democrats are angels, Republicans are affected by it, but Democrats aren't. Steny Hoyer doesn't care about his donors? Can you really say that? Of course you can't say that. So then why don't you report on the money he's taking as you see him helping his own donors? And do you think it's a coincidence?

Now, guys, either they're terrible reporters, awful reporters. If you're a reporter and somebody told you, hey, somebody's taking millions of dollars for something, would you think that might be relevant? Of course you'd think it was relevant, because you're a normal, rational human being. Somehow our reporters flip it upside down, the mainstream media reporters, and they go, no, things that makes sense will not be reported. We will pretend that Steny Hoyer is a principled man who doesn't care about the money he's taking. It's absurd. And so the facts are in there. We'll have the link in the description box.

There's no question about it. But guys, it's actually the tip of the iceberg. It doesn't even get into the dark money. So this is just the ones that are visible. And then on top of that, as we told you in the last couple of weeks, the House Democrats, as a group, got millions of dollars, which Stanley Hoare, being the number two Democrat in the House, would then take for his own campaign and fall out to other Democrats. And that's how corruption works. Right. And then there's one other aspect to it that I have to mention.

they get to invest in individual stocks. So I'm curious, do members of the House of Representatives have investments in the very companies, very corporations that I just mentioned? And the answer is yes, yes, they do, they do. That should be outlawed. If you want to be a public servant, then there are certain sacrifices that you have to make, including the inability to invest in individual stocks, period. And that goes for spouses as well because they play these cutesy little games or their spouses will be personally invested in individual stocks that they're either husbands or wives get to pass legislation about or avoid passing legislation about. It's crazy. I mean, it's just this system is so corrupt in the form of campaign donations, in the way that these people get to invest their own money. And there are no laws preventing it from happening.

And I just want to give credit to Andy Hirschfeld, who wrote this piece for us and did a great job with it. Please read it and check out all the t-y-t.com slash investigate stories. All right. When we come back from the break, I'll show you how private corporations are finding new ways to screw over the housing market so ordinary Americans are unable to purchase a home for themselves. We'll be right back. All right, back on TYT, Jank, Anna, James Kelly, and Joe M.R.D. They just joined, and hence they're part of the Young Turks, and they're with us now. They hit the join button below on YouTube.

We appreciate it, guys. Love doing the show with you. Anna. As the housing market becomes more and more difficult for ordinary working Americans, what we're hearing is that the problem is lack of inventory. There are so few homes on the market for working Americans to buy. that they're forced to rent, and that leads to increased rental prices, and people are getting priced out of communities that they've lived in their entire lives. And there were stories

recently about private equity firms, essentially buying up entire neighborhoods and turning single family homes into rentals so they can really capitalize on the slumlord industry of the United States. Well, now there's a new business popping up that I want to draw attention to, and it essentially take single family homes and turns them into time shares, but they don't want you to think of it as a time share, even though the business model is very similar. So one of those corporations is known as Pascoe. They're turning these single family homes into corporations, and I want you to pay close attention to what their business model is. To make second home ownership possible for people, and of course, to make money, Picasso, I should say, it's not Pasco, it's Picasso. Picasso uses a fractional home ownership model. They buy a house, lightly refurbish it, furnish it, and then create an LLC for it.

Then they divvy up ownership of this corporatized house into eight fractions and sell those shares on their website. Sounds like a time share, right? If it doesn't, let me give you more details. If you buy a share in a house, you're able to stay in it for 44 nights per year in increments that can't exceed 14 consecutive days per visit. You can also gift these stays to friends or family. Now listen, I remember wanting to get freebies when I traveled and I got sucked into one of those timeshare things and it was awful. You sit there for an hour where they're trying to convince you to buy a timeshare, which is an awful, awful investment that people

should never do. And this is the kind of pitch that you hear. Let me give you more details. Picasso offers an app to handle the logistics of booking stays. It oversees management, maintenance, and cleaning of the property. In exchange for all of this, it charges 12% of the home's purchase price up front and monthly fees going forward. So I went to Picasso's website to get an example of a house that they're trying to sell in this way. And so here's how it breaks down. How we price this, again, you would own one eighth share of the house. So the purchase price of this nearly $2 million house, meaning what a person would have to pay up front is $237,500. And then there are the home upgrades and closing costs, $5,000. And then there's the service fee, of course,

of $32,500. So if someone was interested in one eighth ownership of a home, meaning that they would have access to that home for 44 days out of the year, but nothing longer than 12 consecutive days, they would have to take $275,000 and hand it over to Picasso. Now look, this business model I think is gross, but what's even more gross is that they're taking

the limited housing supply and turning these homes into corporations. And I think that this kind of stuff needs to be outlawed. And one of the reasons why they don't want to be considered time shares is because time shares in many of the communities that they're trying to do this in are outlawed. Sonoma in California is an example of that. And so what I love is that the community in this area decided to rise up and protest this. And they actually won, I'll give you the details to that in just a second.

But Jank, I wanted you to jump in. And I, you know, I find this story a little bit more complicated. So on the one hand, I get that folks don't want temporary part-time transient, not transient, that's not the right way of putting it, but temporary folks coming through the neighborhood. Eight different people owning the house, eight different people going through. And is it a time share? No question. It's definitely a time share.

Yeah. case conclusively. But honestly, and they're taking a house off the market, and that's very when we have limited, we have super limited inventory, and that's what we keep hearing over and over again. And remember, when corporations buy up single family homes or condos or whatever, residential property in order to do these disgusting grifty things, that drives up housing prices overall, which prices everyone out of the market. I'm talking about ordinary working Americans, and then they're forced to rent. And then what happens to the price of rentals?

That goes up too. This has a domino effect that's disastrous for working Americans, that's my problem. So now this particular company promises, promised later, because of the pressure, that they will not do this for any house under $2 million. I don't really believe them, but hence the pressure was good. So that just shows you, you put pressure on, you get some results. But at the end of the day, one thing I'll say is that, A, I don't mind the timeshare. And everybody's different, but if they say, oh, yeah, what about the house next to you?

I don't care at all. What do I care if it's one person who's in it or eight different people? I'm not a guy who's nitpicky about neighbors. So, oh, they listen to music too loud, I just don't care. And so I know a lot of people do, but I don't. And you have no guarantee that your one neighbor is going to be any better. better than the eight people rotating through. At least some of it might be decent and your one neighbor might be awful all the time, right?

And secondly, I don't know how to stop it because yeah, they can do it. And so they just buy the house and then they sell shares in it. I get it. Like so- I would outlaw it. You would outlaw? Oh, 100% in a heartbeat, I would outlaw. In fact, one of the reasons why this corporation doesn't want to be considered a timeshare is

is because the way that they're doing this helps them skirt taxes as well. So they rob the community of resources while they engage in this behavior. The one thing that makes them a little different from time shares, because I want to be fair, is that there's this whole speculative aspect to it where the people who own one-eighth of the home could make money in the short term. So if you buy a share in a house, you have to hold it, hold on to it for a year, okay? But after that, you can sell it and profit from any appreciation in the home's value.

Or you can be on the hook for any depreciation, which is unlikely, especially in today's market, and especially in a place like Napa or Sonoma, most of California, let's keep it real, with the exception of places that have been completely ravaged by wildfires. Now again, the neighbors were not happy, they fought back. Now, the county had designated their neighborhood an exclusion zone, which I celebrate, and I think is great, that bans Airbnb-style short-term rentals to preserve the residential character of communities. But Picasso argues that its clients are not short-term renters.

They are co-owners of an LLC. This also means that they don't have to pay the typical taxes on short-term rentals. So that's tax on short-term rentals, but not the property tax. There's no way, I think there's no way to avoid the property tax, and I haven't seen anything to the contrary, and that would be outrageous if they were avoiding that. But at the end of the day, Anna, I see the issues here, but I don't think I would make it illegal. And so- Why? What's your reasoning?

Because people do timeshares, and you're right, it's definitely a timeshares. Time shares are awful. And it should be treated as a timeshare, but I wouldn't make timeshares illegal. Time shares in and of them, like, timeshares alone, the way that they've been done is terrible, and people get suckered into them and it's almost impossible to get rid of it once you have been suckered into it. In fact, there are literally corporations like that were created to make money off helping people get rid of their timeshare. Like it's just one grift after the next, it's disgusting. But the thing with timeshares in the traditional sense is that they build

resorts with the sole purpose of it being a timeshare. In this case, they're taking limited housing and turning it into a corporation. Yeah. When we're already dealing with insane housing prices. Yeah, no, I get that it's going to create limited supply. Now, this is a really interesting, not normal case. And the reason I say that is because normally you don't, like, if they bought a house and then eight families got to live in it somehow, right?

That would be one thing. These are all second, people that are looking for their second home. So they're already wealthy, they're going into wealthy neighborhoods. And that's part of the pushback is from wealthy neighbors who don't like the riffraff coming in that could only afford eighth of a house. They're not riffraff by the way, I mean, they're pretty- They're rich. I know, they all pay- I want you to be clear, like the one example they were using, they're

all paying over $600,000 to get a portion of a house worth over $4 million, right? So it's not like riffraff, whatever that means in their rich minds can afford over $600,000. But so I just think it's more complicated. I wouldn't outlaw it. And it's limiting the supply in really rich areas, generally speaking. But by the way, they did get into housing that was actually lower than $2 million. And that they got more pushback and because of the pressure, they said they won't do that anymore. So if you're fighting like Anna is on this issue, you should continue because it's getting

results, right? But I'm just telling you my honest opinion about, I think in the scope of different issues in housing, I don't think this one is high enough as a priority that I would make it illegal. Yeah, I would make this illegal. I would make private equity firms buying up residential properties, buying up entire neighborhoods of residential properties illegal. I would make foreign investment, which is essentially money laundering in many cases. in U.S. real estate, residential real estate, specifically illegal.

And that's not because I'm anti-foreign. These are people who have no interest in actually living in the United States. They just buy up real estate in the United States because they're looking for a place to park their money. If we have limited inventory, if we have limited supply of housing, then why aren't politicians who keep regurgitating that talking point doing something about it? I just don't get it. It's incredibly frustrating. and the problem keeps getting worse because these corporations find new and improved ways of screwing you over from having affordable housing.

So that's why I would outlaw it. Anyway, obviously this gets me heated. So let's take a break. I'll calm down. And when we come back, we'll talk about how a member of the proud boys has not only been convicted of some pretty serious crimes, he's going to be spending time in prison. We'll see you in a few minutes. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks, support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t.

I'm your host, Jen Kheuger, and I'll see you soon.