The Young Turks - Mess in Texas

Episode Date: February 23, 2021

After preaching deregulation and trusting corporations to screw over customers, Texas Republicans are scrambling to regulate the power company charging residents tens of thousands of dollars and threatening to shut off the power. 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 to the Young Turks, Jake Eugenicusperin with you guys. Do we have an excellent show prepared for you? Well, of course we do. Are we going to execute that show? Well, come on, don't be ridiculous. Of course we are. All right, so one of the things I need to tell you today is to go to tyt.com. Why?

There's stories that. Did you know that? We're gonna quote one of them throughout the show today, especially on Texas. One of our reporters who you guys paid for, TY Chang, did an amazing job on the Texas deregulation story, which is up first. So make sure you're checking out the stories tab on ty.com. We've got a lot more where that came for. from, including you're going to be able to actually summarize some of our, get summaryed versions of some of our videos. So I wanted to make sure you guys all were aware of that, especially the folks who are members and loyal viewers and readers of our work. All right, lots of stories including dunking on Ted Cruz and a perhaps fascinating debate

on Nira Tandon. I mean, it's going to be murder for you, but it's okay. It's okay. It'll be a fun debate. I'm looking for it to it. If it's murder. I feel bad. I feel bad when I do that to you, but it has to be done.

I'm sorry, Jane. Number one, I hear you. Number two, if it's murder, then I prefer that it's murder she wrote. Okay, good, good. I like that. Well, let's start off with a serious story involving what happened in Texas. its aftermath, because of course, people want answers. And the answer is you shouldn't privatize utility companies. So Texans are now receiving exorbitant energy bills, adding insult

to injury after essentially being victimized by rolling blackouts during a brutal winter storm. Dozens of people have died as a result of this, including some children. I've read a story today about a family of three children and a grandmother who died because they used their fireplace to stay warm. And that started a fire while they were sleeping and they were unable to escape their home. It's just one unbelievably devastating story after the next. And now people are getting these exorbitant utility bills, including one person who received nearly $17,000 in their energy bill. Now, Governor Abbott from Texas convened that his office described, convened what his office described, I should say, as an emergency meeting Saturday with lawmakers to discuss the issue.

The Public Utility Commission on Sunday met to sign two orders, including one that would direct energy providers to temporarily stop disconnecting customers from power or water because they have not paid. The commission also signed an order to stop companies from sending invoices or bill estimates to customers until we work through issues of how we are going to financially manage the situation we are in. And that was a statement from commission chair, Dianne Walker. Now, obviously, if the power grid weren't privatized and deregulated to the extent that it has been in the state of Texas, they wouldn't find themselves in the situation that they're in right now. And that's really the heart of the story. It's not this battle between fossil fuels and

renewable energy. That's what the fossil fuel industry would have you believe. That's what the Republican Party would have you believe. But this is really a story of what goes awry once you tie power, electricity to the so-called free market. When you tie it to supply and demand and essentially deregulate this to the point where companies don't weatherize their equipment to be able to withstand incredibly cold temperatures. Although Governor Abbott blamed progressive energy policies for the devastating power outages that hit the state during freezing winter weather, experts have pointed to other factors, including lax regulations that let the energy industry cut corners on winterizing.

And that's from TYT investigates reporting, which I want to provide more details for a little later in the show. But, Jank, why don't you jump in? Yeah, so I want to explain very simple economics to Republicans who apparently know nothing about economics or business. So it's called supply and demand. So when you put energy companies on variable pricing, depending on supply and demand, that guarantees that in terms of disaster, you will have price gouging. Why? Because the supply will be limited. In this case, the pipes froze. But in other instances,

there are other issues that come because of extreme weather events that shuts down energy sources. In this case, almost all of it was oil and gas that was shut down. And that is the predominant energy source in Texas. So that created low supply of energy. And it's at the same exact time that everybody needs that energy because it's so cold outside because of the same disaster. So you have high demand. Econ 101, if you have high demand and low supply, you will have high prices. And in this case, the prices absolutely skyrocketed. So one woman had a bill of $202,000. It's absurd, absurd. We're going to get to the solution in a second. But I want to give you another fact here. Normally they get about 12 cents per kilowatt hour. That's the charge for a

on average, 12 cents. During this catastrophe, it was $9. On average, let alone the bills that are for $16,000, $300,000, etc. But a normal person paying 12 cents as a ratio gets you to a bill of about $330 or so, okay? If you're going from $330 to $3,000 or $17,000, well, of course no one can afford that. So what the Republicans did by setting up this unregulated, so-called free market, but it's actually crony capitalism, because only a certain number of companies can get these contracts, and they need government permission. We're going to get to how they get that in a second. But anyway, so under these circumstances, the Republicans wrote price gouging into the law. Now they turn around and go, well, no one could have predicted this.

No, any econ, not major, anyone who's ever taken econ 101 could have predicted it. If you're saying no one could, that you couldn't predict it, you're basically saying I'm a total and utter moron and should not be in charge of anything, let alone the entire state of Texas. And guys, I don't say that to you if you're a plumber or a dentist and you don't remember econ 101 from a long time ago. I'm saying that if you're the governor of the state and you claim you set up on this amazing system and you don't know what supply and demand does. And then you're like, oh my God, like Abbott, like Abbott fell out of a turn of truck the other day, apparently. He's like, oh my God, supply and demand. I never heard of it. I can't believe we have these bills. Nobody saw these bills coming. Well, you're basically saying, I'm really, really dumb and you should fire me instantly. He knows. I mean, look, not that it even matters at this point, but I don't think that Abbott is dumb.

I don't think that Republican lawmakers are dumb. I think they know exactly what. what happens when you deregulate these companies and when you privatize, you know, privatize the utilities, right? Energy and essentially allow them to get away with murder. I mean, they know it's not like Texas hasn't gone through this before. They went through this not too long ago in 2011 and they decided to keep the system that they have in place. Why? And I know you know what this, Jenk. It's because they're paid to do exactly what they're doing. doing with this deregulation, with this privatization. And TWA Chang and Jonathan Larson over at TYT investigates it a really good job at actually

tying some numbers to this so you guys can get a better sense of just how much the corruption plays a role in the decision making among these lawmakers. And let me also be clear that we're seeing varying degrees of this across the country. Texas is uniquely awful because they were willing to take things much further than other states have been willing to. But other states have also made awful decisions with privatizing utility, something that should be considered owned and controlled by the public, right? Democratically controlled by the public.

But let me give you some details about how this all plays out behind the scenes financially for people like Greg Abbott. So Midland Energy, for instance, is the largest single donor to Governor Abbott and former Governor Perry, his predecessor who was tapped by former President Trump. to run the energy department. Midland's founder has said he is friends with former President George W. Bush who hails from Midland and reportedly refers to Anwar, that's the founder of Midland, as Jay Daddy. I mean, incredibly uncomfortable revelations there. But let me continue. As of 2018, Anwar reportedly had donated more than $1.7 million to Texas Republicans. Abbot

got more than a million dollars of that, including both cash and airplane rides. So this Anwar guy and Midland Energy, I mean, he has all of all this interest to ensure that the energy companies are privatized and deregulated. That's how he makes his money. He wants it to be connected to the so-called free market. He wants to make sure that price gouging is something that's protected in that state. And he's gotten what he's wanted because he's paid for it. We have legalized bribery in this country. That's what's happening behind the scenes. That's the reason why people in Texas not only suffer this time around, continue to suffer because something similar happened in 2011. So let me build on that. And then I want to get to an understandable but bad idea as a solution here. So first of all, in that same t-y-t.com story, they explained that the Texas Railroad Commission, is in charge of energy in Texas.

And it has three members that regulate energy production. And they have received, just to take a slice of when they made these decisions, between 2010 and 2016, because remember the last big catastrophe during the winter in Texas was in 2011, that's when they consider this stuff. So in 2010 to 2016, when they were making these laws, those three folks received 60% of their campaign contributions, which was $6.6 million from fossil fuel companies. Now, who do you think they serve? Of course they served the fossil fuel companies. That's who got them elected. That's who gave them $6.6 million. That's where the majority of their money came from. No wonder Bush

calls Onward J Daddy. I mean, it's almost like, you know, one of those convenient relationships where somebody is somebody's daddy and takes care of them. And that's how politics works in this country. The donors are the daddies and the politicians are honestly the prostitutes in case you need me to draw it out further. And so now when we go to the RCC and the people that are on it, the chair is Christy Craddick, and her family makes their money in, you're going to be shocked to find out oil. So she's getting paid on both sides.

So her family makes money from oil, plus she gets her campaign contributions from oil. Then we go to another one of them here. We got Wayne Christian, who's a lifelong conservative businessman. I don't know what his relationship is to energy. But okay, no problem there. How about Jim Wright? Jim Wright has a company that, quote, services, that's a good word in this case, services the energy industry.

These guys are all corrupt. That's what they are. They're corrupt, they're criminals. And so all those people died that 11-year-old boy was playing the snow died later in the day. Some of you have seen that. And they all died because theocratic and Wright and the others and Abbott and Perry and Bush all decided, I'd just rather get paid by energy companies than protect you. So I'm going to make it optional that they insulate their pipes.

I know it costs more money. And I know they won't do it. And I know when they don't do it and there's a storm, you'll die. But who cares? I already got my bribe. And on top of that, I'll do one last joke on you guys. I'll make it variable. Anna's right.

Of course, I know Abbott's not stupid. Abbott knows the supply and demand. So when they pass law, Abbott and Perry and all those guys laugh and laugh going, this is going to be great. Well, there's a disaster. We'll pretend to be surprised. And that'll create a bigger opportunity to rob the people of Texas of their money. Finally, the bad idea.

Put it forward by good people, by the way. saying now, hey, people shouldn't pay those bills, the state should pay it for them. Oh, hell no, the state is still taxpayers. No, I got a revolutionary idea. We don't pay criminals. So no, we're not going to pay a $200,000 bill that nobody should have gotten in the first place. We're not going to pay $17,000 energy bill that nobody should have gotten in the first place. No, energy companies.

If you don't like it, move out of Texas. All right, all your customers are in Texas. is tough break. Maybe you shouldn't have killed some of them. Yeah, look, when it comes to what, just like the basics that people need to survive, it should not be privatized, should not be deregulated, it should be owned and controlled by the public, period. It should not be tied to supply and demand or the free market or any of that nonsense. There should not be a profit motive behind the bareness essentials that people need to survive. And by the way, I want to go to A2 next because this is a former Republican lawmaker who's been making his rounds in the media, you know, kind of to call out the deregulation and privatization in Texas. This is Will Hurd. So let's hear a little bit of what he has to say. He reinforces a lot of our points. But I want to get your thoughts on it, Jank. Let's watch.

Is this a black eye on the Republican Party philosophy of low regulation and small government? This was a black eye for not planning for this eventuality. And this has been going on for years. The deregulation in Texas happened almost 20 years ago. And so people have talked about this particular situation and that we should have been prepared for it. So again, this is not about, you know, do we need to go the exact opposite way? I think the conversations, instead of using this as a political bludgeon, again,

one another, we should be talking about the serious issues about reliability. No, I take it back. He actually said a lot of things there that I disagree with. The answer to that question by Chuck Todd was yes, yes. This should not be, this is not an issue regarding proper planning, okay? This is an issue where all of the wrong, like these companies have all of the wrong incentives. The lawmakers in the state of Texas have all of the wrong incentives. And when the whole point is to take something that people need to survive and turn it into something that operates based on a profit motive, well, that system is going to fail. And it's going to fail over and over again. Does it matter what kind of planning you engage in ahead of time? The incentives work against doing what's necessary to plan ahead of time when the incentive is profit, period. This should not be a privatized thing. And that's really where the problem. is here. So he's trying and he's getting a lot of like, I see a lot of people applauding him

for being willing to call out Republican lawmakers as a former Republican lawmaker himself. I'm sorry, no cookies for you. Unless you're willing to call it out for what it is, you get no you get no applause. I'm sorry. Yeah. So Anna, you're right. When I read it, it seemed positive. He said it was 100% preventable, lack of long term planning. It sounded pretty good. I know that he's a rare guy that is, there are no moderate Republicans, but he was just a normal right wing Republican, not a crazy one. And from time to time, he would even oppose Trump. Of course, that's why he's no longer in Congress. So if you're gonna do that, you have to run screaming out of the building before the Trump supporters murder you. So, but at the end of the day, no, he didn't

say what was correct. By the way, credit Chuck Todd, that is the correct question. You guys deregulated, it turned into a goddamn disaster. You wanna just say, hey, you know what, we were wrong. We shouldn't have deregulated, we should have made them insulate the pipes instead of saying, well, I mean, if you wanna spend a lot of money to protect the citizens' lives, go for it. If not, screw it, kill him, and save the money. That was a dumb, dumb idea, wasn't it, Will Hurd? Okay, look, Chuck Todd obviously has to say it in a more

polite way, and I'm happy that he did. And Will Hurd didn't really answer the question. The correct answer is deregulation costs people their lives, sending it variable rates, guarantees, and puts into law price gouging. So we turn justice into injustice. Those are all Republican ideas. And the final one was, let's disconnect from the energy grid, the federal energy grid, so that if we have a disaster, the rest of the country cannot unite around us and help us, instead we'll be stranded on our own. And so this idea of rugged individualism also put forward by conservatives and Republicans was also stupid and led to people dying and now being charged an arm and a leg for something they didn't create. The corrupt politicians and the

corrupt corporations created. That's the reality. Under no circumstances should anyone pay those energy companies for any of those outrageous bills. You created the mess. It's a cost you created, Not us. You bear the cost. The American taxpayers, both Democrats and Republicans, are tired of paying for your mistakes that cost our lives. When we come back from the break, we'll talk a little bit about the ongoing backlash that Senator Ted Cruz is facing for going on a beach vacation while his own constituents have been suffering. And later in the show, we'll talk about Nira Tandon, possibly not getting confirmed for the Office of Management and Budget. It might be a little bit

a debate on that issue. So come back for that and more after the break. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The-Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of On The Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right

amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it, the New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime.

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Oh, and then, you know, I'm going to see. All right. All right, back during the break here, you guys have so many good comments, you guys have so many good comments, let me try to power through them. This is all in our member section, t.y.com slash join to become a member there. Mr. Lomburg wrote in power, gas, water, and the internet should all be part of the commons and owned by the very Americans, those vital utilities serve the same way roads and public lands are. This sort of deregulation run amok will only get worse all over the country if we don't.

So again, anyone who understands E.com 101 understands that there are certain things that are natural monopolies like utilities. And hence, they must be treated differently than a so-called free market. And they must be treated as public utilities. But our government is run by criminals that receive bribes from corporations. It's not just Republicans, Democrats do it too. And in California, we have non-stop wildfires because the criminal Democrats in office take their donations from the energy companies, just like they do in Texas.

And they're like, well, I wouldn't, PG&E, I wouldn't want to put extra costs on them. then how will they bribe me? So no, they don't have to bury their lines, power lines. Yeah, they'll drop and they'll cause fires and you'll die. But hey, I got paid. And so don't please, don't count California as progressive. In that type of stuff, it's just total corporate crony capitalism at its worst. It's the same problem, same cancer as in Texas.

All right, John Campbell Reese says, privatizations are always massive frauds by the government corporations against the people. Look, that was a little bit more complicated, guys. We've got to do nuance. Something should be public and something should be private. Utilities need to be public. Many other things need to be private, like jeans and burgers and cars, etc. So the question is, what is public and what is private? And that requires a tiny bit of thought, but it's fairly clear when you see the whole context. I got a lot more that in the book I'm theoretically writing Justicescoming book.com, okay, for a pre-order a book that doesn't yet exist. All right, Katie Dragon, I've written 500 pages.

Somehow I've got to get that down so you guys can get through it. All right, anyway, Katie Dragon writes in, the power company should be forced to eat that loss because it's their fault, their greed should not be rewarded. Exactly right, smartest audience in the world. Steve NJ writes in, like Anna has said before and is one of my favorite saltyisms, The system is working the way it is intended to. No overcharging mistakes in capitalism. The roaming blackouts causing huge energy bills is exactly what Enron and Rossboro got into trouble for before. And guess where? Texas, we'll be back.

All right on the Young Turks otherwise known as the greatest show on the planet, Not a big deal. Jank Uger, Ben Manquins, how's that for old school? Sorry. How dare you? Wow, okay. Okay. No go tea.

That should have been a giveaway. Should have been a giveaway. All right. Anyways, he's out doing old movies. Anna Kasparian is what I meant. And I now risk the wrath of the salt dragon, which we're going to get to in a second when we debate near attendant. Anyways, you guys will all be on our assignment.

You guys will all be on our side. It'll be fun, I'll be right. Let's move forward to Ted Cruz. All right, all right, fair enough. Let's wait for that near attendance story. But for now, something that I think we can all agree on, Ted Cruz and the epic dunking that's taking place right now, which I absolutely love. So the backlash against Texas Senator Ted Cruz continues despite appearing in a goofy photo op to make it look like he actually cares. about his own constituents when in reality he doesn't. He got caught leaving the state during a brutal winter storm when his own constituents were dealing with rolling blackouts. He went on this Cancun vacation, got caught, and hurried back home and was greeted with all the backlash,

including a mariachi band that showed up outside of his home over the weekend. By the way, this mariachi band was paid for by a GoFundMe page that was set up by a Texan named Adam Jama. The page also donated money to the Texas Children's Hospital, but this was what Senator Ted Cruz was dealing with over the weekend. Just a lot of fun. I forgot how much I missed going to the Hollywood Bowl for mariachi concerts, because they're a lot of fun. But anyway, the GoFundMe page said this. Senator Cruz being an amazing dad dropped off his family in Cancun in the middle of a major crisis and came back to Texas to continue serving his constituents. We want to thank Senator Cruz for his leadership and pay for an amazing Mariachi band to perform for him. No one should go to Cancun and not listen to

to Mariachi. So, you know, I know how you feel about anyone showing up to anyone else's house or in front of someone's house in order to protest or do any of these types of stunts jank. But we got to at least give the guys some points for creativity here. You know, and I do feel bad for his daughters because Cruz is clearly hiding behind his daughters, using his daughters as a shield for his own poor decision making. And I don't want them to deal with any kind of harassment or be scared or anything like that. But it is, it is pretty funny. I don't know, what do you think?

Well, look, yeah, I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I just don't think you should go to anybody's house, period. But I guess if you're gonna go, Mariachi Band is the best way to go. And nobody's in the house, Ted Cruz is doing photo ops on Fox News, and the only one left in the house, of course, is Snowflake. And he could use the attention because apparently they did not give Snowflake a safe space. So he's still in that freezing house. I don't know if Ted has bothered to turn on the heat or if it's on in his particular house.

Anyways, but when it comes to his kids, I know there's a story about how they're attending a private school and the private schools worried that they're going to come back and not quarantine, but it looks like. At the end of the day, they're going to decide to quarantine as they should as something that applies to all the kids. And although I don't know why they can't do online learning. Virtual learning. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe the school doesn't offer virtual learning when they're in session. Like they're actually meeting in person. So why would they have virtual classes available? I don't know. But this fancy private school does have rules for, you know, students who have traveled at all during this pandemic. And that makes a lot of sense. They tied their own rules to the guidelines that have been put out by the CDC. But apparently parents were really, like, furious about everything that it transpired.

Cruz's family's travel became so hot that administrators of the St. John's school parents' Facebook page closed down comments on Friday on a post. that referred to this recent communication from the school regarding advisories, including CDC requirements for international travel. So just to tell you how long they're expecting students to quarantine if they have traveled, they must quarantine for seven to ten days upon their return and they won't be able to learn online while in isolation, probably because they don't offer online classes or online learning during this time. Under CDC guidance, any international traveler who returns to the United States must quarantine or isolate for seven to 10 days after returning to in-person instruction.

And by the way, Jank, like that makes sense. There's nothing controversial about what their guidelines are. They're trying to keep their students safe. For me, what really stood out with this story was just how much transparent disdain parents have for Senator Cruz specifically. You know, oftentimes when you read quotes like this in a story, they are anonymous individuals, you know, they spoke on condition of anonymity. But no, these parents are like, oh, I'll tell you who I am, first and last name.

So I want to give you a few examples. Laura Hollingsworth is one of these parents who says, at the end of the day, he's taking this heat for using his children as an excuse for taking a vacation. And that's a mistake. From a parent standpoint, all I'm asking is the school follow the CDC guidelines. And I need to say, I have no reason to believe they won't. And they're going to follow the guidelines, which is great. She continues to say, you've got someone out here saying, quote, I did this to be a good

dad. No one's trying to dispute that. The question is, are you fully aware of the consequences of what you did? Does it make you a bad parent? No, does it make you a bad senator? Maybe. And then, Jank, one more quote from a parent, Victoria Konar, who says this. You start with the fact that there are people ticked off by those who think they're the VIPs at the school, who don't want to be bothered to follow the rules because it infringes on their social life. Then you got people on top of that who don't like Ted Cruz. And then you have everyone irritated because they're freezing to death and can't breathe and can't eat. And he's going off to the Ritz Carlton and Cancun and lying about it. Yeah, I can't bathe. So what I liked was the same thing

that you enjoyed there, which is the universal disdain for Ted Cruz. It's not just progressives or people in politics. If you know Ted Cruz, you dislike him even more. In fact, one of his closest allies these days is Leslie Graham. Back in 2016, he said, and remember, he's a Republican as well from South Carolina. He said, if you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you. Well, it turns out actually Republican senators would never convict another Republican, no matter who they killed. That's right.

So it turns out, Lindsey Graham had no idea how preaching he was. He voted to not convict either, but in that case it was Trump. All right, look, this story is largely symbolic. It is the wealthy that create the problems that run off to the Ridge Carlton in Cancun and blame others. So that's the main reason why people are focusing on Ted Cruz. The governors of Texas are far more culpable. The people who control the energy decisions in Texas, including the bizarrely Texas Railroad Commission, are far more responsible.

And they almost all take money from those same energy companies to the tune of millions of dollars. So if you want to fix the problem and the corruption, don't let private industry and private individuals donate to politicians. It's super obvious. But last point here, in terms of the irony. where the school has an understandable policy. You go outside the country, you come back, you got to quarantine for a week, right?

But the reality is we're literally the most dangerous nation on Earth when it comes to COVID. We have the most cases and the most deaths. So if anyone's going to quarantine, it should be the Mexicans quarantining the Americans when we come in. Especially if you're Republicans, those are the most dangerous, most potentially diseased people on planet Earth. because they think that coronavirus, a lot of them, don't think it's real, including Ted Cruz, who has minimized coronavirus all throughout, who often don't wear masks. I notice he wears a mask in Mexico because he'd like to be admitted into their country. But here he discourages people from wearing masks and doing any. 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, chili dog, not included. The Naked God, tickets on sale now, August 1st. Any of the right scientific things. So if I was Mexico, I'd be super careful with letting a snake like Ted Cruz into their country. God knows what kind of diseases he could spread there. Unfortunately, it looks like we're not sending our best to Mexico. Well, there's another angle to this story that I wanted to talk about.

And it's the way the media has been covering it, because there is a pretty significant difference between the MSNBC, and the Fox News of the world. So let's discuss. So Ted Cruz continues to receive quite a bit of backlash after he decided to go to the Ritz Carlton in Cancun while his constituents were suffering during a brutal winter storm and rolling blackouts to add insult to injury. Now, when he rushed back, he engaged in these ridiculous photo ops to make it appear as though he actually cares about people. But we all know that if he hadn't gotten caught, he would have stayed at that Ritz Carlton through the weekend. In fact, he admitted as much during some of these interviews. Now, the way that this has been covered by MSNBC and Fox News is very different, right?

So in this next video, you're going to see just how different the coverage is. Let's take a look at that and we'll discuss. Ted Cruz, when his house was freezing, just like the people who A woman who was found in her backyard, the man who was found in his house, little boy who died in his home. Ted Cruz left his freezing house and went to Cancun. And now the senator is seemingly in damage control mode after rushing back and posting photos over the weekend of himself, loading water into Texan's cars with the hashtag Texas Strong. Are you kidding me? Many online criticized the move as simply a photo op.

Obviously it is. He wasn't planning on being there. He was going to be on the beach with his family, with some pointing out that the senator broke quarantine protocol after traveling international. Senator Ted Cruz handed out water to storm victims and served up barbecue to first responders over the weekend. This as United Airlines is investigating who leaked the senator's flight information, revealing when he was supposed to originally return to Texas after that controversial trip to Cancun. So you can see a clear difference. I mean, Fox News doesn't really seem to question his intentions when he's posing for these photo ops.

And they at least referred to his trip to Cancun as controversial. But that was the extent of their criticism or negative coverage of what he did. All right. So first of all, the tweets that Cruz is sending out shouldn't say Texas Strong. That's for other people who stayed because they were Texas Strong. I don't know if he wants to put hashtag Cancun Strong. hashtag Cancun Week. I don't know what, as in W-E-E-E-E-A-K, I don't know. But so here's the photo op here, you want to show Snowflake for a second?

That's okay, put them up. Here's a photo op that really is actually caught the country's attention. That's poor little snowflake in the window there, okay? And that's the dog that he left behind. How could this happen to me? Poor baby. Why did you? Look at that little cutie. Poor thing. How do you leave your dog?

Look, I don't know if they made accommodations for someone to come and take care of the dog while they were on vacation. But like, how do you leave your dog alone for several days? Like, he was going to stay through the weekend. Yeah. That's nuts. Through Saturday, to be fair, hashtag Cancun Week. And so, yes, I think he has a problem. Yes, I think he has a private security guard that at least made sure the snowflake didn't,

well, in this circumstance, certainly wouldn't have melted, but didn't starve to death. So anyways, but back to the different ways that MSNBC and Fox News are covering it. So MSNBC points out that it's a photo op. I am relieved to see that. I think the press through the Trump years has gotten tougher, and I really, really welcome it. And when, and now they're at TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your activity more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect you from eavesdroppers and cybercrack. criminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution

available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EXP-R-E-S-V-P-N.com slash t-y-t. Check it out today. We're beginning to apply it a little bit to the Biden team, which I very much welcome as well, because they're supposed to be watchdogs. So my whole life, all I've gotten is stupid photo ops from politicians. And the press would never tell you. It's a story I've told a number of times.

It's in my upcoming book to Fred Thompson, a senator from Tennessee, would drive to his public appearances in a limo. I mean, old school limo back in the day, stretch limo, he's in the back, he's got a driver, and then he'd get into a fake pickup truck he had, a red pickup truck. And all of the reporters would write it as if he drove the pickup truck there, and that's the only thing he has. And then when he was done with his photo ops, he would leave the pickup truck and get back into his limo. I've been dealing with that for 40 years as the press in America has lied on behalf of politicians systematically. And it's disgusting. So the fact that some

We're snapping out of it. Great. Give credit to Mika Brasinski and Morning Joe on MSNBC. Not a thing I do often, but credit where credit is do. Look at Fox News on the other hand. Oh, Ted Cruz is handy out water and barbecue. What an American hero. I mean, come on, guys, you're not going to point out that he can't, that he's an obvious photo op because he got caught in Cancun. And then the main controversy they alluded to in Cancun is who leaked his information about his flight. We have to find out the person who brought us the truth and punish them. This is Fox News. We do not tolerate truth. Remember, Ted Cruz's hero, the person who outed him for being a fraud, should be looked into and maybe have criminal violations against them. Okay, fine.

I'm just going to say one thing about that. I'm just to say one thing about it. He's a public figure. Like people were taking pictures of him as he was on the beach in Cancun. That's, that's, it's It's called life. It's called smartphones. It's called being out in public, no expectation of privacy. Like even if those text messages hadn't been leaked, it doesn't matter. There were already so many images of him, like in the first class lounge, over at the beach, hanging out with his family, like it was gonna come out, okay?

And it's just like this treatment of people in positions of power as if none of the rules ever apply to them, they're above the law, and they must be protected. It's just pathetic. It's so lame. Imagine being a member of the media defending Ted Cruz right now. Imagine how loathsome that is and how embarrassing that is. Yeah. So Fox News is. Yeah. So Mickey C is in our member section. I just want to read this comment because it's really interesting. They wrote him, where's Cornyn and all this? That's the other Texas Senator. I haven't heard anything about him. him is he in hiding? You see, isn't that interesting? See, since Cornyn didn't get caught in a scandal, he doesn't go out there and hand out water and do barbecue, or if he does, the press doesn't,

Fox News doesn't cover it, right? Because they don't have to run a cover story for John Cornyn. So Cornyn just goes and takes a break and smokes a cigar or whatever the hell he's doing, and nobody bothers him at all. And so when you see Cruz with the water and the barbecue, that's why it's a dead giveaway that it's a photo op. And so on the other hand, AOC, for example, and Sheila Jackson Lee and other Democrats, they raised $5 million for people suffering in Texas. That's real. That's real money that went to real food and real protection for those people.

Finally, to Anna's point, look, we talked about this earlier in the show, Mariachi Band went over to Cruz's house. I don't like people who go to people's houses. I think you have a real expectation of privacy there. At airports, I'm pretty sure from personal experience that you can get taped at airports. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Yeah. All right. Let's take a break. Let's take a break. Why would you bring that up? Anyway. All right, we're going to take a break. Let's pretend like Jake didn't remind you all of something that's embarrassing.

And when we come back, we'll probably debate. I'm happy to debate that. We'll debate that with anybody I'm having to go about it in the post game. I saved everybody on that plane. They were going to get screwed and instead they went to their destination almost entirely because of me. All right, anyways, that's a whole funny story for another time. Let's take a break and come back and fight about Neurotanton. I'm not a bit of the

I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna and a ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I'm

I'm going to be. All right, first of all, guys, let's like and share the stream. Makes a giant difference. And I want here, everybody to hear, first of all, all the stories, second of all, progressive perspective, it makes a giant difference. And third of all, both sides of the near Tandon story, I think that's going to be super interesting. So thank you guys for liking and sharing. All right, I also want to thank one of our sponsors, PureVPN.

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using hashtag Bezos box. I'm afraid we're going to get that thing banned. Uh, but anyways, if you have Amazon Prime, it's free for you on Twitch, uh, and we encourage you, Either way, we do get the revenue and we love it and we need it. So thank you guys. So in fact, Mary Animal wrote in, been with us for five months through Amazon Prime. I've been a fan since Air America Days and I love spending those hashtag Bezos Bugs. Hashtagety Army, hashtag Dragon Squad, hashtag Wolfpack. Fully loaded Mary Animal, love it.

I got more from Twitch later. Let me go to YouTube super chat. Andrew Borth says, Ted has a poodle named Snowflake. Really? I guess the poodle should have worked harder and not chosen to live in such a bad neighborhood. Poodlehood responsibility. Okay, let me poodle on that. Osborne writes, can I get a shout out for my dear friend Thorsten,

who will undergo brain tumor surgery tomorrow wishing him best of luck. Of course, Thorsten based the best of luck from everybody. Umberto Moriara wrote in, there's a trend to privatize gains and socialized losses. 100%, right? The brilliant Naomi Klein has talked about that for a long time. Now you should read her books. These are not mysteries. They've been covered before, and yet they'd happen every time because largely our press is not good at pointing out corruption. They've been okay on that story. Peter Hamby says, I know that people have told us to not tease or bully Texas, but these people are the ones who keep putting GOP in office, how much more damage do they need to do to stop voting right, billions?

And so the point is to support the people of Texas by getting them to realize who's screwing them. All right, we'll talk more about it when we come back. All right, back in the Young Turks, Jenkinana with you guys. If you guys are watching YouTube, joining is just about the simplest thing in the world. You just hit the join button right below the video, easy pizzi. In fact, Levonda Leroy, Ronan 05, 105, and Graham Chibs Bruce just did it. Are they American heroes? I guess, I guess.

If you're watching anywhere else, t.com slash join. You make this show possible. We read your comments throughout, and we do this show together, and we kind of kick ass together. That's how it works. All right, speaking of which, let's go into the next story where we might be a little split, and we're going to ask you guys what you think, and it's going to be interesting. So let's move forward. Anna. All right. Well, Neera Tandon, who's the former head of a think tank known as the Center for American Progress, is Biden's pick to head the Office of Management and Budget.

And she might not get confirmed after all because Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who tends to be more conservative, has spoken out against confirming her, meaning that he will not vote to confirm her. And considering the fact that Democrats have such a slim majority in the Senate, they can't afford to lose a single Democrat unless there are moderate Republicans who are willing to confirm near a tandem. And so first, let me just give you the reasoning that Joe Manchin has put out there, arguing, quote, I believe her overtly partisan statements will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship between members of Congress and the next director of the Office of Management. and budget. For this reason, I cannot support her nomination. As I have said before, we must take meaningful steps to end the political division and dysfunction that pervades our politics. So what he's referencing there is the fact that she had so many combative, insulting tweets toward members of Congress. She, by the way, deleted thousands of them after she was picked by Biden to be the nominee for the Office of Management and Budget. And so,

Basically, her behavior on social media is what Manchin is saying, is giving him all the reason he needs to vote against her. Now, there was some concern or at least some hope that Nira Tandon would get confirmed through moderate Republicans voting for her. But as Jeff Stein from the Washington Post tweeted, and I totally agree with him on this, hard to see which Senate Republicans would save Tandon's nomination. Tandon has called Collins, you know, one of the so-called moderate Republicans, the worst on Twitter. Collins and Murkowski are close. Romney talks a lot about bipartisanship, and we still don't know which way Sanders would vote he hasn't said publicly. Now, we got word today that Susan Collins will not be voting to confirm near a Tandon, nor will Senator Mitt Romney, just a quick statement from Collins, who says that Congress has to be able to trust the OMB director to make countless

decisions in an impartial manner, carrying out the letter of the law and congressional intent. Neera Tandon has neither the experience nor the temperament to lead this critical agency. Her past actions have demonstrated exactly the kind of animosity that President Biden has pledged to transcend. And then later, Romney also released a statement through a spokesperson indicating that he will not support the nomination of Neurotandin either. And so I think this is great. I think that Neurotandan is an awful pick for the Office of Management and Budget. And I don't agree with the reasoning that's being cited. But nonetheless, I think at the end of the day, this is overall good news. She has no business in that position. But, Jank, I know you feel differently.

Yeah. So we're going to ask you guys to adjudicate this as usual, t.com slash polls. So let me explain why I'm saying what I'm saying. So do I think Neera Tannen is best picked for OMB? Of course not. Would I rather have a progressive, only a hundred or a thousand or a million times more than Nira Tandon? Do I think that she served some of the corporate interests that are deeply troubling at the Center for American Progress? Yes. In fact, some of the mean tweets that she got in trouble for were about me. So, and other progressives, but including me. So, so, So why on God's green earth would I support New York Tandon? Well, I would support New York Tandon in this and probably only this context.

So the reason is when Republicans are in charge, they run up deficits by giving trillions of dollars in tax cuts. The minute Democrats get in charge, they go, what about the deficit? You've got to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. You have to cut Social Security, you have to cut Medicare, have to cut programs. Now that's a well-worn tactic by the Republicans. This is a second tactic that is very similar. When they're in charge, they rip the face off of Democrats, they will say the most outrageous

and vile things. And I couldn't have had a better example of that than the last four years under Donald Trump. Then as soon as the Democrats get in charge, no, no, no, no, no, civility, civility. Anyone who's ever criticized the Republican eliminated, no way, we're not going to confirm you. And then they'll get idiot corporate Democrats and liars like Joe Manchin to do their bidding for them so that they have a bipartisan cover. Even Joe Manchin says we shouldn't. Near a Tandon was not nice to Republicans.

Boohoo. Are you kidding me? Is there a single fighter? Is there a single fighter in Congress? If I was there, I would say, look, Democrats, we should have an interesting caucus discussion about whether to support near a tandem or not. But I'm not gonna listen to a single goddamn Republican tell me that they were offended by tweets. After four years of kissing Donald Trump's ass and the tweets he said.

So anyone who supported Trump after she's bleeding from wherever can go shove their BS concerns about civility on Twitter. You guys are all a joke. Mansion is a further joke. He confirmed some of Trump's worst nominees, including Bill Barr. After confirming Bill Barr, you're having trouble with the Democratic nominees. Give me a break at Richard Gernel, who was vicious to everyone on Twitter and most certainly Democratic senators, etc. Joe Manchin was like, oh, Trump wants him. Confirmed. But now all of a sudden that Democrats want to get something passed. He's like, oh, my, have you seen what's happening

on Twitter? I can't believe in here or send something nasty on Twitter. I've never seen it before, get the hell out of here. No, on principle, on principle, I would vote to confirm her and say, okay, next, next, who do you want to complain and do BS crying over about, oh, how she was mean to you? Yes, we're on the other side. Our job is to kick your ass. If you thought she was mean to you, wait until you get a load of me. That's what I would do. So this is one of the rare cases where I don't see this as an issue involving Democrats cowering in fear over the demands of Republican lawmakers. No, that's not what's happening here. Jank, you say this all the time. Lawmakers, I mean, Washington and their etiquette, like

their obsession with decorum. This isn't about a nominee who has said insulting things in general on social media. This is about someone who has said things that have insulted specific individuals within the Senate, including, by the way, Bernie Sanders, and yes, Republican lawmakers as well. And look, their feelings are heard. So I don't particularly care about their feelings. I think that's a dumb reason to avoid confirming someone. But at the end of the day, if the outcome is something that I think is positive, which is preventing the confirmation of someone like Neurotan in the Office of Management and Budget, then I'm all for it, right? I don't agree with their reasoning. I think they're pathetic to have their feelings hurt over her tweets. But Neera Tandon is the worst

possible person to serve in that role. And yes, like we have some, we have some signs about who might replace her if she doesn't get confirmed. This guy named Gene Spurling. You know, the American prospect talks about how he's genuinely gone from being one of these, you know, austerity guys in the Clinton administration to being a true progressive. I don't even know if I believe that. And to be quite honest with you guys, I don't even care because the truth is, Nira Tandon is as bad as it gets. She has all of the wrong incentives as someone who's going to be in this incredibly important and powerful role in the Office of Management and Budget. Guys, understand what that position means, okay?

The Office of Management and Budget is what Bernie Sanders called on recently in order to release analysis and data showing that increasing the first. federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would have an impact on the federal budget. That's an piece of data to have in order to make the case to include the $15 an hour minimum wage hike in the upcoming coronavirus relief package. Okay? You have Neurotanin who has been in bed with all these massive corporations. And of course, no one's citing that. Not a single senator is citing that for their reason for why they would vote against her, right? I mean, that's the reason that I would cite because that's the actual substantive reason to be against her, other than like your poor little hurt feelings, please, cry me a river, don't care about that.

But you look at the, you look at the details of who funded the Center for American Progress, who her clients were, and the specific action she took as the head of CAP to bring in the business community, lure them in. I'm gonna read you a few excerpts from Ken Silverstein's piece from the nation. This was written in 2013, but the information is incredibly relevant. After growing rapidly in the first few years, tax records show Capp's total assets fell in 2006 for the first time, from $23.6 million to $20.4 million. Asset started growing again in 2007 when Capp founded under Nera Tandon's leadership, the Business Alliance, a membership rewards program for corporate contributors, and then exploded when Obama was elected in 2000.

A confidential cap donor pitch describes the business alliance as a channel for engagement with the corporate community that provides the opportunity to collaborate on common interests. It offers three membership levels with the perks to top donors, $100,000 and up, including private meetings with cap experts and executives, roundtable discussions with, this is important, Hill and national leaders, and briefings on cap reports relevant to your unique interests, And by the way, let me finally get to the grand finale. Who were the clients? Who has she been in bed with? Who has the Center for American Progress been in bed with? Cap's donors included Comcast, Walmart, General Motors, Pacific Gas and Electric, General Electric, Boeing, Lockheed. Though it doesn't appear on the list, the University of Phoenix, a for-profit college, was also a donor. And then of course, we can't forget about the foreign donors, the Business Alliance, whose membership list includes the Taipei Economic and Cultural

representative office, which functions as Taiwan's embassy in Washington and retains many lobbyists and the confederation of businessmen and industrialists of Turkey. I mean, and by the way, that's just to name two of the foreign donors and clients that worked with the Center for American Progress. She has no business in that role. She is a walking, talking conflict of interest. And if we have to rely on Joe Mansion of all people to kill the opportunity of her serving as the head of that agency, then so be it. I don't agree with his reasoning. I get that you don't agree with his reasoning either, Jank, but she's awful. And hell no, no one should ever fight on her behalf so she gets that position of power. No way. Okay, so first of all, let me stipulate

to all the facts that Anna just read you. Those are all right. Those are why Neartan and I have fought for years and years and years. That's why she had the main tweets about me, because I would point those things out. And she would say, you know, not in those particular tweets, but overall, oh, the Gulf States donating the cap doesn't affect us at all. Nonsense. Of course it affects you. And all these think tanks are a joke. Why are we taking money from the industrialists of Turkey to write about the $15 minimum wage here in America? It's absurd. And the press plays along with this fiction by, oh, this illustrious think tank says this. No, that illustrious think tank is a front group for foreign corporations and foreign governments. And yes, also domestic

corporations. But they are not actually thinking there. They've been bribed to come up with a certain opinion so that they could then give it the politicians and you know how that circle goes around around. So that's why guys, don't get me wrong, it is deeply ironic for me to defend near a tenant. And Anna, there was actually one person, speaking of ironic, who actually did point out her interest. It was Representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri, who's on the House Budget Committee. In fact, he's the ranking Republican there. He said, I'm very glad to see the Senator Manchin has decided to put people before politics and make sure that someone be holding to corporate interests and foreign governments doesn't become the next OMB director.

Well, now, if somebody with credibility said that, I would love it. And I'd go, yes, that, that, that's the correct reason they're opposed near Adandon. Now, of course, Jason Smith doesn't mean a word of that. He takes the same corporate money and loves it, loves it. So this is what's not just bothering me, I know, but it's important for precedent reasons. So as the mansions and the Jason Smiths of the world pretend that they're outraged by the lack of civility after backing Trump and Bill Barr and all those guys. And they pretend they're worried about corporate interests when they are stacked up to here with corporate donations. First, they're total and utter liars.

But most importantly, if you back down from this, the New York Tandah is already, of course, backpedaling like crazy. Not only does she delete tweets, she said, I feel badly about that. My approach will be radically different. In other words, don't worry, guys, I promise I will kiss Republican ass. No, no, no. It's a terrible precedent. So let me be constructive. If my only choice was near attendant or given the Republicans in Joe Manchin, I vote near

attendant. I'm curious what you guys vote. That's what the poll is about. Go to t.y.t.com slash polls. But if I was Joe Biden, I would have another choice. What I would say is, hey, Republicans Mansion, you do anything you like with near attendant? I mean, my God of Bernie Sanders was president, and he asked me, should I nominate near a tenant? I would have tackled them and said, are you nuts? Of course we're not going to nominate near attendant, right? But If Biden is president and he puts near tanning up and they say no, they're like, oh, no problem, no problem. Next up is Katie Porter. And once I nominate her, you guys can confirm or not confirm, but Trump had dozens of acting directors. She will be the director of the O&B, whether you like it or you

don't. I'll keep her as acting director for three and three quarters years. And every Republican who cries about it, I'll point out the 18 acting directors that you didn't mind under Trump era at all. and then you can go cry into your skirts. So, or your pants or your pantaloons or whatever you like. So that's the correct strong way to deal with it. And then you know what they'll do? They'll panic. They'll be like Katie Porter, she would actually be progressive and really hold people

like out of no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yes, fine, not near it again. Now, of course, the right way to go is just to appoint someone like Katie Porter from the get-go. But once Biden backs down, and that's why I liked it, this now, they eventually will, is my guess, right? They're not going to have a choice. They have this choice that I outlined, but they're too soft for it, right? But once Biden backs down, that's it. It's open season. That means just push Biden.

He'll give in to everything. And then $15 minimum wage, Manchin's going to kill it. Pay sick leave. Mansion is going to kill it. Mansion becomes president and we're all screwed. That's keeping it real. Yeah, I mean, look, again, I think it really depends on what the issues are. And remember, Biden isn't some like hardcore progressive who just happens to be weak.

Biden's record of governing indicates that he's not in any way progressive, has certainly worked closely with Republicans and people we disagree with. And the only hope we have is, you know, people organizing in places like West Virginia, this is a story we did on the day you were out, Jenk, to really hold Mansion's feet to the fire because guess what? Increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour is actually very popular in places like West Virginia. It's about the power of the people. If we're going to rely on the Biden administration to do the right thing, they're not going to do that. So again, it's really about people organizing. But on this particular issue, I get what you're saying, and I get that you're concerned that this is going to set

some sort of precedent that paves the way for Biden to appease Republicans more and more. But at the end of the day, number one, even though I don't care about her tweets, I have to say it is definitely amusing and entertaining that the woman who was chosen to be the attack dog on social media on behalf of corporate Democrats, that ended up doing her in. That ended up destroying her opportunity of serving as the head of the Office of Management and Budget. Had she not serve that role as the attack dog on behalf of corporate Democrats. Who cares? I mean, you think that Washington cares about her corruption? Nira Tandon is like, what, the eighth Biden nominee who has massive conflicts of interest? It's just that she has that one, you know, element to her where

she happened to hurt a bunch of lawmakers' feelings and they're holding it against her. So if anything should upset you guys, it should be the fact that the corruption isn't what you're going to did her in. It's the fact that our lawmakers, our senators get their feelings heard so easily that they'll use that as the reason for denying someone a confirmation. Look, Anna, last thing, if she's denied, I guarantee you Washington celebrates her. She'll become like a martyr and a victim. And everybody, none of them care about the corporate corruption in the first place. She'll give really high paid speeches, And they'll all be like, this brave woman.

And she'll become like some sort of resistance, hilarious, fake resistance movement. The resistance of like Boeing and Lockheed Martin and Bank of America. And so that's what's coming next. And so it would have been much better to fight and a win. But I'm afraid we're not going to get either a fight or a win here. And then if history is any judge, in order to. appease Mansion and the Republicans, they'll appoint someone even more conservative and even more corrupt than near a tendon. And then it'll be a lose loose.

I don't know, that's your prediction. But I'm sticking to where I'm at right now. And I don't think she should be confirmed. But we do want to know what you guys think. So we have a poll on this. And here's the question. Let's take a look. Should near a tandem be confirmed? Very simple question. Based on the arguments that you just heard, you can either choose yes or no. And that poll is at tyt.com slash polls slash tandon. That's tyt.com slash polls slash tandon. We got to take a break. But when we come back, the fight continues on increasing the federal minimum wage.

We'll tell you what's happening between progressives and moderate Democrats. But it's also important to keep an eye on the messaging coming from right-wing conspiracy theorists like Lauren Bobert as well. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.