The Young Turks - Milkgate

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

Pentagon Forgives Itself For Deadly Drone Strike Error. Anderson Cooper Attacks Progressives, and Pramila Jayapal Basically Just Sits Back and Lets Him. CNN’s Big Story: A Family’s 12 Gallon Weekly Milk Budget Is High Because They Have Like A Million Kids. Jury In Ahmaud Arbery Killing Has Just One Black Person On It. Even the Judge Says It’s Messed Up. Juror Dismissed in Kyle Rittenhouse Trial for Making a Really Insensitive Joke about Jacob Blake, then the Judge Goes On Insane Religious Rant. Tucker Carlson Flat Out Attacks Donald Trump For Shafting His Own Supporters. Bold Move. One Teacher’s Pro-Qanon Rant Is Caught On Audio By A Student. Reigning NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers’ Covid Story Keeps Getting Crazier and Crazier. California College Sinks $1.5 Billion Into Giant, Windowless Dorm. Would You Live There? People Pretend To Be Nudists So They Can Get A House. Tim Pool Gets Covid, Begs For Ivermectin, Pays A Ton Of Cash. Joe Rogan Offers to Pay It For Him Hosts: Ana Kasparian & Cenk Uygur. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Welcome to the Young Turks. Okay, Jake and Granikasperian, if you couldn't tell. So news, you know how it goes. Good news, bad news.

Usually more bad news, but that's okay, that's okay. You've got us, we're cheery slash angry at times to deliver the news for you guys, and it'll all be okay. All right, without further ado, is she the top newscaster in America right now? I guess, I guess. Many people, many people. Well, I mean, I just said it. So by definition, people are saying it. It's on the streets. Listen, I'm just in a good mood because it's Thursday. Yeah, okay? I ain't got no job. I'm just kidding. You have a lot of jobs. I know, I have too many jobs. All right, well, you know what? Why don't we start off the show with a little bit

of foreign policy news? Those two foreign policy. Yes. A story that I think is incredibly important, but we'll get no views because Americans don't care. But nonetheless, here are the details. Apparently, there was absolutely no negligence or misconduct when the United States launched a drone attack that wiped out 10 members of the same family in Kabul. This was the drone strike that followed a suicide bombing that happened near the Kabul airport as the United States was trying to evacuate Americans out of Afghanistan in the final days of the war. And there was an investigation done into the drone attack because there was a

some concern that the military, the Air Force specifically acted too quickly with faulty information and innocent people died as a result. However, the review that was done by Air Force Lieutenant General Sammy Saeed found there were breakdowns in communication and in the process of identifying and confirming the target of the bombing, but Said concluded that the mistaken strike happened despite prudent measures to prevent civilian deaths. By the way, in reviews of the video of that drone attack, there was indication that there was a child there,

but the drone attack happened anyway. I'll get to that in just a minute, but first let me give you more details about what this investigation entailed and what they found. I also want to note that they keep referring to this as an independent investigation, even though the individual doing the investigation is not only currently in the US military,

He's also in the Air Force, but they argue that he's independent because he didn't have anything to do with operations related to Afghanistan. Okay, sure. So let me give you more. He says this, I found that given the information they had and the analysis that they did, I understand they reached the wrong conclusion. But was it reasonable to conclude what they concluded based on what they had? it's not, it was not unreasonable, it just turned out to be incorrect. Now, the United States believed that the car that they were targeting in this drone attack carried bombs that posed an imminent threat to U.S. soldiers, which is why they carried out

the drone attack. Although clearly, now we learn that they didn't end up hurting anyone who's a threat to the United States. They just wiped out civilians. So the strike happened again, And after that suicide bombing near the Kabul airport, an Islamic state suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. troops and 169 Afghans at the Kabul airport gate. But the American drone strike was incredibly devastating. Saeed was asked to investigate the August 29th drone strike on a white Toyota Corolla sedan, which killed Zemurai Amadi and nine family members, including seven children. Amadi 37 was a long-time employee of an American humanitarian organization.

And, Jank, I have more on this story, but I wanted to give you a chance to jump in. Yeah. So there's a couple of really important parts of this. So first of all, he said it was an honest mistake. Okay, but guys, it's not even negligent, he said, not even negligent. So that leads to a couple of points. Number one is, but then by conclusion, you're saying that it was. It was the right thing to do.

Like that they're, well, he's saying it was a mistake, but that no one acted negligently. So, well, if you follow that logic, that means we should do it again. We should kill nine innocent civilians, including one that works for an American group, and seven kids, because they didn't do anything wrong. It was a mistake, but they didn't do anything wrong. And we will do it again. And we will, and we will. And they'll cover up, et cetera.

So that's the message we sent to the world. Oh, when we kill seven of your kids, we conclude that we didn't do anything wrong. Okay, now the second part of it is the evidence that we shared with you guys in earlier episodes when we covered this story of why they thought it was an ISIS van. The evidence was terrible. They drove by the airport. Well, so did everybody else. It was a van. Well, there are other vans in Afghanistan.

They were loading things on the van. Yes, they load water food. In this case, it was literally water that they were loading out of the van. I mean, the evidence they had was almost nothing. That's why they got it completely wrong, and it turned out to be one of our allies and their kids. And not even a van. It was a white Toyota Corolla. Yeah, and so thank you.

And so none of it was right. Well, if that's not negligent, then what the hell is? And so if this is the standard, that means we can just kill any kids, any civilians, anywhere, and just go, honest mistake, whatever, guys do it again and again and again. But there's one killer quote in here that I'm going to share with you later that just shows you how indifferent we are to other people's lives. No, absolutely, because there was, in my opinion, based on the evidence that I was able to see, there's clear negligence.

because we're talking about carrying out a drone strike that could potentially kill innocent civilians. So you'd want to make sure that you double check, that you have the facts, and that the target is the right target, someone that actually is posing an imminent risk or threat to Americans and to people trying to evacuate, right? And also other innocent civilians. But that was not the case. A review of the video from that day showed that two minutes Before the strike happened, there was evidence that a child was in the strike zone. And so the lieutenant general who was asked about this, the very person who did this so-called independent review, had in my opinion an incredibly callous response.

So let's hear what he had to say. The physical evidence of a child was apparent at about the two minute point. But I'm just telling you, I put eyes on myself. I just didn't have it. I mean, they're doing it for me, but I had to see it for myself. I'm just saying it is 100% not obvious. You have to be like no kidding, looking for it. But when you're looking for it, certainly after the fact,

if you asked me, was there evidence of a presence of, yes, there was. So just to be clear, two minutes before the launch. Yes. Two minutes before the launch, you see a child in the strike zone. in the video. But to be fair, you have to be looking for it. You have to be looking for it, right? Because before you carry out a drone strike that could get innocent people killed, you might want to take a look at whether or not there are innocent people in the strike zone, including children. But you'd have to be looking for it. No negligence, by the way. No negligence.

Garbage. Garbage independent investigation. You took the words right out of my mouth. I mean, he said, you'd have to be looking for it. Yeah, I would hope you'd be looking for kids before you launched it, a very, very deadly bomb. Are we not looking for kids? No, we're not. So we're not. So that's, but guys, what he's saying is more damning than if we had said it was wrong and negligent, et cetera. Because he's saying we're not even looking for kids.

We're not looking for innocent civilians. We don't need, we had almost no evidence that it was the bad guys. And we did it anyway. So you don't need any evidence, and we don't care if you're civilians around, and we don't even look for kids. And that is not negligent. That is standard operating procedure for the Pentagon. So this is very damning. And if again, if we had a real press in this country, the headlines would read, Pentagon admits we kill civilians with barely any regret or any care at all.

And that's not how it's framed. Here, here's the Associated Press headline on it. Watchdog finds no misconduct in mistaken Afghan airstrike. Well, the Pentagon would have been embarrassed if they wrote that headline. Because that's so, that makes it seem like the Pentagon is right, but there was no misconduct and it was an honest mistake. But when you read the actual quotes, the guy is totally indifferent to evidence or civilian life. And you saw it with your own eyes right there.

And what this does, I mean, obviously. Obviously, when we talk about why certain people perceive the United States the way that they perceive it, you gotta understand, this is just one example. This is the kind of stuff that the US military carries out, not just in Afghanistan, not just in Middle Eastern countries, but now we're obviously hearing about drone strikes in other regions of the world where we haven't even declared war against the countries that we're doing drone strikes in. And it's just, it's frustrating because there's also the issue.

of bad actors abroad who actually do terrible things to their people. But when you hear about it from the Pentagon or the U.S. military, are you going to believe them? Because clearly, I mean, they cover up their own terrible behavior, their murderous behavior. And, you know, if this isn't negligent, I don't know what is. Then literally nothing qualifies as negligent. And the military can just do these drone strikes, refer to innocent civilians who have died as collateral. damage and move on. That's it. It doesn't matter. Yeah. Last couple of things here. Apparently our intelligence services are miserable. And they had almost no evidence. And they said,

who cares? Kill them anyway. And so how bad is our intelligence services? They're always telling us, oh, don't we have the best. Best number one and everything. No, apparently we suck at this. And so we're killing civilians all the time because we're barely trying. And then guys, you have to consider that this strike was possibly political. Now, I say that, Biden's president, not Trump. It's not the Republicans. The Democrats are in charge. And I don't support the Republicans. And I voted for Biden. But I'm telling you, there was a world of pressure at the time that Biden had to respond because of the bombing that happened. The bombing that happened against us was awful. We all wanted justice and et cetera.

But that doesn't mean that you do a political bombing just to be able to say in the, you know, get all the headlines about, oh, Biden strikes back. America strikes back. And then of course for days and days, they denied that they killed civilians. And then after enormous pressure, they finally had to admit, which they almost never do. But in this case, only because of the media pressure, they say, oh, yeah, obviously we're lying. They're all civilians. They're all kids, almost all kids. And now they come out and go, well, we didn't do wrong anything anyway.

And it's just like a big FU to reporters who then dutifully go, oh, okay, F me. This is the Pentagon's press release. And I'm just going to print it for you guys because what do I get paid for? And finally, look, to the point about the press, of all the dumb things that's ever been said on cable, which is just millions of things, the worst thing probably ever said was Joe Scarborough on MSNBC of all places saying that we get into all these conflicts in the Middle East with Muslims because Muslims, quote, hate us because they hate us. They hate us because they hate us. They hate us because they hate us because they hate us. He said it three times. No, no, you moron of morons. They hate us because we murder their children without a care in the world and then say, it wasn't even a problem. No one was at fault. It was perfectly honest and fine. Ten members of the same family, gone, wiped out. And just at the same time, whenever it comes to manufacturing consent to get us involved in yet another war, you'll hear the Pentagon,

you'll hear generals talk about the human rights abuses in other countries. Do we really genuinely care about human rights when we're willing to just wipe out an entire family and then pretend like we did absolutely nothing wrong. Come on. And this adds insult to murder. Absolutely. All right. So I want to take a break because, yes, we are going to get into more of the back and forth regarding the reconciliation bill. Pramila Jayapal had an horrible, horrible interview with Anderson Cooper. So we've got some video to show you from there. And also, Joe Manchin was surrounded by climate activists and he's in a Maserati and decided to do the wrong thing. So we've got that story and more when we come back.

any blame in this? Yes, that's the corporate media continuing its assault on progressives and basically placing the blame on left-wing lawmakers for Democrats losing pretty big in the elections this week. Now as the head of the Progressive Caucus, Representative Pramila Jayapal, unfortunately didn't do such a great job in responding to Anderson Cooper's line of questions. So why don't we get to the first clip so I could make my point. The whole issue that we see for voters last night is people do need help from us.

And that's what we've been working to do with the president's build back, better agenda. It is really transformational. And I think the cries for help in the midst of an economy that was handed in tatters to the president, that we have actually worked to fix since we've come into power in the House, the Senate and the White House, We cut child poverty in half. We got shots in arms. We got money to small businesses. But obviously, Anderson, this was a two-year pandemic that the Republican Party did not take seriously.

And we're still climbing out of it. I mean, there's no doubt about the fact that it's only more. You're saying people last night were saying that they need help. It doesn't seem like they're asking you, progressive Democrats, for help. It seems like they're asking now Republicans for help, even though you say Republicans botched the, the vaccine. vaccine rollout. I mean, Republicans did well last night. So just putting Anderson Cooper's simple-mindedness aside for one second, we'll get to him. I want to comment on Pramila Jayapal, because she's doing the same thing that corporate Democrats do,

and it's not working, and they got to stop, okay? Placing the blame on the party that's not in power right now isn't going to work. It looks like a cop out. It looks like you're making excuses. It was a failure by the Democratic Party to actually pass legislation in time that would improve people's lives, right? They love to talk about the stimulus bill. She mentioned that Democrats managed to cut childhood poverty in half. She's referring to the child tax credit that was passed under the Biden coronavirus relief bill.

But that was a one year program that Democrats promised to make permanent, but it will not be permanent. If the reconciliation bill passes, it will be extended for one more year. So wow, that is quite an accomplishment, cutting childhood poverty, not completely, but in half for maybe if we're lucky an additional year. Awesome. Yeah, so there's a number of huge problems here. First, I'll do the standard thing of, look, Primal Gaiapal is a nice person, probably

Andrews and Cobra, I don't know him, but probably is a nice person if you had a beer with them and stuff. But they've got big problems here, number one on Jayapal, you've got to make your own case. And so I know she tried, but the problem here is that everybody on the Democratic side is too nice. So, well, we acknowledge our issues and if we pass these particular bills with this policy proposed, blah blah blah, blah, blah, nobody heard anything, okay? So what the correct way to go about it is to say, well, look, Anderson, the reason we

lost is because the Republicans lied about critical race theory and you guys didn't call them out on their lies. You should have said over and over again, there is no teaching of critical race theory in Virginia, the Republicans are liars, but you didn't. that, Anderson, did you? Okay? And if we made it clear that what happened in Virginia was the Republican Party in mass, every single one of them, decided to lie to the parents. They deceived the parents with their lies. Why didn't you call them out on that? So it's not my fault, Anderson. It's your fault for not doing your job. Now, of course, you don't know a single

Democrat that would do that, right? Would that be effective? Of course it would. Because that Trump did it to brilliant effect, and he's an idiot, okay? And so, yes, yes, Yes, making your case forcefully works. You have to drill it into people's heads. But the Democrats are too soft, too weak to do that. You need someone. That's why we keep looking for someone, a real leader. Bernie, not exactly.

We'll fight against corporate Democrats. Jayapal, no way would fight against corporate Democrats or the press or any of these guys. Honestly, Bernie didn't fight against the press. So that's why I'm saying, bring Nina Turner back. I don't know, but this ain't it. You can't get your message out that way. You lost because you didn't get your message out. And so it's to the second point about the bills, well then you passed COVID relief bill,

you got the checks to people, then did you brag about it? Oh, well, that would, that seems impolite. I don't care about you and your stupid elitist friends, okay? Put his signature on the stimulus checks. Exactly, that's politics. That's Paul, exactly. And all the Democrats did was cry about it. Yeah.

Joe Biden should have put a giant signature bigger than Trump's. Half the check should have been Joe Biden. Nobody's a decent person. Oh, no, you want to be civil. Nobody, look, I don't care if you put it on the check or not. But you need to be on TV. You need Democrats screaming on TV. We delivered for families.

That check you got was us, us, us. Republicans tried to stop it. Those sons of bitches try to take $1,400, $1,400 out of your pocket. They were trying to rob you, right? And you say they were trying to rob you, rob you, rob you, rob you, rob you, rob you, a thousand times until everybody in Virginia goes, well, I mean, the Democrats seem really mean, but I don't want to be robbed. I'm not going to vote for a Republican who's going to rob me.

Maybe Youngen is going to rob me. So just do better, but they're not capable of it. We're yelling at the wrong people. You just got to get new leadership. But it's not Jayapal. To be fair, I've never seen a Democrat on TV other than Nina Turner do it right. Literally, almost never, okay? And so now to Anderson Cooper, did you hear what he said?

He said, it didn't look like they were looking to you progressive Democrats for answers. Which progressive Democrats? Terry McAuliffe is the most centrist establishment corporate Democrat, maybe literally in the history of this country. He would be maybe tied with Hillary Clinton, okay, and they're best friends. What do you mean, you progressive Democrats? Was there a progressive in the race? And Pramela, I know I'm yelling at the wrong person, but if you had a strong progressive there, what you would say is, wait, well, hold on, Anderson, check yourself. Your friend, Terry McColliffe, corporatist that you love and support and said, you say,

Every corporatist candidate would be brilliant and awesome and went with the elections. And he didn't. He's nowhere near a progressive. So Anderson, please admit to the audience that you're not stating the truth here. There was no progressive in that race. State for the audience. I want it for the camera. I'm doing a fact check right now.

Was Terry McCall for progressive or not? No, he's a centrist. So can you please tell everybody the centrist, conservative Democrat lost like they do every time. Go. No, but of course. Oh, no, no, no, no. media, media, oh, I want to be nice, I want to be polite, I want to be civil. Well, we're getting our ass handed to us because all the Democrats are too civil.

And Anderson Cooper, do your job, do your job. But you know what? He is doing his job. That is his job. He is carrying out the exact messaging that he is supposed to carry out. Don't blame corporate Democrats and how incredibly unpopular they are because instead of actually focusing on the issues that would be popular, they decide to get in the dirt and and wrestle around with right wingers based on whatever framing they want to use as the

topics for an election. So in Virginia, it was critical race theory. And Terry McCallough, because he's a corporate Democrat and has nothing to offer economically, had no choice, but to wrestle with that pig. And when he wrestled with that pig, he stated, I don't think, no, I don't think parents should have a say in what the teachers teach in these schools. They're so dumb. Not a popular message, congratulations. So he's a little bit. a loser and he lost. That's the fact of the matter. But unfortunately, this interview continues to get worse because Jayapal seems to think that what we experience this week in states like Virginia, New Jersey, are not in any way foreshadowing for the midterm elections. Let's watch.

This doesn't mean anything for the midterms. That's not to say we shouldn't take it seriously. We absolutely should. You don't think this means anything for the midterms? Well, I just think we have to take it seriously, but it shouldn't be projected to be a loss for the midterms. What we have to do is turn the ship by passing these two bills. And I think there's increased urgency to do just that. There is real unity in the Democratic caucus around passing both the Bill Back Better Act and the infrastructure bill. And I hope to be able to do that this week. So what do you think about that answer, Jake? Because I just think if that's really what she thinks, then A, she along with other progressives likely are delusional, and they're

learning all the wrong lessons from what happened this week. Yeah, first, Anderson Cooper, that's a perfectly fair question, no problems there at all. He's challenging her, she's the one that's on air, looks like the Democrats are going to be in trouble in the midterms, good, no problem at all. Now to Primal Gaiapal. So look, you are in trouble in the midterms, and it's not because progressives are holding up the bill, Mansion and Cinema are holding up the bill. So here, constructive critique, okay? So what would I have said? Well, I would have said, look, we have incredibly popular

proposals like lowering drug prices. Anderson, do you know how many of your people in your audience want to lower drug prices? I do. There's a poll on it, 88%. Nine out of 10 Americans want lower drug prices, which makes sense, doesn't it Anderson? It makes sense, right? And that's what I'm in favor of. Unfortunately, we have some corporate Democrats like Terry McAuliffe in our party, but also like mansion in cinema, who are blocking it. And you should ask them, CNN should ask them over and over again, why are you against a proposal that nine out of 10 Americans won, including Republicans, including independents?

So I thought you said they were bipartisan. They don't look bipartisan. They look like they're against all the voters. Anderson, I'm desperately trying to help the American families. Progressives are the number one fighters for American families and parents. We're gonna get them paid family leave and we wanna lower their drug prices. But corporatists like mansionists, cinema, hiding under bipartisanship. In fact, taking money from their donors and working with Republicans to screw over the American people.

Oh my God, but that would be outrageous. People would say she said naughty words. And she said bad things about her colleagues. We can't have it. Instead, dude drivel. I mean, did anybody get excited by what she said? Did anybody take it home like, oh, the Democrats got this? Oh, Democrats are fighting for me.

wrong. No one thought that after that interview, no one, zero. The consensus is that Democrats are in a lot of trouble for the midterms. And so if she really thinks that what happened in the elections this week are no indication of what is to come with the midterms, I'm worried about just her instincts overall. Now let's go to the next clip because Jayapal did try to lean into what progressives represent, what they fight for, but Anderson Cooper wasn't buying it. So I would just say to everybody, focus on the fact that we are going to pass two transformational bills that are going to change people's lives. And it's really important that we think about it as, as, you know, how do people wake up in the morning and feel differently

about their livelihoods and their opportunities? It's because they finally have child care. They finally have pre-pay, all of those things. What does it say that you're going to pass, you know, you say you're going to pass these two transformational bills, and there's going to be a lot of things that a lot of people are going to like and really need. That very well may be true, but it still doesn't seem that it's going to make them like Democrats. Yeah, I mean, is there some sort of, I mean, maybe I'm completely overstating this. But, I mean, you would think if people saw, oh, well, that's coming down the pike. Yes, it hasn't happened yet, but it's going to happen, and gosh, that's a great thing.

They would vote, it would have gone better for Democrats last night. It doesn't seem like, it doesn't seem like, in fact, it was kind of a resounding slap in the face to Democrats. FDR was so popular that he was able to run for three terms as president of the United States. And it's because of the economic relief that he provided following the Great Depression. So Anderson Cooper is a moron if he thinks that a political party that actually material, really benefits people's lives would not be a popular party. The problem is Democrats don't deliver. While progressives might want to deliver, they haven't fought aggressively enough to make it happen.

They refuse to Jenks point to call out the corporate Democrats in their party that stand in the way. But I also want to just note that, you know, she cited childcare and how Democrats are going to provide childcare. That's assuming that the reconciliation bill passes. And honestly, just my personal opinion, my personal feelings doesn't necessarily mean anything. At this point, I'm not even paying attention to the reconciliation bill. Because my assumption is that it's not going to pass. That's where we're at right now. That's how pathetic and feckless the Democratic Party really is.

But in regard to child care, remember, it was means tested to begin with. We're now learning that there's additional means testing that could disqualify some of the lowest income families in the country. Because they don't take the time to think about the way they write the legislation, the way it might impact the most disadvantaged people in the country, that's who Democrats are. Let's do as much means testing as possible. Let's take right wing GOP talking points to defend means testing, when in reality we should offer universal programs that would be far more popular because everyone could take advantage of it, regardless of where they are in the socioeconomic ladder. Okay, now fair to Jayapal. She tried to go to the policies that are popular. I think she says it in a way that's very, that sounds like a politician and so people tune out. But she was trying her best. So that's all we can ask of anybody. So that answer was fine. To Anderson Cooper's question, it's totally fine to ask, hey, listen, it looks like Republicans won and they didn't

want what the Democrats were offering. That's a fine question. But he framed it in a way where he said, it doesn't look like people like Democrats. And so now you have a giant election in 2020. Biden gets more votes than any person in American history. The Democrats win overall. They win two seats in Georgia. That was just a couple of months ago. It was about a year ago.

It's not that long, right? And so it seems like Americans like Democrats, fine. But the minute that the Republicans win one election, one governor's election, everybody on cable news, that said everybody hates Democrats. Democrats, everybody hates Democrats. Well, it's self-reinforcing. No, I think everybody does hate Democrats. Okay, well, that's okay, that's- And I'll tell you why, I'll tell you why, because I think that's an important conversation. And progressives are allowing this to happen.

Americans are looking at states like California, for instance, they're looking at cities like San Francisco, they're seeing massive failure, and by the way, that failure is not due to progressive policy, that failure is due to neoliberal policy being carried out by our core. corporate democratic politicians on a local level. And that results in what? Massive homeless encampments. Just give them houses. Give them homes.

Give them homes. No, they don't do that. Instead, they'll do situations, policies that set people up for failure. We're going to release people from prisons and jails in the state. If they've been convicted of nonviolent offenses, awesome. I'm 100% in favor of that. What are Democrats doing to transition these people into homes, into a productive situation, they just let them out and let them fend for themselves.

Okay, Democrats are failures. And when progressives don't fight for progressive policies to counter the neoliberal garbage, the rest of the country looks at, again, places like California and thinks, oh, democratic policies fail. They're awful, we don't want it. So you're doing an interesting, so I think those are all great points. But there's two things here that are critique of both Cooper and Jaipa. in this case, and they're just representatives of the corporate media and Democrats in Congress overall.

So one is that Anderson Cooper probably doesn't understand the difference between corporate Democrats and progressives at all. He understands that there's two different camps because he constantly blames progressives. He's the one that came out as soon as McColliffe lost and said that Americans are worried that the countries, that Democrats are going too far left. But McColliff isn't left at all, at all. He's almost as right wing a Democrat as you could possibly find. Anderson Cooper doesn't understand that because all he cares about is blame progressives,

blame progressives, blame progressives. So if you said to them, it said to him, Gavin Newsom isn't a progressive, he takes giant corporate donations and does whatever PG&E and Blue Cross the Chevron, et cetera, want him to do, he wouldn't even understand what you're saying because he doesn't understand politics. He'd be like, what do you mean? California, very liberal. Gavin Newsom won, so he must be a progressive. He says he's a progressive. I don't understand because he doesn't understand policy.

He doesn't understand campaign donations. And because of that, he constantly misinforms his audience. And that leads to what you're saying, Anna, people think, oh, it must be progressives in California that are screwing up. That's right. When in reality, God damn it's corporate Democrats. And then that gets to, well, the bigger blame, if we're being honest, in this particular case, goes to Jayapal.

Yes. Because you have to distinguish yourself from corporate Democrats so they don't blame progressives for corporate Democrats' problems. When McAuliffe loses, we didn't lose as progressives, their candidate, the idiot corrupt corporate candidate lost. When Gavin Newsom screws up in California, progressives didn't lose. Your corporate slicked back, you know, guy who is, anyway, he's a Republican. Get real, get real, but the media won't say it. It's worse.

They stick us with their garbage. We didn't vote for these guys. We don't want these guys. And so Cooper doesn't understand anything. And then all of them on TV are saying, oh, well, no, the Republicans seem to represent the family. Why? What the hell are you talking about? They lied to the families.

Well, a single Democrat, God, they're so dumb. Will a single Democrat say on TV, can you believe how the Republicans lied to the families? The deceit that they did in Virginia, it's an offense to American families everywhere. They're just not good at this. And so, and finally, of course, Jayapal would never do this. She should have used that opportunity again in that question to say, hey, Cooper, you know, if we didn't have people like terrible Democrats like McCallif, Mansion, and Cinema, we would have already gotten paid family leave, then everybody would be clear that we're for families

because the Republicans, every single Republican said you have to go back to work as soon as you have a baby. Every Republican said you have to go back to work as soon as you have a baby. Say it a thousand times until people go, what the hell, why are Republicans doing that? It turns out 70% of the country, three quarters of the country wants it, but the sum bitch, Republicans are blocking it. But they won't say it because that would offend the feelings of mansion and cinema. Let me just close this out by saying that just got yet another example of what differentiates corporate Democrats from progressives. Progressives want tax increases on the rich. rich. Corporate Democrats, since they're paid to lose and represent corporate interests,

have decided in lieu of raising taxes on the rich to pay for the reconciliation bill, why don't we increase taxes on nicotine and e-cigarettes? But that would go towards the middle class. No, but this is who they are. This is who they are. So Biden's promise of refusing to raise taxes on those making less than $400 a year was a lie. Lie, lie, lie. And why did he lie?

Because he's always going to protect his donors. For God's sake, Anderson, Cooper, Sienna, and all the rest of you, just understand politics and stop lying to the American people. They do, the politicians do what they do because of the donors. If you don't understand that, you're an idiot. Retire from news, enjoy your Vanderbilt fortune, and move on with our lives and stop poisoning the American people with alternative facts. You're no better than Trump. You keep lying to them every day.

All right, when we come back, climate activists protest Joe Manchin, and he takes matters into his own hands. We've got that video and more when we return. Hey, you know guys, look, we're trying to build a change machine and do the process, right, and all that stuff. But in the meanwhile, just this is the only thing we got for now. We'll talk about the Maserati because it's kind of related, but just tweet at all the media members, all the cable news anchors.

They actually do check that and it does hurt their feelings. Don't be like, don't yell at them, no threats, right? Just ask them, why don't you guys ever cover campaign contributions? Are you corrupt? Are you corrupt? Because why won't you? It's weird. It's super weird that you will not cover campaign contributions. Yeah, guys, I just tweeted a story from Axios about how the FCC has now allowed foreign money to pour into referendum campaigns. So if there's like a ballot initiative in your state, now the federal election commission says that foreign money can pour into campaigns in regard to that ballot initiative, which is disastrous. Absolutely disastrous. I want to know why no one's covering it.

One of our viewers, thank you so much for sending it to me, sent it to me and I read it during the break. It is absolutely insane. That story needs more coverage. Can you imagine at CNN they get a viewer comment and they check into it and they're like, oh, it's true. And then they cover it because of the viewers, zero percent chance. Because you imagine it's CNN and somebody says, oh, it turns out now foreign governments can just buy ballot measures. They just, they can spend a billion dollars, just buy one, right?

And everybody is saying, I was like, who cares? Money in politics is awesome. It doesn't corrupt at all. Jesus. They're not reporters, they're actors. They're act, all news actors. They don't know anything about the news or politics. All right, go ahead. All right, well, Joe Manchin is notorious for defeating the most important climate-related provisions in the budget reconciliation bill. So climate protesters have taken action and they have been showing up protesting before Manchin's yacht in D.C. And in this case, surrounding his Maserati to demand that Mansion change his mind. Well, let's watch what happens.

That's climate change bill. This is shown Manchin's car slowly pressing into. Our peaceful protesters, Joe Manchin's core slowly pressing into our peaceful protesters. So, I mean, I don't know if that's going to do anything to change Joe Manchin's mind because now, because now I've learned about his Maserati. and it's the corrupt behavior that he engages in that affords him that Maserati and that yacht and the fabulous lifestyle that he has. And remember, he represents one of the poorest states in this country, West Virginia.

And probably the most important part of that is that that Maserati is paid for with coal money. He owns a coal company. TYT has reported that he's made over $5 million in the last 10 years from his coal company. and he still has at least $5 million worth of wealth tied into that coal company. So both the Maserati and the yacht that is so large is the size of a mansion. So it's kind of a mansion yacht, if you will, all paid for with coal money. You probably saw that on CNN, right? Oh, you didn't.

They didn't tell you that he owns a coal company, and that's why he killed every fossil fuel provision in the bill. But you probably saw it on MSNBC because they're liberals, so they're on the left, right? Oh, you didn't see that on MSNBC either. Oh, that's really weird. And how funny how they kept that information from you. Okay, now the most important part, guys, I don't like these kind of things where there's potential for physical danger, okay? In this case, the danger is to the protesters because they're in front of a car.

And so, yes, Mansion did slowly move into them and you could say you can get mad at Manchin for that, okay? But I need the politicians and the media to understand, it doesn't matter what I say. I've been telling people don't go to people's houses because that's really dangerous. People have guns, et cetera, don't do it. They're not listening to me. Of course they're not, okay. People are furious, and this is what happens when voters, when the people who are told

over and over again that they live in this wonderful democracy are ignored, just completely ignored and dismissed in favor of corporate interests, fossil fuel companies, and the like. And that's exactly what's happening. So look, this is something that really started to blow up under the Trump administration. where people would approach Trump administration officials or other Republican lawmakers as they were dining out. But it's going to keep getting worse, regardless of what anyone here says, as long as this political system continues failing people. 100% Anna. That's exactly right. And we, I didn't think they should have gone into the bathroom to focus on cinema. On other hand, streets, airports, it's said totally fine, right? And so, but it doesn't matter, guys.

Like when I tell legislators in D.C. because I know a bunch of them, right, where they're progress, I also know some moderate and corporatists, et cetera, Democrats. And when I tell them things, they think I'm making it up, that it's my opinion, it's not your opinion. What they don't realize is, no, I'm the one trying to keep it political, right? And I'm trying to warn them of what is coming. But they're so blinded. They live in this very thick bubble in Washington, the capital, and they refuse to see what's coming. So, okay, don't heed our warnings. But then I'm telling you now, and okay, don't believe me, it doesn't matter.

They're going to surround your cars, they're going to surround your houses, and they're going to surround your mansions and your yachts. You know why? Because there is no avenue for them to express their opinion and be heard in a so-called democracy. You robbed them of that democracy, and you said, I'm only going to listen to the donors. Cinema literally wears a ring to tell her voters to F off. And they go and beg for checks right in front of our eyes.

And they build giant yachts and drive Maserati's with the bribes that they took and the corruption that they engage in. And then they say, how dare you come near my Maserati or my yacht? You are uncivil. Uncivil or not. And whether we say it or not, they're coming. And so it's up to you guys. It's up to you guys how you react to it. We can't, no one could hold them back anymore because the frustration is overwhelming.

It's overwhelming because our democratic process is clearly not working either, right? It's not working at all. It's not. So when you talk about how the response should be political, I hear what you're saying, and that that would be the best response if we had political avenues to actually accomplish what we need to better everyone's future. And I don't like, look, I'm just being real with you, right? And I think this is an important conversation.

I literally don't know what the answer is. Because primarying corporate Democrats has thus far failed to yield the desired results, right? So there's little things here and there, right? When AOC did the sit in, we got a subcommittee. It was a start, right? It was a hopeful start. And then they didn't do any more sit-ins until Cory Bush did it. And then when she did it at the steps, we got a reprieve for a couple of weeks on the housing issue.

Yeah, on the housing moratorium. So when progressives who were supposed to be our voice in Congress actually do their job and they fight aggressively but politically, it works. But when they don't do that, then hopelessness sets in. Right. That honestly, that's why I ran, because I didn't see it even in Bernie. I'm like, what are you guys gonna fight them? Because if you don't, we can't get our message out and we can't win. We can't create public pressure to win politically, to win politically.

And then when I didn't win, then I said, well, it's gotta be Nina Turner, it's gotta be Nina Turner. She's better than, way better than I am. And she could actually fight so that we can actually do this in a political way. And what did they say? Jank is uncivil, LA Times wrote an editorial saying we don't want lack of civility in Congress. We want everybody walk around in goddamn yachts and mansions and Maseratis and not be bothered by the unwashed masses. That's what the LA Times basically said.

And then Nina Turner runs and they go, oh, she's uncivil. No, we can't have Nina Turner. She would disagree with the corporatist. She does not agree to corporate rule. And so all the avenues were shut down. So now when their houses are surrounded and their cars are, surrounded, don't come crying to us. We told you and we warned you a thousand times to do it the political way. And I don't, so good luck. Good luck to you guys. Good luck to you.

All right, well, let's move on to, I guess, lighter matters, and that's Milkgate. CNN has involved itself in a scandal that's being referred to as Milkgate by no one other than us. But nonetheless, let's talk about it. So CNN is catching a lot of heat over its coverage. on inflation. To be fair to CNN though, there's been a lot of alarmist coverage regarding inflation for months and months now. This all started with a tweet from a CNN anchor, and she writes about the Stotler family that they're spending a lot of money on milk because of inflation. A gallon of milk was just $1.99. Now it's $2.79. When you buy 12 gallons a week times four weeks, that's a lot of money. Now, 12 gallons.

A week, sounds like a lot of milk and a lot of people read that and were like, this does not apply to me, who buys that much milk? But then you watch the video and you get a sense of what this story is about. They should have probably interviewed an ordinary family, but they decided to interview the Stottler family. Let's go to the first clip. What does inflation mean for American families? This is the story of the Stottler's Weekly Shop.

Good to see you guys. Good to see you. We have two biological kids. And then my wife and I have a big heart for adoption. So we adopted a sibling group of two, then three, then one. And then we have a kid living with us right now who's kind of in a foster situation. It feels like money isn't going as far as it used to. They've got a lot of kids.

No, look, I'm just saying when you do have a lot of kids, even a little bit of inflation, especially when it comes to grocery products, hurts. And so I'm not trying to minimize that, right? This is more a commentary about CNN's coverage because I feel like they went out of their way to find a family that has like 10 kids to really emphasize the issue of inflation. And by the way, they should have done a lot of fact checking in the segment because they got a lot of things wrong. We'll get to that in just a second, but Jenk jumped.

Yeah, the real facts on inflation are the important part here, but it is kind of amusing that they're like, on our count it was 10 kids that he listed off, right? And he's like, well, look, man, we've got 48 kids and all of a sudden it's hard to afford things. I could probably figure out why, but I don't want you to get misunderstand us. They seem like lovely people. It's a great family, and they used to get by, even with the 10 kids. And so inflation is real, but let's tell you the real reasons why. Exactly.

Like, the only point I'm making, I love this family. They're a lovely couple, and they're doing wonderful things. I'm just saying this is not an ordinary family. This is a family with, it's a giant family. That loves milk. That loves milk. Okay, now let's get to the parts that absolutely need to be fact-checked. So they get into this issue of milk in a little more detail in the segment, right?

So let's hear the prices that they used to pay and the prices that they're paying now. All right, now we're moving on to dairy, which is right there. We started seeing everything going up. Grocery prices went up, gallon of milk was $1.99, now it's $279. Well, when you buy 12 gallons a week, times four weeks, you know, that's a lot of money. That's what I'm talking about. Thanks, brother. Again, this is what they buy every week. That's crazy. It's a lot of eggs. Okay, anyway, all right.

So this is where I think the fact checking needed to come in because I can tell you that milk has not been a dollar in 99 cents a gallon for a long, long time. Right? So I don't know where she got that number from. But the USDA does. does post prices, so you can kind of keep track of how much inflation has actually impacted the cost of milk. So let's take a look at this tweet because I think this person, Dan Nguyen, did a great job in kind of illustrating what I'm trying to say here. Did Kroger regularly sell milk for $1.99 a gallon? According to USDA, the average in Dallas was $2.86 back in January, and now it's $3.22, a 15% increase. The nationwide average went from 3. $3.57 cents to $3.60. So those numbers matter because it's important to not spread

this alarmist narrative about inflation because people start to panic, right? And also it helps to do the GOP's bidding because the GOP is really latched on to this issue of inflation as a political fight against Democrats. But Democrats, no one party is solely responsible for what's happening with inflation, we'll get to the reasons for inflation in just a second. But I do also want to just quickly note that later in the story, the family claim that they went from spending $150 a week on groceries to about $310 a week on groceries. And that is a lot of, that's significant inflation, but that does not actually play out when you look at inflation in the data, okay?

So I want to just quickly get that to you. So just real quick guys, in media there's narratives and they talk about it. I've just submitted op-eds and they said that doesn't fit our narrative. I know because I wrote it, you didn't write it. So what that tells you is there's a preset message they want to deliver. They want to deliver the message about inflation and almost every narrative is driven by corporate interests. And so in this case, they want you to talk about inflation because they don't want you to pass those large democratic bills that actually helped the American voters and might raise their taxes. So that's why you're seeing corporate media talk about inflation nonstop.

And does inflation actually exist in some places? Yes, it does. Okay, but if you notice there, though, I thought the most relevant stat by far is the nationwide average. So not randomly cherry picking one city or another, the nationwide average in that case went from 357 to 360. That's a three cent increase. That's a very, very, very small.

You wouldn't even do a story about that. So you have to wonder why everybody is doing stories about this, like it's a national crisis. And I'm going to show you how the media's coverage on inflation, which is really heated up in recent weeks, has had an impact on the public's perception of inflation. But before I do that, I do want to just quickly note, inflation has hit the economy in very specific sectors. So it's not something that we're seeing across the economy. We are seeing it when it comes to things like automobiles because of supply chain issues. We're also seeing it in groceries.

For instance, grocery prices were 1.2% more expensive in September than in August, continuing an expensive trend over the past year, food is 4.6% more expensive. Again, this has to do with supply chain issues. It also has to do with labor shortages. It's all related to coronavirus and of course, some of these labor strikes that have been taking place and also the so-called Great Resignation, where people are starting to reprioritize their lives, they're trying to start new careers, and that's going to have an impact on the prices of some products.

Now, with that said, though, according to what the family claims, the inflation that they're personally experiencing is somewhere between 55% to 100%. Obviously, that's inaccurate, and CNN should have fact-checked that instead of just giving the audience this perception, that inflation is actually that high. Now, what about the public's perception of inflation? Because I think that's also super interesting. So Seth Ackerman and Jacobin wrote about Gallup's coverage of this. They've been polling Americans about their perception on inflation.

And seems like for months, most Americans, despite the small amount of inflation they experienced, didn't really see it as a top concern. According to Gallup's most important problem page, the share of respondents who felt that high cost of living slash inflation was the country's most important problem was as follows. Only 1% in July, then 2% in August. And then it dipped again to 1% in September. However, remember how I said that they really started to heat up their coverage on inflation in the media? Well, it seems like that's had an impact. The share of Gallup respondents citing inflation as the country's most important problem in October has

jumped to 5%. But that's still nothing compared to when we actually did have hyperinflation in this country in the 1970s. Inflation was the number one concern of Americans for the whole of the year, 1973, and then again in 1974, and again in 1975, and every year through 1981. Taking an average of all the Gallup polls over the course of that entire nine-year period, inflation was cited as the number one concern of not 5%, but 44% of respondents. You know why? Because there was actually hyperinflation during that time. 100%. And guys, where's the inflation coming from? Yes, there's supply chain problems. It's a huge part of it. And so, but when you turn on the media, it makes it sound like, oh,

the Democrats are in charge and they're passing so many bills. But wait a minute, they actually haven't passed the bills yet. They only passed one bill so far. That was COVID relief. And so wait, did you not want them to pass COVID relief? And is it even that bill that drove a small part of small inflation? No, the number one thing that drove the inflation was the Fed printing so much money to give to corporations. Yes, and banks. And so the oversupply of money that the Fed printed in the beginning of the COVID crisis and just handed out the bank, in giant corporations is what caused the inflation that you're seeing now. Now, that's a verifiable fact.

You can check it with any economists, right? How often did you see that in mainstream media? Barely. I've seen it zero times. And look, the Federal Reserve, under the leadership of Jerome Powell, kept claiming that, no, no, no, inflate, because they kept getting asked about whether they're going to taper their so-called quantitative easing. That's the monetary policy that they're doing, where they just provide.

liquidity to banks and corporations. And they didn't want to taper it, right? Because when you do taper it, it hits the stock market specifically. And they're like, no, no, no, this is just transitory, it's transitory, it's transitory, it's transitory. The inflation is transitory when it comes to certain sectors, right? When it comes to sectors that were harmed by the supply chain issue or by the labor shortage. But the housing crisis, that is not transitory. Because it's that cheap money provided by the Federal Reserve that poured into housing in the form of investments from banks and private equity firms, that artificially drove up the prices of these homes, essentially pricing middle class families out of the market.

That's not transitory. Yeah, and I want to be just more accurate with you guys. When I say I saw zero times, it's not exactly right. I mean on cable news. In print, you will see it in some percentage of the articles in the ninth or 17th paragraph. This should really be the headline because that's what's driving whatever inflation actually exists, but is buried in this news. They admit it, they say, oh, yes, well, also they printed trillions of dollars and money.

And of course, that leads to inflation. But on cable news, I've never seen them talk about that. Now, imagine if they gave you the actual news. And every day you turned on cable, CNN, MS, NBC, et cetera, we're talking about defense should stop printing money. And why did they give trillions of dollars? Why did these bankers work for a living? Are they bums? Are they lazy? Why did they need all that extra money when they're the richest people on earth?

How come you never hear that on cable news? All right, that does it for our first hour, a fiery first hour at that. When we come back, Tim Poole apparently had COVID. What did he do to get better? We'll give you those details and more. Don't miss it. Did he get better? Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work.

listen ad free access members only bonus content and more by subscribing to apple podcasts at apple dot co slash t yt i'm your host jank huger and i'll see you soon