The Young Turks - My Shillow

Episode Date: June 5, 2021

Sunrise activists rally at the White House to protest Biden’s climate compromise. Facebook suspends Trump for two years. Manu Raju finally asked Joe Manchin why he thinks McConnell will be bipartisan after they blocked the January 6th vote and all he could say was let’s give it another shot. George P. Bush basically tells Newsmax his father was a POS and Donald Trump is his daddy now. Rudy has turned into a cheap pitchman for the MyPillow guy. Hosts: John Iadarola, Benjamin Dixon, Erin Ryan 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. Drop it. Drop it. Drop it. Drop it. Drop it.

Very lucky to be joined by the hosts of the Benjamin Dixon show and hysteria. Ben Dixon, Aaron Ryan, welcome back to the show. Hello. Good to be here. Thanks for having us. Very glad to have you both here. Jank Yugar is out this week, but the news doesn't stop, not for a day, certainly not for a week. So we do have a lot of news to talk about. I was going to say progress on some issues, more like developments.

I don't like using the word progress on a lot of these things. But we're to be talking about some of Biden's back and forth with Republicans. Republicans, let's check in again with Joe Manchin to see if he's changed his mind on the filibuster. What's going to happen with Trump on Facebook? And if you stick around until the very end, we're going to reveal the truth behind the leaked videos of unidentified aerial vehicles, I think they call them these days. Are the aliens among us? The report is coming soon and we've got some leaks. So very exciting news there.

Important behind the scenes news that you need to know, Ben Dixon's birthday is coming up this weekend, everyone. So let's hear some happy birthdays for Ben. Thank you. I appreciate that. Tomorrow, man. I'm going to be an even older man tomorrow. Well, unfortunately we are. Sorry, Erin.

Continue to say, I think you get double birthday because last year was probably very muted. So like this year, you can demand twice as much. Yes. To spend your 40th birthday in quarantine is definitely something. So two years in a pandemic. Yeah. As you as the birthdays pile up and you start to think about your own mortality, it's great to meet it with the world in utter chaos and ruin. So that's fun. You know what else is fun? The news that we're going to proceed through. But by the way, as we launch into this, of course, please share the stream like the stream. do those algorithmic things you know you need to do. And we've got some news for you. Why don't we get into it?

I've been reading for a couple of months about how satisfied progressives are with Joe Biden and his administration and nobody called me. So I've always been a little bit weirded out by those headlines, but I think that we're past it. I think that those headlines are going to go away. There is ever brewing frustration. And that came to a head today, actually, in the form of a protest where some 60 protesters from the sunrise movement actually went to the White House. And I think we actually have a little bit of video. So why don't we go to that? You can see what it looked like.

To do something historic. We have a governing majority that we haven't had in over a decade, and we don't know when we'll have it again. So it seems like we should be doing something right now, doesn't it? I really we should probably be doing something. But what is the White House doing? The White House is negotiating with the party of the same climate arsonists that I have in Florida. As if things could be different this time. Okay, so you have this group of young activists that apparently don't understand

that the filibuster is very important for generating comedy and bipartisanship. But anyway, we have a little bit more from Varshi Prakash, the executive director of Sunrise, who said, I was invited to the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force to help Biden craft's policy that was in line with what is necessary to meet the crises facing our nation. Biden moved towards us, promising us a future, and in exchange we worked tirelessly to get him elected. We held up our side of the deal, but now the Biden is in power, that promise of co-governance with progressives and young people has disappeared. The president has spent more of his time meeting with a Republican Party, who to this day contests he is the democratically

elected president. It's time to meet with us, the young organizers that elected him instead. This moment demands an infrastructure package that will stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process. And we won't stop until he delivers. And of course, this comes, you know, within a day of us learning that he's chopped another gigantic Biden, I'm saying, has chopped another something like $700 billion from his infrastructure plan. It is now down a full trillion from the 2.3 that he initially proposed. Aaron, what do you make of all this? Well, I got to say, I kind of enjoyed the few months where I was like, oh, is this what the Biden administration is going to be? It was kind of a nice break. But this is actually more

of what I expected when Biden was first elected, was that he would be kind of nudging toward the center and that progressives' job would be to try to push him back left, since they're the ones that he has to thank for his victory, not centrist. I do want to say that I, if I'm trying to give this a good faith read, and I'm going to start out by doing that, I'm going to say that maybe what Biden wants is for people to see that Republican policy proposals aren't actually things that people really want. I think that maybe calling them on, you know, you have a counteroffer, show us what it is. Let's let the American people reject it. And then we can do what we wanted to do anyway. That is my hope for what he's doing. My fear for what he's doing is that he's capitulating and

we're going to go back into this cycle of kind of mealy-mouthed democratic nothingness. I hope it's the former. I fear it's the latter. And I'm just going to wait and see for the sake of my own sanity. Yeah, Ben. You know, I think people are trying to figure out, Shout out to the sunrise movement, you know, they really do a lot of amazing work. So just want to tip my hat to them for that. But I think people are ultimately trying to find out, Democrats, are you dealing with us in good faith or are you gaslighting us? Because if you're dealing with us in good faith, then we think that you're kind of being naive with how you're approaching the Republican Party, but even your own people like Joe Manchin

to Kierston Cinema. And I think that is reflective of what's going on with the Democrats arguing with themselves, negotiating with themselves, taking their price down, hoping that the Republican Party would come over to their side. So they're like preemptively negotiating with themselves. It's either they are extremely naive or they're equally complicit and maleficent in that they're malevolent, rather, in that they're playing a game with us. And I think Sunrise movement is in that clip, they're really trying to see Joe Biden, what are you doing? Are you playing a game with this? Or are you just kind of naive in terms of what we're dealing with right now? Because Republicans are playing for keep and we need to fight back accordingly.

Yeah, I think there's definitely a few Democratic senators that are playing games with us. And that I mean that, you know, I would love to imagine that we live in a world where they are just as stupid as they seem to be. But they're clearly lying about their strategy, clearly lie. about the filibuster. I'm sure they're plenty dumb, but they're not that dumb to actually believe things that they're telling us. Really fast though, since a lot of this has to do with infrastructure, the frustration is the negotiations over the infrastructure. I do want to ask both of you a quick question, which is he started off with $2.3 trillion, which a lot of people greeted as, well, that's not big enough. I mean, even Joe Manchin said he wanted

$4 trillion initially, although he never would have supported the tax increases that would have paid for it, but started with $2.3 trillion. Last month, he dropped it down $300 billion. He's just cut it down to like a little bit more than a trillion now. In the meantime, the counter proposal from the Republicans, which he is rapidly about to pass in terms of funding, they've added a hundred billion. I know that sometimes I might get into a bit of a bubble. I want your honest opinion. Hypothetically, were he to set fire to his own proposal and literally just take theirs and put it up for a vote,

would they support it? No. No. No, no, we would get Obamacare again. Exactly. We would get public optioned again. This is, most people who care about politics right now are old enough to remember when that happened. We can't negotiate with them because they don't want to pass anything that Joe Biden has his name on, that Joe Biden could put his stamp on. Mitch McConnell has said it himself, no matter what Democrats try to do, Republicans will oppose it, even if it is Republican ideas.

And to pretend otherwise is exhausting. I don't have the energy anymore. It's been a hard year. It's been a tremendously hard year. And I love the way you phrased that is we would get Obamacared again. We would get essentially where they would oppose their own idea. As soon as Joe Biden latches on to this, they're going to start opposing it. They'll find a way to oppose their own idea, their own legislation just like Obamacare,

which was a piece of legislation that came out of the heritage. Foundation that was first put into test into in by a Republican governor, Governor Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. He put it into effect and tested it. And so as soon as Barack Obama said, okay, I'm going to give up on a universal health care system and I'm going to embrace, you know, this Republican conservative idea called Obamacare. They turn around and opposed you anyway. Yeah. So we might as well have fault for Medicare for all. Yeah. Yeah. The search for reasonable Republicans is, I guess it's one way to waste a few months of the limited time you have to be president after spending your whole life trying to become one. But yeah, probably not going to

work out all that well in terms of passing your legislation. That said, I alluded to some of the senators that I think are playing games. Let's talk about one of those senators now as we move into our second topic. Joe Manchin told us in advance of the vote to establish commission to look into what happened on January 6th that the filibuster does not need to be gotten rid of. It doesn't even be reformed. We can get something like that commission thanks to the fact that there are definitely 10 good Republicans. I greeted that with a little bit of suspicion, since I'm not 100% sure there's 10 good Democrats, but he thought for sure there are, well, they filibustered it. He's assumed they would not, they did. They've said, Mitch McConnell said that he's 100%

focused on stopping Joe Biden, stopping literally everything. That's what they're doing. Now, in the wake of that, has he changed his view? Let's take a look. Do you have that Mitch McConnell wants to work with his? Last week, he blocked a commission bill and he could have, and you're saying that he will wants to work with that. That was dead either. I'm not saying that one's dead either. I was very disappointed. I think it was wrong what he did. And I've said that. He knows how I feel about that. It was totally everything they've asked for. It was totally bipartisan. I think Nancy Pelosi was very gracious in what she had offered, basically making it totally bipartisan, everything was done in the most bipartisan way.

And for him, they blocked it because of the filibuster. Well, one person blocked it on that. But the bottom line is we have seven people, six that voted, seven would. We need three more. Let's give it another shot. So you can say you'll never reduce a 60 vote threshold. We're going to make the place work. We're going to make the place.

You're not taking that off the table then. We're making it work. We're making it work. We're not taking, we're reducing the 60 vote threshold off the table. No, no. We're going to make the place work. I don't know what else I can tell you. And you can't make it worse at work unless the minority has input.

You can't disregard a person that's not in the majority. The Senate was never designed that way. Okay, so I want to return to that final point that he made in a second. But at first, let's talk about the fact that he described the process that they set up, the commission that they wanted to approve as in every way bipartisan. And the reporter Monterejou points out, and then they filibuster. it and he didn't even blink before continuing his defense of it. Like he did what he says is necessary to create bipartisanship.

They didn't get it, it was filibustered, he says I'm not even done with that. It's not, I'm not even ready to talk about the way that we're gonna get screwed over on the next bill. I think we should put more time into trying to make this commission. Surely they won't filibuster it again. What are your thoughts? Oh boy, you know the old, that old saying that Washington is Hollywood for ugly people. You know that one?

I would add it's Hollywood for ugly people who also can't act. I don't believe Joe Manchin for a second. That is the least believable performance I've ever seen. He doesn't believe that the Senate will work. One, because it doesn't really matter to him. Like he is so isolated and insulated from the effects of policies that he fails to pass or his governing body fails to enact. Nothing that he does or doesn't do changes the fact that Joe Manchin is.

is a U.S. Senator with Cushy, you know, U.S. Senator level healthcare and a cushy U.S. Senator level salary. He's not somebody that's ever going to have to suffer as the result of his own decision. And so it's not that it's like he doesn't really care if the Senate works, nor does he really have any motivation to make it work. Yeah, people are mad at him, but it seems like he's somebody who's sort of impervious to public scorn. Because attention is attention, I guess, in the world of D.C. And yeah, I find, I found it. I found myself going like this at the end of that clip. Because it is so frustrating to watch somebody who is so like expecting me to believe

something that is so demonstrably not possible. It's frustrating, but he's also the one with all the power. I just, I'm gonna need to go ahead and take some deep breaths outside after this segment. I've had enough of him. You know, I absolutely like some of those deep breathes that you need to take same that I need to take because we all recognize this. We all recognize a gas lighter when we see one. We recognize someone who's calculating every sentence. Joe Manchin and that you can look, you know exactly when he's not even a good

poker player Joe Manchin. Like you look down, when you lie, you look down and you start rubbing your fingers together. So we could just kind of like really break that video down piece by piece and look at every place where he's alive. But here's what you don't give a gas lighter. You don't give a gas lighter chance to just go on a monologue, right? You don't give And that's what the reporter did in that clip, he gave him a chance. And as soon as Joe Manchin got a chance to get a monologue in, he started talking about how he wanted to protect the Senate. But the way you protect the Senate is absolutely by understanding you have bad faith actors in there by the Republican Party. And that means the best way to protect the Senate

is to get rid of the filibuster so that you can whip the Republicans into shape. But because Joe Manchin has ulterior motives, he's going to gaslight us. And everybody recognizes a gaslighter, because we've all been lied to in relationships before, Joe, come on. Yeah. We know what's up. Yeah, and we're all going to take deep breaths. I think one of the things about watching a video like that, and honestly, like, so we played that video for you, and we just implied to you that it's new, but are you sure that that's not from three months ago? Like, are you sure that he's not just saying the same thing and we could pick whichever one we want? Because new information changing circumstances don't change what he's saying.

So you watch out because you might be tricked in the future. Part of the helplessness, I think, is that in a situation like this, there are two things that we should be able to do that should be solutions to the problem we're faced, which is a powerful man who's standing between us in progress is wrong. So one thing we should be able to do is reason with him. For instance, that might come in the form of talking as a reporter did with Curse's Cinema yesterday about the racist nature of the filibuster, how it has generally been used. to stop civil rights legislation, that that's what it was designed to do.

We might explain that, you know, even when it's not doing that, it's mainly used to protect the status quo from change that might hurt them economically. There are good people in government trying to get through to people like him in this way. For instance, Jamal Bowman, representative said, when Donald Trump cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, it wasn't bipartisan. Not a single Democrat voted in favor. There's no reason that we need to be bipartisan in repealing that tax cut, which is a great point, assuming that Joe Manchin is being honest and can be reasoned with, but he can't. So at that point, it's like, okay, well, we can't change his mind because he's not actually giving us a reflection of his mind when he speaks. But what about this? He's a politician. He's ambitious. He's got to want something, right?

certainly he wants to remain in the majority and this is a path to lose that majority and not in a long time. But but does he, what does he want to be in the majority for? What does Joe Manchin want out of his position? Does anyone know? Could his aid answer that question? Is there a massive piece of legislation, the cancer moonshot that he's just been working on his whole life and finally we're going to get all the pieces on the on the the table in position to strike. No, he doesn't want anything. He's going to be fine. As Aaron pointed out, he's going to be rich and happy regardless of whether he's the majority of the minority. He can stay as long as he wants. It's seemingly impossible to root him out via primeering. So we can't reason with him.

We can't appeal to his arrogant self-interest. So I'll ask you to what are we supposed to do? I don't know. I don't know. And the thing that's really frustrating for me is that some of the things that are in the infrastructure bill are things that we needed 30 years ago. Like guaranteed parental leave provisions, things to do with reducing the cost of child care. Things that families need in order to enable parents to work that have not existed in the U.S. for really, you know, forever. And that are a national embarrassment. Those things. I fear are going to be pushed aside in the name of Joe Manchin's nothing agenda. And like he is, he is frustrating, but the thing that is most frustrating to me is the loss on the other side of his like inscrutable in action. And and I find myself feeling like on the brink of despair, but I also feel like people like Joe Manchin kind of thrive when people get so frustrated, they stop paying attention to him. And so I just, I'm just kind of preparing myself for a really annoying summer

politically. Yeah. You know, I think Joe Manchin is, is almost like the height. That's, it's the, he is like the personification of a Judas and a Benedict Arnold at their height, because he's there to betray us. That's just my take. Don't accredit that to TYT at all, because you have to ask yourself this question, what are the results that you're getting? I don't care if you're talking about bipartisanship. Are they coming to you or are we going to them? Because Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema constantly takes us to them. Kirsten cinema with her currency, made sure that the people didn't get 15 an hour. She's not on our side. Joe Manchin standing in the way of us passing, getting rid of the filibuster so that we can get

the voting rights, the HR1 pass, so that we can protect democracy. He's taking us to them at our expense. So the honest truth is, is that they're not there for bipartisanship. They're there to serve the Republican Party. Yeah. And like, so just briefly, his last point there was, you know, it's, we can't have a body where the minority doesn't have input. And, you know, I'm sure he must have been really frustrated for all those years that Republicans were in charge where they had no input, but he was pretty quiet about it then. The way it works right now, and I talked about this, I think, on the damage report yesterday, is that the Democrats are reaching out to the Republicans. So insofar as they could have input on the legislation, that's being given. I mean, a great example of that is the Capitol Commission. It was split totally evenly, so much so that were it to be established, it's likely it wouldn't be able to accomplish anything.

And that did not actually matter to the Republicans. Right now, they don't need to use input. They have a veto on everything that the Democrats want to do. Why would they use their input when they could just shut down the entire thing? He's given them something so much better than a seat in the room. They can set fire to the entire building. And yet he presents to us this idea that all we need is to give them a little bit more of a chance. And like we've said, we're not going to get through to him.

We're not going to change his mind since that's not his mind. That's not what he actually thinks. But I don't know, maybe getting through to our viewers, they talk to people. Maybe they talk to some people in West Virginia, and someday that trickles up to him being taken out. Other than that, I don't know. This is one of those stories that just leaves me with a deep feeling of powerlessness and dread. Yeah. In any event, we do have to take our first break.

When we come back, we have a little bit of news, an update on social media policies and how they'll affect politicians going forward, as well as a Bush returns. And which political dynasty is he going to side with? We'll let you know after this. I'm going to be I'm going to be I'm going to I'm going to I'm

Thank you. Thank you. We're going to be able to be. I'm going to be. Thank you. Hello everyone and welcome back to the social break. We've got some messages from our members' comments with Shakata Ganai saying Mansion is basing a strategy on this quote,

fool me once, shame on, shame on you, fool me, you can't get fooled again. George W. Bush, except he can get fooled again because he doesn't mind being fooled. Let's see, Colorado Blue Blazer regular says, another question for Mansion. You say the majority party needs to listen to the minority party. When has the Republican Party ever listened to the Democratic Party on any of their tax cuts and judges? That is a great point, although as we have pointed out, it's that like knee-jerk facts should matter reaction that we have that has no bearing on what he's actually doing. He's not, he's not a, you know, a witty point or a historically accurate, in-depth,

Rachel Maddow monologue away from changing his mind on the filibuster, unfortunately. Welcome to new YouTube members, Timothy Lee Coral, thank you for becoming a member. In the super chat, Ryan Eggleston says, late to the party, but happy birthday, Ben, we are blessed to get to hear from you. That's awesome. Double O says very happy early birthday to Ben and shout out to T.J. Lunchbox. Much love to all the wonderful T.Y.T. Fam and Dragon Squad. I hope you all enjoying Pride Month. Love the special to Mansion and Cinema, though. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, let's see. Over in Twitch, thank you to Melissa the Defender Dragon, who cheered a 1,000 bits. E.K. Greens gifted five subs. Calico Mo gifted two as well. Thank you to both of you. And in the Twitch comments, who's a boomer, says happy birthday, Ben. And there's actually quite a few comments to that effect. They're very happy to have Ben so close to his birthday. Shadow Devil says it's not that they shouldn't be negotiated with. It's that they won't negotiate. Well, I mean, right now at least they're sort of negotiating.

They raised their offer as Biden cut down his. They just don't mean it. And I assume they didn't mean it. I honestly, when I asked Aaron and Ben if they thought that in theory something could be passed, which is gave me everything they want, I assumed I'd be wrong that I'm in some bubble, but no, it really does feel like it is just wasting time. They know that he has a limited amount of time before, oh God, the midterms are coming, there's nothing more we can do, and they're willing to burn that.

Because fundamentally, they look out there at the country and they don't see crises that they think need to be solved. This is not two sides with two different like proposed solutions. This is one side that in theory might be able to push to do something and another that is rich and they're fine. Anyway, lots more news to get to, we're back after this. Welcome back to the power panel. Ben and Aaron, glad to be on with both of you. And the news continues. Let's do it.

We've been waiting to find out what is Facebook going to do about Donald Trump. We knew that some sort of decision was coming about his future on the platform. Well, now it is here. Facebook said that they planned to suspend him for two years following his comments and citing violence in the wake of the capital insurrection on January 6th. And when those two years are up, does that mean that he'll be able to come back on? Well, the Facebook vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg says, if we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we will extend the restriction for a set period of time and continue to reevaluate until that risk has receded. So that is sufficiently vague that we have no idea.

We do know one thing, though, two years being suspended means that, oh, what do you know? If he decides to run for president again, which he says he will, he will be back on Facebook during that. Although I'm sure you both will agree that that is just a weird coincidence. Oh my gosh. Well, here, let me give it us a generous read to start. I think that Facebook needed to come up with something concrete or more concrete than the indefinite ban that was issued initially after January 6th. And so I'm glad that they did. I'm glad that they have a set amount of time now where he is banned. And I'm glad that they're working on some sort of system where they can ban world leaders for inciting violence. I think that's that's overall a good thing. I think there are ways that it could probably improve.

And I dread the day that he comes back. I don't, Facebook changes so quickly. I have no idea what it's going to be like in two years. Like two years ago, it was something totally different than it is now, etc. I just hope that he does something dumb on his first day back. And then we get a blissful extension of the vacation from him. Agreed, agreed. I'm thinking that this is a stress test of how much America is going to put up with petulant, rich, white men, because that's what this is. We really are seeing, you know, Facebook is having to create all these brand new rules for Donald Trump. He's rich, he's conservative, he's white, so we have to give so much deference to them. Because if anybody had done anything remotely close to what Donald Trump did, which was inciting a sedition, right? An insurrection. we'd be in jail. But here the real question is, it's not whether or not Donald Trump is going to be in jail. It's whether or not Facebook is going to hold them accountable. Oh, how much we put up with conservative, rich, white men's anger. Brett Kavanaugh. Well, look, we're going to return to him a second.

Beyond him, we did learn a little bit about their policies towards politicians, at least in theory. The company says that it's no longer going to automatically give politicians a pass when they break the company's hate speech rules. madness that they ever did, but they did. That supposedly is now at an end. And Facebook's new policy refers specifically to the behavior of public officials during periods of heightened violence or unrest, which again, maybe that sounds specific, but it reeks of we can do whatever we want. We're gonna lick our thumb and stick it in the air and see which way the wind is blowing. And if it seems like he's so unpopular and people are so bothered by him, then maybe we'll briefly get rid of him. Otherwise, we'll let him back on. And it's two years.

We don't know what the country's going to look like in two years, but I know what's happened in the last two years and extrapolating forward in time. I don't know that any of us are crazy enough to come up with what millions and millions of Americans will believe about this country, about democracy, about the election, about anything. They are going to be, like, we're going to look back and think, why can't they just be Q&Honors anymore? And so will there be violence? Will there be unrest? Why wouldn't there be? Like Donald Trump is going to mature between now and then, and he's going to run based off of the Republican alternative to Biden's stills, like, swamped infrastructure bill? I think there's probably going to be some unrest. Yeah.

Yeah. I think here's something, though. If you take a look at Donald Trump, blog that lasted I believe 29 days. It really was a testament to how little he was willing to work on creating his own platform or making his own brand within cyberspace without the aid of these giant social media companies. And I think Donald Trump being on Twitter and being on Facebook contributed to the environment that led to the catastrophic changes of the last two years. So I think simply having him off Facebook will be a good move, I think.

But again, we can't really extrapolate for it because who knows what fresh hell awaits us. I also think that, you know, this rule and how hard Donald Trump is fighting for his right to post, which isn't a constitutional right, but whatever, it's sort of a testament to how social media manipulates are like reward centers. Like he is acting like one of those rats in that experiment that kept hitting the cocaine button and eventually starved to death because they didn't want to eat any food. There is an addictive relationship that some people have with social media that is causing like this deep cultural sickness that I don't think we have time to really get into right

now. But I'm glad that he's off for now. I'm just gonna cherish these days for the next two years. It's that positive reaffirmation, right? No matter what you do so long as you're rewarded for it, you'll keep getting clicks and you'll keep riding that algorithm to a nice paycheck. Donald Trump knows that, but Facebook and Twitter, they know that also, right? And they're on the opposite the side of the equation, getting the benefit of all the profit they make off of Donald Trump. And so they're setting this up for the perfect return of the villain. The villain in this narrative will be back in two years. Yeah, that's what they're doing. And they're going to cash in on it because we built an entire system off of greed. And it goes right back to what you're

saying, Aaron. It goes right back to the fact that we, the reward centers in our brains are triggered to respond to negative actions because that's what the algorithm rewards. And that's exactly what Twitter and YouTube are going to reward when the villain returns in two years. Wait a second, but I think you may have just stumbled on something. When you said profit, they may not have realized this. But the two years means he'll be back on Facebook for the election. They're going to start to make money off of his ads again. Oh my God, they should have factored that potential biasing influence into their decision. But yeah, yeah.

Okay, well, look, it's only fair for us to let him respond, although not on Facebook, notably. Notably, not even on his blog anymore, you pathetic little weenie, you couldn't go one month anyway. Donald Trump greeted the news that he would be suspended for the next two years on Facebook by saying it's an insult to the record setting 75 million people plus many others who voted for us, misstating the number of votes. So wait, hold on, okay. So the 75 million is a misstatement. And then he said, and the many others, why aren't they in that number then? We know what he means, though, the whole thing's fake and made up, but. And he's like ghosts?

I don't know. What do they mean by that? I don't know, I don't know. He goes on to say, though, and this is, look, Donald Trump has had a couple of different forms of fairly direct communication with the American people. No matter what format it comes in, it's going to come off seeming clownish. But when you put one of his statements on letterhead saying statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America, it's even funnier when he then writes, next time I'm in the White House, there will be no more dinners at his request with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife.

It will be all business. You put that on letterhead? You could put that on a Post-it note. Nobody wants to go to the White House and eat a pile of Big Macs with you, dude. Well, Aaron, Zuckerberg did have a private meeting with him that he initially didn't disclose. Just like Mitt Romney. True, true. So they're all willing to go kiss the ring of Donald Trump so long as he can deliver what they want.

And he's letting Mark Zuckerberg alone. Listen, the last time we talked it was all funny games, but the next time we're going to be all business. But that's all Mark Zuckerberg cares about in the first plate. Mark Zuckerberg doesn't like you, Donald Trump. He just likes the fact that you have an ideology that he can continue to profit off of. Yeah. Really fast reactions, though, he's not, I thought he might get back onto Facebook. And honestly, by the way, they said they're banning him for two years.

That does not mean he's banned for two years. They could change their mind in a year. But he's not on Twitter. He's on Facebook. He's on Twitch. I don't think he's really on YouTube either. How much does this decision actually hurt his efforts to maintain control the Republican party to potentially run for president again. We know that he's going to start doing rallies again

in just a couple of weeks. Is that going to fill the void or does this actually hurt him? You know, here's something that's kind of been puzzling me for the last few weeks. Knowing what we know about how few people were actually reading his blog and how few people were interacting with his blog on social media and how social media platforms were still gaining members despite millions of people threatening to leave over Donald Trump's ban, Facebook is still growing. Twitter is still growing. And that is despite all those threats that we can now assume we're empty. So people weren't engaging with Donald Trump's content online. He's no longer the president. So everything he says is no longer a headline. I'm curious as to why Republicans

still feel beholden to him. Before I thought they're afraid of his followers. There are a bunch of Brady cats. You can't deal with getting mean tweets on social media. But now I don't quite understand, it feels like there's a disconnect between why they're afraid of him. Right now, the Trump organization, there's a grand jury that's been convened in New York, and criminal charges are likely to follow facing somebody in the Trump organization. I don't see where his power is coming from. He's not as rich as Mark Zuckerberg, by a long shot. He doesn't have the platform of Mark Zuckerberg. He keeps threatening to start his own social media platform, I just don't, I don't see where the actual power is coming from.

People are afraid of him, but why? Yeah. Donald Trump is just an influencer who became president. Because as soon as the social media platform shut them down, that was it. But you got people like Lindsey Graham and Kevin McCarthy and the rest of the get-along gang who've never seen those kind of numbers on likes and retweets. And they're like, oh my God, Donald Trump gets 100,000 retweets. We got to we got to make this due president. And I'm like, but the reality of it is, is like they are the real question, like if I could just jump up to a 30,000 foot level is how much power the social media platforms have to dictate like who really has control in this country because they gave the specter of Donald Trump between with all the likes and retweets and shares. But at the end of the day, as soon as they cut the algorithm off from being in his favor, he was just as uninfluential as the rest of us. Yeah. It is- So is Mar-a-Lago a hype house in that?

The energy seems a bit low for a hype house, but it is weird to think that like, if you're just popular, you could either end up hocking flat tummy tea or become present. One of those two things. The two paths open to you. That's right. He got the worst of the two. Anyway, those people probably have more money than him. That said, Aaron was asking a very important question, which is why is everyone so scared of him? Well, I don't necessarily have the answer, but I do have another example of someone who appears to be scared of him, so that's going to be what we turn to now. George P. Bush is running in Texas for Attorney General against Ken Paxson. Now George P. Bush aims to be a politician based on his last name. That's

why you know who he is. He was significant as soon as I said his last name. That said, he really does seem to be running from that last name and from the massive, incredibly successful Republican political dynasty that he is a part of. I want to show you a bit of, I believe this is one of his ads where he talks not about that dynasty, but about the current standard bearer for the Republican Party. I will not only promote the America first doctrine and principles that were so successful during the Trump days, but I'll do it without the baggage, and I'll actually win in the courthouse. Ken Paxton has been a very, very good Republican Attorney General of Texas. He's been a pro-Trump Republican for, for the

for the duration, you're running against him. There are some who may say how come he wants to unseat a pro-Trump Republican attorney general in Texas? Well, to be clear, I actually endorsed Trump before Ken Paxton did. I was one of the first to come out here in Texas. And when Bushes and Trump's come together, good things happen. But in terms of the allegations that are brought against Ken Paxton are very damaging. These aren't career staffers that are bringing them.

These are his top eight lieutenants under a Texas Whistleblower Act. And now the FBI is investigating the allegations of corruption bribery. Okay, two super quick thoughts. One, I'm not going to say what portion of what he just said, but I never want to hear it again, literally in my entire life. The second is, damn, that dude looks like Jeb. He looks and smiles just like Jeb. And the last name might help you. I can't imagine any of the other stuff that comes with being a Bush is going to help him.

That dude is a tan skinny jeb. Both improvements, but that is just a Jeb. Anyway, there, he was just talking about how pro-Trump he is. And literally, like, that is how you talk about your qualifications. Hey, you say you're pro-Trump, but he was pro-Trump. He's always been pro-Trump. That's it. That's all it.

What does that mean? I don't know. You like Trump? What does that mean about infrastructure? Reproductive rights, immigration. I don't know. It just means you like Trump. But man, he was nothing about George W.

HW, like, dude was the governor of that state. Two presidents are in his family line, but no, it's all about the guy who lost re-election, who tried to overthrow the government and failed and couldn't even maintain a blog for a month. Yeah, I mean, why would you want to try to make Donald Trump your dad? He's a bad dad. Like, he's like demonstrably not a good father. So why would you try to ingratiate yourself to him in that sort of way? Why would you turn your back on your family, which is also not a good family and be like,

I reject this bad family for this even worse family. It's so, so strange to be. And I'm sorry in advance, but you know, George P. Bush, pee tape. I just, I'm just asking questions and my final thought on that is, look, I'm I'm glad we have P over here to dunk on. That, the bad lighting in that clip had extreme please clap vibes. Oh, wow, this is, this is, he's another guy who has daddy issues, but his are a little bit different because, you know, I think one of the things we have to consider about these people is that while the rest of us say, let the best man win, these folks say let the worst man win. And the reason he's willing to usurp the Bush dynasty and prostrate before the Donald Trump's,

idiocy, yes, but there's still power. And it's because of the power, because they go wherever the power is, no matter how brutish their leader is, they will follow them. And so we need to really just kind of cut to the analysis of the Republican Party and understand that they are actively seeking the worst man. They're in a downward spiral and it's taking them to Donald Trump And they haven't yet found anyone who's worse than Donald Trump. And until they do, they're going to continue to worship Donald Trump. Yeah. And Ben, just to add to what you were saying, the thing, I think maybe Donald Trump's power comes from the fact that there's nobody else.

Who is the future of the Republican Party? Like who, there's nobody that comes close to how many people love him. Steve Bannon's hoping is Marjorie Taylor Green, but that's a whole other conversation. I think that might be the next one. Now really fast, just to continue the, you say you're pro-Trump, but he pro-Trump level of, like that's where the party's at. This party's been around for a couple hundred years. That's the level of its intellectual rigor. This is a bit of apparently actual George P. Bush swag. We're going to go to this tweet. It's a beer coozy that says George P. Bush for Attorney

General. And on the back, it's a picture of him and Donald Trump. And Trump is saying, this is the only Bush that likes me. this is the bush that got it right. I like him. That's an endorsement that he had printed. He paid that. Like that's the best endorsement he's gotten from this man. And he will throw his entire family under a Texas train for the man who says, I like him. Okay, but this is the only Bush that likes me after an election where women roundly rejected him.

It's just, I'm sorry, a late-night joke writer. Couldn't have read. George P. is the only Bush that likes Donald Trump, and people would be like, that is so clever and mean, because it would be true. And I apologize for the dirty joke, but it was there. It's right there. It's right in your face. Don't worry, Saturday Night Live, we'll have it tomorrow. I guarantee you they're going to do some iteration of that tomorrow. The other thing is, why is he giving them a little red book for Miles?

Like that looks like Miles little red book. And no, no offense to Miles, right? Because we obviously know the difference here. But, you know, it just really shows you the level of commitment that Republicans absolutely have to their subservience to Donald Trump. They, there's no level. We keep asking the wrong questions. And I'm talking about me particularly because I kept asking, how is it that Ted Cruz could hear Donald Trump talk about his wife and then turn around and make phone? calls for Donald Trump. That's because they have a negative, their thinking is this guy is the

worst of the worst, so I need a line with him because he's going to protect me. And that's their entire worldview. That's how they're configuring their relationship with Donald Trump. And that's why they're only scared of Donald Trump in so much that they can he can actually help them get to their goals. Yeah. It's just, it's so sad. Look, I get it. You want you've imagined that you have some political career. You have these ambitions. You don't want to stop for 20 years. not everybody's going to do what Paul Ryan is trying to do. But like, I try to, like, think of, like, politicians that I can think of that I would say that I like in a general sense. You know, I agree with, but like, like, I can't imagine, like, having as my Twitter bio, like, a quote from Representative Ocasio-Cortez, it says,

John's the only Ida-Rola that gets me. His brothers suck. He's fine. And I'm like, no, they're like, watch my show because she said my brother's like, but I'm okay. No, John, the family reunion, like they can't, they can't possibly have family reunions in the Bush family. Not, no, no. Oh God, it's so embarrassing. Anyway, that is not the most embarrassing thing on the program today. That is coming up after this break. So stick around. We've got more after this. You're kicking me out the door. You're kicking me out the door.

So, I'm going to be able to be. Welcome back, everyone to the social break, especially new YouTube members, Nelius Smith, Philvis, and Jennifer Christie. Thank you for being members. Much appreciated. In the members' comments, eclectic Michelinia says, Joe Manchin isn't a good faith actor. He isn't even just a bad faith actor. He's a bad faith, bad actor. He's a bad faith, bad actor. Absolutely no one believes him. That is true. He's acting as bad as his faith. Peter Hamby in the super chat says George P was raised as a GOP, but going for Trump, it gives a whole new meeting to beating around the Bush. Peter, why'd you do it?

Why'd you do it? But thank you for the super chat though. Also says happy birthday to Ben Dixon there. Oh, thank you. Let's see. Vinnie Holliday says the past week or so liberal media has been taking Q&on and radical conservatism much more seriously. What has changed their minds?

I don't know specifically what that's a reference to. Has it really taken this long for them to take the Q&N thing seriously? I'm, I may be not surprised, but that sucks. Good job. No Sleep says if they don't kill the filibuster and pass S1, the Dems will be locked out of congressional power in a decade. I mean, they'll be locked out of congressional power in a different form. They're clearly locked out of congressional power right now

with a majority in both houses. It'll just be more official maybe. Over on Twitch, Frank Morning Tree, gifted 10 subs. Thank you so much for that. Very nice of you. Danielle, LGBTQIA, subscribe for four months and says I'm so grateful to have found TYT, TDR, Happy F Hour, Common Room, and Wazzi are a few of my favorites, but I love everything TYT.

Hey, Ben, it's so cool to see you here on TYT. I'm also a patron on Like It or Not. I watch every morning, I love you all. That's very nice. There you go. Love it. And let's see, that reminded me by the way. I wanted to let you know about a couple bits of upcoming programming. Old school is now live on Monday nights and this coming Monday on June 7th. I'm actually going to be joining, I believe, Ben Mankiewicz and Mark Thompson. So that's going to be a lot of fun. Definitely stay tuned for that. And also launching on Monday is the eight week special run of Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Ritchie, which is coming to TYT, Monday at 2.30 p.m. Eastern time, 11.30 a.m. Pacific time. It's going to be Dr. Rashad Ritchie. He is indisputably

awesome. And basically right after damage report ends, indisputable begins. So very easy to remember. We're going to be leading right into his show for eight weeks, which is going to be awesome. Stylish, by the way, said, I'd like to drag Mansion into an episode of Indisputable and vamp up his constituents to watch him fail miserably on every topic to apply more pressure to get his useless butt out of office. That would be fun. Okay, let's, let's, See now. Okay, Peter Hamby also said, I highly doubt Mansion is playing 3D chess to then use the filibuster when the GOP regains the Senate, right? All it is is him sitting on his hands. I mean, I don't think that's strategy, but even if that is strategy, what a loser strategy to fail, fail, fail so that someday when they replace you for failing, you get to cause them to fail a bit. That sucks. Now with that, we'll be right back. I'm kicking me up the door.

You're kicking me out the door. Okay, everybody, we've got a little bit more time left in the first hour of this power panel. And I wanted to let you know, by the way, that while we've been having a lot of fun, myself and Ben Dixon and Aaron Ryan, you also get to look forward to Anna Kasparian, Francesca Farentini, and Dr. Rashad Ritchie, who we were just talking about in social break, who's going to be doing the second hour. So that should be a lot of fun. And with that, we've got a couple more topics to cover. If you've been watching Rudy Giuliani over the past year or two, you might think, man, that guy has fallen so far.

He's just, he's just gotten so low. How could he drop any farther? Well, he's finding ways. He's got his show, and his show needs to make some money, which leads to ads like this. I've been sleeping on my pillows for some time. I love them. They're simply the very best pillows ever made. But I just found out that they also have a wide assortment of other incredible.

incredible products, like a mattress top of sheets, towels, and slippers, and more. And more! I know there's a lot of questions that you probably have after that ad. How does one use a pillow when one sleeps upside down hanging from the top of a cave? I don't know. But that's his life. Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, lawyer to a president, Hocker of Slivers.

Thoughts? Well, you know, Sean Spicer is hosting his own, like, show on Newsmax where he's interviewing people who got kicked off of dancing with the stars. So it seems like there is a general theme to people who cozy up to Donald Trump, in that there is a giant bus that they all get thrown under where they all live together in this kind of state of grimness. One more thing, though, before I toss to Ben, I don't, just looking at Rudy Giuliani, I don't think he should be selling products, advertising a good night's sleep, bathing, or generally being in comfort. Because looking at him, I'm like, are you getting a good night's sleep? Have you been bathing?

Are you comfortable? Because I don't think you are, Rudy. I think maybe she should take a nap on something besides the my pillow so that you stop looking that guy. Yeah, that's good. I'm sorry, I think the good news that everyone should think about is while you are getting exploited by capitalism going to work every single day and it's beating you down, at the end of the day, capitalism beats down even rude to Giuliani.

Because for him to have to be, you know, going on hawking pillows after all that he's done, He was the attorney, personal attorney for the president of the United States. And here he is, he's got to do what I got to do. I got to put a commercial break in the middle of my show to make sure I could pay some bills. And so does Rudy Giuliani. So if you are feeling depression from capitalism, just know it's oppressive to the ruling elite as well. They just don't want to admit it. Yeah, I don't know if this is just what happens to you after Trump's done with you,

or if this is what inevitably happens to all mayors of New York. Like, Andrew Yang, is this what you want, buddy? In 50 years, do you want to be selling cyber pillows on internet 3.0? I don't, just watch out. So long as they're automated pillows, John, he'll take it, don't say? Yeah, he's got a great idea. It's for a thing that you could put your head on at night. It's like, you know, he invents things that already exist. Also, why can't New York City pick a mayor, pick a good mayor?

I don't. A single good mayor. There's so many people in New York. There's so many people. You guys are supposed to be smart. You're supposed to be smart and well read. I know you are. Pick a better man.

And just final heads up to all of the like aspiring MAGA politicians and news media people. Lots of people, Donald Trump turns on them and actually like gets rid of them, throws under the bus or they end up in jail for him or that sort of thing. Giuliani, he like had the best case scenario. Trump didn't really turn on him. He made it through all of those years. And this is the best case scenario that you end up on, I don't even know what platform that is, honestly. I've probably never heard of it. It's eagle rifle.net, I don't know.

And he's selling pillows. Again, like to Aaron's point, like he's not a good purveyor of pillows. The my pillow guy looks like he hasn't slept since the 80s. The dude is just twitching constantly. Who's buying sleepwear from them? You think he's worn pajamas? I don't know. He is, you know how like they say Minnesota nice. So he's from Minnesota and I'm from that neck of the woods. I grew up around Minnesota. I think that all the nastiness of Minnesota is like concentrated in that one guy.

Like he is like the least, you hang out with people from Minnesota for the most part. It's regular folks from Minnesota. They're nice, they're chill, they're relaxed, they're laid back. They're a little bit cold, but they're generally good neighbors. Yeah. He is just like everything un-chill in one man. Yeah, so not chill. Very on Minnesota.

He's a pillow you can't flip over, like that's what he is. Okay, so super fast, our last topic, we only have a few minutes, but this is, this is news beyond domestic politics, beyond international politics, this is galactic in nature. Oh, my God, the aliens, Jesus. Does Don Lemon have to deal with this? No, anyway, and now there's music. We've known that the investigation into unidentified aerial vehicles is coming, and it's not here yet, but some leaks have come out, and apparently American intelligence officials have found no evidence that aerial phenomena witnessed by Navy pilots in recent years. are alien spacecraft, but they still kind of explain the unusual movements that have mystified

scientists in the military, according to senior administration officials briefed on the findings of a highly anticipated government report. So they haven't found any evidence, but I'm sure that won't stop them from drone striking it or invading it anyway. The report determines that a vast majority of more than 120 different incidents over the past two decades did not originate from any American military or other advanced U.S. government technology. They say that it doesn't appear to be evidence of secret U.S. technology, but it doesn't definitively rule it out. Also, by the way, if they've been hiding advanced military jets for weeks for decades, and like this report isn't revealing it, well, yeah, why would it?

Like, it's the U.S. government. Like, that's the one that's hiding it from us. But anyway, They also don't rule out that it could be another country's technology, although they don't have any evidence of that. So apparently what's coming is, I don't know, man, it was fast. It went real fast. I don't know what it is. Is it just like a UFO awareness campaign to remind us that UFOs are like cool and weird? Like, well, that's a fun mystery I haven't thought about for a while. Also, X-Files, for the most part, is a show that really holds up. I recommend people rewatch X-files.

I mean, so they all of this hype and we get to the point where the report is issued and they're like, well, it appears that these unidentified objects are not identified. Okay, I wish there was more information, but I appreciate being reminded of aliens. It's such a fun version. Yeah. You know, I guess this is where I will, I will allow for my irrationality to take control because I feel like they're trying to prepare us. Like I think every other article is about, you know, UFOs.

They're trying to prepare us for our alien overlords that are on their way. And but I would just like to volunteer and say, please, Earth is ghetto. And maybe you want to lock your doors as you drive by our planet and don't get out because we've had Donald Trump as president. And right now people can't wear a mask in a pandemic. And so you don't want to stop by Earth. But you could pick me up. Yeah, I just, I kind of like, I've always wanted there to be aliens my whole life.

I grew up watching Star Trek and Star Wars and all that. But now like I just think, oh God, like if they reveal themselves, what's Marjorie Green going to tweet about them? We're going to be embarrassed. They're going to bring. Don't embarrass them in front of the company, please Republicans. Because they're aliens though. They could be time travelers, time traveling humans from the future coming back.

They could be like holograms from the future sent back to see if time travels possible. What? Like, you know. Aaron, that is the most beautiful mind, thank you. That's exactly what they're doing. And I want a part of that. I want a part of a society that thinks about that versus how much money we can give to the rich. Hard agree.

There was a scene on a show called Avenue 5 on HBO. I don't know if either of you watched it. It was a comedy. And there were a bunch of people who didn't believe that if they went into space, they would die. And so one would go out and die and then another person be like, no, I think it's fake. I think it's fake and they'd go out and die. And like after the pandemic, I just feel like Tucker Carlson would be telling them that like you can breathe in space. And they would all walk out at the airlock.

Every one of them. Oh, we're not ready for space. Three million viewers a night. They would go around at the way. And the field of rakes. Oh, God. That is what it is. Anyway, unfortunately, that's all the time we have for the first hour.

Thank you to both of you. So where can people watch your awesome content between now and the next time we get to work together? Oh you can listen to my podcast hysteria. It comes out every Thursday. There's also video components to it too. And I write for The Daily Beast so you can read my stuff there. Awesome. And you could check out the Benjamin Dixon Show podcast. I'm putting out a birthday episode tomorrow. And so if you want to give me a birthday present, listen, great. Well, thank you to both of you. Thank you everybody for watching. There's still another hour coming. Anna Kasparian is going to be taking the reins joined by Francesca Fiorentini and Dr. Rashad Richie as well.

It is indisputably going to be awesome. So you're not going to want to miss it. See you after this. 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.