The Young Turks - Nancy Pelosi Is Getting Under Trump's Skin And Furloughed Workers Are Desperate During Trump Shutdown

Episode Date: January 17, 2019

Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Trump to cancel his State of the Union address. Furloughed federal employees are doing INSANE things to make ends meet during shutdown. Get exclusive access to our best content. http://tyt.com/GETACCESS 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. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Welcome to another episode of The Young Turks with Anna Kasparian, and I'll also be here, John Adirola. is not here for blah blah of some important reason. I'm sure it's very very important. But we're

going to be holding things down because the politics continues, the news continues to develop new presidential candidates every day. So we're going to be starting off with some domestic news breaking down a couple of different aspects of the shutdown. We've got some good developments inside of Congress and then the latter half of the show or so will be some news on two of those who've already declared that they'll be pursuing the Democratic nomination for the presidency. Yes. And what about the second hour? What are you guys going to be talking about there?

Well, I'm going to present one story in the first half of the show later on, and it's a story that I've been promising you guys. It is some more in-depth coverage into Tulsi Gabbard. A number of you had tweeted me some links and some stories about her foreign policy ideology, and I think that it's important to cover all that, so we're going to talk about that later in the show. And then in the second hour, we will discuss a new Federal Reserve report. that shows how student loan debt is impacting the housing market.

It's pretty bad. So how thrilled are you that those two topics hit each other, that you get to talk about student loan debt and the housing market at the same time? I might be the only one in America who cares, but I'm still going to do the story. No, I'm not talking about it because it's unimportant. It's just your two favorite things. If you could also talk about how you perfectly level a homemade table, perhaps at the same time, it would be the trifecta.

Yeah. The perfect storm for Anna. Okay, with that, why don't we jump into the news? Let's do it. Oh, by the way, just a heads up, prepare yourself. Ben will be joining us at some point. So, you know, it's going to be one of those days. Anyway, let's jump into the news.

I'm totally joking. He can't respond because he's not here yet, but he'll be here eventually. Okay, with that, let's jump into it. This morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the shutdown would be shutting down one more thing than usual, the State of the Union, the time when the president gets to go before the nation and talk about. about whatever he wants, which is important historically and appealing to a man who cares about nothing more than people listening to when he talks.

Right. Sounds a lot like I'm talking about myself. But I'm talking about the president here. He loves ratings, and that is the biggest ratings draw for our president each year, far bigger than one of his rallies, but apparently it might not happen. With Nancy Pelosi tweeting today, I wrote to real Donald Trump recommending that we delay the State of the Union until after government reopens as the Secret Service, the lead federal agency for state of the union security faces its 26 day without funding.

This is crazy. Yeah, a reminder, we're now 26 days. And I think the previous longest was in 1993 and it was 21 days, I think. We've now blown right past that. So that's fun. And so she says that because they can't guarantee security, they shouldn't have the state of the union. Now, from what I have read, it does not appear to be the case that security would be much of a concern.

But who knows for sure, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security are saying that they've got this lockdown, they've been prepping for it for months. It is likely that this is just a way to sell this idea. But it is an interesting one. What did you think when you first heard about it? I didn't really have any strong feelings about it when I first heard about it or read about it. I just feel like this is crazy.

This whole thing is crazy. Everything that's happening right now is out of control. And there's, I think what's much more important for the American people to know about is that the Trump administration is preparing for this shutdown to last through February. And you have a number of, like, I don't care about the state of the union. I work in this industry, I know what the state of the union is, it's bad. And I don't really care what Trump has to say about it. So it's not like that upcoming event is something that I'm excited about or concerned about.

It doesn't matter to me personally. What matters to me far more is how is this government shut down impacting the federal workers who are either being forced to pay without work or who are furloughed right now? How is this impacting our national security? How is this impacting flights, domestic flights, international flights, U.S. airlines, air traffic controllers are not able to do their jobs effectively as a result of this. TSA is calling in sick and record. numbers. These are huge problems. And rather than find a solution to it, we're having a discussion

about Trump's nonsensical state of the union address, which was going to be nothing more than a sideshow anyway. So that's my take on this very specific story. But I do agree with you in that if he were to move forward with the state of the union, of course he's going to have the necessary security there, whether people are going to be forced to work for free or not. They're going to be considered essential workers. I do think that this is a little bit. little bit of a stunt with Pelosi, but I do think that it's also a smart stunt on her part. Yeah, so I disagree to some extent about how important it could be hypothetically were it to go forward, considering that we would still be in the shutdown.

And I'll explain why in just a second. But I will say, regardless of the long-term effects, short-term, Trump hasn't tweeted in like 10 hours, it could be because of this. She's very good at getting under his skin. For all the other issues that I have with Nancy Pelosi and her leadership currently and Historically, she's very good of getting under her skin. Now, the reason why I think that it hypothetically could matter is, were we to keep going for the next two weeks or whatever until we got to the state of the union and were we still

in a shutdown when it happened, even more so than his prime time addressed, this would be an opportunity for the president to even further cloak himself in the aura of the office and the authority that it provides and address the American people and attack the Democrats who in this case would be sitting in front of him and behind him. He would be turning and yelling at Nancy Pelosi, he'd be pointing at people of the audience and calling them names and things like that. That hypothetically could be persuasive to some people. And I don't know in two weeks what the state of the fight over the shutdown will be.

I can say right now I know far more people blame Donald Trump and the Republicans than blame the Democrats or Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer or anything like that. I've seen, it just doesn't seem to be going his way in that respect, I would say. But it would be an opportunity to turn things around. For Donald Trump, if he went forward with the state of the union address. Yes, and one reason to think that he would definitely use it in that way, that he would not simply, I want to update you on what's going on with ISIS and North Korea's denuclearization. No.

Well, he would have to read more than one page of content in order to understand, or intelligence to understand those issues. But anyway, that is true. One page you're kind of guy. That's true. He should make a t-shirt. Lauren Fox, who I believe is with CNN, tweeted earlier today. My colleague Caitlin Collins had some context.

Stephen Miller and other White House speechwriters have been working on the state of the union address for weeks. And administration officials said they were preparing to craft it around the government shutdown targeting Democrats if it was still closed. Yeah, of course they're going to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Now, one reason that I sort of, I believe that some total I would agree with you is that prime time address that he gave, apparently only changed two percent of Americans' minds. And the question didn't say, which direction did it change your mind in? So half of those could be more against him after seeing it.

And that 2% is within the margin of error. Exactly. And I also saw an interesting poll. I don't even know why anyone did this, but there was a poll that was able to cross-reference answers on, do you agree with the president on this, agree with the Democrats, not sure, can be persuaded, sort of, versus how often do you watch the State of the Union? And half of the people who haven't made up their mind on the shutdown say that they would never and have never watched the State of the Union.

So even at the end of the day, it would be, as you said, perhaps a bit of a... political side show. But that's sort of polling, I don't think, I don't know how many people in Washington have seen that. And so I understand the fear, that if you're Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and I think keeping it real like your standard operating procedure is, I should probably fold right about now. This does show strength, I think. On Nancy Pelosi's part, it certainly does.

And I do commend her. And again, I agree with you. You guys know what my views are on Nancy Pelosi, on the positions that she's taken, especially when it comes to policy matters that really do impact Americans' lives every single day. But when it comes to this very specific strategy that she's carved out, I do think that she's been effective. And I will say, I always appreciate a salty lady getting under Trump's skin. And I think the fact that she is a strong woman particularly gets under his skin. I don't know, That's just my read of it, because I've seen the way that he handles, you know, opposition coming

from men, and it's just different. I feel like he has a certain level of finesse, I guess, when he deals with them. But when it comes to a woman, he gets tripped up. When it comes to Pelosi, he gets tripped up. And I love watching it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, he's very insulting, obviously, and childish towards men. Yeah.

It is different with women, especially black women. Let's keep it real. Oh, yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, that's a great point. Yes, yes. And somewhat unrelated, but he hasn't actually had to go back and forth with AOC. It is going to be interesting to see how that goes. Well, okay.

He likes to pretend he doesn't know who she is, even though he definitely knows who she is. You just brought up such, okay, I've been thinking about this and I haven't shared it on the show yet because I've been waiting to see. I don't know if it's because he's mired in the muck right now on a federal level and he doesn't have the mental bandwidth to focus on AOC, but he hasn't touched her once. I know. Well, there might have been a few comments that he's made about her, but not really. He's been pretty hands off when it comes to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and I'm wondering why

that is. I'm wondering if it's because he understands how influential she is, that she would, he was very effective in how he used social media, he was very effective in, you know, kind of leaning on this populist message that resonated with Americans who were really feeling the economic struggle. And these are things that she's very strong on, but she's strong on those political issues because she's genuine about it, not because she's- And knowledgeable. So I don't know if he might be smarter than we all think, and he's like hands-off

when it comes to AOC because he understands her popularity. Because every time a conservative has attacked her, it's backfired. It's backfired with Shapiro, it's backfired with Hannity, it's backfired with pretty much every- Scott Walker today? It's backfired when it comes to establishment Democrats trying to go after her. So maybe he's a little smarter than we think, or he's just not paying attention. I would argue it's probably the latter. I'm curious to see how it unfolds moving forward.

Yeah, exactly. Now we do know, until this is resolved, and it's possible that it could go forward. Republicans are crying foul. Here is an example of Jim Jordan from the House on the Republican side, not a fan of this move. What did we just learn from Mike that the Speaker of the House is thinking about not inviting the Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States to come deliver the State of the Union address? This just underscores what we've been saying until they start focusing on the country and not just on stopping the President. I don't know how you can reach an agreement with these folks. You mentioned this letter that Nancy Pelosi has.

She's sent it. She's not thinking about it. She's actually written and sent it to the President. We just learned. The Democrats are more concerned about stopping the President at all costs. and not helping the country. In spite of the amazing two years that we've seen, with the growth in the economy, the lowest unemployment, all the things we've seen, they're solely focused on that. And until they change, I don't know, I don't know how we get a decision.

Yeah, so those Democrats have passed multiple bills to fund the government to get things going again. In fact, AOC and other freshman congresspeople were trying to find Mitch McConnell. They were going around the Capitol today and couldn't find him. So they left Post-it notes outside of his office. Like, hey, we've got a bill. Maybe look at it. And the cowardice of Mitch McConnell, that he knows that were he to hold a vote, it would pass. And so he can't even do it.

He can't even let one go forward because he knows that he would be, you know, from his perspective, stabbed in the back by multiple Republican senators. And let's just, I just want to make one final point about, you know, the underlying issue here. And I think that it applies to both political parties. Look, this is a fight over the wall. But in reality, all of the, you know, influence. The influencing factors behind the scenes have everything to do with the political careers of the politicians involved.

Everyone is strategizing and thinking about doing what's best for them and their political career. Now I happen to agree with what Pelosi and Schumer are doing, not simply because I'm against the wall, but because of what this fight would do in emboldening Trump if he were to have his way, right? Because it doesn't stop at $5.7 billion for the border wall. If you help give him positive reinforcement after he behaves this way, it will just further embolden him in the future to act like a complete and utter child when it comes to really serious issues.

So I agree with them, but I also understand that everything that's happening right now is about political strategy in order to benefit each person involved. That's it. And there are real people suffering as a result of that. Now, Trump could very easily say, all right, you know what, this is madness. I wanna be a leader for once and I wanna look out for the safety of the American people, like actually genuinely look out for the safety of the American people. And so I'm going to pass whatever legislation is going to open the government, fund the government.

And then later we can negotiate about the border wall. But in the meantime, while this is all happening, understand the country is not safer with what's going on right now. It's less safe. So if the underlying argument that Trump has is, hey, we need to keep the country safer by building this nonsensical barrier, well, you're being incredibly counterproductive in keeping the government shut for, what, 25 days at this point? It's crazy.

26. Yeah, well, almost to 27, actually. The only other thing I want to say is, and perhaps to some extent speaking for myself, hopefully for some members of the House and the Senate on the Democratic side. But one of the disadvantages that I think the Democrats have in this sort of fight is, as you say, there's political calculations and all that. And both sides are saying, I truly care about the people, this is hurting them, I don't want them to hurt.

Many or most of them are lying. But to the extent that some are not lying, I think they are more likely to be on the Democratic side. I agree. And Republicans, they don't want most of the government to exist in the first place. So shutting it down, at least temporarily, lets them live their dream. And so a shutdown inherently is more palatable to Republicans. They don't care.

The rich are doing fine. They're going to be okay. It's regular workers who we're going to talk about on the other side of the break that are having a rationed insulin and pawn off their belongings and stuff. And so at a certain point, like, Democrats start to worry, like, at what cost do we continue this? That's the issue. I don't think that those considerations really exist in the same way on the Republican side,

at least for the vast majority of them. It's certainly the ones in leadership. Well, I mean, look, aircraft safety impacts all. of us. And so when you don't have air traffic controllers able to do their job, which is to, you know, analyze the safety of these planes and make sure that they're okay. And to make sure that pilots are okay to pilot, to do their jobs. I mean, the fact that that's not something that only impacts Democrats. And maybe people aren't feeling the ramifications of this on a personal level yet, but they will. If this nonsense continues, they certainly will, regardless of their

political ideology. Yeah. Okay, we should take our first break, though. But when we come back, we're going to focus on who this is actually, as you've been pointing out, affecting, the workers who have been furlued. What lengths are they having to go to to actually make ends meet? We'll give you a couple of examples of that after this. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic, or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different

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you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Hey, welcome back. It's still Anna and John. And no bad. Anyway, let's move into some of your comments. Got some good ones.

Many of these are giving credit to the Democratic leadership, and I've read so many comments over the past few years that I expected all of them to turn sarcastic, and some didn't. I was pleasantly surprised, actually, because of our expectations about what they do. But eclectic miscellaneous says, I have to say the Democratic leadership is pulling some gutsy moves recently with refusing Trump's wall funding and now canceling the State of the Union until Trump ends the shutdown. Credit where credit is due. Gabby Marita says, my theory is that the government shutdown will end, not when air traffic

control isn't able to handle airline traffic, but when it gets so backed up that it starts to impact private jet traffic. I think that's probably true. I heard it, mm-hmm, from off camera. Danny Heim says the best thing that could happen at the State of the Union would be for all the Democrats heckle Trump all the way through. Yeah, but he's had hecklers before. He'll just tell the congressman on the Republican side to punch him in the face and he'll

pay their legal bills. I do want to give credit to two of our members, Connor Reddy, and Heidi. Hollinger. Thank you for being members of TYT. It's a good idea, by the way. If we do have a State of the Union, we will be covering it live for the membership. And by the way, I do want to say, we've given them credit, and you guys have now given them credit. I want to retract just a little bit of it, because yes, I did predict that they would have already folded, and I'm currently predicting that they will eventually fold. But I should have predicted that if they are going to be strong, it is going to be in something that stops Trump,

rather than something that proactively pushes forward something awesome and bold. That's generally my approach from now on. Of course. So this is so far in the camp of just stop him that like, yeah, they'll do that, I guess. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So credit where credit is due, and I would like to give you credit in other areas too if you would work on that stuff.

Okay, with that, why don't we jump back in the news? We're in day 26 of the government shutdown, and because of that, workers who have been either furloughed, they're not working and not being paid, or they're working and not being paid, have had to go to sometimes extreme lengths to make ends meet. And so today on the show, I want to profile a couple of those stories. So the first has to do with pawn shops, apparently seeing an increase in how many government employees every single day are going in and selling their belongings of the pawn shops. So this is one individual in Chicago, Randy Cohen, who says that Monday the shutdown forced

one worker to part with a prized van. The pawn shop owner agrees to hold on to items for 60 days. He says that he assigns a lower interest rate when he hears shutdown stories. Now that that is out there, expect everyone to say they're involved in the shutdown. But it is nice of him that he does then, I guess. He said about those individuals who are selling instruments, furniture, cars, all of that. I feel sorry for them, listen, they got to pay their mortgage, they got to pay a car payment. And he says of those who are being driven to sell, even like prized possessions, things that they have no interest in selling, he says that it's for a rainy day and it's raining for them.

Think about it, thank God they had stuff like this. But again, for those who do, not everyone has a car that they can sell for $6,500 or can afford to sell their car because many of them still have to use the car to go to the job that is not paying them. 78% of federal government workers live paycheck to paycheck. Just let that sink in and understand what the... One of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's off in your body, but not knowing exactly what. It's not just aging. It's often your hormones, too. When they fall out of balance, everything feels off. But here's the good news. This doesn't have to be the story of your next chapter. Hormone Harmony by Happy Mammoth is an herbal formula made with science-backed ingredients, designed to find two

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without a paycheck. You have a huge portion of this country overall, unable to afford a $400 emergency. I mean, for all the stories that you hear coming from the Trump administration, from CNBC, from all of these establishment news organizations, arguing that we're in this great economic situation because we have a low unemployment rate. The economy is very, very good for a select few in the United States. But when you look at wages, when you look at the number of people living paycheck to paycheck, when you look at the insane record level of consumer debt, people are struggling right now and they can't afford to miss one paycheck, and to know that the Trump administration is planning

on how they're gonna make it through February with this government shutdown, gives you a sense that these federal workers are in for a lot more pain moving forward. Or potentially much longer. I mean, if they're talking about like, you know, taxes and getting refunds and stuff, I mean, that for some people is months, months into the future. So let's go into another one, individually even more tragic perhaps. So this is about Mallory Lodge, who early this month was down to the last two vials of insulin for her type 1 diabetes when she decided to ration the drug she needs to survive

because as a federal government employee out of work in a week's long shutdown, she could no longer afford the $300 co-pay for a new supply. And so she talks about how she began to feel like the symptoms and side effects of not having the medication that she needs for her condition and knew that she needed medical help, but also couldn't afford that, like, and so had to just ignore it, feeling the creeping symptoms that could hypothetically lead to significant side effects that are very costly themselves or potentially even death. And she described that was our breaking point, she says.

So, there's one more quote, though, that she goes on about that. She says, I knew I couldn't afford an ambulance ride. I couldn't afford to be in the emergency room. I said, I am going to bed and I hope I wake up. I was pretty scared. I was like, I'm going to die in my sleep. It was a choice between getting further into debt and going bankrupt or dying, and I took the dying.

It's very easy for no-nothing Republicans and libertarians on social media to mock these people and say, I don't care, they're government workers, those are bad people, why are they doing that, or why weren't they more responsible like me? Even though we know statistically the people making those comments are also one lost paycheck away from getting kicked out of their apartments or losing their cars. But these are real people. They're real Democrats. They're real Republicans.

They're real healthy people. And they're real sick people in some cases. And there's a lot of them. There are literally hundreds of thousands. When it comes to those on the right, you know, the argument that you hear over and over again in regard to people who are unable to provide for their families, unable to pay their bills, who rely on government assistance, the argument that we hear is that they're either lazy, They don't take personal responsibility, they don't pick themselves up by the bootstraps.

I mean, you hear all of this, you know, there's the blame game going on and there's a lot of stereotyping going on. But these are people who have full-time jobs. These are people who literally went to school in a lot of cases in order to do this profession. Yes, they work for the federal government, but they have important jobs, they provide services to the American people, and they're working full-time, right? And so this is at no fault of their own. The dysfunction that we're seeing in our federal government right now is no fault of theirs, right?

They don't deserve any of what's going on right now. The idea of someone unable to afford insulin, even though they're a full-time federal worker, is so devastating. And so look, you egg me on, you egg me on, so I'm gonna have to read one of the tweets that pretty much enraged me earlier this week because you know exactly what I'm talking about. So Dave Rubin, like it's very, it's very easy to sit in your studio at your home, right? That's been in part funded by Koch brothers and other millionaires and billionaires who have given you money to sell out and be the pathetic person that you are now.

But he tweeted about these federal workers, as if they're the ones that we should be, blaming. Politicians on both sides have been saying they'll get back paid this time. Either way, most people aren't affected, and that's just a fact. And those who are affected, maybe should think about getting other jobs that are less dependent on the whims of politicians. Maybe in a perfect world for Dave Rubin, everybody would just get funded by the Koch brothers to spew nonsense libertarian propaganda. But these are real Americans who work very hard and did nothing wrong, right? And so to tell them like, yeah, just go find another job.

Like it's just, it's so insulting. I don't know, I just, I've, days like this make me feel such deep despair, again, not just because of the dysfunction we're seeing in government, but because of some of the reaction you get from some American people, right? Yeah, I would say, I mean, if anyone knows Mallory Lorge, they should ask her why she didn't get a billionaire patron who would give them a career in exchange for pretending that they either know about or indeed are even interested in politics? It's just, I don't know, it just makes me, so are we great yet?

I wanna know, right? I love referencing a shirt that Brett wears. How about make America function again? At all. Exactly. I would really like that. And by the way, so let's also talk about, you know, we're zoomed into the individual workers. Now let's zoom all the way out.

I saw a headline earlier today and it was a Trump administration official who said that our estimates of how much this is hurting the economy had to be revised up a little, he says. I believe it was on Fox News. And so later on, more details came out. And the a little was double. So how much is it actually hurting the economy to shut down? The administration, by the way, this is not some crazy left-wing organization. This is the Trump administration say that they've now calculated that the shutdown reduces quarterly economic growth by 0.13 percentage points every single week. The economy has already lost nearly half a percentage point of growth from the four-week shutdown. To put it in perspective, economic growth for the first quarter last year was 2.2%.

So the shutdown alone has killed potentially a quarter of all of the economic growth in the country. And to some people, that might seem crazy. How is that even possible? I mean, yeah, it's 800,000 workers, but that's not that significant. Well, it turns out that these federal agencies that have been shut down, they don't just operate inside of their little buildings in D.C. They contract out to a lot of companies. How many companies? 10,000 or more companies, and those companies are effectively making very little or no money

during this time. Every week, I have read, the contracts that privately owned companies would be getting from these agencies is over $200 million. It is just poof, evaporated. And then because the workers are getting money and they're not going out and spending money, all of the other industries that rely on their income being fed out into buying clothes and cars and entertainment and food and all of that stuff, that has dried up too. And so, man, the Republican philosophy on the economy has always been BS and a lie and a ruse

to reallocate money to the rich. But at least they pretended they cared about economic growth. Now they have found the perfect way to stop it in its tracks. Yeah, I mean, that's a great point. Oftentimes, their arguments regarding stimulating the economy leaves out the importance of a middle class, the actual consumers who go out there and spend on goods and services. But who knows, maybe they'll learn a lesson from this. I doubt it.

We'll see. Probably not. Yeah. Okay, we do have to take our second break, but when we come back, we're going to have not only more news for you, good news coming out of the House and some of the committee assignments that have now been termined, but also other good news. Ben's here. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control

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solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash TYT, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for TYT fans. That's EX, P-R-E-S-S-V-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t-y-t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free second. Welcome back, everyone at the first hour of the Young Turks. Ben Mayquist is here.

How's it going, Ben? It's going well. I didn't shave today because I wanted to consult with the expert before I proceeded with shaving. So I'm glad to be here. Oh, nice. Some questions for you about shaving afterwards since you are the... I'm into it.

Obviously, you're the razor expert here at DYT. That's hilarious. So there's now, just real quick note on that, there's an orchestrated effort to get Gillette to take me out of the ad. The ad that they hate. No, I know. It's just, it's so funny, you guys, they just, they used a clip from a story we did on Harvey Weinstein. Who they think was framed?

They think I'm a spokesperson for Gillette. They think I got hired by Gillette. Anyway, let's move on. So I'll just say, there is nothing I want to talk about more than the sham that is right-wing masculinity. But we're not gonna, we're gonna talk about other important stuff, but I would love to just talk about that. I'm a woman, right?

So just like, listen to my advice instead of listening to the advice of other, like, fragile men. Women don't find it hot when you constantly talk about your masculinity because it automatically makes us think that you're not a strong person, right? Like, it makes us think you're incredibly insecure because that's what you are. Did you've seen Jenks biceps though? I mean. Yeah, they're pretty amazing.

Just putting that out there. Well, look, look, you should take your cues in masculinity from the saddest, angriest men on Twitter. Okay, fair enough. In this case, it's Piers Morgan. Okay. Anna is a woman. And as a woman.

And so she gets to tell us what to do with rage. Okay, so two little promos I want to do. The first is the important one having to do with the shutdown. So, TYT investigates is, they're very busy, right. very busy right now investigating different ways that this shutdown is affecting different aspects of government and society. And in doing that, they would love your assistance. And so they would like to hear from you, from government workers, contractors, others in the

know that have been negatively impacted by the government shutdown. You can securely send TYT Investigates tips by emailing the Young Turks at protonmail.com. And the other promo is, I don't know if you know, but the damage report has a face Facebook page at Facebook.com slash the damage report, TYT, that we are now putting content on in various sorts of things. If you'd like to follow that, you can go to facebook.com slash the damage report, TYT, and follow it. Thank you.

With that, why don't we jump into just one or two of these tweets? The first was Jazz says, AOC exposed Mitch McConnell and put them under pressure through the hashtag, Where's Mitch on Twitter? I did like that. I would like to see that trend, actually. And let's see, crimpy fuzzball. I would have preferred, where's my Mitch? She is provocative.

That'll be tomorrow's. Crimpy Fuzzball and T.Y.T. Live said, as a Brit, I was worried when I was recently told to start stockpiling my diabetes medicine due to Brexit, but it's nothing compared to the urgency U.S. citizens are going through right now. I'm going to disagree. They're both big issues. If you have diabetes. If you have to stockpile your diabetes medication, that's a big deal. Yes. Well, we'll see, you know, they're, there's growing pains in the UK right now.

We're not going to talk about it in much detail because I can't. So, anyway, and I will be the only person on TV to admit that. Anyway, what, with that, why don't we move on to the news? You're not on TV. I would love it. YouTube TV. Oh, okay, fine. There is something great, just very quickly, about the idea of a no-confidence vote, right?

As we like it, yeah. In the middle of a- Can we have one here right now? It would be incredibly useful, not just in government, but like in life. Yeah. Like you've got a friend, you're going out to dinner, he's making the decision, the rest of the friends just like you're not having, no confidence, you can make this choice. There's a lot of situations where that would be very useful. Jek would have lost seven or eight more confidence votes here at TYT.

All right, so you guys have taken group trips. Yeah. Okay, lots of stories gotta get to, so we're gonna jump into it. As of today, the House Financial Services Committee just got a whole lot more exciting, which perhaps considering its content generally is not that surprising. But it is very important. And now it has some new members that are up to the task of regulating and sometimes sticking it to the banks and related services.

So they have new freshman congresswomen, a new leader, and that is quite exciting when you consider who is involved. Now we're gonna get down to the things that they have already said about what they will do on that committee, but first, for those who haven't or are familiar with it, the Financial Services Committee has formal responsibility to oversee the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is regular opportunities to interrogate top U.S. financial officials. It is one of the key committees that give banks their freedom or reigns them in.

And there was a great quote about one of the newest editions, which is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying with Ocasio-Cortez on the committee, it is plausible that in the near future, the U.S. public could see a Democratic socialist publicly grill, for instance, the CEO of Goldman Sachs. Which that just gives me tingles. Yeah, so let me jump in. Although she might not identify as a democratic socialist, one of my favorite moments with Elizabeth Warren was when she was grilling an executive from Wells Fargo. Yes.

I highly recommend if you didn't see that to go back and watch it, because it gives you a sense of what it's like to have members of Congress fight for the consumers, for the American people, and really hold banks accountable for their actions. It was an incredible hearing and the way that she grilled that executive. was amazing. Exactly. What was the consumer product financial board? What was her?

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has been dismantled essentially by Mick Mulvaney, who is the acting. Mick Mulvaney's running it. He's running it because he cares about you. So right now, a woman by the name of Kathy Craninger is running it, and she has absolutely no experience whatsoever. She considers Mick Mulvaney to be a mentor of hers. Although after the Senate confirmed her to lead it, she did.

she deviated from Mick Mulvaney's policies a little bit, but for the most part, he had dismantled it before he left, you know, overseeing the consumer financial. One of the great things that Elizabeth Warren did, soon after getting to the Senate, was challenged, you know, banking executives. And I remember it was sitting here talking about it with Jenk. There was immediately a story afterwards with unnamed sources saying, hey, the campaign's over. Now this is ridiculous. Now she needs to be serious and get about governing.

right away, and we're seeing the same sort of thing with, that's going to happen to AOC. Yes. But Elizabeth Warren didn't have an incredibly cool nickname, which will stay with her for her life, which helps Alexandria Acacio-Cortez. She tried with E-Wore, but it didn't last. That's not true. Actually, don't spread that. Trouble start using it.

E-WR is not bad. It's not bad, actually. It's pretty terrible. She should do it. I like it. Anyway, okay, so I don't remember what I was going to say. Oh yeah, so what are we gonna get out of these new members? So now that they're on there, what is their philosophy going in?

Well, let's get some quotes from some of the members. The first is AOC, if we could bring up this tweet. You're gonna see, I wanna be very clear about how successful the work of grassroots organizers and activists have been in helping progressive secure appointments to the powerful financial services committee. It starts as with many amazing developments with everyday people paying attention. And so there, I mean, you have to give credit to the Justice Democrats that were pushing on social media put pressure on them.

We hear on the various shows on the network, we're very specifically pushing for particular people to be on particular committees, including AOC, on that committee. And many of you helped to put pressure on those who would actually be doing those decisions. So thank you for doing that. We don't get progress without good leaders and good people actually pushing for progress. But she goes on to say, I cannot stress how important this moment is. Dems are putting members who rejected corporate campaign money on a committee overseeing Wall Street, because everyday people donated to our campaigns and they started to pay attention and became

activists in Congress. Her tweets are so incredibly well written. Like it just stands out because I mean, I mean they're punctuated right and they tell a little, I mean, but it's not, but they tell a little 280 character story. Like they deliver, you know, in contrast obviously. You know what Ben? She really needs to make a decision though about whether she wants to govern or be a Twitter star. That's deep, that's deep, I could see you being in leadership.

I don't actually think that, in case you guys missed the story that I'm referencing last week, Politico, I believe, published this piece on how some Democrats are criticizing her and her behavior on Twitter. Yeah, and I would argue that not only is that a false dichotomy, but they might indeed help each other out. Yeah, exactly. Crazy idea. But quickly, we know, I'm sure you probably mentioned it, but dovetailing with that story

is another story about Democrats afraid that she will name them on Twitter. Yes, yes. It's the same concept. It's the same concept. Oh, I love it so much. Yeah, that, I would be scared. Okay, let's go to more, though. She says it's a huge win.

Obviously, there's work to do. There are other money committees, including ways and means, energy and commerce, et cetera. But we've got one down before we had zero. Keep paying attention, shipping into campaigns, and being activists, it works. So that's AOC. You also have Rashida Taleb, who's going to be joined the committee, and Ianna Presley, who said, to anyone that's ever come home to an eviction notice, felt overwhelmed by student debt or work the second and third shift when I learned that I was appointed to be to the

financial services committee tonight I thought of you we belong everywhere I'll never stop fighting for you and I also want to give a little bit of credit to the woman who's going to be leading that committee now this is Maxine Waters who AOC said on Twitter she's very excited to be working with two quotes from her first and this this mirrors one of the things that AOC's been talking about on Twitter that many people on the Democratic and Republican side wanted to get on these committees not because they had this fervent drive to make a mark in that area, but because they're powerful. And so if you get on those committees, people will donate to you. And if you're on the Wall Street committee, maybe Wall Street will donate to you.

Well, Maxine Waters gave a speech and said, this was known as the Juice Committee. There's no more juice in this committee. That's a great way of putting it. I mean, we'll see. There's a lot of people on the committee that still would love some juice, I'm sure. But she also said, the CEOs of the banks now are saying, what can we do to stop Maxine Waters? because if she gets in, she's going to give us a bad time. I have not forgotten that you undermine our communities.

I have not forgotten that you sold us these exotic products, had a sign on the dotted line for junk. What I am going to do to you is fair. I'm going to do to you what you did to us. Okay, so we don't know. You still have to see. No, I know, I know, I know. I know we have to see.

My reaction is purely in regard to the strength in that statement. You know, look, I want to make a statement about, what I'm seeing in political campaigns that bothers me, and it's all about, hey, in this Me Too movement, we got to support female candidates, period. But no, I actually disagree with that. I think that that's insulting and it undermines what, you know, women like me have been asking for. We want our policy proposals to be taken into consideration.

I'm putting myself in this conversation, right? When I say we, I mean women, right? Women in the political world who have really good ideas who actually want to fight for the American people. Those are the candidates that deserve a shot, that deserve to be heard. This notion of, oh, I'm just going to support a candidate because she's a woman. No, no, what are the ideas? Is she going to be a fighter? Does she have the right policy proposals?

Is she strong, right? And so this kind of strength, especially in regard to the financial sector, excites me, especially when you're hearing about politicians, you know, mentioning the issues involving student loan debt and the housing market and communities that have been destroyed. Like, these are issues that have been ignored for far too long. And I just love hearing our lawmakers draw some attention to it. That's all I'm saying. Yeah.

Yeah. Look, the big quotes could end up not actually bearing fruit. But the thing is, you guys have become members, you support us. We're here, we're not going anywhere. We're going to be watching. And we're going to see what they push for and what they don't push. for. And honestly, like, I love that we're talking about, you know, being on these committees to get the big donations because there's so many things in government that just seem insane

to people who don't have any of the power. Like, the idea that you could be on this committee and take money from the banks is ludicrous. The idea that you could be on energy or environmental committees and take money from fossil fuel industries is insane. Right. And hopefully, as you have these great examples of people like AOC and others who are rejecting that money and doing better because of it, not surviving despite it, but doing better specifically because of that choice, I hope that that will inspire more to do the same. It's almost as if you took the money out of politics, you would strengthen the democracy. Almost. Almost. And as they've all been saying, and I think she was talking about today on

Twitter, like, you are freed up by taking, it's not building you up the money from these corporations. They are chains dragging you down and forcing you to change your positions and vote in ways that you know betray your principles, get rid of those chains and actually be the person that you thought you would someday be when you first became interested in politics and thought maybe someday I will run. Not someday I will run and I will compromise every single value I hold just so that I don't get primary the next time I are, just so that I have the money to fend it off. Keep in mind, though, that inevitably, unless there's a structural change and we get money

out of politics, the problem is going to be that they're going to be running against people who will then be incredibly well funded. And that funding allows you to misrepresent people's facts and funding for or tell a story the other person can't tell. I mean, that's what happens when you, so which is ultimately what corrupted it in the first place, which was probably in some cases dastardly people, a word I'm sure I've never said out loud, but decent people who were involved in government because they were committed to a better government and then thinking, well, I got to take this money because my opponent's taking this money and I don't want to be at a 15, 20, 20, to one disadvantage when I run for election. So I'm a good person, but I'm still going to take their money and then inevitably you get corrupting. I'm sure that there will be some on the left who will take the money and make that very argument. And we saw a little bit of it in 2016.

But I think wouldn't you argue that the climate is different right now? I mean, I think that it's very possible for someone to turn away, let's say, corporate PAC money or these giant, you know, campaign contributions from from corporate interests, and focus more on the people, right? Small dollar donations. I mean, we've seen it happen with a number of candidates at this point, and they've been very successful in raising the money they need. I'm curious if that, yeah, it does feel different, but will it stay different? Will it stay different when we don't have Donald Trump to sort of run against and motivate

people to make those small dollar donations? And for some, it will continue, and in some areas it will continue, but it is, we can't just think that the problem is solved because. they say it's solved. The first part, I didn't actually like her statement as much as you guys did. I love the first part. I love that the juice is gone, right? I do like Trump.

I don't think that it's ever a good idea to suggest and give a window into that I'm going to punish you because you said bad things about me, right? Which was the one part of her statement. She pointed out, I would say, structural, what she would say, what she would probably see as structural financial assaults against communities across the country. I like that part. I just met the first part. The first part, she included that, you know, the part about they're going to, what Maxine Waters is going to come after us.

And so, you know, like just, I would leave myself out of it. I like most of it. I just, she opened up a window to that slightly, but that's all right. Okay. It was good. It was good. And mostly we're seeing strength everywhere. Let me just say it really quick, because I traveled this last week with some very mainstream Democratic friends.

One, a conservative Democrat, but he's, and, you know, and they're very, very, very mainstream. very dismissive of Bernie Sanders. You know, my argument, I don't think Bernie Sanders is going to be the nominee. Jenk does, but I think he has a chance. But I think it's crazy to say that he doesn't have a chance. They think there's no chance. None. They're just completely dismissive.

Dismissive of his work, dismissive of his chances, dismissive of everything. But they're not dismissive of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In fact, a few of them are enormously impressed with it, right? And so one guy said to me, goes, I every day just love it, love everything she does, right? And so it's a suggestion to me that, one, the value of having a new blood, and particularly this new blood and this new voice and this sort of unabashed, courageous new blood. And that also she is that her power is likely to sustain itself, especially because she appears to be eager to do the work.

So I was encouraged by that point. I think what she has that is undeniable is her likability, right? she is a fighter and she's strong and she's unapologetic for what she expects of the country and what her beliefs are. But she doesn't come across in a way, like even Ben Shapiro of all people is like, you can't help but like her when you see the way that she reacts and responds to critics. He said that, I didn't see that he said it. She reacts in with this sense of humor that's so admirable and inspiring for someone

like me, right? Like for me, I'll respond with salt, and that makes someone unlikable, and I get that. Whereas she will take it and respond in this humorous way that I think makes people want to listen to her. Yeah, I think that's really true. And it's also true, not in the same way, and he's certainly not as funny. I'm not knocking him, but like, you know, Rokana also has this way of presenting an argument in a way that just doesn't, you know, there's a tone and a style, which, and it's a, and it's

tough line to toe, but when you can be aggressive and strong and somehow also not petty and divisive. Right. And they both have it. Yeah, I don't. No, you don't. And the depressing thing is, I mean, I've read, I don't know how many examples of it, I've learned nothing.

I've literally learned nothing. Anyway, maybe I'll work on that before the 2020 election. Okay, let's move on to other new... Are you running? No, but I'm gonna be talking a lot online. That's sort of what we do here. Okay, let's move on. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has announced as of last night that she is going to be pursuing

the Democratic nomination for the presidency. She's formed an exploratory committee, but she's also just said, no, I'm running. It's not just one of those like, well, maybe. Maybe they'll come back and say I should. No, she's running. She announced it on Stephen Colbert, which I guess if you can, you do that, I suppose. Politics, let me just say real quick, because it's so crazy. When she was running for reelection in the Senate, and she won handily, I think she's got 67% of the vote,

won a lot of districts that Trump won in New York. And she's been tacking to the left ever since she was first elected. But she's just funny, I'm not really knocking her, but the process is dumb because she said, if elected, I will serve my six years ago. Yeah, yeah. And that was a month, two months ago. Right, it was two months ago. Right.

It was what I would call a lot. Yeah, right, yeah. But that's fine, they all lie about that stuff, I totally get that. That's not what this video is about. What this video is about is that there are going to be a lot of people running, and we We've got some months before the first debates, let alone the first primaries or caucuses. And along the way, we're going to be watching the things that they say, the bills that they put forward, what they actually do.

And we'll be breaking that down, we'll have an open mind. But we also, we have to be willing to look critically at any candidate, whether we're pre-isposed to immediately endorse them or the exact opposite of that. So all these candidates are going to have pros, most if or all, are going to have significant cons. this video, I want to start that process with Kirsten Gillibrand and announce, what's that? Don't worry about that. Sorry, I want to start right now and talk about some of those pros and some of those cons.

So first of all, some of the pros. And these are the more recent stuff that Ben was alluding to. She voted against all but two of President Donald Trump's cabinet nominees and has only voted in line with the Trump administration's position 7.1% of the time. That's the lowest rate of her of any of her Democratic colleagues, including Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren. Additionally, along the way, she has thrown her support behind progressive policy causes from raising the minimum wage to legalizing weed to a federal jobs guarantee to rejecting

corporate PAC contributions. So that is the stuff recently, but we do have to take a slightly wider look at what she has done since she's gotten into government. And that starts quite a bit further back than what was included in those two graphics. Her political career began back in 2007 in the House. At that time, her political positions were much more conservative, and she was among the least liberal members of the Democratic House, ranking 209th out of 241 during the 2007-2009 term. She held an A-Rating from the NRA and was against protections for sanctuary cities.

She became a member of the Blue Dog Coalition of Conservative Democrats. She supported a balanced budget amendment and a ban on deficit spending. Her immigration platform was of a peace with the proto-Trumpism brewing during George W. Bush's second term. No amnesty or benefits for illegal aliens, that's not my terms, that's what's written in this late piece, but a crackdown on sanctuary cities like New York, more agents fencing and tech for the border, legislation making English America's official language, not favor, that's, they don't generally vote on that. It's clear it is though.

I think it would win. I'd probably win. Maybe Swedish. The human rights campaign and LGBTQ advocacy group gave her the lowest rating of any New York Democrat in Congress for her positions on gay rights issues. Now, all of that changed or began to change once she was elevated from the House to the Senate. So when Hillary Clinton's seat was vacated and she was appointed, that seemed kind of crazy. Because again, she was one of the most conservative Democrats in the House and all of a sudden

she's representing one of the most liberal states in the country. But she did switch up her position on some issues. Her NRA rating was downgraded to an F. And as of December 2017, she was the seventh most liberal member of the 46th person Democratic caucus. which is a significant switch inside of less than one decade. Now, she has been asked about some of those position changes. And so on guns, she said, after I got appointed, I went down to Brooklyn to meet with families

who had suffered from gun violence in their communities. And you immediately experienced the feeling that I couldn't have been more wrong. You know, I only had the lens of upstate New York, which that is a good, that's a good response. It's undercut slightly by the fact that she had been living in New York City for a decade at that point. Well, she represented upstate New York, though. She did represent it, but she's acting as if she had only been exposed to those ideas, though you were surrounded by the more liberal New Yorkie types. Yeah, I don't like it because it's still, it reeks of Rob Portman changing on gay rights

because gay son, and I, L was, as we've said here many times, did you not think anybody of your friends, any other person had a gay son? There were some other people in the country with gay kids. So, there is a, it shows a myopia. And, you know, on some issues, that's fine. I can, you know, on agricultural subsidies, you know, some of those things might make more sense. You know, you got to, you remember Congress, I think you're sort of duty bound to see the big picture. It's very obvious.

We don't need to, I don't think it needs to be broken down in a complicated manner. She represented a conservative district. She wanted to keep getting elected in that district in upstate New York. So she was, you know, a blue dog. Democrat and NRA loved her and she didn't even want to get very far left on social issues which might even have been okay but she was an incredibly careful politician and then she was elected appointed as a senator in a in the bluest one of the maybe the second bluest state in the country or right up there second bluest big state and and she moved left

now that could be a political awakening which is what she wants you to believe in which I'm prepared to believe happens to people it does because my my political hero or it happened to Bobby Kennedy, massively happened to Bobby Kennedy, legitimately, but it also shows a degree of pragmatism, and then she'll be elected president, which she won't, but she'll be elected president, and then she'll be like, well, now I've got to tack back to the center because this is a center-right country, and that's what she'll come to believe. I don't think it is, but that's what she'll believe, or center anyway, you know, forget center-right.

So I wouldn't, that's why progressives won't trust her, but that said, I like a politician who changes their position, and then I think we get to look at, for all of these people who progressives don't trust, you know, I don't share some of that same distrust to the extent that others do, but I want to, because I want to see the political skill, like you can, every person running, as you say, John, has a hurdle to get past. Some of them are very steep hurdles, some of them are endless number of hurdles, some of them aren't that many. And then your political skill gets you pass them or doesn't, right?

So she's going to be put on the spot about that, and she's going to have to be put on the spot about that and she's going to have to navigate it with some degree of political acumen where she says, no, this is who I am, that's not who I was, I've grown, I've changed. Yeah. Yeah, here's what I learned about Kirsten Gillibrand at Ozzy Fest, where I interviewed her on a panel with Chelsea Handler. She does her homework. So she was, and I'm not exaggerating, she was literally the first person that I was going

to interview, like big public figure, who actually, actually did her homework on me, who knew who I was, knew what my policy positions are, she knew what my political ideology is, what's important to me. And before that panel began, she worked very hard to make it abundantly clear that she considers herself a progressive. And so I'm saying that because, sure, there's some possibility that it came from a genuine place, but it came off as very strategic for me. And I think that one of the huge red flags that she's, it's probably one of the hurdles

that you're talking about, Ben, is her relationship with Wall Street. Because right before she announced that she was going to run, she met with Wall Street executives to gauge their interest in supporting her. And so why does she need their support? Why does she care about their support so much? I think that's an important thing for her to address if she wants to really prove how progressive she is. And in direct contrast with Bernie Sanders, who said in a debate, you know, that I forget exactly

how he put it, but he said they're scared of me and they should be scared of me. He doesn't want their support, he wants their opposition. I think it was a reference back to, was it Teddy Roosevelt? I forget exactly. But that's, if we were to begin listing groups that you would go to before deciding if you were gonna run, I would run out of ink and multiple pens before I'd hit Wall Street. I got you. You know, she's a senator from New York.

It's the excuse you're going to hear 10,000 times and it is also true. And that's where, you know, Wall Street is in New York. So again, it required, what did you say to him? What were you looking for, right? And if it was like, hey, look, guys, I don't want you guys to be the enemy, but I want you to know that we need to make sure we don't have another financial crisis and I'm going to work with people to rein you in a bit. I don't want to cut off your business.

Yeah, may I jump in? Because it's one thing to meet with Wall Street executives, which of course, you know, as I mentioned is a bit of a red flag, but it's also important to look at funding. And so according to Open Secrets, they keep track of the political campaign donations. A significant portion of the money Gillibrand has fundraised has come from the securities and investment industry, most of which are Wall Street firms. In the 2018 cycle, Gillibrand received more than $1.84 million from individuals and PACs combined within the industry. The securities and investment Pax, which gave the most to her election campaign were Bank of New York Mellon, Deutsche Bank Securities, T-I-A-A-A and U-S.B, I'm sorry, UBS America's corporate PACs. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, we care about where your source of funding is. Right. Yeah.

Now I want to read one other quote, I believe this is from March of last year. I'm not 100% sure on that, but it has to do with Wall Street. And she was talking about the empowerment of women, and she says, the empowerment of women is so important throughout the economy and through leadership through these offices, because we don't value women in society, and that's just the fact. And it's not just, you know, I feel exposed because I'm tearing up because I'm not like a man. No, how about I'm tearing up because I'm so angry and frustrated, and my emotional intelligence is going to make this company succeed.

You know, if it wasn't Lehman brothers, but Lehman's sisters, we might not have had the financial collapse. That's, that's not, I like the point about female empowerment, that's not why. we had the financial collapse. I'm not saying that she definitely thinks that that would have changed it, but that's not what would have changed it. I think she was making a rhetorical point, but I hear you. I think it's, I think it is far too dangerous ground to make some sort of rhetorical

point. When we really care what a New York senator thinks about Wall Street. Well, she's going to have, again, she's definitely going to have to explain it. I mean, she's going to have to say, you know, do you want to strengthen Dodd-Frank, repeal it, Glass-Degel, what are your thoughts on this? And I'm sure she's spoken about it before, and there's a voting record on it, but will, those are going to be, those are some of the things she is going to have to get passed, but she is clearly also going to be, if she makes it through the first couple

of rounds, whatever that means, whatever, some people are going to drop out before there's any debate at all. But if she makes it, if she passes an initial vetting test, then pretty clearly she's going to be, you know, the mainstream, definitely. Democratic establishment is, I think, probably quite prepared to embrace Kirsten Gillibrae. Yeah, which is probably another market answer. And I do want to just say a slightly more general point. I know there are probably people watching this that Liker and are already prepared a supporter.

I haven't made any endorsement, I hope that I don't have to make any endorsement for quite a while. I want to see the process go through. I want to see, again, what people say, what people actually do, the votes that they hold, the legislation they suggest, all of that. But along the way, it is our job and our responsibility. to vet these people and to make clear all of the potential negatives that they have. This is not intended to set her on fire.

This is intended to educate the audience about some of the things that she has said and done in her career. And whether you are a fan of her already or not, you should be willing to embrace that. If you can't hear criticisms- If you've already made up your mind, sorry to interrupt you, but if you've already made up your mind, then you're not politicking correctly, right? And just don't be so quick to either support someone or write someone off, right? I think that, I don't know, there's just all this pressure.

I mean, I feel the pressure from some of our audience members, certainly not all, about like, what do you think? What do you think? Do you support her? Do you support this person? What do you think? I don't know. It's 2019.

We just, just rang in the new year, like just give us an opportunity to really analyze voting records, campaign contributions, who these people are meeting with, what kind of speeches they're giving, how they've changed their opinions or their political positions, or Are those changes genuine or were they strategic, politically speaking? I don't know. We're kind of trying to digest everything as it comes in. And so look, I find Gillibrand's close ties with Wall Street extremely problematic. That's my view on, that's my view on Gillibrand as it stands today.

But with that said, who are the other candidates and how do they, you know, size up against Gillibrand? We need to wait and see. If I had to vote for someone today, I don't think I would have casted my vote for her in the primaries, but I don't know, like let's wait and see what's going to happen. The biggest issue to me, and I think you guys will agree that it's at least a big issue, is that what if she is the nominee, right? So how much after our rather unpleasant experience in 2016?

You know where I stand on this. No, no, I know, but as a people, I don't mean about the three of us, I mean as humanity, as progressives, as liberals, as Democrats, as all of these things, how much do you vilify those running against the candidates that you like when there is a chance that those people might win? I think, first of all, I think that responsible people don't vilify. They discuss the pros and cons we're doing here. I'm not trying to make her any kind of villain.

No, you're not, definitely not. But we know also that the subtext of this is that there was plenty of vilification going on. Bernie was certainly vilified, but nobody would argue he's already being vilified. Sure, sure, but nobody got vilified more than Hillary. No one, right, you might hate her, but she definitely got vilified. And that left, that aided, that played a role in her being damaged. The notion that she lost just because she didn't go to Wisconsin and Michigan and the other one, Pennsylvania, yeah, she didn't, she should have, and she took money from the banks and

never explained it, you know, and was Hillary Clinton. And what happened with the DNC? I think that that was also huge. I will say I believe in rigorous primaries. Yeah. That's what I believe in. I agree too. And I don't think, I think that they are net benefits, not net benefits.

I agree. The backdrop is in a world where the loudest voices make a lot of noise, obviously, because they're loud, Ben. That's how noise works. That's the mechanics of noise. That I merely encourage not people to take an article that's negative about Beto O'Rourke and slam the person who wrote it and crumpled it up and throw it in the trash league. It never existed. Same with Kirsten Gillibrand, but just to keep in mind that she might win and to keep that in mind going forward as.

And then if you're comfortable with being, I have no beef with Vigorous. I have a big beef with vilification, the two vs. Don't make any, don't make any memes of her behind bars just yet. Right, just hold on on the memes behind bars, yeah. I think it's a bit presumptuous to think she'll be able get past Lincoln Chafee, but I get what you're saying, she can be the candidate, I don't know. Okay, we got to take a break. Yes, we do.

So let's do that. When we come back, the Tulsi Gabbard story that I was promising you, we're going to take a look at her foreign policy record, some of the interviews that she's had in the past, and whether or not she's really as anti, you know, intervening in other wars as we would believe. Lots of details on that story. Come right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Jan Yugar, and I'll see you soon.