The Young Turks - Nice to AOC You

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

Mitch McConnell opposes the voting measure sought by Joe Manchin. The GOP filibusters a paycheck fairness bill that would help close the gender pay gap, while Manchin declares, “I am disappointed the Senate was unable to pass this much needed legislation.” Lindsey Graham says his family members aren’t working because of unemployment benefits. Peru elections: Fujimori’s fraud claims criticized as rival’s narrow lead widens. A Pennsylvania man pulled a scam impersonating Trump family members to promote himself and collect donations from Trumpers – now he’s facing charges. White House ‘perplexed’ by Kamala Harris performance on first foreign policy trip. Biden’s DOJ has declared they can vigorously defend Christian schools’ right to discriminate against LGBTQ students while still receiving federal funds. Biden’s Justice Department seeks to defend Trump in suit over rape denial. A professor shared a video of cops’ strip searching a black teen – now he faces jail. Louie Gohmert asks if the Bureau of Land Management or the Forest Service can change the rotation of the moon or sun. Hosts: Ana Kasparian  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. Colgate Total is more than just your favorite toothpaste. It's dedicated to advancing oral health. The new Colgate Total Active Prevention System features a reformulated toothpaste, innovative toothbrush, and a refreshing anti-bacterial mouthwash. All designed to work together to fight the root cause of common oral health issues, such as gingivitis, Plac and tartar.

Use the full routine twice daily and be dentist ready. Shop the Colgate Total Active Prevention System now at walmart.ca. Welcome to the Young Turks. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian, and we have a phenomenal show prepared for you all today. Diversity of topics, we're going to talk a little bit about the election results in Peru later in the show. John Iderola will join in for hour two of the program where he will tell the American people that, yes, cookies for Anna. Cookies for everyone in the office. He brought in cookies. So in essence, he's saying, yes, cookies for you. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to the second hour. I wish I could say that we had some more light and fun stories. in the rundown today, but there's just too many substantive stories that I would feel guilty

not sharing with you all. So I promise you it'll be entertaining, but more importantly, it'll be informative. And I hope you come away from today's show, feeling a little smarter about what's happening, not just here in the United States, but around the world. With that said, I do want to encourage you guys to like and share the stream. We want some live viewers. We want to hear your comments. We want to read your super chats. So after you share, and like this stream, please feel free to share your comments with us through YouTube super chats or through your members' comments. And as always, you can become a member by clicking on that join button if you're watching us on YouTube right now or by going to t.yt.com

slash join. Our bonus episode today will be lit. I finally found probably the one and only vaccine incentive other than keeping yourself safe that I'm in favor of. So we'll discuss that in the bonus episode, don't miss it. All right, without further ado, let's get to our first story. HR1 stands up against lobbyists and dark money. And I would reckon to think that this is probably just as much a part of Joe Manchin's calculus than anything else. Because when it comes to this bipartisan argument, I got to tell you, I don't buy it. What I love seeing is progressive lawmakers who have finally, finally gotten comfortable enough to speak out against members of their own party, including conservative members of their own party like Senator Joe Manchin, who has

served as an obstacle in passing incredibly important legislation, including robust election reform, Joe Biden's infrastructure bill, and the American Families Plan. Now, of course, he doesn't want to do away with the Senate filibuster, which requires 60 senators to vote in favor of any piece of legislation in order for it to pass. And so AOC is essentially calling Manchin out for his nonsense hollow argument about how he's just doing this because he wants unity in the government. He wants bipartisanship. Well, AOC isn't buying it. Take a look. Joe Manchin has voted for bills that have not been bipartisan before. Look at the American Rescue Plan. So this is not just about bipartisanship. This is, I think,

Because you look at the Koch brothers and you look at organizations like the Heritage Foundation and conservative lobby groups that are doing a victory lap, claiming victory over the fact that mansion refuses to change on the filibuster. And I think that these two things are very closely intertwined. And I think that there's a desire to make this just about protecting the franchise, but protecting our democracy. is also about making sure that we give lobbyists and dark money groups which are funding these attacks on the right to vote. The boot. But, you know, corporate money has a very, very tight grip on both parties. And I think that that has part to, I think that has to do with the calculus in this situation that people aren't really discussing enough. All right. So let's decode that a little bit because what she's specifically referring to is Manson's refusal to co-sponsor the for the

People Act. That's the election reform bill that's already passed in the House, and now unfortunately it's stalled in the Senate as a result of the legislative filibuster and the refusal of Senator Joe Manchin to co-sponsor. In fact, he's the only Democratic lawmaker in the Senate who has refused to co-sponsor it, and he argues that the reason why he doesn't want to support that particular bill is because it's a bill that seems to be far too partisan in favor of the Democrats. When in reality, the only thing that this bill does, and it's important, is reform our elections to ensure that all eligible voters are able to access their right to vote without all of these obstacles that are being put in place intentionally by various states like Georgia and Texas

and Florida. The other thing is, and this is the important part that AOC is, specifically touching on, it reforms the elections by getting money out of politics and ensuring that we do something about dark money, ensuring that there's more transparency in the system, and we know exactly who's funding what. As Jane Mayor recently reported in The New Yorker, these coke-backed organizations are already lobbying heavily with Republican lawmakers in the Senate in order to defeat this bill. And Manchin is saying that, you know, the reason why he's against the bill is because it's just, it's not bipartisan enough. And so he put forward his own version of an election reform bill that is far more narrow and certainly does nothing about money in

politics, does nothing about ensuring that there's transparency in regard to dark money. And it's because he has the same corporate interest, the same reporting from Jane Mayor indicated that these coke-backed organizations have been in talks with Joe Manchin as well. So I love the fact that we have progressive members in Congress now feeling confident enough to speak out and call this situation what it is. This is about corruption, it's not about bipartisanship. In fact, if you take a look at polling out of West Virginia on this very issue, you'll see that the majority of West Virginians, including Republican voters, are in favor of the

For the People Act, specifically because it does away with money in politics. So just to give you some of these details, polls found that 79% of West Virginia voters support the For the People Act, 76% of Republicans and 79% of independents or unaffiliated voters in the state support the Further People Act. So it's important to know just how popular that legislation is because really the desire to get money out of politics is a bipartisan issue. Both Democratic and Republican voters certainly do want to do away with that corrupt Now, AOC isn't the only progressive who's speaking out against Joe Manchin.

I do want to tell you about an upcoming event that you can take part in if you happen to be in West Virginia. So the poor people's campaign is planning to hold a moral Monday demonstration in West Virginia. Of course, this is Mansion's home state. And as Reverend Dr. William Barber writes on Twitter, the poor people's campaign is announcing today that on Monday, June 14th, we will hold a moral march on Mansion in West Virginia, led by West Virginians of all colors, creeds, et cetera, from the hood to the haulers. In fact, he's essentially telling Joe Manchin, I'm coming to your house. And he also says in a recent interview, it's time to march on his office. It's time for people of all differences to stand together against him. We call it

from the haulers in the mountains to the hood. So please look into the details of this event, and attend, if you're in West Virginia, obviously there's power in numbers, and we certainly want to do what we can to hold Mansion accountable for his lack of action. Now, Mansion's substitute for the For the People Act is known as the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. As Huffington Post reports, Mansion wants Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, another Democratic measure that is backed by Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. That legislation named after the late civil rights legend and representative John Lewis from Georgia is more narrowly tailored. And I explained a little bit of how it's narrowly tailored. It certainly does a way with the

provisions that would tackle money in politics and corruption in our political system. Now remember, Mansion says, you know, I want to put forward a substitute bill because I want bipartisanship. I want to work with these Republicans. They want to work with us. I just know it, I know it. But do they? Here's Mitch McConnell in a very recent press conference saying otherwise. Well, as the majority leader said, the voting rights bill is intact. The law extends well into the future. What this rewrite of it does is grant to the Justice Department almost total ability to determine the voting systems of every state in America, which they're trying to do directly through H.R.1, they would try to achieve indirectly through this rewrite

of the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court did not strike down the Voting Rights Act. It's still the law. What they struck down was the preclearance part of it that applied only to the southern part of the United States because the Supreme Court concluded the conditions that existed in 1965 no longer existed. So there's no threat to the voting rights law. It's against the law to discriminate in voting on the base of race already. And so I think it's unnecessary. Now it's obviously very possible for the Supreme Court to, you know, misread the current political climate in the country and the fact that the conditions actually haven't really changed that much in regard to various red states wanting to make it far more

difficult for certain voters to go to the polls. As we know through legislation that was just passed in the state of Georgia, which limits ballot boxes, for instance, in urban parts of the state while expanding ballot boxes and rural parts of the state. Gee, I wonder which voters that impacts. And of course, the areas that are impacted the most in terms of limiting accessibility to voting happen to be predominantly African American parts of the state. So obviously Mitch McConnell is lying, but that's not any type of surprise if you've watched this show and we've provided evidence of how often he lies on a regular basis. But I do also want to just push back against this notion that what the Supreme Court did

through their ruling in 2013, did not repeal the Voting Rights Act. But here's the truth, it repealed the most important part of the Voting Rights Act. And that most important part ensured that if states like Georgia want to restrict voting or suppress the vote for certain demographics, well, they would need to go to the federal government and basically get permission before they change the law in that regard to ensure that racist election laws aren't being passed in these various states. Clearly, repealing that was incredibly disastrous. That's what paved the way for Georgia to be able to do what it did in signing their recent

election laws. And so it is important to pass legislation. But my point here isn't, hey, let's try to just concede to whatever mansion wants. No, mansion's narrow bill, what wasn't even really a concession to Republicans, because Republicans don't even want it. They don't want to reform the elections. They might cry about elections. They might claim that voter fraud is an issue or a problem. But when it comes to actual robust legislation through the For the People Act, which of course includes election security as well, they vote against it. They vote against Mansions, a slimmer version of it.

Because at the end of the day, this isn't about bipartisanship. This isn't about trying to play nice with Republicans in the hopes that, you know, these lawmakers can work together. This is about Mansion, as AOC said, protecting his own corporate interests and protecting the fact that he gets dark money himself and he doesn't want that process to stop. He loves that corruption. He wants to keep it in place. And so don't let him lie to you or to the American people overall about what actually drives and motivates his decisions here. All right. Well, let's move on to a different story. And this is yet another example of how toxic and undemocratic this legislative filibuster in the Senate is. Let's talk about the

Paycheck Fairness Act. Republican senators succeeded once again in using the legislative filibuster to block the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act. Now, the legislative filibuster would require, of course, 60 senators to vote in favor of any piece of legislation, which is incredibly difficult to do when the Senate has a 50-50 split among Democrats and Republicans. Kamala Harris serves as the tie-breaking vote. Now, if you're wondering what the overall vote was on this particular issue, senators voted 49 to 50 to try to advance the legislation, falling short of the 60 votes needed to overcome the procedural hurdle, meaning the legislative filibuster. Now, if you're wondering why there weren't 50 Democrats voting in favor of the Paycheck

Fairness Act, it's because Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, didn't show. We don't know why. I think it's incredibly strange that she didn't show, considering the fact that she has championed issues pertaining to equality for women. But she just decided not to show. And if we're going to hold Kirsten Cinema accountable for her inability to show up to work, to do her job, I think that it's fair to call out Gillibrand for doing the same, although I would argue it might even be worse in this case because she's not carrying out actions that go along with what her messaging has been in regard to equality in the workplace. Now, for those of you who are wondering, what are the provisions in this legislation that just got defeated through the legislative filibuster? It's not just about ensuring there's a quality and pay based on gender and all of that. It actually has important provisions that affects every single one of us.

For instance, the bill would limit employers to bona fide factors such as education, training, and experience when justifying pay differentials in wage discrimination claims. As Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat said, and I think this is exactly right, right now an employer can brush aside reports of paid discrimination. discrimination by saying things like, well, he was a better negotiator, or they work in different buildings. And then she says, I mean, what does that have to do with it? And that's exactly right. Now here's the other part of the legislation that's important. Employers would also be prohibited from retaliating against workers who compare salaries and barred from inquiring about prospective employees' salary histories during the hiring process. Okay, so let's stop right there.

First off, having the ability to speak with your colleagues, speak with your coworkers about what you're getting paid is an important one to protect, because that's how you find out whether or not there's an unfair pay situation taking place. Now, the second half of that is about salary histories, which is also important. Think about how many millennials graduated into a disastrous economic situation, were unable to find work after graduating from college, and unfortunately were forced to take jobs that paid them far less than what they should have been making. Because of the system we have in place now where potential employers look at your salary history to make a decision about what you get paid, that unfortunately and unnaturally keeps the, to pay for people low based on what their starting salary was at their first job out of college. We need to do away with that system, it is not the right system to function under, and it clearly

keeps salaries and wages low, thus benefiting employers and putting employees at a giant disadvantage. Now, I also want to talk a little bit about Senator Mitch McConnell, because while Senator Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat, believes that, you know, he could definitely work with with his Republican colleagues on passing legislation that matters to the Democratic base. I do want you to listen to the rhetoric coming from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who was so offended that this legislation even came up, that he claims that the very nature of it coming up on the Senate floor is a sign that there can't be bipartisanship. Watch.

If you look to what the majority leader has in mind for June, it's pretty clear the era of bipartisanship is over. The majority leader is starting with the so-called paycheck fairness bill late this afternoon, which is essentially a give away to the plaintiff's lawyers in America. A series of totally partisan bills designed to get no Republican support. So it looks to me like the majority leaders decided that June is kind of the check the box month with all of the extreme left wing provisions. There was no age of bipartisanship during the Biden administration. We certainly didn't see that during the Trump administration. Are you kidding me? You think you think GOP lawmakers had any interest in what Democrats had to say?

Certainly in the first two years of Trump's administration, they didn't care. at all. And so look, obviously we know that Joe Manchin is not being honest in citing bipartisanship for, you know, his reasoning behind rejecting the, you know, the calls to end the Senate filibuster, the calls to at least reform the Senate filibuster. We know he's full of it. But I do want to just read a quick comment from one of our members, Ecclectic Michelania, who writes in quite often, And he makes a really good point here. It depends on how you define bipartisanship. Mansion's not bipartisan about what voters want.

And as you guys know, the majority of voters, even in a state like West Virginia, want to pass things like the for the people act, which is robust election reform. Elected Michelinia continues to write, you know, mansion's not bipartisan about what voters want, but what elected officials want. And this is important to keep in mind, guys. I know we focus quite a bit on mansion. But here's the reality. TYT reported the other day that centrist Democrats are reportedly happy because Mansion is taking the fall for them on a lot of issues they don't want to vote for anyway. Washington Post actually reported on that.

There's as many as 10 Senate Democrats who are against important pieces of legislation that they don't have the guts to speak out against publicly because they know it's popular legislation that their own base will retaliate against them on. Now, we know about Mansion, we know about cinema, but there is a problem, there is a virus that affects every single member, well, almost every single member of Congress, and that's money in politics. The fact that we're dealing with corporate Democrats who have similar corporate donors as Republicans essentially leads us to a situation where on big issues that Americans want to see change on, both parties appear to be very similar, right? When it comes to issues pertaining to the economy, foreign policy, those types of issues, again and again, we see very similar outcomes from Democrats and Republicans. And part of the reason why is because we see that dark money.

We see that money in politics corrupting their decision making and obviously influencing what they are and are not willing to fight for as they claim to represent the best interests of Americans. We know that they don't. We know what the reality is and we have to be hyper focused on the real motivations behind these corporate Democrats. We can't fall victim to what they want us to be distracted by, right? You see culture war narratives on the right. Democrats have their own version of that. They love to pay lip service to disenfranchised groups of people in this country.

But they are unwilling to do anything to actually improve the lives of these groups of people. It's all rhetorical nonsense, don't get distracted by it, let's keep it real. They want us to focus on that as opposed to the fact that they're not really serving our best interest and they're not fighting for the very policies that they campaigned on. All right, we got to take a break when we come back. We have more news for you all, including, let's see, what do I have next for you? Look at my papers. We're going to talk about Lindsey Graham throwing his own family members under the bus just so he can shill

for anti-unemployment benefit goons. We've got that and more for you when we come back. Hey everyone, welcome to our first social break of today's show. I'm really excited about what TYT is doing through its membership program. So we've been thinking a lot about what we can do to organize people. Clearly there is, I think that labor unions are one of the most important things to focus on in terms of building power and organizing. because once you can do a general strike, I think you have a lot of power, especially because you're,

you know, jeopardizing the capital of the very people who tend to run this country. But since it's so difficult to accomplish that in the short term, what we're trying to do through our member program is find a way to organize and find a way to get our viewers together in order to accomplish very specific goals, right? So we're going to work together and figure out what those goals are moving forward. But if you want to learn more about that, just go to t-y-t.com slash change. That's t-y-t.com slash change. To be part of this, you have to be a member. And so if you've already joined and you're already supporting us through membership, thank you so, so much. You're wonderful and you certainly can be part of this organizing

effort that we're doing. But if you're not a member, you can do this. You just have to become one. And not only do you get all sorts of perks and benefits for being a member, you keep the show sustainable, you keep it independent, and you can be part of what we're trying to do in changing this country for the better. Also, some programming notes for you all. After the bonus episode tonight, please enjoy Happy Half Hour, which is hosted by Brett Erlich on our Twitch channel. So you can tune in at 8.30 p.m. Eastern time, 5.30 p.m. Pacific, channel and that's at twitch.tv slash t yt also we're having a june tth special which i'm really looking forward to watching i will be on it but a lot of wonderful guests and hosts will be on it

it's our third annual june teeth special and you can join rashad ritchie jason carter bridget todd kenya evelyn and many more on june 18th that's friday june 18th at 8 p.m. Eastern time 5 p.m. Pacific and Benjamin Dixon is hosting the first hour. J.R. Jackson will be hosting the second hour of that special. Please make sure you check in and watch live. All right, let me read a few comments before we go back to the show. Gabby Marita says solo salt queen Anna is my favorite format of TYT, especially when John is on the second hour. I got to say, I've really been enjoying Wednesday's show because sometimes I just want to be able to present an argument and move on. You know what I mean? Wouldn't want to do it every day, but I do really enjoy Wednesday's show.

So thank you for that kind note. Also, sexy speed racer says, is Mansions version called the for the corrupt? I'm sorry, for the corporate donor class act. If not, it should be. Totally agree. And Jay Brown says, so if the age of bipartisanship is over, then we can get rid of the filibuster. You get it. You totally get it. Now let's get back to the show. Welcome back to TYT. I'm Anna Casparian and please like and share this stream. We want to get as many eyeballs watching the live stream as possible. So we can spread our message and also get some more interaction from you all. In our next social break if you're watching online, I'll read some of your super chat,

questions and comments and we're gonna have a good time guys. That's what we do here, we have a good time. All right, well let's get to our next story because Lindsey Graham is, I wouldn't want to want him in my family, and I'm pretty sure members of his family feel the same way today. Republican lawmakers are still looking out for corporate interests and pushing this idea that unemployment benefits that were part of the coronavirus relief package need to end prematurely in order to ensure that American workers are so desperate, so desperate, that they have no choice but to take low-paying jobs that pay them a starvation wage.

Now, Senator Lindsey Graham is certainly part of that effort. And during a recent hearing with the Senate Budget Committee, he asked the acting chair of the Office of Management and Budget some questions about what should be done about the extra $300 a week in unemployment benefits that are being provided to laid off workers during the coronavirus pandemic. A bunch of states are basically canceling the federal unemployment benefit for their state because they believe it hinders the ability to hire people back as the economy reemerges from the COVID pandemic. Their belief is that the enhanced unemployment benefit is deterring people from re-entering into the workforce. There's a lot of jobs out there that are unfilled and will never be filled until you change the benefit structure. Does that logic make sense to you, given where we're at in our economy?

I understand the logic, but I've also not met Americans who would prefer not to work. There's a dignity to work in this country that most Americans. Well, I got a lot of people in my family that ain't working because they're getting. I'll show you some in my family. Willing to throw members of his own, I mean, look, I don't know if he's telling the truth or if he's just saying that to bolster his ridiculous argument. But the fact that he's willing to throw family members under the bus by essentially referring to them as like these lazy bums gives you all that you need to know about who Lindsay Graham really is

as a person. Now, if you look at the actual reality of the situation, and we've talked about this so many times that I feel like I've been so repetitive on this issue, the 300 $100 a week in federal unemployment benefits is not the leading cause of why people are not going back to work. Okay, first off, I do find it fascinating that Republican lawmakers and some corporate Democrats as well are calling into question these, you know, unemployment benefits under this. And by the way, it's not this ends in September. This is not an indefinite program to help add additional funds to the state unemployment programs. This is a temporary program that was put in place by Biden's coronavirus relief package in order to ensure that Americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own have the ability to pay their rent, to provide food on the table for their families, to be able to take care of what they need to take care of as the economy gets back up and running. But Republicans have been attacking it from day one, they don't want to encourage corporations to maybe pay their workers more, to encourage them to come back to work.

But more importantly, if employees are being contacted by their employers to come back to work and they say, no, I'm not interested, I'm more interested in sitting back and collecting unemployment, guess what happens? They lose their unemployment benefits. Every person collecting unemployment benefits right now has to make it clear that they're currently looking for work. And again, if their former employer who laid them off as a result of the pandemic is reaching out to them and saying, hey, we're ready for you to come back to work and they say, no, they lose the benefits. No one ever mentions that. Certainly Republicans don't ever mention that. But I think that's an important point to keep in mind. Also, Graham and Republican lawmakers like him don't want to fund anything that seems to help ordinary Americans.

Now, they might use these rhetorical tricks to make it seem as though they're populace and they're looking out for workers. But in reality, when push comes to shove, any time there's even a discussion about providing additional funding for workers for ordinary Americans as a result or as opposed to providing funding for workers. corporate welfare, they're against it. But there is one thing that Lindsay Graham is always in favor of increasing funds for. And of course, it has to do with the military, the defense department. This was his follow-up question during the exact same hearing. Watch. On the defense side, how do you see the world right now in terms of threats that the United States and our allies face, is it small, large medium? Well, I'm not a, you know, a national security expert. It's clear the world remains a complex

place with a lot of dangerous players. I think General Matt has said it best. A reduction there means he has to buy more bullet. So what you all, what you see when you don't see the defense numbers where you want them is a reinvestment in our diplomacy, making sure that this complex environment, this complex world we live in, is not all handled militarily. I couldn't agree with you more. I'll end on this, Mr. Chairman. The President's budget, I think, ups the Foreign Ops subcommittee, I think, is $62 billion. That's still less than 1%. Count men for more spending on soft power. It does make sense. But it is by no means a substitute for having a robust military with a qualitative advantage.

In his recent proposed budget, Biden gave the Defense Department what they asked for. Now, obviously, that proposal needs to be approved by Congress. And when it comes to the military budget, there's never any real debate about whether or not it passes. But again, in the exact same hearing, I mean, Lindsay Graham goes from these unemployment benefits, not good, not good. And, you know, he doesn't like the federal government spending. money on ordinary Americans. That's what this is really about. And also, he wants to ensure his corporate donors are happy by ensuring that Americans are so desperate that they'll literally take starvation wages to go back to work. But when it comes to government spending on the military,

there is no number that's considered too high for Lindsey Graham. Let's do a little bit of a comparison here, because I think that's important. So as I mentioned earlier, the unemployment benefits through the American rescue plan that was passed by the Biden administration is a temporary program. It ends in September. So this is not a yearly thing. It's not an annual thing like the defense budget is. Now, in terms of the defense budget, the Biden-Harris administration submitted to Congress, the president's fiscal year 2022 budget request of $752.9 billion for national defense, 750, 715 billion of which is for the Department of Defense. All right, so that's quite a bit of money, right?

And this is an annual spending bill that unfortunately gets approved every single time with no real debate. But when it comes to this one time appropriation of funds for unemployment benefits, Are we anywhere near $700 billion? No. The relief package included $206 billion for unemployment benefits, a one-time appropriation because of the coronavirus pandemic. They got a nickel and dime you guys like crazy because you're not worth it.

You're not worth it to them. I mean, we heard Reagan's former economic advisor literally say that. to the American people on national television during a Fox News interview. Laffer said this, that the poor don't deserve $15 an hour. You think that Laffer's the only one who has that kind of mentality? No, corporate goons, including corporate executives and corporate Democrats and Republicans feel the same way. There's no other way to slice it. That's what the reality of the situation is. But when it comes to bombs, when it comes to weaponry, when it comes to, when it comes to,

to destabilizing other countries with our nonsense and our business interests, there's no amount that's high enough. No amount that's high enough. That's Lindsey Graham for you. So anytime you hear these goons pretend as if they care about working Americans, just understand that they don't think you're worth it. They don't think you're worth even $15 an hour, which at this point isn't even a living wage in most parts of the country. Let's take our second break. When we come back, we'll discuss some international news and some Trump-related scamming and how the two-tier justice system certainly plays a role in people who do get prosecuted and those who don't.

Come right back. Hey, everyone, welcome to our social break. I'm going to move over to our super chat section, beginning with Peter Hamby, who says, look, I love AOC to death. But decaf, Joe Manchin, Marjorie Taylor, scream, Ted Cruz. the wrong way, Kirsten's cinema, it's in one ear and out the other. I hear what you're saying, but I do think that it's important to change the narrative, right? Because what have we been hearing from mainstream media in regard to Manson's behavior? Oh, he just wants bipartisanship.

And so it is important to have someone with as much of a following as AOC, specifically changing that narrative and calling out what the actual influencing factors are. And look, I don't think that's the only thing they should do, I think it's a good start. Certainly when you consider what they were doing before, which really look like nothing. So there's that, we have angered dragon who says primary mansion and cinema, definitely. I got to look up when they're up for reelection, but the last time I checked, it seemed like it was kind of far away. away, but definitely. I mean, primaring is certainly one tactic, but as I've always said, electoral politics is like half the equation, if that, it is important for people to organize.

And it's important to honestly find ways to challenge these corporations where it hurts, right? Like once you start jeopardizing their profitability through organizing, I think that's when you can actually accomplish real change. And by the way, we're trying to find ways to organize amongst our members, and you can learn more about that by going to t.yt.com slash change. And then Mary Hunt says, please, we need some good news. Ask John. And now, Anna, please talk about San Antonio City Council election this past weekend.

I am not prepared to talk about that right now, obviously, so I will look into that for you and we'll discuss it on a later show. So moving over to our Twitch subs, we have Osborne, 14 months tier one with a comment. A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand. I'm a big fan of cookies. Joe's 64 says, just happy to be part of the TYT family. Thanks for what you do. Also seven months prime.

Thank you for your support. Music Mandu, two months prime with truth and real news using my Bezos bucks with a thumbs up emoji. Love it. Thank you. And we have Oddstorms, six months tier one. Joe Manchin wants bipartisanship. He's willing to work with Democrats, right? All right, we have Flacco, who writes in and says six months of Bezos bucks,

suck it Bezos, six months prime. And we have tell me what to put who gifted a sub, Elder Mind Pulse who gifted 15 subs, Little Mac Mick G gifted 14 subs, and True Guwabi, gifted five subs. I hope I didn't butcher your handle or your name. But thank you so much for the subs. We really, really appreciate your support, everyone. All right, we have a little more time, so I'll read one more comment from our member section. Madame Rochelle says, to be completely fair, maybe Lindsey Graham is right about some members of his family not willing to work. It's not like you really have to if you are rich and able to live on the stock market or anything. Yeah, good point.

Let's get back to the show. Welcome back to TYT, Anna Casparian with you. Please like and share the stream. It's one of the easiest ways to help support TYT and our progressive message. With that said, let's get to some international news out of Peru. The Peruvian presidential election continues to be a contentious one. Now, it hasn't been officially called as of yet. We, as we're talking about it now, who knows by the time this video is published. But there is some good news because the leftist teacher, Pedro Castillo, is holding on

to a narrow lead over the pro business right wing candidate, Kiko Fuhimora, or Fuhimori. Now Fuhimori is contesting ballots, as many as 300,000 ballots. And so her allegations of inconsistencies and potential voter fraud have been uncorroborated. But this election is really fascinating because you couldn't have candidates who are more different from one another. You have one socialist candidate, a primary school teacher who wants to nationalize parts of the country to ensure that the natural resources of Peru actually go to benefit the Peruvian people. And of course, that's Castillo, who is far more popular with rural and indigenous voters

in Peru. And then with Fuhimori, well, she has an interesting pass to say the least. This is now the third time that she's run for president. He's obviously lost the last two times, and her father served time in prison recently because of corruption and his role in using death squads to murder people. So, I mean, I think you guys can guess which candidate I would prefer if I were living in Peru. Now, with more than 97% of the official vote counted, the hard left candidate, Pedro Castillo, holds a razor thin lead of about 0.4% over his far right opponent, Fuhimori, an advantage of about 70,000 votes.

As I mentioned, Fuhimori is contesting 300,000 ballots, but is there any likelihood that she could basically reverse the results of this election through her protests of how the election was conducted? Now, Fuhi Mori has alleged fraud and irregularities in the count of Sunday's election. She accused Castillo's party, Peru Libre, of using a strategy to distort and delay the results which reflect the popular will by challenging ballot tallies that she alleged had favored her party. Now, the votes coming in from the rural parts of Peru came in later. And so it looks like she's using a little bit of a Trumpian tactic here where she's like, I had the lead and then all of a sudden that lead turned to me losing by a very slim margin. So she's contesting the results. And it could be weeks until we know what the official result of the election is.

But here is there is some good news, right? So I'm always a little concerned about how the United States weighs it on these types of issues. And so an inter-American observer mission did not report any irregularities and said the ballot passed off correctly complying with international standards. You have no idea how much a relief, how much of a relief that really is honestly. Once you hear anything coming from, you know, the international community, especially like Western governments, about irregularities in response to a leftist winning an election, you should be concerned, but it doesn't appear that that's going to be the case here.

Now, a political science professor in Lima argues that they have been talking about fraud because they don't want to respect the result. And of course, he's referring to Fuhimori and her political party. And Castillo agrees with that, saying we should be respectful of the people's will. I will be the first to make sure the will of the Peruvian people is being respected. And to give you a little sense of who Castillo is, what he's advocating for as a potential president of Peru, take a look at this video. Peruvians do not trust their politicians anymore.

This is a fact. They want change. And to a lot of them, Pedro Castillo is change. He's not a professional politician. He's a primary school teacher. And to a lot of people, he is changed. but to the other half of the population, he's dangerous. So it's still impossible to know what's going to happen.

Yeah, let's listen to Pedro Castillo, changing the constitution, nationalizing natural resources, two of the pillars that he spelled out on the campaign trail. We ratify that within the framework of a new constitution, we rescue Peru's strategic resources. The camisie gas should be for Peruvians. We must nationalize the Camusie gas project, the gold, the silver, the uranium, the copper, the lithium that have just been handed over to other countries it has to be for Peruvians. And I think he's right.

I think that, you know, private interests, business interests from other countries coming in and taking advantage of the natural resources of Latin American countries is a huge problem. And so to see him speak out against that, I think, is appealing to some. However, the private media has been pretty vicious toward him, spreading all sorts of disinformation regarding how Castillo's leadership will lead to a situation in which Peru will mirror that of Venezuela, they're their fearmongering about Cuba. And so that might have persuaded some Peruvians to vote in favor of Fujimori, his opponent. But I do want to read this comment in our member section from perpendicular time, because This comment is accurate and I'm grateful that this perspective is being shared.

By the way, you can become a member by going to t.yt.com slash join. Permanicular time writes, saying death squads doesn't quite explain her father's history. Politics she shares as part of her family's political dynasty. Fujimori was a dictator whose death squads were organized for the genocide of indigenous people. So thank you for that comment and that clarification is an important one. You're right about that. So, you know, we'll see how this turns out. You know, Fujimori has faced some serious accusations herself.

For instance, she has also racked up accusations of graft, accused of receiving more than $17 million in illegal campaign funds and heading a criminal organization and could face a 30-year jail term if convicted. She denies the allegations, which she describes as politically motivated. But, you know, Peru had, like, look, we know what happened with her father. Peru also has a pretty terrible history with corruption. In fact, just late last year, the Martin Viscara, who was serving as the president, was basically ousted as a result of bribery allegations. He denies the bribery allegations. He and his supporters claim that he was targeted by members of Congress. over his focus of rooting out corruption.

So far, based on what I've read, there hasn't really been much corroborating evidence indicating that he did take bribes. But as I mentioned, the office of the presidency in Peru has been riddled with all sorts of problems. You know, Viscara's ouster late

and the inauguration of the interim president. His name was Manuel Marino amounted to a return of the political chaos chaos that has long riddled Peru where, you know, you've seen since the 1990s, presidents who have resigned, they've been indicted, they've been put in jail amid clouds of corruption. One former president even killed himself. So, you know, the country needs stability. I think that a focus on ensuring that the natural resources of the country actually benefit the people of the country is important. And so it looks as though the outcome of this election.

will be a positive one and we'll certainly fill you in as soon as we know the final details. But I do also want to note that the DSA has already congratulated Castillo. And I hope that he does secure this win because I think that he is the better of the two candidates for sure. All right, final story in the first hour before we move on to our second hour with John. A Pennsylvania man has been charged with fraud and identity theft after posing as Donald Trump and members of Donald Trump's family to defraud hundreds of Trump supporters. Now, the Trump campaign also engaged in quite a bit of scammy behavior, but when we're talking about a private citizen who has no power, you know that this system will drop the book at him. And they should. You shouldn't defraud people, you shouldn't steal identities. Now Joshua Hall is charged with fraud and identity theft after federal prosecutors said he misrepresented himself or others while soliciting funds for a purported Trump re-election organization that did not exist.

Instead, Hall used the funds raised thousands of dollars for his own personal living expenses. So what did he do exactly? There was actually a lot of hard work behind this. He created various social media accounts that later were able to accumulate as many as 100,000 followers. And when he created these accounts, he pretended to be various members of Trump's family, including, yes, even Baron Trump, Trump's youngest child. He pretended to be one of Trump's siblings, and he was soliciting donations from Trump supporters by posing as various members of Trump's families. He even created a fake political organization to raise the money and even got media attention for it, positive media attention for it. Now, Hall impersonated one of Trump's siblings, and that's who they're referring to with Victim 1 here.

Hall impersonating Victim 1 made a public social media post that falsely stated that victim 1 runs the fictitious political organization with Hall and that Josh is doing great work. So please give him a follow and support him. Now, Hall didn't just pretend to be one of Trump's siblings. As I mentioned earlier, he also pretended to be Baron Trump. And so in the official federal complaint, prosecutors write that Hall, impersonating victim two, made a public social media post that stated that Hall was victim two's friend, meaning Baron Trump's friend and partner, and that Josh is an amazing patriot who is doing tremendous things for our great country.

He has my complete and total endorsement with complete and total endorsement in all caps. Very Trump-like there, of course. And what I find fascinating about this is, yes, he should suffer the consequences, the legal consequences of defrauding people. No one should do it. I think when a group presents themselves as gullible, as Trump supporters have presented themselves, unfortunately they end up being a target for these types of scams. But what's also really interesting is how the two-tier justice system really does play a role in this particular case. Because while federal prosecutors are like all in, they're going after this guy.

They're like, all right, Joshua Hall, he's committing these crimes. We need to make sure we prosecute him. The Trump campaign engaged in all sorts of scams, and no one got prosecuted for that. So just to remind you all, Trump pretended to be raising money for the court battles pertaining to the 2020 general election. When in reality, the vast majority of that money that he was raising was going toward his own political action committee. So there's that. There was a disclaimer at the very bottom of those solicitous emails in fine, fine print saying that more than 80% of those funds would actually go to Trump's PAC. There was also the fact that he transferred a whopping $2.3 million of campaign funds to his private properties, which should maybe be investigated.

Seems like it might have broken a law there. But I also want to remind you of this. Trump tried to make up his deficit in funding by tricking his own supporters who thought they were donating once to then be suckered into donations that were double, triple, or over five times the original when they became monthly. The Trump campaign using this money bomb strategy to build people in the campaign's final weeks. And the campaign then spun those donations, which basically skirt the line of fraudulent inducement into a narrative of they claim public success. They even bragged they got a record $14 million in donations after the first so-called money bomb. The campaign was so desperate, it took the con to very blatant lengths, automatically rolling donors into weekly recurring donations, which ensured that way more MAGA fans would notice, and they did.

And they accused their beloved president of overseeing a fraudulent operation, which forced Trump and the RNC to refund over $122 million. So sad. So, so, so sad. You know, what can you expect from the law and order president? I mean, when he said law and order, he just meant law and order for people who have no power. But when it comes to following the laws himself, not really interested in that. which is why he's facing multiple investigations. But what's frustrating is that he's not facing investigations over his scammy behavior toward his own supporters. Joshua Hall is and he should.

Trump and his campaign goons, no, they can rip off their supporters. They can scam their own base and they seem to get away with it. Looks like the law doesn't apply equally at all, does it? All right, that does it for hour one. joining me for hour two is our very own John Iderola, host of the damage report, dragon daddy, the slayer of all dragons. You don't want to miss it. You don't want to miss it. So stick around. We'll be back in just a few minutes. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free,

access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.