The Young Turks - No Go-GETTR

Episode Date: July 3, 2021

Sha’Carri Richardson may miss the Olympics for a failed drug test. Eric Trump’s defense plan after the Trump Organization catches indictments: it was only $3.5 million we stole, and there are other crimes happening in NYC. Jason Miller’s GETTR site, dedicated to “fighting cancel culture, defending free speech, and creating a true marketplace of ideas” suspended Baked Alaska within hours of launch. Tucker Carlson told associates he voted for Kanye, not Trump. Boy Scouts of America is going to have to pay $850 million in a settlement over the sexual assault of tens of thousands of boys but plans to reemerge from bankruptcy soon. Hosts:  Hour 1: Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola, joined by Charles F. Coleman Jr. Hour 2: Cenk Uygur and Brett Erlich, joined by Helen Hong 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. Trimating, three-like-jee, three-lach-hry, three-lach-hs, three-a-h-d-d-thri-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-hri-h-h... All right, welcome the Young Turks, Jank. Ugar and John Ida are all over with you guys. We are going to drop it, but in the next segment, it's a twist, lots of twists on the

Young Turks, there you go. So let's just get right into it, let's do a story. Yeah, boom, with no further ado. No problem, I'm John, by the way, now I'm kidding, that's fine. We'll figure it out later, but we've got some important. important news. So let's do this. By the way, I did introduce you. Did you? Yeah. Okay, oh, I don't normally pay attention until you say, John, let's go. So I guess it's kind of on me. Anyway, okay. Oh, in that case, let's do the news, I guess. So by now,

you must know, unless you've been watching Fox News as your sole source of news, that the Trump organization as well as its CFO, Alan Weisselberg, are facing a number of different charges, basically alleging that for a decade and a half or so, it's been running a variety of variety of different little schemes to avoid having to pay taxes. And the prosecutors in New York have come up with 15 different felony counts. Prosecutors have zeroed in on the benefits that Weisselberg in particular and his family received from Trump, including tens of thousands of dollars in private school tuition for one of Weisselberg's grandchildren, you know, normal like company stuff, pay for the dude's grandchildren schooling, a rent-free apartment on the

upper west side of Manhattan and leased Mercedes Ben's vehicles. Weisselberg's wife also received her own leased Mercedes, which, you know, I think it's safe to say that we're in favor of robust benefits for workers, but this is probably going a little bit beyond that, and you're still supposed to pay taxes on that stuff. And Weisselberg, in response to these charges, has pleaded not guilty in an appearance in a Manhattan courtroom just yesterday afternoon. That includes a scheme to defraud, tax fraud, larceny, and conspiracy. The Trump organization also pleaded not guilty. The charges carry the potential for years in prison, although so far,

Wesselberg has shown little signs of cracking under the pressure. Although what does that even mean at this point? If he was cracking, if he was worried, it wouldn't be like live in the courtroom. He'd be talking to his lawyers, they'd be talking to the prosecutors, that's how that works. And of course, that is one of the key parts of this. You have these charges against Weisselberg, will he cooperate? And if he does, what kind of information can he provide about the Trump organization? Presumably, he knows virtually everything that's been going on there financially.

But we don't know yet if he's going to crack. Jenk, do you think that it is likely this will result in this, I think, 73 year old man who doesn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison cooperating? Yeah, so first of all, I just got to to agree with John on one hilarious point. He hasn't shown any signs of cracking because it's Perry Mason or Matlock by your choice, right? Where he's like, oh no, that's such a good question, I don't know what to do. Beat of sweat going down your brow.

He hasn't ever been in court or in public, how would you know what his psychological state is? And by the way, at this point, signs of cracking or not, there are no signs of cracking. You either do or you don't, we haven't started the trial, so you're either going to cooperate with prosecutors or you're not, so it's binary. So it's just an absurd way of framing things. Secondly, I can't wait for the kids' reactions, which we're gonna get to, okay? Like, we might have done it, but it's not that big a deal, is an awesome defense that we're gonna share it with you in a second.

But, you know, we talked yesterday on yesterday's show about, well, look, this is not the biggest charge that they could have gotten with. Obviously, there's the issue of them lying on their taxes while inflating their assets value when applying for loans. That juxtaposition could lead to two different charges and is a higher level charge than this, let alone the Stormy Daniels charges that Michael Cohen went to prison for and you can charge Trump with. But Trump's lawyer basically had the same reaction as Trump yesterday.

that we told you about. But for the lawyer to do it is even worse, I would argue, he said, oh, this is all they got? Wait, you're implicitly admitting that there's way worse, and you're shocked that they only charge you with these crimes that you think are low level. As the lawyer, I really wouldn't go in that direction. Now, guys, think about it this way. Like, if they haven't charged me where they think because I haven't done anything, presumably the same is true of you, right? If they charged you with tax evasion and larceny, which for Weisselberg, right? And you didn't do it, you'd be like, what the hell's going? I can't believe they charged me with this.

You wouldn't go, oh, that's all they got. Did you guys even look? Yeah. And if you said, oh, is that all you had? Yeah. The prosecutor presumably go, apparently we didn't dig deep enough. And here, the only question in terms of how this is. is all going to wind up to come back to your question, John, is, well, there's two layers

to it. One is, how clearly do they have him here? Because they're charging the thing that they think they have the most evidence on. That has got to be their strategy, right? At least to start with. And if they think, hey, you know what, you can go to prison for 15 years and you're 73 on even the smallest of the charges, good luck. Well, if he thinks he's really going to go under, then he might go, ah, I'm going to show you signs of cracking. Right, in the middle of the trial and then flip on on Trump. But all that is really unlikely because the reason is, since these are not super high level charges, and you don't know which way the jury is going to go, you might think even if I lose,

I'd be my first offense. Am I really going to get prison time? and I'm going to throw myself at the mercy of the court and say I'm 73. And by that, this time Trump was almost back in office. I mean, all these things are running through their mind. Oh, that's true, yeah. Right? Although this is a state matter.

So presumably he couldn't get involved anyway. Thank you, John. That's a really good point. Then Trump couldn't do anything about the state matter. But anyways, but in terms of like, I might not get anything anyway, even if they find me guilty. That's why it's not like, it does give me pause, like, I hope that's not all you have, right? And so then the second layer is, and this is a more important layer, is are they doing this as an appetizer and they're going to move on to the entree? If they move on to the entree, all is good.

If this is all they have, then it's not that they're not guilty of it. It's just that it's not a super heavy charge. And that's why I ironically kind of share Trump's lawyer's reaction, which is, is that all you had on Trump? Yeah. Yeah. And if the last few years have taught us anything, don't expect that just the obvious wealth of crimes and suspicious things that an investigator could find will lead to that investigator finding those things. You can get let down by those things. But anyway, yeah, I think it's an interesting question.

It would be like his first offense or whatever. Just because he could get 10 years doesn't mean that he would. That said, it's an incredibly wealthy guy who was dodging taxes on like free private school educations and cars working for the Trump organization. All of that works together. It's not that they couldn't get the exact jury that they want, but that doesn't, I don't think that that's likely to lead to a jury that's super sympathetic for you. I know, but even as sentencing, it usually goes to the judges, and one is wealthy clients,

and they go, at this point, that's Ellen Weisselberg is 75, and he'll walk in with a cane, just like the mob does, right? Yeah, and he'll be into like, Vince the chin gigante, he'll be like, I'm already losing my mind, please let me off, and the judge's like, oh my God, he looks just like me. Okay, fine, you don't have to go to prison. That happens all the time, but only if you're wealthy. Yeah, exactly. This isn't about like him showing signs of cracking, like the huge amount of sweat dripping down. He's going to show signs of one thing. He's going to show signs of becoming a senile old man who can barely hold himself up, in which case he's probably going to be just fine. Or he's going to get signs of Donald Trump calling him a rat, and then he's definitely flipping. Because Donald Trump, as of right now, is still saying he's an honorable man. How could they possibly do this to him? But he can turn on a dime if he has to. This guy could have been a rat. He was incompetent. all he could do is make coffee. That could be forthcoming as well. But that said, what the lawyers had, what the Trump organization lawyers had to say about the charges that we found out about this week, that they barely found anything is only like a 5% more savvy or nuanced case

than is going to be made by some members of the Trump family, including in this video, you'll see Eric Trump. Crime is rampant. People are leaving the city in record numbers. It's It's dirty, it's disgusting. New York is no longer what it is. And they have an entire district attorney office and attorney general's office that's focused on three and a half million dollars to take down a political opponent. I mean, this is what they do. This is New York State for you. This is worse than a banana republic. It's truly horrible. It's truly horrible. And Raymond, you know this better than anybody. They're afraid that my father is going to run in 2024 and they're afraid that he's going to win. So they don't look at corrupt Hunter Biden.

They don't look at the fact that he's taking money from China and the Ukraine and other countries and he's selling his finger paintings for $500,000 to undisclose people. No, they don't care about any of that. They care about going after innocent, great human beings. Alan Weisselberg is one of them and taking out Donald Trump and going after a political opponent. Okay, it's not in that clip, but at one point he says something to the effect of it's only like $3.5 million. He did mention. Oh, he did say that clip? I'm really, I got to start paying attention. But anyway, I honestly didn't hear it. This coffee needs to be even stronger, perhaps.

But anyway, that's not an argument. And like bringing up Hunter Biden's not an argument, dude. Don't try to make us buy that you fundamentally are grieved by the idea that a rich guy might make money off of who his dad is. I don't think that that's something that really keeps you up at night. Yeah, my two favorite parts of that was like, it's only three and a half million dollars that we stole. And you guys are making a big deal out of this? Did you know New York is dirty now? He said it's dirty and disgusting.

You know that's going to be where they get your jury from eventually. So I don't know that the jury is going to be moved by. Guys, it's only $3.5 million. I mean, you guys didn't steal $3.5 million over lunch? That's why they keep saying, like, is this all you got? We stole way more than that, right? So that's not a good defense. And now what you should say on TV when you're a member of the Trump organization,

The Trump organization has also been charged, and that could be used against you. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we'd like to play a clip of Eric Trump, executive vice president for the Trump organization. And then the squirrel thing was great. Like, Hunter, squirrel, Biden. Yeah. It's a big thing to do. Hunter Biden can be like the most corrupt person in the world. That has literally nothing to do with whether or not your company committed crimes.

committed crimes. Yeah, in a best case scenario, you're saying, Your Honor, did you know there are other criminals in the world? Yes, but they're not on trial here. You are, and that is not a great defense. Yeah, the defense that they have right now, at least in terms of keeping their base in line and donating, is that, as I alluded to in the intro, if you're watching Fox, like, at least in the thing with Eric Trump, they're talking about it. Like, it's, they just bring him on to defend Weisselberg. There's no critical pushback or anything. But the night before the charges when we knew the charges were coming. Sean Hannity had a town hall with Donald Trump and didn't bring it up. How did you have the former president, his company is facing criminal

charges, and you just don't even talk about it. When they were bringing Weisselberg in, I saw Liz Power had a mashup of the shots of CNN, MSNBC, was like shots of the courtroom and everything. And on Fox it was, did you know Hamilton was eligible for PPP funding? Literally, that's what they were talking about. So, like, people, there's millions of Americans that have no idea what is going on about any of this. I like the idea of, they go to court, and Allen Weissburg's attorney is like, Your Honor, we might have stolen a good deal of money and evaded taxes. On the other hand, his name is Andrew Hamilton, Andrew Hamilton.

Hunter Biden never misses his shot to do something corrupt. No, we just missed that I accidentally called him Andrew Hamilton. I can't tell my brain is melting anyway you want me god if Peter Washington could see me now he'd be rolling around his brain all right one last thing on YouTube super jet jr alfred wrote in how come everybody gets in trouble but trump everyone gets charged fine and arrested but trump theoretically jr they are waiting for those guys to flip and give them better evidence on Trump. They already have pretty good evidence on the Stormy Daniels case. If that's not a layup, I don't know what is. And remember, there's a super important part of your question.

These prosecutors, if they seem jittery, to me they do, right? They show signs of cracking. Not in this case, but I mean overall in how careful they're being and approaching trying Trump, remember, they think their entire career is on the line. That if they get the case, even 1% wrong, gonna blame them for the rest of time. So that's why they're being super duper careful. And even though they have Trump on the Stormy Daniels kiss, because Michael Cohen already went to prison for it and Trump was his co-conspirator, they're still like tiptoeing, like I don't know, maybe, maybe. And so they're desperate to flip somebody like Weisselberg or someone else that works at the Trump organization. So they'll have even better evidence

if they try to try Trump. Because if you try to try Trump and you blow it, that is a debacle, right? And by the way, guys, I want to say this every time, right? If Trump didn't actually do it, I don't want him arrested, indicted, or charged, right? So if they don't have the evidence because he didn't do it, then by all means, they absolutely positively should not charge him, right? But so much- That is an interesting, purely hypothetical. Yeah, I was going to say, but so much of the evidence is already public.

That's why we're acting fairly certain. and some of us co-conspirators have already gone to prison. And that's why JR asked that question, and that's why we are fairly certain that Trump, in fact, did do it. Yeah. Well, with that, why don't we take our first break when we come up? We'll turn this thing into a power panel and then talk a little bit about the Olympics after this. An unprecedented second segment, drop it. Power, power, power panel.

All right, we were having slight technical issues with Charles's feed before. So Jake Ugrat, John, I'd rolla, Charles Coleman Jr. joining us. Or should I say Andrew Coleman for no reason? Yeah, it was actually George Hamilton who was messing with my Wi-Fi and Skype. So now that I'm on, I'm just happy to be the patriot that I am, me and John Adam. Singular. Singular, yeah. Jack Adam.

All right, so. Jack Reacher. Okay, we've got a lot more mistakes where that came from, so let's get started. John's got the next story. Let's do it. American sprinter Shakari Richardson's Olympic dreams were thrown into chaos in the last day because she tested positive from marijuana. That's it.

That's apparently all it takes. Now, she had won the woman's 100 meter race at the U.S. track and field trials in Oregon last month, but her positive test for marijuana, just want to repeat that, automatically invalidated her result in that marquee event. It has also resulted in her accepting a suspension for one month starting on June 28th that could clear in time to run the 4x100 meter relay that takes place later in the games if she's named the U.S. team. The decision would be up to USA track and field, the national governing body of the sport. Now, she appeared for an interview early, today to talk a little bit about the situation.

And here's what she had to say. Shakari, I just want people to understand where you're coming from and tell me if this is correct, but you, it was a few days before your big raise in the trials. You found out that your biological mother had passed away. You found out when a reporter told you. And it was after that, that you ingested some kind of marijuana. I should mention you were in Oregon, it's legal in Oregon. You didn't violate any law, but it was against the rules of your sport.

And as you said, you knew that. But is that what happened? Is that how this unfolded? Honestly, yes, that is the story. I had an interview schedule with my agent. I knew I was having an interview. I knew going into an interview. Like, I was just thinking, oh, been a normal interview.

And then on an interview to hear that information come from a complete stranger. I was definitely triggering was definitely nerve shocking. That's in the state of mind and the state of emotional panic if anything. And still knowing that I still, even though I'm here,

I still have to go out and put on a performance from there just blinding with blinded by emotions, blinded by badness, blinded by just hurting, hiding hurt, honestly. For the fact that I know

that I can't hide myself so at least in some type of way I was just trying to hide my pain. So I think anybody watching that obviously can understand how difficult that period must have been for her, as well as the fact that it's legal there. Now, none of that bears on the decision of the organization, which we'll get into more. But I wanted to allow both of you a chance to respond to this. Yeah, I'll jump in real quick with, really, we're still doing this in 2021.

Does anyone think marijuana is performance enhancing? Unless you're in a taco eating contest, marijuana generally slows you down. Doesn't speed you up. No one in their right mind thinks is performance enhancing. So why are we doing this? Because of the stupid war on drugs. I mean, look, we know things now for a fact, and yet we ignore it nonstop, right? Richard Nixon's top aide said we started the war on drugs to target liberals and black people,

specifically black people, right? And to put as many of them in prison as we could. And we're still doing the war on drugs. And by the way, during the primary, we told you, Joe Biden was one of the biggest advocates for the war on drugs. He thought Reagan was too soft on the war on drugs. Mainstream media didn't cover that at all, they thought it was forbidden. Oh, no, no, you can't talk about things that are true about Joe Biden, okay? And that was, of course, in the primaries way they despise Bernie Sanders and wanted to make sure he didn't win.

So they buried he, they buried the news. And then Biden said, oh, I'm gonna reform drug laws and stuff. Guts gets in does nothing, nothing. Now that's not specifically related to what the Olympic Committee is doing, but why is it even a drug that's on that list? It shouldn't be. Cors lights not on that list, bud lights not on that list. And so there's no reason for marijuana should be, but it's a schedule one drug.

And that's why it has those cast-hating consequences. I wasn't that quick. Anyway, Charles. You know, Jake, I actually have a different perspective on this and am shocked. that I have the perspective because you and I usually agree on a lot. But I had some conversations with some actual Olympians and their perspective was very different. And I think that it warrants consideration in this discussion. We're having this perspective or this conversation in this discussion from the perspective of regular people who understand from a common sense place the feeling of wanting to sort of release or escape a situation that is emotionally traumatizing.

I think that that is where the necessary compassion comes into the conversation. It is absolutely apparent and appropriate for us to have compassion for Shikari in terms of her loss, in terms of what she's now dealing with, in terms of the pressure and the criticism that she is facing in the wake of the space. She was a black woman who was already facing a great deal of scrutiny for how she showed up in the world. And so I take nothing absolutely at all away from that. However, when we talk about, about what it is to be an elite athlete. When we talk about what it is to be in the space that you're in at the top of your craft, I think we have to put all of these things in the proper perspective. I'm not arguing that marijuana is not necessarily the most serious of drugs,

because quite frankly it isn't. However, as you said, and I had this conversation with two totally unrelated people who do not know each other and they both said the same thing, there is a significant amount of pressure and anxiety that athletes at that level deal with. When you are someone who takes marijuana, in some ways, that is a drug that helps you deal with pressure and anxiety because you get more relaxed. You don't have to deal with that. Sometimes it allows you to get better rest. From a competitive space, it is not entirely fair to say there's no advantage whatsoever that can be given. However much credence you want to give to that argument is fine.

What I will say is the bigger issue is that the argument is being made now on the back end after the violation has occurred. If you were making the argument on the front end to say, these trials are taking place in Oregon, this is what's going on, you shouldn't have to have this as something that is prohibited in a space where it is legal, because that's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about legal versus illegal. But if you want to make the argument that this is a problem, for the case of an elite athlete who, as she said, knew the rules, knew she was breaking the rules, knew it was a problem. She should have done that before she decided to do what she's trying to do. I feel for this young woman because this is a terribly tragic story. I absolutely think that the IOC as well as USA track and field should allow her to run. However, I can't argue about the idea that she's being held accountable for breaking a rule that she knew she broke. To put it in perspective, you're in Oregon where it is It's legal to smoke marijuana. It's legal to have cost syrup. You develop a tickle in your throat. Athletes actually can't have some of the material or substances that are found in cough syrup in their system when they run. But whatever reason, you know, tons of legal things that athletes at that level are not allowed to do. Because you are competing at that level and it is not a right. It is a privilege. I think you have to understand. that the rules are there for a reason.

If you don't like the rules, I have no problem with that, but you got to fight them on the front end, not after they're broken. I did not believe that I would ever be saying that. It is a perspective that I normally might not take. But as I talk to other athletes, both of whom who are black, who are actual Olympians, I talk to them about the racial element. I talked to them about the sympathetic element. And both of them said, look, that's part of what it is to be an elite athlete at this sport.

We laud Michael Jordan because of the 96 flu game because he performed with these incredible circumstances. We laud Michael Jordan for being able to play after the death of his father in the gambling situation. We laud Brett Farr for learning about his dad dying and then the next day, or it was either that day or the next day getting on the field, playing the game, throwing touchdowns. Not necessarily like something that, you know, says you have to be able to be strong enough to do this, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that when you get to that point of being literally

one of the best people in the world at doing what you do, that's part of the deal. Yeah, so Charles, I love disagreement, and those are excellent points, not buying it. So look, I hear you, and I take the perspective of the Olympic athletes you talk to very seriously. And I will acknowledge some of the points as really good, which is, well, look, you got to have an even playing field, I mean, quite literally, right? And if the others can't do it, she shouldn't be able to do it either. That's fair and stuff. The part where you lose me on a couple of things is you shouldn't complain about it

afterwards. You should do it ahead of time. First of all, we have, for example, said that marijuana should be legalized all across the country a million times. But if I did marijuana in a state that it were, it's still illegal, and they arrest me for it, I, yes, technically, it is against the law. But that law is crap. It's utter nonsense. So I don't think it's fair.

I don't think it's just. I don't think I should go to prison. I think it's so. And even if I never said anything about marijuana being legalized before, I still shouldn't go to prison. It's still a crap law. It still makes no sense. So. But, Jake, I think there's a difference.

I hear you, I think there's a difference between disagreeing with it. Like, you know, I'm a lawyer most of the time. So if you were to go into court and say, marijuana is not illegal at the neighboring state, even at the neighboring state where I'm from, and it shouldn't be illegal here. But it was when you got arrested. I'm not necessarily saying that it's a terrible argument, but it's not a winnable argument. That in and of itself, this is a bad law when you've been arrested for having broken it. That end of itself is not going to be a strong argument in terms of exoneration or absolvement from having to face the consequences of having violated that law or that rule. All right, Charles, I'm also a lawyer.

Please, I practice for nine months or so. So seriously, let's see. we can get a compromise here. So they're saying they're suspending her for a month. Okay, well, how about rethinking it and suspending her and everyone else going forward for only a week or two weeks? Because of course, everybody keep in mind, Olympics are once every four years. If she doesn't get to run now, not only will she not be able to run for another four years, but you never know what's going to happen in four years. That might be her only opportunity. Can I can we do a plea deal here where we can knock it down in two weeks so she

can get into the Olympics if she's clean? You know, Jake, as a former prosecutor, I'm usually the one who offers the plea deals, but you and I are absolutely on the same page. This should not a result in a death nail for this young woman's career because of a decision that she made in the space of being very emotional. I would 100% agree with that. So from what I understand, the big question in terms of her Olympic future is actually not just as simple as USA tracking field deciding whether they're going to send her name to Tokyo. It's also whether Tokyo is going to be able to, well, the International Olympic Committee, whether they are actually going to agree to process her as an Olympian so that she can get her credentials

when her suspension is over. So the way that it works apparently is that, you know, there is a, and apparently this is a very big deal, there are finite deadlines for when you have to be processed in order to get your credentials, in order to be listed and your name given, and even have access and then be included in competition. Now, I am 100% in agreement with you that they should, they being USA tracking field, should make a point to ensure that whatever penalty she faces does not result in her exclusion from the games. I have no argument there, and we do not disagree. But I want to make a point

to the audience that they understand that some of it is a matter of making sure that USA track and field makes that decision in a way and at a time that gives Tokyo enough time to process her as an Olympian. And I don't know whether, I think one of the questions that's being circulated right now is whether they're going to do that given her status as currently being suspended from the team. Yeah, I think that's a great point. I will defend my own freaking out about it as saying I'm not freaking out about it because I think that she individually shouldn't be bound by it. I think that we can freak out about it and people should freak out about it because that's one of the only ways of something like this would ever change. Like hopefully,

Like for instance, if someone gets like gets killed with a chokehold by the cops, it might well be legal depending on where you live. Let's freak out about it so that it won't be legal in that particular case. So that would be my defense. And also in terms of people freaking out afterward rather than before, I would say at least for me, I can't speak for everyone, but at least for me, I would have never imagined that something this stupid would disqualify you from the Olympics. And to the point about it being like you said, the Olympians were saying,

Like this is, we're elite athletes at the top of our game. There's a lot of pressures and all that. I would say let's remove some of those pressures. Like, for instance, being weirdly specific about which things you can't consume, but letting you drink as much vodka as you want the night before or whatever. Let's remove some of those pressures. And this is one of the pressures. I'm going to move very quickly to a couple of the other pressures that have popped up.

So here's two other things. One is, for instance, if you are an athlete with natural. black hair and you're swimming. Well, you can't wear the swim cap that you might want to because it has now been ruled out by the Olympic Games. This particular cap, if we could bring up the shot, you'll see there. The International Swimming Federation rejected the use of the sole cap, saying it does not fit the natural form of the head. Which brings to mind other sort of archaic brain sciences and things like that. Like what are you talking about? But it is actually banned. They said to the best of their knowledge, the athletes competing at the international

events never used, neither require caps of such size and configuration. Because that should totally be up to them, not the athletes, whether the athletes need it. So there's an extra pressure for you if you're a swimmer at that level. Or for instance, you might feel a lot of pressure. I really hope that my natural testosterone level doesn't go above this arbitrary level because you might get disqualified, as two Namibians were. Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masalingi have a naturally high testosterone level because of differences in sexual development that caused them to be rejected as some other runners, generally African runners have in the past. So it's all of these weird things that they're

watching for that I would say contribute to that, oh my God, we're so pressured all the time sort of thing. Yeah. And of course, totally coincidentally, all of these are more restrictive on athletes who don't happen to be Michael Phelps or white or whatever. Now, John, there we can likely agree with very little, very little discord, because I vetted those as well through my own sort of personal computer and have a far easier time describing them for what they are, which is anti-black.

I think that with respect to the sole cap story, the safe narrative around that is that it certainly does seem to be discriminatory against people who share a certain genetic trait around how their hair grows. Why do I say that? I would say that because typically people who are black, our hair grows up and out. People who are not black, their hair, and it's also much coarser, much harder to sort of tame and maintain in a lot of ways. So it does increase the volume of someone's head size if in the course of like wearing a hat or wearing in this case a cap. I do not know what the actual process was in terms of making a determination around the sole cap's viability as an Olympic, you know, as a permitted Olympic thing. But what I will say is that, and this is probably the safest, nicest, most neutral thing I will say about this.

The lack of transparency around comparatively speaking what the difference is between a sole cap versus a speedo cap certainly leaves widespread room for speculation, all of which points to this being racist and anti-black. That I have no problem conceding. With respect to the two women from Libya, I will also say that that is not only anti-black, but it's like specifically anti to a specific region in Africa where genetically speaking, it has been proven and shown that there are a higher rates of testosterone in certain women or in these women. It's a known thing about certain regions in Africa. So there's no question in my mind that this bears some. some level of racism, of anti-blackness, and specifically anti-African, which I think is equally

problematic. The other thing that I think viewers should know that they do, that they may not know, which is really weird, the levels of testosterone that are permissible for women to compete in certain events and men does not stay universal across the Olympics. Like it changes, which is really weird to me. So as a woman, you could have one testosterone level that allows you to compete, let's say, for example, in the marathon or in the 800 meter, and then that same level of testosterone that you have disqualify you from competing in the 100 or the 200. That seems really backwards to me. If either of you can sort of make a case to me why that should be the case, I'm all ears, but as I thought about this and how I felt about it, that fact

like defied logic for me in a way that I just could not reconcile. Yeah, so look, this is going to get absurd real quick, because there's some chance that Ethiopians and Kenyans have different lung capacity. Are we going to disqualify them for marathons for having the abnormal lungs? It's absurd. Well, then what are we going to do next? Usain Bolt, he's just abnormally fast, we're going to ban him. Well, isn't that kind of the whole point, right?

So, and so look, guys, everybody's against cheating. We want it to be fair. So we don't want them taking illegal substances that drives everybody nuts, including all of us, all three of us, right? And so we want them to be careful. But as quickly as I can on the sole cap, now if I was in charge of that, I would say, okay, guys, if we're going to call black people's heads abnormal, we better really have our stuff together, right?

So you better tell me why this cap performs better, that it leads to an unnatural and unfair advantage. So give me some sort of evidence on that because we're about to go public, right? And then we better have another thing ready, which is here, here's your second option. The speedo cap doesn't fit you. We acknowledge that. So here's another cap you can use. They didn't do either of those two in my mind super obvious things.

Instead they were like, I don't know, man. I guess you guys have abnormal heads and you have no other options and we don't care. No, that's it. We're banning it. Well, okay, well, then screw you because you've given yourself no out. I don't know why they're doing it. I don't know if they have a sponsorship deal with Speedo or something. But this is obviously outrageous.

And how could they not see that it's going to lead to correct accusations of discrimination? Yeah. Agreed. Well, we are rapidly running out of hours. So why don't we go to our second break? But when we come back, the Trump team branded social media startup that launched this week is already having some issues. We'll break that down after this. Okay, let's do it. In the past couple of weeks, a member of the Trump team, this is Jason Miller, started a new social media app called Getter. And if that sounds a bit like Twitter, it's supposed to, because it also looks identical to Twitter and basically is designed to be Twitter, but for a specific sort of person. And you'll know that when you look at their mission statement.

They say that this social media platform is dedicated to fighting cancel culture, promoting common sense, defending free speech, challenging social media monopolies, and creating a true marketplace of ideas, which differentiates itself from things like parlor and other apps like that based on, I don't know, I don't know, maybe we'll find out something. But it already has some issues actually, which we'll jump into. The first is that a notorious neo-Nazi has already been suspended from Getter. So this is Tim Giannet, known as Baked Alaska, who I believe live streamed from inside the Capitol during that attack, he's been, he's been suspended. We don't know why yet, but he quickly boasted about his suspension on Gab, the far

right social media platform used by neo-Nazis. So getter comes and says what's going to differentiate us from Twitter is that we're not in favor of canceling people, people were in favor of free speech, wait, no, you're actually crazy and you're dangerous, and any reasonable site is going to try to get rid of you, and so they did too, which undercuts their point by just a little bit. Also understand that Getter is apparently bankrolled by fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wenguu, a close associate of pardon Trump strategist Steve Bannon, apparently provided something like a million dollars. But Miller says that it was just seed money,

it's not direct investment. I'm not rich enough to know the distinction between those two things, but he believes that there's distance between them. And in any event, there are other issues. Two. One of the bigger ones, by the way, and I did not see this coming when the app was announced is that despite this being launched by Jason Miller, one of the key Trump guys, Trump is not on it. He's not, he has not started an account. We'll get into that a little bit more, but like the dude isn't on any accounts. You'd think he'd be desperate to get on this one, but apparently he's not that interested, which is a little bit cold towards Jason Miller. You're supposed to support your bro's work, man. But anyway, what do you think about this? You think I'd have any. a chance of becoming the next big thing? So before I get to the getter jokes, which are going to be fun, so let's address the two things that John mentioned there. First of all, he put in some seed funding, but he doesn't have ownership. That's not how it works.

Okay, nobody puts in seed funding and then doesn't get equity. They're like, oh, I'm just giving it for charity. You just do anything you like with it. No. I mean, look, the right wing billionaires sometimes give just flat out money to like Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager, et cetera. Could be that. Yeah, so it could be like, hey, yeah, I'm giving this to you for propaganda. And then here's the things that I want you to do to promote my businesses, my, you know, anti-Chinese government agenda, et cetera.

Yeah, that makes sense. But if you do seed funding, that actually means something. And it definitely means you get equity, okay? And now as to Trump, we come back to that same equity question. So there's a story or a tweet from, I think it was Bloomberg, and they explained that no, Trump is not going to be on it. And they made a vague illusion, which I'll explain to you, which was that they're like, he did not get any financial consideration, right?

Trump, when he talks to any of these platforms, the gabs, the grabbers, the getters, and what all these things, right? The gators, whatever. The first conversation he has, is it, oh, how good is your platform? How is it on free speech? No, he's, I ain't got nothing with free. It's not exact. He's like, how much am I getting?

Okay, if I'm gonna go on a platform, a lot of people are gonna come with me, which by the way is true, right? So I want a certain percentage of the income that comes from that platform. So apparently it was too rich for their blood and Jason Miller didn't pay him. So Trump's like, no, I'm not gonna do anything unless he got paid. What do you, did you not know me the whole time? Do you work for me, you idiot? So that's why he's not on there. Gurr, I just really want a fine social media platform where I can be racist and say

bigoted things. Is that so much to ask for in 2021? You ban me from Twitter. You take away my pauler, and now I can't even get her done. Jake, I'm going to leave the getter jokes to you because you probably have much better ones than I do. That's my one and only, and I've emptied the clip. So I think this is kind of complicated in ways that people might not expect. I am going to start with us, and by us, I'm referring to those folks who identify themselves as progressives.

And the reason I say that is I think it's worth considering did and have we with cancel culture fertilized the ground that has created this space. Now, I think that the people who oftentimes call themselves victims of cancel culture are ones who actually deserve it. Because if you can't express a difference of opinion without threatening someone else's humanity, then maybe you do deserve to be canceled. But at the same time, I think that there is a very thin line in current society around who gets to say what. And I think that that is, it's actually a more dangerous face than we realize. Having said that, I don't feel any answer. So that's the one thing that I think is progress progress is we do have to be mindful of. I think that we sort of like indiscriminately waved the canceled culture weapon around in ways that I think we should be a little bit more thoughtful

and a little bit more precise about because, in my opinion, it fertilized the ground for so much of the conversation that is taking place now that is anti-critical race theory, that is anti-actual history, that is anti sort of having important and reasoned conversations because we have been so aggressive about cancel culture that it has just sort of turned mainstream, central, moderate folks off. So that's on us in one way. I do think that we should be mindful of that. At large, I think that this is a very interesting space that would not exist post, if January 6th had not happened. Had January 6th had not happened, Paula would still exist. This whole notion of like, well, we're banning people who are neo-Nazis because we think they're dangerous, would not exist because there is a, level of liability that any lawyer would look at and say, listen, if somebody does something and is able to sort of reasonably connect this back to your platform, you're going to have

a problem. And so I don't necessarily see the idea of where banning a neo-Nazi as a function of these are our values and our values are to support different people's humanities. I don't think that's the issue at all. I think people's ideologies when they are problematic, they go to where they think they're going to be expressed to be able to express them, where they think it's a safe space. And it's not an accident that baked Alaska felt like this was a safe space. I think that with the conversation we're having about January 6th, with a conversation that we're having about the all right, and then holding them accountable for foreseeable actions that can occur, they probably looked at that and said, we don't want any parts

of this. Let's be on the safe side, not the right side, the safe side. And we're let's, you know, sort of air on the side of caution and get them up out of here. But that's my take, and I think that the dog that progressives have in this fight, as far as I'm concerned, because I'm loving watching this sort of attempt to create a safe space for racists go bad. But the dog that we do have in this fight as progressives is to consider how are we navigating the space that created a need for this? And are we doing it in a way that's smart and that's like intentional and directed?

Yeah. No, I think it's a great point. I think, by the way, we don't have time to engage in it right now, but I might have found an area for future disagreement between us on some of this. But mostly about the conversation about cancel culture that I see in other media, bearing in mind, of course, and with a grain of salt, like in Michael Wolf's upcoming book, he says that Trump never joining parlor wasn't just about money. he was offered 40% of the revenue. It was that he required parlor to allow him to ban people who criticized him and they said no. So Donald Trump, who claims that he's a victim of cancel culture from being banned from Twitter, wanted free reign to ban people who made fun of him and wasn't given that power.

I believe there's a word for that. There is actually. In the English language, I believe that word is called bitch. Yeah, yeah, and also, and like, you know, having six months of, uh, right wingers on Fox News tell me that me as a leftist, I've got some issue with being too censorious because of cancel culture. And then, oh, Gwen Barry turned her back on the flag, end her career, get her out of there for her peaceful protest. They don't mean it. It's all fake. And that's why I don't want to, I don't want to contribute to a narrative that I think

is being weaponized against the left that is truly a phenomenon that everyone engages in in some cases and not others. In any event, I don't think we have time for the video. But Jason Miller would really like Trump to join up. It doesn't look like that's going to happen. This is sort of a ridiculous platform. You can take a look at the screenshots. It is modeled exactly after Twitter. It looks exactly after Twitter. In fact, people's follower numbers add their Twitter follower numbers to it, which is inside. I didn't even know how you can do that, but that's what they're doing. Those are two different apps. That's Twitter and Gitter. And it's identical. Yeah, it's a great product there.

They're so lazy. It's this reminds you of Trump's platform slash blog, which lasted for like a month, right? And then he was like, almost a month. Yeah, and he's like, well, you know, it turns out I suck at this. Yeah, really, I couldn't see that coming with six bankruptcies that you didn't, we wouldn't know how to run a platform. And neither does any of his lackeys, of course. But look, I actually generally agree with Charles on cancel culture. I think that that that's a very nuanced issue.

We take a whole different show to discuss, but it does sometimes run amok on both sides. So it's not that I disagree with John. It feels like that. About the right wing is also true, right? But I do disagree with Charles that I would have better jokes. There's no chance of that. Okay. So, but let me give you the jokes of others, though.

So somebody did say, Charles, that once that get her goes bankrupt, they reserved a right to use the headline, get her done. So you were on it. And Dave Weigel said, get her. I don't even know her. Which that meant to be funny. Unpainted melody said, get her, why? Was grifter taken? I liked all those but but there is and oh there was a great little trolling that I get to in one second

but there is a really interesting question another interesting question here that Charles alluded to so they're not banning racist but they are banning neo-Nazis where's that line man that's a tough line to draw right racist yeah come on in oh oh no you're neo-nazi no sorry but you're also racist oh that's a super tough one okay Okay, so, and then the Q&N folks were really upset because they apparently had porn on there. Why? Because trolls instantly came in with it and bad words. And Q&M people are like, you're letting people say naughty words? I thought this was just for racist.

How is that not hilarious, right? And every one of these right wing platforms has the same exact problem. They're like, where do we draw the line? Because, I mean, if we say you can really have free speech, we're gonna have people advocating for violence and horrible things and instantly, right? And that's why there are lines, because everybody has to draw the line somewhere. So all of this is totally absurd. And again, for some of the reasons that Charles stated, you have to draw legal lines at a minimum.

Otherwise, you're gonna be in massive, massive trouble. Finally, the trolls on there have been the best. part of get her. I don't mean to drive you to it just to look at the trolls. But they had the top performing post as of when we went on live here was Cameron Millie. She was getting the most subscribers because it was an attractive woman who had like her top almost off. So of course right wingers are like yes, yes, follow follow me like right without knowing what it is at all. And then when you click on it has a picture of Joe Biden. That's free speech, baby.

That's right. And it just has lists Trump's lies about the election. And so, and now that's the top followed account on Getter. Nice. Nice. All right, oh, we're so out of time. Okay. Charles, you're awesome.

Thank you for coming on, brother. We appreciate it. John, you're also on, and that's good. All right, no, seriously, check out the damage report, everybody. And Charles is also on the damage report from time to time. So you get to get to see this great combo. And we got a whole other hour coming up with some of the most amazing stories, including transracial.

Is that a thing? We're going to ask you guys in a poll because a guy says, no, I'm no longer English. I am now Korean. And so we'll figure it out when we come 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 at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.