The Young Turks - No Regerts

Episode Date: February 25, 2021

The former Capitol Police Chief says he regrets stepping down. Plus, a look at how right-wing media launders the reputation of Ted Cruz. 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. What's up, what's up, everyone, to the Young Turks, Santa Casparian and John Ida Rolla with you. John, my friend, my compadre, host of the damage report. It's good to have you. In that order. In that way. How's it going on? Definitely. It's going all right. It's going all right. You know, I would argue that the news cycle has become a little repetitive, you know, with little updates

to stories that we've been talking about for quite some time already. That's not to downplay. the show, we do have some great stories to share with you, including CPAC and how it is now officially engaged in cancel culture. So we'll give you the details on all of that later in the show. In the second hour, Nando Villa will be joining me to give you all an update on where the Senate stands on this battle to increase the federal minimum wage. Just an overall incredible show. You don't want to miss it. It's a big show, the biggest. No show is. ever been this big. Later we'll also talk about a landlord who decided that he was so sick of his tenants having this inability to pay their rent that he tied them up and tossed them into

a rural cemetery. That is a real story that happened. You don't want to miss that. We'll talk about that as well. That was on breaking back. I saw that. Sometimes, you know, art imitates life. What can I say? But why don't we start off with this culture of no apologies? One last question for you. Do you regret resigning? Yes, I do, sir. I certainly do regret signing. Resigning. I love this agency. I love the women and men of this agency, and I regret the day I left. That was Steven Sund. He's the former chief of the Capitol Police, and he's now regretting his decision to step down amid the lack of preparedness that was demonstrated by the California. Capitol Police as the riots took place in the Capitol on January 6th. Now, Sun believes that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her request that he stepped down was misguided. And I want to give you those details for you right now. But while this story is a story in and of itself, keep in mind that this is a continuation of a trend that we're seeing with the Republican Party, this inability to apologize, this unwillingness to apologize, and then to essentially

paint themselves as victims as the right wing media launders their reputations. Now, Sund resigned pretty shortly after Nancy Pelosi requested that he do so on January 16th. And the former chief of the Capitol Police has an issue with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's demand for his resignation, saying that directive was misguided. Sund told a joint Senate panel investigating the January 6th riots that Pelosi demanded demanded his resignation without a full understanding of what we prepared for. And so if you saw the countless videos that came out of that riot on January 6th, it's strange to use the phrase what we were prepared for because it appears that they were prepared for nothing. In fact,

there were videos of Capitol Police taking selfies with some of these white supremacists, some of these rioters. And so that's part of the reason why there is this this Senate investigation happening, the Senate hearing that took place just yesterday, to kind of delve into what went wrong, who needs to take more of the blame. But, you know, John, just this unwillingness to like take full responsibility for the Capitol police's failure as well. I mean, as the chief, we now know that there were a bunch of people within his ranks that were in favor of what we saw in the Capitol. Yeah. Yeah, or at least to take full responsibility for the lack of preparation. Obviously, there's a lot of different types of responsibility to go around.

His argument is an odd one. Like, you know, if a coach just repeatedly got demolished and it was like, yeah, but I was really prepared for a team that wasn't good. Like, okay, good, then go do some version of that. That has nothing to do. You failed in the one we actually had. The only thing that complicates it a little bit for me is he said that she didn't have a full understanding of what they did prepare for. But we still don't have a big, a lot of understanding of so many different aspects of this in terms of there's definitely the lack of preparation, but then once the day has begun, and potentially even before it, there's possible interference that we still don't know for sure about. Which is why, while I don't want, like the video clip that you just showed. And I definitely think that, you know, people died.

So someone does have to be held responsible for that. It has always felt a little bit weird that like a couple of the Capitol police people are the only people that apparently were responsible for this. Well, they were definitely they were definitely part responsible for not being prepared. But like amidst everything about the sixth, is that the worst part? It's bad. I don't know that it's the worst part, though, and we can't, I think part of why we want them to be held responsible is that I think whether we're saying it or not, we've sort of just accepted, well, we're never going to be able to hold any of the Republicans who incited this thing responsible. No, that's an excellent point. And I think that that's part of the reason why a lot of the focus has been on Capitol Police. And they do deserve some of the blame. And remember, the fish rots from the head down. I mean, he's the police chief, he's the chief or former chief, I should

say, of the Capitol Police. And for me, it was the combination of the lack of preparedness in addition to the fact that so many of the Capitol police officers were implicated in this riot for, you know, allowing it to happen, for engaging in it themselves by taking selfies with the rioters. Several of them have been suspended pending an investigation. And so that happened under his leadership. So he has to be willing to take responsibility for what he did wrong. But it's still unclear. Let's be honest about this. It's still unclear why they, they were so ill-prepared, right? Was it how much of that decision was based on leadership with the Capitol

police? How much of that decision had to do with the FBI? That's something that still really hasn't been sussed out in a detailed way to give me a little bit of clarity with this issue. But for him to say, like, you know, no, I regret it. Nancy Pelosi is misguided. Like, make no mistake, son, you certainly had leadership issues and you should have stepped down and I'm glad he did. But the point of this story is, had he not stepped down and had he refused to apologize, there's an entire right wing media infrastructure in place ready to go to launder his reputation. And we see it with so many different cases, including what we just saw with Ted Cruz, abandoning his own constituents to go on a beach vacation at the Ritz-Carlton

in Cancun, right? So everyone, I think is pretty, everyone is on the same page for the most part regarding how horrendous his behavior was. But again, there's that right wing media infrastructure ready. Go ahead. Yeah, just super fast. Like, you know, Ron Johnson is sort of trying to do a version already of what you're saying, hypothetically, they would all be doing if he hadn't resigned. But like all of them are basic, like, you got to remember that the same people involved in this questioning are the ones who think, or at least say that it was Antifa. So why isn't Ron Johnson more mad that this guy didn't stop Antifa from ransacking the Capitol? And if not Ron Johnson, plenty of other people who still push that idea to this

day. And I'm just, I'm tiring myself out even engaging hypothetically in this. No, but you're right. You're right. You're right. contradictory conspiracy theories? It's more than just a right-wing media infrastructure. As we talked about Ron Johnson yesterday and the fact that he was repeating conspiracy theories regarding Antifa during this hearing, the conspiracy theorists are in Congress, and they're also engaging in an effort to basically do revisionist history and whitewash would actually happen that day.

And it's awful that these are also the same people who had an equal vote to good faith senators who wanted to hold Trump accountable through the Senate impeachment hearing. These are people who aided and abetted Donald Trump's behavior. And then they got to vote on whether or not he should be convicted of the Senate impeachment charge. I'm sorry, the impeachment charge inciting an insurrection. Now, I want to compare or I want to provide an example of what I'm talking about. regarding this right wing media infrastructure, right? Because again, everyone's on the same page regarding Ted Cruz and how what he did was wrong. In fact, he even admitted that what he did was wrong. I'm using his own words. But now the media has immediately pivoted to making him out

to be the real victim here. And so a good example is what went down on Hannity's show just last night. Let's take a look. You dropped off your daughters in Mexico. You came home in a a day, probably less than a day. And here you have this scandal with Governor Cuomo barely mentioned on these so-called other news networks. You're like 24-7 because you drop somebody off and you came back home. I still think you can be a father and senator at the same time. And then you look at the scandal in New York and the cover-up. Where's the proportionality from the mob and the media? We got less than a minute. Well, you're right. And I think the media is suffering from Trump withdrawal.

Yeah, he, you know, because Trump was the victim over the last four years. And now the media needs to find someone else to victimize. And so it's the media that forced Ted Cruz to be a callous person by by abandoning his constituents during a winter storm where people are dealing with rolling blackouts due to the privatization that, that Ted, you know, that Ted Cruz is in favor of, right? Ted Cruz, poor Ted Cruz and his incredibly wealthy family, they're the ones that are the real victims here. But this is what the media on the right does. They just completely launder the reputations of the most loathsome people on the planet, including Ted Cruz. It's just awful. Yeah, and it would be look, if, why am I saying if,

I was going to say, hypothetically, if some other government official that was a Democrat did something really tone deaf during a national emergency, then they would make a big deal out of it. Well, that's not a hypothetical. They did, you know, and we've criticized a lot of those same instances. The, you know, the people who went down to, I forget the island off the coast of Texas, but that, you had Gavin Newsom's incidents. You had Nancy Pelosi. Like, we've already talked about those things. So, but then also, we already know he lied about it. It, like, It has been quadruple confirmed that he lied. Every piece of evidence that could possibly indicate that he lied shows that he lied. And even then, they don't even have to pretend to care about it. They can still act like, oh, he's just being a dad, you know. He was just being a dad, dropping them off and bringing his roommate for some reason for the drop off. I mean, who wouldn't fly international to accompany their friend who's dropping his kids off. I mean, and then the changed flight time. It's just, and again, I know that this is something, we We say a lot of things over and over, and this is probably the thing we say the most over and over.

But like if this doesn't count for anything, then nothing counts for anything. And clearly nothing counts for anything. I'm not saying this is substantively the worst thing that anyone has done. It's not even the worst thing that Ted Cruz has done. It's not even the worst thing Ted Cruz has done this year, considering the events of January 6th. But it is such an obvious lie. It is an opportunistic lie to cover up for something obviously abhorne, that he would, that Sean Hannity would not accept any other politician doing that. But he likes him so, doesn't matter, doesn't count for anything. It's really just about the media, the so-called other news networks. It's really about them. Yeah, so let's fight hard to repair the reputation

of this loathsome individual. By the way, the rest of his statement from that video was this. The media is suffering from Trump withdrawal where they've attacked Trump every day for four years. They don't know what to do. So they obsess over my taking my girls to the beach. Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, Ted Cruz himself with his own disgusting mouth said that what he did was wrong. But then he remembered, oh, that's right, we're Republicans. That's right, we're on the right wing. That means that we should never apologize, we should never take responsibility for our actions, and we should always rest easy knowing that we have the Sean Hannity's of the world who are going to help prepare our reputations even as we screwed over our own constituents, right?

Because this segment, real quick, John, this segment understand what they're communicating to people. The victims in this story aren't all of those Texans who were left without power during a brutal storm. The victims of this story are not the individuals who died because of how cold it was, okay? The victims of these stories, of this story is not the three children who died because it was so cold that they started a fire in their fireplace, which then led to an actual fire in their home and killed them. They're not the real victims. Poor Ted Cruz. Poor Ted Cruz is the victim of left wing media, right? That's what they're telling you, Texans. That's That's what you guys are voting for. People who are so callous that in their privileged position,

they think they're the victims while they give you the middle finger as your family members and your children die. That's what this is. Yeah. Yeah, and the only other thing I want to add is you're right, he's a Republican, which is why he can roll this back. But notably, in the first day or two, he seemed a little bit worried. I mean, he did kind of apologize. Like that's ancient history, doesn't count anymore, but he did kind of apologize, which tells me he thought, maybe this is one that could hurt me, maybe this is too much to go away to Cancun during this. And then a couple days passed, a week passed, and he came to the conclusion based on his behavior now, no, I'm good, no, I'm okay, doesn't matter enough. Sure, some

people in Texas might not like it, but they don't mind it enough for it to really hurt my chances of reelection or my power within Texas or whatever, it's not hurting my reputation enough. And thus, it goes back to, well, like we obviously were right to criticize Cruz, we're right to criticize the Fox News and right wing media component of this. But it's on us to have expectations for our politicians. And when they prove themselves to be Ted Cruzian type figures to have that matter. So long as they can do that and still get elected, then they're going to do whatever they want. They're going to fly to whatever tropical vacation they want. And right now, they can get away with it.

And part of the reason they can get away with it is because a lot of good people, including in Texas, will be distracted by, yeah, the media, they do have Trump withdrawal, yeah, it's about those libs, it's something else that absolves Ted Cruz for what he did. And not just the trip, but not caring at all about Texas's welfare during the pandemic, doing no fighting whatsoever to get them aid. They don't have expectations and they get distracted by BS, which is why I know sometimes people get frustrated with us for focusing so much on this stuff and trying to have the consequences is because we need to have that be a mechanism that actually works in America.

And it is incredibly personally and politically frustrating when it's proven even in the most insane circumstances like this Ted Cruz Cancun thing that it doesn't work. And the fundamental you can get away with pretty much anything in America. It's beyond frustrating. And if you're looking for a show that only harps on moderate Democrats and allows Republicans to get away with literal murder, you're not watching the right show. Sorry, we're going to hold them both accountable because the actions by the right wing media and these Trump loyalists has completely destroyed any possibility of having even like policy negotiations based on facts. Like we live in this post fact world and ignoring it is only emboldening it. And it's just, I'm sick of it.

I'm really sick of it. Look, we should probably take a break. I'm going to calm down a little bit. And when we come back, we have a federal judge who actually does want to hold people accountable for wrongdoing. So we'll share the story of a proud boy who has a pretty pathetic defense and a judge is calling him out on that. Come right back. We'll share that with you and more. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-Fing the Republic or UNFTR.

As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The Republic, or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational,

aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. I'm going to be able to be. I have to say I love doing the showing the show with John. I feel like we do a good job bouncing, you know, off of one another. And yeah, we do a good job. And you know what? Since I like doing the show

with John so much, I'm going to, you know, let you guys know a little bit about his TikTok. I'm going to plug it for him. So TDR is on TikTok. So check out the damage report. It's pretty cool to see how some of you guys are actually interacting with the content on TikTok. I don't even know that you guys could do that, but that sounds pretty cool. So follow at the damage report to stay in touch with the Dragon Squad and John Iderola. There it is. Love it. it. Also, of course, and let me plug something that I did myself. I just wrote an op-ed for the Hill. It's titled, Americans are United Against Corporate Greed. Biden should join the cause. And so it's a deep dive into some of the influencing factors when it comes to the

$15 an hour minimum wage. It gives you some specific details on a meeting that Biden had fairly recently didn't get much coverage with all sorts of business leaders. And immediately after that, it led to some wavering on the federal minimum wage. So please check that out. And if you can, oh, wow, it's a lot of comments already. Pretty, I'm not going to read those probably. But anyway, please share it as well, if you don't mind. Also, some programming notes for you guys. Amanda Newn is going to be on the conversation. And she's the CEO and founder of Rise. a non-governmental civil rights organization who helped propose and draft the sexual assault survivors rights act of 2016. She'll be on the conversation to talk with Ryan Grimm about

the rise in violence against the AAPI community. So please check that out. It'll be a good conversation. And then finally, Happy Half Hour is on Twitch. Don't miss a new episode of Happy Half Hour hosted by our very own Brett Ehrlich. It'll be on tonight on Twitch at 8.30 p.m. Eastern time, 5.30 p.m. Pacific. You could check that out at Twitch.tv slash TYT. All righty. Let's get to some of these comments. Shadows writes in regarding the Capitol Police and says this, he now realizes Pelosi's threats have no teeth. So he regrets resigning because the Dems held no one accountable could have gotten off. Yeah, I mean, that was kind of the point of the story. But it's not just about Democrats. I mean, yes, that is a part of the

equation. But the bigger part of the equation in my eyes is just this very well organized right wing media infrastructure that helps them repair their reputations and helps them kind of twist the situation. So people like Ted Cruz or people like the capital police chief, former capital police chief are the real victims when in reality their incompetence, their callousness is what got them into the mess in the first place. Let's go to English teacher 1984, Sund was responsible for security. It failed. He failed. He should have been fired, not allowed to resign. I agree. Just writes in and says, Hey, everyone back to Tixtirian and John Idaural with you.

Please check out the damage report. the show that John Idorla hosts every morning at 10 a.m. Pacific time, 1 p.m. Eastern. John, anything you want to plug specifically with your show? Yeah, tomorrow we've got the always awesome Rashad Ritchie who's going to be joining us, which is going to be great. We've got an interview with Congressman Rokane up coming about the Biden administration and the future of U.S. involvement in the Yemen conflict. It was supposed to be today, but it was postponed until sometime next week. But that's coming up soon and should be awesome. All righty. Well, let's talk a little bit about the prosecutions that are taking place

in response to the January 6th riots. So a federal judge, a federal judge is not buying the argument that most January 6th insurrectionists have been using, the excuse they've been using to essentially storm the Capitol simply because Trump told them to. This is the defense that you've probably already heard. And I've been curious to see what the reaction would be from federal judges who hear these cases, because remember, Donald Trump had to deal with his second impeachment. He was unfortunately acquitted in the Senate impeachment trial, but he was impeached in the House for inciting an insurrection. So if he was impeached for that reason, could these defendants, could these rioters use his incitements as their defense? Well, we know that one

Particular federal judge is not buying it. At a bail hearing for proud boy member William Crestman from Kansas, who is accused of storming the Capitol, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell said she was dubious about the legal merit of the effort to shift blame toward the former president and his inflammatory rhetoric about the election. So here's what she said during this case. This purported defense, if recognized, would undermine the rule of law. Then, just like a king or a dictator, the president could dictate what would be legal and what isn't in this country. And that is not how we operate. So she also, you know, gave some examples of how, you know, this wouldn't apply in some of the extreme cases, right? So if President Trump ordered or instructed a member of the proud boys to go off and murder somebody and

And someone went off and did that, it follows that would immunize, immunize them from liability for that criminal act. In effect, isn't that what your legal argument is saying? And of course, this was a question that was posed to the lawyers representing William Crestman. And so she's not buying it, I think that it's right to not buy it. And she had some pretty strong words for this proud boys member and also proud boys as a gang later on in the case, which I'll share with you in just a minute. But John, what do you think? Yeah. So I get, I sort of get the argument that the judge is making there. But isn't it a little

bit less that you're immunized and that's it then? And thus that can't be acceptable because then nobody's responsible. Isn't it more this person like credibly, like thought that that was what they were being ordered to do by a powerful person? And if you can lay out the case that that powerful person was in fact doing that, doesn't it shift the blame to that person, at least in some part, it doesn't totally absolve you, but doesn't it implicate the other person? Like, I feel like that's a step that the judge isn't engaging with there in that argument. No, it's a fair point, but at the same time, I mean, it's the feel that I get from our argument here is, so if Trump told you to jump off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge, right?

Like, are you completely, you know, mentally absent that all it takes, is for someone to tell you to engage in criminality. And you can't think for yourself, you're gonna engage in that criminality yourself. Like that is, that's the sense that I get from the questions that she's posing to, to the lawyers representing this proud boy. By the way, he's not just one of these rioters who happened to just breach the building and do nothing. I mean, he actually came prepared. This was, this was certainly premeditated. So only someone who thought they had, had an official endorsement would even attempt such a thing. And a proud boy who had been paying attention would very much believe he did. And that's according to the lawyers representing this

proud boy. That was in their court filing. Now the defense attorneys also did cite Senate majority leader, I'm sorry, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell's statement following Trump's impeachment trial that those who besieged the Capitol believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president, right? So they're using all of this as evidence. But again, it's not really working much with the judge, partly because this proud boy has been charged with some pretty serious felonies, including conspiracy to interfere with police during civil disorder, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and also threatening police while carrying a dangerous weapon. And that weapon was an axe. And there's quite a bit of

evidence showing it. Let's go to this photo. It's a screenshot of one of the videos that's been floating around online. So he's holding the axe in that image. And there's also video of him riling up the crowd before they breached the Capitol. Let's take a quick look at that video. And believe it or not, that is not Gavin McInnis. That's actually- I thought that's who that was. But it's not him. Yeah, it's just another proud boy who looks almost exactly like him. It's kind of incredible.

So you know, there's quite a bit of evidence showing that he's a riling up the crowd and getting ready to, you know, breach the building. He's got the axe. He apparently used the acts to intimidate Capitol police officers. And by the way, a judge had ruled that Cressman can go and basically stay at home until his trial comes up. But this particular judge was like, no, I'm not interested in doing that. I think that he is a dangerous person.

He cannot be trusted to abide by any condition for release. The court might impose instead of pretrial detention. I don't find this case to be a close call at all. And when it comes to the proud boys, John, I'm sure you'll appreciate this. This is what she had to say about the group. You call it an organization. I call it a gang. The fact that Cressman continues to be a member of the proud boys is danger enough, isn't it?

Yeah, this is just like, I understand generally it seems I think pretty easy to reconceptualize some random militia as a gang based on generally the rights of initiation that these sorts of things tend to have, the sort of glorification of violence and stuff like that. But like this is the proud boys, it is exactly a gang. I don't understand what the word gang means if it doesn't apply to the proud boys. They literally have to run up and beat someone on the street to get in. And then as another part of them getting in, all of the other members beat the crap out of them, it's 100% a gang. The only argument to be made that it's not a gang is, well, gangs don't involve white people, that's it. That is the only one. It's that I reserve

the term gangs for non-white groups, and these white people are, they're doing something else, they're part of a militia, they're part of a, I don't even know what else you'd call it. It's just a gang, that's all it is, and he's still an active participant in it. And so long as he's free, hypothetically, he might decide that he has to do something. Remember, It's not even like March 4th is the next date that millions of Americans believe Donald Trump is going to reassume the presidency. Like there's still potential flashpoints within the next couple of weeks. Yeah. Oh, John, I'm tired. I'm just so tired. Okay, you're tired. I'm confused because I just heard from Tucker Carlson that there was no white supremacist and there

were no weapons at this thing. So I don't know what to think anymore. I mean, it's just crazy. But I do want to just quickly compare this case to something else that we had talked about as the case was, you know, developing. Remember, the Posner family had lost their son in the Sandy Hook shooting. And Alex Jones had been spreading all sorts of conspiracy theories about how that mass shooting was just a false flag operation meant to take people's guns away. And then through those episodes of his show, he incited members of his audience to go off and harass the Posner family to the point where they had to move seven different times to avoid all the threats they were dealing with. Now, of course, Alex Jones is still dealing with that defamation lawsuit. But the individuals who actually acted on what Alex Jones was saying, they were also criminally charged and had to do. deal with the legal ramifications of what they personally engaged in. So my point is, like, there is a precedent, even if there's an indication, even if there's proof that there's one person inciting violence, inciting these actions, the people who actually engage in the actions

that they were incited to engage in face the legal consequences as well. And I think that's the reasoning that's being used by this federal judge. And I agree with that reasoning. The only difference here is that Trump doesn't seem to have to deal with any of the consequences, whereas the people he incited, the people who did engage in criminal acts are going to face the consequences. And maybe that should teach people something. Maybe don't be conned by a con man. All right. Well, let's talk about cancellations. Because the right wing pretends like they care a lot about cancel culture, but they love engaging in it themselves. The conservative political action committee, also known as CPAC, has officially disinvited one of their speakers

for their goofy annual conference after it was discovered that he pushed vicious anti-Semitic slurs and conspiracies. Now as a result, this man, young Pharaoh, has been canceled, which is funny because the Florida event later this week has as its theme, America uncanceled. Irony, what are we going to do about this? Now the nature of what this guy was tweeting and saying on his own programming was pretty awful. So for instance, I'm going to give you just one example. And this is actually one of the more tame examples of his disgusting anti-Semitism.

But he says there's no historical or scientific evidence proving the existence of Jews or Judaism. It's all a complete lie. Go get the best Jewish scholar you can find and I'll expose religion. as being completely made up for political gain 100%. It never happened. And you know, he pushes all of the typical tropes that you would hear from anti-Semitic people. So at that point, CPAC realized, oh, maybe it's a bit of a liability to have him on as a speaker. So they announced that they were canceling him. They did so through a tweet where they write, we have just learned that someone we invited to CPAC has expressed reprehensible views that have no home with our

conference or our organization. The individual will not be participating at our conference. And then they decided to wipe him from their website. But they did so in a really funny way, because now there's just a blank space where young Pharaoh used to be. And young Pharaoh is not taking this well. He argues this is censorship at its best, all because I said, I do not believe in the validity of Judaism and I'm willing to place $50,000 on myself to debate the top Jewish rabbi. Now I'm no longer invited to CPAC and then he claims that they're being racist and it's a dictatorship and then he hashtags his own name because that's what cool kids do. But anyway, the tweet that I shared with you guys by the way, I just really want to reiterate,

that was the tamest one. They were so vicious and so vile that I didn't want to really repeat them on the show, but they're awful. They're so awful that CPAC decided to cancel him. Yeah, once people pointed it out, they still booked him, even though all of the research it would take to realize who this person was is to literally look at their Twitter account, which I understand is a little bit difficult. You would after all have to go to his page on the CPAC site to go directly to his website and his Twitter account. But somehow they didn't see any of this stuff. It's not like you have to dig deep or back to 2011 to find this stuff. That's all his stuff is. I would love for them to answer the question. So what if his work was it that

you were okay with? What was he producing? What philosophy or whatever, because they call him a, you know, a philosopher. What was it about his work that made you interested in having him there for this to then make you not interested? At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and story and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them. It's possible to stay anonymous online and hide your data from the prying eyes of big tech. And one of the best ways is with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN hides your IP address, making your active ID more difficult to trace and sell the advertisers. ExpressVPN also encrypts 100% of your network data to protect

you from eavesdroppers and cyber criminals. And it's also easy to install. A single mouse click protects all your devices. But listen, guys, this is important. ExpressVPN is rated number one by CNET and Wired magazine. So take back control of your life online and secure your data with a top VPN solution available, ExpressVPN. And if you go to ExpressVPN.com slash T-Y-T, you can get three extra months for free with this exclusive link just for T-Y-T fans. That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N dot com slash T-YT. Check it out today. How could you have possibly missed that he thinks that Jewish people don't exist? I don't even know what that means. How did you, like I get that he's accomplished a lot for a person that apparently doesn't know how to turn off the caps lock, because literally

every one of his tweets is all in all caps. I don't know if you noticed that. It's not just that one. They're all in all caps. But this is what they want. They want people like that and they want them as extreme as possible, but I'm maybe specifically attacking Ben Shapiro if people pointed out that might get you in trouble. You know, it's, it is interesting though, because their keynote speaker is going to be Donald Trump. Donald Trump has said some pretty awful things about pretty much every group you can imagine. You know, it's just, it is funny. I mean, don't get me wrong, canceling this speech was the right decision. But let's not pretend as if the event is not going to be littered with all sorts of awful people who have said awful.

things about minorities and women and people in the LGBTQ community. I mean, it's literally with those individuals. Exactly. There's going to be other anti-Semites. 100%. And so let's not pretend as if this is just going to be like this, you know, great, wholesome event full of wholesome people. But also, like, can we just, can we finally put to bed the fact that PC culture, cancel culture, all of that stuff, everyone. engages in it. Everyone does cancellations. Because guess what? Sometimes you come across new information about someone and you don't want them to be associated with your event, right? There's nothing wrong with that. That is the right thing to do. Now, that's different from, you know, trying to

destroy someone's life over something they tweeted in 2009 because I think people are definitely capable of evolving and changing, but I think it's based, like it's a case by case basis. This situation, though, these are the views that this man holds right now and he is unapologetic about it. So canceling his speech is totally fine. I just want conservatives to understand that when the other side does it, then they're not bad people. They're just making a decision to not associate themselves with someone who might not really live up to the values that they want represented in their event. Yeah. Yeah, forget not being remorseful. He mentioned the debating a rabbi in that tweet, actually. He's totally not remorseful. But yeah, look, I would say,

and maybe it's just a wording thing, when you say that conservatives need to recognize that everyone does it, I'm not interested in conservatives recognizing that conservatives know that everyone has things that annoy them or they find offensive. And if they find it offensive, they might speak out against that person, which is also included under cancel culture, or literally just tweeting that you don't like something is from the rights point of view canceling, to literally canceling something like this trip. Everyone does that. Republicans know that. What I want is for enough regular people to understand what's going on and to understand the con that's being played. That this is just an evolution of political correctness conversations

from the 90s. It's the exact same thing. And it is not, it is pitched to be some sort of neutral concept that we should all be understanding. We should all not react in a knee-jerk fashion. But that's not what the political correctness conversation was about, and that's not what cancel culture is about. It is leftists and centrist saying, hey, maybe don't say hateful things about the LGBTQ community or something like that. That is political correctness. That is cancel culture. Conservatives attacking you for criticizing Christianity or criticizing the Israeli government specifically or whatever, there is no protection in that. This is not a neutral standard. It is them setting up asymmetric warfare. It is uneven terrain

that the rhetorical battle of American politics and society will be waged on. And they already know that. That's why they're doing it. We need regular people to understand that so that it won't be effective anymore. Absolutely. That's an important distinction. I'm glad you made it. Let's take a break, when we come back, we actually have some pretty awesome news regarding net neutrality. Right now it impacts one state, but it does pave the way for more states to pass regulations protecting people who want to use the internet in a free and fair way. So we'll come back with that story and more. Don't miss it, we'll see you in just a few minutes. I'm going to be able to be.

Hey guys, I wanted to apologize to Jess because I was about to read her comment, then we ran out of time. So Jess from our member section writes in and says, why is nobody bringing up the fact that Charles Flynn, Michael Flynn's brother was an intricate part of the decision not to deploy the National Guard. Seems to me this guy is the key. Yeah, I mean, I've read about that, but there's a lot of finger pointing. And that's what I thought this Senate hearing was supposed to help us kind of decipher, right? Like who really is to blame? And so far, it still feels incredibly unclear, right? But you do bring up a really good point. We're not going to understand it until in four years when Adam McKay makes a movie about it. And they'll sum it up. But until then, it's like, who the hell knows? We're learning very little

from this new testimony. Meg from our member section keeps it short and simple. L.O.L., these conservatives are just a nonstop clown show. Yes, girl. Yes, absolutely. Thank you to our new YouTube member, Tamela Cantor. We really appreciate your support. And now I'm going to read some super chat comments since we have two minutes left. Sophia writes in and says, If a mob boss tells a hitman to kill someone, we still put the hitman behind bars for murder. The insurrectionists are no different and neither is 45, meaning Trump. Little Mac writes in, thank you for the generous super chat. That is how Trump and the GOP gave their most ardent supporters the final up yours.

By declaring Trump innocent in the Senate, de facto none of his supporters can use his influence on them for leniency. the little guy screwed again to save the elite. I just wish that they would realize it. You know what I'm saying? It's just so frustrating that the cult continues. After they were abandoned by Trump, Trump told them, I'm going to march to the Capitol with you. And then he turned around and did not march to the Capitol with them.

They thought, homie had their backs. But homie did not have their backs. He doesn't have anyone's back. Trump has his back. He doesn't even have his own family members' backs. Like, that's who Trump is. And somehow he has a cultish following. It's amazing.

Orlando Salinas writes in, says, how come criminals are the ones who decide who's not a criminal? Yeah, like the senators who aided and abetted Trump getting to decide that he should be acquitted in the Senate impeachment trial. It's just so sad. So, so sad. All right. Let's move over to Twitch. Ivan Chris, five months prime. Thank you.

Zendara or Zenedra. Zanatra? I'm sorry if I'm screwing up your name. No, it's not Zendaya. It's spelled differently. Four months, tier one with the comment. Well, hello team. And feminist progressive writes in five months prime. So happy to be part of the TYT fam. Love you guys. We love you too. F. Dudley gifted five subs. Tell me what to put also gifted a sub. And we're super, super grateful for your support, guys. We're out of time for this. But let's take a, let's go back to the show and we'll read more of your comments later. Hey everyone, welcome back to TYT, Anna and John with you.

Let's share a little bit of good news, because if you're someone who's been concerned about the FCC's scrapping of net neutrality regulations, well, there's a positive update that could have implications for other states as well. So a federal judge, a federal judge has just cleared the way for California to enforce its net neutrality law, potentially setting the stage for other states nationwide to follow suit and adopt tough new protections of their own. So this is a positive update, guys, because while there are certain things that we wish the Biden administration were better on, At least we know that the Justice Department under the Biden administration isn't going to serve as an obstacle to California implementing its net neutrality laws.

That is what happened though under the Trump administration, but luckily they're not a problem when it comes to this issue any longer. So Judge John Mendez at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California denied a motion for preliminary injunction brought by the group of internet service providers that had sued to stop the 2018 state law from going into effect, okay? So ISPs were like, no, no, we finally won in this net neutrality battle. And so we're going to do what we can to block individual states from implementing their own regulations. And again, this was something that was allowed to happen under Trump's Justice Department, but not any longer. California enacted its open internet law known as SB 822 in September of 2018,

months after Trump eliminated the national net neutrality protections. It wasn't Trump specifically, but it was a Trump appointed FCC chair, who Ajit Pai, who decided to scrap the net neutrality regulations. And the DOJ under Biden has dropped the DOJ's lawsuits against California. this month, which again, paves the way for them to implement this new law. And so here's what the judge said to the lawyers representing the ISPs. Let's say SB 822 is enjoined. And thanks to the recent repeal of federal net neutrality rules, there is no power by the FCC to regulate your clients. Why shouldn't a court be concerned if there's no regulation over ISPs?

And real quick, just so you guys know what SB 822 is or what the language of this regulation is, it's a protection against internet service providers blocking and throttling traffic while going even further than the FCC ever did by attacking a practice known as zero rating, whereby a telecom data provider doesn't count the consumption of its owned content against an individual subscriber's data plan. Meaning, if you're an AT&T subscriber, you can watch as much HBO max as you want without it counting toward your cap. And unfortunately, some of these ISPs have already started implementing these awful data caps. And so under this regulation in California, if the content is owned by the internet service

provider, then you watching that content and using data to watch that content shouldn't count toward your data cap. So California does do some things right. And I totally agree with this regulation. I hope that it spreads across the country. I agree. It's good news. But I'm gonna be a bit of a Debbie Downer for a bit on a couple points. No. No, no. I mean, look, it's good that a state has passed something like this. It's impressive that California has. I imagine there's probably a lot of lobbying money on the other side. But I can also think of how there might be a good amount of lobbying money on this side. And so that is good. And more importantly, perhaps I guess you acknowledging that the new DOJ is not going to be like aggressively trying to take down state efforts that might

piggyback on this. My concern comes in two forms. One is how how reproducible will this be in other states? Will there be a lot of other states that will be able to pass something like this and not have a massive amount of like ISP or even potentially content provider money flooding in to influence the passage of a bill like that. That's one concern. And the other is that having a good DOJ is good, having the right law would be much better. And while the DOJ isn't going to be an impediment to the state laws, the continued existence of the filibuster is very much going to be an impediment to passing good legislation. So I feel like we should have some big whiteboard of all of the things that Joe Manchin and Kristen Cinema are currently

denying us and nationwide net neutrality is likely one of those things. Maybe it's something that you can get enough Republicans to cross over on, but I don't necessarily have a ton of faith in that. I just don't have a ton of faith in Congress. And you're right to bring up the fact that the way that these regulations are now happening, in the case of California, for instance, aren't as full, proof as codifying the regulations through congressional action. But as we know, with the gridlock in Congress and the unwillingness for easily bribeable lawmakers to do the right thing, it's just

unlikely that we're going to have that security. And I do think that some states are going to have a much more difficult time passing these types of protections compared to other states. And let's also not forget the fact that while the DOJ might be great on this issue now, it's not gonna be the same DOJ forever. I mean, it's gonna change based on which administration is in office, which administration is in power. And that certainly worries me as well. And by the way, the judge did address this. So the judge said that this decision today is a legal decision and shouldn't be viewed in a political lens. I'm not expressing anything on the soundness of the policy. That might be better resolved by Congress than by federal courts. But increasingly,

We're relying more and more on federal courts because of the absolute dysfunction of Congress. And I agree with you, John. One of the biggest issues is the filibuster, which on day one of the new Congress, I really do think that the Democratic senators should have fought hard to nuke that filibuster, because it's going to continue to be a huge problem when it comes to passing substantive policies that this country needs. Yeah. Yeah, all right. Well, um, Thank you for providing, you know, a little bit of a downer to that positive story. But we do have time to do more. All right, let's get to the next one.

Because this might lead to some positive things. So Jim Jordan was implicated in a pretty awful sexual assault scandal in Ohio State University. apparently some of the student athletes had gone to Jim Jordan to disclose what they had gone through. And Jim Jordan allegedly did nothing to notify officials about it. In fact, he worked pretty hard to cover it up. Those are the allegations made by, you know, some of the athletes who were part of the wrestling team. This is a story that we covered in a lot of detail. Now, Jim Jordan, as you all know, is still a representative of the House of Representatives and has not really suffered any consequences for these allegations, even as these allegations were made during

the Me Too era. But now George Clooney is going to produce a docu series about that sexual abuse scandal. And if previous docu series on similar topics or any indication, that could possibly lead to consequences for Jim Jordan. We'll see, I don't want to get my hopes up. But the series is based on a sports illustrated story from last year by John Wertheim, detailing a long list of allegations against former Ohio State Sports Dr. Richard Strauss and the ensuing lack of action from university officials, including Jim Jordan, allegedly. So just to give you a little more detail into what this is going to be about or what the article was about, it covered the most widespread sexual abuse scandal in the history of American higher education.

It is a story about power, abuse, enabling, and the hierarchy of college sports that had been concealed for far too long. Because these courageous men made the decision to remain silent no longer, we can finally begin to hold the abuser and those who were complicit in their silence accountable for their actions and inactions. So, John, am I right to suspect that maybe turning this issue into a docu-series could actually lead to consequences for those who have been accused? I mean, we saw that happen with R. Kelly. We've seen that happen with others, you know? That's true. Yeah, I mean, with a Republican politician, I think it's always going to be a little bit harder. I think that R. Kelly, you know, and this is me as a

a person who doesn't follow music particularly close. I think he started suffering consequences after a lot of people were pretty much done with them anyway, whereas Jim Jordan is still very much, no, you don't believe so? Well, he can't talk on camera, but I don't follow music, but that's what it seemed like. It seemed like it's a very long time since anyone believed they could fly. That's all I'm saying. But anyway, Jim Jordan is popular. Like they like Jim Jordan.

that one of the things it's depressed, like I imagine maybe, maybe there will be a lot of conversation about it and if they interview some of the kids more than they've already been interviewed, it could maybe generate enough to produce a Republican primary challenge to him, maybe. But you would expect that it shouldn't be a maybe when if there's supposed, if there should be any upside of having a nation that has been consumed by a satanic panic about pedophilia is that you could at least take seriously those who allow predators to prey on the kids when the kids themselves have testified about it. Like, shouldn't that be a consequence of it? But no, we're all obsessed with saving the children. But when Trump is like, you know,

to Gisley Maxwell, best of luck to you, honey. Nope, that's not worth thinking about. Jim Jordan throws the kids to a guy who raped literally dozens of people. No, that's not worth considering. Robert's husband exposing himself to minors and that doesn't even raise any eyebrows. Nobody cares about that. If you're going to be obsessed about saving the children, when do you start actually caring about any of the real children rather than the purely hypothetical children? I don't know how I miss the Lauren Bobert husband's story. Is that true?

Is that an allegation or was that something proven? I'll say allegation right now. Okay. Wow. I don't think a lot of. But that is what I have read in a number of sources. Yeah, no, but you do bring up a really good point. I mean, for everything that we hear from the Q&ON conspiracy theorist crowd about sex trafficking,

I know that it's usually specifically about child sex trafficking, typically when it comes to people who engage in these types of activities who tend to agree with their political ideology, like they don't get held accountable. But again, America consists of very strange people, right? They might see news reports about this. They might come across an article about it. But it really, it seems like it's not until someone puts together a compelling docu series that actually uses the testimony of the alleged victims that all of a sudden you see

people want to organize and jump into action. So we'll see how this plays out. And look, for me, this isn't even, if Jim Jordan were a Democrat, it would make no difference to me. It's an injustice that he's been accused of something so serious and has been able to just kind of like skirt any responsibility, hasn't really answered for it. How does that happen? It's just not right. This is a person who is representing people in the United States Congress. He has no business doing so if he played a role in concealing or covering up sexual abuse that took place in Ohio State University.

Yeah. So we'll definitely keep an eye on that. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And then finally, I do recommend you guys go back and watch our original video on this so you understand all of the incredibly uncomfortable details in these allegations, but I'll give you one of those details right now just so you understand. the severity of it. A referee said in a 2019 lawsuit that Strauss masturbated in front of him in a shower after

a wrestling match at the university and that he reported the encounter to Jim Jordan. Yeah, that's Strauss, Jordan, and then head coach Russ Helixen responded, according to the lawsuit. And also speaking to Ohio State legislators last year, Mike DeSabato, a former captain of the University's wrestling team said that Jordan begged him to deny Richard Strauss's sexual abuse of wrestlers from 1979 to 1997. Jim Jordan called me crying, groveling, begging me to go against my brother, begging me crying for a half hour. That's the kind of cover-up that's going on here or there. So those are the allegations. There should be a full-blown investigation into this, and maybe the calls for an investigation will grow after this docu-series comes out.

But it is pretty pathetic that we have to rely on a George Clooney-produced docu-series to hope that a member of Congress will suffer the consequences for something that he's been alleged to do. Yeah. So, all right. Well, that does it for the first hour. John, you're a trooper. You do a full-blown show on your own in the morning.

You come in on Wednesdays. You do the show with me. Everyone loves you. Thank you for doing it. And we all love you. I just do it for the love. All right. Well, have a great night.

Get some rest. And everyone, when we come back, Nando Villa will be joining us for hour two. See you then. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad free. Access members, only bonus content, and more. subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.